Jennifer Snow - Winter Wedding Bells - The Kiss / The Wish / The Promise

She pressed her lips together and shook off her traitorous thoughts. She’d left her ex on the trail. He had no place here.

Hickory panels reached from floor to ceiling and surrounded massive inlaid fireplaces that popped and crackled at either end of the long, elegant room. A moose head mounted above one mantel was reflected in the large Victorian mirror atop the opposite hearth. Christmas trees in each corner fragranced the air with fresh evergreen, the merry glow of their miniature lights competing with the carved pineapple and scrolled chandeliers. This long-anticipated event should feel as special as it looked, but her run-in with Austin had shaken her confidence.

Mason wasn’t an extension of her old life as Austin had suggested. She’d expected her ex to be impressed with her big news, maybe feel regretful that he’d given up on her so quickly. Instead, he’d pointed out how little she’d changed. Told her she still played it safe.

Completely wrong.

She glanced between her father and Mason and mutinously buttered a bread roll.

Way off base.

Mason cleared his throat and raised his glass higher, clanging.

Oblivious, the relatives invited to this private dinner continued to chatter. They sat on upholstered chairs around cloth-covered tables that broke up the red-and-white-diamond pattern on the carpet. Julie met her mother’s eyes across the table, her expression as surprised as Julie felt. Her father, on the other hand, rubbed his bald patch in that way he did whenever he got excited.

Julie glanced up at Mason. “What’s going on?” She pitched her voice low, the way he preferred. Funny how, until they’d begun dating, she hadn’t noticed how loud she spoke in public places, especially at movie theaters...

“Patience. Patience.” Mason’s blue eyes viewed her with the familiar chiding and indulgent expression he seemed to reserve for her. He brushed a hand over the meticulously cropped blond hair that framed his round face. “It’s a surprise. And I wouldn’t do this to you if it wasn’t such a big one. I want it to be special.”

Julie’s wine burned down her esophagus, the alcohol and lack of real food making her light-headed. She detested being caught off guard. Mason knew that. What could this be?

The relentless clanging had finally quieted the boisterous group—only the soft jazz versions of Christmas tunes weaved through the room. Mason flashed his boy-next-door smile.

“First, I’d like to thank all of you for being here to celebrate the happiest moment of my life.”

Cheers broke out and Julie’s gut twisted. A glass of wine had not settled her jitters and her chance meeting with Austin hadn’t helped matters, either. After attending to her mother, she’d put off the seating chart once again and collapsed in her room, hoping to banish memories of boyfriends past. Boyfriend, she corrected herself.

“To kick off our wedding countdown, I want to present Julie with a very special gift in front of all of you.”

Julie grew warm as thirty or so pairs of eyes studied her. Did she look excited? Happy? Not as if someone had just scrambled the meager contents of her stomach? At a gentle, under-the-table kick from her mother, Julie forced her mouth into a smile, the rest of her face numb.

Please, oh please, let it be something she liked. She was the absolute worst at faking.

“Darling, would you stand?”

Julie drained the last of her wine, rose and gripped the table’s edge.

Mason draped an arm across an easel behind them, an empty canvas covering something framed. She’d noticed it earlier but assumed it belonged to the restaurant. A painting they had yet to hang.

Could the present be something as innocuous as a picture? Her chest loosened. Possibly. Mason referred to his condo as a bachelor pad. Maybe this was his way of bringing her eclectic style into the austere space. Still, without her opinion, how would he know she’d like it? The instant the question occurred to her, she answered it.

He usually jumped in and chose for her when he saw her waver, unlike Austin, who’d always insisted she make up her own mind.

A loud crash sounded behind her and everyone jumped as a blushing waitress bent down to pick up the overturned easel.

Mason quickly moved between them, blocking Julie’s view. “Just a second, folks,” he remarked, his face still wreathed in an excited smile.

“I’m so sorry!” cried the young woman.

“It’s fine,” Mason assured, his tone confident, He always made it easy to follow his lead since he seemed so certain of what was best...especially when she never could be sure what she wanted. Lately, though, it’d begun to grate as the choices grew more important, his will more vocal. Of course, they wanted the same things...but should he always assume as much? He seemed to think her approval was guaranteed.

No. Taking a while to make up her mind didn’t mean others could race ahead and decide for her. But she’d let that happen with Mason. And it had to stop.

Finally, with a flourish, Mason ripped off the covering to reveal a real-estate picture of a near replica of her parents’ house. Colonial blue, though, instead of white. The word Sold was scrawled across the top.

What?

She glanced between her beaming father and an expectant Mason.

“This is our new house, Julie. Where we’ll raise our family. Soon, I hope.” He winked and squeezed her cold hands.

“But how?” she managed to say, her mind hurtling through thought after thought, too fast to make sense of it all. The room exploded into cheers and applause. Mason’s disabled veteran brother, Michael, punched the air with his remaining arm and circled it, whooping.

A bit of light faded from Mason’s eyes, but his smile stayed strong. “I found it around the corner from your parents’ house after Thanksgiving. The owner’s Mrs. Beele. You know her, right? She was struggling to wrap garland around her banister, and when I stopped to help, she mentioned this would be her last year decorating since she planned to sell. I got ahold of her real-estate agent, made an offer and the rest is history.”

“I didn’t know Margaret was selling,” Dianne said in a low voice to her husband, her eyes narrow. “Did you put him up to this?” she hissed under her breath, her voice barely audible.

“Mason came to me and asked that I keep it quiet until now.” Julie’s dad slipped his arm around his wife’s rigid shoulders. “Julie, I know how much you’ve always loved our house, and since this one is so similar and you’ll be in the same neighborhood, well, I knew you’d be happy with this surprise. No risk at all,” crowed her clueless dad.

Julie looked down at her hands, hiding behind her eyelids. Wasn’t that exactly the problem, though? No risk. Nothing unexpected. Of course this would be her home. The predictability should comfort her. No unknown variables in this equation.

Yet she took a step back from the picture and dropped Mason’s hands. The sounds in the room grew muffled, the tapering applause snuffed out by her drumming heart.

She didn’t want this.

The thought squirmed in her spine, poked her up from the carpet. No equivocation. No what-ifs. She did. Not. Want. That. House. Her certainty startled her—the shock felt like a splinter jamming under a nail.

“Julie. Are you okay? Would you like some water?” Mason sounded concerned as he leaned close, his musk overwhelming.

“No. Not okay,” she mumbled, her voice tamped down to a whisper. Austin would have insisted she have a say in their future home. And as much as she would have struggled with making such a difficult choice, she would have preferred it to this. Another traitorous thought.

“I don’t understand. It’s what we always talked about. Exactly what you said you wanted.” Mason rubbed her bare arms exposed by her sleeveless black dress.