Noel Street Read online

  “Other way, partner,” my father said.

  Dylan turned it around.

  “It’s a Stetson. That’s the real McCoy.”

  “That’s really too much, Dad.”

  “No,” he said, winking at me. “It’s not.”

  After we’d opened the last present, my father said, “I got one more thing for you, Miche.”

  “You got me enough already,” I replied.

  “Now don’t be difficult,” he said, standing. “It’s just one more thing. But try as I might, I couldn’t get it through the door, so I left it outside. Come on, Dylan. I have something outside for you too.”

  “Is mine too big to come in the house too?”

  “Well, yours can’t come inside for other reasons,” he said.

  We followed my father out the side door. Sitting beneath the covered driveway was a brand-new cherry-red Valiant.

  “It’s the Valiant Regal sedan, six-cylinder, four-speed,” he said, sounding almost like a TV commercial. “American made, of course. One of Chrysler’s best new cars of the year.”

  “It’s beautiful.” I hugged my father. “Thank you so much, Dad…”

  “Is that our new car?” Dylan asked.

  “It sure is,” I said.

  “Can I tell Albert?”

  “You can tell anyone you want,” I said.

  “Open the door, girl,” my father said. “Nothing like the smell of a new car.”

  I opened the door and looked inside. It was gorgeous.

  “Can I get in?” Dylan asked.

  “Of course.”

  He jumped inside the front seat, falling back in the bucket seat. He turned to me. “It kind of stinks.”

  I smiled. “It’s the new car smell. You’ll learn to like it.”

  “Have you ever seen a Valiant?” my father asked.

  “Funny you should ask. I drove an older model a few weeks ago. While they were fixing the Fairlane.” I smiled. “Everyone kept telling me it was sexy.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but it’s a solid car and brand-spanking new, right off the dealership floor.”

  “You bought it off the dealership floor? Whatever happened to don’t buy retail?”

  “You remembered,” he said, smiling. “Well, I still hold to the maxim. I didn’t buy it at retail. I bought it from my own dealership.”

  “You own a car dealership?”

  “Two of them: one in Cedar, the other in St. George. Both Plymouth-Chryslers. They’re doing well, too. Some of those Japanese cars coming into the market have pilfered a few sales, but I don’t think they’ll last. They don’t make them like we do here in America.”

  “Now what do I do with the Fairlane?”

  “I’ll take it off your hands. Maybe we’ll keep it in the barn. Who knows, might be a collector’s piece someday.” He turned to Dylan. “Speaking of the barn, I got one more present to give.”

  The three of us walked out to the stable. My father walked up to one of the stalls. A quarter horse mare put her head over the gate and nuzzled him.

  “Oh, I love you too, Summer,” he said, kissing her on the head and rubbing her neck. He turned around. “Dylan, come here for a second.”

  Dylan walked up behind my father. He’d never been near a real horse and was a little scared.

  “No need to worry,” my father said to Dylan. “This here is Summer. She’s a mama horse, and just six months ago she gave birth to a baby colt. Can you see him back there?”

  There was a beautiful bay roan colt with a black mane and a star on its nose. “What do you think of him?”

  “He’s cool,” Dylan said.

  “Well, I’m glad you think that, because he’s yours.”

  “That’s my horse?”

  “He sure is.”

  Dylan turned to me. “Can I have him?”

  “That’s between you and Grandpa,” I said. “He gave him to you.”

  “Yes!” Dylan said. He turned back to my father. “What’s his name?”

  “Well. He doesn’t have one. He was waiting for you to name him.”

  “Can I call him Mr. William?” Dylan asked.

  I swallowed. “You can call him anything you like.”

  My father winked at me. “You might want to think about it for a while,” he said to Dylan. “A name is something you want to give a lot of thought to. Let’s just call him ‘Horse’ for now.”

  “Okay,” Dylan said.

  Thank you, I mouthed to my father.

  “Well, let’s get back inside before someone catches pneumonia. I’ve got breakfast to make.” He said to Dylan, “Would you mind going with your mom to the hen house and grabbing us a few eggs? A half dozen ought to do. There’s a basket for the eggs right next to the door you walk in.”

  Dylan nodded. “Will you help me, Mama?”

  “Of course.”

  It was my father’s Christmas Day tradition to make us whatever we wanted for breakfast. He looked like he had bought out the local grocery store just to make sure he had everything we might ask for. He made waffles for Dylan, of course, with strawberries and whipped cream, two kinds of sausages, bacon, biscuits, ham-and-pepper omelets, and gravy. It was kind of obscene how much food he made. It was obscene how much I ate.

