I hope you enjoy getting to know Trace, Monique and Adele as much as I loved writing their story.
CHAPTER ONE
(Part Two)
Smiling, he
ran a hand through
his light brown hair “I arrived a few
hours
ago.
Didn’t expect to play Santa delivering trees,
but Joe’s daughter is having a
baby so I’m
covering.”
“Jessica went into labor today?”
“Mama.” Adele tugged on
her
shirt. “Is
he
the man we saw on TV?”
Trace cocked
his head.
“You were watching me, huh?”
The last thing
Trace needed
was encouragement. He’d take an
inch and she’d end
up buck naked with her boots
on the dashboard of that old Christmas
tree truck.
Buying time,
Monique tugged on a vine and wound it around her finger, trying to think of a fib to worm her
way
out of being caught fawning over his
recent
television
special. She couldn’t come up with any lie Adele wouldn’t catch
her
on.
“I don’t
believe we’ve met.” Trace crouched down
to Adele’s eye level.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m
Adele Jacobson.”
She jutted her hand out for a shake. “And I’m four.”
Clutching her tiny fingers
in his big hand, Trace caught Monique’s eye.
“Jacobson . . . Well, I’ll be
. . .” Then he aimed
his charm back on her daughter.
“Adele Jacobson,
what a lovely name, and you
have your mother’s
exceptional
blue eyes too, don’t you? Call
me Trace.”
As he straightened, Adele craned her neck
back,
keeping eye contact all
the way up. “We
were trying to make Bunny Fru Fru—Rudolph.”
Adele pouted her plump
lips and pointed to the limp nose stuck between two vines,
hanging on a wire.
Trace followed the
direction of her finger and
casually strolled over to the
cable. “This is what turns
a flying rabbit into a
reindeer?” After untangling the plastic snout, he waved
it at Adele.
“Uh huh.” Adele nodded. “But
p-please be careful.
Mommy says
it’s not a toy.”
Trace tossed
his head back, laughing, unleashing the wide insanely wonderful
smile Monique hadn’t
seen in person for so
long.
It lit up his face and made the sun seem
brighter.
“Okay. I promise
not to play with it.” Standing in front of
a row of yellow
and red
vines, Trace furrowed his brows,
scrutinizing the airless
ball and stuck his hand
into the slit destined
for
the bunny’s muzzle.
Hanging on
to it, he ambled to the ladder.
“No.” Monique
trailed him. “We don’t
need any help. We’ve got this.”
He swiveled
his neck around and
shot her a smirk, then gripped the
ladder and began climbing.
“You really don’t have to do
that.”
With his blue jeans hugging and flashing boot
leather under the hem, up, up,
the ladder he climbed.
“Careful,
it isn’t steady,” Monique
said, grabbing
Adele’s hand.
Trace threw her a grin,
but Monique barely noticed because she wasn’t
eyeing his
face. His butt looked stupendous up there.
“Please don’t
hurt yourself.” She held
her
breath. “It’s
kind of”—Trace reached the
top— “tricky.”
Without another glance down,
Trace leaned
over, and secured the
red ball onto Bunny Fru Fru’s nose. After effortlessly descending from the ladder,
he tossed his hair back and with extra bluster in his step, strolled over.
“Rudolph!” Adele broke into
a smile wider than
her little
hand could cover.
“Mommy, it’s Rudolph!” She giggled, pointing at the reindeer in
all of his gleaming magnificence.
“Thank you, Trace.”
“Don’t mention
it.” He winked.
Gulp.
“Thank you, Mr.
Trace,
for
helping Rudolf.”
“Happy to assist,
Miss Adele.” He adjusted the
fabric at his knees and crouched down. Monique tried to recall
the last time a man
Adele’s father’s age had given
her the time of day. “It just wouldn’t be Christmas
without big bunny Rudolf guiding Santa into
the valley, right?”
“Right!” She shot
up her hand, and he clapped it. “High five!”
“So.” Getting out
of his crouch, Trace brushed
his hands together. “Are you
ladies ready to see your masterpiece?”
