Forever in Bloom (Love in Fairwick Falls #6)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

ALLISON

December

For the first time in Allison Styles’ life, she felt like she finally belonged.

I wish I didn’t have to freeze half to death, tangled in Christmas lights to reach that milestone, though.

“You okay, Allison?” Lily, her friend and boss at Bloom, called.

“Yeah, I’m—” Allison turned, trying to see what she was caught on. “I’m good. No worries.”

She, her friends, and twenty of their neighbors and town council members were decorating the Fairwick Falls town square as if their lives depended on the Tinsel Fest being seen from space.

The square practically dripped with twinkle lights. Every tree branch was wrapped, every sidewalk was lined, and all eight sides of the gazebo were frosted with twinkle lights.

Allison had designed and installed two overflowing gorgeous silk poinsettia arrangements for Santa’s gazebo, courtesy of Bloom. As the head florist of their flagship store, she had to make sure it looked perfect.

Martha Maroo-Canon, head of the festival decorating committee, chief busybody and one of Allison’s favorite humans, speed-walked toward her in light-up reindeer earmuffs. “Allison, my dear, it’s looking fan-tabulous.”

“Thanks, Martha,” Allison said, wiggling a booted foot to untwist the lights from her leg.

“Make sure to get some of the hot cider. Spiked it myself,” Martha said with a proud smile.

Allison was endlessly delighted by the tiny seventy-year-old spitfire. “Oh, I’m good,” Allison said. She was off alcohol, given that she’d try again next month to conceive.

Her last round of insemination had failed, and her back twinged with her pre-period pain.

“Now I just need you to do the very important final job of trimming the last two pillars of the gazebo and connecting all the lights together. Can you do that for me?” Martha asked.

At thirty-seven, Allison wished she’d outgrown her people-pleasing tendencies, but she practically preened at the opportunity. “Of course, happy to.”

Martha pointed to the outlet behind Santa’s chair where everything would be connected. “It’s very important that you plug the first one into this second one, and then these other two into the third one. Specifically in that order.” Martha adjusted her red-and-green rhinestone glasses.

Allison nodded confidently, wanting to be helpful. “Will do.”

Wood fire smoke scented the chilly night air, and Allison took a sip of the hot cocoa from Fox & Forrest for energy to push through the last bit of decorating. The thick chocolate tasted warm and silky on her tongue.

She pushed up the sleeves of her Christmas-red chunky sweater and held her cream beret in place as she leaned back, trying to understand how the heck she was going to do this.

Allison started wrapping lights around the last two gazebo pillars. Families would take pictures with Santa here, so it had to be perfect.

She stretched to wrap the lights like Martha wanted so they’d connect to power at the exact right place. Extending her long arms, she could barely connect them.

Almost…got it...maybe?

“You’re doing it wrong.”

She froze at the smug baritone voice behind her, and grimaced.

Oh god.

She tightened her hold on the string of lights and tugged, just to spite him. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”—tug—“Maybe in front of a”—tug—“speeding bus?”

“So charming,” he drawled.

She puffed her bangs out of her eyes in annoyance.

Wells. Fucking. Maroo.

Her ex-husband’s divorce lawyer, and one of the only men she truly hated on this Earth.

She scowled over her shoulder. Wells sipped a to-go coffee cup, sporting a knee-length navy coat and gray sweater.

He was tall—at least 6’5"—with a broad pillowy chest, rounded barrel stomach, and beefy arms that made her gulp when she looked at them. His hair was thick, and though he now wore a very stupid mustache that reminded her of Tom Selleck, his 5 o’clock shadow shaded his jaw in an unfortunately pleasing way.

Why can’t he at least be unsightly?

He puffed out his broad chest as he raised a dark eyebrow in challenge at her.

She blew a pink lock of hair out of her eyes in frustration. Why did she have to have an audience for this?

She stepped up on the bannister to tug the lights closer. “You don’t even live here.”

“I always come home for the Tinsel Fest and—” He growled as she reached for the other string of lights to connect them. “Would you stop that? You’re doing it wrong. Here, let me.”

With two steps of his long legs, he grabbed the lights from her hands.

She tugged it back out. “I don’t want to let your mom down. She said to plug all the strings into this outlet.”

“You can’t do it like that—”

“I’m doing it exactly like she said.”

“No, you can’t do it—”

She connected all the Christmas lights together with a victorious smile, and after a split second of the gazebo lighting up, the entire town square went dark.

Oh.

Shit.

