Dreaming of Her Secret Santa's Kiss

Burgundy Gannon went to Hollywood to make it big. That was a bust.

Crew Pittman was one of the world’s top underwater welders. Until a freak accident left him permanently unable to work.

When Burgundy shows up at Crew’s new home to be a caretaker to the elderly woman who won’t leave, it seems like three unlikely people are trapped unwillingly together.

But late night rides from a secret Santa and an infusion of the Christmas season of love and laughter that’s in Mistletoe, Arkansas year round, just might melt their hearts and create beauty out of brokenness.

Chapter 1

Note from Jessie:

Sorry, I know it says “Chapter 1” here, but I wanted to
make sure everyone saw this, and sometimes your book opens directly to Chapter 1, skipping everything before it.

Some of my ARC readers suggested a Trigger Warning for this book.

I thought that was a good idea, but, since I’m a story teller, I thought I’d tell you a story to let you know what might be in this book that could stir up some painful memories and feelings. I don’t want you to read this book if it’s going to hurt you or make you sad.

Back when I was a young mother I saw an interview on late
night TV. I don’t usually watch TV, but I’m guessing I was up with one of my babies. Maybe they were sick.

Anyway, some late-night TV host was interviewing a porn star.

I got married young and was a very young mother. That girl on TV was probably exactly my age.

She described some of the things she did, despicable
things. Things I had never heard of or imagined. I think she shocked the shock jock as she removed her clothes and offered to do those despicable things to him.

I should have turned the TV off.

But my heart was broken.

Beyond her fake smile and false bravado and her seeming
unconcern for any type of decency or modesty lay a soul that my God loved and died for.

To me, her pain was real. I could feel it just as sure as if I were sitting beside her and she were crying on my shoulder. For me, every word that came out of her mouth was a plea for love and acceptance – the kind
that only God can give – and she was trying to fill that soul-deep need by any and all depravities known to man.

We were poor. We never had much. But I had been blessed
beyond measure.

I knew, as I sat there, my heart hurting, that I could
have had a different family, different parents, different school, made
different choices, that, but for the grace of God, that girl could have been
me.

I don’t remember her name, don’t know what happened to
her. But she made a life-time impression on me, and I wanted to dedicate this
book to her. Because she changed my life.

~Jessie Gussman, October 16, 2020

Burgundy Gannon rapped sharply on the dilapidated old
farmhouse door, drawing a deep breath and trying to pretend this wasn’t her
last resort.

She was also trying to pretend her ankle didn’t hurt.

She hadn’t noticed the weak board on the porch steps a
couple seconds ago. When she stepped on it and it gave way, she was unprepared.
She didn’t think she’d actually sprained her ankle, but it was definitely
throbbing.

If she got the job, it would be worth it.

Of course, as run-down as the whole farm looked, maybe she
should insist on prepayment.

Was having a job that she ended up not getting paid for
better than not having a job at all?

The door opened before she could figure out the answer to
that question. She thought it might be a no.

A wizened old lady appeared as the door cracked wider. Wild
white hair stuck out in all directions from her head, and she wore bright green
pants with an orange flowered shirt and a pink vest.

Black high-top Converse sneakers completed the outfit.

Even in LA, Burgundy’s most recent address, this lady would
be considered eccentric.

In Mistletoe, Arkansas? She was probably right up there with
UFO sightings.

Her eyes looked shrewd, and they were narrowed as they
looked Burgundy up and down.

If this lady, Mrs. Scholz, was an inch over four feet, it
wasn’t by much.

It didn’t really matter how tall
she was. Her eyes more than made up for any lack in height. It felt like she
could see into Burgundy’s heart and past and knew exactly what she was trying
to hide.

The guilt that never quite
completely left her slithered in her stomach, burning.

It always made her want to crumple
in on herself.

She straightened her shoulders
instead. The sins of her past were covered.

She knew it. Had knowledge.
Sometimes, though, it was hard to remember and harder to believe. And even
harder to act like it.

“State your business, or get gone.”

The words were spit out, and they
didn’t really have an undertone of kindness in them.

Burgundy blinked, a little taken
aback. But she didn’t allow her shoulders to drop, nor did she step back.

She’d been in tougher places than
this.

Of course, she’d taken worst jobs than
this too.

That’s why she needed this one so
badly. There was always the temptation, no matter how far she was away from her
past, to go back to it. If she needed it.

She knew there was something she
could do to support herself.

Even if it was reprehensible.

She wanted to think she would die
first.

