Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance)

Smashwords Edition

~ The Sullivans ~

© 2013 Bella Andre

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http://www.BellaAndre.com

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For Mary Sullivan Christmas is, and always
has been, about family. And this year is no different. As she
awaits the arrival of her eight children and their partners at the
cottage in Lake Tahoe, she hangs the ornaments that they made for
her over the years. Each decoration brings with it a tide of
memories, all of which she holds dear to her heart. But when she
comes across the oldest ornament, the one her beloved husband,
Jack, gave her on their very first Christmas together, Mary is
immediately swept back to the first days of their whirlwind
romance, to the love that would be the foundation on which they
built the family she is so proud to call her own. Join the
Sullivans this Christmas for a story that explores the wonder of
the holidays, the meaning of family and a love that transcends
time.

I’d like to dedicate Mary and Jack Sullivan’s
story to…

All the "Sullifans" around the world—I adore
you.

Sarah MacLean—your awesomeness is
unparalleled.

Mom and Dad—thank you for supporting my dream
and helping to make it become an incredible reality.

And to my amazing husband, Paul—every single
day you inspire me to write the kind of heroes I can't help but
fall in love with. You've always been my forever.

As soon as I started writing about the
Sullivan family, emails began to pour in about Mary and Jack
Sullivan, parents of the eight Sullivan children who grew up to
become the heroes and heroines in my series.

Was Jack as sexy and loving as his sons? Was
Mary as feisty and sweet as her daughters? When did they meet? Was
it love at first sight? Was their road to romance bumpy or smooth?
And could I please tell their love story, too?

I've been asked many, many times about my
favorite Sullivan. While I love them all for different reasons, as
soon as I started writing
Kissing Under The Mistletoe
, I was
finally able to make my choice.

Mary and Jack Sullivan's love story is
definitely one of my favorite that I've ever written. I hope that
you love it, too.

Happy reading,

Bella Andre

Mary Sullivan looked forward to spending
Christmas in Lake Tahoe with her family all year long. After seven
decades of Christmas celebrations, she still felt the same wonder
and joy for the winter holidays that she had as a child. Outside
the large windows of the cozy log cabin on the shores of Lake
Tahoe, the clear blue sky was quickly giving way to clouds. The
thermometer hanging on the trunk of a nearby pine tree told her the
temperature had dropped ten degrees since morning. Mary had already
lit a fire in the commanding rock fireplace that her husband, Jack,
had built so many years ago with the help of his brothers.

The first snowfall of winter was always
beautiful, but tonight, sharing it with the people she loved most
in the world would make it pure magic.

This year would be a truly special Sullivan
Christmas, because her family—eight wonderful kids and their
families, who had filled her life with so much love and joy—would
be arriving by nightfall.

She couldn’t wait to see them all, but before
they all arrived and every room of the log cabin erupted with
constant chatter and laughter, she wanted to have a little quiet
time with her precious memories.

Moving away from the window, Mary headed for
the large storage room in the back of the house. Stepping inside,
she spent a few minutes admiring the marks along the inside
wall.

She and Jack had measured each child’s growth
spurts over the years, from toddlers to full-grown adults. Smith
and Chase had badly wanted to catch up to Marcus and when, at
sixteen, Smith had finally topped his older brother by half an inch
you could have heard his bragging for miles. The twins, Sophie and
Lori, had thankfully grown at exactly the same rate. Different in
many ways, her girls had the most important thing in common: big
hearts.

Jack and his brothers had built this log
cabin nearly forty years ago, and she felt the love of the entire
Sullivan clan on every shelf, every tile, every nail. Taking down
the medium-size box from the middle shelf, she carried it back into
the living room and placed it on a glossy wooden table near the
bare Christmas tree.

Mary had several friends who put up elegant
Christmas trees using only red-and-gold ornaments or
silver-and-white decorations. Their trees were holiday showpieces,
so carefully put together that even Mary was nervous about knocking
off one of the pristine ornaments. She always kept a good distance
from those architectural wonders.

No one would ever call the Sullivans’ big
Christmas tree a showpiece or anything close to elegant, with its
jumble of mismatched decorations…but Mary would never change a
thing about it, even though her kids were all grown now. Every
ornament on her tree had such a beautiful story behind it.

With a smile of anticipation, Mary reached
into the box and pulled out a thin, flat, bubble-wrapped package.
She carefully undid it to reveal a Popsicle-stick masterpiece. Six
wooden sticks had been glued into the shape of a star. At the
center of the star was a hand-drawn picture of the growing Sullivan
family from more than thirty years ago.

Even as a little boy, family had meant so
much to Marcus, her firstborn, who now owned the very successful
Sullivan Winery in Napa Valley. Only four years old when he’d made
this ornament, he’d drawn Smith as a toddler, dancing for their
attention. Chase was crawling off in his diaper to discover a new
adventure. Marcus stood between Jack and Mary, grinning as he held
their hands. Already, Mary’s eyes were slightly damp as she hung
Marcus’s ornament on the tree.

The next bubble-wrapped package she chose was
the heaviest one, which was how she knew it had to be Smith’s.
There had never been any doubt in Mary’s mind that her second
oldest son had been born to be a star. She’d been applauding him
with pride in every play, every musical, and every smash hit movie
he’d been in for more than three decades.

