by Frankie Love
“That’s not the reaction I expected,” he says.
“Me neither,” I manage between hiccups. “I’m just--I just didn’t know how I was going to manage being a wife and mother and performing, and I’m so lucky that I keep getting opportunities like this.”
“You deserve them all, my love,” Matt says, and kisses me on the cheek.
“Mama, why cry?” Joy looks at me pointedly, her pink lips pouting in an exaggerated frown.
I laugh and pick her up. “Happy cry, baby,” I say, pressing my lips to her smooth forehead.
I get my paycheck and we head back home. I still feel like I’m on cloud nine. How could life get any better than this? I wonder. Then, I realize that I know the answer.
“Matt,” I say, tugging on his hand for him to stop walking. Joy is fast asleep in her stroller, worn out from the morning’s activities.
He looks at me, and the sunlight sparkling in his bluer-than-blue eyes still makes my breath catch. “What’s up?”
“I have something to tell you,” I say, grabbing his hands.
He raises a brow. “Is it a good something?”
I giggle. “A great something. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure, but I took another test this morning, and… well, I’m pregnant again.”
His eyes widen almost comically, and he cups my face with his hands. “Really?” he breathes.
I nod, feeling another wave of tears prickling at my eyes. I’ll blame it on the early-pregnancy hormones. “Really really.”
Matt grins and gathers me into his arms. We stand like this for a while, swaying gently back and forth, as the sun shines overhead and our beautiful daughter naps peacefully in her stroller. I wish I could capture this moment and live in it forever, but I know, too, that the future will be better than I can even imagine.
Matt kisses me gently. “I love you, Mrs. Mistletoe,” he whispers against my lips.
“I love you, too,” I say. I place a hand on my belly, already excited to meet our future son or daughter, already excited to grow our beautiful, perfect family and our beautiful, perfect life. I take Matt’s hand, and he grabs the stroller. “Now let’s go home.”
THE END
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Spencer by Tracy Lorraine
Chapter One
Gabriella
“They’ve really never met before?” The words of one of my late-night customers float down to me and spark my interest.
Glancing up from where I’m wiping down a table, I notice both women staring at a wedding photo on one of their cell phones.
“Nope. She just decided that after her latest relationship disaster that she’d put her life in the hands of an expert.”
“They look so happy. So… perfect.”
I move closer to them, cleaning a table that’s already clean so I can hear better.
“Yep, you’d never believe they’d just met.”
“I thought mail-order brides was such an old-fashioned thing.”
“Apparently not. Loads seem to do it. There are a ton of websites. Google it, you’ll be amazed. Excuse me, dear,” she says, noticing that I’m in hearing distance. “Any chance of a refill?” she asks, holding her mug up.
“Oh, of course. I’m so sorry.” I hurry off to grab the pot, but the conversation I just overheard continues to run through my head.
A new group of customers descends on the diner I work in, stopping me from eavesdropping on the mail-order bride business, but I’m more than intrigued.
I’ve wanted to get out of New York from almost the moment I arrived. Having a husband waiting for me at the other end of wherever sounds a lot more appealing than I’m sure it should.
Once I’m finished for the night, I drag my purse from my locker, the envelope my mother gave me this morning poking out the top, making my shoulders drop.
She only wants the best for me. That’s all she’s ever wanted. It’s just a shame we don’t share the same vision.
She wants me to use my newly acquired degree to take the publishing world by storm. I, however, dream of the small town of my childhood and spending my days writing romance in a window seat, staring out at the mountains in the distance.
With a sigh, I drag my purse over my shoulder and set about heading home.
“Gabriella, is that you?” Mom calls the second I close the front door on the penthouse apartment we share.
“Yeah, Mom.” Who else would it be?
After kicking off my shoes, I walk toward where she is.
“Good night?”
“I guess,” I mutter, heading for the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.
“Did you get a chance to look at that job opportunity I found?”
“Not yet, no,” I moan.
“Well, you need to hurry. Opportunities like that don’t come around every day. If you waste any time applying, then you might lose out.”
I roll my eyes at her. I’m sure it’s a perfectly good job, but I already know without pulling the papers out that it’s a perfectly good job for someone else.
“I’m going to take a shower and I’ll take a look,” I lie.
“Good. If you want me to proofread your application, just give me a shout.”
“Sure thing.”
Without waiting to see if she has anything else to say, I spin on my heels and hotfoot it to my bedroom.
It should feel like home, but it doesn’t. My body might be here in the city, but I left my heart behind in that small town in Montana.
I run my fingers over the couple of photographs I’ve got on display from my time there.
