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Trueblood Christmas
By Jasmine Cresswell Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises Limited
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-83533-7
Chapter One
Gabriella Petri enjoyed feasting on turkey and all the trimmings as much as anyone, but having spent the past twelve hours supervising the preparation of 758 traditional Thanksgiving dinners, in three separate sittings, starting at noon and ending at seven, she was ready to throw up if she smelled any more gravy, or so much as glimpsed another platter of candied sweet potatoes decorated with pecans and marshmallows.
Trying to decide whether her feet ached more than her shoulders, or vice versa, she let herself into her town house in the Brackenridge Park district of San Antonio, sighing with relief as she was greeted by space, serene ivory walls and silence. Averting her gaze from the cartons of books still stacked against the far wall of her living room even though it had been six weeks since her move from Chicago, she hung up her jacket and made her way to the sofa, where the latest issue of People magazine beckoned enticingly.
Kicking off her shoes, she sank onto the sofa, hanging her feet over the armrest and wriggling her toes. After a few blissful moments of staring at the ceiling and thinking about absolutely nothing, she summoned the energy to sit up straight enough to check her answering machine for messages.
There were no calls. Which, given the pathetic state of her social life these days, was hardly surprising. Still, she would have expected her parents to call, even though she'd warned them twice that she would be working all day. Ella's mouth quirked into a wry smile. It seemed her mom and dad had actually paid attention for once, which had to be a first. Normally, they called on any and every holiday, from Christmas to Ground Hog Day, despite her warnings.
Truth be told, she was always glad that they did. As an only child, not adopted until she was four, she had long ago realized that keeping in close contact with her parents was more important to her than it was to many of her friends. In an odd way, she liked being scolded for not flying home, even if her parents ought to realize by now that in the hotel industry, Thanksgiving was one of the busiest periods of the year and the least likely time for her to take off on a vacation.
Ever since she could remember, Ella had wanted to travel, and she'd chosen to work in the hotel industry in part because she knew that she would be required to move often if she wanted rapid promotions. But itchy feet didn't mean that she liked to be out of touch with her family. Maybe the fact of being adopted made her especially grateful to Frank and Mary Petri, who had been willing to take her into their home and love her through thick and thin, despite the fact that Ella didn't conform very well to the type of daughter they'd always dreamed of raising.
Her mom - childless until she was forty - made no secret of the fact that she had longed for a daughter who would play with Barbie dolls, wear pink ruffled dresses, marry young, and produce a cluster of grandbabies for Mary to love. Sadly, Ella never came close to matching her mom's wishful blueprint. Frilly dresses made her itch, and she had preferred hanging upside down on the monkey bars to playing with dolls. Presented with Bridal Barbie on her ninth birthday, Ella had dutifully displayed the doll on the top of her chest of drawers and instantly escaped to play baseball with the Taylor brothers next door.
Her mother had sighed and lamented, but the following Christmas Ella received a catcher's mitt stamped with the Yankees' logo. Even as a child, Ella had realized what a generous gift that mitt was on her mother's part, and what a triumph of love over preconceived expectations.
You had to give it to her mom, Ella reflected. Mary Petri was an optimist to her core. She had never given up hope that one day her tomboy daughter would see the light and miraculously transform herself into Holly Homemaker. After years of delicate hints, Mary had recently abandoned any attempt at subtlety and now came right out every time they met or spoke on the phone, informing Ella that it was past time for her to get married and start a family. Other women juggled careers and marriage, Mary pointed out. Why couldn't Ella?
Ella had become very good at changing the subject. Her dad, in his own quiet way, must have been equally disappointed with the daughter the adoption agency found for him. Under the pressure of paying the mortgage and putting food on the table, Frank had years ago set aside his dreams of becoming a professional tenor and resigned himself to earning his living as an electrician. But Ella knew how much he loved music, and guessed how he must have yearned for a child who shared his talent for singing and his passion for Italian opera. Unfortunately, what her dad had been blessed with was a daughter with a tin ear for music and a singing voice reminiscent of a bullfrog with laryngitis.
Still, for all their mismatched personalities, Ella had never doubted that her parents loved her, even when she was at the high point of her bratty teenager period. And it had been some high point, Ella reflected. There had been the spiked orange hair phase, the gold ring in her belly button phase, and the memorable weekend when she'd locked the door to her bedroom and painted the walls and ceiling in unrelieved black. Frank and Mary had weathered the dramas with remarkable aplomb, all things considered. They'd even bought her a package of glow-in-the-dark stars to stick on her black ceiling.
Ella glanced at her watch. Nine-thirty. That meant it would be eleven-thirty in Long Island, and much too late to call home. Her parents had always been early to bed and early to rise and now that they were both in their seventies, they got up with the dawn and were often in bed by nine. She would have to remember to call them tomorrow, before she left for work. Thank heaven, for once she didn't have to be at her desk until ten-thirty.
Picking up People magazine, Ella wriggled into a more comfortable position against the sofa cushions, but for some reason not even the article on Brad Pitt, her favorite fantasy hero, could hold her attention. She felt restless, she acknowledged. On the night of Thanksgiving shouldn't she be doing something more exciting, or at least more heartwarming, than vegging out and reading a magazine? She'd always been dedicated to her job, probably in reaction to her mother's firmly held opinion that all the evils of modern civilization could be laid at the door of women who put careers ahead of their families. But, despite her ambition, she'd never expected to find herself at thirty-two years of age, alone in a strange city, devoid of anything that bore even a passing resemblance to a personal life.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Trueblood Christmas by Jasmine Cresswell Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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