by Garren, Jax
Jax Garren
A frozen heart…
Three years ago, amid grief and defeat, the man who once made Carrie Martin believe in happily-ever-afters deserted her on New Year’s Day. Ever since, she’s seen no reason for holiday joy amid the materialism and chaos of the most stressful time of year. So when a tipsy guy in a mall elf costume falls into her lap at happy hour and starts spouting poetry, it’s just one more reason to be disgusted at the season’s excess.
A man who’s more than he appears…
Brett Vertanen, part-time elf and a caterer-in-training, is smitten with Carrie’s strength and sass. Having faced down a painful past of his own, he’s determined to be the one to warm her frozen heart. But when Carrie’s job forces her to attend a gala hosted by her ex—and his new wife—it could take more magic than a costumed elf can conjure to make this ice princess once again believe in love.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Hinson
ISBN (Kindle) : 978-0-9911641-0-3
ISBN (.epub) : 978-0-9911641-1-0
Edited by: Rhonda Helms - http://rhondaedits.com/
Proofread by: Abby Weber - [email protected]
Cover Design by: Crystal Posey - http://posey.crevado.com/#609000
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Jax Garren.
Visit Jax at www.jaxgarren.com
To Betty, Carolyn and Laura—three generations of awesome.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
About Jax
First Chapter of the Tales of the Underlight: How Beauty Met the Beast
“Every December the ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia by unchaining their harvest god. Hanukkah’s olive oil miracle happened in 165 BCE. A couple of hundred years before that, the Persian holiday Shab-e Chelleh commemorated the sun’s annual return, and the Chinese have recognized Dongzhi, the balance of light and dark, for who knows how long. Jesus is only one of many, many reasons for the season.” Carrie sipped Shawn’s latest craft cocktail, hoping to ease the annual gut-clench that started around Thanksgiving and would last until the New Year. “I told the guy at the mall that, and judging by his reaction, you’d think I’d punched a toddler, not stated facts.”
Her best friend Lora, sitting in the swank, faux-leather seat next to her at the bar, blinked in consternation.
Carrie shifted in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position, and took another drink. It no longer tasted quite right. Had the whiskey gone down smoother without the sour shot of self-righteousness? Probably. Ugh. Three more weeks until peace and normalcy replaced explosions of tinsel and false cheer, and she couldn’t wait.
Lora patted Carrie’s knee in that way she had when she wanted to be nice but thought Carrie had dropped off the deep end. “Is whipping grumpy old men into an angry froth part of the new holiday spirit?”
Carrie frowned. She hadn’t dropped off anything. “He lectured me first. Why? Because I wished him ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas.’ I wasn’t making a political statement. I was trying to be nice. It’s not like I celebrate anything.” Bad memories hovered, threatening to crash in and make her blubber, but she cast them back. It wasn’t really this guy and his campaign that had her so worked up. The memories were of two years ago, the last Christmas she’d ever celebrated—and ever would.
A sigh escaped her as she tapped her fingers on the table and tried to analyze without feeling. “Fine. I know better. He reminded me of Lincoln’s father. I think that’s why I went nuts. Some Pagan group was collecting money for coats right next to us. I dumped my whole wallet in because I knew it would’ve pissed Mr. Bryant off, and it wasn’t even him.” It amazed her how memories had the power to leap up at the worst times and turn her into somebody she didn’t like. Not that making a donation was a bad thing, but she didn’t normally do it out of spite.
She shook her head to clear it, and the motion caught her hair in a low-hanging pine swag. Grunting with frustration, she untangled it. Good thing she kept it bobbed or she’d have left brown curls among the gold-painted cherubs. “I hate this time of year.”
“And you have every right to, but don’t let overzealous people get to you, okay? It’s not worth it.” Sympathy rolled through Lora’s voice, making it even harder not to tear up.
Instead of meeting her friend’s gaze like a brave woman who didn’t let strangers at the mall make her cry, Carrie looked around the room. The dark wood tables and pub décor of her favorite craft cocktail bar were maxed out in evergreen and gold, providing no safe seats. Her house had once looked a lot like this, cheerful and decorated to the hilt like a medieval castle. Now, though, walking through the day, pretending to feel the cheer she used to genuinely possess made her hollow inside. The guy today had been just too much to take, making her all grouchy. It was easier to feel grouchy than barren.
Empty. She meant empty. She muddled over the awkward silence. “This place looks like a Renaissance holiday card, like it’s just waiting for madrigal singers to come caroling forth with a boar’s head. They have amazing venison stew, with that rosemary turnip puree, and now we have to avoid the bar until New Year’s.”
Lora sucked on an apple cider martini and eyed her critically, as if determining what tack to take. Everyone wanted to help and no one knew how. Grief made people uncomfortable, and Carrie felt bad for her friends who had to put up with her. Finally Lora said, “You avoid the bar. I’ll be here for our happy hour eating turnip puree. Don’t be a grinch. I love you no matter what, but maybe getting back into a festive spirit would be good for you.” She grinned and teased, “And you are wearing a holiday-colored sweater in December.”
