Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance) Read Free

one of the
holes. Smith’s button ornament was a bright red and silver that
caught the eye at every angle. Chase’s was a simple yet masculine
navy blue. Ryan grinned at the way his button had been painted to
look like a baseball. Zach’s button was sleek black, like one of
the race cars he dreamed of driving. Gabe’s button had flames
etched onto the front of it. Lori’s was the flashiest of all,
covered in sparkles and glitter. The button Sophie had chosen for
herself was a rectangle that looked like a miniature hardcover
book.
    “What a fantastic surprise,” Mary said as she
marveled at the way Sophie had managed to brilliantly capture each
of her siblings’ personalities with buttons, of all things. Each of
the kids agreed as they headed over to the tree to hang up the
ornaments.
    Sophie slid onto Mary’s lap. “This one’s for
you, Mommy.”
    Sophie had placed a heart-shaped button in
Mary’s palm. Her eyes were already full when Sophie took one more
button out of the bag.
    “I made one for Daddy, too.” This final
button was covered in brown corduroy and was warm and solid in
Mary’s hand. “Do you think he’d like it?”
    Mary hadn’t been able to prevent two tears
from spilling down her cheeks. “He would have loved it.”
    As a burst of wind shook the tall pines
outside the log cabin and Mary came back to the present, she
realized she was standing in the middle of the living room, holding
the felt bag against her chest, over her heart. Moving back over to
the tree, she carefully hung each of the buttons in a group on the
thick green branches, then placed the bag back into the box.
    Only two ornaments were left—the first ones
that Mary and Jack had ever given each other as a young married
couple. She lifted them out and went to sit in the chair by the
fire. After unwrapping them carefully, she placed them side by side
on her lap and ran her fingers over the familiar contours.
    And as Mary closed her eyes to savor her
memories of falling in love with Jack Sullivan, the first
snowflakes of winter began to fall….

Chapter One
     
    Early December, nearly forty years ago…
     
    Jack Sullivan needed a Christmas miracle.
    “There’s no question that the Pocket Planner
is a great and cutting-edge product. That’s why we agreed to
manufacture thousands of units in anticipation of big Christmas
orders,” Allen Walter explained. The distinguished gray-haired man
who had founded Walter Industries held Jack’s invention in his
hand. “Unfortunately,” Allen said as he put it on the table and
slid it a couple of inches away, “our sales reps have all reported
in to let us know that their accounts are far more interested in
ordering toys like the Pet Rock and posters of sex symbols such as
Jacqueline Bisset for the holiday sales rush. My company has
already lost a great deal of money on several great products this
year. What we need to sell this Christmas is a sure thing, so we’re
going to have to cut our losses now. I’m afraid this is the end of
the road for the Pocket Planner.”
    Ten years ago, Jack had just begun the Ph.D.
program in electrical engineering at Stanford University when he’d
woken up in the middle of the night with a crystal-clear vision of
a portable electronic device that would help people keep track of
their appointments and to-do lists. His colleagues had thought he
was crazy at first, but he’d held on to that vision with unwavering
focus. By the time he’d graduated with his doctorate, three of his
fellow Ph.D. candidates had joined his quest to develop the Pocket
Planner.
    In classic Silicon Valley style, Jack, Howie
Miller, Larry Buelton and James Sperring had left the campus labs
and set up shop in the garage of a house Jack was renting on a
suburban Palo Alto street. James married a year later and left the
group to take a steady job with a paycheck. But Larry and Howard
had stuck with Jack through hundreds of cold slices of pizza and
cups of coffee while they sweated