  After breakfast my father started doing the dishes.

  I walked up to his side. “I can do that, Dad. You’ve worked all morning.”

  “No. You play with your son.”

  “Trust me, he’s played enough with me. I think he needs some Grandpa time.”

  As I was doing the dishes the doorbell rang. “Miche, would you mind getting that?” my father shouted from the living room. “Dylan has me all tied up here. Literally.”

  “Sure, Dad,” I said, wiping my hands with a dishcloth. “I can’t believe how many friends you have.”

  “You know how it is. They’re like crows. I try to scare them away, but they keep coming back.”

  “It’s probably another one of your lady friends.”

  I walked to the front door and opened it.

  William stood in the doorway. I looked at him for a moment, then said, “What took you so long?”

  CHAPTER thirty-three

  Fate’s pen has rewritten more than one ending.

  —Elle Sheen’s Diary

  After kissing me soundly, William stood back and laughed.

  “You were really expecting me to come back?”

  “No, I didn’t expect,” I said, borrowing my father’s words. “I hoped.”

  He looked in my eyes. “What gave you hope?”

  “Two reasons. First, you talked with my father. My father’s a smart man. He would have figured out pretty quickly that there was something between us.” I smiled. “And if there’s one thing about my father, the man’s a fixer. He can fix anything. Tractors, dishwashers, windmills. Even relationships.”

  “I’ll give him that,” he said. “What’s the second?”

  “You love me.”

  * * *

  New Year’s Eve was the sixth anniversary of Isaac’s death. The day was even more powerful to William. It was the day he had watched his friend die. It was the same day he’d been taken captive. Today it represented the opposite. It represented a new life and freedom.

  It was shortly after midnight. My father had put Dylan to bed and then said good night and went to bed himself, leaving William and me alone on the couch. The room was lit by a single light in the kitchen.

  I snuggled into his arms. “Do you believe in the spiritual law of restitution?” I asked.

  He kissed me on the temple, then asked, “What’s that?”

  “It’s the belief that everything we lose in this life will be returned to us in the next.”

  He pondered my question and then said, “I don’t know.” He pulled me in tighter. “But I know one thing about loss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Whether we lose something or not, it’s better to have had it.”

/>   EPILOGUE

  Some own up to their past. Some are owned by their past. The wise take what they can from the past and then leave it behind.

  —Elle Sheen’s Diary

  On William’s and my first date I told him that I’d like to write a book someday. Here it is. At least here’s part one. My life isn’t over.

  In spite of my rent being paid for the year, less than a month later Dylan and I moved back home to Cedar City. Saying goodbye to Loretta, Fran, Jamie, and the rest of the regulars at the diner was excruciating, with an ocean of tears, even though I reminded them that I was just moving down the road. It was a long road, but the same one passed through both towns.

  Loretta shut down the diner and threw a big going-away shindig for us. My dad and William were there. Against William’s advice, I tried to hook Loretta up with my father. I figured it would be like having two people I love in the same house. It didn’t take. William was right. She would have driven my father crazy. And vice versa.

  William and I were married in April, the same month Isaac and I had been. He took a job in the service department of my father’s Cedar City car dealership. In less than a year he was managing the place. I believe that was my father’s plan all along. I asked him if it was what he was expecting. He smiled and said, “Expecting, no. I just hoped.”

  As my father’s health deteriorated, he turned more of the responsibility of running the dealerships over to William and me, opting to spend as much time with his grandson as he could.

  My father taught Dylan to ride horses and motorcycles and tractors and pretty much anything else on his farm that moved. They went on many long rides on their horses, sometimes even overnighters with tents and packs. My father became as good a grandfather as a boy could hope for. Many times, at least when he was feeling sentimental, he told me how he regretted the years that he’d missed in our lives. But if you ask me, he made up for it and then some.

  My father bravely fought his cancer like the soldier he was. The six months the doctors gave him ended up being almost six years. The doctors called it miraculous. I just think he finally had something to live for. That’s something we can all understand.

  My father passed away five years and thirty-five days after he found us that winter in Mistletoe. His death was Dylan’s first real lesson in grief and it was painful to watch. I suffered with him. But I was grateful for every one of those days I got with my father. Like I once told William, “The cost of love is the risk of losing it.” But it’s always worth it. After all, in the end, what else is there?

