Rekindled, a Christmas Novella Read online

  The constant partings, the sad goodbyes, had been gut-wrenching—but only for her. Alex chafed for his next grand adventure. He couldn’t wait to get away. She’d realized, with the benefit of early maturity, that they were better off taking a break than trying to ride it out. In her mind that meant that it was really over. She’d concentrated on fulfilling her dreams. Once Just Desserts was up and running, she’d started looking for a man who was content to grow where he’d been planted.

  And she’d found him in the form of the most eligible bachelor in Edenton.

  Growling, Tori rolled over, clutching her body pillow while rearranging the covers of her duvet until only her right foot stuck out from under the plush fabric. Her lips twitched as she recalled how Alex had teased her about her strange nightly habits: cool gel memory foam pillow for her head, body pillow between her legs, and one foot bared while the rest of her was cocooned like a caterpillar.

  Peyton had never even spent the night with her. He’d said he wanted to wait until they were married to share something as special as that. He had no idea about her idiosyncrasies. He would never know her the way Alex did.

  Exhausted by her torturous thoughts, Tori lapsed into sleep just as the sky began to brighten.

  Chapter Two

  With sunrise a mere suggestion in the kitchen window, Alex toyed with the salt and pepper shakers on his mother’s table and found himself wondering if Tori still had the cupcake pair he’d given her their last Christmas together two years ago. Or had she thrown them away, the same way she’d thrown away their future?

  The sound of footfalls wrested his attention from his brooding thoughts to his mother, who drew up at the kitchen door still tying her bathrobe.

  “You’re up early.” Her astute blue gaze jumped to the wall clock before searching his glum expression. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” It wasn’t yet six in the morning and he really ought to be sleeping, but thoughts of Tori in another man’s arms had kept him tossing and turning all night. Producing a reason for his insomnia, he came up with a credible excuse. “It’s one in the afternoon back at Incirlik,” he said, offering a what-can-I-do shrug, but he couldn’t hold his mother’s gaze.

  Rhonda Morrigan ventured deeper into the kitchen. “How about coffee?”

  “I’ll get it.” He started to rise, but she waved him down.

  “I bought this coffee maker with the money you sent me,” she informed him. “The least I can do is make you a cup.”

  “Thanks.” He’d already admired the spanking-new appliances, realizing his mother had updated the entire kitchen since he’d seen it last. Granite countertops and a tile backsplash made it look like something out of one of the HGTV shows she loved to watch. His heart warmed to know that his financial support had gone toward making her more comfortable—especially since she’d lost almost everything after his dad died.

  Even then, they’d lived in this modest, clapboard home on the poorer side of Edenton. His dad had worked construction. His mom had cut hair—still did. Their two sons had been expected to attend Chowan College, each get a degree, and live easier lives than their working-class parents. But an accident at the construction site had put a halt to all that, leaving their father dead, a mountain of hospital bills that needed paying, and their mother struggling to get by.

  Alex had promptly quit college and joined the military. Joel, then a senior in high school, had started cutting hair with their mother and never stopped. Between the three of them, they’d scraped together enough funds to keep their home from foreclosure.

  “I like the changes you’ve made. Everything looks great,” Alex praised.

  His mother sent him a proud smile. “Thanks. Business is good these days,” she admitted. “You can stop sending me money, I’ve told you that, and start saving for yourself. Joel and I can hold our own now.”

  Joel, who still lived at home at twenty-five, flounced into the kitchen as if arriving on stage to receive a Grammy. Alex blinked at his green plaid pajamas but couldn’t bring himself to needle him.

  “Mom’s right,” Joel said, throwing himself down in the chair opposite his brother’s. “Save. Or better yet, spend your money on yourself. My God, man, get a haircut,” he added, casting a distasteful look at Alex’s uneven locks.

  “So business is good?” Alex asked, deflecting the unwanted attention. “Did you spend some money on ads like I suggested?”

