“Don’t worry, Tryst was about to carry me away, but Noel got there first.” Noel and I could have fun with this.
“How romantic,” mum sighed. “I always loved a man in uniform, but your father refused to even try.”
“I never heard you complain about how I looked in my tradie shorts.” Dad proved he still had his sense of humor, and that he could gross out his four adult children.
“TMI, dad, TMI.” I groaned before wishing I’d let dad and mum control the conversation.
“How long have you been together then?” Bradley cut in. I’d never lied to him before. Of all my brothers, he was the keeper of my secrets, but also the most judgmental of my relationships. Not all of us could marry our childhood sweetheart.
“Sometimes I feel like it’s a death sentence and it’s already been forever, other days I feel like we’ve only just met and there’s a world about JoJo I’m still yet to know.” As much as I resented Noel being careful in his word choice when they were being used against me, I appreciated them now. Yes, it felt like we’d been together forever, but I wasn’t ready to bypass our honeymoon stage any time soon.
“Mate, don’t talk like that in front of my missus, or she’ll expect the same but with flowers.” Shane deadpanned to my mother’s continued sigh.
“Oh!” I joked. “Noel, why haven’t you ever bought me flowers?”
“Maybe because I prefer giving you gifts that last longer than a weekend. But if you’d prefer disposable presents—”
The rest of the drive home was spent in gentle banter, the more my brothers threw at Noel, the more comfortable he became in giving it back.
My greatest fear was no longer that he would marry the buxom blonde Candy, I believed his reasoning. After all, it was too obscure to have been a lie made up on the spot. No, my greatest fear was that come Boxing Day, Noel would present me with a truth I didn’t want to hear. That he’d had a fantastic time, but it was time for all fake relationships to come to an end.
Even a week ago, I’d been prepared to bring a fake boyfriend home, to fool my family into thinking I wouldn’t necessarily live and die alone.
My heart had been given over to Noel somewhere between the hospital and the carpark. Was I a fool for love, or merely a fool?
“Daddy, we’re home.” I gently shook dad’s shoulder as we pulled into the driveway. Within minutes, my brothers had helped him straight to bed and we’d all bullied mum into joining him.
“What can we do?” Bradley asked, taking stock of mum’s Christmas cooking list. “Where do you want us to start?”
“JoJo and I still have some things to sort out,” Noel had carried me inside, depositing me on a bar stool on the dining room side of the breakfast bar. “If you don’t mind, we can fight and cook at the same time.”
“Fight?” Bradley looked to me with concern, before I laughed him away.
“It’s what most couples call talking.”
“As long as you’re alright?” Bradley pecked me on the top of my head, the way he’d done when we were kids.
“We’ll soon see. Cooking together might be our greatest test.” Before I’d finished my sentence, Bradley ducked as a fistful of flour covered both of us.
“Really?” I squealed. “I hope you clean as good as you cook.”
“Baby, I’m perfect at everything I do.”
“With that, I’m leaving you two kids to do whatever is necessary for Christmas.” Bradley looked Noel up and down before offering his hand. “Never thought we’d meet a guy who could put up with JoJo.”
I waited for Noel to say that he had my measure; that he was willing to stick around and figure me out. To say anything that hinted to a future past tomorrow’s lunch.
Nothing.
Once Bradley left us, the house seemed silent. The bedrooms were on the far side of the house, and without any music or television, the only sound was of my heart racing. I found mum’s list of things to do. She’d been very precise, and I didn’t know why one or more of my sisters-in-law hadn’t found time to get a head start.
Then again, my mother could be intimidating when in the kitchen. When she wanted a potato cubed for the potato salad, it was after being cut into one-centimeter cubes boiled for exactly five minutes and then dropped into chilly water to stop the cooking process.
I had less fear. Having learnt how to cook as my mother’s kitchen hand, deciphering her list was second nature and for once, Noel followed my instructions without question; luckily as my right arm was barely useful and after two hours of chopping and stirring, the ache couldn’t be ignored.
Noel was perfect. Not complaining when bowls, saucepans and graters needed to be washed and reused. Or when I mixed the right ingredients without measuring, despite the carefully written lists. Instead, he listened to a thousand stories of my childhood Christmases.
I rambled on, nervously avoiding asking the one question that mattered; how much of us was real, and how much still fake?
Until we got to the meringue mixture. The light, fluffy egg whites and blended sugar was perfect.
“Did you find the egg rings to trace circles on the baking paper?” I asked, looking for the piping bags.
“Thought we could go freestyle.”
“No, we can’t. My brothers will fight over the biggest meringue and mum will end up smashing them all into an Eton mess.”
“Or we could make random shapes and get the kids to guess what animal they were meant to be.”
“No, we need to do it right.”
“Why would we start now?”
I’d spun around to challenge Noel, instead of facing him from across the kitchen, found myself in his arms. I gasped as he dipped his finger in the mixture before bringing it to my lips.
The heat and stress of the day disappeared as I licked the sweet, white goo from his fingertips before his sticky fingers pulled at my hair into a perfect kiss.
