Jessica Hart: Christmas Eve Marriage

“Um…about a goodbye kiss?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I…I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm. I wasn’t sure Kate was entirely convinced last night.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Another silence, longer this time. Long enough for Thea to wonder if he could actually hear her pulse booming.

“We’d better make it look good then,” said Rhys.

It was too much for Thea. As if of their own accord, her hands lifted to his arms, slid upwards to wind around his neck and pull him toward her. Or maybe she didn’t need to pull him. Maybe Rhys was closing the distance anyway. But, however it happened, they were kissing at last, and the release from all that anticipation was so intense Thea gasped in spite of herself.

So much for cool, calm and in control.

Jessica Hart had a haphazard career before she began writing to finance a degree in history. Her experience ranged from waitress, theater production assistant and outback cook to newsdesk secretary, expedition assistant and English teacher, and she has worked in countries as different as France and Indonesia, Australia and Cameroon. She now lives in the north of England, where her hobbies are limited to eating and drinking and traveling when she can, preferably to places where she’ll find good food or desert or tropical rain.

If you’d like to find out more about Jessica Hart, you can visit her Web site at www.jessicahart.co.uk

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3757—FIANCÉ WANTED FAST!*

3761—THE BLIND-DATE PROPOSAL*

3765—THE WHIRLWIND ENGAGEMENT*

3797—HER BOSS’S BABY PLAN

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

NOTHING.

Thea closed the fridge with a sigh and began investigating the kitchen cupboards, but they were equally empty of anything remotely resembling breakfast.

What a great start to the holiday! A nightmare journey, an unfriendly neighbour, less than four hours’ sleep, and now nothing to eat.

‘Have a fortnight in Crete, she said,’ Thea muttered her sister’s words as she bent to peer. ‘You need a break. It’ll be beautiful. Nothing to do but read, relax…starve to death…’

‘What are you doing?’

Clara’s voice made Thea straighten and push her tangled hair away from her face. Her niece was at the bottom of the stairs, looking sleepy and tousled and very sweet in a baggy pink T-shirt. There was no doubt that it was a look that was easier to pull off after four hours’ sleep at nine, when you had peachy skin and a nice, firm little body, than at thirty-four, when peachy skin and a firm body had never figured largely among your assets in the first place.

‘Trying to find some breakfast,’ she said, yawning.

‘Oh, good. I’m hungry.’

‘Me too,’ said Thea glumly.

Nothing new there, then. Easy to tell that she and Clara were related. You’d think they’d be too tired to be hungry. It had been nearly half past five before they got to bed that morning, and it was only just after nine now. Any normal stomach would be daunted by a nightmare trip, arriving in a strange country and utter exhaustion, but Martindale stomachs were tougher than that! A massive asteroid could be hurtling towards earth and her stomach would still be going, Mmm, nine o’clock, no wonder I’m a bit peckish…Bacon and eggs would be nice, or perhaps a little croissant before the end of the world…Oh, and make that a double cappuccino while you’re at it.

She hadn’t even lost weight over Harry. It wasn’t fair. All her friends lost their appetites the moment they hit an emotional crisis, but the misery diet never worked for Thea. She just went in for comfort eating on a massive scale.

Not that there was much chance of eating now, worse luck.

‘I can’t find anything to eat,’ she told Clara. ‘I think we may have to go shopping before breakfast.’

Clara’s face fell. ‘But there aren’t any shops here. We’ll have to drive all the way back to that town we passed last night, and it’ll take ages. It’s miles away.’

‘I know.’ Thea grimaced at the memory of their hair-raising journey through the hills in the small hours. ‘I’m not sure I can face those hairpin bends again, let alone on an empty stomach,’ she said with a sigh.

‘What shall we do?’

‘Well, first I think we should ring your mother and ask her why she booked a villa in the middle of nowhere, instead of a nice beach apartment near shops and restaurants!’

Clara grinned. ‘She did say it was isolated.’

‘It’s that all right.’

Thea eyed the view through the kitchen window without enthusiasm. Rocky hillsides, olive groves and the spectacular peaks of the White Mountains in the distance were all very well, but right then she would have sacrificed picturesque for the odd blot on the landscape, an ugly supermarket, say, or a nice plastic restaurant—preferably one that delivered coffee by the gallon and an assortment of calorie-laden breakfasts.

She nibbled her thumb as she tried to think, but her brain really needed caffeine before it would function properly.

‘We’re just going to have to ask the people in the other villas if they can let us have some bread or something until we can get to the shops,’ she decided eventually.

‘We don’t have to ask that grumpy man we met last night, do we?’

Clara looked a little apprehensive, as well she might, thought Thea, remembering their disastrous arrival.

‘I think there are three villas, aren’t there? We’ll try the other one first,’ she said, trying to sound positive. ‘Maybe they’ll be friendlier.’

They couldn’t be less friendly, anyway, she thought glumly. So much for her relaxing holiday. She hadn’t planned to kick it off begging for a bit of bread and water. Why did these things happen to her?

Oh, well. Better get on with it.

They got dressed, which in Thea’s case meant shorts and a T-shirt, while Clara simply pulled a T-shirt over her swimming costume, and then headed off in search of breakfast.

In spite of their hunger, they hesitated on the terrace and took in their surroundings. It was the first time they had seen the villas. Three stone-built houses were set around a communal pool that glinted bright and blue in the dazzling Greek sunlight.

‘Cool,’ breathed Clara. ‘Can I swim after breakfast?’

It was very quiet. The air was already warm and filled with the drifting scent of herbs, and Thea sniffed appreciatively. ‘Lovely…thyme and oregano…let’s get some lamb to cook tonight.’

‘Let’s get breakfast first,’ said the more practical Clara.

Their villa sat between the two others, looking directly out over the pool to the mountains beyond. On the right was the villa they had stumbled into by mistake the night before.