Holiday with a Twist Read online

  New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey celebrates the season in this brand-new holiday novella

  After a messy breakup, Leigh Holloway is ready to start her life over. Until her parents put the family home on the market and call her back for one final, memory-making Christmas. The last thing she wants to do is deprive her mom of the perfect holiday, so she’ll lie her way through the visit and worry about her future in the New Year. Too bad the only bar in town is owned by a guy she seriously wronged in high school.

  Leigh’s best friend broke Croy Dawson’s heart, and Croy knows it was Leigh’s fault. They’ve never liked each other, but Croy isn’t cruel: he’d never turn away a pretty woman in need of some family-Christmas fortification. He doesn’t expect her to drink just enough candy-cane martinis to tell him her secrets—and he definitely doesn’t expect to get caught up in her holiday madness.

  Despite the surprising love and laughter, Croy and Leigh can’t escape the truth: he can’t walk away from his family obligations and she has a life and career to reboot. But anything is possible if your holiday comes with a twist...

  This book is approximately 30,000 words

  Edited by Angela James

  One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise! Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise.

  Dear Reader,

  Angela is taking some much-deserved summer vacation time this month, so I am taking over the Dear Reader letter. Hello! It is August as I write this, and I’m looking out over the lake in the heat of summer. November is hard to imagine, but I know that sooner than I expect, it’ll be time to cozy up with a cup of tea and one of our November releases. We have something for everyone this month; enjoy!

  Shannon Stacey’s novellas have become something of a tradition here at Carina Press, and we’re excited to say this year is no different. When a woman returns to her hometown for Christmas, she doesn’t expect to share her troubles with the former friend who owns the only bar in town, or for their rekindled friendship to flare into something more. Kick off the holiday season with Holiday with a Twist!

  Fans of male/male contemporary romance should be sure not to miss Dark & Dazzling, the second installment in Elizabeth Varlet’s Sassy Boyz series. NYPD detective Connelly Reid has been curious about Z, his waiter, for months, but it’s not until he sees him in his makeup and heels that the curiosity becomes a fierce attraction. Z just might be the man he’s been waiting for—but no amount of mind-blowing sex can make Z comfortable becoming dependent on his lover.

  If paranormal shifter romance is your jam, be sure to check out Pursuing the Bear by Kerry Adrienne. With war looming, bear shifter Derek Poole is busy preparing to defend his clan. Until smart and sexy professor Bria Lane shows up, intent on exposing the shifters of Deep Creek. Problem is, she’s his mate...

  To learn about kink, Clara Luz had to learn the ropes—but she never expected to need rescuing. Especially not by Noah Blake, the former navy SEAL who almost destroyed her. But a stranger is watching them from the shadows. And where he’s taking them now is so dark, and so dangerous, that it could be inescapable. To the Edge is a riveting erotic romance from Anna del Mar. If you like this one, don’t miss At the Brink, also available from Anna.

  Last this month is Assassin’s Awakening from N.J. Walters. Logan is an Alpha, a genetic- and computer-enhanced assassin on the path of revenge. Revenge that might rob him of his one chance at finding love with Mercy, a woman who has not only healed his body, but touched his heart.

  And that’s it from me for now! Coming soon, a dark, gripping male/male erotic thriller from Lola Hale, the next Diablo Lake book from Lauren Dane and an exciting new fantasy romance from So You Think You Can Write 2015 winner Lauren D.M. Smith. Angela will be back to tell you all about these books and more next month. Happy reading!

  Stephanie Doig

  Assistant Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  Dedicated with exasperated love to my husband and his watercolor painting of an old red barn.

  Editor’s Note:

  Readers, please be aware that this novella will end at approximately 80 on your digital reading device or app, due to an excerpt following the story.

  Shannon Stacey continues to write amazing novellas each year and I’m thrilled to get the chance to share this story with you. I hope you enjoy Croy and Leigh’s friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance as much as I enjoyed editing it! ~Angela James

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Excerpt

  Also by Shannon Stacey

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  When Leigh Holloway felt the frigid slush seep over the tops of her shoes, she pressed her lips together and inhaled deeply through her nose to keep from letting loose a string of very un-festive profanities.

  Leggings and leather ballerina flats had seemed like a great idea when she was in Houston, facing TSA checkpoints and hours on a plane. But when she stepped off the curb to board the shuttle to Logan’s rental car center in Boston, she realized they might be cute and comfortable, but they had been a really bad idea.

  The joy continued when—thanks to overbooking, an impending storm and a possible system glitch—the four-wheel-drive SUV she’d reserved turned into a compact car with less tread on the tires than her ballet flats had. Usually when she was faced with somebody else’s screwup, Leigh would stand her ground until the error was corrected, but she was so damn tired she accepted the compact and hit the highway feeling like a prop in a monster truck rally.

