Her Holiday Prince Charming

She couldn’t believe she was actually where she had so badly wanted to be. In Erik’s arms. For some strange reason, her throat had suddenly gone raw.

She swallowed, then took a deep breath. “Erik?” she finally said. “Thank you.”

“For holding you?”

“For all of it. But, yes. For this, too.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked when she started to cry.

“Nothing. Honest,” she insisted. “For the first time in…forever there isn’t a thing wrong.”

“Then why tears?”

Because of what you let me feel, she thought. “Because I’m tired,” was easier to admit.

She felt his lips against the top of her head. “Then, go to sleep.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to miss you holding me.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll make me forget why I shouldn’t do this,” he murmured, and brushed his mouth over hers.

The Hunt For Cinderella: Seeking Prince Charming

Her Holiday

Prince Charming

Christine Flynn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTINE FLYNN admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.

For the lovely ladies

who have made the “Hunt” happen,

and everyone who believes in the fairy tale.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Excerpt

Prologue

“What’s on your Christmas list this year? No matter how big or how small, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for at Seattle’s one-stop answer to all your holiday—”

With a quick flick of the dial, Rory silenced the cheerful voice suddenly booming from her car radio. In an attempt to drown out her worries while she waited to pick up her son from kindergarten, she’d turned the music to a decibel she’d never have considered had her five-year-old been in the vehicle.

The ad had just brought to mind the one thing she’d been desperately trying not to think about.

She’d hoped to make the holiday special for her little boy this year. Not just special, but after last year’s unquestionably awful Christmas, something wonderful. Magical.

As of three days ago, however, she was no longer sure how she would keep a roof over their heads, much less put a tree under it. Due to downsizing, her telecommuting services as a legal transcriptionist for Hayes, Bleaker & Stein were no longer required. She’d needed that job to pay for little things like food and gas and to qualify for a mortgage.

Without a job, she had no hope of buying the little Cape Cod she’d thought so perfect for her and little Tyler. She had no hope of buying or renting any house at all. Since the sale of the beautiful home she’d shared with her husband closed next week, that left her four days to find an apartment and a job that would help her pay for it.

A quick tap ticked on her driver’s side window.

Through the foggy glass, a striking blonde wearing studious-looking horn-rimmed glasses and winter-white fur smiled at her. The woman didn’t look at all familiar to Rory. Thinking she must be the mom of an older student, since she knew all the moms in the kindergarten class, she lowered her window and smiled back.

Chill air rushed into the car as the woman bent at the waist to make eye contact. “You’re Aurora Jo Linfield?”

Rory hesitated. The only time she ever used her full name was on legal documents. And she rarely used Aurora at all. “I am.”

“I’m Felicity Granger.” Hiking her designer bag higher on her shoulder, she stuck her hand through the open window. The cold mist glittered around her, clung, jewel-like, to her pale, upswept hair. “But please, call me Phil. I’m an associate of Cornelia Hunt. You’ve heard of Cornelia, haven’t you?”

Rory shook the woman’s hand, watched her retract it. “I’ve heard of her,” she admitted, wondering what this woman—or the other—could possibly want with her. Nearly everyone in Seattle had heard of Mrs. Hunt, the former Cornelia Fairchild. She’d been the childhood sweetheart of computer genius Harry Hunt, the billionaire founder of software giant HuntCom. Rory recalled hearing of their marriage last summer, even though she’d been struggling within her fractured little world at the time. Media interest in their six-decade relationship had been huge.

“May I help you with something?”

“Oh, I’m here to help you,” the woman insisted. “Mr. Hunt heard of your situation—”

Harry Hunt had heard of her? “My situation?”

“About your job loss. And how that affects your ability to purchase another home.”

“How does he know that?”

“Through your real estate agent. Mr. Hunt knows the owner of the agency she works for,” she explained. “Harry bought a building through him last month for his wife so she’d have a headquarters for her new venture. When he learned why you couldn’t move forward with the purchase of the house you’d found, he remembered Mrs. Hunt’s project and thought you’d be a perfect referral. So we checked you out.” Her smile brightened. “And you are.

“Anyway,” she continued, anxious to get to her point. “Cornelia knows of a property for sale that you might want to purchase. She’s aware of your current unemployment,” she hurried to assure her, “but she said you’re not to worry about that little detail right now. Just look at the place. If you’re interested, suitable arrangements can be made for you and for the seller.

“It’s not exactly what you told your agent you want,” she cautioned, reaching into a pocket of her coat. “But it could be perfect for you and your little boy. You really do need to keep an open mind when you see it, though,” she warned. “Don’t judge it as is. Look for the possibilities.

