“TEN... NINE... EIGHT... SEVEN...”
Brooklyn shouted along with the rest of Rose Bend’s citizens, counting down the seconds until...
“One!”
The lights on the enormous Christmas tree in the middle of The Glen, a huge meadow at the end of Main Street, flared to life. Though this was her umpteenth Christmas tree lighting, the event that kicked off Yulefest, it never failed to fill her with a sense of awe. The towering tree in the middle of the field with its homemade ornaments and beautiful glass balls was the perfect emblem for the holiday and the festival that drew visitors from neighboring cities and states.
The beauty of the tree and the holiday cheer that seemed to permeate the air almost wiped away the memories and anxiety of the disastrous family dinner earlier that evening.
Almost.
A vise grip tightened around her chest, and she inhaled a breath, attempting to release the hold that very recent memory had on her.
“This never gets old,” Patrick murmured from beside her, nearly echoing her thoughts from moments ago.
“It really doesn’t.” She smiled and pretended not to notice how the red, blue and green lights highlighted his chiseled cheekbones, the sharp line of his jaw and that full bottom lip. Nope. She didn’t notice at all. “It’s no wonder why this is my favorite time of year.”
“Mine, too.” He glanced down at her, the corner of his mouth quirked. “And it has nothing to do with the bonus you give us at work.”
“Of course not.” She smirked. Shifting her gaze back to the tree, she sighed. “You know, it’s ironic.” She huffed out a soft chuckle, shaking her head. “When I was younger, I would dream about my wedding day. And I pictured getting married right in front of this tree. I’d carry a bouquet of poinsettias and have them in my hair. And I’d wear a white fur shawl over my dress. And I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus by the Jackson 5 would be playing as I walked down the aisle.” At Patrick’s snicker, she held up a gloved hand. “Listen, I was eleven.” But her quiet laughter joined his. “God, I haven’t thought of that in a long time.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get the wedding you imagined,” Patrick murmured.
“That was a girl’s dream,” she said, waving away his words with a flick of her hand. But she couldn’t dismiss the twinge in her chest at the long-forgotten memory. Silly. The regret in her heart was silly. “And I’m far from being that little girl. Life isn’t a thirty-minute sitcom or a romance movie. More like women’s fiction with horror elements.”
She expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. Instead, Patrick cocked his head and his bright gaze roamed over her face. As if searching out the truth behind her words. As if he didn’t believe her.
“You deserve the dream and a romantic movie ending,” he softly said.
That twinge in her chest pulled taut, vibrating through her. When a person looked at Patrick, they would see the proud, nearly stark bone structure, the sharp gaze and lush mouth. They’d also take in the tall, wide-shouldered big build and might be intimidated or believe him to be aloof, reserved. And that wasn’t altogether false. He could come across as standoffish. But most people didn’t realize that Patrick was almost shy around those he didn’t know well. Only when he was comfortable did he lower his guard and allow a person to see the funny, sensitive and unerringly kind man he was.
Pride swelled inside her that he counted her among those precious few he called friends.
Friends? Friends don’t notice each other’s thighs and ass.
They did if they got married and ended up naked in the bed together.
She silently sighed. This same back and forth had been warring in her head since her return from Vegas.
“And you’re sweet,” she murmured, replying to Patrick. Averting her gaze—afraid if she met his eyes, he would glimpse the confusion and the darker, twistier emotion she refused to name—she tugged her hat farther down over her curls. “Now, come treat me to some hot chocolate.”
They crossed the field, winding their way through the festive assortment of booths offering everything from steaming hot beverages and food to Christmas ornaments and ugly sweaters. Made sense the latter booth had a line gathered in front of it given the holiday ugly sweater competition was slated for next week.
Minutes later a large hot chocolate cupped in her hands with the warmth seeping through her gloves, Brooklyn forged a path toward the funnel cake fryer located under the huge tent on the far right side of The Glen. As they moved through the line to all that golden, fried, powdered-sugar goodness, she chatted with friends and townspeople she’d known one way or another her entire life.
And right at her elbow stood the quiet pillar of strength she’d come to depend on not just as an employee, but as her friend.
Don’t forget husband.
How could she? And boy, had she tried.
She slid a sidelong glance at him as Tricia Martin shook powdered sugar over her funnel cake. He’d been her employee for four years, and her friend for almost as long. And other than objective appreciation for his loveliness, Patrick had only been just that—her employee and friend. And oh yes, her sister’s ex. Couldn’t forget that fact.
But since she’d woken up in that hotel room with him, she couldn’t look at the marble-like line of his jaw and not wonder if she’d trailed her lips along it. Couldn’t peek at the breadth of his chest and not speculate if she’d nuzzled it, rested her ear against his heartbeat.
Couldn’t glance at that mouth and hope she’d devoured it...and pray it had returned the favor.
