by Debbie Mason
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Debbie Mazzuca
Excerpt from Mistletoe Cottage © 2016 by Debbie Mazzuca
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner
Cover illustration by Tom Hallman
Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Forever
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First Edition: October 2017
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ISBNs: 978-1-5387-4415-4 (mass market); 978-1-5387-4414-7 (ebook)
E3-201709012_NF_DA
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
In the spirit for another holiday story?
About the Author
Acclaim for Debbie Mason
Also by Debbie Mason
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
Newsletter
This book is dedicated to my granddaughters, Lilianna and Gabriella, who remind me every day that we live in a beautiful and magical world. Don’t ever stop looking for the beauty and believing in the magic, my sweet girls.
Acknowledgments
A few weeks ago, Facebook reminded me of this post I shared: I’ve been walking on air since Friday and now can finally share. I have a three-book deal with Grand Central/Forever for my small-town contemporary romance series set in Christmas, Colorado!!! I am beyond excited!!
The post was from five years ago, and I truly did feel like I was walking on air. Grand Central/Forever was my dream publisher, so I was beyond thrilled that they would be publishing my series. Four contracts, two series, and eleven books later, I still feel exactly the same way. And I couldn’t be more grateful to Team Forever. My heartfelt thanks to Beth deGuzman, Amy Pierpont, Leah Hultenschmidt, Lexi Smail, Jodi Rosoff, Michelle Cashman, Monisha Lakhotia, Tareth Mitch, Luria Rittenberg, Carrie Andrews, Elizabeth Turner, Tom Hallman, and last but certainly not least, my incredibly talented and hardworking editor, Alex Logan, who goes above and beyond for me and my books and never fails to make them so much better.
Many thanks to my wonderful agent who has represented me for nine years, Pamela Harty. My thanks also to members of Pamela’s team at the Knight Agency, Deirdre Knight, Elaine Spencer, and Jamie Pritchett.
Special thanks to my cousin Rhonda Lamourie, my sister-in-law Connie Simpson, my niece Kelsey Mazzuca, and my son-in-law Shariffe Ghadban for shamelessly pimping my books!
To my husband, children, and grandchildren for always supporting me and encouraging me to go after my dreams, thank you. I love you all more than you’ll ever know. Additional thanks to my daughter Jess for reading my first drafts and letting me talk endlessly about my stories. Thanks, honey.
And most of all, I want to thank you, the reader, for buying my books and for spending time with me in Harmony Harbor (and Christmas, Colorado). For your kindness in sharing my stories with your friends and family, for your lovely e-mails, Facebook posts, tweets, and reviews, I hope you know how truly grateful I am.
Chapter One
With each frantic beat of my heart, Adrian’s name echoes in my mind. I have to reach him before he discovers my secret. As I race across the ice-crusted meadow, my breath forms small, frosted clouds in the frigid, moonlit night. My throat, my chest, my legs, everything aches, but I can’t stop until I reach the white castle by the turquoise sea. Adrian is there, waiting for me. He needs to hear this from me and no one else. If he…
A loud buzzing sound pulled Julia Landon out of the scene she was writing and onto the hard chair behind her desk in her cramped, one-bedroom apartment. She gave her head a slight shake to free herself from the grip of her heroine’s emotions and reached for the Santa timer that danced on top of her narrow desk.
Julia’s timers had saved her butt in the past, and this was no exception. Although it didn’t feel that way at the moment, because her secret crush still filled the pages of her book for all the world to see.
She turned off Santa, set him on the crowded shelf above her desk, and replaced him with a turkey. Julia had forty-eight timers in her collection, and she had a sinking feeling she’d use each and every one of them before she sent off Warrior’s Touch to her editor. Her manuscript was due tomorrow at nine a.m. sharp. And unless things had changed while she was running through a meadow on a moonlit night in the Emerald Isle, there were still just twenty-four hours in a day.
Which was where the trouble had all begun. She’d mistakenly assumed she’d be granted a three-day reprieve due to the Thanksgiving holiday, only to discover that New York editors rarely took time off.
Asking for an extension was out of the question. She’d blown through one deadline already. If she blew through another one, she was afraid her editor would write her off as an unprofessional one-hit wonder and cancel the contract, ruining Julia’s chance of making her dream come true.
Back in June, she’d published the first book in the Warrior trilogy, Warrior’s Kiss, on her own. It had taken off almost immediately, exceeding her wildest expectations. Reader support had been phenomenal, and the extra money had come in the nick of time. Sales were down at her bookstore—Books and Beans—and fulfilling her vow to her late fiancé, Josh Winters, was costly.