“You’ll be met at the address on the back.” She held out a white, pearlescent business card. “The owner’s representative will be there at ten tomorrow morning. A man by the name of Erik Sullivan. He’s quite knowledgeable about the property, so feel free to ask him anything that will help you decide whether you want the place or not. You should keep an open mind about him, too.

“I have to run now. Double-parked,” she said, explaining her rush but not the warning. “If you like what you see, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

Rory took the pretty little card. Neatly hand-printed on the back was an address outside Port Orchard, a short ferry ride across the sound from Seattle.

With questions piling up like leaves in the fall, she glanced back up.

The woman was gone.

Seeing no sign of her in the Pacific Northwest mist that was closer to fog than rain, she looked back to the shimmery little card.

The past fourteen months had left her without faith in much of anything anymore. The sudden, devastating loss of her husband to an uninsured drunk driver who’d run a red light. The whispered and crushing comments about their marriage that she’d overheard at his funeral. The exodus from her life of people she’d once thought of as family and friends. Each event had been shattering in its own right. Together, they’d made her afraid to trust much of anything. Or anyone.

And that had been before she’d lost the job Harvey Bleaker had said was hers for as long as she needed it.

The lovely woman with the bookish glasses had appeared out of nowhere. As if by magic, she’d disappeared into the mist the same way, like some sort of a fairy godmother dressed in faux fur and carrying Coach.

Dead certain her sleepless nights had just caught up with her, Rory dropped the card into the open compartment on the console. Whatever had just happened had to be either too good to be true or came with a spiderweb of strings attached to it.

Probably, undoubtedly, both.

Still, she, Tyler and the for-rent section of the newspaper were going apartment hunting in the morning. Having just picked up a check for the small down payment she’d put on the house she hadn’t been able to buy, less fees, she had enough for three or four months’ rent and expenses. In the meantime, feeling a desperate need for either magic or a miracle, she figured she had nothing to lose by checking out the address on that card.

She just hoped that this Erik Sullivan would be as accepting of her circumstances as Mrs. Cornelia Hunt seemed to be.

Chapter One

“Are we lost, Mom?”

“No, honey. We’re not lost.” Parked on the dirt shoulder of a narrow rural road, Rory frowned at the building a few dozen yards away. “I’m just not sure this is the right address.”

“If we can’t find it, can we go to the Christmas place?”

“We’ll see, sweetie. We’re looking for a new place to live right now.”

“I don’t want a new one.”

“I know you don’t,” she murmured. Freckles dotted Tyler’s nose. His sandy hair, neatly combed when they’d left the house, fell over his forehead, victim of the breeze that had blown in when she’d lowered his window to get a better look at the address on the roadside mailbox.

Nudging wisps back from his forehead, she smiled. “But we need one. And I need you to help me pick it out. It’s our adventure, remember?”

“Then can we go to the Christmas place?”

They had seen a banner for a holiday festival in nearby Port Orchard when they’d driven off the ferry. Tyler had been asking about it ever since.

Everything she’d read last night on the internet made the area around the shoreline community a few miles around the bend sound nearly idyllic. The part of her that didn’t want to get her hopes up knew that could simply have been good marketing by its chamber of commerce. The part that desperately needed this not to be a wild-goose chase focused on getting them moving.

“Not today, I’m afraid.” She hated to say no, but housing had to be their first priority. “We don’t have time.”

It was nine fifty-five. They were to meet the seller’s representative at ten o’clock.

Reminding Tyler of that, and agreeing that, yes, they were still “exploring,” she pulled his hood over his head and glanced to the structure surrounded by a few winter-bare trees, dead grass and a wet patch of gravel that, apparently, served as a parking lot.

The address on the mailbox matched the one on the card. The structure, however, bore no resemblance at all to a residence. The two-story flat-roofed rectangle of a building faced a partial view of a little marina two city blocks away and backed up to a forest of pines.

A long, narrow sign above the porch read Harbor Market & Sporting Goods. Signs by the screened door read Fresh Espresso and Worms and Closed Until Spring.

Mailboxes farther up the road indicated homes tucked back in the trees. The only vehicle to be seen, however, was hers. With no sign of life in either direction, she was about to pull out her cell phone to check the address with Phil Granger when she remembered what the woman had said.

She’d warned her to keep an open mind when she saw the place. To look for possibilities.

The potential goose chase was also, apparently, a scavenger hunt.

A narrow driveway curved around the back of the building and disappeared down a slight hill. Thinking there might be a house or cottage beyond the gate blocking it, she grabbed the shoulder bag that held everything from animal crackers to a Zen meditation manual and gamely told her little boy they were going to look around while they waited for the person they were to meet to show up.

The damp breeze whipped around them, scattering leaves in their path as they left the car. With a glance toward the threatening sky, she was about to reconsider her plan when the relative quiet gave way to a squeak and the hard slam of a door.

