His Little Christmas Miracle

Jess felt as if the ground was tipping beneath her feet.

If she could just reach out a hand she could feel him. See if he really was real. But she couldn’t move. Life seemed to be going on around her as she watched, too overcome to react.

Lucas turned towards her at the sound of his name.

‘JJ?’

She hadn’t been called JJ in years. She couldn’t believe he was standing in front of her. Lucas—undeniably Lucas. He still had the same brilliant forget-me-not-blue eyes and the same infectious dimpled smile as he stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. She fitted perfectly into his embrace and it felt as if it was only yesterday that she’d last been in his arms. Memories flooded back to her and her stomach did a peculiar little flip as her body responded in a way it hadn’t for years. She tensed, her reaction taking her by surprise.

He must have felt her stiffen because he let her go and stepped away.

Her heart raced as she looked him over. He looked just as good as she remembered. Maybe even better …

I can’t believe that after twenty-one books this is my first story with a Christmas theme—and not just any Christmas but a white one!

White Christmases are a foreign concept to most Australians—for us it is the subject matter of fairytales and dreams. Although I’m sure most of us would say it is something we’d love to experience. Many years ago I was lucky enough to spend a winter in Canada. While minus seventeen degrees Celsius wasn’t quite what I had imagined, it was a novelty to listen to Christmas carols about reindeers, snow and sleigh bells while I was surrounded by ice and snow instead of at a hot, sandy beach.

I love Christmas, and I love summer, but there’s no denying that a wintry Christmas, complete with sleigh rides, open fires and fir trees decorated with lights and a dusting of snow, is very romantic—and I did enjoy setting the scene for Jess and Lucas’s own fairytale Christmas.

I hope you enjoy their story and, wherever you may be in the world, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Emily

EMILY FORBES is an award-winning author of Harlequin Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™. She has written over 20 books and has twice been a finalist in the Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award, which she won in 2013 for her novel Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist. You can get in touch with Emily at emilyforbes@internode.on.net, or visit her website at emily-forbesauthor.com.

His Little Christmas Miracle

Emily Forbes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Emily Forbes won the 2013 Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award for her title Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

‘AND SO IT BEGINS,’ Kristie said as she stuck her head into her cousin’s bedroom.

‘So what begins?’ Jess asked as she tied off her plaits and pulled a red knitted hat over her white-blonde hair. She picked up her sunglasses and ski gloves and followed her cousin out of their family’s five-star apartment.

‘Operation Find Jess a Boyfriend,’ Kristie replied.

‘What! Why?’

‘Because you’re almost eighteen and you have no idea what you’ve been missing. It’s time to find you a gorgeous boy. One you won’t be able to resist, someone who can kiss their way into that ivory tower of yours and sweep you off your feet. We’ve talked about this.’

They had but Kristie was always talking about boys in one way or another and Jess mostly ignored her. Kristie was boy crazy—she fell in love every couple of weeks—but Jess was different. Most boys Jess met seemed immature and silly. She didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Seventeen- and eighteen-year-old boys were just that. Boys. And Jess wanted Prince Charming. And Prince Charming would arrive in his own time. She didn’t think Kristie was going to be able to conjure him up.

‘I think you’re forgetting something,’ Jess said as they dropped their skis onto the snow and clicked their boots into the bindings, ready to tackle their first day on the slopes of the Moose River Alpine Resort.

‘What’s that?’

‘I’d never be allowed to find my own boyfriend. Everyone I’ve ever dated has been a friend of the family.’

‘You’re not going to find him, I’m going to find him for you,’ Kristie explained. ‘And let’s be honest, you’ll never get laid if you only date guys your dad picks out. For one they’d be too terrified of what he’d do to them if he found out and, two, I’m sure your dad deliberately picks guys who are potentially gay.’

‘That’s not true,’ Jess retorted even as she wondered whether maybe it was.

