An Ex for Christmas(64)

I already know what it says. I’ve spent the past God knows how many hours taking the damn thing apart and hacking it to say what I want it to say.

“Mark?” she lifts her eyes to mine.

She glances down again at the ball, and I do as well. Instead of the usual yes/no/maybe shit, it has two simple words: Marry me.

I cup her face with both hands and say it out loud. “Marry me, Kelly. And don’t give me any shit about it being too soon, because if there are two people who know each other inside and out, it’s ones with ten years of history, most of that spent as neighbors and friends—”

“Best friends,” she corrects. “And co-parents of a fur baby.”

“Right. So if you don’t do it for me, do it for Rigby.”

Her eyes flit over my shoulder. “Your dog is by the door. He has to go to the bathroom.”

“Your dog can bloody wait, and that’s a hell of a topic for a time like this, Byrne. Answer the question. And remember all that cheesy stuff you wrote on the posters when you answer.”

She turns her head slightly, pressing a kiss to my hand. “Maybe I should ask the Magic 8 ball.”

I’m anticipating this. “Maybe you should.”

She blinks in surprise, then glances down at the ball still in her hands, gives it a shake.

I don’t bother looking down. I know what it says.

“Yes,” she reads. Then she laughs. “Is there a ‘no’ option?”

“Definitely not.”

“How’d you rig a Magic 8 ball?”

“Kelly . . .” I’m damn close to begging now.

She leans forward and kisses my mouth. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

My eyes close in relief. After a damn decade of waiting, I finally got what I want for Christmas. What I’ve wanted for every Christmas for the last ten years.

“I was thinking we’d buy you a ring together. In New York. After apartment hunting,” I say, in between kisses.

“I love that plan. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” She pulls back. “I saw the lady. The fortune-teller from the train station.”

“Oh yeah?”

Kelly nods. “Turns out I heard her wrong. She didn’t say The One was a past love, just that he’d been there all along. She was talking about you.”

I pull her close and kiss her forehead, smiling as I do so. “I know.”





For Sarah and Shelby, and everyone else who knows that Hallmark Christmas

movies are the best thing in the world. This one’s for you.





Acknowledgments


A super-huge thank-you to my agent and to the Loveswept team for letting me write my “dream book.” Writing a Christmas story’s been on my bucket list ever since before I even finished my first book. Finally, twentysomething books later, I got my chance, and it was every bit the experience I hoped for.

I hope all you fabulous readers feel the same.

May all of your holidays be as happy as Kelly and Mark’s.

Xoxo,

Lauren Layne





Read on for an excerpt from

Runaway Groom

I Do, I Don’t

by Lauren Layne





Coming soon from Headline Eternal!





January 2018


I hang up on Marjorie. She’ll understand when I explain later.

“So,” I say, forcing a smile at the unsmiling man leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Awkward, right?”

Gage says nothing.

The light coming from the cracked door is enough to let me know it’s him, but not enough to read his expression.

I start to slip my phone into my back pocket, but he wordlessly holds out a hand.

“Um, no.”

“No phones,” he says. He pushes away from the wall and plucks the phone out of my hand. He glances down at it, his thumbs moving across the screen, as he unabashedly snoops through it. “Who were you talking to?”

“Give it back.” I try to grab for it, but he holds it higher, still snooping. “I’ll turn it in, I swear.”

He gives me a skeptical look but finally hands the phone over, and I shove it into my back pocket and glare up at him.

I’m a little surprised by how tall he is.

I’ve always heard that actors are shorter in person than they seem onscreen, but Gage has to be at least six-two, and he towers easily over my five feet four inches.

He’s wearing shorts and a button-down linen shirt, but the casual attire does nothing to diminish his masculinity. A fact I’m pretty sure he knows, because he steps closer, then grins when I back up and stumble over a bucket.

Gage reaches out a hand to steady me, a hand big and warm on my waist. For a second I think he’s lingering, but then I realize his fingers are simply testing the fabric of my T-shirt.

“So this is the business,” he murmurs. “Looks like a men’s undershirt to me.”

I bat his hand away. “The cut of a man’s undershirt doesn’t adequately account for a woman’s—”

I break off, and he lifts his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Never mind,” I say, not about to say the word “breasts” or “boobs” when I’m in very close proximity to a man who’s making me too aware of my boobs.