Falling for Millie Kay

  CONTENTS

  Falling for Millie Kay

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  Epilogue 2

  Follow the Author

  Also by Ember Flint

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  Falling for Millie Kay

  By EMBER FLINT

  31-year-old Logan Decker is such a workaholic that his personal life hasn’t simply taken a back seat to his job, the poor thing hasn’t stepped foot in his car at all for the last five years when one of his friends and co-owners of their construction company comes up with the idea of a Thanksgiving bro-cation that takes them to a resort in the small town of Monroe and there’s one thing the brooding carpenter doesn’t know: his one true love, the one he wasn’t even looking for, is a pint-sized curvy lady with a sweet tooth as bad as his own that’s staying under the same snowy roof.

  The only problem is, they keep missing each other.

  21-year-old Millie Kay Jones has been managing the Fall Mountain Resort with her siblings for the last couple of years and she’s pretty happy with her life, though she feels like something is missing. She loves planning events and this year she’s getting ready for a kick-ass Thanksgiving celebration when everything goes to hell in a flipping snow-filled handbasket and there’s one thing she doesn’t know: she would be even more pissed if she was aware she’s losing on so much more than a simple party since there’s a large, hunky bearded special someone in the resort and he carries all the romance she will ever wish for.

  The only problem is, they keep missing each other.

  Dear Reader:

  Good timing is everything and these two need it in spades, but you can be thankful: they are going to get at some point, don’t you worry.

  This Thanksgiving Day romance is stuffed full of naughty, yummy and sweet hotness and it’s dripping in a special brand of gravy that has little to do with turkey and lots to do with babies!

  As usual, this is a SAFE book, there’s NO-cheating, no OW/OM drama, it’s HEA-guaranteed and features a bombshell heroine that won’t let a couple of feet of snow stop her, a big, possessive, dirty-talking, protective OTT alpha hero that falls for her in the blink of an eye and some pretty scorching sexy times.

  *Please note that ‘Falling for Millie Kay is part of the ‘Thankful for the Jones Sisters’ series, each one of the 4 novellas focuses only on one couple and there are no cliffhangers so the books can be read in any order and also as standalones.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 Ember Flint

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. To request permission, contact the author.

  Note from the Author: this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental. Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all sexually-active characters in it are represented as 18 or over. Also, in real life, remember: always safety first.

  Cover design by: Ember Flint – Pink Diamonds’ Waterfall Designs

  Edited by: New Wave Romance

  To gravy, cranberry sauce, cinnamon, food-induced coma and relatives overstepping social boundaries 24/7, this holiday wouldn’t be the same without you, and to all my insta-love aficionados readers, this book wouldn’t even be here without you and I’m so very thankful.

  Happy Thanksgiving!

  Chapter 1

  MILLIE KAY

  I look between one of my newest Thanksgiving’s Pinterest boards on my iPad’s screen, the never-ending list of items one of my sisters, PJ, rattled off when I cornered her yesterday, and then through the shelfs of the humungous pantry of our resort and I nod to myself as the notes of ‘Unforgiven II’ by the Metallica blast away in my ears.

  I think I’ll just have to go into town once later today and then we’ll officially be fully stocked and ready for the holiday.

  Maybe going tomorrow would be best though: it definitely looks like snowing, so concentrating all my errands in a single trip would be ideal.

  I’ll spend some time at the hospital and then I’ll swing by the local soup kitchen and leave some food with them —PJ told me she’s making something special for them this year— and finally I’ll pick up the last things we need and head back.

  I strike a few more things off the list and go back to snoop around the kitchen to make sure PJ has everything she needs.

  She’s the head chef here at Fall Mountain Resort and everybody is looking forward to drool over the delicious spread she planned for tomorrow’s party. She’s an amazing cook and can turn just about anybody into a total junkie, especially for her cookies.

  Someone pulls my headphones off and I don’t need to turn around to know who’s the culprit.

  “So, it’s only twenty-four hours to Turkey Day, operation ‘drive everybody up the wall’ has already started in that little head of yours, I presume,” my brother says, peaking at the scrapbook I’ve left on the kitchen island; a smirk on his lips.

  I roll my eyes, fighting a smile as I turn to glare at him. He plays tough guy and wants me to believe he hates all ‘the fuss’ I make about the holidays —especially Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, my absolute favorites—, but we both know he secretly enjoys it almost as much as I do.

  “The timer went off at sunrise, Ford, you shouldn’t even have to ask,” I sass back.

  He chuckles and shakes his head as he leans down to steal one of the peanut butter and chocolate cookies our baby sister has baking in the oven.

  I giggle as I watch him scarf down the too hot biscuit and almost singe his tongue in the process.

  “She’s so going to scream at you, big brother…”

  “Whatever,” he mumbles around a crunchy bite and I just stick my hand out for him.