But surely not? Some of those boys had kissed her and while the experiences certainly hadn’t been anything to rave about she’d always thought that was her fault. The boys had been cute enough, polite and polished in a typical trust-fund, private-school, country-club way, but not one of them had ever set her heart racing or made her feel breathless or excited or any of the things she’d expected to feel or wanted to feel, and she’d decided she was prepared to wait for the right one.

‘Maybe I don’t want a boyfriend,’ she added.

‘Maybe not, but you definitely need to get laid.’

‘Kristie!’ Jess was horrified.

‘You don’t know what you’re missing. That’s going to be my eighteenth birthday present to you. I’m going to find you a gorgeous boy and you’re going to get laid.’

Kristie laughed but Jess suspected she wasn’t joking. Kristie didn’t see anything wrong with advertising the fact that she wanted to hook up with a boy but Jess could think of nothing more embarrassing. Despite the fact that they spent so much time together their personalities were poles apart. Less than three months separated them in age but Kristie was far savvier than Jess, not to mention more forthright and confident.

‘This is your chance,’ Kristie continued. ‘We have one week before your parents arrive. One week with just my parents, who are nowhere near as strict. That’s seven days to check out all the hot guys who’ll just be hanging around the resort. You’ll never get a better opportunity to hook up with someone.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to hook up with anyone. Promise me you won’t set me up,’ Jess begged. Kristie’s seven-day deadline coincided with Jess’s eighteenth birthday. Her parents were coming up to the resort to celebrate it with her and once they arrived Jess knew she wouldn’t have a chance to be alone with a boy. Surely not even Kristie could make this happen in such a short time even if Jess was a willing participant. And while she wasn’t averse to the idea of the experience, she wanted it her way. She wanted the romance. She wanted to fall in love. She wanted to be seduced and made love to. Getting laid did not have the same ring. Getting laid was not the experience she was after.

But then she relaxed. She might get a chance to kiss a boy but even though Kristie’s parents were far more lenient than her own she still doubted that she would get an opportunity to lose her virginity.

‘We won’t be allowed out at night,’ she said when Kristie didn’t answer.

Kristie laughed again. ‘Do you think you’re only allowed to have sex after midnight?’ she called back over her shoulder as she skied over to join the lift line for the village quad chair. ‘No one is keeping tabs on us during the day. We could sneak off whenever we wanted.’

Sex during the day! Jess hadn’t considered that possibility. But it still wasn’t going to happen. As much as Kristie wanted her project to get off the ground, Jess couldn’t imagine getting naked in the middle of the day. In her fantasy she imagined soft lighting, perfumed candles, the right music and a comfortable bed. Preferably her own bed. With clean sheets and a man who adored her. A quick fumble in the middle of the day with some random guy from the resort, no matter how cute, just wasn’t the same thing.

‘Today is the beginning of the rest of your life. It’s time you had some fun,’ Kristie told her as she joined the line. ‘This place will be crawling with good-looking boys. We’ll be able to take our pick.’

Getting a boy’s attention was never a problem. Jess knew she was pretty enough. She was petite, only one hundred and sixty centimetres tall, and cheerleader pretty with a heart-shaped face, a chin she thought was maybe a bit too pointy, platinum-blonde hair, green eyes and porcelain skin. Finding a boy who ticked all her boxes was the tricky part. And if one did measure up then getting a chance to be alone was another challenge entirely.

Kristie’s joke about Jess’s ivory tower wasn’t completely inaccurate. Jess did have dreams of being swept off her feet, falling madly in love and being rescued from her privileged but restricted life. It seemed to be her best chance of escaping the rules and boundaries her parents imposed on her. She couldn’t imagine gaining her freedom any other way. She wasn’t rebellious enough to go against their wishes without very good reason.

But she couldn’t imagine falling in love at the age of seventeen and she wasn’t about to leap into bed with the first cute guy who presented her with the opportunity. That didn’t fit with her romantic notions at all. But although Jess could protest vigorously, it didn’t mean Kristie would give up. And she proved it with her next comment.