One of us as a family before everything went to hell. Another of me and Spencer playing in the snow one winter.
My heart aches as I think of him. My oldest friend. My best friend. Right up until the day I left, I thought he was it for me. I could practically see our future in my mind. Our perfect winter wedding, our house, the one I’d always loved on Snowflake Lane, with a couple of kids running around.
A noise from outside the window drags me from my memory. Things were so easy in Snow Valley. It was probably because I was just a kid without the stresses of real life, but I’d give anything to go back there.
I shower as I said I would, but instead of pulling out the job description, I pull up Google on my cell phone and do a search just like my customer suggested.
I scroll down the page a little until one catches my eye.
Mail-Order Brides for Christmas.
Intrigued, I open up the webpage and before I know it, I’ve filled out the application signing me up to be a bride.
I hate my life here. What’s the worst that could happen?
I look down at the red rose in my trembling hand and wonder what the hell I’m doing.
When I woke the morning after filling out the application, I’d mostly forgotten all about my impulsive decision to apply. The last thing I was expecting a few weeks later was a phone call from a Holly Huckleberry telling me that she’d found me a match.
I thought it was a spam call to start with and was about to hang up on her until she said six words that had me on full alert.
“He lives in Snow Valley, Montana.”
I damn near dropped the phone.
She refused to tell me any more than to explain that I was to get on an airplane this morning and to
be holding a red rose when I walked out into arrivals.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I walk alongside the other passengers from the plane we just disembarked toward my future husband.
My heart races, my skin feels like ice, yet inside I’m burning up.
This could be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
Or it could be the best.
Blowing out a slow breath in the hope it calms me even just a little, I continue forward, my eyes darting everywhere, waiting for him to spot me, to get my first look at my future.
As I step out, everything around me starts to blur, the lights becoming brighter than they really are, and I’m forced to stop in order to get myself together.
I focus on the tiles beneath my feet for a few seconds as I slow my breathing, and when I look up, I lock on to one pair of eyes.
A pair of eyes I remember so well. They’re almost as familiar as my own.
But they’re different.
I don’t see the happy-go-lucky boy from my past within them.
All I see is anger. Hate. Dark shadows that never used to be there.
I stumble back in shock. On one hand, I feel like I’ve just come home, and seeing his face only makes it seem that much more real, but at the same time, I feel like he’s a stranger when not so long ago he was the person who knew me better than anyone.
“S-Spencer?” I stutter, almost thinking that I’m seeing things and that it’s not him before me.
His eyes bore into mine. Not so long ago, I’d have been able to read all his thoughts. But his walls are up too high for me even to attempt to scale them right now.
“Let’s go.” His rough voice slams into me like a freaking truck. It’s so deep, so gravelly, so… sexy.
Spencer was always hot, but we were just kids back then. His frame was thinner, his face less defined. But the man he’s turned into… whoa.
His hand wraps around my upper arm, his fingers digging into my skin painfully and he pulls me from my frozen position in the middle of the arrivals area.
“Uh… I… uh… can’t. I’m meeting some…” He looks back at me, his knowing eyes narrowing as they hold mine for a second before dropping to the rose in my hand. “No,” I gasp. “You?”
“Let’s. Go,” he repeats.
I stumble along behind him, my brain too busy trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
Part of coming back here was so I could see him again. But I never expected him to be the one waiting for me. To be my future husband.
Despite his attitude toward me, I can’t help the butterflies taking flight in my belly.
I really have just come home.
Chapter Two
Spencer
Our mother has had some hair-brained plans over the years, but to order my brothers and I brides for Christmas, that really takes the cake. I get what she’s trying to do. I love this little town as much as the next resident, but I’m really not sure this is the best way to go about saving it.
I’ll never forget the looks on my brothers’ faces when she dropped the bomb and told us to expect our beloveds to turn up over the coming days.
She’s always been a romantic, it’s probably got something to do with all the sappy romance novels she’s addicted to, but to actually believe that this is going to be okay, she really must have faith in love.
I, however, like to think I’m a little more of a realist.
Love exists, I can’t deny that.
It’s incredible, exhilarating, life-changing. All the things everyone tells you it is. But when you give your heart to someone, you’re trusting that they’re going to look after it. And when they don’t… fuck, that shit hurts.
No one warns you what that’s like. And even if they did. You can never be prepared for it.
I tried not to think of the woman I’d been matched with. I knew that if I did, I’d only imagine one person.
Golden blond hair. Clear blue eyes that disarmed me every time I looked into them. Full lips, rosy cheeks, and a smile that knocked me on my ass even before I understood the power she had over me.
