The Christmas Gift. Darlene Gardner

      

      “Am I distracting you?” Krista asked.

      “Ya think?” He vowed to keep his eyes on the road, but Alex’s mind was mired in the past. “To set the record straight, I didn’t break things off until after you accepted the job.”

      “You had to realize I wanted to keep seeing you until I moved,” Krista said.

      “What would have been the point?”

      “We were having a good time together.”

      “The good times had to end, sooner or later.”

      “It would have been nice if it was later,” she said.

      Were they really having this conversation? Alex didn’t know any other woman who talked so bluntly. Was that one of the reasons he’d been attracted to her?

      “More time together would have changed nothing,” he said. “You still would have moved to Europe and I still would have stayed here. What’s over is over.”

      “What if it’s not over? What would you say if I propositioned you now?” Krista asked, in the same low voice she once used when they were in bed together.

      Just like that, remembered sensations assailed Alex. The smooth texture of her skin. The fresh smell of her hair. The sweet taste of her kiss.

      Alex focused on another memory as he pulled the truck into the parking lot—the disappointment that Krista was leaving when things between them had barely begun.

      “You won’t proposition me,” he said in an equally soft voice. “You won’t be here long enough.”

      Dear Reader,

      A few winters ago when the back-to-back blizzards that came to be known as Snowmageddon dumped record snowfall on the mid-Atlantic, I was stuck in South Florida.

      I’d spotted a fantastic round-trip airfare and impulsively taken what I thought would be a short trip to visit family and friends. Then the snow hit, wreaking havoc and closing airports. My original return flight was canceled. So were two of my rebooked flights. Instead of staying in Florida for five days, I was there for twelve.

      From that personal experience, the idea for The Christmas Gift was born. In my story, Krista Novak is snowbound in the Pennsylvania hometown she hasn’t visited in eight years. Flights that are repeatedly canceled because of snow force her to come to terms with the pain in her past and the man she left behind.

      I won’t give away the meaning behind the title of the book but I will tell you what my gift was when I was stranded in Florida. While my husband shoveled a total of thirty-seven inches of snow from our driveway and sidewalks, I got to sunbathe at the beach.

      Until next time,

      Darlene Gardner

      P.S. Visit me on the web at www.darlenegardner.com.

      The Christmas Gift

      Darlene Gardner

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      While working as a newspaper sportswriter, Darlene Gardner realized she’d rather make up quotes than rely on an athlete to say something interesting. So she quit her job and concentrated on a fiction career that landed her at Harlequin/Silhouette Books, where she wrote for the Temptation, Duets and Intimate Moments lines before finding a home at Superromance. Please visit Darlene on the web at www.darlenegardner.com.

      To my husband, Kurt,

       for telling me to have fun in Florida

       and not complaining about digging

       out of the Snowpocalypse.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      IF NOT FOR THE CALL from the hospital, nothing could have induced Krista Novak to return to this tiny slice of Pennsylvania she’d left behind eight years ago.

      With eyes gritty from eighteen hours of traveling, Krista stared out the backseat window of the taxi cab at the modest neighborhood of mostly ranch houses.

      Winter had robbed the trees of their leaves and frosted the barren ground and cars parked in the street. From almost every home shone Christmas lights, some hung haphazardly, others arranged in neat, colorful patterns.

      “Which house?” the taxi driver asked, two of the few words he’d spoken since picking up Krista outside baggage claim at the Harrisburg airport. Not that he’d been silent. He’d hummed along to “White Christmas,” “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

      “The tacky place with Santa and his reindeer on the roof and the Christmas animals in the yard,” Krista mumbled.

      She didn’t bother to add he couldn’t miss it. If there were life forms in outer space, they’d be blinded by the blaze from the lighted yard decorations and the tiny multicolored lights that covered every inch of her parents’ house.

      “I love it!” The driver, who was probably in his late sixties, wore a red knit cap similar to the one outlined in lights on the candy-cane cat. “That animated dancing penguin is my favorite!”

      The penguin was new, as were the seals that were tossing a wrapped gift back and forth. Krista had seen most of the other animals many, many times before. Her family had been collecting them for years.

      “Are you kidding me?” Krista asked. “Don’t you think the display is excessive?”

      The driver pulled up to the curb, turned his head and peered at her. In the darkened cab at nearly seven o’clock in the evening, it should have been hard to see his face. The glow from the yard illuminated his widened eyes. “Hell, no! It’s three days before Christmas, lady.”

      Krista felt herself bristle. Not for the first time, she wished she’d thought to call ahead and reserve a rental car. This close to Christmas, none of the rental agencies at the airport had anything available until possibly tomorrow.

      “I’m not as into the season as the rest of my family,” Krista said.

      The decorations had probably gone up the day after Thanksgiving. Yard art, Krista’s grandmother called it. It used to take Krista’s father two full days to create the monument to the season. Krista’s heart clutched. This was somebody else’s handiwork. Since the accident, her father couldn’t so much as string lights.

      Krista banished the harsh reality from her mind. She couldn’t think about her father now, not when her mother was the one who was ill, not even to note that he hadn’t bothered to call and tell her about it.

      She let herself out of the cab and came face-to-beak with a flamingo wearing earmuffs. Swallowing a sigh, she met the driver at the trunk of the taxi.

      “Home for Christmas, eh?” the driver said.

      “Yeah.”