Welcome Home for Christmas

by Annie Rains

  Allison held her breath inside the building, then a little squeal came in the distance and a five-year-old ball of energy hurled herself down the hall toward them, arms outstretched.

  “You came! You really came!” she called out, barreling into Allison first.

  Allison’s arms reflexively wrapped around the child and she looked at Troy with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Of course we came, honey. There’s nothing that could have kept us away.”

  “Nothing at all,” Troy agreed, joining the new family hug.

  Little Lucy looked up. “I have a new mommy and daddy. This is the best Christmas ever!” she said.

  “Until next year,” Troy told her, his eyes twinkling.

  “And then the year after that,” Allison added with a smile. She looked down at her watch and then at her little family. “Now, let’s go join the annual family Christmas party, shall we?”

  Troy wrapped an arm around Allison as they walked through the parking lot. After little Lucy was strapped inside the cab, he stopped Allison for a moment and stared deep into her eyes. “I have a little something for you for Christmas, too.”

  “You’ve already given me everything,” she told him.

  “It’s just a little something. But we’ll need to stop and get some double A batteries for it.”

  Allison’s mouth dropped open as Troy chuckled.

  “Mind out of the gutter, baby,” he said. “You don’t need those anymore. You’ve got me now and you’re never getting rid of me.”

  She smiled brightly. “Promise?”

  “I promise,” he said, kissing her mouth and then her forehead. “Now, let’s go have a Merry Christmas.”

  Allison couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to spend Christmas with the people she loved most. This would indeed be the best Christmas ever.

  Until next year.

  For Sarah Younger, my agent extraordinaire and friend. Thank you for taking a chance on me.

  Acknowledgments

  It takes a lot more than one person to write a book. It takes a team, and I’m so grateful for everyone on mine. First and foremost, I want to thank God for all His many blessings. I want to thank my family for all the support they provide in the writing process. Thank you to my agent, Sarah Younger, and to my wonderful publishing team at Loveswept/Random House, especially Junessa Viloria. And to Lisa Filipe for all your creative ideas and assistance. It is an honor to work with such a great group of professionals!

  A huge thanks to my critique partner and awesome friend, Rachel Lacey. And to Lady Lioness for all your advice and support!

  Lastly, but certainly not least, I want to thank my readers. I wouldn’t be able to write books if I didn’t have someone out there wanting to read them. I am so thankful for each and every one of you!

  BY ANNIE RAINS

  Welcome to Forever

  Welcome Home, Cowboy

  Welcoming the Bad Boy

  Welcome Home for Christmas

  PHOTO: SARAH SAVAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

  Annie Rains is a contemporary romance author who writes small-town love stories set in fictional towns on the coast of North Carolina. Raised in one of America’s largest military communities, Annie often features heroes who fight for their country, while also fighting for a place to call home and a good woman to love. When Annie isn’t writing, she’s spending time with her husband and three children, or reading a book by one of her favorite authors.

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  Read on for a sneak peek of the first book in Annie Rains’s Blushing Bay series

  Forbidden Kisses

  by Annie Rains

  Available from Loveswept

  Grace Donner got into the checkout line at the Blushing Bay grocery store and steadied herself against a rack of candy bars. She’d been subsisting on candy bars these days, working the night shift at the local bar, Castaways, and taking care of her mother during the day. No sleep combined with too much caffeine and sugar was a bad recipe. There was no one else but her, though. The weight of the world, at least her tiny portion of it, was on her shoulders, and at this moment it felt like it was going to push her to the ground.

  Curling her fingers around the edge of the rack, she closed her eyes and prayed her knees wouldn’t buckle. She grabbed a Snickers bar and tossed it into her basket, ready to eat just as soon as she got her walking legs back and was safely inside her car. Opening her eyes, she continued forward and placed her items on the checkout’s conveyor belt.

  “Good morning,” the cashier said cheerily.

  Grace nodded, mouth dry, world spinning. She only had a few items to purchase. Just the essentials because that’s all she could afford until her next shift at Castaways and the tips it produced. Last night’s tips were meager at best. And with her mother’s medical expenses and the cost of living for two people, Grace could only pay for enough food to last the next twenty-four hours. She’d worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came. The way she felt right now, she might not be able to provide anything if she didn’t scarf down this Snickers bar soon.

  “Everything okay?” the cashier asked, her brows lowering with concern.

  Grace did her best to put on a convincing smile. “Yes, fine. How much do I owe you?”

  “That’ll be thirty dollars and twenty-nine cents,” the cashier told her.

  “Great.” Grace pulled out her wallet and started counting the one-dollar bills from last night’s tip jar. She’d served a bunch of rowdies somewhere around two A.M. A guy last night even had the nerve to offer more than a dollar if she gave him her phone number. Money was tight, but not that tight. No, thank you.

  After counting out twelve one-dollar bills, Grace’s world started to spin. She clutched her wallet and shut her eyes tightly.

