Page 1 of A Taste of Christmas Magic

Prologue

Millicent Maye concludedthe short meeting and waved her four granddaughters off, but before she locked the doors or turned off the lights for the night, she had to implement step two of her plan. She’d surprised them all with her announcement. That was for sure. But no mischievous smile kissed her lips. She’d waited too long. She’d known it, but something inside her wanted to grant her girls, as she called them though they were all adults, the freedom that she and many of the women of her generation had never had.

She walked up the elegant, wide curved staircase to her bedroom, feeling unusually tired, but her mind was settled. She opened the cedar chest that had been a gift from her mother, who had received it from her mother—four generations starting with Maeve O’Malley, who had received it from her mother and had brought the chest with her when she’d left Ireland and talked her way onto a ship bound for America.

“So much history,” she whispered, running her fingers over the roses carved into the lid, but this was not the time to reminisce.

She opened chest and picked up the book she’d stored there for far too long.

Food Is Love

Recipes for

Southern Love Spells

She pressed her lips against the worn leather cover. The book was a family heirloom passed down—like the trunk—mother to daughter, but Millie had only had one son and now four granddaughters. She’d waited. Looked for a sign—who was ready for the book? Something inside of her had whispered that the book would choose. But the book had never left the trunk. Had never whispered to her. Had never showed up unexpectedly to tell her when it was time. Perhaps because she had hidden the book away, a little awed by its power.

She’d never fully understood the book. Hadn’t used any of the recipes in her diner except the one for biscuits. Over the years, many of the book’s recipients had added recipes, notes, stories and advice. Millie never had, perhaps too intimidated by the book’s legacy.

Or too arrogant.

She should have used the book with her girls, passed it down years ago. She regretted that now.

Holding the book to her chest, she walked back downstairs and out her front door. Down the regal steps to the brick path and out her wrought iron gates to the small mini home library that had been a gift many years ago from the town as a thank you for her generosity. All of her girls had loved the little library, adding books and borrowing them over the years. Chloe, the teacher and the youngest, still did.

Millie opened the door, surprised to find the library, with its three brightly painted shelves, empty. She felt like her heart skipped a beat. The library was never empty. Never. She made sure of that, but she wasn’t the only one. The mini library was loved by many.

She closed her eyes and sent a wish up to her ancestors.

“It’s time to find her soulmate,” she whispered, trusting in the book to know which granddaughter was primed to find her true love.

She placed the book carefully on the shelf, not feeling bereft, as she’d imagined but buoyed by hope and a sense rightness that had eluded her for so long.

Chapter One

“What’s he doinghere?”

Chloe Cramer, still riding the high from her Madrigal Dinner solo, dragged her attention reluctantly back to her cousin, Jessica Maye. Finally, Chloe had had the opportunity to sing the plaintive and beautiful call to buy her lavender at the annual South Point Abbey College Madrigal Dinner that was a fundraiser for the small but prestigious college’s music conservatory and fine arts department. Held the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the Madrigal Dinner kicked off Belmont’s holiday season and Chloe’s favorite time of year.

“Who?” Chloe didn’t look where Jessica pointed. Instead, she tilted back her head to stare at the panoply of stars. “It’s a night full of stars and possibility,” she sang out, still riding the high of the night.

“No. Just no,” Jessica said. “Not him.”

Chloe and Jessica had just finished loading the last of the rented linens from the annual event into laundry bags. Already a team of fraternity brothers from South Point Abbey folded up the tables and rolled them toward a storage area in the back of the small, Gothic-like campus chapel. Chloe loved how the many groups on campus jumped in and pulled off so many events throughout the year.

She continued to hum the song she’d just performed. It was, in her opinion, the most beautiful feature of the Belmont Madrigal Dinner, which the Maye family had launched decades ago.

“Look!” Jessica gripped her arm, halting her progress across downtown’s large Maye Park. “It’s him. I know it is. I can’t believe he’s returned to Belmont.”

Chloe stared dreamily at the “interloper.” She’d been sneaking peeks at him most of the night. How Jessica had onlynownoticed the bad boy of Belmont was a travesty. Chloe had been dreamily staring at Rustin Wildish since childhood. She’d noticed him at the beginning of the night unloading steaming tureens of stew from a black van.

She, of course, had been running late. She’d dashed across the park towards the dinner under medieval-looking tents—although there had been merry party lights casting a golden glow. She’d ducked behind a fat dogwood trunk and wiggled into her serving wench costume. She loved playing a serving wench because she could be cheeky with the guests and other wenches, and often broke into quoting medieval poetry or song. Jessica and her two accomplished, elegant and sophisticated sisters always played a lady and sat at the head of the table as hostess.

“Jessica, Belmont is Rustin’s—”

“Sh…sh…sh…sh.” Jessica clapped her hand over her mouth like she was still eight and had blurted an embarrassing truth. “Don’t say his name.”

Chloe dragged Jessica’s hand off her mouth. She was so over how everyone shaded the Wildish family, especially Rustin. Belmont was better than this, or it should be, and all the Maye family—not just Grandma Millie—should step up and set the example.

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