Merry Ever After

by Vi Keeland, Penelope Ward, Lucy Score, Marie Force, Tijan, Kennedy Ryan

  He opened my door and plucked me off the seat. He had me on my feet on the snowy sidewalk supported by a swarthy arm around my waist.

  “You really don’t have to go inside with me,” I insisted. “Everyone’s overreacting. I’m fine.” As I said it, my right knee gave out, and I would have gone down if it hadn’t been for his arm holding me to his side.

  “Do me a favor, babe.” His voice was low, gruff.

  My feet shuffled toward the clinic’s automatic door as he took more of my weight. “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  He sounded pissed off, which was more emotion than I’d managed to pry out of him on the northeast leg of the tour.

  I couldn’t blame him. Spending Christmas Eve at urgent care was a special kind of depressing. Kind of like spending it at a strip club. Besides, he had better things to do than make sure I wasn’t concussed. The entire band was flying back to the West Coast tonight for a few days off before kicking off the final leg of their farewell tour.

  Everyone stared at us when we walked into the waiting room. It had nothing to do with my head wound. Vonn, still wearing his Santa coat over a low-cut black tank that did everything for his muscles and ink, was the attention grabber.

  A nurse practically galloped out from behind the desk. “Mr. Barlowe, your manager called ahead; you two can follow me.”

  I glanced around the waiting room. There was a harried mother with a toddler who was vomiting into a bucket. An elderly man mid-coughing fit was sandwiched between what I guessed were his two worried adult sons. On the other side of the room was a twenty-something guy wearing sunglasses and lying across three chairs. Holiday hangover, I guessed.

  Vonn steered me toward the door the nurse was holding for us.

  “I don’t think I should jump to the head of the line,” I hissed.

  He stopped and stared down at me. “Babe, you’ve got a bleeding head wound. Trust me, you’re priority.”

  My fingers flew to the bandage on my forehead and I felt the dampness through the gauze. Gross.

  The mom with the barfing kid was holding up her phone, mouth agape, and taking pictures of us. The thing about Sonic Arcade was they weren’t as big as, say, AC/DC, but they’d been reasonably popular for thirty years. And the older he got, the hotter Vonn got. He wasn’t the most gregarious member of the band by a long shot, but he was easily the sexiest.

  As annoyed as I was by him, I knew he valued his privacy and would hate being splashed all over social media.

  “Ugh. Fine. Let’s get this over with,” I grumbled.

  He waited outside the exam room while I stripped and donned the scratchy gown. I expected him to stay in the hall since the medical staff were less likely to act like lovestruck fans, but when the doctor entered the room, Vonn was right behind her.

  “Okay, Mrs. Zimmerman—”

  “Ms.,” Vonn corrected. He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. My body felt a slow burning fire as his piercing blue gaze traveled my body from head wound to purple toenails.

  “Of course, sorry,” the doctor said, shooting me a tiny smile under her purple framed glasses. “Ms. Zimmerman. According to this you were injured at a concert.”

  “I was an unintended victim of the mosh pit,” I explained, bracing for the “old enough to know better” judgment. Vonn was still staring at me with an unreadable expression on his stupid gorgeous face.

  “What?” I mouthed at him.

  He shrugged. But his mouth curved ever so slightly.

  “We’ve all been there,” the doctor said, surprising me. “Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with.” Her competent fingers went to work on peeling back the tape on my forehead while Vonn’s blue eyes blazed into mine.

  Mark: Sorry for the vanishing act. Had to sit in on an emergency call with the board. You can find a ride home, right?

  “Where’s home?”

  I glanced up from the text I’d only just seen. “Sorry?”

  “Home,” Vonn repeated.

  “You don’t—”

  “Brooke, if you say ‘you don’t have to’ one more time, I’m gonna make you regret it,” he announced with a simmering look that made my knees press together involuntarily.

  “Bossy,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Deal with it. Here,” he said, thrusting a bottle of water at me.

