[Ladera by the Sea 01] - A Wedding for Christmas Read online

  Just how committed is he?

  There is nothing Christina Roman loves more than being a mom. Although working as the chef at her family’s inn, Ladera by the Sea, is a close second. And a quickly rising third is Shane McCallister, the local contractor. After her husband’s tragic soldier’s death, Cris thought she would never be able to move on. But with the way Shane bonds with her five-year-old son, she might be persuaded…. Except then her in-laws sue her for custody of Ricky. Now facing every mother’s worst nightmare, she’ll do anything not to lose her child, and Shane is determined to help. Could her sister’s Christmas wedding be their inspiration?

  “And just how would I go about getting this mythical husband?”

  She slanted a look toward Shane. “Shall I advertise for one or should I just go straight to that online site and say something to the effect that I’d like one husband, please. No chores will be required, no expertise necessary. Must be able to stand and look manly when so-called ‘wife’ deals with fire-breathing former in-laws.”

  She knew she sounded hysterical but she couldn’t stop—she was spiraling out of control.

  “Sounds like a piece of cake to me. How about you? Sound like a piece of cake to you? Or do you know something I don’t about locating a husband who’d be a willing stand-in?”

  “Not sure I understand what you mean by a stand-in,” Shane said, “but I’d be willing.”

  “Willing?” she echoed, confused. “Willing to what?”

  “I’d be willing to marry you so you could retain custody of Ricky.”

  Five sets of eyes turned to stare at him at the same time.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome back to Ladera by the Sea, a charming 120-year-old family-run bed-and-breakfast in San Diego with a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean. You might recall meeting the family—Richard Roman and his four daughters, Alexandra, Christina, Stephanie and Andrea, in the first book, Innkeeper’s Daughter. That book saw oldest daughter workaholic Alex come to grips with her true feelings for Wyatt Taylor, someone she had grown up knowing and verbally sparring with for years. You’ve returned just in time for their wedding. But, before that can take place, second daughter Cris, the Inn’s resident chef, has to learn how to finally move past the heartache of losing her first husband and recognize the love that’s been in her own backyard all along. Thrown into this is a pending custody battle with her well-to-do former in-laws who are suing for sole custody of her five-year-old son, Ricky. Curious? Good. Come, read and I promise that all secrets will be revealed.

  As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my book and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  All the best,

  Marie Ferrarella

  www.marieferrarella.com

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  A Wedding for Christmas

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  is a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, and has written more than 240 books for Harlequin, some under the name Marie Nicole. As of January 2013, she has been published by Harlequin for 30 years. She earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. Her goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

  Sampling of Books by Marie Ferrarella

  HARLEQUIN HEARTWARMING

  1—INNKEEPER’S DAUGHTER

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  1402—LASSOING THE DEPUTYΔ

  1410—A BABY ON THE RANCHΔ

  1426—A FOREVER CHRISTMASΔ

  1462—HIS FOREVER VALENTINEΔ

  1478—THE COWBOY’S CHRISTMAS SURPRISEΔ

  HARLEQUIN ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  1612—CAVANAUGH JUDGMENT*

  1616—COLTON BY MARRIAGE

  1623—CAVANAUGH REUNION*

  1644—IN HIS PROTECTIVE CUSTODY**

  1736—A WIDOW’S GUILTY SECRET

  1751—CAVANAUGH ON DUTY*

  1760—THE COLTON RANSOMΏ

  1767—MISSION: CAVANAUGH BABY*

  HARLEQUIN SPECIAL EDITION

  2167—FORTUNE’S VALENTINE BRIDE‡

  2192—ONCE UPON A MATCHMAKER‡‡

  2210—REAL VINTAGE MAVERICK-

  2240—A PERFECTLY IMPERFECT MATCH‡‡

  2246—A SMALL FORTUNE***

  2252—TEN YEARS LATER…‡‡

  2264—WISH UPON A MATCHMAKER‡‡

  *Cavanaugh Justice

  **The Doctors Pulaski

  ‡‡Matchmaking Mamas

  ΔForever, Texas

  ‡The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  -Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle

  ***The Fortunes of Texas: Southern Invasion

  ΏThe Coltons of Wyoming

  To

  Nancy Diamond

  &

  Wendy Brower

  For telling me

  About their grandmother’s

  Azalea plant

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  SOMETIMES THE PATH from the family-owned bed-and-breakfast to the small, private cemetery that overlooked the sea seemed longer to reach than it actually was.

  Other times, like today, he wasn’t even aware of how long it took to get there. One second, Richard Roman was deciding that he wanted to share a few moments with his wife and his best friend, the next he was already standing before their headstones, talking to the two people who had known him the best and, just possibly, the longest.