One day near the holidays when he was six
years old, he’d pulled out a small bag of concrete from the
basement. After mixing it into the perfect consistency, he’d made
his handprints in the concrete, signing his name with a flourish
beneath them.

Almost exactly two decades later, Mary had
watched Smith place his hands in wet concrete again…only this time
it was for his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Finding an
extra-strong branch to hang his handprints on, Mary placed Smith’s
ornament on the tree.

The next ornament came in its very own box,
one that was as beautiful as the treasure it protected inside. When
Chase, her third oldest son, was eight years old, his third-grade
teacher had sent a note home asking the kids to bring in family
pictures for an art project. Rather than pulling photos from the
albums Mary had put together over the years, Chase took the
pictures himself, using the camera Jack had given him for his
seventh birthday. Already, her talented son had been on his way to
becoming a world-renowned photographer.

On the last day of school before Christmas
break, he’d come home with this wonderful box, covered in a collage
of the family photos he’d taken. In one photo, Marcus was swinging
his youngest brother Gabe around in a circle as both boys laughed
together. In another, Ryan was a blur as he ran after a ball. Zach
was captured setting up a complicated toy race-car track in the
basement and there was a shot of Smith as the star in a school
play. In the photo beside that one, Mary and Jack were sitting side
by side on the couch, each of them holding a baby girl. Chase had
taken a picture of himself, too, in front of the mirror, half of
his face covered by the large black camera.

Inside the box was a round plastic ornament
with one big picture of the whole family together glued around it.
A few years later, one of the kids got hold of the ornament and,
with a black felt tip pen, had drawn mustaches on everyone.
Somehow, Mary thought with a grin as she hung it on the tree, she
liked it even better with the funny faces.

After putting Chase’s collaged box on the
mantel for everyone to admire when they arrived later that evening,
Mary dug back into the box of Christmas ornaments. When she drew
out a long, thin ornament, her grin grew even wider.

Ryan, one of her two middle sons, had always
been busy with constantly revolving seasons of soccer, basketball,
baseball and football. Mary remembered realizing she wasn’t going
to get an ornament out of him unless she specifically asked him to
make one. By then he was nine years old and believed he was too old
to make Christmas ornaments, especially since his little twin
sisters loved any excuse to be covered in glitter from their forays
into Christmas ornament making.

More than one Christmas party guest over the
years had been confused as to why Mary had hung a stick on her
tree…at least until she told them to take a closer look.

Yes, the ornament he’d agreed to make was a
stick. But it wasn’t just any old stick. At her request, Ryan had
walked out into their backyard, kicking a rock with each step,
grumbling to himself since he would have much rather been in the
park across the street kicking a soccer ball with his brothers.
Mary surreptitiously watched him from the kitchen window, and when
he stopped beneath the big oak tree and picked up the stick to
bring inside along with a few pine needles, she wondered what he
planned to do with it.

Ryan chose a pen from among the girls’
coloring stash in the family room and, with his usual easy grace
that extended from sports to everything else he did, he began to
draw on the branch. When he was done making his illustrations, he
stuck several pine needles into holes on either side of the
stick.

A few minutes later Ryan walked back into the
kitchen, where Mary was peeling potatoes for dinner, and showed her
what he’d made. The reindeer was rather primitive looking, but it
was unique. And fun. Just like her easygoing son. Most people never
saw beyond Ryan’s athletic talents, but Mary had always known he
was bright and funny and quite artistic, as well. Now, as a grown
man, he brought all of that to his career as a Major League
Baseball pitcher.

After making sure she hung his reindeer so
that it wouldn’t blend in with the rest of the branches on the
tree, Mary reached back into the box and drew out the next
ornament.

Her other middle son, Zach, had always been a
practical joker. From birth he’d been such a shockingly beautiful
boy that he could get away with anything simply by smiling. He had
all the girls in his class under his spell, his teachers wound
around his little finger and the other boys clamoring to be his
friend. Now he ran a chain of auto repair shops throughout
California and raced cars in his spare time.

One Christmas, Mary had just finished making
a large tray of gingerbread cookies and had left them on the
counter to go and help bandage one of the little ones who had
fallen off their tricycle in the backyard. That was when one of the
kids snuck into the kitchen and took a bite out of each cookie.

How could she do anything but laugh when she
returned to the kitchen? None of the kids would fess up to the
Christmas crime but, come Christmas Eve, when Zach announced he had
one more ornament for the tree, lo and behold, it was one of the
gingerbread men with a bite taken out of him. Zach had coated the
cookie in a thick layer of rubber cement so it wouldn’t fall apart
and had pushed a paperclip through the center of its forehead to
use as a makeshift hanger.

Life with her kids had never been dull, that
was for sure, she thought with a chuckle as she hung the fun
ornament on the tree. And she wouldn’t have traded a minute of
those crazy years when they were all together in the ranch house in
Palo Alto for anything in the world.

The next set of ornaments was also in its
very own box and Mary made sure to pull each one out with extreme
care. Her youngest son Gabe had always been intrigued by fire, so
it was fitting that he’d become a firefighter. He’d barely been
four when Jack brought home a little Bunsen burner and suggested
they try to blow some glass ornaments by hand. Mary had loved the
way Jack had told the history of the first-ever Christmas ornaments
to the kids, explaining that they had been made just like this.