The Detour: A Holiday Novella Read online

  The Detour

  A Holiday Novella

  K. Bromberg

  Contents

  Other Books by K. Bromberg

  1. Harley

  2. Harley

  3. Harley

  4. Saint

  5. Harley

  6. Harley

  7. Harley

  8. Saint

  9. Harley

  10. Harley

  11. Saint

  12. Harley

  Epilogue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2021 by K. Bromberg

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by JKB Publishing, LLC

  ISBN: 978-1-942832-31-7 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-942832-32-4 (paperback)

  Editing by Missy Borucki

  Printed in the United States of America

  Other Books by K. Bromberg

  Driven

  Fueled

  Crashed

  Raced

  Aced

  Slow Burn

  Sweet Ache

  Hard Beat

  Down Shift

  UnRaveled (Novella)

  Sweet Cheeks

  Sweet Rivalry (Novella)

  The Player

  The Catch

  Cuffed

  Combust

  Cockpit

  Control (Novella)

  Faking It

  Resist

  Reveal

  Then You Happened

  Flirting with 40

  Hard to Handle

  Hard to Hold

  Hard to Score

  Hard to Lose

  The Package – A Holiday Novella

  The Detour – A Holiday Novella

  Chapter 1

  Harley

  “Why are Dasher and Dancer always taking coffee breaks?” the radio disc jockey asks as I lower my head and squint as if the action will allow me to see through the darkened, snow-filled night just beyond the hood of my car. “Because they are star bucks.”

  His laugh echoes out of the speakers while I roll my eyes so hard that it’s unsafe because they’re off this godforsaken road for way too long.

  “Not funny,” I mutter.

  “It’s funny. Come on. You know it is,” his smooth voice says to everyone listening but makes me feel like he's talking to me directly.

  “No, it’s not funny, Bob. It’s cheesy. Just like this damn holiday is. Too much cheer. Too much stress. Too much damn everything.” I glance over my shoulder as some jerk flies past me at about forty miles per hour as if he’s impervious to the road conditions.

  “How can you not like Christmas? The laughter. The love. The baked goods and the few extra pounds they add to help you keep warm in the cold. Being around those you love and the selfless act of giving.”

  “Sounds like a load of crap to me,” I mumble.

  “Can you believe it’s in five days? The big countdown is on. Before I start this next set of holiday favorites, what is your one wish this season? To visit a long-lost family member? To spread cheer to those who are doing without?”

  “How about finding my writing muse again and if it’s not too much to ask, have some hair pulling, back scratching, toe-curling sex while I’m at it to help cement that muse in my head, huh? Can you guarantee that for me, Bob?” I say out loud, his name coming out as if it’s a slur. “That would really add some cheer to what’s been a shitty year.”

  Because isn’t that what it boils down to? And by it, I mean my current, more than crappy state of mind.

  It’s been a month since I walked in on my boyfriend screwing someone else. Someone named Gary.

  I’d been putting up with my ex’s mediocre bedroom skills for so long because he was incredible in every other sense of the word. While his love for cooking, cleaning, and matching Tupperware lids was more than a bonus, he was my best friend and biggest confidant. But his penchant for allowing me to soak in long bubble baths, never giving me flack for wanting to hang with my girlfriends, taking regular spa days with me, and not caring when I went shopping should have been a sign that I was his cover so his family didn’t know his true self.

  And oddly enough, I’m okay with the breakup (for obvious reasons). After a rocky few weeks where I felt betrayed, I came to the realization that it’s a pretty awesome breakup. I still get to keep my best friend in my life since I have no real reason to hate him, and for the first time in his, he gets to be his true self since I sat with him, holding his hand, as he told his parents the truth.

  Win-win all around.

  The problem?

  Now I’m stuck in a state of bleh.

  The kind of bleh that leaves me unable to find my writing muse again. The writing muse I need to finish the manuscript due to my publisher over a month ago.

  A dozen books on the New York Times bestseller’s list, and I’ve lost my mojo.

  Well, not exactly my mojo. I sit down to write every day. A laptop in front of me, a complicated Starbucks order to my left, and a notebook and pen to the right . . . but hours later and the same blank screen with the same blinking cursor blurs before my eyes.

  Sure, words have been written and deleted what feels like a hundred times, but at the end of the day, my word count is nonexistent.

  How does a romance writer succeed and finish a book when she hasn’t been able to string coherent sentences together for weeks on end? How does she meet a deadline when typing every single word feels like she’s scraping it from the bottom of a cluttered barrel only to realize it doesn’t fit anywhere on the page?

  Add to the misery that incredible tropical vacation said ex-boyfriend/best friend and I were going to take to shake the winter blues? Yep, he’s taking Gary instead of me.

  Good for them.

  Miserable for me.

  The question is, how do I get rid of this feeling of bleh?

  Sex.

  And not just any sex, but rather some old-fashioned bed shaking where I don’t have to think or care, only feel.

