Jesse's Christmas

Jesse’s Christmas

RJ Scott

Copyright 2013 by RJ Scott

First eBook publication: December 2011

This Edition, edited, additional scenes, new cover art, December 2013

Cover design - Meredith Russell

Edited - Erika Orrick

Proofreader – Stacia Hess

All Rights Reserved:

This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer-to-peer program, for free or for a fee. Such action is illegal and in violation of Copyright Law.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

Dedication

For Erika, Stacia, Meredith and Mr RJ… Happy Christmas, minions… ROFL

… and always for my family.

Trademarks

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and owners of the following wordmarks used in this story:

McDonald’s:
McDonald’s Corporation

Prius:
Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Walmart:
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Starbucks:
Starbucks Corporation

iPod:
Apple Inc.

Hallmark:
Hallmark Licensing, Inc.

Jeep:
Chrysler LLC

Nikon:
Nikon Corporation

Spider-Man:
Marvel Characters, Inc.

Elf:
New Line Productions, Inc.

Reddit:
Reddit, Inc.

Google:
Google Inc.

Levi’s:
Levi Strauss & Co.

Welcome to
Eden Vale, Vermont

Winner of Best Christmas Small Town**

2009

(**For towns with populations under 1200)

Prologue

~Two Years Ago~

The end when it came was utterly brutal and sudden. One minute Jesse Connor was planning the most romantic way to propose to his boyfriend of three years, the next said boyfriend was gone. And not just gone in a ‘popped out for a coffee’ way. But gone in an ‘emptying closets and trashing the place’ kind of way. Even the original Jesse Connor prints on their bedroom wall were gone, removed from the frame with the frames themselves stacked haphazardly against the wall.

Everything Jesse felt about the season was wrapped up in this particular Christmas, the day he was going to ask Jonah to marry him. He had the tree and the decorations and all the perfectly chosen and appropriate presents organized. He even had the damn platinum ring burning a hole in his pocket.

And now everything had gone to hell.

“Sir, you’ll need to come with us.” Jesse spun on his heel. There was a cop standing inside his apartment, feet straddling the threshold between bedroom and main living room. This was a joke. Any minute now the cop would strip off and give him a lap dance and everything would be revealed to be one huge joke.

“I think I’ve been burgled,” Jesse murmured. He felt icy cold; the window wide open to the outside air was letting in gusts of snow every so often. The snow landed on the widescreen TV, which lay on its side with half of its guts hanging out, and melted immediately.

“Sir, we have some questions. Please come with us.”

“Where?” was all Jesse could ask. “Outside?” He was in a daze. Where was Jonah? Why was the TV destroyed? Where had his photos gone? Why was all of Jonah’s stuff not in the closet?

“The FBI are waiting in the hall, sir.”

“What? Sorry, what?”

“Sir, you’ll need to come with us,” another cop said. Where had he come from? Jesse blinked at them both.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Jonah?”

“We’re hoping you will tell us that, sir.” This time it was a different voice belonging to a man in a cheap suit with frown lines bracketing his eyes who stepped in past the cops.

“I don’t know.” Jesse pulled out his cell again, but checking it for the hundredth time wasn’t going to change the fact that there was no new message from Jonah. “Maybe he’s delayed at the bank?” Jesse offered.

“We both know that is unlikely,” the Fed said with a scowl. “He’s not going to return to the scene of a crime.”

Cops in his apartment. And now Jonah was being accused of something. And Jonah had gone. The music in the apartment next door started up, signaling the fact that Henrietta who worked in marketing at the same company as Jonah had arrived home. The strains of Christmas music wound their way through the walls and into Jesse’s hearing.

“He’s supposed to be here. We were due to go to the ballet. I had tickets.” Jesse looked at the decorated tree that lay on its side, then back at the empty frames, and finally he faced the cops in his and Jonah’s apartment.

“I’ll need your cell phone, sir.” The Fed held out his hand.

“Will it help you find Jonah?” Jesse asked uncertainly.

“I surely hope so,” the Fed answered brusquely.

“What did he do? What’s happened? I don’t…”

The Fed was talking to the cops, telling them not to let anyone in, instructing them that Jonah may well be desperate and try anything at this moment in time.

Jesse followed the Fed numbly out into the hallway. The door to Henrietta’s apartment was open, and she stood in the doorway with a stunned expression on her face. Her eyes were bright and she was crying.

“Oh my God, Jesse,” she said as Jesse came to a stop in front of her.

“Henrietta? Are you okay? What’s happened?”

“It’s Jonah. He’s taken down the whole bank.” She put a hand to her mouth. “He’s wiped millions in trading. It’s all over the news, he’s destroyed us.”

“I don’t understand?”

“Did you know?” she shouted. Jesse stumbled back against the wall as she advanced on him with horror in her eyes.

The Fed moved between them. “Sir, you need to come with me.” Jesse saw one of the cops nod, and in a few seconds he was bundled out of the building and into a cop car.

When he got home, twenty-four hours had passed and Jesse’s world had been destroyed. He tore the tree to small pieces and threw the gifts in the garbage.

And he promised himself one thing. Never again would he fall so far in love that he was blinded by it.

Chapter 1

~This Christmas~

“Your apathy is getting serious, and you have deadlines, Jesse.”

The words repeated on an audio loop in his head. Emma meant well. As his agent she had a responsibility to keep him in line. God knows he hadn’t been the best client over the last year.

“I get why you’re angry,” he hedged in the vain hope he would placate her.