‘What about him?’ she asked as they waited for the quad chair.

Jess looked at the other skiers around them. It was just after nine in the morning. The girls had risen early, keen to enjoy their first morning on the slopes, but everyone else in the line was ten years younger or twenty years older than them. They were surrounded by families with young children. All the other teenagers were still in bed, and Jess couldn’t work out who Kristie was talking about.

Her cousin nudged her in the side. ‘There.’ She used her ski pole to point to the front of the line and Jess realised she meant the towies.

Two young men, who she guessed to be a year or two older than she was, worked the lift together. They both wore the uniform of the mountain resort, bright blue ski jackets with a band of fluorescent yellow around the upper arm and matching blue pants with another yellow band around the bottom of the legs. A row of white, snow-covered mountain peaks was stitched across the left chest of the jacket with ‘Moose River Alpine Resort’ emblazoned beneath. Their heads were uncovered and Jess could see one tall, fair-headed boy and another slightly shorter one with dark hair.

They had music pumping out of the stereo system at the base of the lift. It blasted the mountain, drowning out all other noise, including the engine of the chairlift. Jess watched as the boys danced to the beat as they lifted the little kids onto the chair and chatted and flirted with the mothers.

The fair one drew her attention. He moved easily, in time with the music, relaxed, unselfconscious and comfortable in his skin. Jess couldn’t ever imagine dancing in front of strangers in broad daylight. She wasn’t comfortable in a crowd. But there was something erotic about watching someone dance from a distance. She wouldn’t normally stare but she was emboldened by her anonymity. He didn’t know her and from behind the security of her dark sunglasses she could watch unobserved. Like a voyeur.

Kristie shuffled forward in the line and Jess followed but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the dancing towie. Watching the way his hips moved, she felt a stirring in her belly that she recognised as attraction, lust, desire. Watching him move, she could imagine how it would feel to dance with him, how it would feel to be held against him as his hips moved in time with hers. She found her hips swaying to the beat of the music, swaying in response to this stranger.

The song changed, snapping her out of her reverie, and she watched as he mimicked some rap moves that had the kids in front of her in stitches. The dark-haired one was chatting to a mother while the fair one lifted the woman’s child onto the seat before giving him a high five. He lifted his head as he laughed at something the child had said and suddenly he was looking straight at Jess.

Jess’s pulse throbbed and her stomach ached with a primal, lustful reaction as his eyes connected with hers. They were the most brilliant blue. A current tore through her body, sending a shock deep inside her all the way to her bones. She was aware of Kristie moving into position for the lift but she was riveted to the spot, her skis frozen to the snow. She was transfixed by eyes the colour of forget-me-nots.

‘Careful. Keep moving unless you want to get collected by the chair.’ It took Jess a second or two to realise he was talking to her. He had an Australian accent and in her bewildered and confused state it took her a moment to decipher it and make sense of his words. While she was translating his speech in her head he reached out and put one hand on her backside and pushed her forward until she was standing on the mat, ready to be swept up by the chairlift. Jess could swear she could feel the heat of his hand through the padding of her ski suit. She was still standing in place, staring at him, as the chair swung behind her and scooped her up, knocking into the back of her knees and forcing her to sit down with a thump.

‘Have a good one.’ He winked at her as she plopped into the seat and Jess felt herself blush but she kept eye contact. She couldn’t seem to look away. Let me off, she wanted to shout but when she opened her mouth nothing came out. Her eyesight worked but she appeared to have lost control of all her other senses. Including movement. She was enchanted, spellbound by a boy with eyes of blue.

‘They were cute,’ Kristie said as the lift carried them up the mountain and Jess forced herself to turn her head and look away. Maybe that would break the spell.

‘I guess,’ she said. She felt like she had a mouthful of marbles as she tried to feign indifference. Kristie would have a field day if she knew what Jess had really been thinking.