For the sake of her friend, Carrie forced a smile onto her face and levity into her voice. Fake it ’til you make it, right? Not that that had worked last year. “It’s my favorite sweater! Green goes with my eyes.”
The bartender whistled, a bemused smile on his face. He’d been listening.
She waved at him, including him in the conversation. “What do you think, Shawn? Is yuletide merriment a requirement?” As surly as the talented mixologist normally was, he’d have to be on her side.
To her surprise, his grizzled face turned almost jolly as he barked a laugh and said, “Only for happy people.” He swiped under the counter and returned with a Santa hat. “Want to try it?”
Her stomach lurched with the lead weight of his words. No, she wasn’t happy, as the raw feeling climbing up her throat would attest. Sometimes she worried she never would be again, and that terrified her.
But that wasn’t his job to point out, and wearing a silly hat wasn’t going to fix it. Shawn meant well, but this was it. Limit breached. She stood to make a bathroom escape.
Sensing his mistake, the bartender pushed another drink her way. She’d give him a smile and drink his apology when she came back, but now she needed space.
“You okay? Should I come with you?” Lora asked, eyes all wide in concern as she stood to join her.
“No, no. I’m fine. Just picking debris from my hair.” Everything would be fine-ish, she’d just had a bad day and needed five minutes alone to get it bac
k together. Five minutes of peace.
She turned and crashed into an elf. The cold stickiness of a mixed drink seeped through her favorite sweater as the tall man in a puffy green and red costume stumbled back, muttering, “Sorry…sorry…sorry…”
Carrie looked down at her shirt, now splotched with peppermint-scented red and likely ruined. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A chuckle came from the doorway, followed by a muttered, “G’luck, Brett,” and the front door pounded shut.
“G-Geirson, sir—” The elf turned to the door, drunkenly lost his footing, tripped…and regained his balance.
Carrie’s arms, up to defend herself from accidental elf molestation or, maybe, to help the man stay upright, lowered. On his next step, though, the elf-man slipped on spilled drink and slammed backward onto her. She fell back into her chair with an inelegant “oof.”
A startled, handsome and utterly toasted face looked up from her lap.
She let out her breath as Lora stifled a laugh into a snort. It probably had looked silly. Practically slapstick between the spilling and the slipping. “Laugh. It’s okay.” Somebody should.
The snort became a guffaw.
With a smile that felt more genuine than most, Carrie looked down at the instigator. His wide blue eyes, framed by dark lashes, blinked up at her. His coal hair was styled into disheveled spikes, and his graceful face, free of wrinkles or the usual signs of worry, reminded her a bit of a kid in a man’s body. Not innocent, exactly, but hopeful. Despite his obvious inebriation, it was endearing. Just looking at him made the gloom a little lighter.
But encouraging drunk strangers, no matter how cheerful or handsome they were, was never a good idea. She turned to Lora and motioned at her sweater and the man in her lap. “I hate Christmas.” To her pride, the words came out more snarky than bitter.
The elf—Brett, someone had called him—made a sound more like a giggle than a laugh. “You hate Christmas?”
“Got a problem with that, ye of the pointed ears?”
He still hadn’t removed himself from her lap, so Carrie reached for his upper arm to help him out. He caught her fingers and held them next to his chest.
“Dude—” she started to protest, but the words dried up as his face went awestruck. As he continued to stare, gaze darting across her face in fascinated approval, her cheeks heated self-consciously. She was pretty enough, but not that pretty.
Then he started talking.
“You have skin the amber of dawn’s light on snow and eyes the green of early spring.” Brett stood, his shoulders squaring and spine going straight, and she was surprised by how tall he was—well over six feet of lean muscle even the silly costume couldn’t hide. He cradled her hand in a strong but not forceful grip.
Carrie couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her or not, but a drunk guy in an elf suit was waxing poetic at her. She burst into laughter. It was exactly the kind of what-the-effery she needed to break a foul mood.
He ran a free hand over her cheek, and she batted him away, laughing harder. “Soft as new fallen flakes.” Carrie had always been proud of her good complexion, but “fallen flakes” was a new one. “And your laughter, the music of the forest.”
“Hey! Back off!” Lora put a firm hand between them, pushing Brett back a few inches.
He glanced at her, batting eyes in confusion. “Did I do something wrong?” He hiccupped and sat on the bar stool beside them. “I’ve been drinking. I forget to behave when I’m drinking. So I don’t normally drink. But I only told her she was pretty.” He looked back at Carrie and shot her a goofy grin. “You don’t mind me telling you how beautiful you are?”
He was a drunk guy in a bar. Statistics said he was trying to score, and she wasn’t interested in a hook-up. At least his tactics were original. She shouldn’t give him the wrong idea by returning his grin, but one slipped through anyway. “No, you’re fine.”
“Carrie, hon, I know I told you to start dating again, but I was thinking lawyer, not lunatic,” Lora said.
“Carrie…” Brett muttered.
“Oh, man. Sorry, I didn’t mean to tell him your name.”
