Christmas Love Read online

  Christmas Love

  by

  Hazel Gower

  Christmas Love

  Copyright © 2018, Hazel Gower

  ISBN: 9781949300239

  Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.

  Electronic Publication: December 2018

  Editor: Pamela Tyner

  Cover: Sinfully Sweet Designs

  eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Back Cover Copy

  Luna is just starting to get her life back on track. Her deadbeat ex-husband left her in debt, and she’s close to having it all paid back. She just has to stick with working two jobs, leaving her with only a few hours to sleep each night, at least until the new year. She promised herself that she would never let another man in her or her children’s life again.

  When sleep claims Luna, her four-year-old twins leave the house and go over to visit the new neighbor, Derick, who’s a detective. She awakes and panics when she can’t find her children. When she finds them with Derick, instead of waiting for an explanation she verbally attacks him.

  With the rash way she spoke to him, Luna didn’t think she would ever see him again, so she’s shocked when she wakes up in the hospital with Derick sitting vigil. Her cold has gotten the best of her, and the doctor has ordered her to take it easy. That’s difficult to do with two lively children, but Derick comes to her rescue.

  When Derick moved next door to a single mum he never expected to find himself instantly attracted to her. The way he’s introduced to her should have been his first clue to stay away from her. He just can’t stop thinking about her, and he knows that there’s something there between them.

  On his way home from work one night he pulls over someone who is driving slowly and finds Luna looking very unwell. When she becomes sick and then passes out he takes her to the hospital and decides that he’s going to help her.

  The more time Derick spends with Luna, the more he finds himself falling for her. He even comes to love her children. Derick had given up on ever finding his one, and as his feelings grow for Luna he comes to realize she is his one true love.

  With Christmas just around the corner can he convince her to give him the chance to prove she’s his one, his true love?

  Bonus: Includes two short Christmas stories: The Douglas Family and The Wolfen Family from Armageddon Mates.

  Content Warning: contains some sexual content

  Dedication

  To my bestie Lisa Owen. If you ever need help, I’m here. Love you.

  Acknowledgements

  Getting a book out takes a lot of work, so I always need to thank people for their help in getting it ready and out there for all of you.

  A massive thank you and I love you to my husband. He is amazing, he gets up with children and takes to school if I’ve been writing all night even if he’s done a ten-hour work day himself. To my wonderful children, for being second while I focus on books and complete them. I’m so blessed to have you in my life and love you more than words can say.

  Secondly, Jessica Henshall from Sinfully Sweet Designs, thanks so much for the amazing cover.

  A huge shout out to my amazing editor Pamela Tyner. You always make my books shine, I love how patient you are with me and open to my suggestions. I can’t thank you enough.

  To Lisa for listening to me bounce ideas off you and then drone on about my books. I love you, and I appreciate everything you do for me.

  I also want to thank all my readers for their support.

  Lastly, thanks to everyone who helps promote my work. I really appreciate it.

  Author’s Foreword

  This book is set in Australia. In Australia, the legal age to drink, vote, get married, and so on is eighteen. The characters speak English Australian, so if you see the word ‘arse’ instead of ‘ass’ or ‘Mum’ instead of ‘Mom’ it is because that’s how we say it in Australia. If you find a word you haven’t heard before, look it up or message me, I’d be happy to talk to you.

  Chapter 1

  Luna

  Eight hours at her secretarial job and Luna was exhausted. Her day job wasn’t that taxing, but the night job that she worked Thursday through Sunday nights was draining her. Luna didn’t think she could keep on the path she was on, living off so little sleep. Maybe in the new year she could quit one, but right now she needed both. Luna tried to catch up by going to bed early Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night, but with twins it never worked out.

  She fought her lids as they drooped shut and squinted at the road. She was around the corner from her house. Luna’s twins sung to ‘Pink’ she had on to help keep her awake. Luna turned into her street and crawled to her house and parked. The little two-bedroom cottage style house sat between two larger ones. The house to her left had just been bought a little over a month ago. Luna hadn’t seen the person who’d bought it, even when the movers came almost two and half weeks ago.

  Getting out of the car, Luna grabbed her purse and got out her keys and shut the door. She opened the backseat door, leaned in, and undid her son Rex’s and her daughter Layla’s carseat belts, and they climbed out beside her only for them to run to the front door. Shutting the door, she made her way to her kids, put the key in her fly-screen, opened it, and did the same with her door. Shuffling her kids inside, kicking the door shut behind her, she guided her children straight to her lounge room where she turned on the TV and put it on the kid’s channel. Luna paused in front of it for a moment, guilt washing over her at her poor parenting, before she sighed and went to the kitchen and made her two four-year old’s Vegemite sandwiches and each a cup of milk and placed it all on the coffee table.

  “Mummy is just going to lay down for a while on the sofa and have a little rest.”

  “Okay, Mummy,” Rex said before he shoved the sandwiches into his little mouth. She made him two and one and a half for his sister.