  Before the hours in airports and on a plane, the day had started with paying some bills in advance of her trip, which made her wince. Her new state of unemployment had been by choice, and she had a nice savings, but she still had to count pennies until she knew what the future held. Since breaking off her engagement with Jason two months before, she’d been living in a studio apartment so small, she could practically hit the coffeemaker’s power button while still in the shower. She’d quit her job because her former fiancé was her boss and, though they’d remained friends, it had been time. Even though he’d seemed as relieved by their relationship ending as she was, seeing each other every day made moving on feel awkward.

  Of course, Leigh admitted to herself as she pulled the little car into her parents’ driveway, that meant she was thirty years and four months old, back in her hometown, and she had no home, no job and no man.

  And she wasn’t going to tell a soul.

  All she had to do was spend the next three weeks pretending everything was just the same as it had been the last time somebody in her family had asked her about her life, and she’d be fine. Once the holidays were over, the house was sold, and her parents were happily ensconced in their condo—something they’d been wanting to do once their daughters were settled—she’d send them an email and cc her sisters. They already had one daughter whose life was falling apart, and the last thing she wanted to do was make them second-guess whether it was the right time to make such a big change.

  As distracted as she was by the way her life was unraveling, Leigh was almost knocked off her feet by the wave of nostalgia that hit her the second she stepped through the front door of the house.

  Ted
and Dianne Holloway had bought the big house that could best be described as a farmhouse, despite the fact it was in a residential neighborhood off the small town’s main street, when their three daughters were still young enough so it was the only home they could remember.

  And now it was being sold. When Leigh had gotten the phone call from her mother telling her they were selling, she’d understood. It was too much house for two people whose kids had all moved out and they’d be able to save money as they turned the corner toward retirement. She’d even allowed her mom to guilt her into taking three weeks of unused vacation time—or so she let her mother believe—her parents knew she’d accumulated to return to New Hampshire and celebrate Christmas while mucking out decades’ worth of family debris.

  But walking into the foyer and not seeing the watercolor painting of the red barn her father loved and her mother hated hanging over the hooks where they’d hung their school backpacks brought unexpected tears to Leigh’s eyes.

  It would hang in the condo, she thought, giving herself a few seconds to center herself. The battle of the red barn watercolor was too integral to the history of the Holloway family for it to end up in a yard sale or donation box.

  Once she’d pushed back the unexpected swell of emotion, Leigh walked down the hall and took a left into the kitchen because there was at least a 70 percent chance her mother would be in there. Not because she loved to cook so much as it was the one room in the house her husband rarely ventured into.

  “Leigh!”

  The craptastic nature of her day couldn’t withstand the warm, comforting scent of Mom that enveloped her and filled her senses. Ivory soap. A powdery fresh-scent deodorant. And a shampoo that smelled vaguely of tropical flowers wafting from her honey-blond (from a bottle), chin-length hair. Dianne Holloway was very much a don’t-fix-what-ain’t-broken kind of person, and Leigh was pretty sure her mom had been using the same health and beauty products for decades.

  “I’m so glad you came home, honey.”

  “Me, too.” And she wasn’t lying, even though the timing couldn’t have been worse and she was going to spend the entire visit trying to avoid questions about pretty much any aspect of her life.

  “Have you seen your father?” her mom asked when the embrace was over.

  “Not yet. Where is he?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I asked you if you’d seen him.”

  “I literally just got here, Mom.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s around here somewhere. And Hope’s here with the baby, of course. They’re staying in her old room until she can get some money from that rat bastard and rent an apartment or a little house of her own.”

  That rat bastard being Hope’s soon-to-be ex-husband, of course. He’d gotten caught messing around one too many times and Leigh’s older sister had finally gotten it through her head her husband wasn’t going to stop cheating. Now she was starting over with a four-month-old baby, which couldn’t be easy.

  “I’m not sure yet when Jenna and her family will come,” her mom continued. “They won’t be staying overnight at all, even though it’s over an hour of driving for them, so you’ll have your room all to yourself.”

  Jenna’s family consisted of her husband of six months, Randy, and his twelve-year-old daughter. Aimee wasn’t thrilled about having a stepmother and wasn’t shy about letting everybody know that, and it hadn’t improved any as of the last time Leigh spoke to her younger sister.

  “Your father might be in the shed out back. For some reason he wants to sort through thirty years’ worth of coffee cans full of junk rather than tossing them.”

  Leigh knew her father was in the shed for the same reason her mom was so often in the kitchen. Their marriage worked best when they had their own spaces to retreat to. “I don’t want to get sucked into sorting rusty nuts and bolts, so I’ll go find Hope and say hi. Dad will come in eventually.”

  Leaving the kitchen, she continued down the hall until it opened into the living room, which thankfully hadn’t been changed yet. The stairs went up to the right and, as she climbed them, she wondered if they’d have trouble selling the house. Open concept floorplans with high ceilings were all the rage, and old farmhouse-style New Englanders were anything but open and airy.