“You have no
idea how much I’m
counting on this tree.” She grabbed Adele’s hand.
“Almost time for decorating.” When
her
boss, Michael Santino, surprised her in
October by assigning her the
responsibility of the Santino
Winery holiday party, Monique jumped
into action.
Although Michael, the
eldest of six Santino brothers, ran Napa’s
prestigious Santino Corporation
with his father, the winery was
Michael’s baby.
All of their worldwide businesses stemmed from
the success
of Napa Valley’s Santino
wines. The entire Santino
family and their closest friends would attend the party and if
there was one
family you didn’t
want to disappoint it was the Santinos, especially at
Christmas.
After hiring a designer to create custom
wine bottle ornaments
featuring miniature Santino wine labels, Monique ordered a specifically sized
tree to show them off. If she impressed Michael with the party tonight,
maybe she’d finally get a promotion. She hated
denying Adele the new clothes she
needed or the kitty backpack and playhouse
she wanted. If she could just get a
raise, Monique could
climb
out of the financial
hole
Jarod had left her in.
“Right
this way, ladies,” Trace said, grinning. When they reached the truck,
he threw his head back.
“Let the
jingle bells
ring.” Resting his arm on the side of the vehicle,
he waved her
over. “Come on. Get a load
of this beauty.”
After waiting months for this moment,
Monique barely contained
her
excitement.
Clutching its cool
metal
side, she peered
into the truck —and her heart
hit the dirt. “That’s
not the tree.”
Trace frowned.
He glanced
into the bed and back at
her. “Of course it
is.”
Tears welled in her eyes and
Monique blinked them back. No raise.
Why had
she put her faith in Joe Rozzi at
the Christmas tree lot? When Joe guaranteed
he’d
have her tree delivered by
today,
she
believed him. Because she put
her
faith in him, her party plans were ruined.
The whole shebang hitched
on the custom adornments, now waiting in boxes, ready to be
hung on a particular sized tree.
She didn’t
have time to track down
another one before the party.
“No. It’s
not what I ordered.”
The corners of
Trace’s lips reversed down, something that
rarely happened.
“Yes,
it is. When Joe told me I’d be delivering it
to you, I even double-checked the
paperwork. I remember how picky you can
be.”
“Well.” She sighed. “I ordered
a twelve-foot
blue spruce with enough
space between the branches for specific ornaments, and
that appears to
be a scrawny Leyland cypress.”
“Like the Charlie Brown tree?” Adele asked.
“Yes, sweetheart,
exactly like the Charlie Brown
tree.” She redirected her focus
from Adele to Trace, narrowing her eyes. “And
although the puny pine was
pretty in its make-believe
way”—she raised her eyebrows—“I have to have a particular tree for work.”
Her ears thudded
waiting for his
response.
“It’s okay, Mommy, maybe he’s only good
at singing.” Adele scampered off a few yards
and found a stick.
Trace crossed his arms in front
of him and harrumphed in a
way that made his pecs
bulge. “You need to take another look.”
Acknowledging his frustration,
and trying not
to be
too distracted by his annoyingly
masculine physique, Monique angled
her
chin down and inspected
the truck’s
bed again.
“Now, see? It’s a fine tree.
Once you get your hands
on it and cover it with lights, you’ll be
all set.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I can
tell you right now,
we shouldn't bother moving it
into the winery because it’s a waste of time.” She studied
his dumbfounded expression.
“It
isn’t going to work.” Although he used to be
perceptive when they dated,
Trace threw
her a blank stare,
seeming to not understand she wasn’t
a magician, didn’t
have a magic wand and
therefore couldn’t do anything with that
measly tree to merit a promotion.
“Look.” She pressed
against
the truck on her tiptoes, dipped
into the bed and grabbed a damp
branch. Fresh sap
stuck
to her palm. Trace touched the
back of her shoulder, completely
invading her personal
space, and leaned against
her
backside presumably to get a better look.
The intoxicating scent
of leather and
sexy-man coming off of him,
combined with the smell of fresh-cut pine
made her dizzy.
