Gloria Read online

  Gloria

  Jessica Lynch

  Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Lynch

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Jessica Lynch

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Stay in Touch

  Don’t Trust Me

  Available Now

  About the Author

  Also by Jessica Lynch

  Foreword

  Welcome to Hamlet!

  I’m so excited to share this novella with you all. The holidays have always been my favorite time of year—from Halloween straight through to Christmas, there are so many ways to celebrate—including reading festive holiday book! And, while I brought Christmas to Hamlet—the small town that features in the Hamlet series of mystery/thriller/romance novels I’ve been working on since 2017—with last year’s release, Let Nothing You Dismay, I decided this year to celebrate Christmas without the threat of a drunken Santa Claus abducting a child and ruining the holiday for the townspeople.

  Enter Gloria, an upbeat outsider who is brought to Hamlet just in time for the holidays.

  Because of its setting, it’s loosely part of the Hamlet series. It takes place about four years prior to the first Hamlet book, Don’t Trust Me, and you’ll definitely see a few familiar faces if you’ve read that book.

  If you haven’t, that’s okay, too! I know there’s very little the two have in common, except for the small town, some characters, and the storyteller. Still, I loved the idea of having a sweet romance set in Hamlet, absolutely adored setting it during the holidays. And, don’t worry! I saved all the murder and the lies and the bad guys for the other books in this world ;)

  In Gloria, you can expect a cheery yet kinda pushy heroine, a grumpy yet definitely sweet hero, some delicious ice cream, and a Christmas spirit that just won’t quit even if poor Franklin wished it would.

  Enjoy, and happy holidays!

  xoxo,

  Jessica

  1

  In a burst of inspiration, Gloria decided that a year had too many months in it. Who needed twelve? Eleven sounded much better to her. Even the numerals were nice and tidy. Two ones, like a pair of columns side by side. Perfect.

  She even knew which one could go.

  October.

  Her reasoning behind it was pretty sound, too. Everything bad that ever happened to her, it always seemed to happen in October.

  The fire that stole her home and her parents’ lives when she was only five? October. Breaking her arm after falling off the monkey bars in elementary school? October. Her high school sweetheart deciding that a long-distance relationship wouldn’t work? That was five Octobers ago now and she’d been single ever since.

  Then there was last October. Nana fought breast cancer for close to eight years and Gloria expected another eight at least. Her grandmother was tough, she was strong, and she wouldn’t accept that she was losing the battle until the September night she went to sleep, never to see past October 1st.

  So, yeah. October was the pits.

  Gloria thought she had gotten off easy this October. Sure, she had received a handwritten letter just last week—still firmly October—that informed her that her Great Aunt Patti had unfortunately passed away. Since she didn’t know she’d had a Great Aunt Patti, she wasn’t as sad as she probably should’ve been. It sucked, no doubt, but after burying Nana last year, she was more upset that she’d had one last relative out there that she didn’t know about—and now she didn’t even have that.

  The letter did have some good news in it. As Patricia Hammond’s last of kin, everything she owned went to Gloria. So long as she was willing to come to a small town in the middle of nowhere to hear the will being read, it was all hers.

  Except now, before she could find out what her mysterious great aunt left her, she was about to have a heart attack and keel over herself.

  Of course she was.

  Because it was October.

  All this occurred to her in the split second when she got a good look at the creature that had run straight into her path before she let loose an ear-piercing screech and reacted.

  As she jerked her steering wheel, desperate to avoid the… the thing that just popped out of the trees to the right of her, she was sure of it. October, with its bad news, its scattered leaves, and its Halloween could disappear and she’d be a-okay with it.

  Her frightened scream echoed in the confines of her small car. She slammed her foot on the brakes, something in the engine seizing as she tried to stop and go and get away all at the same time.

  Throat raw from her shriek, Gloria clenched her mouth shut as soon as the car jerked to a sudden stop. Her fingers were clamped so tightly to her steering wheel, it felt like the tips were glued to the fuzzy pink steering wheel cover.

  Her heart beat triple-time in her chest, eyes searching for whatever it was that she almost slammed into.

  Where was it?

  There—

  The creature ran around the front of her car, hands raised. And it was a creature. A monster. Whatever. With bumpy orange skin, wide green eyes, and a black smile, the thing was as horrible at second glance as she first thought.

  As it dashed over to her driver’s side, the creature tore off its face.

  She opened her mouth to scream again—

  A worried boyish-sounding voice washed over her.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

  It hit her an instant later.

  Mask.

  It was a boy, and he was wearing a mask.

  Gloria took a deep breath. The look of pure panic on his pale face was enough to help settle her nerves. Sure, he scared the daylights out of her, but he seemed as if he was even more frightened than she was.

