The Perfect Love Song Read Online Free

and hollered for everyone to come inside for dinner. Charlotte walked away and left Jimmy standing there alone on the porch. It was then that he realized
his hands were shaking and that he had this desperate need to run after her, after her joy.
    We often don’t know we’ve fallen in love until we look back and say, “Ah, that was the moment.” This is how it was for Jimmy. He didn’t know until he knew.

CHAPTER THREE

    Your feet will bring you to
where your heart is.
    —OLD IRISH PROVERB
     
     
     
     
    T he weeks between Thanksgiving when Jimmy wrote the song and Christmas passed in the hectic way of the world today. Times have changed. What was once meant to be a slow and calm remembrance of blessings, of our Lord’s birth, of joy and family, has become a chaotic jumble of parties, overspending, kinfolk drama, and obligatory giving. Oh, there I go, giving my opinion when I was just meant to tell this story.
    For Charlotte, an interior designer, this is the busiest time of the year, what with everyone wanting to outdo everyone else
with the most perfectly perfect Christmas decorations, as if it’s about the lights, garlands, and yard art.
    Some people know right away what they are supposed to do in life—others wander and stumble until they find their vocation and say, “Wow, I should have been doing this all along.” Charlotte is the first kind. She knew when she was five years old that all she wanted to do was make the spaces in and around her life more beautiful. She made her mama crazy moving furniture and repainting her room every six months. She knew this town, the houses, and the women’s tastes better than anyone ever had. This was her gift.
    Now, if anyone can have two opposite experiences with Christmas, with life itself, it is Jimmy Sullivan and Charlotte Carrington. If you made a checklist and placed their lives one against the other, you would laugh and say that these two—Jimmy and Charlotte—would never even meet as adults, much less talk, much less fall in love.
    Ahya, that right there is the absolute beauty of love: It just is what it is and shows up when it wants to show up. Unseen and unpredictable.
    The week before Christmas, Charlotte and Kara stood in the Larson kitchen, baking their yearly Christmas cookies, which they put in tins and gave as gifts. This year they were also making shortbread in honor of Maeve Mahoney, adding
it to the gift boxes they would give to friends and then distribute at the nursing home. Although Kara had moved out of the family home last year, this kitchen was much better equipped for so much baking.
    Kara leaned against the counter. “So how are you doing with Jimmy being gone so much over the holidays? It’s awful, isn’t it?”
    Charlotte wiped flour from her hands and picked up her mug of hot tea. “Yes, ‘awful’ would describe it. I don’t know—I guess because I’ve never felt like this about anyone, it’s awful and wonderful.” She turned back to the cookies, plopped a silver ball onto a Christmas tree. “Missing someone you love is like nothing I’ve felt before. Everyone I’ve loved has always been here with me.”
    “I know,” Kara said. “There is something comforting knowing that the man you love is doing what he loves, but it still . . . stinks.”
    Charlotte just nodded; she thought if she spoke, she’d cry.
    The holiday season sometimes fills our hearts with unrealistic expectations, and the romantic visions of Jimmy sitting by the fire and telling Charlotte how much he loved her were in stark contrast to the quick and infrequent visits. Charlotte wanted him there to decorate the tree, to hang the
lights, to go to all the parties and events. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
    Both Jack and Jimmy had promised to be home on Christmas Day, which Charlotte wanted to arrive much faster than it was.
    “Only one more week,” Kara said, filling her own heart with the reminder just as she filled Charlotte’s.
    “One week. And I