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Back The Christmas Fix Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Dedication
  2. About This Book
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  16. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  18. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  20. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  21. CHAPTER NINTEEN
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  42. CHAPTER FORTY
  43. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Noah stared skeptically at his glass of wine. He wished it was scotch. A bottle of it.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Two weeks to Christmas Eve

Cat’s foot twitched in Noah’s lap when he tickled her bare sole. “Focus, Yates,” Cat ordered from her end of the couch. They were both wading through opposite halves of a stack of papers.

He handed her another application. “Maybe pile.”

Cat dropped it onto the stack on the coffee table and groaned. “Who knew it would be so hard to find a location for a school?”

“Literally anyone who ever tried to start one themselves,” Noah said mildly.

“We’ve got a hundred definitely nopes and like six maybes,” Cat lamented. “And not one of them feels right.”

“You may need to visit the ones at the top,” Noah mused, flipping over another application. “Nope pile.”

She tossed it onto the growing mound on the floor.

“I can’t start hiring staff until we know where this damn building is going to be.”

“And you can’t wait until you have a building to start hiring staff,” Noah said, familiar with Cat’s cyclical frustration. “Now drink your wine and keep reading.”

Dutifully, Cat picked up her wine and cocked her head. “What would you say to canning the research for the night and just pretending we’re normal people who order pizza, watch TV, and have sex?”

Noah tossed his stash of carefully organized papers in the air, and Cat laughed.

“You’re dying to pick them up, aren’t you?” she accused.

“It’s killing me. Please pretend you don’t see me putting them back in order.” He shuffled and stacked and placed them neatly on the end table.

Cat laughed again. “I’ll order the pizza.”

“You’re actually going to eat a slice and not just shovel salad into your face and whine about how good my pizza smells, right?” Noah asked as he organized Cat’s paperwork.

“I’m not filming tomorrow, so I think I can afford a slice, maybe even two,” Cat said with a wink.

Playfully, Noah clutched his heart. “Well, in that case, order a large.”

She took her wine and headed into the kitchen. She pulled the short stack of takeout menus out the last drawer of the peninsula that also housed flashlights and leftover cat treats from furry flood victim Felipe’s stay. Cat pawed through Noah’s bulletin board by the door until she found a coupon.

Noah appreciated frugality. A leftover, she assumed, from his childhood. Sometimes she pictured him, a little boy, going to bed hungry in a cold house with thin walls. His only escape from the constant fear was his town’s Christmas Festival.