I knew it was futile. The woman who was going to be standing at the airport with a single red rose as requested would never be her. She left. Walked away without so much as a glance back in my direction.
If it weren’t for my family—for my mom—then I’d have walked out of that arrivals area only moments after I’d arrived. It was only the thought of seeing her so happy, knowing that she saved our town, that kept my feet rooted to the spot.
Nerves assaulted me as I stood among the crowd waiting to see the woman who would be carrying not only a single red rose—the only thing that popped into my head when the woman at the mail-order bride company asked how I’d like to be able to identify my bride when she arrived—but my future.
I shake my head, internally laughing as I say the words mail-order bride to myself.
How is this my life right now?
I was happy working all the hours I could get and banging a snow bunny from the slopes when I found one that interested me. Hell, she didn’t even really need to interest me, I wasn’t exactly choosy.
Yet here I am, waiting for my soon-to-be wife.
Wife.
There’s only ever been one woman I thought could possibly be that to me. Only one who ever held my heart.
Yeah, we were young, and I know people—my brothers especially—thought I was crazy, acting like it was so serious when we were only in high school, but it was. She was my world and the day she walked away it crumbled down around my feet.
My heart is in my throat as people start to emerge. I ignore any men that appear and focus on the women, wondering if any of them are her and she had forgotten the rose.
My chest heaves and my palms begin to sweat the longer I have to wait. The idea of walking away is forgotten, I’m too focused on seeing who my perfect match is.
The seconds tick by as if they’re hours as I stand there. The world around me vanishes to nothing as I stare at the opening where the passengers come from, but that is nothing compared to what happens when my eyes land on that single rose.
My stomach turns, I have no idea if it’s just the nerves, fear, or a little excitement.
I take a second, my eyes locked on that flower before I suck in some courage and lift them.
She’s wearing a simple white sweater that is tight enough to reveal her curves and the swell of her breasts. It’s not until I get to the curled blond hair that’s hanging around her shoulders that things start to go wrong—or very, very right, depending on how you look at it.
My heart races, but I’m pretty sure I stop breathing as I continue up and find what my head was already telling me.
It’s her.
Gabriella.
Suddenly I’m a seventeen-year-old boy once again, only it’s not the feelings of love, of contentment, of security, that hit me as I stare at her. It’s the anger, the hate, the devastation I felt as she turned her back on me and embarked on a new life that runs through my veins.
It’s that fury that has my feet moving, closing the space between us where she’s stopped, while I keep my eyes locked on her shocked ones.
“S-Spencer?” she stutters as if she can’t really be seeing me.
But she is, I’m standing right here staring at the woman who ruined me.
She’s no longer the slim girl I remember so well, but a stunning curvaceous woman who makes my heart beat that little bit faster.
My head and heart duel as she remains motionless in front of me. My head remembers the pain, my heart remembers how good things once were. The war within pisses me off. My heart pisses me off. I’ve spent the past five years trying to convince myself that she didn’t care, that she didn’t love me the way I did her because she didn’t fight for us. Not once.
“Let’s go.” My deep, haunted voice shocks me, but it expresses exactly how I feel.
Reaching out, I wrap my fingers around her upper ar
m, my grip too tight but my ability to control myself left the minute I saw her.
I drag her behind me, ensuring she can’t say anything. We collect her luggage and I take her straight out to the parking lot.
Part of me screams that I should throw her back on a plane and ship her back where she came from. But then I see my mom. I remember the excitement in her eyes as she explained this plan to us, told us about our early Christmas presents. Then my memory flicks back to my time with Gabby. Us as kids playing in our back yards, the day I looked at her and saw something different, our first kiss.
Motherfucker.
Ripping the passenger door open, I practically throw her inside and slam the door shut behind her.
My heart pounds in my chest as my head desperately tries to make sense of all this.
She’s here.
She was the one holding the rose.
She was the one sent for me.
Why?
Why her?
I throw her luggage in the trunk before pacing back and forth in the lot for a few minutes too long.
I feel her eyes on me in the mirror as I move and it irritates the hell out of me that even after all these years, I’m still so aware of her, that my body is still in tune with hers and what she’s doing.
Stopping, I lift my hands to my hair and sweep it back from my face before marching toward the driver’s door and dropping down into the seat.
“Spenc, I—”
“Not now,” I bark. She flinches at my cold tone and I instantly regret it. But looking at her, it makes all those old feelings of betrayal I felt after she left come flooding back as if it only happened yesterday.
It was five years ago, but the pain of her leaving has never left me.
I guess that’s what happens when you love someone the way I did her. When they leave, they take a piece of you with them that you’ll never get back.
