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Hilltop Christmas

By Kathleen D. Bailey

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Chapter One
“You want me to what?” Jane Archer stared at her grandmother.
Was Gram getting addled, like older people sometimes did? No. Alice Merrill said what she meant and meant what she said, even while recovering from a hip replacement. And what she meant now bore no good tidings for Jane.
“I want you to direct the Christmas Festival for me.” Gram sounded as though her request were perfectly logical. “You have the time, and a lot of the work is already done.”
Well, it would be. Gram’s festival prep was legendary, at least in Hilltop.
But if Jane wanted to get out, now was the time. “Gram, I’m not sure I’m the right person to do this.”
“Oh, honey, you cut your teeth on the festival. And you’re so organized.”
“I’ll be taking care of you.” It wasn’t much of a gauntlet to throw down, and Jane knew it, but she threw it anyway.
And Gram tossed it back. “The visiting nurse comes every day, I’ve signed up for Meals on Wheels, and I have my books and my DVDs. I’m perfectly capable of amusing myself. And a lot of the work is done.” She waved a graceful hand toward her desk. “You have the notebook.”
The notebook. The two-inch-thick loose-leaf binder that helped a busy widowed schoolteacher run the legendary Hilltop Christmas Festival. That was before a hip replacement sidelined Gram, as much as Gram could be sidelined, and brought Jane home to Hilltop. Not kicking, not screaming, but also hoping not to engage any more than she had to. Especially with the festival.
“I’m not much for Christmas,” she said. “I’m not, well, religious.” There was more, a lot more, but Gram didn’t need to know.
Gram sighed. She had always been the cool grandmother, wearing jeans and hiking boots on her weekends, keeping up with the granddaughter she hadn’t expected to raise, keeping current with the fifth graders she taught, serving as a stalwart member of the Hilltop Community Church. She was still slender, her silver hair in a pixie cut, her skin unwrinkled except for the laugh lines.
But for the first time in Jane’s memory, she looked fragile. “Janie, Janie. What happened to you?”
It was a valid enough question from the woman who had shepherded her to Sunday School, worship service, youth group. Jane had gone with Gram every Sunday until she left for Cornell University and stopped the week she moved into her dorm room.
But it wasn’t Gram’s fault, wasn’t even Hilltop Church’s fault. They had done their best. Jane had been damaged before she came to Hilltop.
Would Gram understand? Probably. Could Jane bear to open that box? No. She’d sealed it the day Gram met her at the bus and took her home.
Gram had done so much for her–everything, really. Taken her in, provided for her every need, inspired Jane toward her own teaching career. She owed Gram. Owed her for things even Gram didn’t know about. Could anything she asked, even the Hilltop Festival, be too much?
Jane was organized. She could run a festival, couldn’t she? Even if she no longer believed in what it celebrated. Faith in anyone but herself was no longer an option.
But Gram had asked her.
Jane heaved herself out of the wing chair and headed for the desk. The notebook was heavier than it looked, with color-coordinated tabs. Well, Jane liked tabs. “Where do I start?”
Gram smiled. “Meet with the pastor. Well, old Reverend Clarke retired, so we got a new one. You should be able to catch him at the church.”
***
Noah Hastings shaded his eyes from the sun-dazzled snow on the church lawn. So much snow, blinding white mounds of it, like the icing their housekeeper Graziella used to slather on birthday cakes. Still, didn’t it feel good to be outdoors? Noah had never been a desk kind of guy. But the love of God and his people was making him one. He could still hear the crashing ocean waves calling him back to California and a lifestyle a younger and more worldly version of himself had left behind long before he traded his surfboard in for a Bible.
He could prove himself here. In Hilltop, New Hampshire, among these reserved Yankees, with their thin, sharp faces and sharper wit. Even if he didn’t get half their jokes.
His shovel scraped against the sidewalk, and he lifted another flat piece of ice and flung it on top of the powdery snow from yesterday’s storm.
