12 Christmas Romances To Melt Your Heart (47 page)

“. . .
a
nd he whispered
, ‘A dream and a miracle.’” Eleanora English sighed as her daughter-in-law Emily Edwards English handed her another ornament, which she fastened onto a sturdy pine branch. “The end.”

The room was so silent, you could have heard a pin drop, and then . . .

“Wait!
What
?” exclaimed Jessica Winslow English, the wife of Eleanora’s third son, Alex. “What do you mean ‘the
end
’?”

Eleanora turned around to find six younger women—her husband’s niece, Kate, plus her sons’ wives and significant others—staring at her with their mouths gaping open, in various states of disbelief and indignation. She had invited the girls over for a tree-trimming party at Haverford Park this year, and was enjoying every moment with these smart, funny, wonderful women. When Molly, the brand-new fiancée of her fifth son, Weston, had asked to hear the story of how her future in-laws had met, Eleanora couldn’t help indulging them and had been spinning the tale for over an hour.

“The end,” said Eleanora again, gesturing uselessly with one hand. “Um . . .
the end
of the story.”

“I don’t think so,” said Valeria with a little bit attitude. She was the girlfriend of Eleanora’s fourth son, Stratton, and the most outspoken of the girls. Eleanora absolutely adored her for it because she’d pulled shy Stratton out of his shell and loved him for exactly who he was. “You can’t just end it like that.”

“What do you mean?”

Molly cocked her head to the side. “You’re really leaving us hanging, Eleanora. Did they move to New York? Did he find a job? Were they happy? What about Evie and Van?”

“Good question,” said Daisy Edwards English, her second son Fitz’s wife, who had just been upstairs to check on her daughter—Eleanora’s first grandchild—baby Caroline. Daisy picked up a plate of homemade cookies from the coffee table and handed them to her cousin, Emily. “We have to know what happened to ditzy, darling Evie! Did they end up together?”

Jessica pursed her lips, turning to Eleanora’s niece by marriage. “Kate, did you
know
your great-grandfather?”

“He sounds like a real piece of work,” added Valeria.

“Thankfully, no,” said Kate English-almost-Rousseau, looking disgusted. “He died before I was born. But my dad is much younger than Uncle Tom, and they had different mothers.”

“Did Tom ever get the money?” asked Jessica, turning back to Eleanora.

Eleanora grinned at her, and Jessica turned her sharp green eyes to Emily. “Susannah’s
your
mother, Emily. Did you ever meet Evie? Do you know how the story ends?”

Emily shrugged, shaking her head. “I can’t ever remember meeting someone named Evie. Ad even though I’ve lived at Haverford Park for most of my life, I promise, I’ve never even
heard
this story. Please, Eleanora, you’ve got to tell us the rest!”

Valeria leaned an elbow on Jessica’s shoulder. “No more ornaments until we get the rest of the story, Eleanora.”

Molly tucked an errant strand of red hair behind her ear, looking hopeful. Her enormous engagement ring caught the firelight and glistened merrily. “There’s a fresh thermos of hot cocoa here. We could take a break from decorating, and you could tell us the rest?”

Emily and Daisy had already cuddled up together on the overstuffed couch, and Molly squeezed in beside Daisy. Kate poured them all steaming mugs of cocoa, and Valeria sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire. Jessica, still standing beside the tree with her hands on her hips, shrugged at her mother-in-law with a saucy grin as she gestured to the armchair by the fire.

“Fine! You girls win,” said Eleanora, laughing as she sat down and accepted a steaming cup of chocolate from Kate. “But I warn you, ‘the course of true love—’”

“‘—never did run smooth,’” finished Valeria gently. “That’s okay. We still want to know.”

Jessica sat down on the love seat next to Kate, and Eleanora took a deep breath, thinking back, remembering what came next. Her eyes teared for just a moment, but she took another deep breath.

“We were falling in love. We were . . . full of hope,” she started, letting her memories carry her away.

D
id
you love Tom and Eleanora’s story? Now it’s time to read about their five sexy sons: Barrett, Fitz, Alex, Stratton, and Weston, and their lovely niece, Kate!

T
HE BLUEBERRY LANE SERIES

T
HE ENGLISH BROTHERS

(Blueberry Lane Books #1-6 & 11)

B
reaking
Up with Barrett

Falling for Fitz

Anyone but Alex

Seduced by Stratton

Wild about Weston

Kiss Me Kate

Marrying Mr. English, Parts 1 & 2

Thank you for reading!

T
HE WINSLOW BROTHERS

(Blueberry Lane Books #7-10)

B
idding
on Brooks

Proposing to Preston

Crazy about Cameron

Campaigning for Christopher

K
aty Regnery
, award-winning and Amazon bestselling author, claims authorship of the Blueberry Lane Series, which follows the English, Winslow, Rousseau, Story, and Ambler families of Philadelphia; the four-book, bestselling
a modern fairytale
series; the stand-alone novel
Playing for Love at Deep Haven
; and a stand-alone novella,
Frosted
.

