"Not Quite Christmas is a wonderful novella, that shows
how getting snowbound can turned out to be the best thing
that happens to you." Marissa's Sizzling Hot Book Reviews
"Ms. Scarbrough does an excellent job with the pacing of this short story and resolves all of the open story lines. The secondary characters are well done and help to flesh out the story. The ending is sweet and just right. So if you’re looking for a sweet holiday romance, then you should give Not Quite Christmas a try." Reviewer Rose, Two Lips Reviews
Legend, Tennessee
Monday Morning
December 22, 1969
Frank Smith didn’t want to be on the road at one
o’clock in the morning driving his 1965 Chevy Impala
SS on winding mountain roads. It was cold and dark. Occasional
high-beam lights from lumbering coal trucks blinded him,
throwing him off-kilter and making his drive even slower
and more dangerous.
Spending Christmas in Legend, Tennessee, had been his
mother’s idea. “Frank, honey, you haven’t
been home in a year. We miss you so much,” Corrine
Smith had whined over the telephone.
He had never let his mom down. He couldn’t start
now. It was Christmas, after all.
Legend may be his home, but coming home felt like the
third strike out in the bottom of the ninth inning. He
had avoided his hometown since he was humiliated last Christmas
when Kathleen Fields had unceremoniously rejected his proposal
of marriage. She had thrown him a curve ball that’s
for sure, one he wasn’t yet over.
What girl wouldn’t accept a diamond solitaire? Especially
one who had professed love and devotion throughout high
school and college? He’d been a fool to believe her.
To love her. His folly irritated him. Even worse, every
time he thought about Kathleen, her straight brown hair
flipped up at the ends and her laughing green eyes, his
stomach seized up as if he was pitching a no hitter.
He had his life planned out until that night. He knew
every step he would take—from going to college on
a baseball scholarship and majoring in accounting, to the
marriage proposal at just the right time senior year, to
the charming wedding at the Methodist Church and settling
down in Legend. There would be children, surely, and they
would grow up and go to the University of Tennessee or
Vanderbilt. Kathleen would teach school, but hopefully,
he would be doing well enough when the children were born
that she could stay home and raise them.
Yes, life would be small-town perfect. And it would start
when Kathleen accepted his proposal. Wearing his best new
suit and striding into her parents’ house, he had
the ring in his pocket and his heart on his sleeve. He
had been scared shitless. All of his self-confidence had
been bravado.
“You’re back early,” she had said to
him, strangely reticent.
“I couldn’t stay away.” He had smiled,
his lips slightly parted. “Going to New York was
a mistake.”
“Didn’t you have a good time?”
“I was lonely without you. I came back because I
wanted to see you on Christmas Day,” he had said,
plunging ahead with his plans, not noticing her reluctance
or that she hadn’t moved away from the door. “I
want to ask you something.”
He had closed the distance between them and swept her
into his arms, crushing her to him and kissing her with
passion. Then he had released her and knelt, taking her
hand.
“You know what I want to ask,” he said. “Kathleen
Ellen Fields, will you marry me?” He let go of her
hand and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a black
velvet box and lifting the top. “Will you accept
this ring as a token of my love and affection?”
She had gazed at him with a look of shock and dismay on
her face. His wait seemed endless. Then her eyelids drooped
and her mouth pulled downward as if she felt sorry for
him. “I can’t, Frank.”
“What did you say?”
She caught his hands and urged him to his feet. He did
so, not knowing what to think.
“I can’t marry you,” she repeated.
“Why? I thought we had it all planned.”
“We talked around it, but I don’t think I
was ever one hundred per cent on board.”
“Why?” He heard the desperate tone to his
voice.
She shrugged. “Because I don’t want to.”
Because she didn’t want to. Those words reverberated
in his head even today. He tightened his fingers around
the steering wheel thinking about that horrible night.