“Excuse me? I’d like to—”
Noah turned too sharply, and the shovel he barely knew how to wield hit the young woman at the knees. She lost her balance and tumbled into a snowbank as he tumbled down beside her, all flailing arms and kicking legs. He fought for purchase. There was none. The ice scraped against his cheek, colder than anything he’d ever felt, and stung his bare hands. Gloves. That’s what he forgot.
What must she be thinking? In his first month on the job, would he put someone in the hospital?
The woman struggled to her feet first, a blur of color that sorted itself out to a pair of high black boots and a fitted red coat. She looked too slim to lift more than a bag of groceries, but her gloved hand gripped his.
“Hang on, and I’ll pull you up.” she said. “I’ve got some footing now.”
He gripped her hands, heaved himself out of the snowbank—and looked down at the prettiest face he’d seen all day, maybe since coming to Hilltop. Creamy skin with a hint of pink from the cold, delicate features, and big green eyes framed by a tumble of dark brown hair under a red knit cap. Who was she? Why hadn’t he seen her before? Was she a Christmas angel?
“Listen, I’m sorry. Really. Are you okay?”
The woman probed at one knee, then another. “I don’t think you broke the skin. It’s just a bruise. But you should put some ice melt down.” She had a sweet voice, laced with irritation. “Anyone knows that. Talk to your boss, I’m sure the church has an account down at Gregson’s. Someone could get seriously hurt, and I doubt the church wants a lawsuit.”
Not quite an angel but still pretty. Noah retrieved his shovel. “Can I help you?”
“May I, and yes.” The woman shook ice crystals from the ends of her hair. “I’m looking for your pastor.”
Noah leaned on his shovel, sighed inwardly, and gave the response he’d already used too many times in Hilltop. “You found him.”
***
He has to be joking. Jane looked up, past the broad shoulders to ice-blue eyes and a sculpted face crowned by too-long blond hair and a fading but natural-looking tan. Reverend Clarke, who had pastored the church in her childhood, retired. But she hadn’t expected the church board would have picked this surfer dude.
She looked him up and down. “You’re the pastor?”
He smiled. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“When did you—how long—”
“I took over in mid-October. Been here a month. And yes, I’m from California. Long Beach specifically.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were—”
“The gardener. That’s one of my favorites. Better than pool boy.”
It wasn’t funny. Not really. She worked to keep her lips straight. “I’m Jane Archer,” she said. “I’m here to talk about the Hilltop Festival.”
“Noah Hastings. The Reverend Noah Hastings.” He rested the shovel in a bank of snow. “I’ll take a break from this, and we can talk. In my study. The pastor’s study.” He held the side door open for her.
Wherever Jane stood with God, she had always admired the Hilltop Community Church. The gray stone building had been constructed before the turn of the twentieth century by sturdy mountain people who built it to last. Over the years, they added on an office wing, a Christian education wing, and a function room with a kitchen and small stage in the basement. Dozens of ministries fanned out from here. She remembered sorting used clothing, assembling Thanksgiving baskets, and packing boxes for missionaries back when she believed in things like missions.
Today the cold sun shone through the stained-glass windows, casting colored shadows over the gleaming golden-oak pews. The room smelled of lemon furniture polish and a faint tinge of candle wax.
“Dazzling, isn’t it?” Hastings said at her side.
Jane shrugged. “It’s a church.” She turned away, but not before she saw his expression tighten.
He led her down the office wing to the first door on the right and motioned her inside. Jane wove her way through crates of books, and stubbed one booted toe on a duffel bag, before she reached a folding metal chair. One small diploma graced the wall behind a chaotic desk. How could the man work like this?
Her fingers fairly itched to straighten the pile of papers near the edge of the desk. She sat on her hands. “Maybe I should wait till you’re settled.”
As he eased his long frame into his desk chair, Hastings shoved another teetering pile of correspondence to one side. “I am settled. You’re here about Hilltop?”
“I’m Alice’s granddaughter. She asked me to—” Jane swallowed. She could never replace Gram as chair. Or anything else. “To help her coordinate the festival this year.”
The pastor leaned back, testing the strength of the chair. “I’m glad she found someone and glad it’s someone close at hand. We think a great deal of Alice around here. We’re all praying for her swift recovery.”