  There were two bedrooms on the front side of the house—the one she’d shared with Jenna, and the one Hope got to herself by right of being the oldest—and then the sole full bath and her parents’ room were on the backside. She shuddered at the memory of five people—three of whom had been teenaged girls for overlapping years—sharing that one bathroom and the half-bath downstairs as she walked by.

  Hope’s door was open, and Leigh could hear her chattering to the baby as she turned the corner. There was also a weird rasping sound and it took her a few seconds to realize it was coming from a tan pug staring at her from the corner of the room.

  “Hope, I think your dog is dying.”

  “Hey, you made it! And he’s fine,” Hope said as she gave her a hug.

  Leigh stared at the dog over her sister’s shoulder, listening to the horrific Darth Vader-like sounds come from its little doggy lungs and sinuses. “Are you sure? He sounds very...moist.”

  “He’s a pug, Leigh. Seriously, he’s fine.”

  She kept staring and the dog stared back at her with eyeballs that looked like overinflated beach balls on the verge of popping. “What’s his name?”

  “Atticus, because Tim is a pompous ass.”

  Leigh thought it might be due to her almost-ex brother-in-law having great taste in literature, but being one hundred percent Team Hope kept her from saying so aloud. It was a lofty name for a wheezing dog that smelled pretty bad, though. “Where’s the red barn? I noticed it was gone.”

  “Dad wrapped it in bubble wrap and then put it in a box, which is riding around in the backseat of his truck so Mom can’t accidentally lose it in the move.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry, but that dog smells really bad.”

  “That’s the baby.” She laughed at what Leigh knew had to be an expression of pure horror on her face before bending over the bed, where the little guy was squirming on his back. “Time for a new diaper, TJ?”

  “I thought you said absolutely none of the cutesy nicknames people use for kids who are juniors, including initials ending in J.”

  Hope pressed her lips together for a few seconds before putting her hands over her son’s ears. “That was before I knew I’d named him after a lying, cheating asshole and that every time I said my sweet little boy’s name, I’d have to be reminded of said lying, cheating asshole.”

  “I don’t know a lot about babies, but I’m pretty sure he’s too young to remember you said that.”

  Hope let go of the baby’s head. “I’m not taking any chances. There are people who claim they remember being in their mothers’ wombs.”

  “There are also people who claim aliens kidnapped them and shoved probes up their—” When Hope made a face as if she’d just seen one of those aliens walk into the house waving a wand, Leigh broke off and glanced at the baby. “Butts.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You said asshole,” Leigh was compelled to point out.

  “I was covering his ears at the time.”

  “When’s the last time Tim saw him?”

  Hope sighed, her mouth tightening. “Three weeks ago.”

  “His choice or yours?”

  “His. Apparently his new girlfriend doesn’t consider herself good with babies.”

  “Good. I mean it’s not good. Tim’s being a shitty father, but at least it’s not you keeping your son from his dad.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I would never use our child as a weapon like that.” Hope paused, and then her mouth twisted in a slightly scary smile. “That’s why I took his dog.”

  Leigh shook her head, and
then had to cover a huge yawn. “What a freaking day this has been. I think it’s time to have a drink and put my feet up.”

  “Unless you mean decaf or lemonade, you’re out of luck. This is a dry house now. And why aren’t you wearing your ring?”

  Leigh froze and then glanced at the bare left hand she’d used to cover her yawn. “I...the center stone was loose, so we had to leave it with the jeweler.”

  It wasn’t totally a lie. The part about the stone was, but they had left it with the jeweler because Jason had sold it back to him two months ago. Her finger had felt naked without it for the first couple of weeks, but she’d gotten used to it and hadn’t given the missing engagement ring a thought before now. Thankfully she’d kept it simple with Hope, so she wouldn’t have any trouble telling her parents the same story.

  “Since when is this a dry house?” she asked, not only to change the subject but because the lack of alcohol was a lot more important to her right now than the lack of a ring.

  “Dad had to lose some weight, so Mom and his doctor got on his case about giving up beer. And you know he loved his beer. So he said Mom had to give up her wine and they both got stubborn about it, so there’s no alcohol allowed in the house at all.”

  “Oh, hell no.” Leigh was not making it through three weeks of keeping secrets from her family without a little liquid fortification at the end of the day. “I’ll go out and find a nice place to relax with a cocktail, then.”

  Hope’s smile was her first warning she wasn’t going to like whatever came out of her sister’s mouth. “The only place in town that has a liquor license is the Center Street Pub.”

  “Okay. I’ll go to the Center Street Pub, which must be new.”

  “It’s been open a few years, but things were so crazy when you came home for Jenna’s wedding, we barely had time to breathe, never mind go out for drinks.” Hope’s smile turned into a grin. “The Dawson family opened it in that big old house of theirs.”