  “You sure you’re okay, sweetheart?” the cashier asked again.

  “Yep.” From the corner of her eye, Grace noticed a man getting in line behind her. There was something familiar about the way he held himself, strong and tall. He cleared his throat in that familiar way he’d always done since he was a child. Her stomach rolled. Jack Sawyer was the very last man she wanted to see in her state. “I’m fine,” Grace reassured the cashier and continued to count the rest of her money to pay her bill. She glanced back over her shoulder, praying she was wrong, but no. The man behind her was definitely Jack, her former stepbrother and first big teenage crush. They’d been as thick as family once and now their families hated one another, modern day Montagues and Capulets.

  She lifted her eyes to meet his and saw concern etched into the blue of his irises. Well, he could keep his concern; she didn’t need or want it.

  Turning back, she laid her money in the cashier’s hand.

  The cashier counted the one-dollar bills. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t enough,” she finally said.

  Heat tore through Grace, partly because she was embarrassed and partly because her body was failing her. Something had to give and she feared it was going to be her knees.

  “This is only twenty-nine dollars.”

  Grace looked up. “I thought you said twenty-nine dollars.”

  “No.” The cashier was still wearing her cheery grin. “I said thirty dollars and twenty-nine cents.”

  “Oh.” Grace looked at the empty wallet in her hand. Last night’s patrons had been stingier than she thought. She looked at the items she wanted to purchase, trying to decide which ones to get rid of. God, this was so embarrassing.

  Jack stepped closer. “What do you need?”

  “Nothing,” she started to say, but the cashier talked over her.

  “She’s a dollar and twenty-nine cents sh
ort.”

  Jack reached for his own wallet.

  Grace’s body started shaking harder. Her heart hammered inside her chest. “No, I don’t need—”

  And then the weight of her little world finally pushed her down.

  —

  Jack Sawyer was holding the one woman he couldn’t have in his arms. “Grace?” He patted her cheek softly. “Grace, wake up.”

  She stirred against him on the floor of the grocery store checkout. Her eyelashes fluttered and then her eyes opened wide and stared up at him. It had been a while since he’d been face-to-face with Grace Donner. He’d purposely kept his distance from her and her mother over the years, which wasn’t easy in a small town like Blushing Bay. Staring into her soft brown eyes now, though, he thought she was just as beautiful, maybe more so, than she’d been in Junior High. She’d been off-limits to him then as well, although that hadn’t stopped him that one time when he’d kissed her in his bedroom. He’d been sixteen, hormone driven, and completely and inappropriately wild about the spunky girl who lived down the hall from him.

  Jack stroked her silky, honey-toned hair. Grace Donner was off-limits to him for a very different reason these days. “Are you all right?” he asked, scrutinizing every small movement she made.

  She started to sit up and he gently pushed her to lie back down. “Not too fast. You passed out.”

  “Passed out?” She blinked heavily.

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  She flashed him a look, equal parts annoyance and guilt. “I’ll be fine after I have that Snickers bar,” she said.

  This made him smile. “I see your dietary habits haven’t changed a bit.”

  A small frown set on her pretty lips. She tried to sit up again and he didn’t stop her this time. “Take it slow,” he warned.

  “I told you, I’m fine.” She looked between him and the cashier, then forced a smile that he didn’t buy for one second. It’d been a long time since they’d lived under the same roof, but he still knew Grace pretty damn well. Something was wrong, and it had to do with more than just low blood sugar.

  She stood and Jack hovered closely just in case she passed out again. Standing at his current proximity, he could smell the scent of flowers in her hair. That hadn’t changed since junior high, either. He laid a dollar and twenty-nine cents down in front of the cashier. “This should cover the rest of her bill,” he said, sliding Grace a look that dared her to argue.

  She’d never been one to back down from a challenge, though. Not even when she was sick. “I said no thank you.” She pushed the money on the counter back toward him. Then she pointed at an item that she’d intended to buy. “Please take the bananas from my selection,” she told the cashier.

  The cashier looked between them and nodded, setting the bundle of bananas behind the counter.

  “Still stubborn, I see,” Jack said over her shoulder.

  Grace lifted her chin slightly. “What I am is none of your business.”

  She’d always been hardheaded. And tough. She liked to do things for herself. He admired that about her, but it also frustrated the hell out of him.

  He watched as she purchased her items, said thank you to the cashier, and headed out the front of the store. He pointed at the bananas she’d intended to buy. “I’d like to purchase those.”

  The cashier hoisted them onto the conveyor belt and rang them up with the other items he was buying. After paying, he hurried into the parking lot, hoping to catch Grace. He didn’t have to try too hard. She was still sitting in her car, window rolled down, head back against her headrest. Her eyes were closed and she was munching on her Snickers bar.

  “I’m not going to ask if you’re all right this time,” he said, walking up to her window.

  She startled and her eyes flew open.

  “Because I know you’ll lie and tell me you’re fine. But I can see that you’re not.”