  When I accepted it, he dug into his front pocket and pulled out a small bottle of pills. “Extra-strength Tylenol. Doc’s orders.” I watched him thumb off the lid and pour two tablets into his palm.

  I wasn’t too proud to admit I had an obsession with the man’s hands. Not just because they knew their way around a bass but because there was something dexterous, competent about the way his hands did everything.

  He watched me down the pills, then flicked on the wipers to clear the snow from the windshield.

  The snow wasn’t just “coming down,” it was dumping. This was a legitimate blizzard. The idea of having to shovel tomorrow with a battered, middle-aged body was not a happy one.

  Vonn took the water from me, helped himself to a healthy swig, then returned it to the cup holder. “Home,” he said again.

  I sighed. “Turn left out of the lot.”

  The man might’ve been a pain in the ass, but he had turned on my seat warmer. The radio was playing an old Nat King Cole favorite. The headlights panned over a veritable winter wonderland dotted with festive Christmas lights.

  My phone buzzed with a text alert.

  Michelle: How was your stint as a groupie? Did you get any of the guys naked? Never mind. Save it for brunch! Day after Christmas. Love you!

  My best friend and neighbor, Michelle, always made me laugh. She was wildly inappropriate for a mother of three and a real estate agent.

  Me: Not much to tell. But I can make something up over Bloody Marys. Try not to be too hungover for Christmas morning!

  I stowed my phone in my jacket pocket and stared through the windshield. “You’re pretty good at handling the snow for a California guy,” I noted as Vonn expertly maneuvered around a slick corner.

  “I grew up in Colorado.”

  “Right. I forgot. Is that weird?” I asked, turning to him.

  “That you forgot where I grew up?”

  “That strangers know where you grew up.”

  “There’s weirder things.”

  “I can’t imagine meeting someone and having them know what I was doing ten years ago, what my favorite song is, and when my birthday is,” I mused.

  Apparently head wounds made me introspective.

  “Imagine meeting a stranger and being expected to tell them all your deepest, darkest secrets.”

  It was a dig at me. While I was officially an administrative assistant in the local high school, I’d dusted off my old dreams of being a music journalist. A few successful if not well-paying freelance gigs had landed me the Sonic Arcade farewell tour assignment.

  “Excuse me if fans want to know how you feel about breaking up a band that’s been together for thirty years.”

  “Nothing’s ever enough,” he muttered, looking straight ahead through the windshield into the storm.

  “You know, no one asked you to drive me to the clinic. No one asked you to take me home.”

  “No one asked me to jump into the crowd to pull you out when your dumb-as-shit boyfriend left you alone in a dangerous situation either. That’s fucked up.”

  It was the most emotion I’d seen out of the man in the past two weeks. He was pissed off. And now so was I.

  “You seem to have unusually strong feelings about Mark. I’d ask you if you want to talk about it, but I think we both know what the answer is. Turn right.”

  My sarcasm seemed to shut him up, and the silence descended.

  The street practically glowed with Christmas lights, and I felt a nostalgic pang. I hadn’t put any up this year. Mostly because I knew I’d be traveling with the band for two weeks leading up to the holiday. But even if I�
��d been home, I still wouldn’t have done it. That had always been Ryan’s job. I’d handled the holiday decorating inside, and he’d dealt with lights and the inflatable reindeer outside.

  With the kids out of the house, it just didn’t seem worth the effort.

  Divorce wasn’t just one big loss. It was thousands of small ones.

  “This is me,” I said, nodding at the last snow-covered driveway on the cul-de-sac. The house and land with the small barn had seemed like the perfect place to raise a family. And it had been. But now that I was the only family in residence, I felt like I was constantly trying to put on a pair of jeans that just didn’t fit anymore.

  Vonn pulled up to the garage. And I tried not to think about what a pain in the ass it was going to be to shovel the driveway. Not to mention the path out back for Betty and Whinnie.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked suddenly.

