Kissing Santa, A Clover Park Novella (Clover Park, Book 4) Contemporary Romance (The Clover Park Series) Read online

  Contents

  Kissing Santa

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Stud Unleashed: The Prequel: Excerpt

  The Clover Park Series

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Kissing Santa

  The Clover Park Series, Book 4

  © 2014 Kylie Gilmore

  [email protected]

  KylieGilmore.com

  Kylie on Facebook

  Kylie on Twitter

  Kylie on Goodreads

  Sign up for Kylie’s Newsletter

  Samantha Dixon is about to confess her most secret, romantic Christmas wish to Santa. Heck, what’s she got to lose with her disastrous romantic history? Like that player from her horrible blind date last week arranged by her mother. Only guess who’s Santa?

  Rico del Toro loves women. So one bad date with the beautiful Samantha in a string of many, ahem, successful evenings is no big deal. But when a friendly favor playing Santa unexpectedly lands Samantha on his lap for a romantic confessional, he’s intrigued. He’s never heard a woman open her heart like that before.

  But if this Santa wants a second chance, he’ll have to rethink his womanizing ways and convince her that he is the perfect package.

  Chapter One

  “I am not having an arranged marriage,” Samantha Dixon told her mother firmly.

  This was America.

  This was the twenty-first freaking century.

  "Don't think of it as an arranged marriage," her mother said, setting a platter in the sink.

  They’d just finished Thanksgiving dinner, and the two of them were on kitchen duty. Samantha’s older sister, Lucia, got a pass since she was two months pregnant and in the throes of morning sickness. Probably why her mother suddenly felt it important to marry her thirty-year-old daughter off fast. Wilting on the vine and all that.

  Her mother raised a finger and smiled. “Think of it as a traditional way to date."

  "And marry," Samantha said. “I heard that part loud and clear. Ma, this is ridiculous. This isn't the old country. I don't have a dowry."

  Her mother was originally from Mexico, and they didn't even do arranged marriages there anymore. Her mother met her father when he was on spring break in Mexico. It was love at first sight when they met on the beach, as they always liked to say. They married as soon as her father graduated college a month later, and he brought his new bride back with him to Connecticut. It was such a romantic story.

  Samantha loved romantic stories. She could almost forgive her mother this ridiculous scheme on the theory that it was the thought that counted. Her mother wanted her to have a happy-ever-after like Samantha often dreamed of, inspired by the romance novels she devoured and the countless rom-coms she loved.

  Her mother was suspiciously quiet. Samantha looked over. Her mother’s lips formed a flat line. She wasn’t denying the dowry thing.

  "Wait, do I have a dowry?" Samantha asked.

  "Of course not, but you do have some savings bonds from when you were born that might sweeten the deal."

  Samantha groaned and took her mounting aggravation out on the roasting pan she was washing. "I'm not having an arranged marriage."

  "Just meet the young man. He's my friend's grandson from a good family.”

  Samantha scrubbed harder. “No way."

  Her mother spoke in her no-nonsense voice. "His mother and I had a nice talk and are in agreement. It’s settled."

  She dropped the sponge. “Ma-aa-aa! I can’t believe you! I can meet my own men."

  Her mother arched a brow. "Can you?"

  Sadly, the evidence didn’t back her up. After she was downsized from her graphic designer job in the city last year, she’d moved back home, started working freelance, and effectively killed her love life. She mostly saw her computer, her parents, and her best friend. Her online dating venture ended abruptly when she somehow got on a list for men seeking women with big butts. She didn’t even have a big butt, she just had curves. Regular old curves. Hmph.

  She’d taken to haunting the aisles of the Home & Tool superstore cruising for men (along with other doomed attempts at romance too numerous to bear thinking about). A typical example—the day she met Diablo, as she liked to think of the tall, dark, and bad boy alpha she’d found in the Sealer and Grout aisle.

  He wore low-slung jeans with a faded gray T-shirt that emphasized his broad shoulders. He stood legs apart like he was in command. In charge of the grout section. The badass barbed-wire tattoo circling one huge bicep drew her in.

  She stood next to him, holding a basket with a hammer in it. (She always bought a hammer because it was small but seemed important.) She studied the grout display as if she was about to buy one and grout something. She kept sneaking glances at him—black hair a little too long, stubble along his jaw, killer cheekbones, long lashes. He looked just like the cover model of her favorite romance novel The Alpha Fox. He looked over. Piercing blue eyes. Swoon!

  Then he spoke, a beautiful, dark, rich baritone. “Are you lost?”

  “Not at all,” Samantha said. “I’m buying grout, but I’m having a little trouble deciding between—” she gave the shelves a quick glance “—the tub or the squirty thing.”

  He flashed a perfect white smile, and her pulse raced. She smiled back.

  He handed her the squirty one. “This one’s easier.” He gave her a once-over, and Samantha’s hopes soared. “You sure dress up for someone buying grout. You got a hot date after this?”

  Omigod! Was he asking her out?

  She smoothed her hands down her lucky red dress. “No, I don’t. I’m single.”

  He inclined his head. “Lucky you. Live it up while you can. Next thing you know you’re spending Friday night buying shit to redo the bathroom for your weekend honey-do project.”