‘What do you think?’ Kristie asked. ‘Worth a second look?’

The girls had the quad chair to themselves but that didn’t mean Jess wanted to have this discussion. She knew if she agreed it would only serve to encourage Kristie’s foolish plan.

‘You’re not serious!’ she cried. ‘I don’t think they’re my type.’ She suspected she’d have nothing in common with them. She knew she wouldn’t be cool enough.

‘Why not?’

‘You know the reputation those guys have.’ The towies—usually an assortment of college students taking a gap year, locals and backpackers—had a reputation as ski-hard-and-party-harder people.

But Kristie was not about to be deterred. ‘So …’ she shrugged ‘… that all adds to the excitement and the challenge.’

‘I’m not going to hook up with a total stranger,’ Jess said. Obviously the lessons of her upbringing were more deeply ingrained in her than she’d realised. Her movements were carefully orchestrated, her whereabouts were always mapped out, and she’d never really had the opportunity to mingle with strangers. Prince Charming was going to have his work cut out for him.

‘I know your parents want to know where you are every minute of the day but they’re not here,’ Kristie replied, ‘and despite what they tell you, not every spontaneous situation is dangerous and not every stranger is a psychopath. I’m not saying you have to marry the guy, just have some fun.’

‘He looked too old for me,’ Jess protested.

‘You’re always complaining about how immature boys our age are. Maybe someone a bit older would suit you better. Shall we head back down? Take another look?’

The quad chair took them to the basin where all the other lifts operated from. No one skied straight back down to the bottom of this lift unless they’d forgotten something and needed to return to the village. Jess didn’t want to be that overtly interested. She needed time to think. ‘No. I want to ski,’ she said as they were deposited in the basin.

The slopes were quiet at this hour of the day and it wasn’t long before Kristie decided she was overheating from all the exercise and needed to discard some layers. Jess suspected it was all an act designed to invent a reason to return to their apartment and hence to the quad chair, but she was prepared to give in. She knew she didn’t have much choice. She could have elected to stay up on the mountain but they had a rule that no one skied alone and she had to admit she was just a tiny bit curious to have another look at the boy with the forget-me-not-blue eyes. After all, there was no harm in looking.

But by the time they had changed their outfits and returned to the quad chair there were two different towies on duty. Disappointment surged through Jess. It was silly to feel that way about a random stranger but there had been something hypnotic about him. Something captivating.

They rode the lift back to the basin where they waited in line for another quad chair to take them to the top of the ski run. As they neared the front the two original towies appeared, each with a snowboard strapped to one foot as they slipped into the singles row and skated to the front of the line.

‘G’day. Mind if we join you?’

Jess and Kristie had no time to reply before the boys had slotted in beside them and Jess found herself sandwiched between her cousin and the boy with the tousled, blond hair and amazing blue eyes. He shifted slightly on the seat, turning a little to face her, and the movement pushed his thigh firmly against hers.

‘Have you had a good morning?’ he asked her. ‘You were up at sparrow’s.’

‘Pardon?’ Jess frowned. His voice was deep and his accent was super-sexy but the combination of his stunning eyes and his Aussie drawl made it difficult to decipher his words. Or maybe it was just the fact that she was sitting thigh to thigh with a cute boy who was messing with her head. Either way, she couldn’t think straight and she could make no sense of what he was saying.

‘Sparrow’s fart,’ he said with a grin before he elaborated. ‘It means you were up really early.’

His blue eyes sparkled as he smiled at her but this time it was the twin dimples in his cheeks that set Jess’s heart racing. His smile was infectious and she couldn’t help but return it as she said, ‘You remember us?’ She was surprised and flattered. The boys would have seen hundreds of people already today.

‘Of course. Don’t tell me you don’t remember me?’ He put both hands over his heart and looked so dramatically wounded that Jess laughed. She’d have to watch out—he was cute and charming with more than a hint of mischief about him.

