Blue Christmas (The Moody Blue Trilogy | Book One) (2 page)

TEA
WITH EMMA

By
Diane Moody

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HERE

“
A great read. Diane
Moody knows how

To bring her people to life on paper.

 And place them in your heart.”

STRIKE
THE MATCH

By
Diane Moody

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HERE

Acknowledgments

A tremendous thanks to my friends and family for their
support and encouragement along the way for this story with its unique
history—especially to Sally Wilson, Joy DeKok, and Ken Moody. Couldn’t have
done it without you!

A special thanks to ol’ Eagle Eyes himself—Glenn Hale. Beyond
your gifted editing expertise, thank you for
liking
my story so much.
Who knew a World War II vet would enjoy a love story about a girl and her teen
heartthrob? Love you, Dad.

To Dana Myers—best friend from high school, former college
roommate, and my all-time favorite Spanish linguist. Thanks also to your
Spanish colleague, Maria Waldrup. Dana, you haven’t met Sergio yet, but he
appreciates you and Maria correcting the words I put in his mouth. Or, as he
would say, “¡Muchas gracias!”

To my amazing friend and former co-worker Denise Wells who
was there at the start and made the writing of this story so much more fun.
Thanks for reading my story as I wrote it, chapter by chapter, and giving me
such great feedback and encouragement. Thanks also for not mocking this
middle-age mom for listening to her daughter’s “boys in the band” while she
worked in the cubby across the room from you. And don’t worry, I won’t tell a
soul about that concert we went to that summer night. The one at LP Field with
all those teenage girls screaming about those cute boys up on stage. Your
secret is safe with me, Dee.

To Allison Greer, Jenny Burke and the rest of my daughter’s
best friends from
Harpeth
High School
in
Kingston
Springs
,
Tennessee
, who read each and every installment
of our story and kept asking for more. You inspired me to keep writing, and
I’ll forever thank you for that. Thanks for the memories!

To my best friend and the love of my life—my husband Ken who
has made this whole publishing adventure such a great ride. Thanks for your
eternal optimism, your continued belief in me as an author, and for all your
help in designing a book cover to do justice to this story. (Rumor has it, the
cover really “pops” . . .) Maybe this one will get us to that beach in
Hawaii
!

And last but not least, to my daughter Hannah. I will never
forget this incredible larger-than-life journey we shared, sweetheart. Thanks
for inspiring me to write this story, for all those brainstorming sessions
dreaming up plot twists and turns, and for those unforgettable front row seats
in the up close and personal shadows of your boys in the band. Didn’t we make
the best memories? I am so, so proud of the woman you’ve become. Love you,
Nanner.

Author’s Note

A little background on this story . .
.

Once upon a time there lived a
beautiful young teenager in our home, our daughter Hannah. Like so many others
her age, she was smitten—make that,
obsessed
—by a band whose music
topped the charts and won Grammys by the armful. The band was made up of five
young men, some of them not much older than she was. Their pictures covered her
bedroom walls so completely, you’d be hard pressed to know the color of the
paint on those walls.

When she was still too young to
drive, I chauffeured Hannah and her girlfriends to see her band in concert in
our city. A couple years later she won a local radio contest by plastering the
outside of our home with banners and posters and enormous pictures of her five
beloved singers. The prize? Two front row tickets when their new tour came to
town, and she took me as her special guest. What a precious memory that night
was, sharing it with her. I don’t think she stopped grinning the entire evening.

And I’m pretty sure the cute dark-haired
one winked at me. Actually, he might have winked at me two or three times. Or
maybe he just had something in his eye.

For Christmas that year, I wrote a
story for her about a young woman named Hannah, a college senior who
inadvertently meets her former teen heartthrob—one of the boys in the band—quite
by accident. I didn’t know it then, but it would one day be labeled
fan
fiction
. Who knew such a genre existed? I printed off the short story, tied
it with a red ribbon, and slipped it under her door. She
loved
it. Then
she shared it with her friends who all pleaded, “Write more! Write more!” (No
sweeter words to an author’s ears.)

And so I did. In installments, I
wrote the story you’re about to read with the help of my daughter. We’d pile up
on the sofa when she came home from school and brainstorm plot lines and story
ideas. Good times.

The internet had just exploded on the
landscape of our lives, and Hannah found an online website featuring these fan
fictions stories about “her” boys in the band. She submitted my story and suddenly,
girls all over the world were begging, “Write more! Write more!” We would
eventually register more than 80,000 hits on that page over the course of the
next year. I received more than
one thousand
fan letters via email along
the way.