“Yes, well, I’m happy to help. She’s amazing. She’s done so much for me.”
Noah nodded. “She’s done a lot for this town.” He returned his chair to all four legs and steepled his fingers. “So, I understand the Hilltop Festival started in the fifties as a place for families to go to experience the true Christmas spirit.”
Jane forced herself to look at him, and an unexpected heat flushed her cheeks. So what if he was attractive? She cleared her throat. “Hilltop incorporated as a separate entity in 1985, making all sales go into a separate festival account to fund next year’s event. And by the nineties, it was drawing people from all over New England.”
“Fine with me.” He nodded. “The town lets us use the old library, the new library, the town hall, and the school. The elementary chorus performs in my sanctuary. Are there really no issues with church and state?”
He was sharper than he looked. “Not really. Half the kids in school go to your church. It’s really a community festival with everyone involved.”
Noah Hastings homed in on her with those clear blue eyes. She looked away, scanning the titles on a randomly-stuffed bookshelf.
“It all ramps up Christmas Eve afternoon, with the big parade. Then there’s a free community supper at the American Legion, choirs, a children’s pageant, and you. The Christmas Eve service is the culmination of everything Hilltop.”
Noah nodded soberly. “I’m told we can expect a crowd.”
“Up to five hundred. They can pack everyone in, though it’s standing room only.”
Noah Hastings shook, muttering something she couldn’t hear. “But we’re just a little country church.”
Jane shrugged. “There’s a—a feeling to Hilltop. People I grew up with bring their children, people Gram knew bring their grandchildren. For those three days, it’s not like any other place on earth. It’s community.”
“Alice and some others have told me they sense a real presence of God.”
Under her coat and sweater, Jane’s heart hammed. “I really wouldn’t know.” She flipped through Gram’s voluminous notebook. Better than looking at him.
***
Her pretty face was closed, locked tighter than a bank vault. So, Alice’s granddaughter wasn’t a believer. What had happened to this Jane Archer?
But she was devoted to Alice and willing to work. That would have to do.
And she was beautiful, with that waterfall of dark curls and green eyes like the inside of a wave off Big Sur. She must get her tall stature from her father. Might be fun to get to know her better.
But he had a festival to run.
No place in his life for a woman. He was on enough of a learning curve without that. But surfing in competitions and being son to his stoic father had made him to be resilient under pressure. In a little over a month, he’d made a few friends and a dozen mistakes.
Noah seriously contemplated the old, retired Reverend Clarke’s offer to call him with any problems.
This polished Ms. Archer could probably run the church better than he could. There she was with a loose-leaf notebook thick enough to use as a weapon. One of those. Probably had lists for everything, planned her wardrobe with an Excel spreadsheet.
Could he preach to five hundred people? Should he have stayed in California? There were churches there. He could have just kept trying till someone took a chance on him. But there was also his reputation as a party boy, surfer dude–and Dad. He’d wanted to get away, as far away as possible.
Hilltop, New Hampshire, was probably it.
Hilltop’s people had been kind in his first month, overlooking or gently correcting his mistakes, everything from how to pronounce the Native American name of a hill town to how to run a meeting. He would return their kindness.
Noah smiled at Jane. “So, we meet on Wednesdays. We’ll see you at the next meeting?”
***
“You’re quiet tonight.” Gram’s voice broke the silence at dinner.
Jane swallowed a bite of chicken, moist and redolent with herbs. “I’m tired, I guess. A lot to take in. But this is delicious!”
“It’s Anne Gregson’s. She makes it for every potluck.”
Gram had insisted on wheeling herself to the dining room table rather than eating dinner on a TV tray. The polished oak floors made it easier. Comfort filled the room with two lamps casting a soft glow from a nineteenth-century sideboard. Jane remembered when Gram had found the piece and refinished it.
Gram glanced at the kitchen where a dozen other foil-covered casseroles waited in the freezer. “The girls did well by us. And we got Joe Colarusso’s got a lasagna in there.”
Jane smiled. “Your friends have been good to us.”
“That’s Hilltop. We help each other.” Gram shrugged. “What do you think of our new pastor?”