But as much as the digital success of Warrior’s Kiss had been mind-boggling in the happiest of mind-boggling ways, Julia’s dream was to see her books sitting on the same shelves as those of the authors she adored.
The added benefit, which was almost as important, was the hope that the four alpha males in her life—her father and three older brothers—would believe that seeing her in bookstores across the land meant they no longer had to worry about her, that she had what it took to support herself.
Maybe then every phone call home wouldn’t begin and end with her dad and brothers exhortin
g her to move back to Texas so they could look after her—folding her like a burrito in Bubble Wrap to ensure she wouldn’t get hurt or have her heart broken again.
Honestly, it felt like she’d been trying to prove herself to them her entire grown-up life. If opening Books and Beans hadn’t convinced them she could manage on her own, she didn’t know why she thought being published would. No doubt her brothers would tell her it was her magical thinking at work again. To her mind, there was nothing magical or wrong with being hopeful.
If she hadn’t held on to the hope that things would get better these past couple of years, she didn’t know where she’d be. Maybe cast adrift on a turquoise sea. She wished she didn’t care what everyone thought about her, but sometimes it felt like she’d been born with an extra people-pleasing gene.
Emmeline, Julia’s mother, would have been over the moon for her. The former actress would have held Texas-sized celebrations the day Julia had finished her first book at eighteen, the day she’d received her first non-form rejection letter at twenty-eight, and the day Warrior’s Kiss hit number sixteen on the USA Today bestseller list a week before Julia’s thirty-second birthday.
Every step of the way, every small victory and minor defeat, her mother would have been there cheering her on. Even though Emmeline had died when Julia was twelve, she believed her mother held parties for her in heaven.
She paid tribute to her mother in each and every book she wrote. In the Warrior’s trilogy, an urban fantasy set in Ireland, Emmeline was the inspiration for the White Witch. In a way, it was like bringing her mother back to life. The White Witch looked, acted, and dressed exactly like Emmeline once had.
Julia refocused on the computer screen. She’d been a finger press away from deleting the last three chapters when Santa shook his booty and brought her back to reality. Sometimes reality sucked. Because no matter how much she wanted to, there was no way she could kill off Adrian Greystone, the trilogy’s hero. He was the book boyfriend that readers lusted after and the reason they were clamoring for more.
Including Julia’s friend Olivia, who had finished Warrior’s Kiss a few weeks before. But unlike Adrian Greystone’s other fans, Olivia had told her that she was uncomfortable lusting after the fictional hero. And it had nothing to do with her friend being a married woman. Olivia said it was because Adrian reminded her of her brother-in-law Aidan Gallagher.
All too clearly, Julia recalled the knowing look Olivia had given her that morning in the bookstore. She’d brushed off Olivia’s silent insinuation with a laugh before making an excuse to run up to her apartment above the bookstore. She’d taken the back stairs two at a time to check for herself.
The evidence was overwhelming, from his physical description to his badass demeanor to his name. Adrian alone may not have raised eyebrows, but then Julia had made the fatal mistake of using Greystone as his surname. Greystone Manor, the fairy-tale castle standing sentry over the town of Harmony Harbor, was the Gallagher family’s home as well as a hotel.
Julia knew exactly where to lay the blame. It was because of that one kiss they shared under the mistletoe last Christmas at the manor. Given the length of time Aidan’s mouth had been on hers, it probably wouldn’t even qualify as a kiss—more like a peck. He hadn’t known her, and she hadn’t known him, and Kitty Gallagher had been standing right there with a twinkle in her eyes demanding they take advantage of the long-standing tradition or risk a lifetime of bad luck.
Since Julia had suffered enough bad luck at that point, she wasn’t willing to take a chance she’d have to live through decades more. Besides that, Aidan was big and beautiful, and at that moment, she’d needed something big and beautiful to distract her.
She should have risked a lifetime of bad luck.
Because while the kiss was merely a brief touch of his firm lips upon hers, it had an earth-shattering effect on Julia. She’d felt like she’d been transported to another place and time, as if she were dancing among the stars. And when she looked into Aidan’s extraordinary blue eyes, something inside her clicked into place. She’d known then that she’d found him. Her soul mate. Her one true love. In her head, she could almost hear her brothers groaning at the idea she’d discovered her true love after sharing only one kiss.
But they’d be happy to know that thoughts of tall, handsome princes and fairy-tale endings had vanished the second the Gallagher matriarch had introduced the two. Aidan Gallagher would never be the man of Julia’s dreams. He couldn’t be. Because if he ever found out why she’d taken on the job of the Gallaghers’ fairy godmother, he’d have her thrown in jail and would instruct them to lose the key.