But she knew she wouldn’t. She was
a survivor, not a martyr.

“Pastor Race sent me. He said you
needed a caretaker.”

There. Her voice was level, calm.
With just the right amount of caring in it. Maybe Hollywood had passed her up,
but she was still a good actress.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and her
lips pursed, although the wrinkles in her face didn’t straighten out. She looked
Burgundy up and down, then up and down again.

Once more, Burgundy had that
feeling like she’d been found wanting or that she’d been found out.

No one in this town knows what
you are. Relax. They won’t find out, unless you tell them.

Unless someone watches…

Not in this town. Not in middle
America. That’s for the big cities.

It wasn’t true. She knew it wasn’t
true. She also knew it was shocking the people who might know her.

But in her movies, she had been a
brunette.

For six months, she’d been a redhead.

That’s why her hair was now
platinum blonde.

She’d also straightened her
natural curls out.

The glasses were part of her
disguise as well.

“Well? What do you have to say for
yourself? Are you just gonna stand there staring at me?”

“Race Steiner sent me. He said you
were in need of a caretaker. That’s what I am. A caretaker.”

She was kind of proud of her
acting skills.

She wasn’t anything close to a
caretaker.

Some of her coworkers would laugh
at that.

All of them really. Because
technically, maybe she was taking care of people. Men. In the loosest
sense of the words.

She shoved the lewd jokes aside.

That was something else. She’d had
to get used to a whole new way of thinking. Just little things would bring the
words and the images and the jokes and the things she used to laugh about and
the things that used to make her angry to the surface.

“You don’t look like a caretaker,”
the woman spat out. Again, it didn’t sound like there was any kindness in her
voice. “You look like a sultry tramp who’s out to steal my husband.”

Maybe a shadow passed over the
woman’s eyes at the word husband. Burgundy couldn’t be sure.

“’Course the man’s been dead nigh
on five years now. Which is why I need a caretaker.”

If her voice was a little bit less
rough, less sharp, it was hard to tell. Still, whether it was the shadow, or
whether it was the idea of being married for such a long time, and thinking of
her loss, her words made Burgundy feel bad.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said
again.

“Don’t be. It’s over and done
with. He’s currently the better off of the two of us.”

Burgundy looked the woman up and
down, trying to figure out what she meant by that.

Maybe if she got the job, the
information would come out.

She hadn’t exactly put her best
foot forward.

But, in her defense, her best foot
had a turned ankle that was throbbing right now.

She took a breath and held her
hand out with the best smile that she could muster. She was really good at
smiling when she didn’t feel like it.

“I’m Burgundy, and I’m pleased to
meet you, Mrs.…?” She figured the woman was Mrs. if her husband had died years
ago.

The woman looked at her hand with
suspicion, like she suspected Burgundy was holding it out as some kind of
trick.

Her jaw worked before she finally
stuck her old gnarled hand into Burgundy’s. Her fingers were crooked, but her
grip was surprisingly firm.

Burgundy didn’t flinch, but she
might have if it hadn’t been a little old lady squeezing her fingers.

Thankfully, she wasn’t wearing any
of the rings that she might have been if she were back in her old life.

It’d been a full year.

In some ways, it felt like
forever, and in some ways, it wasn’t nearly long enough.

“You can call me Mrs. Scholz. That’s
what everyone else does.”

The lady seemed to speak
reluctantly, like she wasn’t wanting to give up any personal information, or
maybe she just didn’t want to like Burgundy. Maybe it was a mixture of the two.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,
Mrs. Scholz. Pastor Race has highly recommended me. Here’s the letter he wrote
that he said I could deliver to you, to help you make up your mind.”

Her fingers trembled ever so
slightly as she pulled the note out of her purse and handed it to Mrs. Scholz.

Mrs. Scholz looked suspiciously at
the paper and Burgundy’s hand.

Everyone in Mistletoe had been
super friendly to her. She’d even made a few dollars waitressing at the small
coffee shop when the regular waitress spent two days visiting her mother.

She’d made a little more money selling
Christmas trees for a couple of weeks before Christmas.

Both of those jobs had expiration
dates though, and if she wanted to stay in a small town, which she did, she
needed to find something that she could do that would pay enough for her to
stay.

Maybe one time, her tastes ran to
fancy. Not anymore.

Mrs. Scholz did not invite her in
but stood in the doorway as she opened the letter and read down through it.

Burgundy had quit smoking, but she
supposed the craving for a cigarette would never completely go away.

This was one of those times.