  “Ads cost too much.” Joel propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin on one hand as he fixed a hooded gaze on Alex. “Word of mouth is better, and it’s free.” He paused a second before adding, “Tori Wilde’s been sending customers our way.”

  A rush of adrenaline flooded Alex’s arteries. Had thoughts of her been showing on his face? It was everything he could do to keep from flushing at merely the sound of her name.

  “I cut her hair,” her brother added, with a knowing smirk.

  Jealousy nipped at Alex despite knowing his brother was gay.

  “She opened her shop, Just Desserts, six months ago,” Joel continued, his green gaze focused like a laser on Alex’s face. “She gives us coupons for her bakery. Customers only get them if they come in for haircuts. People will do anything for her carrot cake.”

  “The coupons were Tori’s idea,” his mother added, placing a mug of steaming coffee in front of him, along with a carton of creamer.

  Gratitude toward Tori vied with a trickle of betrayal as Alex thought again of her with Peyton. “What’s new with Tori?” he asked, stirring sugar casually into his coffee.

  Joel arched an eyebrow at him. “You haven’t heard?” he asked on an incredulous note.

  “’Bout her and Peyton?” Alex hid his burning envy behind a swig of coffee.

  Joel’s mouth firmed into a disapproving line. “Yeah. Her and Peyton.” He practically spat the name out. “I sure hope you intend to put a stop to it now that you’re home.”

  Alex put his mug down with a thud. “I put a stop to Peyton the last time, didn’t I?” he asked, meeting Joel’s gaze with a level stare.

  Rhonda divided a baffled look between them. “Last time?”

  Alex gestured for his brother to drop the subject but, true to form, Joel totally ignored him.

  “Back in high school,” he said to their mother, “Peyton called me a queer, and Alex decked him. Broke his nose, I think. It’s still a little crooked,” he added, sounding satisfied to have just realized that fact.

  “Not on school grounds,” Alex inserted quickly. “No witnesses. Might not have happened.”

  “Oh, it happened. Peyton ignored me after that.” Joel shrugged, sounding vaguely disappointed.

  “I knew I never liked that boy,” his mother muttered. “Or his father,” she added.

  The kitchen fell quiet as both she and Joel eyed Alex expectantly.

  “Okay,” he admitted, pushing to his feet and crossing the tiled floor to carry his mug to the sink. “I intend to get him away from her. You two happy?” Keeping his back to them, he rinsed out his cup and set it in the dishwasher.

  “Holy shit,” Joel exclaimed in a voice that dripped with disappointment. “He has no clue how to get her back.”

  Alex waited for the heat in his face to subside before he turned around to face them. “I’m open to suggestions,” he admitted. Being a SEAL had taught him that no one’s input ought to be overlooked. The team’s solution was always better than one man’s.

  Joel and his mother exchanged a thoughtful look.

  “As a matter of fact, we do have an idea,” she said, proving they’d discussed Alex’s love life in advance of his arrival and brainstormed a solution.

  “Do you now?” The dryness to his tone belied the small spark of excitement that surged through him. It sounded like he had a mission and a goal—two things that SEALs loved.

  “There are five days left until Christmas,” Joel chimed in with a crafty smile.

  What did that have to do with winning Tori back?
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br />   Rhonda clasped her hands together. The blue eyes she’d passed down to her older son shone with anticipation. “Here’s what you need to do,” she began.

  Chapter Three

  There were four things that made it possible for Tori to function on all four cylinders at the ungodly hour of five in the morning—sheer habit, a cup of strong coffee, a hot shower, and the breakfast of an admitted sugar addict—one large, sticky square of her very popular caramel-pecan coffee cake.

  As the cobwebs started to clear from her sleep-deprived brain, she climbed into a pair of black leggings dotted with tiny reindeer and pulled on a cream-colored, long-sleeved tee. With a full day in the bakery ahead of her, she dressed more for comfort than for fashion.