And to my surprise, some of them even
asked questions about the thread of faith we wove into that love story. Those
were my favorites.

Of course, the story on the following
pages has changed a lot from that first version. The band and its members have
all been fictionalized, and the character of Hannah is much different than
my
Hannah, who is now grown and married and completely amazing.

And last I looked, the walls in her
loft apartment don’t have a single picture of those boys in the band . . .

To Hannah

my beautiful daughter,

my pride and joy,

my inspiration.

Chapter 1

Chapel Hill
,
North Carolina

“
T
hese cranberries are rancid. I want my money
back.” The old man straightened his back in defiance.

Standing behind
the grocery counter, Hannah Brooks exhaled as she tried to carefully guard her
words. “And I told
you
I’ll be happy to give you your money back, but I
need to see your receipt. It’s store policy. Otherwise, how do we know you
didn’t buy those from another store? I mean no disrespect, sir, but there’s no
way you bought those here two days ago. Look at them—they’re mush!” Fingers
splayed, she pinched the edge of the bag and dropped it back in his hands. “And
for the record, we don’t even carry that brand.” She stared him down and
watched the crimson darken his face.

He wiped his brow
with a wrinkled blue bandana then jammed it back in his coat pocket. “I demand
to speak to your supervisor.”

“Fine. I’m sure
he’ll be more than happy to talk with you when he gets back.”

“And when will
that be?”

“Next year. He’s
on vacation.” She flashed him a smile then busied herself wiping down the glass-covered
scanner beside her register.

“Then who’s in
charge here?”

“I am.”

He turned to the well-dressed
woman behind him, clearly hoping for some reinforcement. She looked unimpressed
when he stepped closer, waving a gnarled finger back in Hannah’s direction as
he repeated his complaint. Hannah recognized the woman as one of her regular
customers, the kind who occasionally stopped by late at night for a carton of
milk or loaf of bread. They’d always exchanged pleasantries, sometimes a brief
chat if the store wasn’t busy. She was always friendly, though Hannah realized
she didn’t know her name. Just another regular face in the Alexander’s Grocery
family of customers.

When the grouch
finished wheezing his frustrations, the woman raised her eyebrows and glared at
him over her half-glasses. “For heaven’s sake, pops, it’s Christmas Eve. Is a three
dollar bag of cranberries really worth all this fuss?”

He growled a
couple of colorful profanities in her direction then barked at her. “And who
asked
you
? Mind your own business, broad!”

The woman shot a
quick glance at Hannah then got in his face, her manicured nail poking him in
the chest. “This IS my business. You’re taking my time and you’re irritating
me. So take your silly cranberries and hit the road, Scrooge.”

He clamped his
mouth shut, clutched the berries to his chest, turned on his heel, and stomped
out the door.

The woman looked
at Hannah with wild eyes, then just as fast burst into laughter. Hannah welcomed
the sudden break in tension and joined her until they could laugh no more. She
pulled her thick brown hair into a ponytail and tried to regain her composure.
“Honestly, there must be a full moon out there tonight. Do you believe that
guy? So much for Christmas spirit.”

The lady, her long
blonde hair woven in an elegant French braid, nodded her head in agreement.
“Wasn’t he a trip? But I thought you handled him like a real pro . . .
Hannah,” she said, noting the engraved nametag on Hannah’s dark green bib
apron. “You were completely polite until he became unreasonable. So don’t you
give him a second thought. People like him live their whole lives just trying
to aggravate the rest of us.”

“I guess. All the
crazies are out tonight, y’know? It’s been like this all day. Does
everyone
wait
to do their holiday grocery shopping on Christmas Eve? It’s been a zoo in here.”
She scanned the jumbo bag of peanut M&M’s. “Then again,
you
strike
me as someone who’s had her shopping done for weeks, and I would bet this—” she
held up the bag of candy—“is a stocking stuffer for someone very special. Am I
right?”

The woman’s face
warmed as a smile graced her gentle features. Tiny laugh lines fanned her soft
blue eyes. “You found me out. My son is coming home tonight and I completely
forgot his favorite candy. I know it’s silly—he’s 27 years old. Not exactly a
little boy any more. But it’s one of those holiday traditions, and I couldn’t
help myself. I hardly get to see him anymore, so I’ve got to spoil him when I
can, right?” Her smile faded when she looked back up at Hannah.