And, of course, she remembered him. She doubted she’d ever forget him, but she knew his type and she wasn’t about to stroke his ego by telling him that his eyes were the perfect colour—unforgettable, just like him. She knew all the towies were cut from the same cloth, young men who would spend the winter working in the resort and then spend their time off skiing and drinking and chasing girls. They would flirt with dozens of girls in one day, trying their luck, until eventually their persistence would pay off and they’d have a date for the night and, no matter how cute he was, she didn’t want to be just another girl in the long line that would fall at his feet.

‘Well, just so you don’t forget us again, I’m Lucas and that’s Sam,’ he said, nodding towards his mate, who was sitting on the other side of Kristie.

‘I didn’t say I’d forgotten you,’ Jess admitted. ‘I remember your accent.’ But she wasn’t prepared to admit she remembered his dancing or had been unable to forget his cornflower-blue eyes. ‘You’re Australian?’

‘Yes, and, before you ask, I don’t have a pet kangaroo.’

‘I wasn’t going to ask that.’

‘Really?’

‘I might not have been to Australia but I know a bit about it. I’m not completely ignorant.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that,’ Lucas backtracked.

‘It’s okay.’ She’d stopped getting offended every time people treated her like a cheerleader but while she was one she was also a science major. ‘I know most of you don’t have pet kangaroos and I know you eat that horrible black spread on your toast and live alongside loads of poisonous snakes, spiders and man-eating sharks. Actually …’ she smiled ‘… I’m not surprised you left.’

Lucas laughed. ‘I’m not here permanently. I’m only here for the winter. It’s summer back home. I’ll stay until the end of February when uni starts again.’

‘So where is the best place to party in the village?’ Kristie interrupted. ‘What’s popular this season?’

Kristie knew the village as well as anyone—she didn’t need advice—but Jess knew it was just her cousin’s way of flirting. To Kristie that came as naturally as breathing.

‘How old are you?’ Sam replied.

‘Nineteen,’ she fibbed. She was only three months older than Jess and had only recently turned eighteen but nineteen was the legal drinking age.

‘The T-Bar is always good,’ Sam told them, mentioning one of the après-ski bars that had been around for ever but was always popular.

‘But tonight we’re having a few mates around,’ Lucas added. ‘We’re sharing digs with a couple of Kiwis and Friday nights are party nights. You’re welcome to join us.’

‘Thanks, that sounds like fun,’ Kristie replied, making it sound as though they’d be there when Jess knew they wouldn’t. Which was a pity. It did sound like it might be fun but there was no way they’d be allowed out with strangers, with boys who hadn’t been vetted and approved. Although Kristie’s parents weren’t as strict as hers, Jess’s aunt and uncle knew the rules Jess had to live by and she didn’t think they’d bend them that far.

‘We’re in the Moose River staff apartments. You know the ones? On Slalom Street. Apartment fifteen.’

‘We know where they are.’

They were almost at the top of the ski run now and Jess felt a surge of disappointment that the ride was coming to an end. The boys were going snowboarding and Jess assumed they’d be heading to the half-pipe or the more rugged terrain on the other side of the resort. They wouldn’t be skiing the same part of the mountain as she and Kristie.

She pretended to look out at the ski runs when she was actually looking at Lucas from behind the safety of her sunglasses. She wanted to commit his face to memory. He was cute and friendly but she doubted she’d ever see him again. He wasn’t her Prince Charming.

CHAPTER ONE

JESS ZIPPED UP her ski jacket as she stood in the twilight. She was back.

Back in the place where her life had changed for ever.

Back in Moose River.

She remembered standing not far from this exact spot while Kristie had told her that day marked the beginning of the rest of her life, but she hadn’t expected her cousin’s words to be quite so prophetic. That had been the day she’d met Lucas and her life had very definitely changed. All because of a boy.