  Hell, it’s not like I’ve been serviced properly in the two years I’d been with my ex, so I feel like this is a needed thing. Doesn’t everybody deserve some incredible after breakup sex?

  My dilemma? Sure, I could have gone to a bar and found any Tom, Dick, or Harry to fix the situation, but I’d made myself a promise: No down and dirty until I finished—or at least found my way through the fog—this book.

  So now I’m a romance author who has to write about great sex without getting any . . . and the writing part most definitely hasn’t been happening.

  Shit, the idea part hasn’t even been happening.

  As if on cue, an obnoxiously cute and jingly holiday chorus starts to play, prompting me to sigh as I drive—if you can actually call this slow pace driving—through the snow.

  It’s because of Christmas.

  It has to be this damn holiday, its artificial cheeriness, and its superficial notion that to give is better than to receive because I gave. Hell, I gave for two whole years, and now I’m alone and unsatisfied with an unfinished book and a dried up hooha.

  Figures, though. Christmas is like Friday the thirteenth for me. Nothing ever good happens on it. Elves are like black cats. Standing under mistletoe is like walking under a ladder.

  You name it, and on Christmas, it can go wrong for me.

  “Is it snowing out there where y
ou are tonight?” Bob asks when the song ends. “There’s nothing like a white Christmas to spread some joy, now is there?”

  I let a laugh fall that is one hundred percent sarcasm. “How about you share the joy and spread some my way because this snow ain’t cutting it, Bob.”

  And just as the next song starts to play through the speakers, flashing red and blue lights break through the solid wall of white in front of me. I hit the brakes and slow down—as if I’m actually going fast at all—as I come upon the flashing orange signs that say “Road Closed.”

  Seriously?

  I come to a stop at the roadblock and make out a state trooper shivering on duty and standing out in the elements. I roll down the window when he makes a motion to do so.

  “Sorry, miss, but the conditions are too dangerous for you to continue. It’s a complete whiteout on the bridge ahead. We've had too many accidents tonight, so we shut it down.” He must gauge my slow blink and half chuckle laced with defeat because he offers me a smile. “The storm front will move through by the morning and—”

  “The morning?” I all but screech.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “So, where am I supposed to go? I haven’t seen a town for miles. Am I just supposed to sit here and become a human popsicle?” I ask, dramatics being something I’m really good at. “I mean—”

  “There’s a town just south of here.” He points into the white abyss in front of me. “Go about a hundred feet and then turn to the right. Take that road about a mile, and you won’t miss it.”

  His chuckle that follows has all the true-crime podcasts I’ve been listening to lately—the ones that prove to me others have things way worse than I do—flit through my head. I can see it now: Lone woman on a dark side street in Podunk, Illinois, gets carjacked and her body is never found again.

  “Officer, you say that like you’re sending me to la-la land,” I tease, but the smile he gives me does nothing to abate my curiosity.

  “Let’s just say it’s a town you won’t soon forget.”

  Chapter 2

  Harley

  The snow swirls as colorful lights come into view. At first, they’re a starburst of reds and greens against my wet windshield. But the closer I get, I realize it’s not just a few roof lines, but what looks like every single eave, hedge, and surface is lined with Christmas light after Christmas light.

  Some go for the clear white bulbs or simple red and green, while others look like a bonanza of colors that make you go cross eyed.

  And as if on cue, just as I see the sign with the word vacancy outlined in blinking lights, the snow lightens up to a light flurry rather than the driving clumps back on the highway.

  It’s only then that I can get a good glimpse of the town. And laugh. This town looks like Christmas threw up everywhere in the least tacky sense. Statues of Frosty the Snowman and oversized Santa Claus figurines dot more surfaces than I care to count. Festive flags draping on a wire that zigzags from light pole to light pole high above Main Street. Even the stores have names that are seasonal: Kris Kringle’s Café, Gingerbread Grocery, Rustic Noel, Men-O-Rah’s Music, Saint Nick’s Saloon, Holly’s Hobbies, and on and on. They must change their names for the holiday season. There’s no way this place is this Christmas-‍y all year-round.

  I pull into what looks like a main lot in the middle of town, where it seems by the status of the parking spaces—spots of black asphalt peeking out beneath tire marks—that it’s been used many times tonight. And it’s only when I glance up that I feel like fate is flipping its middle finger at me.

  I laugh. It’s all I can do when I see the enormous billboard on the other end of the lot that reads, “Welcome to Saint Nick’s Hollow where we thrive on Christmas cheer!”

  Serves me right for bitching about DJ Bob and his perpetual cheeriness.

  And with that last thought, I slide out of my car, bundle my jacket around me, and head toward Gingerbread Grocery and its lights and hopeful warmth within.

  The door jingles “Ho-Ho-Ho” when I enter, and I sigh in resignation. They really take this Christmas shit seriously here in Saint Nick’s Hollow.

  “Cold out there, huh?”

