Bespoken: An Opposites-Attract Standalone Romance (Carmel Cove Book 2) Page 28

  “You better not be talkin’ about me Jessa Lynn,” Mick warned lovingly, shooting me a wink.

  “That can only be guaranteed as long as my mouth is full of the snickerdoodle cookies I was promised,” she informed him nonchalantly, and then turned to me with a devious twinkle in her eyes. “We’ll talk later.”

  The car turned up the drive, and I found myself in awe a short minute later when the trees cleared to reveal a mountain chalet, nestled amongst snow-topped evergreens, with large windows framed by twinkle lights, and smoke drifting out of the chimney.

  We’d barely come to a stop before the garage door opened and a small woman, with short brown hair, came rushing out to greet her son. Miles appeared a few steps behind her to help collect our minimal bags from the car; he’d driven out a few days ago, not too keen on flying.

  I greeted him with a smile, always happy to see a familiar face and surprised when he pulled me in for a quick hug. My heart thudded louder as I turned to Mick and his mom.

  “Momma, this is Jules.”

  “Mrs. Madison,” I murmured.

  I’d never met the woman, never even spoken to her, and she pulled me to her like I was her long-lost child, a prodigal daughter who’d finally come home.

  “Oh, dear, it is so wonderful to finally meet you. Please, call me Donna,” she said, a much thicker Texan accent clinging to every word like warm, sugary honey. “Alright, let’s move this inside, I’m sure you’re like me out here—not used to these temperatures and all this white stuff,” she joked, keeping her arm around me as we all filed inside.

  Truthfully, I hadn’t even noticed the cold. It was hard to feel the chill when I was surrounded by such warmth.

  The inside of the house was everything I would expect given the exterior. We walked into the living room that was nice and toasty from the fire crackling in the fireplace, the scent of which mingled with the real evergreen tree that stood tall and undecorated along the back windows of the house, along with a trace of warm vanilla musk coming from the three-wick candle that sat on the coffee table.

  The lofted ceiling in the living room and kitchen fit with the cabin-like persona of the building, although it also accentuated just how large of a cabin this really was, comfortably accommodating all seven of us inside the space.

  “There he is!” a voice boomed from the stainless steel and mahogany coated kitchen. “My boy.”

  Mick’s dad, who stood watch over a pot on the stove, wearing a very pink apron, set the wooden spoon down and strolled over to pull his son in for a hug.

  I wondered where Mick got his size from. His parents weren’t petite but neither them were close to how big the two boys were, especially Mick.

  The older man turned to me, a wide smile pushing up his narrow glasses. “And his girl. So pleased to meet you.” He wrapped me in a quick hug before leading me over to the kitchen. “I’ve been mullin’ this wine all day so you two arrived just in time. I need an official taster, if you’d be so kind m’dear.”

  My mouth opened and closed for a half-second before I nodded eagerly. “Of course.”

  It was like I’d always been a part of this family whom I’d just met.

  Minutes later, with my approval, everyone but Jessa accepted a mug of warm, mulled red wine as our attention focused to the living room and the bare tree.

  I stood with Jessa and Mrs.—Donna, as we watched the twins and Chance grumble and argue as they tried to sort out the electronics to get some Christmas music playing over the speakers.

  “How do you not know how to work your own damn speakers, Ryder?” Miles growled angrily.

  “I would, if your sister hadn’t thrown away the damn directions before I got a chance,” he retorted.

  Jessa yelled across the room, “You said you didn’t need the directions, Pride.”

  She smirked even as he glared at her, and I had a feeling that argument was going to be settled later, in private.

  A few minutes later, the rolling sounds of Pentatonix’s Christmas album jingled through the air. I’d recommended this at the resort, but my mother pushed aside my suggestion in favor of more classical renditions of all the traditional Christmas carols.

  “They can switch the music if you don’t like this, doll,” Donna said softly, and I realized my expression must have turned at the thought of my parents and the lack of happy holiday memories with them.

  “Oh, no. I love it,” I assured her, shaking my head. “I was just remembering how I’d suggested to play this at my family’s… hotel… but my mother didn’t approve.”

  “Oh, dear… well, I certainly think they are quite talented.” She smiled as Jessa left us to direct Mick and Miles where to set down the tub of Christmas ornaments for the tree. “Those three were always like this. The two boys thinking they had the final word being bigger and older, but then there was always Jessa—not always with the pink hair, mind you—but she’d stroll in and order ‘em about and they never once put up a fight.”

  I smiled, watching the siblings together, feeling the love radiate through the air stronger than the heat from the fire.

  “Mulled wine is Jim’s decorating tradition. Even before the kids were technically old enough, he’d always give them a cup. Said it would help keep the bickering to a minimum.” She chuckled. “Does your family have any Christmas traditions?”

  I winced, but responded truthfully, “Unfortunately, no. My parents only celebrated in ways that made sense for their business, not for our family.”

  I swallowed over the lump in my throat, watching as Jessa pulled out the strands of lights and began ordering all three of the boys on how to distribute them around the tree.

  “My parents did most things, including raising me, for the sake of the business…” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure anyone could’ve heard.