  She narrowed her dark eyes. “And you’re not supposed to care.”

  “It’s your mother I have a problem with. Not you.”

  Grace shook her head. “Package deal. That’s why, when your father kicked my mother out, I went, too.” She shook her head. “Just go away.”

  “You need to finish eating that candy bar first.” He laughed softly under his breath. “I never thought I’d tell somebody to finish a candy bar.”

  “Still a health nut, huh?”

  “Yep. Here.” He handed her the bag with the bananas. “I bought them for you, so you have to take them or they’ll go to waste. Because I’m not taking them back.”

  She sighed and took the bag. “Thank you….Now we’re done and we don’t have to talk again for another decade or so.” Resentment laced her voice. Divorce was never pretty. Jack and his brothers had no choice but to side with their father, though. Tammy Donner had racked up a mountain of debt during her two-year marriage to his dad. She’d tried to hide it by selling off Jack’s mother’s things one by one, thinking they wouldn’t be missed. His mother was dead after all. Who would notice? Then Tammy had sold The Beatrice, a boat named after his late mother. That was noticed.

  “The color is coming back to your face. Looks like you’ll be fine.” He turned and started to walk away, but something niggled in his gut. Grace, while beautiful, looked tired. There was something not quite right with her. He could see it, could feel it. She hadn’t even had enough money to pay a thirty-dollar grocery bill. Money was obviously tight and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d taken her mother’s path to overspending and debt.

  He froze, then turned to look at Grace again. “If you needed help, would you ask for it?”

  Her brows lowered. Her stubborn chin lifted. “Not from you,” she said, beautiful as a rose and guarded as its stem.

  He nodded. That’s what he thought. And if Grace had followed in her mother’s spending habits, her inability to buy groceries was her own fault. He didn’t need to concern himself over it. His family had lost enough time and money on the Donner women.

  —

  The sugar rush the candy bar had given her had helped, although Grace probably could’ve done without seeing Jack.

  As she unloaded her groceries on the kitchen counter, she glanced around her small apartment. “Mom?” she called, seeing no evidence of her roommate. Grace headed down the long hallway, where their bedrooms branched off. “Mom?” Peeking into her mother’s bedroom, she stopped and watched as her mother folded her clothing and set each piece inside her suitcase. “What are you doing?”

  “Packing.” Her mother looked up.

  “Why?” Grace leaned against the frame of the doorway and crossed her arms. She was too tired to deal with her mother’s drama today.

  Her mother lifted an envelope off the bed and whipped it toward her. “Here.”

  Grace’s heart did a freefall into the pit of her stomach. “Eviction notice?” she said under her breath. She quickly looked up at her mother. “This is wrong. I’ll go talk to Jimmy right now. I have the money and we’re going to be okay. I promise.”

  Her mother met her gaze. “This is my fault.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’ll fix it.” Grace clutched the notice in her shaking hands and headed out of her apartment. Her entire body was trembling with equal parts worry and anger. She was only a few days behind in rent. Jimmy knew she was good for it. She and her mother had been living here for over a year and she always paid. Grace suspected that Jimmy just liked to make excuses for her to come down and pay him a visit. She wrapped her knuckles on the office management’s dented metal door, where Jimmy worked.

  “Grace,” he said, smiling at her as she pulled it open. His smile was one that curled too far in toward his generous nostrils, giving him a Joker appearance. A sweaty Joker, because he was too cheap to use the A/C at the hottest part of summer. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “You know what,” she said through gritted teeth. After the day she’d had, one wrong word and she’d be tearing into the loathed landlor
d. Then she really would be out of a place to live.

  He sat back in a chair behind his desk. “No need to be angry. You signed an agreement when you moved in.” His gaze slithered down her body.

  Swallowing back a gag, Grace rooted her feet to the dusty tiled floor. “You’ll have your rent money by the end of the week.” She crossed the room and slapped the eviction notice down on his desk. “All communication between us comes directly to me. Not through my mother. Do you understand?”

  Jimmy wasn’t smiling anymore. “It’s just business, Grace.”

  The sound of her name on his lips made her shudder.

  “Although, as I’ve told you before, I’m not opposed to mixing in a little fun, too, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t have time for fun.” She turned and walked out of the office. There wasn’t time for anything except survival these days, and she wasn’t even doing a stand-up job at that. She had no idea if she’d make enough tips to cover rent by the end of the week. Maybe she could get a second job. That would mean giving up her already deficient sleep, though. Not an option she wanted to entertain.

  “Everything okay?” her mother asked as Grace stormed back into their apartment. The pictures on the off-colored walls rattled as she slammed the door behind her. Grace blew out a frustrated breath as she watched her mother lift a banana from the kitchen counter.

  The bananas made her think of Jack. She walked over and grabbed one for herself. “Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m handling it,” she said, wondering if that was true or a lie. Jack had seen through her earlier, the way he always had when they were teens. He’d driven her crazy with that sixth sense of his. Crazy in the worst and best kinds of ways.