Jennifer Snow – The Mistletoe Melody (страница 1)
’Tis the season of forgiveness…but can she ever forget?
Brad Monroe was truly unbelievable. Blowing back into Brookhollow for three days to film a Christmas special—three years after the accident that killed his best friend…her husband—and expecting Melody to be civil? Please. He’d been the only one who’d survived the tragedy, hightailing it to Nashville and hijacking her dream…Patrick’s dream. She’d spent that time grieving, working three jobs, struggling to raise her boys and keep a roof over their heads. Now she was losing ground on all fronts, and not about to forgive and forget. Or give him the one thing that could save them all…
“I’m fine. We’re fine.”
Melody swung the scraper and Brad had to duck to avoid getting it in the side of the head. “Everything was fine,” she added, “until you showed up here as if you owned the town.”
“Fine? Really? That’s not exactly the word that comes to mind when I think about your situation, Mel.” If it took cold hard truth to wake her up, then so be it. He had nothing to lose at this point.
“What do you know about it? You’re back in Brookhollow for all of three days and all of a sudden you know something about my life? You know nothing.” Opening the back sliding door, she tossed the snow scraper inside and shoved the door shut.
“I know you’re losing the house.”
The holiday season can mean so many things to different people. For some, it is a season of love, laughter and making memories with family and friends. For others, it is a time of reflection and forgiveness. For single mom Melody Myers, the holidays are a struggle both financially and emotionally and, when Brad Monroe appears three weeks before Christmas, things get even harder.
Learning to confront past mistakes and learning to forgive are two of life’s greatest challenges, and Melody and Brad are forced to decide whether they can move forward or if some things simply cannot be forgiven…not even for love.
Brad and Melody’s story is one that is very close to my heart and one that I hope you will enjoy. Happy Holidays from my family to yours. Wishing you a season of love, laughter, hope and forgiveness.
xo
Jennifer
The Mistletoe
Melody
Jennifer Snow
JENNIFER SNOW
lives in Edmonton, Alberta, with her husband and four-year-old son. She is a member of the Writers Guild of Alberta, the Romance Writers of America, the Canadian Author Association and shewrites.org. She is also a regular blogger on the Mills & Boon Heartwarming Authors site and is a contributing writer for Mslexia magazine and RWR. She has offered online courses on writing sweet romance through several RWA local chapters and has written articles for Avenue magazine. An active volunteer with Frontier College, she is an advocate for literacy programs worldwide. More information can be found on her website, www.jennifersnowauthor.com.
For Jacob—you’re the coolest kid I know,
but you’ll never win the “I love you more” game.
Mommies always win that one.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Stephany Evans, the best agent in New York—xo. Thank you to my wonderful editor, Victoria Curran, for ignoring my pouting and helping to create the best version of this book possible—as always, you were right :). Thank you so much to Doug Organ for the music industry insights—amazingly cool guy and recording studio. I could have stayed there all day! Special thanks to recording artist Joal Kamps and his wonderful manager Laurie Brown for their help and support with this book. And thank you to Reagan for never giving up on my dream, even when I do.
Contents
Dear Reader
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MELODY SNEEZED AND reached for a tissue from the magazine table of the walk-in medical clinic’s crowded waiting room. Then she promptly pumped her hand sanitizer.
Lindsay Harper, the clinic’s head nurse, looked over at her from where she was plugging in the artificial Christmas tree in the corner. “Not you, too, Mel,” she said. The white, five-foot-tall decoration began to rotate, its multicolored LED lights twinkling in time to the sound of “Jingle Bells,” which suddenly filled the air.
Melody could do without the reminder of the upcoming season. Christmas used to be her favorite time of year, but since Patrick’s death, it only caused her stress—emotionally and financially.
“’Tis the season,” she mumbled, sitting back in the plastic waiting-room chair she was sharing with her eight-year-old son, Josh. Every year around this time, they both seemed to get sick. She could mark her calendar by it. December first—first day of the flu.
Josh’s head fell against her shoulder, and with a scratchy voice he asked, “How much longer, Mom?” The fit of coughing that followed gained him sympathetic looks from some of the other waiting patients.
Melody wiped the boy’s dark hair off his hot forehead and checked her watch. “Soon, sweetheart.” She hoped. Her evening shift started in less than an hour. Thursday was one of the busiest nights at the bowling alley.
Josh’s twin brother, David, who had been sleeping curled up in the chair next to them, stirred and opened his eyes slowly. “Mom, I don’t feel so great.”
“I know, sweetheart. We’ll see the doctor soon.”
Lindsay reappeared with their file and a sympathetic smile. She leaned close to Melody as she whispered, “I know you have to get to work, so I’m bumping you guys ahead.”
“Thanks,” Melody said, grateful for the gesture. Despite Lindsay’s reputation as a party girl, she took her job seriously, and her affection for her patients, especially the young children, was obvious. Helping Josh to his feet and taking the hands of both her sons, Melody followed Lindsay down the hallway to an empty examination room. “Dr. McCarthy will be just a moment.”
“Okay,” Melody said, helping Josh onto the examination table, as David sat in the chair near the door. She buried a throaty cough in the crook of her arm and cringed. Each time she coughed, her chest hurt and her throat felt rawer than ever. If she was feeling this awful, she hated to think how Josh was feeling.
She yawned, shaking off a wave of exhaustion. She’d spent the night before sitting on the edge of Josh’s bottom bunk, one hand propping up his pillow while he slept and the other continuously checking his forehead for a fever.
“Where are our pictures, Mom?” David asked, slumping against the back of his chair and studying the wall of photos of newborns. Dr. McCarthy was one of two pediatricians in Brookhollow and was essentially always on call. She’d delivered almost every baby born in the small New Jersey town in the past decade, including Melody’s boys.
“Just look for the cutest ones,” Melody whispered with a wink at the older twin, who had been born six minutes before his brother on November 2, in the middle of a hail-and-sleet storm. Patrick, a guitar player in a country band, had been performing in Beach Haven that night, two hours away, and had almost missed the delivery, rushing in just minutes before David’s arrival. But he’d been there...
“There we are,” David said.