  “Oh, dear. I’m sorry to hear that…” Donna let out a long sigh. “We do a lot of fosterin’ down in Texas. In fact, we’ve got a sweet young girl, Mila, comin’ to stay with us in the new year,” she began with a fond smile that dispersed as she continued, “But it certainly never gets easier to hear how selfish some parents can be, especially when it comes at the price of hurtin’ a child.”

  “They didn’t hurt me,” I assured her, discounting how my mother had slapped me, since that had never happened before.

  “I’ve always found the deepest wounds are the ones that aren’t physical.” My head ducked as she wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “I’ve also found that sometimes the best kind of family isn’t the one you’re born into, but the one you find along the way.” Her kind smile brought tears to my eyes as she nodded over to her sons. “I don’t know what my life would’ve been like had I not found Mick and Miles.”

  My eyes shot up to hers.

  What was she talking about? Wait, were they—

  “Jules, incoming!” My head jerked to the side just in time to see Mick lasso-ing a string of Christmas lights over his head, his smirk making clear his intent.

  “What are you—You can’t,” I squealed with glee, my eyes squeezing shut as he released the lights. They flew right around my head and settled around my upper arms and chest. I gaped at him with an incredulous smile.

  “I can’t believe you—” I broke off again as he tugged and I willingly skipped forward toward his arms.

  “I can’t believe you just did that.” My breathless laugh faded into the claps and cheers from the small crowd.

  “Figured you might want to help decorate the tree?” He grinned.

  “So, instead of asking, you decided to lasso me?” My head tipped back with a full, throaty laugh.

  “Do you have a problem with that, darlin’?”

  His voice dropped just enough for me to hear the whisper of desire inside it and, for a second, I couldn’t decide what I wanted more—to have this moment with him and his family or to be alone with him again.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “C’mon, Mick! Let her go and string the lights aro
und the tree, not your girl,” Jessa teased and the heavy fog of desire evaporated.

  Mick untangled me from the strand and dropped a swift kiss on my lips before rejoining Miles and Chance to finish up the lights.

  “Alright, Jules. Take your pick.”

  I turned to Jessa who eyed me and the tub of ornaments to choose from. It was a sea of reds and greens and golds woven with sparkles and spirit and it drowned any lingering thoughts of my parents. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” came over the speakers as I reached in and picked two red balls from the top, my smile and happiness overflowing.

  I met Mick’s eyes and realized that maybe this was a dream, but it didn’t matter because I was home for Christmas… because home was with him.

  I stared at the tree, glistening with twinkle lights and dripping with ornaments against the dark backdrop of the night through the windows and the dim lighting in the living room.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be like this every time, but I knew each and every ornament that I’d put on the tree this afternoon; I’d even picked out two favorites—one that Mick had made when he was nine that had his school photo ringed by hard macaroni glued around it. And the second that he’d made later in life—a polished piece of wood, hand-carved with the phrase, ‘Family is where the heart is.’

  I felt Mick come up behind me, his hand snaking possessively around my middle and pulling me back against the hard wall of his chest.

  We were alone in the living room, Chance, Miles, and Donna were in the kitchen on clean-up duty from dinner. Jessa excused herself right after dessert, holding her stomach and confessing to being completely wiped after the day’s events.

  “It’s breathtaking.” I sighed, unable to stop from staring at the way the tree flickered like it was inhabited by a hundred fireflies.

  Mick let out a hoarse chuckle behind me, but when he didn’t reply, I turned back to look up at him, the lights reflecting off the rich blue in his eyes.

  “You don’t think so?” I prodded.

  Maybe it was just me, seeing how this was essentially my first Christmas spent celebrating instead of selling the holiday.

  He looked to the tree and then back down at me.

  “It’s beautiful. I don’t disagree…” My breath caught as his arms tightened around me. “Just breathtakin’ seems to take on a whole new meanin’ once a person meets you.”

  My breath caught and was sealed in my lungs when his lips slanted over mine.

  Sweet and strong and promising. He always kissed me with a promise. A promise to listen to me. A promise to support me. A promise to protect me. And a promise to love me.

  I turned farther into his arms, the comforting scent of the tree and crackling fire wrapped around us like a warm blanket with the lights from the tree twinkling like stars.

  In so many ways, this could have been the worst Christmas of my life, not that very many of them had been exceptional to begin with, but instead, this patient, daunting man refused to let me go.

  He’d brought me here, to a place that felt like it was ripped right out of a winter wonderful and a family who so effortlessly made me feel like one of their own.

  Instead, this Christmas—this first Christmas—would be the most beautiful moment of my life.

  My lips and tongue tethered me to him as my body slowly drifted out of my control. It had been a long day—one filled with plentiful distractions, but none quite enough to eliminate how badly I wanted it to be just him and me again. Alone.

  I rubbed my hips against his, feeling the growing length of his arousal against the warm ache between my thighs. I wanted him. I’d love this day, but now I wanted only him.

  My breasts tightened against his chest, the lavender sweater I had on working against me as it rubbed coarsely over my skin.

  There was a whooshing through the air followed by a thud just as Mick pulled back with a low grunt.