  He wasn’t quite a boy, she realized. She put him at seventeen, maybe eighteen. Definitely old enough to know better than to run into the road without stopping—especially since he was wearing a Halloween mask. Freckles spattered across his pale face, green eyes narrowed in obvious worry. A tuft of messy red hair poked out from beneath the hood of his dark sweatshirt as he peered into Gloria’s driver’s side window.

  She wasn’t the type to yell or scold. Now that her fright was over, Gloria was more concerned that he was okay. She didn’t hit him or anything, did she? It had all happened so fast.

  Rolling her window down so that he could hear her, she said, “Hey? Are you alright?”

  “You’re not Natalie,” he blurted out.

  “Um. No. Sorry.”

  He gulped. “It’s me. I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s my fault. Is your car okay?”

  Good question. The car still had power since she was able to roll her window down, but the whine of her engine was noticeably quiet. It wasn’t a new car—she’d had it since Nana helped her buy it seven years ago when she first got her license—and it could be temperamental at times.

  Gloria turned the car off. Then, with a flick of her wrist and a prayer whispered beneath her breath, she switched the ignition on again. The engine came back to life.

  Thank God.

  He let out a noticeable sigh of relief.

  “No one’s ever on this road,” he added next, as if trying to explain. “I— oh, jeez, I was trying to cut across and spook my cousin. Natalie, okay? She lives on the other side of the trees, over that way.”

  The teen pointed across the road, toward a thick row of trees that sat on the other side. Gloria turned in her seat to look. She could just about make out houses in the distance.

  “She claimed there wasn’t anything to be afraid of on Halloween. I bought this mask down at Jefferson’s to scare her. I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going but, honest, miss, this is like the first car I’ve ever seen on this street during the day. Most of us usually stick to Main.”

  He was babbling. That had to be the adrenaline talking, plus the close call from nearly running headfirst into Gloria’s car. He spoke like he thought she should know what the heck he was going on about.

  She had no clue.

  Gloria didn’t have the heart to say so, though her stomach sank a little at his last comment. Most of us usually stick to Main… yeah, that was a bit of a problem. After she found the hidden exit off the highway, traveled through the narrow path that led into town, bounced over the cobblestone road, and avoided falling into the bottomless pit that sat near the wooden Welcome to Hamlet sign she passed, Gloria thought she made it to Main Street.

  Guess not.

  Crud.

  He took a deep breath, probably to continue in his rambling apology, when Gloria cut him off. “Hey, hey… it’s okay. I’m fine, you’re not hurt, and my car’s still running. No harm, no foul, alright?”

  “I— yeah, I guess. It’s just… I’m so sorry if I scared you. You’re not Natalie.”

  “Yup. We already established that. Not Natalie. My name is Gloria.”

  “Ethan. And, again, I’m so sorry.”

  The teen—Ethan—would keep on apologizing for
as long as she sat there and let him. She could do that, or she could use the local kid’s information to her advantage.

  She had kept the letter she received tossed in the dip of her passenger seat during her morning drive. Even though the envelope looked like it had been through a hurricane—for some weird reason, it had arrived in her mailbox like that—Gloria couldn’t throw it out. To meet with her great aunt’s lawyer, she needed to follow very specific directions.

  It wasn’t about what she would have to do to earn the hefty inheritance that Great Aunt Patti supposedly left her, either. The small town where her great aunt had lived was so remote, so hidden, the only way to find it was with the help of one of the locals. Gloria thought the lawyer—Sadie Oliver, according to the letter—was exaggerating but, after an hour’s search through Google came up empty, she conceded that maybe Hamlet was as tucked away as the lawyer said.

  She thought she was on Main Street, but there had been no way for her to know for sure. Even though she’d only been driving for about ten minutes, one thing she noticed was that, apart from the welcome sign out front, there were no other directions. No street signs. No landmarks. Just a couple of scattered houses, a bunch of trees, and, now, Ethan.

  So she hadn’t found Main. That was fine. The instructions called for her to find her way to a particular spot where she would meet up with her great aunt’s lawyer.

  She could still do that.

  Without taking her attention off of the kid, she reached out and grabbed Sadie Oliver’s letter. Flipping the sheet open, she waved it so that Ethan could see, then glanced at it herself.

  “Know what? You can make it up to me by helping me find something called”—Gloria scanned the neat script on the page—“the coffeehouse.” She blinked. “Really? No name? How am I supposed to know which coffee place she’s talking about?”

  She didn’t mean to add that second part out loud. It’s just... that was exactly what it said on the sheet.

  ...go down Main, head into the heart of town, find the coffeehouse, park along the side, and tell Addy you need her to buzz me…

  Hamlet might be small—and the welcome sign out front proudly boasted a population of 190—but what were the chances that it only had one coffee shop?

  Ethan rubbed his nose, drawing Gloria’s attention back to the smattering of freckles that spread across his cheeks. He was still embarrassed, but he wanted to make up for the near-crash by being helpful. “Of course. Everyone knows the coffeehouse.”

  “So you can tell me how to get there?”