  “I have the house to myself. My kids are with their dad until tomorrow night. I’m going to lounge in pajamas all day with a bottle of wine and work on the story.”

  The story that should have launched my writing career from freelancer to staff writer. The story that was one glaring viewpoint short thanks to a certain sexy, bearded, nameless grump.

  “What are you doing for Christmas?” I asked as the house finally came into view.

  He pulled up to the garage door and turned off the engine. “Guess I’m watchin’ you drink that bottle of wine.”

  “What?”

  He released his seatbelt. “What’s your garage code?”

  “Four-four-three-three. Can we go back to the part about your Christmas plans?”

  “Missed my flight. Airport’s closed. Crashin’ with you tonight.”

  And then he ducked out of the vehicle, leaving me open-mouthed and staring.

  Betty was beside herself. The kids’ golden retriever that I’d inherited when they’d gone off to college and beyond was a blonde, shivering blur under Vonn’s affectionate hands.

  His luggage was stacked up in the kitchen, where it had been abandoned in favor of Betty’s exuberance.

  I was spending the night with Vonn Barlowe.

  A man I’d had a crush on for the better part of thirty years. A man who’d single-handedly ruined my chance at my dream job. A man who was currently sprawled on his back on the kitchen linoleum as my dog did her best to French kiss him.

  It was official.

  This was the weirdest Christmas Eve ever.

  I stepped over Vonn’s legs and turned on the lights. My kitchen had been renovated a decade ago when there had been a busy family of four in the house. We’d done bright white cabinets and dark green counters. The fridge once crowded with pictures and report cards now just held a simple calendar that tracked the comings and goings of one. On the opposite side of the eat-at bar was a round dining table in front of a set of doors that led to the patio and backyard.

  My stomach growled, and I realized I was supposed to go to dinner with Mark after the concert. Mark, who had yet to notice or care that I hadn’t texted him back.

  If I was hungry, I guessed the man who’d just spent two hours rocking out on stage was ravenous.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked, opening the refrigerator door and stifling the moan as my muscles protested.

  Vonn turned his attention away from my dog and looked at me. It was the first time I’d ever seen him smiling. Really smiling. He had a dimple in his left cheek just barely visible above his beard.

  “Starving,” he rasped.

  Something fluttered in my core, and I decided it was safer to look at the contents of my refrigerator rather than directly at the punk rocker.

  I heard him get to his feet and then felt a wave of heat at my back. “You’re not cooking,” he said in my ear. Our bodies weren’t touching, but the thin buffer of air between us was charged with an electric awareness.

  “I don’t think we’re going to have any luck getting delivery in this storm.”

  “I’m cooking.”

  Betty nosed at my hand, reminding me she needed to go out.

  “You cook?” I asked, taking a deliberate step back.

  He assumed my position in front of the fridge. “Man can’t live off takeout on tour without there being consequences.”

  It made sense. I’d only spent two weeks behind-the-scenes, but it was enough time to know that that sculpted body was the result of healthy habits. “Are you any good?”

  Vonn leveled me with a look, one dark eyebrow arching. “Babe, I’m the best.”

  Betty dashed over to the back door and barked. I followed her and opened it. Cold hit me in the face, which I didn’t mind since being that close to Vonn had significantly raised the temperature of my blood. The wind had picked up, howling as it whipped around the back of the house.

  I could only faintly make out the lights from the Milton Estate across the field.

  There was a good six inches of snow on the patio already. A fact that delighted Betty. She let out a triumphant bark and pranced into the thick of it, shoving her nose into the white stuff and racing into the yard.

  I turned on the backyard lights. “I’ll be back,” I called over my shoulder to Vonn, who was unloading the contents of the refrigerator.

  I pulled on the boots I left at the back door and followed Betty into the snow. The walk to the tiny barn seemed longer than usual with all of my muscles vehemently protesting, but I made it.

  Betty sprinted inside ahead of me and went directly to Whinnie’s stall.

  “Hey, girl,” I greeted the horse.