Carrie shook her head and grabbed napkins off the bar to try and sop up her blouse. “It’s okay. I need to get going and see if I can salvage this.”
Brett stood when she did, reminding her of movies set in a more polite day and age. Even if he was swaying a little. He put a hand out. “Wait. You have to let me get you a new sweater. I ruined that one.”
He wanted to see her again? She didn’t want to be mean, but that idea needed to be nipped in the bud before Elf-man asked for her phone number. He looked pretty determined, too, like he wouldn’t take a hint well. She should’ve stymied her earlier smile.
“Where do you work?” Lora cut in before she could decide what to say.
“Huh?” he asked.
She picked at the costume. “What do you do?”
“I’m an elf!” He looked so proud of it. Carrie and Lora exchanged smirks.
“Yes. Where at?” Lora continued.
“The mall!”
“Okay. Sorry, not-so-little mall elf, but unless you know Santa personally, you and your actor-wannabe job can’t afford her sweater. Got it?”
Carrie cringed as Lora’s inner Mama Bear came roaring forth. “It’s cool. He’s fine.”
Her friend gave her a withering frown. “No, I know you. You’ll be nice enough to accidentally lead him on.” She turned to Shawn. “Close out our tab. We’ll take it at the other end of the bar.”
As Lora manhandled her down the row of seats, Carrie couldn’t help glancing back. Brett slumped at the bar, looking confused. As if he sensed her watching him, he looked up. His little smile and wave goodbye made her blush, partially from embarrassment but mostly because she had the urge to go back and let him compliment her some more. But that was silly. He was silly.
Reality wasn’t elf-men spouting poetry in bars. It was a real man—a good, stable man—walking out the door on the day she needed him the most.
If karma was real—and Carrie doubted it, but if it was—this was what came back around for letting her best friend be mean to a man in the unfortunate position of being stuck with a mall job during the holidays. She stared at her editor with a crazed expression that likely accentuated the dark eye circles and barely together look of a morning hangover. She shouldn’t have invited Lora over last night for wine and whining, but after the whackadoo day, she’d needed girl time. She shook her head, trying to keep it slow enough to not bounce her brain around. “I’m not reporting on that, no. I’m not. I can’t, I—”
“Carrie, it’s a social event, not a guillotining. Eva’s on vacation until January. You know that. I’m requesting, no insisting that you take her place.”
“I review restaurants. I don’t do society events.”
Editor HardAss, otherwise known as Beth when she wasn’t being a total bitch, shot her a quelling glare. Carrie shut up.
One of the great things about writing on the small staff of a local magazine was the opportunity to work on a wide variety of things. One of the terrible things about working on the small staff of a local magazine was the necessity of working on a wide variety of things. Particularly when people used the holidays as an excuse to foist their work onto other people.
Finally she mustered, “I don’t have anything to wear.”
Editor HardAss’s mouth twitched. “You’ve got a week. Get something.” Then she turned on her Prada wedges and left, calling, “I expect a top-notch segment on the catering.”
“But—”
Her editor slowly spun, and the ice in her gaze thawed a fraction. “I know, but I don’t have anyone else to send. It was two years ago. You’re a tough-ass reporter. Toughen up.”
Carrie held her breath until her editor had rounded a corner, then gulped air like a swimmer who’d been under too long. She glanced down at the information in her hand. The annual benefit for Austin Arts was held in a dif
ferent home—no, not home, mansion—the Friday before each Christmas. The elite of central Texas came to drink Dom, eat canapés, show off their latest gowns and feel proud of themselves for dropping an average person’s weekly wages just to attend. And that didn’t include the silent auction. Carrie hated these fetes, slinking among people who, in her experience, smiled for the press, patronized artists and ascribed the worst motivations to any other outsiders entering their elite circle.
All of that she could handle, though. What she couldn’t do was go to the home of software genius Lincoln Bryant and his “charming” wife, Erica. Charming, hah. Erica had the brains of a Dalmatian and the taste of a lemming.
But Lincoln, with his platinum-blond hair, broad shoulders and chocolate-brown eyes, oh, Lincoln was brilliant and charismatic and tragically weak willed from a lifetime of wealth making everything easy. For two years now she’d avoided her ex—an easy task, given their vastly different financial and social circumstances.
She opened her file cabinet and with trembling fingers reached to the back for the cold silver of a picture frame. Lora had helped her break every frame, burn every photograph but these two. Carrie opened the hinge and saw Lincoln and herself, beaming like cartoon characters from two photographs, one when they’d said their vows and another when they’d cut their cake. She smoothed the pad of her thumb down the happy faces. Beth knew this part, the marriage and the divorce, but she didn’t know why.
They’d been a glorious pair, Carrie and Lincoln Bryant, until they’d tried to be three. An unsuccessful year of trying led to doctor visits, testing and more failure, each barren month igniting fights and sucking the life from what they’d had. But they’d soldiered on. Just over two years and an eternity of frustration later, good news had saved their dissolving marriage.
That had been the most joyous Thanksgiving of Carrie’s life. Another month passed of renewed hope, of planning, renovating their home—now Erica’s house—painting the baby’s room…