Aaron, the owner of Fox & Forrest, popped out of his pitch-black cafe behind the gazebo. “Did you tell her you can’t do it like that?”

“I tried,” Wells called.

Everyone got their phones out, putting them on flashlight mode. It was unfortunately just bright enough to see the smug look on Wells’s face. “The breaker blows when it’s connected like that. We always undo it before Mom gets to it. Which you would know if you’d have let me do it.”

How he was the offspring of the sweetest woman she knew, she’d never understand. “I’m sorry,” Allison called out to everyone, mortified. “Where’s the breaker box? I’ll fix it.”

“It’s on top of the gazebo,” Martha called.

Allison gulped. That’s okay. I’m tall. “Anybody got a ladder?”

Nash, Lily’s husband, walked up holding his phone. “No, we almost sent Jack to the hospital last time. No metal ladders.”

Wells sighed behind her. “Oh god. The old-fashioned way then. Come on, you better fix this mess,” he said, waving her over.

What the heck was the old-fashioned way?

“Here, hop on,” Wells said, bending down and patting his shoulders.

Allison gasped. “Absolutely not.”

“You can hoist me up there,” Lily offered.

“No,” everyone in the town square said in unison.

“I got stuck once. Once!”

“You’re too short, darling,” Nash said, kissing the top of Lily’s head. He pointed at Allison. “We need her height.”

Being a tall girl was generally a burden. I guess today is no different.

Wells handed Allison a long wooden stick. “It’s a live breaker, so you can’t touch it with your hands.”

Allison looked at all the expectant faces staring at her in the dark, illuminated by their phones.

Guess this is what I get for running into Wells.

“Whenever you’re ready, your highness,” Wells said impatiently.

She absolutely hated that he smelled so good.

Why universe, why?

Her jaw set, she stood on a bench, where Nash and Lily helped her climb onto Wells’s tall shoulders.

Having his head between her thighs was a bizarre experience. His big hands clamped onto her thighs, and she squeezed them at the contact. “I’m not wearing enough layers for this to not be weird,” she muttered.

“You think you on top of me is a picnic for me?” Wells said.

Ugh. Hello nightmares, here’s the fuel you asked for.

Their combined height was now almost nine feet, and Allison wielded the long wooden stick with just enough accuracy to open the metal door and flip the hidden breaker box on the gazebo.

Lights twinkled on throughout the square. Everyone cheered, and Allison grimaced through a smile, still feeling so embarrassed. “Sorry,” she called.

She gingerly climbed onto the bannister and hopped down from Wells’s shoulders.

“Let’s never do that again,” Wells muttered, straightening his coat.

Allison rolled her eyes. “Such a drama queen. Like it would be some terrible burden for my legs to be wrapped around your head again.”

He smirked at her.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she heard the unfortunate double meaning. “Wait, that’s not what I—”

“Sounds like you wish you could wrap your legs around me—”

She pointed a finger in his face. “I would never want you anywhere—”

“I can promise you,” he said, leaning over her with a growling whisper, his eyes heated as they flicked to her lips. She gulped. “I’ll put my head anywhere else on the fucking planet than between those long legs again, Styles.”

He sailed out of the gazebo.

Allison cursed herself for building a life she loved in Wells Fucking Maroo’s hometown.

The happy sounds of a busy Fairwick Falls Christmas market surrounded Allison two nights later.

Nearly drowning out her mother’s complaining. “I can’t believe they’re charging these prices,” her mother said, grimacing.

Twinkle lights were strung from market stall to stall, and Christmas music was holly jollying all around them.

Allison had hoped that this would be a fun mother-daughter bonding experience, but unfortunately, it was turning out like normal—with her trying to make her mother happy.

Her younger sister was supposed to meet them but had bailed, per usual.

She was flaky, and no one other than Allison seemed to care.

Her eyes landed on adorable Christmas onesies and hand-knitted booties at the next table, and her heart wrenched. Her fingers found the sky-blue yarn and caressed it.

“Oh, aren’t those cute?” her mother said.

Tears filled Allison’s eyes at how much she wanted this. Cuddly onesies in snowflake prints. Cozy winter baby blankets. The adorable smile of a baby staring up at her.

She’d been so disappointed that her last round from the sperm bank hadn’t stuck. She’d eaten her weight in Christmas cookies from her best friend’s bakery to soothe her sadness.

Her parents were completely unaware that Allison had been trying to have a baby on her own. They wouldn’t approve, and uncharacteristically, Allison had decided to try it anyway. One of the many steps she’d made to build the life she’d wanted after getting divorced.