  She was a pretty little thing, dappled gray with a dark mane. My daughter, Addison, had starting riding lessons when she was seven and stuck with the hobby. On her sixteenth birthday, we’d gotten her her very own horse.

  The horse, like the dog, was now mine by default.

  Whinnie went nose-to-nose with Betty, their usual greeting, before snorting at me to let me know she was ready for dinner.

  I fed her, gave her an evening rub down, and with some only minimal bitching and moaning added some more straw to the stall.

  “Last thing you need to be doing right now, babe.”

  I jumped, then winced at the chorus of ouch that rolled through my body.

  Whinnie swung her head toward the man in the door and snorted.

  Vonn pushed away from the doorway and approached. He ran one of those big, competent hands down the horse’s velvet nose. “You ride?”

  “Only when I have to. She belongs to my daughter, who’s in college. Addison left me a thirty-six-page manual on the care and feeding of Whinnie. A neighborhood kid comes out a few times a week to exercise her.”

  Vonn said nothing but gave Whinnie a long stroke down her neck. The horse shivered with delight. I couldn’t blame her.

  “Anything else need doing out here?” he asked, those fierce blue eyes landing on me.

  I shook my head. “She’s all set for the night.”

  He nodded. “I’ll shovel a path out here in the morning.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Brooke.”

  It sounded like a warning.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  He hooked a thumb toward the door. “House. Let’s go.”

  We ducked back out into the snow, Betty leading the way and Vonn bringing up the rear.

  “What’s that place?” he asked.

  I turned and saw he was peering through the dark and the snow at the golden glow.

  “That’s the Milton Estate,” I explained. “One of the town founders built it. It’s gorgeous. There’s a pool, an actual rose garden, and this barn the last owner turned into studio space for his wife’s photography business.”

  The fanciful stone house and outbuildings sat on three acres of prime real estate like a modern day fairytale come to life.

  “Wow,” I said, sniffing the air when we returned to the house. It smelled like my favorite scent: homecooked meal that someone else made.

  “N
eeds about half an hour in the oven,” he announced.

  “I’ll show you your room, then. So you can get changed and shower…” I trailed off, realizing he would be naked. Mere feet from my bedroom.

  “Sure you don’t have a concussion?” he asked, lips quirking.

  “Oh, shut up. I’m tired and hungry and sore.” I led the way upstairs, admittedly a little slower than usual. “Guest room is here and the bathroom is right across the hall.”

  He stood there holding an impressive amount of luggage, taking in the gallery of family photos I had hanging in the hallway. That assessing gaze came back to me, and I couldn’t ignore the effect it had on my heart beat.

  Betty galloped up the stairs and plopped her butt on the floor between us, waiting for one of us to move. But still he watched me.

  “Thanks,” Vonn said finally.

  “Yeah. Sure. I’ll see you downstairs.”

  I closed myself in my bedroom and leaned against the door.

  “Pull yourself together,” I whispered to myself.

  I felt almost human again after a hot shower, during which I tried not to fantasize about the bassist in the guest shower. The mirror had revealed some pretty spectacular bruising in a few places, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

  The cut on my forehead hadn’t fared as well under the faucet. It had opened again, and between the shower water and fresh blood, I needed to change the bandage. Dressed in soft leggings, a tank top, and a long, cozy cardigan, I made my way downstairs.

  My fuzzy-socked feet came to a stop.

  Vonn had beaten me downstairs and made himself at home. The lights on the Christmas tree were on. Soft, instrumental Christmas music hummed from the speaker my kids had insisted I needed. Best of all, an honest-to-goodness fire crackled in the hearth.

  I loved the romance of a fire. But now it never seemed worth the effort to build one for myself.

  The kitchen timer brought me out of my stupor, and then Vonn put me right back in it.

  The man had changed out of his stage clothes into a pair of gray sweatpants and a white V-neck T-shirt. His feet were bare and his hair was still damp. He looked delicious. And whatever he was checking on in the oven smelled just as delicious as he looked.