Wild Women Authors is pleased to focus on Christmas in Angel’s Glen, a contemporary holiday trilogy. The first book is Christmas Reunion by Sue Ward Drake:
City girl and dedicated Christmas-aholic,
Rebecca MacDonald returns to Angels Glen to operate her family’s inn over the
Christmas holidays. She needs to do something right after a costly mistake and
plans to create the perfect holiday for visiting VIP guests. The last person
she wants to meet is Alec Stewart, her gorgeous, childhood nemesis.
Alec, retired dot-com millionaire and
local Scrooge, loves his quiet life as a fishing guide in his small hometown.
He’s always had a crush on Becca, his best friend’s baby sister, so when he’s
asked to keep her safe while she’s in
town, he knows he’s heading for trouble.
As they work together to get the inn
decorated, can they admit the real magic of the season is love… and lock
their own in time for the town’s caroling on Christmas Eve?
“After you.” Alec held the Nugget’s
outside door open and clicked his key fob. The lights on his pickup truck
flashed in recognition.
Becca walked past, and he caught a
whiff of something floral and exotic. Becca had never been a perfume kind of
girl before, but she’d obviously changed. He recognized the scent as the one
he’d chosen once as a gift for a girlfriend, which meant absolutely nothing. He
shouldn’t even be noticing, because now he wanted to lean in closer.
“What happened here?” Becca gestured
to the passenger door secured with tape and rope to the frame.
“A bear broke in. I haven’t had time
to get the door replaced.”
“A bear.” Alarmed, she looked up at
the forested slopes rising behind town. “Ugh. I forgot about all the wildlife
around here.”
“We’re in the mountains. How is it
possible you forget?” He distinctly remembered the time he and her brother had
let Becca come exploring with them up a trail, and she’d freaked when they’d
passed a posted notice about bears in the vicinity.
She hitched her purse strap higher.
“Bears aren’t something I worry about on a day-to-day basis in San Francisco.”
“You don’t need to worry about them
here, either. Bears hibernate in the winter.”
“Will you stop over-explaining, Alec? I am
not an imbecile.” She gave him a disgusted look. “What did you leave inside
your truck that was so enticing to the poor animal?”
“Groceries. I had to take care of an
emergency before I could get home and unpack.”
“When was this?”
“A couple of months ago.” He set his
toolbox in the truck bed.
Becca lifted her chin. “From what I
understand, bears eat everything they can find before hibernating.”
Now who was over-explaining? Alec shook
his head. “It wasn’t one of my better moves.”
She nodded, her expression smug. “But you
had to take care of someone’s overflowing sink or lose the job.”
In fact, he’d helped search for a lost
hiker, but he let Becca think whatever she wanted. He didn’t care. So why were
his shoulders clenching as if bound together by a rubber band? “Come on.” He
walked around to open the driver’s door, forcing himself to take a deep breath.
“You have to get in from this side.”
She minced her way up to him in her
high-heeled boots and rose on tiptoe to peer inside.
“You want a boost up?” He raised an
eyebrow.
“I don’t know if you remember, but I
ran the high hurdles in high school.” She gripped the arm rest and lifted a
leg.
“There’s nothing wrong with my
memory.” He could recite almost every detail of their various interactions,
but, if he’d been smart, he would have filed those in the Forget folder. “Put
your foot in my hands.” He bent and made a stirrup. “No spiked heel, please.”
She gave him an exasperated look but
settled the sole of her left boot against his fingers. He lifted her, noting
the way her black stretch pants curved over certain intriguing parts of her
anatomy. She made it into the driver’s seat, and after she crawled over the
console, he climbed behind the wheel. “You passing through?”
He expected an immediate comeback, but
she must have mellowed. Twelve years would do that to a person. You either
mellowed, or you had a heart attack. He waited for the engine to warm and
backed into the street and looked her way, waiting for an answer.
“My car battery’s dead, Alec. I can’t
go anywhere. How can I be passing through?”
“I didn’t mean right this second.” Was
she teasing him again? “What are you doing in Angels Glen in the first place?
If you don’t mind my asking.”
She straightened her legs into the
footwell, eyes straight ahead. “I’m staying a few days at my dad’s inn.”
He headed down the street to the
mini-mart. “Only a few?”
She turned his way, the smile flirting
with her pretty mouth a match for the glint in her gaze.
Darn it! She was playing him,
exactly the way she had as a teenager. That made sense in a perverse way, but
he didn’t care, right? He cleared his throat. “My inside source says you swore
you’d never return to this place.”
She flashed those sassy blue eyes at
him. “You can’t believe everything you hear, Alec. I’m surprised you don’t know
that by now.”
To
purchase Christmas Reunion, go to: https://books2read.com/u/bMxE7X
To learn more
about Sue Ward Drake, go to:
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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16679714.Sue_Ward_Drake
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I love Christmas stories, and yours sounds delightful. Off to look up the anthology! Best of luck.
ReplyDeleteIt was a fun "reunion book. These two get into lots of "trouble" together.
ReplyDelete