  “You know what to do,” I grouse, my wish to get rid of the little roll around my waist losing the eternal battle against my sweet tooth.

  Ford gets another cookie out of the oven, wraps it in a paper towel and hands it over, ever the perfect older brother.

  “Thanks,” I smile up at him and munch on the little piece of golden heaven I’m now holding in my hand and then go back to my inventory to make sure everything is under control.

  “Alright, I’m heading up to check on the ski lifts. Stay out of trouble, MK,” he says, playfully pulling at the end of my ponytail, and then he leaves.

  I mutter a quick ‘goodbye’ from around the cookie stuck in my mouth and he shakes his head.

  “Small bites, Millie Kay: no one’s stealing it from you.”

  I roll my eyes.

  I’m lucky he caught himself and didn’t actually take my cookie away. Knowing him, he was probably just about to blow on it before breaking it off into tiny little pieces for me. Sometimes he forgets that I’m already twenty-one and definitely not a little girl anymore.

  He is thirteen years older than me and my twin, Sue Ellen, and he has yet to get throug
h his thick skull that despite being his baby sisters, we’re already all grown up.

  There’s a ten years age gap between him and my older sister, Sadie Mae, and an even bigger one between him and Pixie Jo, who’s only twenty.

  Being the oldest one of us all and the only guy in the bunch, he has always felt very protective of us and he’s been hovering even more since our parents left the management of our family’s resort to us two years ago and decided to leave Colorado to make one of our mom’s oldest dream come true: go on an extended vacation to tour France.

  This resort isn’t just a family business for us: it’s home.

  Mom and Dad opened it in 1985.

  We love it and would do just about anything to keep it as flourishing as when our parents were in charge. This place means everything to us.

  Our brother was a very much loved oops-baby mom and dad had when they were teens, but they put everything they had into being wonderful parents to him and they gave their one hundred percent and then some to make sure they could be financially stable and provide for him and any future children they considered having and that’s why they waited between having him and Sadie Mae and this resort has always been the heart of all of our family’s dreams and hopes.

  The property consists of the main hotel, that everybody in town has gotten to call ‘the lodge’, despite it being enormous and containing one-hundred guest rooms, aside from a diner, a pool, a game room and our favorite room of them all: the media room, where we gather every day with religious punctuality to spend at least two hours bickering about what kind of movie to watch. On our grounds there are also twenty-five log cabins, our parents’ chalet, and each of our own little lodges.

  Ford is the general manager and he’s also in charge of supervising maintenance for the entire resort and the grounds, including the ski lifts and the tube runs.

  Sadie Mae deals with de-stressing and prettifying our guests, PJ is the one who makes sure they gain at least five pounds over their stay, and my fraternal twin, Sue Ellen, is in charge of satisfying all their requests and listening to their complains —she’s the Guest Relation manager.

  My twin is a minute older than me and aside from looking nothing alike on the outside, we’re also pretty much different kind of people, I’m Doctor Martens and Converse and she’s Birkenstocks, I love a mean steak and she’s a vegetarian, I faint if I sniff Sadie Mae’s aromatherapy concoctions for too long and she’s our little in-house pothead; some of our guests take a look at her hippie appearance and think she’s nuts and not professional, but boy if she doesn’t change their minds in under a minute!

  She’s sweet, strong and amazing and sometimes I wish I was less shy and that we had something more in common other than our love for action movies and mushroom pizza.

  I’m the in-house decorator and party planner of the resort, and while my creativity can be quite explosive and I can easily talk anybody’s ear off when it comes to decorations and interior design, I’m not very good at making friends.

  When it comes to our jobs, Ford considers us more than capable and he’s always full of praise for us, but whenever we’re just the ‘Jones siblings’ he goes back to see us as little girls that he needs to keep safe.

  But for all the complaining we do about him scaring guys off, we all know how fortunate we are to have him. Us Jones are a very tight-knit family and things wouldn’t ever be the same without Ford sticking his nose in all of our businesses 24/7.

  I swear in all of Monroe, the little sleepy town at the foot of the mountain that we call home, no one has ever been able to look at any of us girls wrong more than once in their lifetimes before having to deal with our big brother’s chilling scowl, and after what happened to Sadie with that bastard of her ex fiancé, Justin, Ford has been on his guard even more.

  I sigh as I think about that controlling asshole. I wish he was in front of me right now, I’d punch his smarmy little grin off his face, then I’d leave him to my twin for a while and just when he thought he had as much as he could take, I’d sic our baby sister onto him.

  PJ is a force of nature, she’s as cute as a button and the tiniest one of us all, but that sailor mouth of hers alone could get a grown man to cry in under two minutes. When she’s pissed, she’s like one of the Powerpuff Girls on steroid and there’s no stopping her.

  Sadie Mae is such a sweet, gentle creature, no human being in their right mind would want to hurt her, but he did.

  She hasn’t been herself ever since.

  Here at our resort she is the Guest Wellness Coordinator, so she handles our spa and gym, she’s also a pretty damn fine hairstylist and if you didn’t know what happened to her with that SOB, you wouldn’t believe anything is amiss with her, she’s still the happy-go-lucky gentle soul that we grew up with, but we can all tell some of her light is gone and it breaks my heart.

  Lately, she’s been talking crazy, saying she’ll never find love again, but dang she’s so young, it pisses me off that he still has this much power over her, but then again what do I know about romantic love?

  Despite being the ‘creative type’ so to speak, I’m pretty introverted and of all my sisters, I’m the one who hasn’t even had a real boyfriend, so I can offer little advice when it comes to men.

  I sigh as I put my headphones back on and go back to listen to the haunting power ballad; the singer complains about being sick and tired to stand alone and I can’t help but agree with him.

  I mean, I can’t really be bitter about my life here in Monroe, I could even call myself almost completely happy: I am lucky to have a wonderful family whom I love, I can honestly say I could trust each and every one of my siblings with my life and call them all my best friends and I know not everybody has the good fortune of living in a snowy paradise as beautiful as our small town, to work with their own people and do what they love to do every day. In short, I have plenty to be thankful for, but still there’s this empty space inside of me that no amount of creative designing could ever fill, even though event coordinating, party planning and decorating are the things I love the most.

  But mom always told us there’s no point in focusing on the negatives. Find a reason to smile and then do it every day.

  I have plenty.

  We’re at the end of November and at the beginning of my favorite time of the year, one day only to Thanksgiving and then I’ll start planning the décor and the holiday-themed events for our guests and that’s definitely something; I’m not the holiday maniac of this family for nothing after all.

  I put down the tablet and pick up my scrapbook from on top of the island and thumb through it.

  I’ve been filling this out with pictures and magazines’ cutouts since I was a little girl and there’s just about everything you would want to know about décor in it, or as my brother is fond of saying, there’s enough to make even Martha Stewart sick of the holiday entirely.

  As the song ends, leaving its place to the delicate intro of an Aerosmith’s piece, I hear commotion and pull my headphones back off.

  I look at the smartwatch on my wrist.

  We were expecting some last-minute guests, Sue told me it’s a group of guys from Denver that’s here for a bro-weekend, bro-cation or something like that, and I bet this is them.

  I probably should go out front and greet them: here at Fall Mountain Resort we always try to give our guests a warm welcome with a personal touch that these days can’t be found in too many places as big as ours, but I would probably mangled it if I tried, so maybe it’s better if I stick to what I know: inventorying.

  I’m sure one of my siblings is taking care of them just fine.

  I smooth down my ‘Nevermind’ T-shirt over my long-sleeved top and I go back to work, dismissing the strange feeling in the pit of my tummy that tells me I’m missing on something.

  And what a stupid thing to think, anyway!

  Focus, girl, I tell myself, putting my headphones back on as Steven Tyler, oddly enou
gh, croons about ‘not wanting to miss a thing.’

  I need to be thinking about party favors right now, so back to work.

  I might not be able to share a joke with our guests, but that’s okay: I’m going to dazzle them tomorrow night with my decoration: this year’s party is going to be legendary.

  Chapter 2

  LOGAN

  “Here we are, guys. Now, remember: we’re here in bro-cation for the duration,” Elliott says as we step out of our car. “No designing, no accounting, no planning, no wining about going back to Denver early.”

  He looks pointedly at me, then at Nolan and finally his eyes linger on Dex who’s looking anywhere but at our friend.

  I chuckle and shake my head; stepping away from our jobs to take time off is difficult enough for me, Nolan and Elliott, but Dexter is totally gonna lose it if he doesn’t munch on numbers at least a little bit over the next few days.

  Nolan glares at Elliott, combing back his hair. It’s in need of a trim and he mentioned he would look into having it cut here, multitasking is his forte.

  “You’re one to talk,” he grumbles trudging his carry-on behind as we walk up to the snow-covered resort.

  “He has you there, man: you talk like you’re less of a workaholic than we are, but we all know you’re just as bad.”

  Elliott rolls his eyes at me, shaking off snow from his boots. “Well, fuck… at least I’m trying.”

  Dexter huffs out a breath, the cold steaming up his glasses. “Let’s make a deal: you stop calling this long weekend away a bro-cation and I’ll promise I’ll steer clear of Excel until Monday…”

  Elliott shakes his head seriously. “No can do, bro.”

  “He’s never going to stop calling it that, Dex… you’re just making it worse insisting, you know the jerk,” I say, dusting snow off my coat as we walk into the main hall of the Fall Mountain Resort.