  Hearing raindrops fleck the glass of her studio apartment windows, she drew back the curtains to assess the weather. Not a hint of dawn brightened the still-dark sky, but the streetlamp illuminated a fine curtain of rain that misted the empty street below.

  Good. A perfectly dreary day translated to a hectic one at Just Desserts. Customers would come in droves, drawn to the cozy, festively decorated bakery, the promise of a warm drink, and a considerable selection of baked goods. Tourists and locals alike did their Christmas shopping at the specialty boutiques on Broad Street, and they all came to Just Desserts for fortification—which reminded her—there were only five days left until Christmas, and she had yet to put a dent in her shopping list.

  With a mental note to head to the shopping mall before the pickings got any slimmer, she locked her apartment door and hurried down to the bakery to begin her day.

  Annette, her front-counter assistant, wouldn’t be in until just after seven. That gave Tori two full hours to produce a fresh array of pastries before the day got too hectic.

  It took her precisely that long to produce three dozen muffins, four pumpkin-flavored coffee cakes, two dozen croissants, and the same number of chocolate truffles. She was icing the coffee cake with cream-cheese frosting when the lock on the front door jiggled and Christmas bells hanging on the doorknob jangled.

  “Good morning, Sugar Tits!” sang out the voice Tori was expecting.

  Punctual and predictable, Annette Schwartz dressed and acted like a person one third her actual age. Tori glanced up, wincing at the zebra print, metallic raincoat Annette was slipping out of. Under the coat, she wore a gaudy red Christmas sweater that clashed with the purple streaks in Annette’s silver hair. Pulled back in a braid, the heavy plait hung clear to her waist, with one escaped tendril clinging to her damp cheek.

  “What’s up, Hot Mama?” Tori tossed back her usual reply.

  A glance out the front windows let her know that the drizzle she’d noted at dawn had turned into a downpour.

  Dumping her leather tote on the counter, Annette went to snap on the lights at the front of the bakery and plug in the Christmas tree.

  “Whew, it’s raining like the dickens outside!” As she whirled around, Tori’s gaze fell to the trees embroidered on the woman’s sweater, precisely positioned so that the stars at their peaks lay directly atop Annette’s nipples. Red feathers fringed the round collar.

  “Wow. Remind me to borrow that when I’m invited to an ugly sweater party,” she commented. “I don’t know what’s more festive, you or the actual tree.”

  “Like this sweater would fit your scrawny hide,” her friend retorted, unoffended. Throwing her arms wide, she bore down on Tori for their morning hug. “Smells like you’ve been busy. Give me a fat, sloppy, wet one, Fancy Face.”

  Leaning into Annette’s sincere embrace, Tori wished her own mother were half as affectionate as her friend.

  The older lady pinched her waist before releasing her. “Honestly, I can feel your bones through your clothes,” Annette scolded. “You’re working too many hours again.”

  Tori rolled her eyes and turned away. “Me, work too many hours? You run circles around me, lady, and you’re pushing sixty.”

  Annette pointed a finger at her. “Shame on you for reminding me of my age!”

  “Sorry, but why don’t you at least wear comfortable shoes like I do?” Tori showed her the gingerbread slippers she’d bought the previous week at Family Dollar. “What are those ridiculous things?” She pointed over the counter at Annette’s feet.

  “Shut your whorish mouth, woman. These are Nine West!” Annette hiked up a pant leg to display one heeled boot. Narrow, laced, and with a pointed toe, her shoes would have made the Wicked Witch of the West proud. “I was lucky to find them over at Caroline’s Consignment shop on the clearance rack.”

  “They’re highly impractical.” They were the kindest words Tori could think of.

  “Yet immensely sexy,” Annette insisted. Marching toward the door, she flipped the hanging sign around to announce that they were open for business. Turning back around, she asked, “So, has Peyton popped the question yet?”

  Tori rolled her eyes. “You asked me that yesterday,” she reminded her. “The answer is still no.” And yet Tori could sense a proposal fast approaching.

