Money, Guns, and a Merry Christmas novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Three Thousand a Month
Spence orders Alana to say yes to him on Christmas Eve or lose her Ironvale contract, so she marries the salesman on her lobby bench, and her aunt calls: Grandma's farmhouse is gone.
Spence Hargrave walked into my company Christmas party with two dozen red roses and a threat.
"Christmas Eve, at your aunt's," he said, loud enough for the whole lobby. "You say yes to me in front of your family."
Sixty of my people went quiet around the cookie table.
Somebody turned the music down.
"I've said no three times, Spence."
"Then say yes the fourth time." He laid the roses on the reception desk like a bill. "Or Ironvale reviews Lawler Optics on the twenty-sixth."
Ironvale bought seventy percent of everything we made.
Our contract was up in January.
Every person in that lobby knew what a review meant.
My foreman set down his paper plate very slowly.
"You don't run Ironvale," I said.
Spence smiled with all of his very white teeth.
"Ask anyone in Pine Hollow what I run."
Then he looked past me at the lobby bench.
A man was sitting there in a plain navy coat with a dented black case across his knees.
He'd been there forty minutes.
My receptionist had parked him there because she thought he was a vendor's sales rep.
He had a thin white scar through one eyebrow and the stillest face I had ever seen.
"Who's this?" Spence said. "Your date?"
"He's waiting for me."
"What do you sell, buddy?" Spence leaned over him. "Gutter guards? What's that pay, three grand a month?"
The man looked up at him.
"About that," he said.
Spence laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
"That's my competition. Alana, honey, you can do better than the bench."
He kissed my cheek before I could move.
He smelled like cologne and someone else's money.
"Christmas Eve," he said. "Wear something red."
The door swung shut behind him.
Nobody in the lobby breathed.
I stood there with his roses on my desk and sixty paychecks in my head.
My aunt Deena had been pushing Spence at me for a year.
Spence had been letting the whole town think he owned Ironvale for two.
And now he had my people in his fist.
I turned around.
"Are you married?" I asked the man on the bench.
He set the case down beside him.
"No."
"Engaged? Girlfriend? Wife in another state?"
"No, no, and no."
"Would you marry me this afternoon?"
My receptionist dropped a candy cane.
The man considered me.
"Why?" he said.
"Because if I walk into my aunt's house on Christmas Eve with a husband, Spence can't kneel in front of my family and make it a show."
"And the contract?"
"I'll handle the contract."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. I'll pay you fifty thousand dollars. We stay married through New Year's, then we quietly divorce."
He was quiet for a second.
"Keep the money," he said. "I'd like Christmas dinner."
"That's it?"
"Is your family's cooking good?"
"My grandmother's is."
"Then that's it." He stood up, and he was taller than I'd thought. "Bennet Heller."
"Alana Lawler."
"I know," he said. "It's on the building."
My foreman cleared his throat.
"Boss. You want me to hold the party?"
"Eat the cookies," I said. "I'll be back married."
The county courthouse closed at four.
We got there at three-ten.
I wore my Lawler Optics fleece because I didn't think about it.
He wore the navy coat and carried the dented case because he said he didn't leave it in cars.
"What's in it?" I asked while the clerk typed.
"My father's old rifle scope. I came to see if your shop could fix it."
"And instead you got married."
"The day isn't over."
The clerk asked for his occupation.
He paused.
"Sales," I said, because Spence had said it.
He didn't correct me.
The clerk peered at us over her glasses.
"You can kiss her," she said. "If you want it to feel official."
He looked at me, waiting.
I kissed him first.
It was supposed to be a peck.
His hand came up to the side of my face and stayed there one second too long.
When I stepped back, the clerk was smiling into her keyboard.
On the courthouse steps the sky was already going dark.
Bennet buttoned his coat.
"Where's the dinner?" he asked.
"Pine Hollow. An hour north."
My phone rang.
Aunt Deena.
I put it on speaker because my hands were shaking too much to hold it.
"Spence called me," she said. "You married a salesman?"
"News travels."
"You think that stops anything?" She laughed. "Your grandmother signed the farmhouse over to me last week. I'm selling it to Spence."
The steps tilted under me.
That house was the only place I had left that smelled like my father.
"Grandma would never sign that."
"She signed it in my kitchen, Alana." I heard her take a sip of something. "Bring your salesman for Christmas. The whole family wants a look at him."
The line went dead.
Bennet took the phone gently out of my hand.
"Tell me about your aunt," he said.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend