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Accidentally Yours: Christian Contemporary Romance (Forever Yours Book 1)

By Samantha Bayarr

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Accidentally Yours

Chapter 1

You don’t have to be Cinderella to find Prince Charming at the ball, but Mia was no Cinderella, and Chad was no Prince Charming—or was he?

Mia Fletcher dismissed her third-grade students, who were full of sugar, and being louder than usual. She packed away the last of the cupcakes and left-over candy conversation hearts, along with the Valentines from her class, and leaving behind the dust of red glitter on her classroom floor, she walked down the corridor overflowing with rowdy students. Her destination was Sylvia Bradley’s second-grade class, but the effects of Cupid’s arrows had reached the faculty and even some of the older students to such a level of awareness toward the objects of their affection, that she couldn’t maneuver through the crowded hallway.
Was she the only person who wasn’t feeling the Valentine love this year?
She wasn’t looking forward to another dinner-date over a tuna-melt with her cat, Charlie. But since she didn’t get any Valentines from a secret admirer, and her Prince Charming didn’t ride up on a white horse, she supposed that would be the extent of her evening. She supposed it could be worse; like last year, when Sylvia managed to talk her into going on a disastrous blind date. She’d only stuck it out the entire evening because she felt sorry for the man, and in the end, he’d dumped her for the waitress at the restaurant, and she’d had to take a taxi home.
“Hello, Miss Fletcher.” The custodian allowed his gaze to travel over her, smiling. He winked. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she half-mumbled, walking past the older widower hastily, avoiding eye-contact with him.
Though he was a kind gentleman, he was at least twenty years her senior, and he had a tendency to come across as a little fresh sometimes. Mia wasn’t up for getting stuck in an hour-long conversation with the man, as she’d found herself sometimes. He was a tough one to break away from because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but he could be a bit overwhelming at times, and today, she wasn’t in the mood for getting snared by his ogling stares and prying conversation.
When she finally made her way through the swarm of love-struck masses, she collapsed onto the farthest desk in her coworker’s classroom while she waited for her to finish erasing a math lesson from the chalkboard.
Silvia turned around and smirked. “That bad, huh?”
“I can’t believe another Valentine’s Day managed to sneak up on me without even so much as a hint of a date!” Mia complained.
Silvia worked at erasing the second section of the chalkboard. “I heard the P.E coach gave the lunch lady flowers and proposed at recess.”
Mia threw up her hands. “That’s it—there’s no hope for me!”
Sylvia stopped erasing the chalkboard and nearly dropped the eraser as she whirled around to face her friend. “You’re not about to confess you’ve been secretly in love with Mr. Oswald, are you?”
Mia stuck out her tongue and made a gag motion at the same time. “You’ll never hear a confession that ridiculous from me, and if you do, have my head examined. The man smells like sweaty socks, and always has large stains in his armpits. He’s a nice man, but the bad-hygiene thing is a turn-off!”
Sylvia snickered. “Mrs. Waller doesn’t seem to mind; she said yes to his proposal.”
Mia rested her elbows on the student desk and cradled her chin in her hands. “Good for her, but she also doesn’t seem to mind wearing those hairnets and she always smells like old cheese.”
Sylvia laughed. “So, we’ve gone over how the rest of the staff smells—what about you? What do you suppose you look and smell like?”
Mia jumped up from the chair, letting it fall behind her, the noise echoing in the large room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sylvia turned around after setting down the eraser, her board wiped clear of the day’s lesson.
“When’s the last time you untwisted that bun at the back of your head?” she asked. “Your hair is pulled back so tight, I wouldn’t be surprised if your hairline has begun to recede”
Mia stopped admiring the student’s artwork pinned to the large corkboard and pulled her compact mirror from her purse to look at her hair; though there were no visible signs of a receding hairline, her cheeks sparkled with red glitter from her student’s Valentine project.
“While we’re at it, why do you wear those outdated glasses on a chain instead of the contacts that are probably gathering dust on your bathroom shelf? And, let’s not even talk about you going to the grocery store in your yoga pants instead of a nice pair of jeans!”
Mia wagged her finger at her friend. “Hey, those yoga pants are comfortable!”
Sylvia averted her gaze and bit her bottom lip, suppressing a smile. “You don’t do yoga!”
“I’ll give you that one!” Mia admitted.
“I guess the biggest question would be: when’s the last time you put on a party dress and went out with your best friend for a little fun?”
Mia cinched her brow. “I don’t like where this conversation is going because I have a bad feeling I’m going to regret answering you by the end of the night,” she said. “It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m not about to go out in public and make myself look desperate in front of all the lovebirds out there who were able to get a date!”
Sylvia shoved her chair into her desk a little too hard. “Well, then stay home and share a tuna-melt with your cat!”
“When you put it that way, I sound extremely desperate.” Mia let out a long sigh. “Not to mention; bitter and jealous, and very shallow.”
Sylvia held up two fingers an inch apart. “Just a little bit.”