“Nothing about us has been normal or right, but it just is.” Noel whispered in between kisses.
“We only just met.” I whimpered, as he pressed me against the kitchen bench.
“I know.”
“We fight all the time.”
“You’ll come around to accepting I’m always right.” He teased, kissing me again before I could protest.
Having given up my sling for cooking, I could finally cradle his face, caress the curve of both cheekbones, trace down his chest and count each of his abs. We weren’t fighting now. Trapped in a small kitchen, we’d worked together in sync, in harmony.
I was only fighting my feelings for Noel Roberts. Not wanting to fall any further in love with a man destined to walk away.
“I can’t.” I pulled away, trying to spin gracefully on my good leg. “I can’t keep pretending that we’re together, when we aren’t.” I wanted Noel to correct me. Not wanting to be the needy woman begging for commitment past tomorrow.
“I guess its decision time.”
Noel left me stranded in the kitchen while he headed towards the lounge room. I rubbed my shoulder, wishing the sling hadn’t gotten too hot and sweaty. At least the dull ache stopped me from obsessing one hundred per cent over how Noel felt about me. It was only three days and he’d turned my stomach and heart upside down.
We were perfectly wrong for each other. Both stubborn, opinionated and at different points in our careers.
We were perfectly right together. He didn’t shy away from a debate, but always played the ball and not the player. None of his attacks were personal, always about the topic. Despite having a complicated relationship with his parents, I saw how much family meant to him, by how he treated mine.
Had been willing to drive for two days just so I could spend Christmas Day with my family.
Willing to pretend to be my boyfriend, because I needed a relationship to wrap around me as a cape, hiding from my family that I shared their fear of growing old and dying alone.
Except, all this time, I’d wanted one man.
One perfe
ct man.
Until three days ago, I hadn’t known his name. Now I did, and the thought of losing him hurt more than it should.
It had only been three days.
It had been a lifetime.
“I don’t like lying to your parents,” Noel started. “This whole pretending to be together. I understand why you wanted a fake boyfriend, but it can’t be me.”
My body shook as I stood, trying not to break down in front of him. Begging wouldn’t work, and if he hadn’t figured out by now how not-fake my feelings were, then explaining wouldn’t help.
“I understand.” I didn’t but in time, I would.
“Your parents are amazing, the sort of people I respect the hell out of and the whole lying to them doesn’t sit well with me.”
“I understand.” I sucked in my pride and hurt. “I hated lying to them and when daddy collapsed, it almost killed me that our last conversation had been about you, and all a lie.”
I hadn’t noticed Noel carrying a small present until he slid it across to me.
“Merry Christmas.”
“You leaving tonight, it’s okay. You don’t have to keep pretending. I’ll explain everything.” My words tripped over themselves, almost as if giving him permission to run and do it now would make tomorrow easier.
“Open the present.”
“I’ll do it after you go.” That way, he wouldn’t read my face and see the hope before crashing disappointment.
“Stephanie, I’m not pretending.”
“You aren’t and have never been my boyfriend. Let’s stop pretending.”
“The last two nights would say otherwise. Open the gift.”
My trembling fingers tore open the red and gold paper. A cheap, black photo frame with a photo of a scrawny black animal. It could have been a guinea pig, or dog. A black, little fluff ball.
“Merry Christmas,” Noel repeated.
“Thanks, it’s a lovely frame.” With an obscure photo.
“You said you wanted a dog.”
“Luckily for me, I’m allowed to keep a photo of a dog in my rental, just not the real thing.”
“Luckily for me, a dog is allowed in my penthouse.”
I didn’t know which was the greater shock, he’d given me a photo of his dog as a gift, or that he lived in a penthouse. Then again, the manicured nails and expensive car; purchasing me a high-end phone on a whim and stuffing cash into my bag with little regard.
“I’ll treasure it, always. Something to remember you by.”
My voice broke as mum joined us in the kitchen.
“What a lovely puppy, what’s its name?” She stroked the photo. “Poodle?”
“A toy poodle, but how did you know?” Noel laughed.
“My mother used to breed them. She used to call it her pin money.”
“Well, maybe JoJo can continue the family tradition.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Do I need to spell it out for you?” Noel came around the bench, pulling me back to his chest and kissing my face, my hair and then my lips.
“I’m crazy falling for you Stephanie, Steph, JoJo Methven.”
“So, you gave me the photo of your dog.”
“Your dog, that will live with us if you are willing to be the one to give up your place and live in mine.”
“Yours?” I still didn’t know where that was, or what he was asking.
“Mine, ours, whatever you want to call it.”
“But we aren’t even a real couple.” I said before remembering mum was standing next to us. How much had she heard before coming in? “Sorry, we—”
“Your father and I guessed. How long? A week or two?”
“Try three days. Noel offered to pretend to be my boyfriend, I’m so sorry. This isn’t real.”
“Mrs. Methven, I’m trying to ask your daughter to move in with me. I can’t promise we won’t fight—actually I can guarantee that at times she’ll want to throw me out or kill me. But I’m crazy about her and if we can survive being trapped in a car for the first three days of our relationship, I’m hoping we can thrive living together.”
