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    Bah, Humbug! (A Romantic Comedy Christmas Novella)
    Bah, Humbug! (A Romantic Comedy Christmas Novella)
    Bah, Humbug! (A Romantic Comedy Christmas Novella)
    Ebook117 pages1 hour

    Bah, Humbug! (A Romantic Comedy Christmas Novella)

    By Heather Horrocks

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    About this ebook

    Lexi Anderson is an up-and-coming, Martha Stewart-type TV hostess whose two kids love the Jared Strong adventure novels, which happen to be written by their new neighbor, Kyle Miller.

    For the first time in his writing career, Kyle has writer’s block--until he sees the snowman on his lawn and he realizes this is the perfect place for his villain to hide the weapon. He digs into the snowman to discover two things: the weapon fits in the body just under the head, and the snowman was supposed to be the back drop for Lexi’s next show.
    From this improbable beginning comes friendship. Can there be more for a woman who is afraid to get close again and a man who has shadows from his childhood?

    Families join together and hearts are healed as this couple goes walking in a winter wonderland.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHeather Horrocks
    Release dateOct 19, 2011
    ISBN9780974809892
    Bah, Humbug! (A Romantic Comedy Christmas Novella)

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      Book preview

      Bah, Humbug! (A Romantic Comedy Christmas Novella) - Heather Horrocks

      BAH, HUMBUG!

      A Romantic Comedy Novella

      By Heather Horrocks

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      www.Smashwords.com

      PUBLISHED BY

      Word Garden Press

      BAH, HUMBUG! © 2011 Heather Horrocks

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

      Cover Art © 2011 www.istockphoto.com / TwentyFourWorks

      Formatted by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

      For previews of upcoming books by Heather Horrocks, to sign up for New Releases email, or for more information about the author, visit www.BooksByHeatherHorrocks.com.

      DEDICATION

      To my mother Loya and my mother-in-law Betty, who knew how to create family. I'm so glad I was part of your loving circles.

      And to Mark. I'm eternally grateful to be inside yours.

      CONTENTS

      Book Description - Bah Humbug!

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Thank You!

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Books by Heather Horrocks

      Excerpt from While You Were Stranded (the first Chick Flick Clique romantic comedy

      Excerpt from The Christmas Star by Diane Darcy

      Book Description -- Bah, Humbug!

      Lexi Anderson is an up-and-coming, Martha Stewart-type TV hostess whose two kids love the Jared Strong adventure novels, which happen to be written by their new neighbor, Kyle Miller.

      For the first time in his writing career, Kyle has writer’s block--until he sees the snowman on his lawn and he realizes this is the perfect place for his villain to hide the weapon. He digs into the snowman to discover two things: the weapon fits in the body just under the head, and the snowman was supposed to be the back drop for Lexi’s next show.

      From this improbable beginning comes friendship. Can there be more for a woman who is afraid to get close again and a man who has shadows from his childhood?

      Families join together and hearts are healed as this couple goes walking in a winter wonderland.

      Chapter One

      SEVEN DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

      Satisfied, Jared Strong watched the police haul off another crook to jail--another crook he had uncovered. He nodded to Melinda and said, I knew it was old Mr. Sellers all the time.

      Leaning against the headboard of her bed, Lexi Anderson sighed and shut the book. "We did it. We reread the third Jared Strong book, just in time to buy the new one when it comes out Tuesday."

      Her two pajama-clad children leaned into her, one of each side.

      Steven said, I think it’s so cool how Jared always knows who the bad guys are.

      That’s because you’re nine. When you’re as old as I am, you’ll like Melinda better, said Trista, from her ripe old age of eleven, referring to Jared’s best friend and co-detective.

      I don’t care what you say. I want to be a detective when I grow up. Just like Jared. And Steven snuggled back into Lexi’s side and hugged her arm. Read the last chapter again, okay?

      Okay. She smiled as Trista tried to feign indifference.

      As she reread the ending, she was filled with a sense of contentment. She was reading her childrens’ favorite book in their beautiful new home.

      Things hadn’t always gone so smoothly. She’d had some hard knocks. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was seventeen. She’d married her boyfriend in what she now realized had been a desperate attempt to create a family around her.

      Unfortunately, on his twenty-fifth birthday, her husband decided family wasn’t what he wanted, and had taken off to experience life. Neither she nor the kids had heard from him since then.

      She avoided relationships because she wasn’t about to lose someone else she cared about. And she supposed she was overprotective of her children, but they didn’t seem to mind.

      Since the divorce, she’d been forced to fight her way up from the bottom of both the financial and emotional heap. And now, well, they were doing all right. She had been called a younger, fresher version of Martha Stewart. She’d just signed a lucrative five-year contract to continue hosting her one-year-old national television show. She and the kids had more money than they could have ever imagined. Enough money that she’d been able to buy this house, their first, which nestled on a lovely lane with maple trees shaking hands above the street.

      At first she’d worried about making the move from San Diego to Salt Lake City. But everything seemed perfect here. The way the kids raced through the house laughing and loving it just as much as she did. The way they all seemed to fit into this home as if they’d lived here forever.

      She hoped they’d fit into the neighborhood and school, as well. The neighbors seemed friendly enough. When the moving truck pulled up yesterday morning, six neighbor guys had shown up and helped unload the truck.

      There were still two bedrooms filled with boxes, but the rest of the house was unpacked and decorated for the holidays.

      The house and neighborhood were perfect. Through the windows, she could see cars driving by, their lights dimmed by drivers wanting to see the decorations on what was known as Christmas Street.

      Besides, the kids were excited because the Jared Strong author, Kyle Miller, lived somewhere in the Salt Lake area. Of course, that area covered small entangled towns from Bountiful down to the Point of the Mountain, so the odds of running into him were minute. But the chance of going to a local book signing had still been an attraction.

      Best of all, this year the kids seemed to be doing better than ever in school. And the three of them had settled into a nice routine. They didn’t need anything or anyone else in their lives. They had each other and that was enough.

      Next Friday, they were going to splurge, attend the book signing at Fashion Place Mall, buy the fourth book in the Kyle Miller series, Jared Strong and the Mystery of the Haunted House on Walnut Grove, and get Kyle Miller, himself, to autograph it.

      As she closed the book a second time and looked down at her children, she decided she didn’t want anything in her life to change. Life was perfect, just the way it was. Safe, secure, single...and happy.

      If only she weren’t so nervous about starting over, this moment might seem perfect.

      Chapter Two

      SIX DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

      Jared stepped forward, taking care not to awaken the guard. He had to get to the bottom of this mystery, and he couldn’t do it without finding the...

      What? What did Jared need to find?

      And why was Kyle battling such a monstrous block on this plot? He’d tried a gazillion things so far. None of them had worked. And he wasn’t sure what

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