Page 88 of Mistletoe Season
Except... Gregory whispered something creepy after our kiss that tarnished it a bit.Ding, ding, ding!Went a little warning bell, but I was already lost in that heady mistletoe fog, so of course I ignored it and went out with him.
One time. By dessert I knew it wasn’t going to work. I wanted sweetness and chivalry. I quickly caught on that Gregory wanted... well, not that.
Mistletoe Disaster Number Two
That was Edmond, as in Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo. Sigh. He worked in the art department at Herald Publishing, and I’d met him when I visited and got a tour of the offices. Lo and behold, there he was at the publisher’s Christmas cocktail party, dressed in a gray suit and his dark hair flopped over one eye. Ready for aGQshoot.
My first book,What the Heart Seeks, had done well, and I’d just turned in my second novel,What the Heart Needs. Back then I was beginning to believe everything I wrote; I was sure I was starting to figure out the ways of love. And Edmond, with his soft-spoken voice and sweet smile, fit the bill perfectly. I prefer strong alpha males inmy books, but they can be problematic IRL, so it was points for Edmond that he didn’t fall into that category. He also got points for being interested in my budding career.
At the time I thought that was hardly surprising. We were both in the business, after all. It was only natural that he would want to talk about how I was doing. I was happy to brag that I was doing fine and expected to keep on doing fine. The romance genre captures nearly a third of the book market and generates over a billion dollars a year. You’ve got to respect that. He did. And I respected him for appreciating what I do for a living... well,almostliving. (I’ve finally been able to cut my barista hours down to half-time. Yay, me! Another few books, and maybe I can finally write full-time and still afford to eat.)
Edmond lured me under the mistletoe with a shy suggestion that we should get into the spirit of the season.
It was such a sweet kiss, with the promise of happily-ever-after. Oh yes. It erased the memory of him mentioning how you don’t choose a career in publishing to get rich, followed by a little quip about finding the next Nora Roberts and marrying her. Set for life that way. Ha-ha. I thought it was a joke.
It wasn’t. Edmond was a mooch. It’s not cheap living in New York, even when you have roommates, and heaven knows my roommate, Ramona, and I did our share of scrimping, so I understood Edmond’s need to pinch pennies. But in my novels, men pull their weight. I want the same thing in life. Edmond wasn’t even going near his weight, let alone pulling it. I wasted a lot of money on that man. Thank you, mistletoe, for blinding me to what should have been obvious.
Mistletoe Disaster Number Three
David. That’s such a strong name, isn’t it? I hear it and think of Michelangelo’s famous statue. Sigh.
I met him last year, at yet another Christmas party. That had been a promising kiss and a promising relationship. Or so I’d thought. After I’ve turned in myworkmess in progress—if I ever finish this mess in progress—my next book is going to be titledBlind Love. How’s that for a great title? It was inspired by David.
That mistletoe mania night, he’d been flirting with women like he was auditioning to play Casanova in a movie. But when he got around to me, he said I was the most awesome woman there and, well, that’s all it took for me to be put on the path to disaster. And when he got me under the mistletoe, kryptonite hit again. All my brain cells shut down.
I plunged into the relationship, a love diver going headfirst into shallow water, sure we were headed for an engagement by Christmas. I was ready. I was thirty-three and reaching the point where the snooze alarm on my biological clock refuses to be silenced.
It turned out his clock had a much later setting, and I wasn’t the only one he was watching rom-coms with. We broke up on Halloween. How’s that for scary?
So, there you have it. Now here I am, trying to finish this stupid book,What the Heart Knows, which, in my case, is nothing. Oh, and I’m dreading the holidays. I should have been coming home to Cascade, Washington, the mountain town in—wait for it—the Cascades, with a ring on my finger and Save the Date announcements in my purse. Instead, I’ll be arriving with a bare finger and a chewed-up heart, all thanks to that love piranha. The dirty, rotten, cheating... never mind. I’m not going to think about it.
Or the mistletoe incident that started this sick cycle I’ve been trapped in—the one kiss that’s lived in my heart since ninth grade and haunted me like one of Scrooge’s ghosts. It was terrifying, wonderful, and mortifying. It has kept me both entranced by and vulnerable tothat stupid mistletoe ever since. And, to be honest, my heart still longs for the kind of ending I like to write, where the man who was my first love falls for me and becomes my forever love.
I’m not looking forward to coming home a love loser, even though I’ll get to see my family and my old BFF Scarlet. There will be baking binges with Mom and parties. And there is bound to be mistletoe. I must avoid it at all costs.
And I must avoid Carwyn Davies, the great unrequited love of my young life.
Carwyn is the stuff a girl’s dreams are made of. He was a junior in high school when he gave me my first-ever mistletoe kiss, already playing on the varsity basketball team. He looked like a Viking, with that golden hair and those intense eyes that were blue. No, green. No, both.
Of course, even though we lived right next to each other, even though he and my older brother Sam shot hoops in his driveway, he never saw me. He was three years older and too busy dating cheerleaders with perfect skin and flowing blond hair to notice a pudgy freshman girl with glasses and boring brown hair. Heck, I didn’t even notice myself.
THE KISS happened at the neighborhood Christmas party at the Davieses’ house. Mrs. Davies had hung mistletoe right there in the living room archway. I’d paused under it, not because I wanted to be kissed—I was way too shy to go looking for something so public. I hadn’t even seen it. I’d simply hesitated, looking around the room, searching for Scarlet and wondering where I could hide if she wasn’t there to talk to. It was such a large gathering, and I felt conspicuous in the bulky red sweater my mother had knitted for me. I looked like a big, round Christmas ornament with legs.
My dopey brother had teased me about standing there. “Looking for a lip-lock, Hailey?” he’d asked. Then, before I could reply, he summoned Carwyn. “Hey, Car, come give Hailey a zap.”
My heart went into overdrive, and the blood rushed to my head, setting my whole face on fire. I tried to back away, but there was Sam right behind me, and there came Carwyn. Gorgeous, smiling Carwyn. No glasses, not a zit to be seen anywhere on that perfect face of his. (I, on the other hand, had one blooming right on my chin.) He strolled up to me and, with a chuckle, pulled me up against him like we were going to start dirty dancing right there in his living room in front of his family and all our neighbors and God and all the angels on holiday patrol.
I still get hot and bothered thinking about it. He had the kind of hard body like those heroes in the romance novels I devoured. He touched my lips with his perfect masterful ones, and my world tilted. I could smell his spicy aftershave, and he tasted like peppermint.
My breath smelled like garlic and onions, thanks to the chips and dip I’d gotten into before we came to the party.
Of course, he wasn’t into it. I knew that. Who would be into kissing an onion-infested Christmas ornament? With zits. It was a joke, and it was all so humiliating.
I pulled away as fast as I could, pushing my glasses up my suddenly sweaty nose. My whole face was sizzling so hot you could have broiled a steak over it.
One of the older women said, “Isn’t that cute?”
No, it wasn’t cute. It was mortifying.
