Be My Heartwarming Valentine
Box Set 5 in Heartwarming Christmas Town
Welcome to Christmas Town, Maine!
An abnormally cold and snowy winter wreaked havoc in Christmas Town. Pipes froze, snowy roofs caved in, and even the famed gazebo in the town square was blown over! But the hardest hit was the historic town library, where pipes burst – flooding the main floor and destroying all the books and computers. While insurance helps, it won’t cover everything. Christmas Town’s solution?
Christmas Town to the rescue! Calling all bachelors!
The Knotty Elves decide a Valentine’s Day Bachelor Auction kills two birds with one stone – raising money to save the library while working their matchmaking magic. From a personal chef to the town’s snow plow operator, there’s one thing all these handsome, homespun heroes have in common: they’re about to find love, Christmas Town style.
Here’s an excerpt from Melinda’s contribution to the collection.
Excerpt:
“Lizzie, we need to find Uncle Ted. Don’t get distracted.”
Abigail Lincoln’s eight-year-old daughter nodded solemnly, but they both knew Lizzie was going to get distracted. Heck, Abigail might get distracted, too. She clung to Lizzie’s mittened hand.
They were entering a danger zone, a bachelor auction for charity in Christmas Town. And for some unknown reason, Abigail’s older, married brother Ted was inside and had asked her to meet him here.
Is he bidding on a date for me?
Not likely. There may be bachelors for sale, but services were up for auction this Valentine’s Day, not dates, all proceeds to benefit the library restoration project in Christmas Town.
Abigail pushed herself through the crowd at the back of the seating area, telling herself she didn’t need a man. She’d been doing the single mom thing since Lizzie was born. And dating…That involved telling a guy your secrets. What if things didn’t work out? What if he wasn’t good for Lizzie? Then there’d be some guy in their small town who knew things about her and didn’t like her enough to hang around. Or Abigail hadn’t liked him enough to let him hang around and then…
The crowd closed in. Instinctively, her fingers curled around…
“Lizzie?” Intuition and experience had Abigail pushing through the crowd because the mitten she clutched was missing her daughter’s hand.
She’d slipped away again, the little bugger.
The crowd laughed at something the emcee was saying. Abigail didn’t pay attention. She pushed her way down the aisle toward the front. Back to the stage, she looked high and low. High because Ted was tall. Low because Lizzie was small. And then the words of the emcee sunk in.
“I don’t know. Do we have a minimum age requirement on bidders?”
Abigail whirled around.
Steve Haepner was on the stage wearing a new suit and blushing like a girl. He was a lean, freckled ginger, and had been crushing on Abigail for what seemed like forever. Lizzie loved him and–
Lizzie loves him.
Minimum age requirement.
Oh, no.
“Excuse me.” Abigail slid between bodies like a cool winter breeze, swift and ruthless, heading toward the direction of the auctioneer’s stare. “Excuse me. Beg pardon. Sorry.”
“One hundred smackerels,” Lizzie cried from somewhere nearby.
The crowd roared its approval.
“I have a bid of one hundred smackerels,” the auctioneer said, eliciting more chuckles from the assembled.
Abigail was height challenged and still several feet from the corner of the stage where she’d heard Lizzie’s bid. She had no idea if the exchange rate for smackerels was even with dollars.
A hundred dollars? If no one bid higher, Lizzie was going to be grounded until Easter.
“I don’t care what the rules are,” the auctioneer said. “We’ve got to do this, folks.”
The crowd applauded.
“Going once…Going twice…”
“No. No-no-no-no.” Abigail hit a wall. Five men stood shoulder to shoulder. She edged behind them, continuing to excuse herself for stepping on toes and bumping body parts with blatant disregard for the personal space of others.
“Sold to Lizzie Lincoln for one hundred smackerels.”
“Oh, come on.” Abigail stumbled between two Knotty Elves and finally reached her daughter.
Who grinned the way she did for her picture with Santa every year. “Mom, I got us a date for Valentine’s Day!”
Holy smackerel.
The Story Behind the Story
In the search for something a little bit different, we took a Christmas off and launched this box set the following Valentine’s Day. This was a fun set where the Knotty Elves really took the main stage!
I decided to write a romance between Abigail (the sister of Ted Lincoln in my second Christmas Town romance) and Steve Haepner (employed by Dom Decker in Santa School). I hope you can tell from the excerpt that I had a little fun with it.
Amazon (now in Kindle Unlimited)
Barnes & Noble (print only)
Learn about the next box set HERE.