  I bite back my smartass remark about snow means cold, when I see the cashier looks no older than sixteen. He’s cute in that awkward teenager way, with big, brown eyes hidden behind a pair of black frames and a killer smile. “It definitely is.” I rub my hands up and down my arms.

  “Can I help you?”

  “You wouldn’t be able to direct me toward a hotel or lodging, would you?” I shift my feet. “They put up a roadblock, and I’m hoping there might be a room available for the night.”

  “I figured that’d happen soon. That bridge makes a lot of folks nervous in weather like this. There have been quite a few people driving through town, but head over to Rudolph’s Roadside Repairs. Saint’s the mayor and owns the motel too. He’d be your best bet.”

  “Saint?”

  “Yes. Saint Nick.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, that’s really his name.” He chuckles.

  “Okay. Thanks. And what way is that?” I ask, pointing my finger over my shoulder.

  I listen to his directions, thank him, and head out into what feels like is the wild, wild west of the middle of nowhere.

  It only takes me a block to find Rudolph’s Roadside Repairs, and when I reach the front door, there is a sign that says, “I’m at the saloon” with an arrow pointing down the sidewalk to the right. I follow it through what feels like an idyllic American small town, save for the overabundance of Christmas décor.

  When I reach the corner, I see the bar. The windows are fogged up some, but there is a muted light inside with noise spilling out every time the door opens and closes, which seems to be often in the minute I stand across the street and stare at it.

  For a town that seems dead, the bar is absolutely hopping.

  I make my way to the door, and when I pull it open, I’m blasted with warmth, laughter, and the scent of something delicious.

  “Merry Christmas! Welcome to Saint Nick’s,” says a cheery waitress with a braid hanging over each shoulder and white fuzzy suspenders, if you can call them that.

  “Thanks. Wow.” I look around, shocked at the number of people packed in here as if the world doesn’t seem like it’s ending beyond its walls.

  “It’s a snow night—you know, like a snow day for school kids. We take them here for adults.” She winks. “What can I get you? What alcohol will add some color to your cheeks and warm you to your toes?”

  “I don’t need . . . I’m not here for—”

  “Sure you are,” she says, nodding to me and my jacket covered in snow. “You just don’t realize it yet.”

  “I’m looking for Saint?” I say as if I’m not quite sure that’s what I mean. “For a room. The road’s closed. I need a place to stay. I was told—”

  “You’ve come to the right place, although I’m not sure we have rooms available.” She raises a finger to someone who calls out Vix to her. “Why don’t you take a seat,” she says, pointing to the only open spot at the corner of the bar, “and I’ll send Saint your way when he has a free minute.”

  “Ok. Thanks.”

  “I’m Vixen.” She smiles. “Give me a holler when you decide what you want to drink.”

  Vixen? Please tell me she wasn’t named after a reindeer.

  With that thought still milling around in my head, I make my way through the crowded bar and sling my purse over the back on the stool before taking a seat. The bar has a charm to it. It’s the best way to describe it as I look around. The walls are paneled in wood, and the tables and chairs are a faded red. The kind of fade that says someone paid way too much for something to look aged, although it’s most likely brand new. There are old black and white photos framed on the walls, and I’m certain if I could get closer to study them, they would tell the history of this town and its abundance of holiday cheer.

  There
is a rack on the wall loaded with coat after coat, some still with snow on them, and nine red collars with bells are placed on the opposing one. For Santa’s reindeer? That would be my ridiculous but educated guess. Christmas carols are piped through the speakers as patrons sip drinks and act like there isn’t a blizzard raging outside.

  It’s only when my eyes skim their way back to the bar top where I’m seated that I catch sight of him.

  And when I mean him, I mean the kind of rugged Adonis that romance authors like me try desperately to describe with words but always fall short. He’s tall with dark hair that’s a little long over his collar. His shoulders are broad, and his biceps fill out the cuffs of his black V-neck T-shirt in that “I work out, but I’m not obsessed with it” kind of way.

  But it’s his smile—wide and genuine—that crinkles the corners of his eyes but also lights them up that has me startling and turning my head for a second look, thinking, Oh my.

  There’s a chuckle as Vix nudges me from where she’s stepped up beside me. “We don’t call this town Saint Nick You’ll Swallow for nothing.”

  “Er . . . what?” I ask, a chuckle falling from my lips as I force myself to tear my eyes away from him and look at her and her verbal play on blow jobs and the mayor.

  “Him,” she says with a knowing smirk, as if my reaction is common. “That’s Saint.”

  “Saint?”

  “The mayor. Saint Nick.”

  I laugh. It’s nervous and awkward and sounds nothing like the sure-footed woman I am. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Nope.” She slaps a cocktail napkin down in front of me and puts a glass of water on it. “I assure you, he is real and even better looking up close.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  It’s her turn to throw her head back and laugh. “Then you must be blind and dumb because, sweetheart, we all look and we all notice.”