  His Amy had been in this spot overlooking the sea a long while—sometimes it felt as if she had always been here, whereas Daniel had been here only a little while. Richard missed them both so very much.

  But it helped to come here to talk to them both whenever he was troubled or happy.

  Someday, he himself would be laid to rest here, Richard thought. Buried next to his Amy.

  But not for many years to come.

  His girls needed him.

  The four of them, ranging in age from twenty-one to twenty-eight were well along on their journey into womanhood, but they still needed him, needed his guidance.

  “Looks like Alex won’t be wearing your wedding dress after all, Amy, even though she had her heart set on it. She’s too tall and just a touch too curvy to get into it. I know that Wyatt has no complaints in that department, but Alex really did think she’d be walking down the aisle in your dress. She was very disapp
ointed.”

  He shook his head, recalling the stricken look on Alex’s face when she told him about the dress. “I know you’re thinking,” he continued, addressing Amy and Dan as though they were standing right in front of him, “that alternations can be made since the wedding isn’t until Christmas, but Alex feels that it’s disrespectful to alter the dress you wore when you married me. At times it’s hard to believe it’s Alex talking, but she’s got this whole sensitive side to her that she never let on about.” He chuckled. “Who knew, right, Dan?”

  And then he smiled. The afternoon sun played along the planes of his face. “I guess your boy does bring out the best in Alex. None of us saw that coming,” he confessed, then rethought his words. “Well, except for you, of course, Dan,” he admitted. “You knew all along they were right for each other, didn’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have insisted that Wyatt finish that book about the inn you started working on just before you died. If it hadn’t been for that deathbed promise you extracted from Wyatt, Alex wouldn’t be on the hunt for a wedding dress and my third offspring wouldn’t be running around like a chicken without her head because Alex put her in charge of planning the reception. Cris, naturally, will be doing the cooking. Or rather, have the meal all ready for the reception right after the ceremony. If I know her, she’ll be up all night the night before, getting everything prepared and just so. She is a perfectionist, our Cris. She takes after her mom,” he added. “It’s really a shame that her husband died so young. Michael was a great guy.

  “Speaking of which,” Richard said, interrupting himself, “one of Cris’s old acquaintances, Shane McCallister is doing some renovation work on the inn for me. I’ve seen the way he eyes Cris when he thinks no one is watching. That young man is really taken with her. Who knows? There might just be a second wedding soon. I certainly hope so. Cris deserves to be happy, like Alex.”

  A wistful smile played on Richard’s lips, and tears glimmered in his eyes as he looked from one headstone to the other. “I wish you both could be present for Alex and Dan’s wedding. Yes, I know, you’ll be here in spirit and that’s an enormous comfort to your girls, but sometimes—” Richard dropped his voice to a whisper “—it would be nice to actually see you, touch you....”

  He sighed as he glanced toward the rear of the inn. “I guess I’d better be getting back. I’ll keep you posted on the search for Alex’s wedding dress and on how everyone else is doing. I miss you both more than words can ever say.”

  He turned and made his way back to the inn. Unlike the journey to the cemetery, the journey back always felt infinity longer, because he made it knowing he was all alone.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE SAW HER through the window.

  Curious, Christina Roman MacDonald made her way to the garden. Her older sister, Alexandra, was just standing there, staring off into the horizon from the looks of it.

  For most of her twenty-eight years, Alex had been the very definition of a workaholic, a veritable tribute to perpetual motion. Seeing her so still wasn’t normal.

  But then, this wasn’t exactly a period of business as usual for her sister. Not with the all-important step she would be taking in just six short weeks.

  “Having second thoughts?” Cris asked, coming up behind Alex.

  The gardener, Silvio Juarez, had just finished mowing the lawn and the air was heavy with the scent of freshly cut grass.

  Caught off guard, Alex whirled to find her sister standing behind her. “About?”

  “Running for prom queen of Munchkin High,” Cris said impatiently. Most brides-to-be lived and breathed wedding details this close to the event. Alex, apparently, was different. “About getting married, of course.”

  Alex merely shook her head. “All my doubts had come before Wyatt’s proposal and I’ve long since worked them out of my system.” Clearly, she was looking forward to being his wife.

  “No, no second thoughts,” she replied with a small, peaceful smile.

  “Regrets, then?” Cris guessed, watching the set of Alex’s shoulders. The two girls were closer than most. She could draw clues from Alex’s body language. “Prewedding jitters?”

  “No,” Alex answered and then pointed out, “and it’s too soon for prewedding jitters.”

  Cris laughed shortly. “Tell that to Stevi,” she said. Of their younger sisters, Stephanie, two years Cris’s junior, was the temperamental artistic one. “By the time your wedding day arrives, she’ll have gone through three meltdowns. I’ve never seen her quite like this. At the very least, you’d think she was the one getting married, not you.”

