Chistmas Ever After Read Online Free

cruel life had been to her. Two years ago, her father had a heart attack on December 24 th . Because her mother had died of cancer six years earlier, it was her next-door neighbor who’d called to tell her. He’d died quickly.
    A year ago, on December 24 th , Lance had been killed in a car accident on his way to meet her for their wedding rehearsal.
    Jennifer closed her eyes, struggling not to relive the pain. “Lance!” she whispered. Lance, her childhood sweetheart; her high school sweetheart. Lance, whom she’d loved since she was 10 years old. They’d planned their wedding even then, and they’d never stopped loving each other. Everyone had said that their relationship was a gift from God, and she’d believed it, because her love for Lance was what kept her breathing, working and believing that she could somehow survive this life. Whenever he kissed her or told her how beautiful she was, she felt stronger. And she liked the fact that she didn’t hear bells or see birds flying overhead or feel obsessed and out-of-control. It was a real love—grounded in the real world. Not head-over-heels in love, not rash or sappy. It was simple: he was there for her.
    Lance was her best friend, the one person she could always trust, talk to and lean on. He was unassuming, unaware of his delectable good looks, even when attractive women eyed him desirably as they passed. Lance, who had so many friends, because he was such a good friend. Lance, who was going to be a pediatrician.
    When she heard the news that he was dead, it seemed impossible to her. Death simply didn’t exist for Lance. It wasn’t an option. Lance could never just disappear into death. His life, his spirit, his breath were a part of her and always would be. How could anyone that vital, essential and indispensable just vanish into nothingness, where people spoke about him in the past; where memory failed to remember the entire truth of him, or the essential facts of a phrase he’d once uttered, or the movement of his arm, or the way he slept so soundly, even with the TV blaring.
    His death had seemed unnatural, as if someone had told her that the sun had stopped giving heat or that flowers had lost their color and scent. She couldn’t and wouldn’t accept it. Until the funeral. Then, the unnatural became reality. Nothingness became emptiness. She fell into sickness, a debilitating illness that sent her to bed for days in rage and tears, into her own kind of death. She didn’t know how to let him go.
    Days later, her therapist chattered and stared at her like a dead fish. It all sounded like static to her—like so much babble.
    Then on a drowning day, she’d managed to come up for air, abruptly deciding to leave town. To start over. Somewhere. Anywhere. She couldn’t be in the same town where they had grown up together, gone to elementary school, junior high and high school together. The restaurants, shops and movie theaters all seemed painfully somber and empty, as if some great disaster had happened and only she realized it.
    The sad faces of her friends disgusted her—the minister’s comforting words angered her and she wanted no part of anyone’s philosophy on why such things happen. Intellectually, she knew that this kind of thing had happened to others—many worse things had happened to others—but none of that mattered. Her world had been shattered beyond repair, and she knew that in order to survive, she would have to leave her hometown, forever, to try to find a new home.
    That new home turned out to be Willowbury. She had first discovered it on the Internet. The shop was for sale. She had inherited some money when her father died and she’d received a small business loan.
    Chilled to the bone, she slipped back inside, lit a fire in the fireplace and crouched down next to it, staring vacantly. She could feel herself contract a little more inside. She was retreating back into her little cave, crawling toward the center of it, where she could