Christmas on Main Street by Susan Donovan, Alexis Morgan, Joann Ross, Luann McLane Read Free Book Online Page A

the window, the idea of becoming a nun had paled in comparison with marrying the handsome young fisherman and having his babies.
    Decades later, Bernard was not only the love of her life, but her very best friend in the entire world.
    Her grandson and Kelli were already friends. Or they had been until that boneheaded move he’d pulled last Christmas. Fortunately, he’d escaped a marriage that anyone with the sense God gave a duck could have seen would be declared dead on arrival at the altar.
    Feelings had been hurt on both sides, but all the two young people needed was a little time away from the outside world for him to realize what everyone else in the family knew. That Kelli was not just a pretty, sweet girl.
    But a keeper.
    A best friend for life. The same way she and her Bernard were. And if Cole and Kelli needed a little push to make that happen, loving them both as she did, that’s precisely what Adèle would do.
    Now that she’d put her matchmaking plan into motion, she took her phone out of her skirt pocket and moved on to step number three.

7
    How could a woman wearing a flashing Christmas tree sweater look so hot?
    That’s the question Cole was asking himself as he watched Kelli bustle around getting the children all lined up to go onstage. As the youngest of the classes, they’d go on first, but from the way they were bouncing off the walls, it looked as if they’d each ingested a pound of sugar.
    He figured a drill instructor with a busload of green recruits would have had an easier job, though she seemed to be not only taking it all in stride, but actually enjoying herself.
    Until, as if she felt him looking at her, she glanced over at him.
    He flashed her a friendly two-thumbs-up. Only to have her turn away and begin straightening a tiny angel’s halo.
    So much for cupcake diplomacy.
    Apparently, although she’d claimed otherwise, she was still holding a grudge from last Christmas. Which he couldn’t exactly make amends for since he still wasn’t sure what he’d done.
    Okay, except get engaged. He’d rerun that scene over and over again in his head and still wasn’t certain what had happened. He’d thought for sure Kelli would’ve been happy for him. The same way he would have been happy for her if the situation had been reversed.
    That thought had him wondering just how far things had gone between her and the principal. Had Archer taken her to bed yet? Cole hadn’t gotten the vibes that they’d actually gone there. But it was obvious during that little exchange on the pier that the guy had staked his claim. So, it was only a matter of time.
    And what business is it of yours?
a nagging little voice in the back of his mind piped up.
    It wasn’t. Not really. It wasn’t like he had any reason to be jealous. Or pissed.
    She wasn’t his. She’d never been.
    Whose fault is that?
    “
Shut up,” he muttered.
    “Did you say something, darling?” his grandmother, who was passing by with a pair of sparkly angel wings, asked.
    “No. I was just talking to myself.”
    “Doesn’t Kelli look festive?” she asked.
    “She definitely lights up the room.” Literally.
    When a mental image of slowly peeling that flashing sweater up her body, kissing each bit of soft rosy flesh while revealing whatever lace she might be wearing beneath it caused his jeans to go painfully tight, Cole wondered where the hell her boyfriend had taken off to. If Kelli
were
his woman, he sure as hell wouldn’t leave her alone where just any guy—like him, maybe—could hit on her with a toasted-coconut-topped piña colada cupcake.
    The older woman laughed at that. “She does, indeed. And the children adore her. Watching her these past weeks as we’ve worked on the play has made me realize what a wonderful mother she’ll make.”
    Her hair had darkened from the pale blond of childhood to a deep, rich honey. She’d tamed it into a complicated braid that reached to the middle of her back. He was envisioning unweaving it