  My father willed everything to William and me. William was shrewd in business and today we own six car dealerships; three in Utah, two in Nevada, and one in Colorado. It’s hard to believe I was once so poor. Now we have the chance to help and bless others. It’s nice being on that side of the menu too.

  Dylan graduated from Arizona State, where he met a lovely woman and was married shortly after graduating with an MBA. Today he owns a BMW and a Porsche dealership in Phoenix. He even likes the smell of new cars.

  William and I have since retired. We have been traveling a lot. A year ago we took a vacation to Vietnam. It was a powerful experience for both of us. The “Hanoi Hilton,” where William was held, was mostly demolished twenty years after the war, but not all of it. Today, the existing structure operates as a museum and memorial. Propaganda inside the museum shows pictures of happy inmates shooting pool and playing cards, and claims that the term Hanoi Hilton was coined by happy, well-cared-for inmates. William said little as we walked through the site.

  Two days later, William took me to where Isaac fell, next to the waterfall. I was surprised that, after all these years, he could still find it, but I shouldn’t have been. War is about logistics and how do you forget what is unforgettable? I was wearing Isaac’s ring as I knelt on the ground and wept for my love and thanked him for my new love. How different it must have seemed to me than to William. To an outsider, the land was beautiful and lush and full of life. I suppose time has changed and healed the country, just as it has us.

  William and I now spend our winters in Arizona, blessed with our three beautiful grandchildren. William is restoring my grandpa’s old Fairlane with Seth, our oldest grandson. Life is good. God is good.

  As I look back over that year it’s amazing to me to see how so unexpectedly life can switch tracks to a new destination. But the complexity of those junctions are far too great to assign to the cogs and machinations of mere chance and circumstance.

  Maybe that’s why I’ve always thought of God less as an engineer than as an artist—one who uses our hopes, fears, dreams, and especially our tears, to paint on the canvas of our souls, rendering something beautiful. The hardest part, I suppose, is waiting to see what He’s up to.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I wish to thank my new editor, Lauren McKenna, for her clever insight, charming personality, and commitment to this book. Noel Street is better because of you. Also, a sincere thank-you to her amazing sidekick, Maggie Loughran, who always makes Lauren look good. Thank you to Jen Bergstrom and the whole Gallery team. I’m excited to be working with you.

  As always, I’m grateful to my adorable and patient wife, Keri. Also to my agent, Laurie Liss; my assistant, Heather McVey, for her years of service; and Diane Glad, who retyped every correction I made.

  More from this Series

  The Noel Stranger

  The Noel Diary

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Richard Paul Evans is the #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box and the Michael Vey series. Each of his more than thirty-five novels has been a New York Times bestseller. There are more than thirty million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into more than twenty-four languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Mothers Book Award, the Romantic Times Best Women’s Novel of the Year Award, the German Audience Gold Award for Romance, four Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Awards, the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award, and the Volunteers of America Empathy Award. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, not far from their five children and two grandchildren. You can learn more about Richard on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RPEfans or read his blog at www.richardpaulevans.com.

  FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:

  SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Richard-Paul-Evans

  SimonandSchuster.com

  Facebook.com/GalleryBooks

  @GalleryBooks

  ALSO BY RICHARD PAUL EVANS

  The Mistletoe Collection

  The Mistletoe Promise

  The Mistletoe Inn

  The Mistletoe Secret

  The Noel Collection

  The Noel Diary

  The Noel Stranger

  The Walk Series

  The Walk

  Miles to Go

  The Road to Grace

  A Step of Faith

  Walking on Water

  The Broken Road Trilogy

  The Broken Road

  The Forgotten Road

  The Road Home

  The Four Doors

  A Winter Dream

  Lost December

  Promise Me

  The Christmas List

  Grace

  The Gift

  Finding Noel

  The Sunflower

  A Perfect Day

  The Last Promise

  The Christmas Box Miracle

  The Carousel

  The Looking Glass

  The Locket

  The Letter

  Timepiece

  The Christmas Box

  For Children and Young Adults

  The Dance

  The Christmas Candle

  The Spyglass

  The Tower

  The Light of Christmas

  Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

  Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgen

  Michael Vey 3: Battle of the Ampere

  Michael Vey 4: Hunt for Jade Dragon

 
Michael Vey 5: Storm of Lightning

  Michael Vey 6: Fall of Hades

  Michael Vey 7: The Final Spark

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

  Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

  An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Richard Paul Evans

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Gallery Books hardcover edition November 2019

  GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Interior design by Erika Genova

  Jacket photography by Shutterstock; Getty