“You’re asking me to move in with you?”
“Consider it the only Christmas gift I want. I get to ask any single question each Christmas and you have to say ‘yes’.”
“You want me to agree now, to saying ‘yes’ every year?”
“To one question, each Christmas. The rest of the time, you can argue with me until you wear me down, like you usually do.”
Now it was my turn to laugh, “I think you won every argument the first day.”
“Are we really going to argue about arguing, or are you going to answer my one question.”
“Which was?”
In Noel’s arms and with my mother’s blessing, I looked up at the man I loved. Confident that life wouldn’t be boring, but it would certainly have love.
“Since this is our first Christmas together, you get to choose which of two questions you’ll agree to.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Naming of the puppy, or will you do me the honor of living with me.”
“Yes.”
“To which one!”
“Probably both! I’ll name the puppy, and I will live with you.”
Before my mother could shh me, Noel waltzed me around the kitchen, spinning me until I cried, “I’ll fall, don’t!”
“I’m falling in love with you, Stephanie, Steph, JoJo. However, we started, how normal or non-right it started, we are right.”
“Mama?” I didn’t know why I craved her opinion, as long as it was the right one. “What should I do?”
“Do you love this man?”
“I do.” In a crazy, messed up way that I could never explain or describe. I was in love with the man who crashed into me, destroyed my car but made all my Christmases come true.
“Well, he’s the only one who’s ever offered you a puppy.”
“Now I know where your daughter gets it from.” Noel broke away from kissing me to make peace with my mum. “I’m sorry for the deception, I’m sorry for how quickly this happened, but when you know, you know.”
“JoJo – since the day you were born, we knew it would take a certain type of man to claim your heart. Not a weakling or someone who’d lie down and take your sass.”
“I’m not sassy!”
“Seriously? Do we now need to argue over definitions? You, my love, are definitely stubborn, opinionated and sassy!” Noel claimed me before adding, “Just like me. We work”
“Noel, welcome to our family Christmas which can be your family Christmas for as long as you make our daughter happy. Now, I can’t sleep so thank you for getting me started on all the cooking. I can take it from here.”
“But, mama!”
“Your old room is waiting, I’m sure the two of you can have and resolve at least a couple of arguments before breakfast is served.”
“Or your daughter could just agree to let me name the puppy.”
“How do you know that I want to live with you.”
“Because,” Noel shrugged as I snuggled back into the arms I never wanted to leave. “I’m going to take you to bed and ‘argue’ with you until you say yes.”
I got my puppy, although Noel named her Ginny after my grandmother’s favorite dog. Yes, he found out that detail while standing over the bar-b-que with my father on Boxing Day.
My brothers didn’t appreciate the whole idea of their sister agreeing to move in with a guy after less than a week. But Noel worked his charm on my sisters-in-law. Wearing them down one, by one until my poor brothers didn’t stand a chance. If it wasn’t the exaggerated tale of carrying me across traffic so I didn’t have to walk back from the hospital, or to what must have been the most romantic pizza dinner in the history of mankind. Noel oozed charm, until my brothers begged for him to stop giving their wives ideas they’d never live up to.
My boyfriend.
My partner.
My lover and lo
ve.
I moved into Noel’s apartment on New Year’s Eve, with my final box unloaded from the hired van an hour before we needed to get ready for Zara’s cruise.
Best of all, any time I wanted to win a fight, all I needed to do was sing the first Noel, the angels did say—and Noel dragged me to the nearest bedroom.
We still fought, a lot.
We made love, even more.
And for the rest of my life, I wanted him as my first and only Noel.
I’m so glad you finished Her Surprise Christmas Noel.
While you’re here, please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads or both!
Get the full set of Christmas Kisses today and enjoy Pia, Abbie and Zara’s quest to beg, borrow, or buy a man for Christmas; with bonus exclusive epilogue.
And no matter where you live or what your faith, may you and your family have a very Merry Christmas Kenna
Wait, there is more…
Who is Kenna Shaw Reed?
Christmas is a special time. It was in church the year before I met my husband that I prayed to find the future father of my children—someone who would be my best friend and lover. Now, I’ve been married to the love of my life for more years than we can count. Together we are surviving three teenagers, two dogs, a cat and a bird. I wish I could say he was my first love, but there were a few false starts before he swept me off my feet.
I’ve always had the dream of writing “when I have time,” but when diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, it became obvious the future starts today.
They say, “write what you want to read,” so my first books were choose your own romances where women are at a cross-road in their life, and have two or three options for love. When one happily ever after is not enough, you get to choose your own!
All my books can be read stand-alone or in any order, but you will meet the same characters across my heartwarming Romance with Passion, steamy Passion without Rules and alpha-male heroes in Aussie Military Romance series.
I love hearing from you and writing the romances you want. Bringing complex and flawed characters to you in a way that allows us all to believe in a happily ever after. Love is complicated, and the best love stories are never easy. I hope you join me – and keep in touch.
Her Surprise Christmas Noel: Four women, one pact: find a date for Christmas (Christmas Kisses Book 2) Page 11
