Mistletoe and Other Disasters

By Alyne Hart

A short, sweet and spicy holiday romance. 

Sarah was having one hell of a day. After receiving a bridesmaid dress in the mail, a harrowing drive in a snow storm and spilling hot cocoa down the front of her favorite sweater, the day couldn't much worse. Right? 

Wrong. 

Because stalking out of the shower of her hotel room is Damien North. Wrapped in a towel, smelling all man-soapy and amazing and looking like sin on a stick. 

And the worst part? He doesn't even remember her. 

Can a focused romance novelist and a playboy bachelor survive a snowstorm when they get stuck in a hotel room together? From Alyne Hart comes a blizzard to remember and enough heat to melt your kindle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alyne Hart
• Release date: Oct 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386013273

Alyne Hart

Alyne Hart is a contemporary romance author and wine connoisseur living in Walla Walla, WA. She's known for writing stories that pack an emotional punch and get you right in the feels.  She loves writing real, flawed characters and writing about realistic, gritty and raw romance. She's a romance junkie and happy endings addict, and if you’re a lover of deeply emotional, flawed and realistic romance reads with lots of delicious angst, her books are for you. Alyne's stories involve characters with bigger problems than just finding love. She writes stories about making peace with the past, rekindling old flames and healing old wounds. She loves small towns, men in uniform and alpha males with a heart of gold.  She began her story-telling journey first with her dolls, then it progressed to paper. She has a deep love for anything romantic, and she's a believer that in love anything is possible.  When Alyne isn’t writing, you can find her reading, hanging out with her cat, and spending time with her two children. She enjoys trips to the mountains just as much as trips to the wine cellar, live music, chick flick movie marathons and hanging out with her eclectic group of friends.  Follow Alyne: Facebook → http://bit.ly/2w89KNP Twitter → http://bit.ly/2w8kRqb Blog → http://bit.ly/2vxvmGy Goodreads → http://bit.ly/2vv8S8S Bookbub → http://bit.ly/2fyhncE Newsletter → https://mailchi.mp/a8a0de143ef8/alynehart

Book preview

I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: it brings people together while time stands still.

—Rachel Cohn

Chapter One

Sarah

A close up of a flower Description automatically generated

MY DAY WAS GETTING worse by the hour, and it all started with the arrival of a midnight-blue bridesmaid dress that morning.

It wasn’t the dress itself. I mean, thank God my sister had decent fashion sense, and I wasn’t going to be tortured with some cotton-candy pink taffeta nightmare. No, it’s what it stood for and the questions I was going to be hounded with exactly three weekends from today.

When are we going to see you walking down the aisle?

I don’t know, when are you going to do something about that mole on your chin?

Why haven’t you gotten married yet?

Because divorce is expensive.

Why are you still single?

Because it really is me, not them. I have references, and none of them are good.

I could already assume there would be a look of pity on everyone’s face when I walked down the aisle as a bridesmaid once again. Even my mother had that look in her eye as if I’d skipped a great pinnacle in life by not having my own spectacle of a celebration in a giant white dress, with dry chicken and an open bar.

I should just practice my introduction now.

Hi, Sarah North, nice to meet you. Big sister of the bride and single as fuck with nothing on the horizon to suggest that will ever change. Yes, I have a cat. No, I love the singles table, really. Pass the crab dip?

But, it was my little sister Cassie’s wedding, and so I was prepared to suck it up and act like it didn’t bother me as much as it did.

The truth is, I’m good with single. I know how to deal with single. There is no inevitable crash back down to earth after a nasty break up, no one has to climb over the walls I’ve built to keep anyone from getting in, only to find out they don’t like what’s on the other side.

Then there was the drive. What started out as a few slow snowflakes landing quietly on the windshield, wound up being a massive snowstorm by the time I made it over the pass and towards the lodge where I was isolating myself for the holiday weekend. My car slid against snowy roads, bumping into banks and piles of the white stuff until I finally came to the top of the hill.

In other words, Old Man Winter was really showing off.

If it hadn’t been for the idea of the quiet solitude and perhaps a glass or two of wine by a roaring fire, I would have turned around and headed back to my townhouse.  I’d spend the time with my cat and a host of holiday movies on Netflix, rather than driving further and further into a sea of white.

I pulled up in my jet-black Volvo, parked as close to the lobby as I could and stared at the outside of the Summit Peak Chalet with a contented sigh. The lodge is great, I love the lodge. I spent almost every holiday here with my family growing up, and they have some of the best hot cocoa you’ve ever tasted.

After pulling my luggage from the trunk of my car, sliding around on my Michael Kors ankle boots in the process, I finally stood in the lobby admiring a massive fir tree in the main sitting room of the chalet. White lights sparkled against green, and the air was perfumed with the fresh, clean scent of pine.

Sarah North, I smiled at the desk attendant, whose nametag said Gilbert, pushing my Marc Jacobs cat eye sunglasses to the top of my head.

Gilbert pressed a bunch of buttons on his keyboard and smiled politely, pulling a gold keycard from beneath the desk. How was your trip, Mrs. North?

Uh, miss, I corrected. And besides almost dying on the way here, it was great.

Gilbert frowned and kept pecking away at the keyboard, almost frantically. Okay, here we are, he slid the key card across the shiny desk. You’re all set—

Don’t you need my credit card?

Mr. North has already checked in, ma’am. You’re all set.

Ma’am? Shoot me now.

Mr. North? I cocked a brow at him, laughing under my breath. There is no Mr. North.

Well, yes, actually there is, he typed again, frowning at the computer screen and pointing at it, even though I couldn’t see what it said from my side of the counter. He arrived just about thirty minutes ago.

There must be some mistake, I’m not married. There is no Mr. North. My head shook back and forth while thoughts tumbled through my head until it dawned on me. I would almost bet my dad had brought my step-mother here to celebrate the holidays. I wasn’t the only one who regarded the Chalet as their favorite winter destination, and since our family had been estranged for longer than I can remember, I rarely knew what he was up to. That had to be it, it was the only logical explanation. Oh, wait, you must mean my father. He probably came up for the holidays too. He comes here quite a bit.

Father?

I snagged the key card and shot him a brilliant grin before he could say anything else. Thanks, Gilbert.

Just for old times sake, I stopped by the coffee bar to grab a cup of hot chocolate. If I was doing this, I was going to do it right. Cocoa, with whipped cream, I told the barista, sending a text to my best friend Kate to let her know I had arrived safe and sound.

The sweet scent of creamy chocolate went straight through my nostrils and flooded my body with happiness. The nostalgia of it immediately shimmered through me and almost made me forget about the dress and the drive.

Almost.

Juggling my luggage and cocoa, I pushed my way through a set of doors just in time to collide with a man staring at his cellphone. The drink slammed into my chest, knocking the lid from the paper cup in the process, and causing hot cocoa to splash across the front of my favorite rose gold cashmere sweater.

He stared at me like I should have been watching where I was going, rather than the other way around. He didn’t even say he was sorry, he just huffed and walked away.

I was in one of my favorite places in the world, surrounded by sparkling lights, Christmas trees, and garland, and holding onto half a mug of the world’s best hot cocoa, and things just kept going downhill.

Something inside of me said they could get a whole lot worse, I just wasn’t sure how.

After sliding the key card in the door, and pushing it open with the tip of my black boot, I let my luggage rest by the front door and smiled. The cabin was beautiful. Rustic log walls and a big cozy fireplace surrounded by rich, mahogany leather furniture. A cute little kitchenette in the