No, since that morning, he’d become so much more.
Her every desire.
And goddamn, it was so wrong.
“Brooklyn, Patrick.”
She stiffened, a charge of unease and shock tripping down her spine.
Damn. It.
Turning around with a piece of funnel cake lifted to her mouth, she forced her lips into a smile she prayed didn’t appear as strained as it felt.
“Hey, Kayla,” she greeted her sister. Then, spotting her parents behind her. “Mom, Dad.”
And with those words—and her family standing in front of her—the calamitous dinner popped back into her head. Well, not that it’d been very far from her memories. But the lighting, the hot chocolate, funnel cake and Patrick had aided in sublimating it.
And with the reemergence of just how cringe the earlier part of this night had been, she shifted away from Patrick, inserting the smallest amount of space between them. But when she glanced at him, and her gaze collided with that turquoise hooded stare, it felt like an ocean could fit into that space.
But what could she do? There wasn’t a handbook on how to react when your baby sister showed up for dinner, surprising you and the man she almost married. The man who you did marry. Didn’t help that all through the awkward meal and small talk afterward, she could’ve sworn Married in Vegas blinked on her forehead like a neon vacancy sign on a cheap hotel.
Guilt and fear comingled in the nastiest of cocktails, guaranteed to leave her with a worse hangover than the one that had gotten her in this predicament in the first place.
“How’d you enjoy the tree lighting?” Brooklyn asked Kayla and her parents, desperately searching for something, anything, to say. Okay, to deflect.
“It’s the same as ever,” Kayla said, her shrug as dismissive as her tone. “I mean, once you’ve seen the one on Boston Common, this one kind of pales in comparison. They bring that tree in all the way from Nova Scotia, not just some Christmas tree farm.”
Brooklyn gritted her teeth, trapping her instinctive, “Bitch, please.” It was the holidays after all, and her present to Kayla could be not calling her out on her bullshit. Better than the sweater from Kohl’s she planned on purchasing.
Her relationship with her sister was...complicated. Something that smacked of sibling rivalry but dug just a bit deeper. Kayla had always been in competition with Brooklyn, trying to one-up her in academics, sports and now, in careers. And Brooklyn...
Well, for the past twenty-seven years—ever since Kayla had been born when Brooklyn had been three—she’d been competing in the match for their parents’ love and attention. More often than not, she came in second. And there were only two of them.
“Well, I’m biased. Nothing compares to a good ol’ Rose Bend tree lighting. No offense to Boston,” her father added with a warm smile. He wrapped his arm around her mother’s shoulder and planted a kiss on her thick curls. “Especially when I have the love of my life by my side. This will be our thirty-second lighting together. It was—”
“Our first date,” Brooklyn and Kayla finished his sentence together.
Patrick chuckled beside her, and her father grinned.
“And our first kiss. Right, sweetie?” he asked, and when her mother tipped her head back, they shared a kiss right in front of God, country and their daughters.
Kayla groaned, and Brooklyn grimaced.
It was sweet...and ew.
She might be thirty, but when her parents went into PDA mode, she reverted to a twelve-year-old. No one wanted to see all...that. Primarily her. Shit, she still denied they’d actually had sex.
Still, with the story of their first date hammered into her head since she was little, she couldn’t be blamed for imagining her wedding happening in the same place. But as she’d told Patrick, that was a girl’s dream.
“Right, baby.” Her mother preened under his obvious affection and devotion, and Brooklyn would be a liar if she didn’t admit to a pang of envy...of loneliness.
While her parents might be a wee bit nauseating with their open displays—she’d caught him copping a feel of her mother’s breast in the kitchen last Thanksgiving—she couldn’t deny she’d wanted what they had once upon a time. Back before she realized any man she pledged her fidelity and future to would have to pass the gauntlet of her sister. More specifically, not spying her younger, skinnier, more fun, conventionally beautiful sister and falling in lust and love with her on sight. It’d occurred with her first and second boyfriends in high school. Happened with the man she’d been dating for six months in college. Transpired again four years ago when she met the man she’d been talking to online for five months in person for the first time. All had one thing in common. They’d taken one look at Kayla and decided they’d all dated the wrong Hayes sister.
And then there was her husband.
God. She broke off another piece of funnel cake and ate it, swallowing her unwanted resentment along with it. I definitely seem to have a type.
“You might want to slow down on that, Brooklyn,” Kayla said, frowning as her lips turned up. “As they say, a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.” Her gaze scanned down Brooklyn’s body, settling on the offending area—at least in her opinion, it seemed.
Instead of verbally replying to that unsubtle dig about her weight, Brooklyn popped another piece of the fried dough into her mouth, chewing slowly and deliberately. Screw her. She loved her wide hips. And her small breasts and big ass. And don’t get her started on her thick thighs. It’d taken years for her to appreciate all the curves she possessed, as well as refuse to allow other people’s ideals of beauty to define hers. It’d been a hard-won battle, but she adored every curve, dip and dimple of her size sixteen.