  “Yeah, love you, Mummy, we’s be good.” Layla grinned, and Luna smiled at her Vegemite covered face.

  It was five hours before Luna’s mum would come so she could leave for her second job at a popular bar called Right Track. The owner Kevin Right, was a friend of her dad’s, and because of that, he paid her in cash. Thanks to her deadbeat—literally dead, murdered by a loan shark—husband, Josh Brickton, Luna now had huge debt that she was working her arse off to pay so she didn’t have to sell her cottage or her car.

  Luna’s parents offered to give her the money to pay the debt, but she couldn’t let them bail her out. They had helped her with so much already, and she wanted to show them she could make the right decisions and be an adult. She’d already made so many mistakes, the biggest marrying her arsehole husband. Luna should have known Josh wasn’t right for her when her parents didn’t like him.

  Luna’s parents were pretty easy going. They were modern-day hippies. Vegetarians who were dedicated to all-natural products and never anything that could harm animals. Her mother owned a shop that only sold environmentally friendly products, and yes, her mother offered her work at her shop, but Luna enjoyed meat and she saved every penny she had so she bought cheap, which meant a lot of things that her mother didn’t approve of. Luna’s father was a vet, and he worshiped the ground her mother walked on. They both worked hard.

  Scrubbing her face to try and keep her eyes open for another moment, Luna reminded herself that she could do this: five more months and she would be able to give up the bar job and slowly pay off what was owed to t
he bank. Five more months. If Christmas wasn’t so close it would be less, but she needed to buy her babies gifts.

  As Luna sat on the sofa and eased across it to lay, her eyes shut and she knew she wouldn’t be able to last that long.

  * * * *

  Derick

  Derick’s shift had ended and he just wanted to get home. He’d relocated to this precinct years ago for some quiet work, or at least he’d thought it wouldn’t be as busy as his Sydney posting had been. Today, though, had been non-stop since he started his shift, until he finished two hours after he was supposed to. Derick didn’t even stay at work to shower and change into his civilian clothes; he stayed in his uniform. Parking in the driveway, he looked forward to showering and relaxing by doing some gardening.

  Brenda, his ex-wife, hated the hours he worked and said he was too devoted. She always thought he should be able to separate his work life from home life. She’d said he worked too long hours for so little pay and that she wouldn’t have children with him until he could show her that he could take some time apart from his work and focus on them. Three years she stayed with Derick, but she didn’t, couldn’t, wait any longer for him to slow down, and almost six and half years ago she divorced him. Now he’d been informed by old friends that she was happily married to a banker and pregnant with child number two. When he was told Derick was genuinely happy for her. He’d given her the divorce no questions asked. Derick had married Brenda when he was thirty. He thought it was what you did. He’d never been in love with anyone, and he thought it was time he tried.

  The move to what he thought would be a slower work place was brought on by his aunt dying and leaving him an inheritance almost six years ago. His mum was still devastated by her sister’s death. It was another reason why he’d moved precincts, as this one was only half an hour away from his parents. Derick was close to his mum and dad, and they were getting on in age. He’d bought a small apartment and stayed there first, getting to know the town, and invested his money.

  Derick had done well, and the place he’d bought was a two-story four bedroom, plus study, a large living and family room, and three bathroom house, in a quiet neighborhood. The plots were large and had originally had cottages on them and then they’d knocked them down and built big new houses. Well, there was still one cottage, on a smaller land plot.

  The crime rate was low in the area, and when he’d done a search on his neighbors, he discovered they all owned, even the small, out-of-place cottage that sat next to his house. The owner was barely hanging on though. She’d missed a couple of mortgage payments and was paying only interest. Derick shouldn’t have used his work to look into his neighbors, but his curious nature and a need to know who he lived near had him looking into who he’d be surrounded by.

  Since moving in Derick had watched all his neighbors, and they all seemed like great families. The couple of times he’d seen the woman in the little cottage next to him and her children, twins, they’d been rushing to the car and zipping off or coming home and going straight inside. She was beautiful, with jet-black, curly hair that rested at her shoulders and milk chocolate skin. Any time he saw her his heart rate picked up and he had the urge to go and introduce himself.

  As soon as he entered the house, Derick kicked his shoes off and stripped out of his clothes, not caring where they fell. He just wanted to shower. He had the longest shower he was sure he’d ever had and dressed in his comfortable clothes and put on flip-flops. Derick was going to garden. It was what he did to relax.

  Going to his shed out back, he filled his wheelbarrow with the flowers and trees he wanted to plant out front, along with a shovel and compose dirt, and wheeled it out the front where he start his relaxation. He’d been in the yard now long enough to dig holes for his lavender tree when he heard them.

  “Hi, mister. Wes saw you in yous police uniformed. My mummy says wes not to talk to strangers, but we can the police ’cause they are helpers.”