  “Sure thing. It’s about a half-hour on foot, less than that with your car.” Lining up against her open window, Ethan crouched so that she could see which way he was pointing. “Head straight down. About a half a mile down, you’ll see a fork in the road. Left takes you toward the middle of the village. That’s where you’re gonna see all the main shops: Jefferson’s, the beauty shop, the station house. When you see the big oak with the blue ribbon, make a right. The coffeehouse will be on your left-hand side. You won’t be able to miss it on account of all the cars parked out front.”

  Halfway through Ethan’s explanation, Gloria pulled a pen out of her glove box, scribbling notes on the worn envelope. She rattled them off when he was done, double-checking that she got them right, nodding when he gave her a thumb’s up.

  “You’ve been a big help, Ethan. I appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure, Miss. And I just want to say, one more time, I’m real sorry about spooking you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Actually, I’m glad I ran into you—well, not ran, ‘cause that would’ve been terrible… you know what I mean.”

  Ethan chuckled. “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for the directions.”

  “Enjoy the coffee. My mom says it’s the best in town.”

  “I will. Happy Halloween.”

  “You, too. Welcome to Hamlet!” he told her, finally flashing a grin before pulling his mask back on and loping off into the trees again.

  She had to give the kid credit. He might have just missed causing her a heart attack, and her car was wobbling a bit after the way she jerked her steering wheel, but at least he gave her easy-to-follow instructions. Within fifteen minutes, she was pulling up alongside a structure that she hoped was the infamous coffeehouse.

  When he told her that she’d know it by the cars parked out front, Gloria wondered if she’d find a spot for her old car. Turned out, that wasn’t a problem at all. While it was probably busy by Hamlet standards, there were only three vehicles lined up outside of a large Victorian house that—while it matched a lot of the other homes she passed on her ride through town—didn’t look like any kind of coffee shop she’d ever seen before.

  It wasn’t even just one house, either. The big house closer to the road was tall and spindly, with railings and turrets. The one hidden just behind it seemed almost like a greenhouse, only with the same Victorian-style facade as the other. A wooden sign, similar to the wooden one welcoming visitors to Hamlet, hung over the front door.

  It said, in a loopy, blue script: the coffeehouse.

  Okay, then.

  There might not have been that many cars out front, but the inside of the cozy shop was fuller than she expected. At least half of the tables and booths were filled, and each head turned in her direction when she walked in.

  Gloria paused, lingering in the doorway.

  “Hey, there!”

  The waitress who called out a greeting was a plain-faced woman in her mid-thirties. She wore her honey-blonde hair twisted in a knot high on her head, two pens tucked into the hairdo. A burgundy apron sat neatly against her waist.

  Like everyone else in the restaurant, she looked up when she heard the tinkling bell that rang out as Gloria entered. Her light brown eyes had lit up when she spied Gloria walking through the door. As she crossed the floor to greet her, Gloria noticed that she seemed to be beaming with excitement.

  The name tag pinned to the left side of her chest said her name was Adrianna. She widened her arm in greeting as she gestured around her.

  “Welcome to the coffeehouse. You want to take a seat? Here.” Adrianna paused, then bustled away, reaching for a laminated sheet tucked by the register. “Today’s menu. For Halloween, we’ve got pumpkin pie, pumpkin scones, pumpkin muffins, and some apple cider donuts to go with your coffee.”

  Gesturing for Gloria to follow her, Adrianna continued, “If you’re looking for lunch, the main house will be pushing out orders by noon. You’re new here, right?”

  “Um. Yes. First time.”

  “Figured. Any rate, that’s just fine. We welcome everyone at the coffeehouse. Outsider or local, most of us run on caffeine, eh?”

  As Gloria slid into the booth Adrianna led her to, she couldn’t help but wonder if the waitress was sampling the goods. Sure, she was super friendly, but she seemed a little wired, too.

  “Anyway, I’m Addy. This is my place so, if you need anything from me, you just ask. Gus… that’s my husband… he’s the one cooking up the hot meals in the main house. You’ll see the list of specials on the menu right here.” Adrianna—Addy—slid the menu in front of Gloria. She tapped her pointer finger toward a line near the bottom. “I recommend the chili. It’s been simmering since sun-up. Chill’s coming in early this year and you can’t go wrong with that.”

  She was right. Gloria noticed that the wind had picked up a little since she crossed into the small town. Her blonde curls had whipped around her face, smearing her light pink gloss as the wind caused the strands to get stuck to her lips. She’d worn a long-sleeve shirt when she set out that morning and, even on the short dash from her car to the coffeehouse’s front door, she wished she’d brought a coat.

  That thought in mind, she made an executive decision. She was supposed to meet her great aunt’s lawyer, but she’d left her apartment with barely any breakfast, got lost and turned the one-hour drive into one that took more than two, then nearly crashed into a teenaged hobgoblin. She deserved some chili.