“A lifetime on the hips?” Patrick spoke for the first time since her parents and Kayla approached them. “Eat up, then.”
He reached over and broke off a piece of the treat and held it to her lips. And with shock shimmering through her, she parted them and allowed him to slip the dough inside. Only when a faint smirk rode his mouth did she break free of her paralysis and horror swelled inside her.
Horror and heat.
They tussled and tangled with one another, each vying for dominance.
Holy shit.
She blinked, jerking her too-enraptured regard away from him and back to her family, who stared at them with varying degrees of surprise and annoyance.
“It seems like you two have become...friendly—” Kayla bit off the word, sounding decidedly unfriendly, her narrowed stare shifting from Brooklyn to Patrick, and then back to her “—in the time I’ve been gone.”
“Don’t be silly,” her mother scoffed. “They’re just friends, and don’t forget Patrick works for your sister. Although,” she continued, “I wish Brooklyn would listen to me and put as much effort into finding someone as she does into that business. A company can’t love her back or give her a family.”
“I’m standing right here,” Brooklyn said dryly.
Did her mother’s criticism sting? Yes. All her accomplishments with building a highly successful company that literally started in an efficiency apartment and now employed eleven people and operated out of a suite of offices right there on Main Street didn’t matter. Not when compared to a husband and children. None of those things she claimed to want, by the way. At least, not aloud. Her mother, God love her, dismissed Brooklyn’s achievements, her success, and reduced her to a womb.
“I have to respectfully beg to differ.” Patrick lifted his cup of hot chocolate for a sip, his quiet objection drawing three pairs of eyes his way. “A company isn’t comprised of brick and mortar. It’s the people who show up for work every day, nurturing a vision, and who are dedicated to its survival. In that way, it can love you in return. And those same people become a family of choice not blood.”
Silence seemed to throb in their small circle, temporarily dulling the laughter and chatter surrounding them under the tent.
Pressure shoved against Brooklyn’s ribs, and for a moment she couldn’t identify that immense, nearly suffocating, feeling. But the longer she stared at Patrick, the clearer it became, like a fog being swept out to sea by a mild but insistent wind.
Awe. Pure and simple.
He was defending her, having her back.
How...novel.
And hot. Damn, was it hot.
She wanted her husband.
Oh, she was so fucked.
“I can’t say I’ve ever looked at it that way before,” her father said into the deepening silence. “But I suppose you’re correct. Hell, Lily’s always calling my squad down at the firehouse my ‘other family.’” He smiled, and her mother rolled her eyes. Dad had left a career as a teacher to become a firefighter, and now, twenty-three years later, he was the proud chief of Rose Bend’s fire department. And yes, he did consider the men and women under him his family. “If you have that, honey, then I’m happy for you.”
Kayla blew out a loud breath and moved forward, slipping between Brooklyn and Patrick, and threading her arm through his.
“Pat, it’s been a long time since we’ve talked. Too long. Buy me a cup of apple cider and catch me up on what’s been going on with you?” Kayla murmured, tipping her head to the side, her long ponytail sliding over her shoulder.
Jealousy splintered inside Brooklyn, and she didn’t try and pretend the sharp thorns embedded in her chest were anything else.
They looked good together—no, they looked like they belonged together. Kayla—tall, slim, with her delicate bone structure and almond-shaped eyes—was the perfect foil to Patrick’s big, wiry frame. They made sense in a way Brooklyn—short, fluffy and surly—did not. Yes, she loved all her curves, but most men who looked like Patrick didn’t appreciate a woman of her stature and size. Shame on them, not her.
Still...
Maybe a tiny part of her would like to know what he preferred. At least when he wasn’t drunk off his ass.
“Sure,” Patrick said. Then jerking his chin up, he asked, “Brooklyn? Are you coming with us?”
“Why? She already has hot chocolate and—” Kayla dropped her gaze “—cake. Besides, she gets to see you every day. She can do without you for a little while.”
Kayla moved forward, but Patrick didn’t budge, his attention remaining on her. “Brooklyn?”
Curving her lips in a smile that she didn’t feel, she lifted her plate. “No, you two go ahead. I’m going to finish up here then head out for the night. See you tomorrow.”
For a long moment he didn’t move, and she held his stare. Yes, part of her wanted to rip Kayla’s hands off him. But as quick as the thought entered her head, she dropkicked it down. A certificate didn’t make them husband and wife.
Deliberately turning away from him, she smiled at her parents.
“One of my coworkers is over there. I’m going to say hi real quick. I’ll talk to you guys later.”
Crossing the few feet separating them, she kissed her mom’s cheek, then her dad’s. Then she left, not turning to watch her husband walk away.
With her sister.