He had accused her of loving someone else. She had denied
it at the time. Only later did he learn Kathleen Fields
was engaged to that longhair Grant Winchester. Weeks later
his mother had reluctantly told him about the engagement
and how Winchester had been drafted. Served him right,
Frank thought, knowing he was bitter. He didn’t really
mean it. How could he wish Vietnam on anyone?
Frank’s lips tensed. He had been so angry that night,
the night of the big humiliation. He remembered snapping
shut the black velvet box and jamming it into his pocket.
“Okay, then. When you change your mind, I may have
moved on with my life,” he had told her and walked
out of the house with as much dignity as he could muster.
The trouble was—his words had been bravado. He had
not moved on.
Granted, he had graduated, gotten his C.P.A. and taken
a job, but in Nashville, as far away from his sleepy hometown
as he could go. He wasn’t happy at the accounting
firm. It seemed like a holding place until he got on with
his real life, the one that had come to haunt him like
a bad play from left field.
The reality was that he couldn’t get his life together.
It troubled him. It wasn’t like him. That night a
year ago, Kathleen had driven out all his self-assuredness.
He hated that. He hated her in some respects because of
it. More critical, he hated the feeling of being out of
control, living from day-to-day, simply marking time.
The outskirts of Legend came into view. A tinge of nostalgia
closed Frank’s throat, making it hard for him to
breath. He had always loved Legend with its tree-lined
streets and tranquil, natural setting. South Main Street
with its stone and brick buildings was deserted, all the
shops and restaurants dark and brooding. Even lights on
the marquee of The Regal were unlit. The movie Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid was playing. He’d seen it when
it was first released in October.
Frank passed The Old Meeting house with its plastic Nativity
scene on the front lawn and stopped at the traffic light
where Second Street crossed Main. Turning right on Second,
he tried not to think of Kathleen’s house on Maple.
Did she still live there with her parents? That’s
something he had not asked his mother, not wanting to seem
interested. Turning on Lake Road, Frank sped up, knowing
he was almost home. Lake Legend was shadowed against the
mountain range in the distance, picture postcard perfect
as always.
The Smith home was a red brick ranch located on five acres
of wooded land on the non-lake side of the road. It sat
back from the highway, and Frank reached it by driving
up the winding gravel road a half mile long. His father
made a good living for his family as Legend’s only
accountant and tax preparer. When he and his sister Sandy
entered college, his mother Corinne had taken a job at
the Piggly Wiggly y to supplement the family income. Tuition,
room, and board for him alone last year were over a thousand
dollars.
Frank parked his Chevy in the driveway and turned off
the ignition. His shoulders slumped and he took a breath
as the tension of the trip seeped out of his body leaving
him exhausted. The home was pitch black with only the security
light burning out back on a tall pole. It lit up the rear
of the house, but not the front. Everyone was asleep. He
wouldn’t wake them.
Climbing out of the car, he opened the trunk and removed
an American Tourister suitcase. The night was mild for
the mountains, but the air was fresh, smelling of pine
and wood smoke. He’d forgotten how soothing the place
could be—quiet, no sounds of traffic, only the hollow
wail of wind in the trees.
Frank used his key to open the front door. One light burned
on a side table by the door as if he was expected. He smiled
a little, letting the warmth of home wash over him. It
would be good to see Sandy and his parents. Grams’ Christmas
turkey dinner would be a treat too.
Quietly, Frank walked through the living room and down
the hallway flanked by the home’s three bedrooms.
All the doors were shut, his parents and Sandy sound asleep.
Maybe being home was okay. Maybe he needed the love of
his family to embrace him, he thought a bit melodramatically.
Stopping at the door to his bedroom, Frank hesitated a
moment. His life in limbo might be the result of turning
his back on family and all that made him who he had grown
to be. With that realization in mind, he turned the door
knob and flicked the light switch turning on the overhead
light.
A girl with blond hair touching her naked shoulders was
sleeping in his childhood bed under his Mickey Mantle wall
poster. Before Frank could back out of the room, she sat
up pulling the white sheet over her full, round breasts
and screamed.
