Monday, November 30, 2020

Substitute Santa


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Fired six weeks before Christmas, Kat Murphy spends most of her savings for seven magical days at Passionate Incorporated’s new Santa’s Village resort, trying to ignore the inevitable. Her only wish is to help her dying daughter enjoy the magic of Christmas. Plus, she hopes to distract her five-year-old enough to forget to ask Santa to bring her a daddy. When her daughter drags her over to Santa’s workshop to see the big man, Kat wonders if she can resist the hot guy playing the part of Santa. More importantly, does she want to?


Dominic Russo is tired of waiting for Passionate Incorporated to find him a mate. As head detective for the Paranormal Law Enforcement agency, his newest undercover assignment includes spending time at a Passionate Inc. resort, filling in for an errant Santa while also searching for a murderous rogue. Dom initially resisted the assignment, because he’s a vampire who hasn’t allowed himself to associate with humans to avoid being involved in another… incident. Will Dom survive two weeks of being near human children, while risking another blackout that sent him into a spiral of self-hate so long ago?





Excerpt:

“What’s this?” Kat glanced down at the pamphlet and flipped through the three narrow pages of literature and photos.

The images caught Kat by surprise. There were tropical islands, mountain retreats and even a Santa’s Village where she could spend a few days with her daughter. It might go a long way to helping her get a bit of holiday cheer. Getting into the Christmas spirit wasn’t going to be easy this year.

Kat had always loved Christmas and to her, the holidays always started the day after Halloween when everyone took down their ghoulish decorations and prepared for the end of the year celebrations.

Shifting her attention to the glossy pages, she read the marketing ploy on the front page.

 

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“Fantasy vacation, huh?” After boxing up her lunch, Kat stuffed her check into the pamphlet and headed for the register. At this point, she didn’t care if she won a free trip. Her priority was to make sure Bella experienced the magic of Christmas, no matter what her mother’s hardships might be. Everything else paled in comparison.

 

“So, are you going to apply for a spot before they fill up for the holidays? I would if I were you. That Santa’s Village thing is right up your alley.” Brenda guzzled her wine and set her glass on the counter before reaching for the bottle. “Listen to your best friend and go.”

“Do you really think I should?” Kat chopped up two more carrots and threw them into a bowl on top of some lettuce and celery. Picking up the small onion she’d peeled, she sliced it into thin strips and tossed that into the bowl.

“Do you really want to know what I think?” Brenda raised a brow and poured a generous amount of red wine into her glass before holding it up in a mock toast. “Bon voyage.”

“Thanks for the encouragement, but I’d rather talk to sober Brenda right now, thankyouverymuch.”

“I’m sober. At least for the time being.” Brenda set down her glass, rested her hands flat on the counter and leveled her gaze. “Go. You deserve a break and some time away before you start a new job. You work harder than anyone else I know. Besides, when was the last time you had a vacation, anyway?”

“It’s been a while,” Kat said with a sigh. She didn’t mind working hard. Not if it meant providing for her daughter and making her happy.

Still, it had been too long since Kat had gone anywhere. The last time she had taken more than a day or two off work had been when Bella was born, and then again, when she’d discovered her daughter had a rare blood disorder.

Bella’s condition was so rare, her daughter was the only known case.

“At least I can keep my company insurance for another six months. I don’t know what I’d do without it.” That was the thing that had frightened her the most.

“Stop thinking about the money.” Brenda rolled her eyes. “Think with your heart for once, instead of your head.”

“Don’t you think I want to take Bella to the village? I just don’t know if I can justify the expense. I should probably be careful what I spend my money on from here on out.”

Kat had called Brenda and headed home after picking up her daughter from her kindergarten class, intending to make the reservations before she’d changed her mind.

As luck would have it, she hadn’t made it halfway home before the doubts started settling in. She’d changed her mind when she’d thought about how much the trip would cost, along with the gifts she planned to purchase her daughter for Christmas. Her mind had changed yet again, the moment Bella had wrapped her arms around her neck and said, “I love you, Mommy,” for no apparent reason.

“I love you, Mommy.” Bella skipped into the kitchen. Her daughter had practically chanted those words since she’d gotten in the car after school.

“Alright, what do you want?” Kat grinned as she scooped the rest of the veggies up off the counter and tossed them into the bowl. Those words always preceded a request for something expensive or nearly impossible to attain.

“I just love you.” Bella shrugged, took the stool next to Brenda and watched Kat from the corner of her big, dark-violet eyes. “Mom?”

“Yes?” Kat glanced up, giving her daughter her undivided attention, her wine glass stalled at her lips.

They studied each other for a moment before Bella said, “Can I have a daddy?”

“A what?” Kat almost spit red wine all over her mother’s snow-white, hand crocheted tablecloth she’d draped over the chair at the end of the table before she’d started chopping vegetables.

“I want a daddy.” Bella slouched in her seat, crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip in an adorable pout.

“You’re going to sprain that lip if you stick it out any farther, squirt.” Brenda reached over and patted Bella’s head. “Keep it up. You might wear her down one day.”

“She will not wear me down. Ever.” Kat glared at Brenda. “You’re supposed to be on my side. I thought we both agreed we need men in our lives about as much as the stupid televised sports that usually comes with them.”

“Maybe I changed my mind.” Brenda swayed on her stool for a moment. “Hey, when’s dinner going to be ready? I think I need to eat something.”

“I told you not to drink so much.” Kat grabbed the bottle of wine just as Brenda reached for it again. “You have had enough.” She pointed at Brenda before turning her attention back to her daughter. “I can’t promise you a daddy, sweetie, but how would you like to take a trip to Santa’s Village?”

A loud crack sounded just as she made her offer to Bella. “What was that?” Kat rushed to the window, searching the power lines, and wondering if they would lose their electricity. That was all she needed. “It sounded like a transformer had exploded.”

“No, Mommy.” Bella bounced up and down in her seat. “That’s the magic sound I that heared before. That means Santa is going to bring me a daddy."


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Friday, October 30, 2020

What Scares Me

It’s Halloween again so I compiled a list of things that scare me. I figured this was a good time.

1.     1.  Movies with cliffhanger endings, because you know damn well it’s going to take at least two years to know what the hell happens next. And that’s if the movie does well and they even come out with the sequel. The same for books. Isn't everyone terrified of this?

2.    2.   Eating the last slice of cake, pie or any other family favorite food. You know damn well if you eat it, someone else is going to complain that it was supposed to have been theirs.


3.    3.   Spending money on car repairs. It never fails that once you put five-hundred-dollars into that old clunker, something else is going to break on it and your shelling out another five bills.

4.     4.  Babies. It’s been so long since I held a baby, I think I might be afraid I’d drop it.

5.     5.  Checking the bank account has been especially scary during these trying times. No one has any money to buy anything, yet the prices on everything has doubled or tripled. Figure that one out.



.     6.  Breaking down on the side of the road scares me because of all the unnecessary violence against innocents.

7.    7.  Spiders. I hate those creepy buggers.

   

8.    8.   Mice. They might be cute in their own creepy little way but they’re nasty little creatures that poop on everything.

9.   9.  It scares me that it appears as though the entire world is losing its sense of humor.

      10. At the risk of sounding like a rant, what really scares me is when someone accuses me of copying an author I've never heard of, who published in 2017 when I released my first book with the same concept in 2012. Now, that scares me.

      11. What scares me the most these days is losing someone to Covid-19. 

       I am trying to be funny in this new and strange, strange world. Please bear with me until I get my usual irreverence back.