Her Mistletoe Wish

by Lucy Clark

  ‘Only three hours to get ready! Come on!’

  Flynn stood, dressed in a tuxedo, not caring if he was slightly overdressed for tonight’s auction or not. He wanted to look his absolute best when he saw Reggie, hoping amongst hope that his gifts and his letter of explanation, his letter of love, had proved to her that he loved her and that she could trust him. He fiddled with his tie as he stood near the rear of the small stage.

  So far, the night had been going for a good twenty minutes and there was still no sign of Reggie. Was she coming? Had something happened? Perhaps he should have organised for a car to pick her up but then he thought she might consider that too controlling and the last thing he wanted was for her to think him controlling. He wanted to cherish her, adore her and love her for the rest of her life, and as he rubbed his sweaty palms down his trousers again, checking the door for the hundredth time, almost wishing her to burst through, he heard his number being called.

  ‘And next up we have bachelor number five. Ladies, he’s the latest addition to Sunshine General’s surgical department. Please welcome Flynn Jamieson,’ Mackenzie, who was the MC for the evening, announced into the microphone. Flynn looked at Mackenzie as if to ask where Reggie was. Mackenzie’s answer was to shrug apologetically as Flynn took centre stage, standing beneath the plastic mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘Who would like to get the bidding started?’ Mackenzie asked, and wasn’t surprised when a plethora of hands went up, bids being called out. The previous bachelor had raised well over five hundred dollars and although Flynn wanted to raise money for the hospital, he didn’t care if someone only bid five dollars, so long as that someone was Reggie. Where was she?

  Mackenzie was taking bids, the price going past one hundred dollars, past two hundred, then three, then four. Up and up the price went, getting to seven hundred dollars. Ingrid Brown, the general surgical registrar, was in a battle with Clara from the outpatient department. Flynn couldn’t believe someone would pay that much just to have dinner with him but then again it really was for a good cause.

  ‘Do I have an increase on seven-fifty?’ Mackenzie called. ‘Seven-fifty going once. Seven-fifty going twice.’

  ‘One thousand dollars!’ came a loud female cry from the back of the room and everyone turned to look, turned to see Reggie standing there, dressed in the most glorious scarlet dress and matching shoes, her short dark hair spiked out a little, giving her a radiant appeal. People around her clapped; the hospital’s administrator whooped with delight.

  ‘Sold!’ Mackenzie called, banging her gavel and ignoring Ingrid’s frown. ‘Step right on up, Reggie, and claim your Christmas bachelor,’ she called. Reggie kept her gaze glued to Flynn’s as she made her way through the ballroom, not tripping over a chair or a tablecloth and not overbalancing in the five-inch heels.

  Soon enough, she was standing before him. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ were the first words out of her mouth. ‘The taxi broke down and I had difficulty getting another one.’

  ‘You look…’ Flynn stared at her, not caring that everyone else was staring at the two of them. As far as he was concerned, there was no one else, no one else except Reggie. ‘Stunning.’

  Her smile increased as she looked up at him, then motioned to the mistletoe above them. ‘Look where you’re standing, Dr Jamieson.’

  He nodded and moved forward, sliding his arms about her waist and drawing her close. Wolf-whistles came from around them as well as a lot of cheering. Reggie didn’t care. She wanted everyone in the world to know exactly how she felt about Flynn.

  ‘Do you think we need it?’ he asked, and she slowly shook her head from side to side.

  ‘Thank you for your letter. It was perfect.’

  ‘I hope you don’t think I was trying to buy your affection by sending you the things I did.’

  ‘I don’t think that. I think you were trying to romance the woman you love.’ She slid her hands slowly up his chest to link them behind his neck.

  ‘I do. I do love you, Reggie, so very much. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.’

  ‘That’s very good news,’ she replied, her brand-new heels making her tall enough to lean in closer and line up her lips with his.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Yes, because I’ve never loved anyone like I love you either.’

  Finally, Flynn smiled at her, a small, secret smile that let her know that, finally, everything really would be all right. ‘Marry me?’ he asked, their lips only millimetres apart.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied instantly, and sealed their new deal with a kiss.

  The room erupted into a frenzy of clapping and cheering as the two of them stood beneath the mistletoe, kissing each other with perfect delight.

  ‘I’m sorry this proposal isn’t as romantic as the last one,’ he eventually said as they made their way out of the ballroom via a side door, not caring about anything at the moment but each other. With the moon above them, the stars twinkling in the night sky and Flynn’s arms around her, holding her close, Reggie kissed his gorgeous, loving mouth.

  ‘I like this one best, especially as I now own you.’ He raised one eyebrow playfully at her words. ‘Don’t you realise that spread out over the next fifty years, you would only have cost me twenty dollars a year!’

  ‘A definite bargain,’ he returned, kissing her once again.

  ‘Who said money couldn’t buy love?’ She giggled and allowed Flynn to keep on kissing her…forever.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘ARE YOU READY?’ Sunainah asked.

  Reggie stood dressed in a beautiful white wedding dress that had an asymmetrical split up the side, revealing a generous amount of her shapely legs. Ruffles seemed to be everywhere and as she looked at herself in the mirror, her three friends nodded in approval.

