Love Comes to Christmas (Christmas Stocking Sweethearts #7)
ISBN: 979-8-9912249-3-2
December 4, 2024
Joy and dreams are fleeting at best, but will a Christmas miracle happen in time?
A haunted Christmas shop? Sudden, mysterious occurrences in Gillian Everly’s beloved Christmas store keep her unsettled, still she doesn’t buy into ghosts and spirits. An intruder has to be getting in yet she keeps her doors locked. With a big Christmas Eve performance planned, she doesn’t have time for shenanigans.
Brett Love, a new customer, is taken by the beautiful shop owner and tries to help. He loans her a dog to keep her safe against whatever is happening in the shop. It seems the perfect solution.
The unthinkable happens when Gillian confronts the intruder, and she’s left with a maimed hand. Will she ever be able to perform again? Watching another dream die will shatter her fragile hope.
EXCERPT
Gillian Everly woke on Monday morning to the tinny tinkle of a Christmas tune mysteriously coming from her downstairs shop. Could it be coming from outside? She listened intently. No, it wasn’t outside her shop that was aptly named the Christmas Store. Whatever could it be? A burglar?
Tendrils of fear skittered through her as she sat up. She needed a weapon. Every terrible report she’d ever heard of shop owners being hurt or injured during a robbery crossed her mind. Even worse, the living quarters had no door. The stairs led straight into her three-room apartment. One day she’d get a door put on but until now, it hadn’t seemed to matter.
Nervous apprehension spurred her to action. She threw back the covers and quickly pulled a heavy shawl around her shoulders, then fumbled in the dim light for a parasol beside the door. Hitting the switch of the new gas lighting, she limped to the stairs and peered down into the murky interior. Now that she was more awake, she could tell it was a dancing ballerina music box, and the song was a favorite of hers, Love Came Down at Christmas.
Would a burglar stop to play music before he left the shop? She tightened her grip on the parasol and held it high. If they thought she’d be an easy target due to the fact she limped, she’d set them straight. She’d had her share of trials ever since the childhood accident that left one leg shorter than the other and had become tough after realizing she wouldn’t be a burden on others.
When she turned the switch at the top of the stairs, light flooded the shop. The music continued.
“Hello! Is anyone in here?” she called. “Hello.”
When only silence greeted her, she cautiously proceeded down the stairs. As soon as she reached the bottom, the music stopped.
“Well, good heavens!” Was someone messing with her?
A crash came as something fell to the floor, shattering. Then her parasol flew open, blinding her. She fought with the thing and finally flung it aside. Irritation replaced the fear she’d first felt. If someone was in there, they’d best move on because she wasn’t putting up with such goings on. She’d worked too hard and too long getting a shop like hers that carried everything pertaining to Christmas.
Gillian blew strands of hair from her face, then marched toward the shattered red glass of a favorite ornament on the floor. She knelt to pick up the larger pieces, cradling them. The beautiful nativity scene painted on fragile red glass was something she’d fallen in love with right away when she’d received it in a recent order. The retailer claimed the one of a kind had arrived from France.
Quickly cleaning up the little glass fragments, she moved to the music box that played Love Came Down at Christmas and inspected it. Everything was as it should be. The lid was shut. Opening it, the first notes began to play, everything perfectly normal.
The train display on a table lay on its side, the cars in a tangled mess. She patiently fixed it back right, relieved that it still worked.
While she pondered the strange occurrence, the first rays of light pierced the windows. She had to open soon. With only two weeks until Christmas, she might get a lot of shoppers, so she couldn’t dawdle. Quickly checking every inch of the shop with cheery red and green bows and ribbon everywhere, she thrust the broken parasol beside the small trash and hurried back up to her living quarters.