K
aty’s
first modern fairytale romance,
The Vixen and the Vet
, was nominated for a RITA® in 2015, and four of her books—
The Vixen and the Vet
(a modern fairytale),
Never Let You Go
(a modern fairytale),
Falling for Fitz
(The English Brothers #2), and
By Proxy
(Heart of Montana #1)—have been #1 genre bestsellers on Amazon.

S
ign up
for Katy’s newsletter today:
http://www.katyregnery.com
!

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onnect with Katy
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aty LOVES connecting
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aty’s Website

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C
opyright © R.L
. Syme, 2015

Published by Hummingbird Books

All Rights Reserved.

H
udson Peters tried
to ignore the forty-fifth repeat of the Sugar-Plum-something-or-other and checked his watch. The jagweeds across the street from his parking spot were the Hollywood Christmas types. Not only did their house sparkle, but it sparkled in freaking time to the Christmas music being broadcast from the loudspeaker attached to the garage.
Loud
Christmas music.

If only he could have parked on a different street. But no. The dark end of Old Taylor Road was the only place a guy could get a good vantage point on the whole neighborhood. That was the upside of Snob Knob. The downside being, it was full of keepers-up and all their Joneses.

At least it was almost Christmas Eve, then it would be over. The whole scene was a little too
Home Alone
for his tastes.

The song started over, creepy bells dinging sharply in the empty street. Hudson glanced at his watch.
9:38
. It was almost time, and thank God, he’d had about all the waiting he could take.

His phone buzzed.
Will Johnson
.

“Hello?” Hudson kept his voice quiet, as though anyone could hear him over the choreographed light ballet.

“Anything yet?” Will asked.

“Not over here. What about you?”

Will clucked his tongue. “Nada. And Aidan just called from the next street, too.”

“It’s not quite time yet.”

“Maybe it was a fluke.”

Hudson gave his head a short shake. “Two fires in three days is not a fluke, man. Trust me, I Googled it.”

“You Googled the frequency of Christmas tree fires in small towns in Texas?” His friend laughed and covered the receiver.

“Hey, who’s with you? Did you talk Gray into coming along?”

A nervous pause told Hudson everything he needed to know.

“It’s Audrey, isn’t it?”

Will still didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He and his new girlfriend might as well have been glued together. Other than at the firehouse, Hudson hadn’t seen much of his friend over the past few weeks.

“She wanted to look at the Christmas lights up here. Gimme a break.” After sundown, anytime after Thanksgiving, the whole hillside was lit up like wildfire.

Grateful that Will couldn’t see him, Hudson allowed himself a nice, long eye roll. His friends had been dropping like flies this last year. First Aidan, then Eli, now Will. Was nothing sacred? A man needed his freedom.

The frenzied end of the carol shook Hudson out of his moody bullshit thinking. He checked his watch again.
9:42
.

“This is the right time-window,” he said. “I should go so I can watch for fires.”

“Sure.”

“And you, too. You should watch for fires.”

“Right.”

“Don’t just sit in your dark truck and make out with—”

Will cut him off. “Don’t judge me, dude.”

The connection cut off and his phone went dark. What was with guys in relationships? Did they completely forget about the rest of the world?

They had a job to do, dammit.

Hudson dropped his phone onto the bench seat of his truck and the creepy sound of the stupid bells started up again outside. Between the
Small World
Christmas experience outside and his friend ignoring his job, Hudson was just about done with all of it.

He scanned the dark street and tried to ignore the flashing lights in his peripheral vision. Other than the shit show to his left, there were a few other houses decked out, and then nothing. No cars, no carolers, no strolling, nothing.

It was almost ten on a school night, so it made sense for the neighborhood to be quiet, but this was eerie.

His watch read
9:44
.

The previous two calls had come in at exactly 9:45 at night. It had been Hudson’s idea to stalk the neighborhood where both of the fires had happened. Christmas tree fires were normal, but two in a row was unusual, especially in a town of only thirty thousand people. Even more suspicious was the fact that both fires had happened in the same neighborhood and the 911 calls had come at the same time.

A serial Christmas tree arsonist. Who knew such a thing existed.

A flash down the street set his heartbeat careening and his hand was on his door before he even realized it. But by the time he stopped on the pavement to reorient himself to the situation, the flash was gone. Headlights.

The Christmas carol was louder, the air colder, and Hudson’s nerves rawer, but it was only a car. He sighed and put his hand on his door handle. No fire on Snob Knob tonight, it would appear.

But across the street, next to the crazy Christmas house, Hudson saw another flash. This time, it wasn’t a momentary glimpse of headlights. The house itself was dark, except for a dim glow upstairs. Probably a TV or a night-light. But through the gauzy, white curtains, he could just make out the glow of flames.

Open flames. Open fire.

All his firefighter instincts kicked in and Hudson found himself running at top speed, crossing the street, crossing the lawn, crossing the porch, and kicking in the door.

A scream tore through the previously silent air and Hudson stopped in the middle of a very dark living room. Instead of a blazing Christmas tree, he was shocked to find a wide-eyed woman in a white nightgown, standing in front of a giant pot-belly stove. High flames licked up through the holes.

His instincts drove him toward the fire. It was dangerous for her to have open flames in the house.

Without a word, she hauled back the long, pan-like apparatus in her hand and swung. It smacked Hudson on the side of the head and he went down in a shower of sparks.