Jane kept her gaze on her plate, sensing her cheeks flush. “He’s all right. Younger than I’d expected.”
“Not as young as he seems. He told us he got a bachelor’s in engineering before he went to Bible college. But this is his first church.” Gram chuckled. “And his first time in the Northeast. I had to take him out to buy snow boots.”
Jane tried to push past the image of the tall, blond pastor. But oh, what a smile he had. Made a girl feel—well, she had no business feeling anything.
“I imagine he has his hands full.” Jane took a bite of perfectly-seasoned green beans. She could get used to this.
Gram nodded. “Well, he’ll have you to help him. I have faith in you, Janie.”
Hadn’t she always?
Gram’s silver charm bracelet tinkled against her water goblet. She wore it with everything. Each charm depicted some aspect of the Hilltop Christmas Festival—a gingerbread man, a snowflake, a miniscule pair of skates, and a sleigh and a sled. Jane’s grandfather died before she ever got to meet him, but ever since Gram explained the charms were his gift, Jane felt connected to him.
“Any new charms?”
“Last year on vacation, I picked one up for myself. Couldn’t resist.” She swiveled her wrist, and Jane squinted at an exquisite, tiny rendition of the Holy Family.
“Oh. It’s perfect craftsmanship.”
Gram beamed. “It reminds me of why we do this.”
“It’s a festival, Gram.”
“A festival where we show Christ’s love to the world.” Gram scraped up the last of Anne’s savory mashed potatoes. “Anyway, Pastor Noah is excited about the festival. He says it’s a great outreach.”
Noah again. Jane couldn’t stop thinking about him. She didn’t need Gram’s help. “I’m surprised he isn’t married.” She stabbed at a piece of chicken and hoped her voice didn’t betray her. Could Gram still read her every nuance?
If Gram could, she didn’t let on. “We all were. He’s too young for the ‘casserole brigade,’ the women who chase after widowers, but he attracted a lot of attention from the younger crowd. A couple of girls made a play for him but didn’t get anywhere. Noah treats everyone the same.”
Yes, a Noah Hastings could dazzle the single women of Hilltop. A hunk, her roommates would have called him.
But he was a pastor.
If he knew who Jane Archer really was, he’d bolt. Sometimes she wanted to bolt. But she had a good life now.
She looked at Gram. “Well, I love my job. The board members, teachers, and parents are so supportive. Private school is a whole different world. I live in a town house, and my roommates are great.”
“You’ve done well for yourself, my Janie. I couldn’t be prouder.” Gram took a deliberate sip of water, and her voice changed. “Do you hear from your mother?”
Jane sighed. “I’d tell you if I did.”
“Yes.” Gram cleared her throat. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“Now, Gram.” Jane bit her lip. “I’m too busy, and I don’t meet that many men.”
Generations of corralling fifth graders had only strengthened Gram to never retreat. “Jane. You’re in Boston. The city is teeming with men.”
“Gram—”
“You’re a bright, attractive girl. You’re twenty-eight years old. You have so much to give.” Gram looked down. “I know you don’t like it when I quote Scripture, but the Bible says it’s not good for us to be alone. I’d feel better if you had someone to share your life with.”
Of course, she would. She was Jane’s only living relative, except for an on-the-lam mother. And the hip replacement marked Alice Merrill’s first sign of frailty.
Life without Gram.
Jane couldn’t bear it, husband or no husband.
She had been too glad to land in Hilltop and build a life with Gram to have had a rebellious phase. But her voice held a tinge of defiance as she cleared the plates. “What about you? You’re still gorgeous, and even I can’t keep up with you. Why didn’t you remarry?”
Gram fingered the different charms on her bracelet. “If you’d known your grandfather better, you wouldn’t have to ask.”
A love that lasted beyond the grave. Gram proved that such a love could exist.
A love that would spread through Jane’s hollow places, the ones she couldn’t fill with a job she loved, even after lesson plans and field trips and tenure track. A love that would make it all mean something, pull it all together.
A love that lasted beyond the grave? Maybe. Problem was, she was no longer sure what else happened beyond the grave.

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