  Alex gave a half shrug. Stevi tended to get caught up in whatever she was doing. The moment she’d heard that Alex was marrying Wyatt, she’d volunteered to handle all the details. Alex had been glad to have one less situation to deal with.

  “Maybe she thinks that if it’s not perfect, I’ll hold it against her,” Alex speculated. “She should know better.”

  “She should,” Cris agreed, coming to stand beside Alex in the garden, “but you know Stevi. She’s a bit of a drama queen when her nerves get strung out. Maybe you shouldn’t have put her in charge of your wedding.”

  “As if I’d had a choice,” Alex said with a smile. Stevi had commandeered the position. “Too late now. Besides, she was following me around on her knees until I finally gave in.” She eyed Cris. “What would you have done?”

  That was an easy one, Cris decided with a grin. “Eloped.”

  It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “Right. Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. The daughter who eloped and almost broke her father’s heart.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” Cris chided. “Dad knew the reason.” And so did Alex. She’d met her late husband’s parents at Mike’s funeral, and although polite, they were so formal Alex had told Cris she was completely uncomfortable in their presence, something that rarely happened to her. “We did it so Mike wouldn’t have to invite his parents to the ceremony and be forced to put up with them trying to talk him out of making ‘a foolish mistake he’d regret for the rest of his life,’ as they said.”

  “They were—and are—snobs and I’ll always hold it against them that we didn’t get to see you as a blushing bride,” Alex said, immediately defensive on her sister’s behalf. “Speaking of which...”

  “Yes?” Here it is, Cris thought, the reason Alex was standing pensively out here rather than working at the front desk.

  “I’m as calm about the wedding as a human being can be,” she told Cris. “I feel like I’m finally getting it right.” She pointed to the azalea bush that someone had given their father at their mother’s funeral. A healthy plant, it seemed to bloom at odd times, generally when something momentous was occurring in their lives.

  This time, though, Cris took the words to mean that Alex felt she had been a screwup until a couple of months ago, whereas nothing could have been further from the truth.

  “Don’t run yourself down,” Cris insisted. “You’ve been Dad’s right hand—sometimes his left one, as well—for years now, running the inn when he was sick, being here day in, day out, no matter what else was going on. It even took you longer to graduate from University of San Diego because you were here all the time, performing feats of magic—”

  Alex waved off her sister’s accolades. “Not quite. And I wasn’t talking about my work anyway. I meant the direction of my life.”

  She glanced around the garden and it seemed to her that despite the fact they were in San Diego, it was November, yet the garden was in full bloom. The sight filled her with joy.

  “I always figured that running the inn would be it for me. You know, like being here would be the sole purpose of my life. Making sure things ran smoothly while I watched you and Stevi and Andy get married, have kids. Grow,” she added wistfully.

  “Grow what? Fat?” Cris asked with a laug
h.

  Alex shook her head. “No, just grow. As women, as people,” she elaborated, then added for good measure, “become multidimensional.”

  This definitely did not sound like the Alex Cris had grown up with. She scrutinized her sister.

  “Are you feeling all righ? You’re getting me a little uneasy. You’re beginning to sound like some college professor OD’ing on Adlerian self-actualization. Besides,” she added with a touch of asperity, “I didn’t exactly ‘grow’ as a wife.”

  “That’s because you weren’t allowed to be one for very long,” Alex reminded her. Cris and Mike were barely married before he was shipped out to Iraq, where his young life was cut short by a roadside sniper. The letter from Cris telling him she was pregnant was found in his breast pocket. “Next time will be better.”

  “Not going to be a next time,” Cris informed her with quiet conviction.

  Alex’s mouth curved in a smile. “I think Shane’s got other ideas on that subject,” she said. They’d hired the general contractor for the latest renovations to the 120-year-old inn. Aside from excellent references, Shane McCallister was also the older brother of one of Cris’s high school girlfriends.

  Alex’s pending nuptials had her evaluating everything around her with fresh eyes, and the way Shane was looking at Cris spoke volumes.

  “Now you’re babbling,” Cris said dismissively, then eyed Alex. “This is your clever way of deflecting questions, isn’t it?” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not prying, Alex, I was just being concerned about you.”

  “I’m fine,” Alex replied with finality, calling an end to what she deemed an unnecessary discussion.

  “Then what are you doing out here, communing with the azalea bush in the middle of the morning?” Cris didn’t add that the behavior just wasn’t like Alex, but her tone implied it.

  Impatience creased Alex’s brow. “It’s called taking a break, Cris.”

  That was fine, except for one thing. “You don’t take breaks.”