  “Oh. Yeah, sure.” She dropped the grout in her basket. “Thanks for your help.”

  She drove home and added the hammer and grout to her ever-growing stash of Home & Tool products in the back of her closet.

  Her love life was a joke.

  Somehow she’d kept a little piece of her romantic soul after she’d dumped the lying, cheating Tim last year, but with each romantic disaster since then, her hopes plunged further into despair.

  “Auntie!” It was her five-year-old niece, Gabriella. The girl in drooping pigtails, a purple dress, and white tights came skidding to a halt in her stockinged feet in front of Samantha. Gabriella panted dramatically and held up a small water sprayer. “I found another monster in the closet upstairs, and I’m all out of monster spray!”

  “Don’t worry,” Samantha said with a wink. “I made a fresh batch.”

  “Such nonsense,” Samantha’s mother muttered.

  Samantha handed the roasting pan to her mother to dry and took the sprayer from Gabriella. She went to the pantry, undid the nozzle, and pretended to pour some fresh monster spray in. Then she snuck a mini-marshmallow from the bag and handed it to Gabriella along with the sprayer.

  Gabriella beamed. Samantha smiled back. Her niece looked so adorable with some of her baby teeth missing.
She couldn’t wait to have kids of her own. Her niece took off.

  Samantha returned to the sink.

  “Lucia won’t appreciate you rotting her daughter’s teeth,” her mother said. “That’s her third marshmallow since dinner, and she had pie.”

  “They’re mini-marshmallows. Besides, it’s a holiday.”

  “Too much dessert.”

  Samantha went back to washing dishes. “I’ll brush her teeth as soon as I’m done here.”

  “I want you to give this young man a chance.” Her mother shook her finger at her. “You’re not getting any younger.”

  Samantha clenched her teeth. No, she wasn’t getting any younger. She’d wasted her college years dating a guy who was super nice and also super boring. When she’d dozed off during sex, she’d finally called it off. Things had been rocky since then. She’d dated a series of nice guys and nearly convinced herself that passion was something only found in the movies because she’d never felt one lick of it, until she met Tim Johnson. His charm and good looks had seduced her into a passionate year-long relationship. That had ended when she’d discovered she was the other woman. Seems his Johnson got around. And how did she find out he was married? His wife answered his cell phone and blasted her and her slutty ways.

  The part that hurt the most was…she’d really loved Tim. The rat bastard. Every time she thought of him she got mad all over again. She should’ve seen the signs—the late-night booty calls, the way he always wanted to go to her place, the way he never said he loved her back. She’d mistaken lust for love. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  Still, some part of her held out hope that there was a guy out there that made her pulse race and treated her right. Someone that swept her off her feet and into the sunset. Most importantly, someone that truly cared about her. Just her.

  Did he even exist?

  She exhaled sharply and handed another pot to her mother to dry. Her mother was right. She wasn’t getting any younger. Maybe it was time she settled. Passion came at too high a price.

  Suddenly she felt depressed. This was what her life had come down to. Giving up on romance. Her mother setting her up. Knowing her mother, the guy was probably a perfect gentleman with impeccable manners and a conservative haircut. In other words, a geek. I mean, what kind of guy needed his mother to set him up?

  In a fit of irrational optimism, Samantha decided no, she wouldn’t give up on romance, and she would absolutely not let her mother take over her love life.

  “It’s not happening,” Samantha said, wishing she had something, anything that could prove she could meet men on her own. Maybe she could make up a fake boyfriend and then break up with him before her parents could meet him.

  Her mother didn’t take the prize for Queen of Relentless Nagging for nothing. “One dinner is all it will take. He’ll be here Saturday night. His mother has assured me of this.”

  “Ma-aa-aa!” Samantha moaned.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Ma-aa-aa!” Rico del Toro moaned as his mother brandished the Thanksgiving turkey wishbone at him in challenge. “This is silly.”

  Damn wishbone. It had all started with a fight over it at the kids’ table, where he always sat with his nieces and nephews. Their table was way more fun.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” he’d hollered at his nephews in battle over the wishbone. “Fighting doesn’t make wishes come true. Now who needs a wish the most?”

  His four nephews and two nieces all shouted at once. “Me! I do!”

  “No, I do!”

  “Me!”

  “Let’s solve this the easy way,” Rico said. “Eenie-meenie—”

  “I’m the oldest, I get it!” Dylan hollered.

  “I do!” Michael hollered back. “I could kick your butt.”

  Rico raised a brow. Michael made a good point. At eleven, he was a full head taller than his thirteen-year-old cousin. The kids started yelling and talking over each other again. He glanced at his two older sisters, the kids’ mothers, who went on ignoring them and talking a mile-a-minute way down the other end at the grown-up table.

  His mother, sitting at the head of the table, raised one hand for silence. Slowly, the effect spread all the way down the table as the entire family fell silent. All eyes turned to her. Cristina del Toro’s gentle, firm voice carried through the room.

  “Rico and I will do the wishbone this year.”

  Rico’s eyes widened. That was strange. He never did the wishbone. Couldn’t have cared less about it. “Ma, why me?”

