Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 15212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 76(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 76(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Evie Crowe is starting over in a strange town with her newborn, and men are the furthest thing from her mind. If only the quiet, hulking farmer, Luke Ward, would stop coming into the thrift shop and piquing her reluctant interest. Evie wants to stay single all the way—she can’t trust anything more than friends-with-holiday-benefits. But Luke is in it for the long haul. He’s fixed on making this a Christmas Evie will remember forever. If she gives him a chance.
Tessa Bailey’s Merry Ever After is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Evie
The farmer is back.
I can hear him fumbling and cursing in the dressing room of my shop. The dirty shoelaces of his muddy work boots peek out from beneath the red velvet curtain, making me sigh. I’ll have to break out the Swiffer mop as soon as he leaves. But the mess he’s making isn’t my main concern. I only want to know if he found anything that fits.
Abruptly, the farmer straightens, the back of his head becoming visible over the top of the curtain. Our eyes meet briefly in the mirror, which is outlined in blinking white Christmas lights, and embarrassment streaks through my chest at having been caught watching him. My gaze zips back down to the tuxedo-dress design I’m sketching, and I continue to shade beneath the collar.
There’s a pause between the endless stream of holiday music emanating from the old stereo before “Last Christmas” by Wham! takes over for Elvis. The songs seem so out of place because it isn’t even cold outside, the way it would be back in Chicago by now. Surely it can’t be December 22? Yet the streetlamps just beyond the windows are decorated with big tinsel bells, and come evening, the big fir tree in the town square will light up with multicolored vintage bulbs. Christmas in Texas just hits different, I guess.
When I hear a disappointed grunt from inside the dressing room, my shoulders slump. Not a single winner in that entire pile of secondhand jeans he carried in there with him ten minutes ago?
Moments later, when that weathered hand yanks back the curtain and the farmer emerges with a scowl, I’m reminded why he can never find anything in the little corner thrift shop that fits. He’s biblically huge. At least six feet six inches of brute force. Broad and stacked. Filthy from farmwork. Mean looking. A grizzly bear wouldn’t cross his path.
And he’s blushing to the tips of his ears.
As the farmer approaches the register, he carries a single pair of jeans in his hand, the rest of them left neatly stacked behind him in the dressing room. The sound of him clearing his throat is like a crack of thunder and causes me to drop my pencil, deepening the red flush that encompasses the sides of his bristled face.
Soulful brown eyes meet mine from way above. Like, I actually have to tip my head back to make eye contact, and when I do? There’s a worrying little twitch just below my belly button, followed by a slow inundation of heat, beginning at the top of my spine and finishing with a singe of my nerve endings. All of them. What was that?
A moment’s hesitation passes before he sets the jeans on the counter, nudging them forward. “These didn’t fit, but I ripped the damn things trying to get them off.” He dips his chin. “I’ll be paying for them.”
Guess that explains the blush. “That isn’t necessary.”
“Tell me how much, please.”
They couldn’t be more ancient. Frayed and faded and patched. “Five.”
He hides his skepticism and sets a twenty on the counter. “The rest is for the mess, ma’am. I do apologize.”
Just like the last three times the farmer has attempted to find jeans that fit in the thrift shop where I work, in the seconds right before he leaves, he looks at me as if he wants to say something. Maybe ask my name. Maybe ask for my number.
Part of me wishes he would.
The rest of me hopes he doesn’t, because I would have to decline.
The five-month-old baby sleeping in the tiny back office ensures I don’t have time to date. I’m lucky they let me bring my son to work. Lucky the elderly couple who owns the shop allows me an entire rack to display my upcycled designs and keep the cash it generates. That they’re lenient with me if something comes up with Sonny, like a pediatrician appointment or a cold. This isn’t the kind of town that takes chances on a blow-in from the city—so yeah, I’m lucky.
Hoping for anything more would be selfish.
I’m not very smart about choosing men, anyway. The farmer could have a mean streak or mommy issues. A pet boa constrictor roaming freely about his house. Perhaps he chats about agriculture with a mannequin propped up in his kitchen. Who knows.
Bottom line, I wouldn’t give him my number.
For some reason, though, when he fixes his stare on the ground, sighs, and turns to leave, I find myself blurting, “You know, I could make you some jeans. Custom.”
His boots scrape to a stop, and he looks back at me through narrowed eyes. “That sounds like a fuss.”
“It wouldn’t be. I like making clothes.” I make an absent gesture toward my very own rack of designs, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. It comes off like a boast when I meant to be reassuring. Now I’m the one with red ears. “That is to say, I enjoy making new clothes out of old ones.”