  “Finish that later, little bro,” Miles drawled from the kitchen. “Help me take out this trash.”

  Mick held me for another determined second, only willing to let go of me on his terms. His lips brushed once more over mine… one more promise that this would continue later when we wouldn’t be disturbed.

  He picked up the towel his twin had thrown at him and made for the kitchen to help his family.

  Meanwhile, I turned back to the tree with a shudder, bending down to adjust the tree skirt one more time, knowing that it would be filled with presents come morning.

  “I see Jessa has taken another one hostage in her La Croix fan club…”

  I looked up and over my shoulder at Chance who held up the empty La Croix can from the coffee table.

  I giggled, having to hear from both him and Mick how she couldn’t live without the stuff. To prove it was worth the hype, she’d promptly pulled out a can from the fridge to give to me to have with dinner.

  “It is really good…” I admitted and stood, wiping off my hands.

  “Do you want another one?” He shoved the empty can in the small bag he was using to collect the recycling.

  “No, thank you.”

  Glancing around, he set the bag down and moved quickly to the coat closet next to the door to the garage, reaching up and pulling down three wrapped boxes, each dwindling in size, and brought them over to the tree. “Guess it worked out for me that Jess went up to bed already.” He grinned.

  I nodded mutely.

  Wrapped presents. Real ones.

  I blinked and realized that Chance was staring up at me, his light expression hardening into a strange look of understanding.

  “It’s not so bad, you know…”

  “What?”

  He stood and shrugged, moving so that he was shoulder to shoulder with me, both of us mesmerized by the tree.

  “Starting fresh.”

  I swallowed over the lump in my throat.

  “It’s daunting,” I admitted quietly. “My whole life was geared and shaped for something… something that was never me.”

  “Jess mentioned something about your career change.” His lips tipped up in a wry smile as he rocked back on his heels. “I wanted a certain future before it was taken from me. I know what it’s like to look at the road ahead and wonder just where the hell it’s going to take you,” he paused and sighed heavily. “Jessa will look at her cards and tell you it’s fate, and maybe it is. All I know is the path we leave behind, by chance or by choice, isn’t nearly as important as the path we pave for the future. With choices. With actions. And with the people who care about us.”

  My eyes slid over to him even though he remained focused on the tree. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew I felt comforted.

  “And now, you’re going to be a father.”

  “Now, I’d go back and break my knee a hundred damn times, bear the pain of what I lost, knowing this is where it brought me… knowing everything I would gain.” He flashed me a brief smile.

  “You already stole my sister, Ryder,” Mick warned with a barely contained smile. “I’m not lettin’ you steal my girl.”

  Chance grinned and put up his hands. “I know better than to mess with that look in your eye.”

  “It’s been a long day, darlin’. Let’s head to bed.” Mick kissed the side of my head as Chance wished us goodnight.

  With a firm grip on my waist, we said our goodnights to the rest of Mick’s family before he steered me toward the door down into the basement.

  Jules

  The stairwell illuminated down into a small carpeted sitting room with a small, gray loveseat, chair, and television. The ceilings were just high enough for Mick to stand tall but to walk through the doorway into the bedroom involved a slight duck to avoid hitting his head.

  The bedroom was small with the queen bed centered on the wall immediately to the right of the door. Covered with a deep blue bedspread that was pinched in various places, it had a permanently messed texture even when the bed was made.

  The opposing wall held a floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding
door that was locked but would allow a private exit from the room. Jessa had mentioned something about a story involving Chance sneaking back into his own house but whispered that she’d have to tell me later when her brother wasn’t around.

  His small carryon sat in the corner of the room, open with our clothes folded neatly on each side.

  I shivered as the door shut, my pulse picking up speed for what I’d been waiting for.

  This man’s presence overwhelmed me. Not just because of his size, but because of his character. His heartfelt steadfastness and unwavering protectiveness. And mostly, the way he encouraged my every thought and emotion to make noise. To speak. To scream and be heard for who I was and what I wanted.

  And, not for nothing, most of those times, what I wanted was him.

  I turned and planted my palms flat on the muscles of his chest, feeling the living beats underneath my fingertips. “Thank you.” I met his eyes. “Thank you for this… for bringing me here.”

  “Darlin’, don’t thank me,” he pleaded softly, his hands cupping my face. “Don’t thank me for tryin’ to give you everything you deserve.”

  His proclamation settled over us like the waves on the shore, soft yet ready to prove itself with the full weight of the world’s most powerful force behind it.

  “You’re so lucky to have a family like you do.”

  I would have given every luxury I was raised with for parents who cared like his.

  His hands slipped to my waist and moved us back to the bed. Turning us, the mattress sunk under his weight, dropping only slightly more when he pulled me on to straddle his lap.

  “They chose us,” he said, pushing my loose hair back over my shoulders and out of the way. “My parents fostered Miles and me, and then adopted us.”

  My mouth parted but all the questions I’d wanted to ask earlier at his mom’s comment stayed jumbled along with the air in my lungs.

  “Our real parents died in a car accident, Dad was overdosing on drugs and our mom, who was also high, was tryin’ to get him to the hospital when she crashed the car.”

  “I-I’m so sorry,” I whispered.