Chapter One
Rudy Christopher Raindear opened his eyes in the early morning gloom and glanced at the dark-haired girl asleep on the green sofa across from him. He figured he was dreaming so he rolled over, punched down his uncooperative pillow, pulled the thin blanket up over his shoulders, closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh.
The sigh triggered the mild headache he’d been nursing for most of the night into a thunderous pounding which reverberated down his spine. The pounding caused his stomach to pitch several times which made him bolt upright banging his about-to-explode head on the low, slanted ceiling. This in turn reminded him that he wasn’t at home in his ultra-modern apartment in New York City, but in his grandfather’s partially converted attic in North Pole, Maine, the Christmas Capital of the World.
The now dying Christmas Capital of the World.
The town Rudy and his parents had happily abandoned as soon as he’d graduated from high school.
The town he had returned to some ten years later for basically one purpose: to close a lucrative deal with the executives of Smart-Mart, the fastest-growing retail chain in the country.
The only thing holding him back was his grandfather’s bakery, which happened to be the lynchpin to all the other real estate Rudy had purchased for a cost of next-to-nothing in this fading town. The massive one-stop retail store would attract customers from all the surrounding towns, and probably devastate the few remaining shops and Always Christmas, the local department store. But that wasn’t Rudy’s problem. Making this deal would set him and his gramps up for life.
Nothing else matters.
Rudy leaned his shoulders against the metal headboard, waiting for the throbbing to subside, as he carefully stuffed his pillow behind his back in a desperate attempt for some comfort. If he could just relax for a moment, and not move he was sure the pounding would stop.
The smell of freshly baked cookies coming from the bakery on the main floor filled the room with the scent of vanilla and cinnamon, causing Rudy’s nose to itch. The itching made him sneeze five times in a row, only adding to his complete misery. He so needed water and drugs.
Now!
“Are you all right?” the smokin’ hot girl on the sofa asked.
Rudy couldn’t respond. For one thing, he didn’t recognize her, and for another, his head hurt so much it trumped any form of speech.
The girl yawned and stretched, looking all warm and sexy from sleep then sat up, putting her bare feet on the wooden floor. She gazed over at him with concern on her face, and Rudy wondered if he looked as bad as he felt.
Ignoring his obviously hideous condition, the girl walked over to him. She wore a red flannel nightgown with Santas and reindeer splashed across it. For some reason, and clearly only in this town, Rudy found this angel in a flannel nightgown completely fascinating, even in his nauseous, head-pounding state.
“Can I get you anything? Aspirin? Water? Alka-Seltzer? Coffee?”
He slowly nodded.
“Which one?”
“All of them,” he whispered.
A devastatingly spectacular smile lit up her entire face, and Rudy flashed on her name, but it slipped away just as quickly.
“Poor baby,” she cooed, and patted his shoulder as if they were good friends, or as Rudy hoped, good friends with benefits.
Had there been sex last night?
A strong part of him hoped not, at least not while he was drunk. A woman like this deserved to be remembered.
Ten minutes later she returned with a tray and set it down next to him on the funky wooden nightstand he and his grandfather had made out of a salvaged barn door when Rudy was about eight years old. He was surprised his gramps still had it, but then from the looks of the majority of the deep attic stacked with old trunks, bookshelves, boxes, lamps, dressers, and who knew what else, his gramps probably still owned everything he ever carried into this old house.
“I
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