  “Thank the good Lord,” Annette murmured.

  Tori frowned at her. “I don’t get why you don’t like him. Everyone in the community respects him except you, and you don’t even know him.”

  Annette put her hands on her hips. “You get to be my age, Fancy Face, you learn to be a quick judge of character.”

  Tori bristled. “Peyton is a fine human being,” she insisted. She couldn’t think of a single bad habit he was guilty of. “How many other men would be so patient with all the time I put into my shop? None! Besides, he’s attentive. And safe,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Safe?” Annette pounced on the word. “What has safe got to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Tori mumbled. But safe had everything to do with it. Try falling ass over elbows for a man who couldn’t wait to put himself in the most dangerous situations imaginable. It was much easier being someone’s girlfriend when you didn’t have to compete with that.

  If only safe and easy didn’t translate to dull, at times.

  Nevertheless, Tori had made her choice, and she would stick to it with the same mulish tenacity that had gotten her through culinary school and made her a successful business woman. Alex, meanwhile, was likely a thousand miles away in a country where they didn’t even speak English, being shot at.

  She shuddered inwardly as she unlocked the cash register with her private code.

  “Peyton’s my choice,” she added on a stubborn note.

  “I hate to tell you this, sweetie, but you’re making a mistake there.”

  Before Tori could formulate a rebuttal, the bells on the front door tinkled, alerting them to their first visitor. She turned her head and sang out a greeting. The back of a black trench coat covering broad shoulders filled the doorway as its owner shook an umbrella under the shop’s awning before closing it. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he slid the umbrella smoothly into the stand next to the door. Droplets of rain clung to his freshly trimmed, reddish-blond hair—the same unique color as Alex’s. Even before he turned around, even as he pulled the door shut behind him, she knew. Grabbing the counter for support, Tori felt her throat close up, choking off the greeting she would have uttered.

  Because, holy gingerbread cookies! The incarnation of her recent thoughts had just walked into her bakery.

  Chapter Four

  Alex’s hungry gaze slid over Tori, cataloging every nuance, every familiar curve. This has to work, he thought, trying to get a handle on his heart rate.

  There she was. Right in front of him, looking like she had in every dream he’d had for the past two years, only flesh and blood. It had been twenty-four endless months since he’d seen her. All that time hung like a chasm between them. If he didn’t win her back this Christmas, she’d be lost to him forever.

  Edging into the fragrant warmth of the bakery, he traced the delicate lines of her stunned expression as he raked the raindrops from his wet hair. Than
ks to his mother and brother, he wasn’t walking into this minefield without a map. He had a strategy, and for his pounding heart’s sake, it needed to work.

  But as his gaze snagged on the beauty mark on her right cheek, all rational thought ground to a standstill.

  God, he’d missed that freckle. He wanted to kiss it. Kiss her until she melted in his arms like warmed wax. To hell with his strategy. Did Peyton even know she was ticklish at the crease of her elbow, the soles of her feet, and the spot right behind her ears where she smelled like vanilla, cinnamon, and Christmas morning? He knew it. And he could press his advantage at once if he wanted to.

  “Alex?”

  Her husky voice, breathless with incredulity, brought him back to reality. Her face lit up with such a welcoming smile that he closed the distance between them in three long strides and swept her up in his embrace, savoring the strength of her slender arms as she hugged him back. The feel of her soft curves pressed against him made him swallow a groan. One whiff of her heavenly scent and he felt like he was really home again. Why had he hesitated in the first place?

  Tori stiffened and pulled away, reminding him. Oh, yeah. She’d given herself to Peyton.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, her espresso-colored eyes wide with amazement. “When did you get in? Oh my God, you’re here. You’re actually home!”

  Hearing her chatter like a squirrel on crack eased the fear that she’d grown apathetic during his absence. That was clearly not the case.

  He could see her pulse jumping at the base of her throat. She had to be feeling it too, that visceral connection flowing like a current between them.