“You agreed to this contract, Jesse. The photos for their website are important to them and are central to their whole Christmas marketing campaign.”

“I know, Emma—”

“They’re paying good money for Jesse Connor’s work, and let’s face it, your accounts are running on empty now. Eden Vale may be the only thing that gets you inspired.”

He argued so hard. He used to love Christmas. The expectation and the uplifting joy that people carried around with them was so intrinsic to the memories he had of the season before two years ago. Now though? Well now, in his opinion, Christmas was something he wanted to forget, winter was cold, and in fact every damn thing connected to the season sucked. Emma had been so patient listening to everything he said and then passed him the leaflet that signed his death warrant. That is what it was. A damned document to screw him over in life’s shitty path. So sue him if he was being melodramatic, but his response was a well-thought-out curse word that made Emma narrow her eyes in a flash of temper.

“Is there a problem, Jesse? You know you are only getting away with this artistic bullshit because the clients are desperate for the work of
the
Jesse Connor.”

Her words had created a curious mix of gratitude and fear in him. Something as simple as a client still wanting him actually seemed more like a noose around his neck.

“Yes, there’s a goddamn problem with all of it. This is simple. I can’t do it, Emma. I don’t have the passion I need for creating art, let alone have anything to do with Christmas. That isn’t some random statement. I really can’t give them what they want.”

“Jesse—”

“No, Em, I know you are trying to help, but I don’t feel Christmas. Not in a single cell of my body.” He pushed every raw emotion he had into the simple words. She ignored him and instead changed the subject back to the visit to
Christmas-ville.

“The first event in Eden Vale is three days away, Jesse. I booked you a room from tomorrow, right through December, up until the third of January.”

“What the hell? I thought you were joking.” Jesse sat forward. “I said no, and I meant it. You have to get me out of this contract, tell them I was drunk when I signed it. Because I sure as hell am not going to freaking Vermont.”

Emma crossed her arms over her chest. “You are going. The newspaper has hired you and wants to bring Christmas to their website viewers, and they want it to be a Jesse Connor Christmas.”

“Shit, Emma—”

“The deal is done, and it’s your only option. You knew what you were doing when you signed the contract—”

“I needed the advance—”

“Which you now can’t pay back, right?”

She was right. That ten thousand dollars was enough to pay the rent on his place and keep him in food for a few months. He needed a job of some sort to keep him going after that.

“I hear McDonald’s is hiring,” he snapped.

“Yeah, I can see the headlines now. Jesse Connor, former award-winning photographer and ex of the imprisoned Jonah Miles et cetera, millions lost and so on, has hit rock bottom tossing burgers.” She wasn’t trying to be cruel, but every word hit home. Only Emma could get away with some of the brutal honesty she could dish out.

“Fuck, Emma.”

“Consider this an intervention, Jesse. Pack a bag and get the hell away from the City. Leave your memories here and take my car.”

“
Your
car?”

She had dangled the keys to her cherry red, and eminently sensible, Prius. He hated that damn car, too small, too stifling, and too much like hard work. In fact, he hated driving. There was a reason he had always loved the city where you get from A to B without wedging yourself in a tin can.

“I’m not just your agent, okay? I’m your friend, Jesse.” She crossed to where he sat and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “The Prius will get you to Eden Vale, and I paid for a room in a small hotel there as an early Christmas present. The paper wants a photo a day from the first of December to the twenty-fifth for their website with short copy for each. Now go.”

Jesse was left with no arguments to counter the near-military precision with which his agent forced him to leave New York. Dammit but she was good at her job. It was go to freaking Christmas-ville or fight with Emma to get a reference from her so he could apply to McDonald’s or to stock shelves at Walmart.

And now he was sitting in the damned Prius in the mountains at God knows what point on his journey, and his resentment was near bubbling over. He pulled over to let a van pass on the narrow road, and the moment’s respite was filled with the hurt that flooded him that Emma, his friend, had him by the balls. His best friend—his only friend—yet she consigned him to the middle of freaking nowhere in her damn tin can of a car. His life really couldn’t get any worse. He’d had his heart broken by a thieving scheming fucker of a boyfriend, lost all his money, mislaid his muse on a permanent basis, and now it seemed like he was going deep into the Green Mountains of Vermont to a small town in the Mount Snow Valley, population proudly displayed as 1,007, called Eden Vale. Where, allegedly, he was going to find Christmas.

The town was at the end of a winding valley road that seemed too narrow at some points for two vehicles to pass at the same time. The rural mountainous countryside would have appeared pretty, even stunning, to anyone other than Jesse. He desperately needed coffee, but he doubted the inhabitants of this place had ever
visited
a Starbucks, let alone had one on the small Main Street. The town itself, as he passed through it, was nothing more than a cliché—a couple of chain grocery stores, a gas station, and a beauty parlor advertising discount for the under-twelves. For a moment, Jesse pitied any kids being stuck here so far from civilization.

“…predicted at least five inches…skiing center that has opened a new…”

The radio was intermittently spitting out sections of news interspersed with lame attempts at Christmas music, a mix of carols and pop songs from the seventies. Emma hadn’t told him her CD player was on the blink, and despite searching, he hadn’t found a jack for his iPod. The farther into the mountain he climbed, the worse the reception became, but turning off the radio was impossible as the damn thing was broken. Taking his eyes off the road, let alone hoping to stop somewhere, was inadvisable. If he stopped, he would be blocking the damn road. His satellite navigation, courtesy of his cell, had also decided to fritz out on him, and he hoped the damn hotel was easy to find.