Not that she necessarily wanted
the nicotine, she just wanted to have something to do with her hands.

She had been one of the lucky few who
could do drugs without getting addicted to them. At least she never had. She
supposed everyone had their tipping point.

It was only by the grace of God
that she hadn’t reached hers.

In her old life, it wasn’t hard to
see what drugs did to a person.

Mrs. Scholz seemed to be done
reading the paper, but her head was still down, like she was thinking.

Behind her, there was a shout and
a couple of dogs barking and what sounded like someone pounding.

Burgundy didn’t turn to look. It was
a farm, or something like that, and she supposed there were animals on it and
people working. Made sense.

She also supposed that the animals
wouldn’t come up on the porch and try to get in the house, so she felt like she
was safe standing there with her back toward everything.

“Well, might be against my better
judgment, but I do have a tendency to trust what Pastor Race says.” The woman’s
eyes were shrewd as she looked at Burgundy. “I’m gonna have to start you at
half my regular rate, since you have no experience.”

“You have a regular rate?” Burgundy
had been under the impression that she was the first housekeeper that Mrs. Scholz
had hired.

“I do.” Mrs. Scholz named minimum
wage.

Burgundy bit her tongue. Hard. The
metallic taste of blood seeped into her mouth. Not unfamiliar.

She wasn’t quite sure what Mrs. Scholz
had suggested was legal.

Not that she was a stickler for being
legal.

At least, she had never been
before.

She’d changed. For the most part.

It was hard not to think of the
money that she’d made in her previous profession.

Half of minimum wage wouldn’t even
pay for one minute.

But the work was wrong. And she
was ashamed of it. And no matter how much she made, she wouldn’t go back.

God, will I always be tempted?

She wasn’t tempted because she
loved her work; she could almost get to the point where she separated it as a
job in her head. She didn’t have to like what she was doing in order to do it.

She just did her best at her job.

Ugh. She was lying to herself, and
she knew it. By the very virtue that it was her with her voice, her body, or
both, it didn’t matter. It was a job, yes, but it was a job she could have
refused.

But she didn’t.

“I suppose you can come in if you’re
accepting. You’re not very talkative.”

Too many memories.

“I’m sorry. I’ll accept. How long
is the probationary rate?”

“Two weeks,” Mrs. Scholz said
shortly. “If you’re satisfactory, I’ll raise it to minimum wage.” She stepped
back, and Burgundy stepped in. “We’ll discuss it six months from then if we’re
both satisfied and talk about where we’re going from there.”

Mrs. Scholz might be a little
lady, and kind of bent over, with gnarled fingers, but her mind was sharp as a
tack anyway.

She walked in the house, which was
cluttered to say the least.

Race hadn’t given her all the
details. He’d been called out to try to counsel a couple involved in the middle
of a fight that involved breaking dishes and crying little children.

He’d given Burgundy the barest of
details, handed her the letter, and told her he had to go.

“That sounds fine, Mrs. Scholz.”
Part of the job was that she would have a room in which to stay and food to
eat.

She really didn’t have ambition
beyond that. Hiding out and putting her past behind her.

It would just take time.

She closed the rickety door behind her with a sigh. Knickknacks
covered every surface. Burgundy tried hard to figure out a theme, but it seemed
to be geese mixed with mushrooms mixed with pink flamingos maybe?

The rug she stood on sported a purple dinosaur.

Maybe the cohesive theme was that there was no cohesive
theme.

Mrs. Scholz walked through a door on the right. “Obviously,
this is the kitchen. I can cook. But the social worker that was in here said I
should have supervision, which I completely disagree with, but in order to
stay…” Her voice trailed off, and there was that shadow again.

Burgundy tried to set her past aside. Mrs. Scholz obviously
had some pain in her past as well.

“You might as well know it now. I sold the farm. But,” her
eyes got crafty, “I made the sucker who bought it promise that I could stay
here until I died. He insisted that I had to have a caretaker. So that’s why
you’re here. He’s afraid I’ll burn the house down by leaving the oven on.” The
old lady shifted. “Maybe he’s right. I have forgotten a time or two. But
doesn’t everyone?”

Burgundy nodded. “Actually, I have. I’m horrible at remembering
to turn it off. I get involved in other things, and I’ve left it on all night
before.”

“Exactly! That’s exactly what I told him. So normal.”

Burgundy grinned and nodded.

Mrs. Scholz didn’t exactly grin at her, but she felt like
maybe they had a tenuous bond trying to form between them, united against
whoever it was that had bought her house.