Tyler froze.

Across twenty feet of gravel, she watched six feet two inches of broad-shouldered, purely rugged masculinity in a fisherman’s sweater and worn jeans cross the store’s porch and jog down its three steps.

“Sorry about that.” His apology came quickly, his voice as deep as the undercurrents in the distant water. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I keep forgetting to fix the spring.”

The breeze blew a little harder, rearranging the otherwise neat cut of his slightly overlong dark hair. He didn’t seem to notice the wind. Or the cold bite that came with it. All lean, athletic muscle, he strode toward them, his glance shifting between her and the child who’d smashed himself against her leg.

That glance turned questioning as he stopped six feet from where she’d rooted herself in the driveway.

“Are you Mrs. Linfield?”

Surprise colored the deep tones of his voice. Or maybe what she heard was disbelief. His pewter-gray eyes ran from the wedge of auburn hair skimming her shoulders, over the camel peacoat covering her black turtleneck and jeans and up from the toes of her low-heeled boots. His perusal was quick, little more than an impassive flick of his glance. Yet she had the unnerving feeling he’d imagined her every curve in the brief moments before she realized he was waiting for her to speak.

“I didn’t think anyone was here.” The admission came in a rush. “I didn’t see a car, so we were just going to look around—”

“I flew over. Floatplane,” he explained, hitching his head in the direction of the water. “It’s down at the marina.

“I’m Erik Sullivan.” Stepping closer, he extended his hand. His rugged features held strength, a hint of fearlessness. Or maybe it was boldness. Despite its lingering shadow, the square line of his jaw appeared recently shaved. He looked hard and handsome and when he smiled, faint though the expression was, he radiated a positively lethal combination of quiet command and casual ease. “I’m handling the sale of this property for my grandparents.”

“You’re a Realtor?”

“Actually, I build boats. I’m just taking care of this for them.”

Her hand had disappeared in his.

She could feel calluses at the base of his fingers. He worked with his hands. Built boats with them, he’d said. What kind, she had no idea. The white-gold Rolex on his thick wrist seemed to indicate he was successful at it, though. The words capable and accomplished quickly flashed in her mind, only to succumb to less definable impressions as she became aware of the heat of his palm, the strength in his grip and the deliberate way he held that strength in check.

What she felt mostly, though, was a wholly unexpected sense of connection when her eyes met his.

Everything inside her seemed to go still.

She’d experienced that sensation only once before; the first time Curt had taken her hand. It had been a fleeting thing, little more than an odd combination of awareness and ease that had come out of nowhere, but it had dictated the direction of her life from that moment on.

As if she’d just touched lightning, she jerked back, curling her fingers into her palm, and took a step away. The void left in her heart by the loss of her husband already felt huge. It seemed to widen further as she instinctively rejected the thought of any sort of connection to this man, imagined or otherwise. Because of what she’d learned since Curt’s death, it was entirely possible that what she’d thought she’d had with her husband—the closeness, the love, the very rightness of the life they’d shared—hadn’t existed at all.

Having struggled with that awful possibility for over a year, she wasn’t about to trust what she’d felt now.

Conscious of the quick pinch of Erik’s brow, totally embarrassed by her abrupt reaction, she rested her hand on her son’s shoulder. Just as she would have introduced her little guy, the big man gave the child a cautious smile and motioned her toward the building.

“The main entrance to the living quarters is around back, but we can go through the market. Come on and I’ll show you around.”

Whatever he thought of her reaction to him, he seemed gentleman enough to ignore it.

She chose to ignore it, too.

Living quarters, he’d said?

“There isn’t a separate house here?” she asked, urging Tyler forward as the sky started to leak.

“There’s plenty of room to build if that’s what a buyer wants to do. The parcel is a little over three acres. Living on premises has certain advantages, though.” He checked the length of his strides, allowing them to keep up. “Shortens the commute.”

If she smiled at that, Erik couldn’t tell, not with the fall of cinnamon hair hiding her profile as she ushered the boy ahead of her.

Mrs. Rory Linfield wasn’t at all what he had expected. But then, the new owner of the building next door to Merrick & Sullivan Yachting hadn’t given him much to go on. He wasn’t sure what the elegant and refined wife of Harry Hunt was doing with the building Harry had apparently given her as a wedding gift—other than providing Erik and his business partner an interesting diversion with her total renovation of its interior. It had been his offhand comment to Cornelia, though, about a place he’d be glad to sell if Harry was still into buying random pieces of property, that had led him to describe the property his grandparents had vacated nearly a year ago.

The conversation had prompted a call from Cornelia yesterday. That was when she’d told him she knew of a widow in immediate need of a home and a means to produce an income.

