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    Twelve Dances
    Twelve Dances
    Twelve Dances
    Ebook55 pages49 minutes

    Twelve Dances

    By Frances Pauli

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    About this ebook

    When Clara adds a brand new nutcracker to her favorite Christmas collection, she immediately starts having vivid, recurring dreams about her twelve wooden princes. As the holiday nears, her infatuation with the new nutcracker grows into a flirtation that sets the rest of the little soldiers against her. Dancing through an impossibly real battle in her sleep and dodging her infuriating family during the day, Clara’s holidays take a spin toward disaster. If she can survive both and make it to Christmas Eve in one piece, will Clara get to dance with the one prince she actually wants? And even if she does, what happens when the holiday passes and the nutcrackers are packed away for another year?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublishereXtasy Books Inc
    Release dateFeb 15, 2012
    ISBN9781771110495
    Twelve Dances
    Author

    Frances Pauli

    Frances Pauli is a hybrid author of over twenty novels. She favors speculative fiction, romance, and anthropomorphic fiction and is not a fan of genre boxes. Frances lives in Washington state with her family, four dogs, two cats and a variety of tarantulas.

    Read more from Frances Pauli

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      Book preview

      Twelve Dances - Frances Pauli

      When Clara adds a brand new nutcracker to her favorite Christmas collection, she immediately starts having vivid, recurring dreams about her twelve wooden princes. As the holiday nears, her infatuation with the new nutcracker grows into a flirtation that sets the rest of the little soldiers against her. Dancing through an impossibly real battle in her sleep and dodging her infuriating family during the day, Clara’s holidays take a spin toward disaster. If she can survive both and make it to Christmas Eve in one piece, will Clara get to dance with the one prince she actually wants? And even if she does, what happens when the holiday passes and the nutcrackers are packed away for another year?

      The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

      Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Twelve Dances

      Copyright © 2011 Frances Pauli

      ISBN: 978-1-77111-049-5

      Cover art by Martine Jardin

      All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

      Published by Devine Destinies

      An imprint of eXtasy Books

      Look for us online at:

      www.devinedestinies.com

      Smashwords Edition

      Twelve Dances

      By

      Frances Pauli

      Chapter One

      Clara heard her phone ringing through the apartment door. She shifted her purse to the front and dug for keys that had a way of drifting to the bottom of her personal detritus. Somehow all the junk inside the leather bag had seemed indispensible the last time she’d sorted it. Now she cursed the lot and dug deeper, felt the keys dodge her fingers as the phone rang a second time.

      Damn it. Her other arm clutched a wrapped parcel. She tucked it in closer and listened to the phone trill. Aha! She pulled the keys free and went to work on the door, pushed it open with her hip and slid into her studio apartment.

      She dumped her purse to the floor and kicked the door shut. Cradling the parcel to her chest, she vaulted her yoga ball, slid the three steps to her kitchenette and banged into the wall beside the telephone. Clara steadied her grip on the package, then used one hand to pick up and tuck the receiver between her chin and shoulder.

      Hello?

      Claire? Are you okay? Her sister, Beth, no doubt checking up on her holiday plans.

      Fine, why? Clara scrambled for some reason she’d be busy on Christmas Eve—a work party, a meeting, a date. Which was her sister more likely to believe?

      You’re all out of breath. Were you working out?

      Yeah. No. I went shopping on the way home. Shit. She was out of breath. Clara inhaled and tried to center. She crossed to her tiny kitchen table and laid the parcel gently in the middle of the Formica. The sales girl had insisted on wrapping it, and Clara had let her just for fun. Now she pulled out a chair, knelt on it and began opening her Christmas gift to herself.

      Huh. I suppose the malls are nuts already?

      Yeah, it’s a zoo out there. Clara untied the thin ribbon and went to work on the paper, stamped in a diagonal pattern with the boutique logo.

      Twelve shopping days left and all.

      Really? Only twelve? She popped the triangle fold on one end and carefully slid the long box out

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