Free In Love Before Christmas by Capri Montgomery

 
    Chapter One
     

     
    L ani Andrews awakened from her nightmare in a cold sweat. Dark hair clung to her forehead and right cheek and her heart seemed as if it were racing with the horses at the Kentucky Derby. She jumped from the bed as if getting out of bed would save her from the memory of her terror. Of course jumping out of bed after a nightmare that had her rolling wildly around the bed was always a bad idea. Falling in the bundle of red covers that had pooled on the floor did not make for a soft landing, but she didn’t have time to worry about soft landings; she had to figure out what the date was.
     
    Grabbing her day planner she looked at the cute butterfly nestled in the top right corner of the page before running her fingers down the square boxes to today’s date. “Three weeks until Christmas,” she leaned back against the wall. It was a dumb idea, but they had both been kids. They were young and stupid and not really thinking about the future because that’s what kids did. “If you’re not in love and I’m not in love by our thirty-second Christmas then we’ll marry each other on New Year’s Day,” Derek Vanderbilt had said as he extended his pinky finger for Lani to swear. She had sworn so easily. At the time it had seemed ridiculous. How could neither of them be in love by their thirty-second Christmas? At that age thirty-two seemed old. She figured everybody was in love by the time they were that old—until she grew up and realized thirty-two was not old at all and life marched to the tune of its own orchestra. Back then she was sure she would be free and clear and honestly at the time they made that promise it had seemed more like a joke.
     
    “Oh my God…thirty-second,” she mumbled. She was thirty-two, single and starting to have nightmares about the pact that she and Derek had made inside of one of the confession booths in St. Mary’s. Everybody knew not to utter promises in that church and then not follow through—nothing good ever came from that. Of course at their age all of the stories seemed like fairytales adults shared to amuse themselves. At that age they thought adults were bored and miserable and they had to come up with something to amuse themselves even if it was something as unrealistic as a St. Mary’s Curse. They had laughed about it then because adults were so strange to them. Now she wished she had taken them more seriously, believed more than doubted, and kept her promises to herself while in St. Mary’s.
     
    Lani showered at lightning speed, pulled on her clothes and made a mad dash for the door. It wasn’t until the cold rush of winter air hit her that she had realized she had forgotten to dry her hair. “No time now,” she darted to the Christmas inspired street looking at the decorated trees and smaller buildings only briefly as she desperately looked for a taxi. Small towns, relatively anyway compared to Boston or New York, wasn’t exactly flooded with taxies on every corner. Usually she didn’t care if she could find a taxi or not. She lived a few miles from work and sometimes walking was more enjoyable than riding. Even in the winter she loved to bundle up in her wool coat with the faux fur trim, her knitted hats hugging her head and warming her ears, and even her scarf piled around her neck and shoulders like a New York glamour girl. She loved taking a walk down the street, adding a little extra pep to her step or casually lingering in a not so rushed gait depending on her proximity to work and her starting time. The last minute rush usually kicked her day off with energy and she didn’t mind that at all. Today, however, was not one of those days. Grabbing the first taxi she spotted she got in swiftly and informed the driver of her destination. Henry Travis is what the hack license had listed, he looked at her like she was a mad crazy woman for having dripping wet hair in nearly ice cold temperatures—actually it was ice cold and she would probably