She gulped a deep
breath,
and
concentrated
on the task at hand,
her
career and
Adele’s future. “There are only a few inches, at
most, between the branches.” She wedged her hand
in between the pointed
needles and
grasped
the tree trunk. “See? There isn’t
any place for me to hang the bottle ornaments.
They’ll get
squished, and if I start cutting
branches, there won’t be any tree left.”
She let
go of the trunk.
The
fresh boughs bounced back in place.
“I
don’t know what to do at this point,” she muttered, stepping away from Trace and the
jalopy. Throwing her hands in the air like an Italian even
though she wasn’t
one, she moaned. “I’m only making a big deal out of this because I’m
trying to get a promotion.”
She glanced at
Adele drawing in
the dirt and something clicked. The sight of her cheerfully absorbed in the
simple beauty of her art project gave Monique a chance to
refocus on what really mattered. “I’m sorry
I blew a gasket.
No one is dying here.” She sighed. “I’m running the party tonight, and wanted
it to be perfect.” Unfortunately her eyes
began to well
again
and her chin started
quivering. She inspected
a clump of dry pine needles on the
ground so Trace wouldn’t notice she’d
become an emotional wreck
over the last six
years.
“I’ll
tell you what.” Trace pulled
keys
of his pocket. “Your tree is
probably still in the lot with a delivery tag. I’ll jet
back and get
it.” When he shrugged,
Monique caught the
familiar glint under his black
lashes. God, how she loved the way Trace used to make her feel
like the most beautiful
woman on the planet.
“Hey,
to be honest, I don’t
know the difference between a spruce, a General Lee, or what kind
of tree Charlie Brown
had for that matter. With Joe so worried about Jessica having a baby, who knows? Maybe I brought
the wrong one.”
“Oh my God.
Do you
think it’s still at Napa Pines? Thank you. Thank you.
I’ll
go to the lot with you,
though,
just to be sure it’s
the right one.
Okay?” She pivoted to
Adele. “Honey, have you
finished your drawing?”
“Almost, Mommy.” Adele added a circle to her picture and after tossing her stick,
galloped back
to her.
Trace took
long, sexy strides
to the passenger side of the truck and gallantly opened the door.
“Oh no.” She took Adele’s hand.
There was absolutely no chance in
hell she’d risk having her female body parts encased in a
vehicle with that
tall drink of . . . sexy songwriter. In a drought for so
long, Monique didn’t trust
her
nipples or anything tingling below to behave.
Trace already wreaked
enough havoc on
her
breasts and he’d barely touched
her. Suddenly springing out of
a long dormancy, Monique
kept having to hide her high
beams with her arms. “We’ll
take our car.”
He squinted at
her. “You can drive with me,
Monique.”
“No. I can
do this by myself, Adele and I don’t need any help. Besides, I don’t want you
to have to drag us
around and
interrupt your day.” She folded her arms
over her chest,
smashing her breasts
against her body.
Trace brought his hand
to his face and massaged his
chin. “After six years, I finally see you
again,
and after only ten minutes, you’re already being stubborn.”
She jutted
her
chin out, returning his grumpy grimace right
over
her nose.
“We’re going to
the same place, Monique.” He shifted his weight from one
boot to the other and cocked his head.
His sultry green gaze, the same one that transformed his fans
into quivering bowls
of pudding, scanned
her body like
an X-ray and
then
locked on her eyes.
“There is only one truck on the lot. Therefore,
I will
be driving said
truck
back
to this very location, with the right tree,
hopefully.”
“Well,
okay
then,” she mumbled. Adele would sit in the middle as a blockade between any bumping thighs
or arms. “I just didn’t
want to put you out.”
He opened
the
door. “Please get in.” (End)
I hope you enjoyed getting a taste of my story. I think you'll love how it ends. If you'd like a copy of the novella, it's available for pre-order on Amazon here: http://amzn.to/2dD5Enm
Soon after it releases on Amazon, Kissing Mr. Mistletoe will be available on all online retail stores. Until next time, -Kate
PS: Find me here: www.katekisset.com