Mia groaned; was she that obviously un-datable? “Fine! What did you have in mind?”
Sylvia raised her eyebrows and smiled satisfactorily the way she does after wearing her down with her schemes. “There’s a Valentine Ball at the country club tonight, and I got us tickets!”
“A Ball? That sounds serious—I don’t’ have anything to wear,” Mia said, as she curtsied and mocked every princess movie she’d ever seen. “Besides, we aren’t members of that snooty club.”
“You don’t have to be a member to attend the Valentine Ball,” Sylvia said. “They hold one every year, and it’s open to the public.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Open to the public means every man who’s been rejected by all the smart girls who dumped them will be there. There’s a reason they’re single. Please don’t make me go!”
“What about you?” Sylvia asked. “Why are you still single?”
Mia scowled. “Stop doing that! I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work. I’m single because I don’t have time to find anyone, and just haven’t found the right one from the dates I’ve had.”
Sylvia gathered her things and pulled her coat on. “Maybe there’s a man out there who just hasn’t found the right one either. We should be married and have kids of our own instead of spending all day with other people’s kids; it’s not that I don’t love being a teacher, but I want to have my own kids to teach. I’m going to the Ball—with, or without you.”
Mia pushed her arms in the sleeves of her tan, wool coat. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to regret saying yes to this even more than I did after last year’s dead-end date?”
“If you do, then we’ll have something to laugh about next Valentine’s Day,” Sylvia looped her arm in Mia’s and led her down the still-crowded hall.
Mia went along as if she had no other choice. “Let’s hope not. But on the off-chance that this night doesn’t turn out horrible, then I’ll be the first one to thank you.”
Sylvia pulled her through a crowd of kids. “I’m going to hold you to that,” she said. “Let’s go to Kendall’s and find you something to wear.”
“I hope she has something on sale,” Mia said. “I don’t want to have to pull any money from my new-car fund.”
“Maybe we should head out to the mall instead,” Sylvia offered.
“What time is the party?”
“It starts at six o’clock,” she answered. “Dinner is included.”
“That sounds fancy—and expensive,” she said, taking another look at the tickets.
She looked up, feeling the blood drain from her face. “Hey, these tickets cost a hundred dollars apiece; I can’t pay you back for this.”
Sylvia pasted on her best smile. “You don’t have to; I have connections.”
Mia planted her fists on her hips. “Who?”
“Do you remember Roger? He works there; he’s the orchestra conductor.”
Mia made a face. “Oh no; you don’t mean that weepy, single dad of your classroom bully who thinks he’s in love with you! How many dances did you have to promise him?”
Sylvia shrugged, her smile turning into a lopsided grin. “Just one!”
Mia began to shake her head. “I’m not buying it; he gave you two hundred dollars’ worth of tickets for one dance?”
Wincing, Sylvia turned a little pale. “There’s one more thing.”
“There always is; I’m afraid to ask.”
“I promised Roger you’d sing—just one set—maybe two.”
“Let me get this straight,” Mia said after a long sigh. “You promised I’d sing at a snooty Valentine Ball that I don’t even want to go to?”
“But you love to sing, Mia; you can’t deny that.”
“I do love to sing—just not professionally. I put all that away when I got my teaching job, and I swore I’d never go back.”
Sylvia gripped her arms, forcing her to look into her serious eyes. “This isn’t like club singing to pay the rent or your student loans; I swore I’d never wait on another table too, but I also promised Roger I’d bus the tables at the end of the night. So, the way I see it, you got the better part of the deal.”
“Don’t try to sugar-coat this, Sylvia; you’re trying to rope me back into a world I left behind for a respectable job that I love.”
“I don’t want to stay home tonight; I want to go out with my best friend, and have a little fun for a change. I’ll dance with Roger the entire night to get you out of having to sing if that’s what you want, if you agree to go with me.”
How could Mia say no to that?
“Okay I’ll go—and I’ll sing, but only one song.”
Sylvia threw her arms around Mia, giggling like a school-girl. “This is why you’re my best friend!”
“Because I always go along with your crazy schemes?”
“Partly,” Sylvia said. “But mostly because you stick by me no matter what.”
Mia looked at the clock at the end of the hall before they exited the building. “It’s after three o’clock now, we better get moving or we’ll never make it all the way to Kendall’s and back in time to get ready.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure Kendall’s will have something special, and we’ll be the best-dressed women there.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mia said as she grabbed the ice-scraper from her back seat and began to work on her windshield. “It’s going to take me almost an hour just to clear my windshield enough just to make it down the road to Kendall’s.”
Sylvia started her car and turned on the defrost, and then grabbed her scraper and began to help Mia chip away at the ice on her windshield. “At the very least, you could go get your defroster fixed on this car,” she complained.
“I told you, I’m saving for a new car; I’m not throwing away another penny fixing this one. Repairs on this thing have cost me the price of a new car already. I’ll drive it until it falls apart on the road if I have to.”
Her glasses fogged up as she scraped at the ice. Sylvia was right; it might be worth the extra time to put in her contacts for the Valentine Ball.

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