  ‘That dress is so you,’ Bergan said.

  ‘I love it,’ Reggie agreed. ‘Almost as much as I love Flynn.’ She giggled before turning to face her friends, looking at each of them in turn. She was surrounded by the people she loved and waiting for her in the communal garden area of the cul-de-sac stood the man of her dreams. ‘Do you think I’m ready?’

  Bergan, Mackenzie and Sunainah looked at each other for a split second before looking back at Reggie. ‘Yes,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Only you would get married in a car park,’ Bergan grumbled good-naturedly.

  ‘It’s not a car park. It’s a lovely little garden that we all tend and love—’

  ‘Which is right next to where guests usually park their cars when they come to visit,’ Bergan added.

  ‘Well, Mackenzie did want me to be part of the cul-de-sac crew and I think this definitely makes It official.’

  ‘Just one more thing,’ Sunainah said a moment later, and bent down to pull a rectangular parcel from a bag. It was wrapped in plain brown paper with no other adornments. ‘This is for you.’

  ‘Really?’ Reggie accepted the parcel and looked at her friend in delight. ‘I like presents.’

  ‘I hope you will like this one.’ Sunainah, Bergan and Mackenzie all grinned at each other as Reggie ripped the paper off with a touch of impatience and what she saw there made her stare at her friends in wonderment. There, in her hands, was a framed picture of herself and Flynn, standing on the beach in the Caribbean, sipping drinks with little umbrellas, the sun setting behind them.

  ‘You told me to get rid of it but…I could not,’ Sunainah confessed.

  Reggie shook her head in wonder, then put the picture down and launched herself at her friends, hugging them all. ‘Oh, this is perfect. This is the picture from our first real date. Oh, Sunainah, thank you for not listening to me and keeping it safe all these years. You three really are the best friends ever.’

  ‘I am also pleased you decided not to wait and to get married today,’ Sunainah added, as she set about fixing Reggie’s dress once more. ‘Christmas Day. Surrounded by everyone that you love most. It is perfect.’

  ‘Yes.’ Melva and her other neig
hbours would be part of the party and after the ceremony they were having a progressive Christmas wedding feast, going from one town house to the next. Reggie had wanted everyone to be included because everyone here was her family, the family she’d built around herself and the one in which Flynn now shared.

  Since the auction Reggie had met Violet several times, wanting to include her in the planning of the wedding.

  ‘I’m so glad you and Flynn have finally found each other again,’ Violet had said when the two of them had been alone. ‘He loves you very much. Always has.’

  ‘I know. The past is the past,’ Reggie said. ‘We can’t do anything to change it but what we can do is accept it and plunge right on in to a newer and happier future.’

  Violet had laughed. ‘Flynn told me I’d like you and he was right. Thank you for making him happy.’ The two women had hugged and when Flynn had returned, finding them laughing together, Reggie had seen true happiness reflected in his eyes. They weren’t his future wife and his ex-wife, they were the love of his life and his surrogate sister…and they liked each other.

  ‘OK,’ Bergan said a moment later, bringing Reggie’s thoughts back to the present. ‘It’s time to go because I have a feeling Flynn isn’t going to wait too long for his bride to appear.’

  ‘Right, girls,’ Mackenzie said, marshalling her daughter Ruthie and Sunainah’s daughter, Daphne, together. ‘You come with me.’

  ‘And boys,’ Sunainah said, taking her son Joshua’s hand and then offering her other hand to Violet’s son, Ian, who Reggie had wanted to include in their wedding party. ‘You are with me.’

  ‘Out you come,’ Bergan said, opening the front door to town house number three and waiting for the bride to precede her. As Reggie was an orphan, she’d decided she didn’t need to be walked down the aisle by anyone. She would stand tall and walk towards Flynn by herself, offering herself to him, her three closest friends and the children behind her.

  She accepted her bridal bouquet of bright red poinsettias from Bergan and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said to them, before looking towards the garden where Flynn stood waiting impatiently for her. ‘I’m ready. Ready for my normal, everyday life to begin. My life with Flynn.’

  And with that, beaming brightly she walked towards the man who held her heart, giggling at his expression when he finally saw her, his jaw dropping in gobsmacked delight. Both Colin and Violet were standing in as his ‘groomsmen’ and with Richard, Elliot and John, as well as the rest of the extended families visiting for Christmas, it was almost difficult to find the wedding celebrant in the mix.

  As soon as Reggie stood beside Flynn, she smiled up at him and gave a little shimmy, the ruffles on her dress shaking with the movement. ‘Ready to get hitched?’ she whispered.

  ‘To you? Absolutely,’ he replied, and took her hand in his. ‘Now, this is a Christmas tradition I can get behind.’

  Reggie laughed, unable to believe she could ever be this happy and it was all thanks to Flynn.

  ISBN: 9781472003492

  HER MISTLETOE WISH

  © Anne Clark & Peter Clark 2013

  First Published in Great Britain in 2013

  Harlequin (UK) Limited

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