The Christmas Strike. Nikki Rivers

      This was insane, I thought.

      Sitting in a cold car—a rusty station wagon, no less—listening to songs from my high school years with the same yearning in my heart that I’d felt then. “Abby,” I whispered into the icy air, “you picked a great time to have a midlife crisis.”

      I drove home, hauled the packages into the house and went into the living room.

      Natalie looked up from her magazine. “Ma, the kids keep asking me when you’re going to decorate for Christmas. As their grandmother, and since it is your house, it’s your responsibility.”

      You know that saying “I saw red”? Well, it’s true. I saw red. And we’re not talking twinkling lights here.

      I remembered a story I’d heard. If a man could go on strike against his wife for lack of affection, why couldn’t a woman go on strike against her family for lack of cooperation?

      “As of this moment, all of you are on your own. I. Am. On. Strike.”

      Nikki Rivers

      When she was twelve years old, Nikki Rivers knew she wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately, due to many forks in the road of life, she didn’t start writing seriously until several decades later. She considers herself an observer in life, and often warns family and friends that anything they say or do could end up on the pages of a novel. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband—and best friend—Ron, and her feisty cairn terrier, Sir Hairy Scruffles. Her daughter Jennifer—friend, critic, shopping accomplice and constant source of grist for the mill—lives just down the street.

      Nikki loves to hear from her readers. E-mail her at [email protected].

      The Christmas Strike

      Nikki Rivers

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      From the Author

      Dear Reader,

      Ah, the holidays. Don’t you just love them? I do. Really. At the first sign of winter I’m all set to jingle the bells and put out the gumdrop tree I inherited from my grandmother. But who among us, if we’re totally honest, hasn’t at one time or another thought of chucking it all in. Let someone else hang the tinsel and wrap the presents for a change!

      One of the pleasures of being a writer is that you get to create people who do the things you only occasionally dream about. Abby Blake is just such a character. She is an everywoman who discovers that her dreams haven’t yet completely died. I hope how Abby sets out to reclaim herself and accidentally winds up in Paris will make you laugh during even the worst of the holiday chaos.

      But this Christmas, I also wanted to bring you the kind of hero who is a guilty pleasure for us all. The alpha male. Cole Hudson—and Paris—are my Christmas gifts to you!

      Happy holidays to you all, and may you all soar in the New Year! After all, if you hang on to your dreams, anything is possible.

      Nikki Rivers

      This book is dedicated to my mother, Shirley Olsen,

       who always knew how to make the holidays special—no matter what.

      I’d also like to thank Dane Jenning, president of

       Tandava Aviation, who was so generous in sharing his time and his expertise in private aviation for the research for this book.

      And a special thanks to my sister, Judy, for teaching

       me the right way to do tequila shots!

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      CHAPTER 7

      CHAPTER 8

      CHAPTER 9

      CHAPTER 10

      CHAPTER 11

      CHAPTER 12

      CHAPTER 1

      I pulled up the hood of my baby-blue parka as I hurried down Main Street on my way to Dempsey’s Diner. It was unseasonably cold even for a waning December afternoon in Willow Creek, Wisconsin. The weatherman on the radio that morning had forecast snow. The steely sky above me and the wetness of the wind on my face made me think he’d gotten it right for a change. I waved at Ivan Mueller as I passed Mueller the Jeweler. While hanging a Christmas wreath in the window, he paused long enough to wave back. The entire downtown—all two blocks of it—was decked out for the holiday, which was only two weeks away. My own Christmas spirit was woefully lacking this year, making me almost resent the festive candy cane wreath on the door at the diner.

      Just as I reached for the knob on the diner’s front door, it was pushed open from inside, nearly knocking me off my feet. A gaggle of teenagers spilled onto the sidewalk, laughing and hooting. I smiled slightly at their antics. I’d been young once myself—I think.

      They hadn’t bothered to hold the door for me, so I pulled it open and went inside. The aroma of freshly brewing coffee and frying donuts embraced me right down to my chilled bones.

      “Will you look at this?” Joanne Dempsey demanded as she shook her head at the mound of salt on the counter in front of her. “I bet those rotten kids that were just in here loosened every damned salt shaker in the place.”

      I shook my head. “Remember when we used to do that?”

      “If that’s your polite way of telling me that paybacks are a bitch, forget it. It is not lost on me that I am now the Old Mrs. Dempsey down at the diner that the kids from junior high get to harass for the price of a Coke.”

      I slid into one of the booths by the window and shrugged out of my parka. “Trust me, you’re nothing like your mother-in-law was.”

      “Maybe not to you, since you’re now a middle-aged curmudgeon, too. But to those young hoodlums—”

      “You know,” I interrupted, “using those kinds of words isn’t helping the image.”

      “What kinds of words?” Iris Johnson asked as she entered the diner along with a burst of arctic air. “I hope I didn’t miss anything vulgar,” she said as she teetered over to the booth on four-inch heeled boots.

      “Jo just called me a middle-aged curmudgeon,” I told her.

      Iris, glaring at Jo, slipped off her full-length white fake fur, revealing tight black leather jeans and a gold metallic ruffled shirt, and tossed the coat toward the empty booth nearby. “Fifty-two is not middle-aged,” she emphatically insisted as she sat down across from me. “And what the hell is a curmudgeon? It sounds like something from The Wizard of Oz.”

      “Those are Munchkins,” I corrected. Iris never had any kids.

      “My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace,” Jo explained, “was a curmudgeon.”

      Iris shrugged. “If you mean old bitch, say old bitch.” She lit a cigarette and we both glared at her. She, as usual, ignored us. “It’s true that you can be bitchy, Jo, honey, but you’re certainly not an old bitch. We are,” she said before pausing to blow smoke toward the hammered tin ceiling, “the same age.”

      “Thank you,” Jo said.

      “She’s upset because some kids loosened the tops