“So, there’s someone else living here too?”

Those crafty old eyes shifted back, and the old lady nodded.
“I can’t believe Pastor Race didn’t tell you that.”

“He was kinda busy.”

Which was fine. It didn’t matter whether there was someone
else living here or not. Although, she couldn’t help the little tremolo of fear
that gripped her heart every time she thought of meeting someone new.

Would they recognize her? Would they know who she was?

So far, she hadn’t gotten the impression that anyone in Mistletoe
knew. She’d really like to keep it that way.

Although, she kinda had a feeling that one’s past had a
tendency to catch up with one, and she doubted she was the exception to that
rule. She hadn’t been the exception to any others.

“Did you bring your stuff with you?” Mrs. Scholz tilted her
head around as though looking for a bag would make one materialize near Burgundy.

“I have a couple of suitcases and a duffel out in my car.”

It was everything she had in the world. When she’d hit rock
bottom, she didn’t have much left worth salvaging.

Most of the clothes she had were clothes that she’d gotten
after she’d been rescued.

“Might as well go out and get them, bring them in here. We’ll
take them upstairs and show you to your room.” Mrs. Scholz crossed her arms
over her chest and stood back. Something about the discordance of her outfit
made her blend right into the discordance of the house décor.

Funny how things seemed to suit each other.

Burgundy just hoped she found something that suited her.

As she walked out to her car, she saw a couple cows over by
the barnyard, but no people.

Her heart wouldn’t let her rest until she met the new owner
of the farm and found out, by looking at his face, whether or not he knew her.

Her suitcase bounced along behind her as she limped back to
the house. Her ankle wasn’t twisted and would probably be fine, if a little
stiff in the morning.

She walked up the porch steps a little more carefully this
time.

She followed Mrs. Scholz upstairs, past piles of family
pictures on the walls and shelves of knickknacks. She was careful not to bump
them, even though she was a little off balance with her suitcases. That was not
the kind of inauspicious beginning she wanted.

They took a right and went down to the far room. Mrs. Scholz
opened the door.

“This is yours. It don’t have too much stuff in it. It took
me two weeks to clean this one out. Hope you’re happy with it.”

The bedroom was at the back of the house, with great big
windows that stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling, giving her a
gorgeous view of the backyard and what she assumed were pasture fields. She was
more than happy.

The beauty outside more than beat the dingy window view of
her apartment in LA. Even with the amount of money she made, she’d never had a
great place to live.

Drugs were expensive.

“This is perfect. Thank you.”

“Got some warm ’ems up we can have for supper. You can start
cooking tomorrow.” Mrs. Scholz started to back out the door. “We eat at six,
whether that man is here or not.”

Burgundy’s eyebrows went up at that, but she didn’t make a
comment.

That man.

The way Mrs. Scholz spat that out made it sound like she
didn’t care for the guy.

“I’ll be down early to help set the table.”

She could earn her keep. But she did appreciate the chance
to settle in.

As soon as the door closed, she went to her handbag and
pulled out a ratty-looking gray stuffed elephant.

“Oh, Rosemary. Here we are. Another new spot. We probably
can’t put our roots down here, either. But maybe we can try putting out a few
tentacles. We have to get the stuffy Mrs. Scholz to love us or at least like us
a little.”

She stroked down the soft gray fur and then squeezed the
animal to her chest.

Rosemary had gone with her from move to move to move,
although she hadn’t gotten her until after the worst moment of her life.

She’d not been there when the first boy was in her bedroom
at thirteen.

She’d not been there when she’d been voted “most popular” in
her high school freshman class.

She’d not gone on overnight cheerleading trips.

And she’d not gone along on the senior class trip, when she
shared a room—and a bed—with Todd and Brian.

“Why weren’t you there to tell me that was wrong?” she asked
Rosemary, holding the elephant away and looking into the one eye that was still
attached. Most of the gray fur had been rubbed off. She looked lumpy and was
probably filthy.

Burgundy would never give her up.

Rosemary didn’t have to answer anyway. Burgundy might not have
had moral teaching, and everybody had been telling her from the time she was
little that it was okay as long as she used protection. Which she had.

But her heart had told her it was wrong.

Her conscience, her soul, her spirit. It never felt right.
It might have been fun, and she’d always made sure she enjoyed herself.

But it never felt right.

Man, she wished she could go back and do it all over again.
So much she’d do different

“We’re starting over, Rosemary.” She kissed the elephant and
set her on the bed. Now, the room felt like hers.