  “Bring it here,” she said. His mother spoke to him in English only out of politeness for their host. His sister Maria’s husband, Steve, only spoke English. Everyone else was bilingual.

  He snatched the wishbone from where it was still gripped between Michael’s and Dylan’s greasy fingers and went to the head of the table. His father sat at his mother’s side, content to let her be in charge. Rafe del Toro loved a cold beer and a good joke. His philosophy on marriage was simple: “Happy wife, happy life.”

  His mother held out her hand for the wishbone, and he gave it to her. “It’s time for you to marry.”

  His jaw dropped in shock. He wasn’t even seeing anyone. “Ma, you feeling okay?”

  She straightened her shoulders and stood to her full five foot two, holding out the wishbone almost like a challenge. “I’m feeling fine. You, on the other hand, thirty-three and still flitting from one trampy woman to the next—”

  “They’re not trampy…” He trailed off at the slitty-eyed glare of fire she leveled at him. Hell, he liked easy women. They knew how to have a good time and had zero expectation for more. He’d been in love once, the real deal, even though they’d only been in high school. He’d been crazy about Jamie, had loved her heart and soul, and wanted to marry her as soon as she graduated college. But then once Jamie left for college, things changed. Her phone calls came less frequently. She became too busy on the weekends for him. And then she’d finally dumped him for her new college boyfriend. He hadn’t had a serious relationship since.

  He left the wishbone hanging out there, unwilling to battle his mother over it. He had a feeling that wishbone was going to bring him some bad juju.

  “Do not interrupt your mother,” his mother snapped.

  “Sorry.”

  His older sisters, Maria and Elena, giggled. They loved when he got the brunt of their mother’s opinionated attention. They always said he had it easy because he was the baby and the only boy. He’d been his parents’ surprise baby. His sister Elena was ten years older than him; Maria twelve years. He shot his sisters a dark look that made them giggle even more.

  “It's time you settled down,” his mother said sharply. “Enough of these wild oats. My friend has the perfect woman for you. I told her you would take Samantha to dinner Saturday night. One dinner is all it will take for you to open your eyes to your future wife. It is destino.”

  He jolted at the wife thing. How had they gone from dinner to marriage? And he wouldn’t exactly call it fate to have his mother set him up. He tried reason, though he knew that was a losing battle when his mother had her mind set on something. “I can find my own wife, er, date. I don’t need a setup.”

  The wishbone lowered, and he relaxed.

  “No one worth bringing home for your family to meet,” his mother huffed. “This girl is Catholic, and her mother brought her up the right way."

  He stared at her. “What right way is that?"

  "The traditional way."

  He held up his palms. “What traditional way? This is America."

  Elena and Maria roared with laughter.

  “Ricky’s getting married,” Elena teased.

  Even his father was chuckling.

  His mother shook the wishbone at him. “If you get the bigger piece, you may do as you wish. If I do, you go on this date with the right kind of woman.”

  Fine. He’d win the stupid wishbone break, and they’d be done with all this traditional woman crap. He couldn’t wait to dr
ive back home to Clover Park, Connecticut, and pick up some beautiful woman at Garner’s Sports Bar & Grill looking to escape her family. He wanted that fast escape even more now.

  He gripped the wishbone. It was really slippery from his nephews fighting over it so long. His mother braced her legs apart like they were about to do battle. Maybe they were. The family went quiet. Even his sisters finally shut their giggling traps.

  He pulled and the wishbone snapped. He opened his hand. It was the short end. Mierda.

  His mother held up the larger end in triumph.

  “Finally!” she exclaimed. “Rico will marry and give me more wonderful grandchildren. She is thirty, not too old.”

  “Finally, Rico!” Maria exclaimed. “Now we can all get on with our lives. You were really dragging your feet there.”

  His mother shot Maria a quelling look. She immediately quieted.

  Rico dropped the short end of the wishbone on the table. Bad juju. “I said I’d go on a date, not get married and have kids.”

  His mother clasped her hands in prayer and looked toward the ceiling. “I pray I don’t die before I can meet Rico’s children.”

  He rolled his eyes. His mother was sixty-eight and showed no signs of slowing down. She’d probably meet her great-great-grandchildren.

  She gripped his hand. “Mijo, listen, this is very important. Use your best manners. Call her parents Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. None of that funny stuff joking. Be serious. Samantha Dixon does not want a clown.”

  “Okay, Ma. I’ll do that, but I’m not making any promises. One date.”

  She kissed him on both cheeks, and he flashed to The Godfather. It felt about as ominous.

  “Now help your sisters clear,” she commanded. “Then put away the extra table and chairs.”

  His father and brothers-in-law chuckled. He shot them a dirty look. “Lotta help you were.”

  “We’re already married with kids,” his brother-in-law Steve said. “We did our part.”

  He blew out a breath and started gathering the kids’ plates. His mother always made him help his sisters. Elena and Maria had been like having a second and third mother clucking over him as a kid. He’d liked it sometimes, found it overwhelming at others. But now they didn’t coddle him at all. Now they wanted payback—full work from him whenever they snapped their fingers. If he didn’t love them so much, he’d revolt.