  Derick turned, surprised to see his next-door neighbor’s twins. The boy held the hand of his sister as he spoke to him. They were cute. The little girl had jet-black ringlets, and big brown eyes with thick, long lashes and full, chubby cheeks. Her brother had short, brown, curly hair and the same big brown eyes, but the cheekiest little grin on his adorable face that drew Derick in so much so that he wanted to do anything for the two cuties.

  “Does your mummy know you’re out here?” Derick looked toward the open front door and back to the children. He should go check on their mother.

  They both shook their heads, and then the sweetest voice he’d ever heard slipped out of the little girl. “Can wes diggged too? I plant pretty flowers.” She pointed to the lavender trees and the daisies he had ready to plant.

  Glancing back at the door that was wide open at their house, Derick stood and went closer to them. “I think first we should check to make sure that’s okay with your mum.” He hadn’t seen a man that could be the father around, and from the inquiries into who owned the house it was only the woman, Luna Brickton.

  Their shoulders drooped and their lips quivered and their heads both went down. “Mummy is resting.” The little boy nudged the little girl, and they seemed to have a staring match before he nodded and she continued talking. “Wes promiseses to be real good if you let her sleep. She works a lot.”

  Looking at the two adorable kids, Derick wished for a moment he could give them what they wanted, but he had to check on their mum. She was a single mum by the sound of it, and even her children knew she worked hard. He didn’t want to report the woman, but if he found something that he shouldn’t, he would.

  Derick made his way over to the door and entered their little cottage. The door swung wide straight into the lounge room. A TV sat in one corner, and a coffee table and sofa were the only other things in the room, besides pictures of the small family. On the sofa sleeping was a woman who looked just like her little girl, although her hair was a curly mess of jet-black. She had soft, creamy brown skin, and from what he could see in her clothes a shapely body. He’d seen her from his house going to work in the mornings and thought she was beautiful, but up close she was stunning. Her lips were full and begged to be kissed, and her long, thick lashes had him eager to see what color eyes they framed, but unfortunately you couldn’t miss the big, black bags underneath her eyes.

  “Wes suppose to be watching TV, buts wes saw you in your police clothes and knew we could talks to you ’cause Mummy said we can talks to policemen,” the little boy piped up, and Derick looked to his side, surprised to see how close they were to him.

  Gazing at their mum again, he ran his fingers through his hair and looked around the room. On the coffee table were two plates with bread crusts on them and two cups. The TV was on the kid’s channel. It looked like she’d come home, made them a snack and gave them a drink, and put on the TV and passed out. Derick saw no sign of any abuse of alcohol or drugs, and from what he could tell the children looked healthy. Single mothers worked hard, and this one looked like she was exhausted. He could give her a couple of hours of sleep.

  Turning to the twins, he crouched down to their height. “I’m Derick. What are your names?”

  The little boy puffed his chest up and let go of his sister’s hand. “I’m Rex. This my twin Layla. Wes nots the same, but Mummy says we’re still special even though we’re not identically.”

  “You mean identical,” he corrected Rex.

  “Yeah.” Rex nodded.

  Derick was surprised their mother hadn’t woken to their talking. She must be really exhausted to sleep through this. “Where is your dad?”

  Rex growled, and Layla stomped her foot. “He’s dead. He not nice.” She shook her head frantically, and her curls bounced.

  Derick raised his brow at her abruptness and her statement that her father wasn’t nice. Derick wasn’t around little kids often, but he didn’t think they spoke about people like that, especially their parents. “Oh, okay.” He wasn’t sure what to say after that
.

  He looked down at the sleeping woman and then at Layla and Rex. This woman clearly needed help, and he could look out for these two for a little while. What could it hurt?

  “How about we let your mum sleep and you two come and help me plant my flowers?”

  They both cheered with excitement.

  Derick glanced at the woman again just to check that was she still breathing. Her breath seemed deep and heavy, and as he studied her he decided that when she awoke, he would have a talk with her. He could help her.

  * * * *

  Luna

  Her house was too quiet. Luna’s babies hadn’t woken her. They always woke her, even if it was to tell her they went to the toilet. Shooting up from her laying position on the sofa, she darted her gaze around, searching for her children. When she couldn’t see them, her heart started to beat so fast she felt sick and her stomach rolled. She ran around her small living room and kitchen and back down to their room, crying out their names.

  When she got back to the lounge room she saw the door was open slightly and ran outside screaming their names. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gazed around the street. Luna had shut the door when she’d come inside this afternoon; she was sure of it. She had. She ran over her afternoon, driving home and coming into her house. How did her babies get out?

  Luna ran past her car and that was when she saw them. Her body froze, and for a moment her heart stopped beating as she saw her whole world digging in the dirt with the new neighbor next door. Luna’s heart started beating again, but it felt fast, like it was trying to catch up.

  Zeroing her focus in on them, she marched over to them and exploded. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? How dare you take my children. Rex Johnson Brickton, Layla Roxie Brickton, come here now.”

  They bolted up and came straight to her at the use of their full names. Luna knelt down and hugged them to her, squeezing tight.