The Real Christmas Message. Sharon Kendrick

      Dear Reader,

      One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

      There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

      I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

      So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

      I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

      Love,

      Sharon xxx

      Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

      Comfort and Joy: The Real Christmas Message

      Sharon Wirdnam

      writing as Sharon Wirdnam

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Contents

       Cover

       Dear Reader

       About the Author

       Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I WONDER if he’ll be home in time for Christmas?’

      ‘Who?’ asked Lara absently—she was unloading a last box of water for injections from a large cardboard container.

      Dr Cunningham smiled at her from behind the old-fashioned spectacles he always wore. ‘Why, Nick, of course. You remember Nick, don’t you?’

      Twenty ampoules of H₂O almost hit the deck. Remember him? No woman who had met Nick Cunningham for a tenth of a second would be likely to forget him, she thought. But then of course—she hadn’t been a woman when she’d met him. Just a girl.

      ‘Yes, I remember him,’ she replied. ‘Vaguely.’

      Just who did she think she was kidding? Sometimes she felt that she could have taken an exam on the subject of Nick Cunningham, she remembered him so well!

      It was as bright and as clear as yesterday. . . Christmas Eve, seven years ago. . .

      She had been fifteen. And fat.

      Nick had been years older, of course—almost twenty-four. The whole town knew that he’d recently qualified as a doctor—following in his father’s footsteps. Rumours abounded in small towns, but one of the most enduring that festive season was that Nick Cunningham was coming home for Christmas.

      Every female under forty had held her breath, wondering if he would attend the Christmas Eve dance. Lara could still recall it: the collective sigh like the cooing of a hundred wood pigeons as he’d walked into the hall.

      It had been her first dance and the hall had looked magnificent. The sight of the pink and silver balloons and the garlands of laurel leaves had more than made up for the fact that finding something suitable to wear had proved a Herculean task, and that in the end she’d resembled a pink blancmange. But at least the heavy golden hair had come up trumps as usual, gleaming in a thick curtain to her shoulders. And her mother had allowed her the faintest smear of blue eye-shadow, which made her dancing eyes look impossibly blue.

      And when the paper cloths covering the buffet supper on the trestle tables were removed, there was a murmur of appreciation. What food! Lara moved forward, to pile heaps of chicken drumsticks and sausage rolls and French bread and cheese on to her plate.

      And just at that moment, Nick Cunningham had walked in wearing a dark overcoat, snow sprinkled on to the black hair, and she was unable to touch a morsel.

      She had tried not to stare at him—others were not succeeding quite so well!—but he was hard to miss. He was the tallest man in the room, and the most elegant—and whoever had invented the suit would have been delighted to see it worn by Nick Cunningham.

      He stood talking to his father for most of the time, but their conversation was interrupted time and time again by a constant stream of young women, eager to meet him.

      And then the last dance was announced. Couples began drifting on to the dance-floor. Lara knew that at least four girls refused offers in the hope that he would be the one to ask them. Feeling gloomy, she started to move towards the lemon squash.