B. J. Winters

How do you tell your best friend that you love them? 

Cole Fallon and Victoria Bancroft have been friends since grade school.  Even though they moved apart, and Cole married someone else, their bond endured.   Now Victoria is back in Des Moines and planning to marry her long time boyfriend.  Recently widowed, Cole realizes his true feelings for Victoria, but she says that she's already waited too long for him - that he made his choice years ago.  

Can he stop her from making the same mistake he did - finding love with the wrong person? 

Something blue, per tradition, is just that - a blue item that represents love, loyalty and fidelity.  It is the perfect symbol of what Cole and Victoria's friendship means even as they both realize they are far more than friends.

 Cole Fallon

 Victoria Bancroft

Catherine Fallon-Chandler

Elizabeth Beckman

Taylor Bancroft

On Fiction Press, I did manage to title each chapter with a christmas carol.  Here is a partial creative homecoming playlist that is more representative of the overall romance theme:

“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee

“Fashion” by Lady GaGa

“Same Old Lang Syne” Dan Folgeberg

“Homecoming” by Hey Monday

“Lady” by Lenny Kravitz

“Used To” by Daughtry

“Why Part 2” Collective Soul

“Make a Memory” by Bon Jovi

"Only Fooling Myself" by Kate Voegele

“And Then He Kissed Me” The Crystalls

“The Call” by Regina Spector

"At Last" by Etta James

“Come Back To Me” by David Cook

“Happy” by Leona Lewis

“You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” by Dusty Springfield

“My First, My Last, My Everything” by Barry White

 Chapter 1 - Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

They say that Christmas comes but once a year – and Cole Fallon believed them. December 25th was still the holiday anchor, but merchants advertized the latest toys earlier. He could have bought his Christmas tree just after Halloween, but he’d held out until the day after Thanksgiving before being dragged to the corner lot.

Trees were everywhere, standing like tin soldiers. Cole smelled of evergreen. Perhaps that wasn’t a surprise considering he’d been lifting and twisting Christmas trees for the critique of two, six year-old boys for the last half hour. Youth today couldn’t seem to make a decision. Cole’s eyes scanned the selection, and his arms strained under the covering of his camel brown wool coat to present the latest choice for further inspection.

“How about this one?” he asked, peaking through the Noble Fir fronds. Cole tried not to smile at the sight before him, an audience immune to the cold and the light dusting of snow that had started to fall in downtown Des Moines. Dark heads covered with knit caps bent together in whispered debate - his sons Jarret and Jason. They were growing so fast they’d soon need another pair of winter hats, one red, the other blue, a vain attempt to distinguish the identical twins. Fortunately, their grandmother was a knitting machine.

“Yes. This is the one, Daddy,” Jarret declared, bouncing up and down.

The red-cap was not quite as convinced. “Hum. I don’t know.” Jason dithered, his eyes squinting and giving the tree one last poke.

“Oh come on.” Jarret said, smiling. “It’s super, it’s almost magic.”

“Magic?”

“Yeah,” Jarret explained, breaking off a piece of a branch, “a wand to grant your every wish.” He twirled the stick, sprinkling pine needles about in a strange ritual dance.

Jason frowned. “I want a wand, too!”

Before Cole could say anything to stop him, another branch had been pulled from the tree, leaving a large hole. The damage was sizable, and Cole realized that this tree probably should go home with them. Left on its own, only Charlie Brown would come to claim it. He’d only been half serious when he’d shown it originally. Slightly misshapen and crooked, the fir actually looked a little better after the adjustment on one side.

He sighed. The boys had run off, wands now turned into phantom swords were clearly more entertaining than tree shopping. Cole heaved the weighty tree into a slightly more comfortable position and carried it to the makeshift register. Glancing back, Cole couldn’t figure what the fence was for – the trees certainly weren’t going anywhere. Perhaps it was all to keep the customers in to pay ten dollars a foot for items they would discard in a month.

He brushed the flakes of snow from his coffee-colored hair as he called for the boys and guided them and the evergreen to the red Ford Explorer. His cheeks had taken on a rosy, Santa like glow, complimenting the light dusting of freckles on his nose. With a quick five-dollar tip the new purchase was lashed to the roof.

Wiper blades valiantly swished against the first flurries of the year, keeping rhythm with the rock tune on the radio as he drove home. Some had despaired that Christmas might be brown, rather than white. Having lived in Iowa his whole life, Cole hadn’t listened to the naysayers. Snow would fall – it always did. Most of his friends had moved away, using the weather as an excuse. Cole remained. His family was here, the schools were good, and there was nothing that he needed to run from.

Of course there were times when family was a bit too much in evidence. Cole made the final right turn and pulled into the driveway of the two-story Colonial. His eyes swept over the Currier and Ives picture of green shutters and maple trees, and tried to ignore the other vehicle that didn’t traditionally sit in the drive.

~**~**~

Here is the link