When she’d said widow, he’d immediately pictured someone far more mature. More his parents’ age. Fifty-something. Sixty, maybe. With graying hair. Or at least a few wrinkles. The decidedly polished, manicured and attractive auburn-haired woman skeptically eyeing the sign for Fresh Espresso and Worms as she crossed the wood-planked porch didn’t look at all like his idea of a widow, though. She looked more like pure temptation. Temptation with pale skin that fairly begged to be touched, a beautiful mouth glossed with something sheer pink and shiny, and who was easily a decade younger than his own thirty-nine years.

He hadn’t expected the cute little kid at all.

He opened the door, held it for them to pass, caught her soft, unexpectedly provocative scent. Following them inside, he had to admit that, mostly, he hadn’t anticipated the sucker punch to his gut when he’d looked from her very kissable mouth to the feminine caution in her big brown eyes. Or the quick caution he’d felt himself when she’d pulled back and her guarded smile had slipped into place.

What he’d seen in those dark and lovely depths had hinted heavily of response, confusion and denial.

A different sort of confusion clouded her expression now.

He’d turned on the store’s fluorescent overheads when he’d first arrived. In those bright industrial lights, he watched her look from the rows of bare, utilitarian grocery shelving to the empty dairy case near the checkout counter and fix her focus on a kayak suspended from the ceiling above a wall of flotation devices. Sporting goods still filled the back shelves. After the original offer to buy the place fully stocked had fallen through, he’d donated the grocery items to a local food bank. That had been months ago.

The little boy tugged her hand. “Why is the boat up there, Mom?”

“For display. I think,” she replied quietly, like someone talking in a museum.

“How come?”

“So people will notice it.” She pointed to a horizontal rack on the back wall that held three more. Oars and water skis stood in rows on either side. “It’s easier to see than those back there.”

With his neck craned back, his little brow pinched.

“Are we gonna live in a store?”

“No, sweetie. We’re just...” From the uncertainty in her expression, it seemed she wasn’t sure what they were doing at the moment. “Looking,” she concluded.

Her glance swung up. “You said this belongs to your grandparents?”

“They retired to San Diego,” he told her, wondering what her little boy was doing now as the child practically bent himself in half looking under a display case. There were no small children in his family. The yachting circles he worked and played in were strictly adult. Any exposure he had to little kids came with whatever family thing his business partner could talk him into attending with him. Since he managed to limit that to once every couple of years, he rarely gave kids any thought. Not anymore.

“They’d had this business for over fifty years,” he explained, his attention already back on why the property was for sale. “It was time they retired.”

The delicate arches of her eyebrows disappeared beneath her shiny bangs. “Fifty years?”

“Fifty-three, actually. They’d still be running the place if Gramps hadn’t hurt his back changing one of the light fixtures.” Erik had told him he’d change the tube himself. Just as he’d helped with other repairs they’d needed over the years. But the Irish in John Sullivan tended to make him a tad impatient at times. “He can be a little stubborn.”

“Did he fall?”

“He just twisted wrong,” he told her, conscious of the quick concern in her eyes, “but it took a couple of months for him to be able to lift anything. Grandma picked up as much slack as she could, but those two months made them decide it was time to tackle the other half of their bucket list while they could both still get around.”

Her uncertainty about her surroundings had yet to ease. Despite her faint smile, that hesitation marked her every step as she moved farther in, checking out the plank-board floor, the single checkout counter, the old, yellowing acoustic tiles on the ceiling. Watching her, he couldn’t help but wonder how she would do on a ladder, changing four-foot-long fluorescent tubes in a fixture fourteen feet off the floor. Or how she’d wrestle the heavy wood ladder up from the basement in the first place.

Since Cornelia had specifically asked if the business was one a woman could handle on her own, he’d also thought his prospective buyer would be a little sturdier.

Rather than indulge the temptation to reassess what he could of her frame, hidden as it was by her coat, anyway, he focused on just selling the place.

“The original building was single story,” he told her, since the structure itself appeared to have her attention. “When they decided to add sporting goods, they incorporated the living area into the store, built on in back and added the upstairs.

“The business is seasonal,” he continued when no questions were forthcoming. “Since summer and fall recreation provided most of their profit, they always opened in April and closed the first of October. That gave them the winter for vacations and time to work on their projects.”

It was a good, solid business. One that had allowed his grandparents to support their family—his dad, his aunts. He told her that, too, because he figured that would be important to a woman who apparently needed to support a child on her own. What he didn’t mention was that after the first sale fell through, the only other offers made had been too ridiculously low for his grandparents to even consider.

Because there were no other reasonable offers in sight, he wasn’t about to let them pass up Cornelia’s offer to buy it—if this particular woman was interested in owning it. He hadn’t even balked at the terms of the sale that required his agreement to help get the business back up and running.