Oddly enough though, she’d begun writing Warrior’s Kiss months before she met Aidan. But it wasn’t until he kissed her under the mistletoe that the story took on a life of its own and her hero, Adrian Greystone, came fully alive.
As much as Julia knew a relationship between her and Aidan could never be, it didn’t stop her from living vicariously through her heroine and embarking on a love affair to end all love affairs with Adrian Greystone.
Within hours of discovering that Olivia was right and that Julia had exposed her secret crush for all the world to see, she’d developed a debilitating case of writer’s block. Every time she sat at her desk, her brain would freeze and her fingers would seize, and her first deadline flew by. And now here she was again, staring another deadline in the eyes.
As she saw it, she had three choices. One, get the manuscript to her editor on time and take the risk that someone other than Olivia—who’d been sworn to secrecy—discovered that Julia was author J. L. Winters. Two, kill off her hero and risk alienating both her readers and her new publisher. Three, ask for an extension and risk the possibility of being dropped by her editor.
She went with number three and brought up a new file on the screen. As she worked on a believable way to disguise Adrian’s resemblance to Aidan, she noticed wisps of smoke floating past her. It always amazed her how quickly the real world faded away and she stepped into her imaginary one, but this was downright freaky. Never before had she…
The thought was abruptly cut off by the beeping of the smoke detector and a disembodied voice repeatedly saying fire.
Her head snapped up, and her gaze shot around her apartment, searching for the smoke’s source. She made out the Christmas tree in the corner of her living room, its colorful miniature lights twinkling through the fog. If it wasn’t the tree…The bookstore! She jumped from the chair.
And that’s when the smell of burning cookies invaded her nostrils.
Her Santa timer hadn’t gone off to remind her to get up and shake her booty; it was to remind her that her contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was ready to come out of the oven!
Frantically, she searched for her cell phone on her cluttered desk, around the boxes of Christmas decorations she’d yet to unpack on the floor, and the clothes on the couch that she’d forgotten to put away. Her cell phone was nowhere to be found.
And her overprotective father, who was more overprotective than most fathers of daughters because he was a sheriff, had ordered and installed a state-of-the-art alarm system the last time he’d visited. As soon as the smoke detector went off, Julia had four minutes to call the company and report a false alarm or the Harmony Harbor fire trucks would be on their way, sirens wailing.
Just like they had last month.
* * *
Julia walked down the narrow, smoke-filled stairway from her apartment to the bookstore with a fishbowl in her arms while apologizing for a second time to the fire chief. The sixty-something man with a full head of silver hair bore a striking resemblance to Paul Newman, right down to his blue eyes, which appeared to be glinting with amusement as he held open the door leading into her store.
“I really am sorry, Mr. Gallagher. From now on, I’ll make sure I have my phone on me before I put anything in the oven.”
He scratched his chin, obviously fighting back a grin. “Colin, remember? And if I’m
not mistaken, last time you were making spaghetti sauce, and the time before that it was oatmeal. So let’s make a deal. You don’t use the stove or oven until you’re fully awake, okay?”
She typically started her day at five a.m. to get in her word count before opening the store. But it wasn’t like she could tell Mr. Gallagher she set things on fire because she disappeared into her make-believe world, so she’d told him she’d fallen back to sleep. She’d used the excuse so often that he probably thought she had narcolepsy.
“I think I’ll give up cooking altogether,” she said as she placed the fishbowl on a low table in the children’s section. Her worry that Ariel and Eric had been affected by the smoke in her apartment was alleviated when they began swimming around. But while she could set aside her concern over her goldfish, she had another worry to contend with…“My dad didn’t happen to have the alarm system wired so that he gets notified too, did he? Like a three-strikes kind of thing?”
“Not that I know of,” Colin said, no longer holding back a grin. He was giving her a smile that she was unfortunately familiar with. It was the same smile people got on their faces just before they pinched her cheeks. She’d known a lot of cheek pinchers in her thirty-two years.
“He didn’t tell you to call him if my alarm went off, did he?” She made a mental note to ask Paul Benson, the chief of police, the same question. She’d forgotten her passcode and set off the intruder alarm last Sunday when she came back from a walk. In her defense, it was a new password. She’d had to change it when… she forgot it the last time. She needed to think about using one password for everything.
“No, he didn’t, but your oldest brother did.” At her groan, Colin added, “Don’t worry. I won’t call unless it’s for something other than a false alarm. You should be glad they worry about you like they do, honey. It shows how much they care.”
Of course he’d side with the men in her family. Just like her father and brothers were the to-serve-and-protect Landons, Colin and his sons were the to-serve-and-protect Gallaghers.
