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  A Kiss at Christmas

  The Royal Palm Resort

  Meg Easton

  A Kiss at Christmas

  Copyright © 2019 by Meg Easton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction and names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, incidents, and places is coincidental.

  Cover Design by Steven Novak

  Interior Design by Mountain Heights Publishing

  Author website: www.megeaston.com

  For my son, Cory

  Contents

  FREE BOOK

  A KISS AT CHRISTMAS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  NESTLED HOLLOW ROMANCE BOOK 1

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  A KISS AT CHRISTMAS

  The Royal Palm Resort

  By Meg Easton

  Chapter One

  Kelli Ellis pulled into Building C’s parking lot and saw over the piles of freshly plowed snow that her favorite spot was available.

  “Yes!” she shouted to her empty car, “I got here first!” She immediately looked around, sure Parker Brockbank from Trade Shows was already in the lot, ready to steal it from her. But there wasn’t anyone else.

  Then, just as she was almost to it, Parker drove in from the opening at the other end of the lot and pulled into her parking spot. The spot that so perfectly had the boughs of a big Ponderosa Pine sticking straight out above it, completely shading the entire parking space in the summer and keeping the snow off her car in the winter.

  She shook a fist at Parker’s car, pretty sure he was currently chuckling at having snuck in and grabbed the space when she was so close, then she went to her second choice spot—C15, which wasn’t anything special at all. She looked up just in time to see Parker as he strode down the sidewalk toward the building, looking infuriatingly perfect in his slacks, overcoat, and perfectly imperfect hair.

  After grabbing her bag and exiting the car, she checked, and yep—she was perfectly spaced between both the painted lines and perfectly straight. Unlike Parker’s parking job, which left his car a good six inches closer to the line at the front than it was at the back. “Thanks, Patrice,” she said, then kissed her fingers and pressed them on the hood of the car as she passed the front.

  She had woken up still in a sour mood from the bomb her dad had dropped on her when he and his new wife had stopped by her house last night. But she was determined not to let that, or Parker stealing her parking spot, ruin her day. She had put on her favorite pair of heels, a pink blousy top, a navy skirt, and her compliment necklace—the one that never failed to get her compliments.

  She pushed away the negative thoughts, purposely put a spring in her step, and reminded herself how much she loved her job as she used her keycard to open the front door of the ZentCube offices. After taking the stairs to the second floor, which housed all of the marketing department, she sat at her desk, spun around in the chair once, and pretended she had actually been the first into the office.

  It wasn’t easy being the first—or the second—person in the office, but it was worth it. Her constant goal was to be the perfect employee, so getting in early was important. It’s when she came up with her best ideas, so when she sat in marketing meetings, she didn’t have to rely on something coming to mind on the fly—she had ideas, plans, and proposals waiting in the wings. So she blew the adorable little Christmas tree on her desk a kiss for good luck, straightened her papers and pens on her desk and made sure her keyboard was perfectly straight, then got to work.

  She was just putting the finishing touches on her ideas for their new advertising campaign at eight forty when the first of her coworkers stepped foot on the second floor. A few minutes later, she went into the break room to grab a cup of coffee. She had just taken one step out of the break room when she heard Parker’s boss say to him, “Two o’clock on Wednesday works for Adrian, and I’m guessing it will for the others. Will you see if you can get the conference room scheduled?”

  Kelli ducked behind someone’s cubicle wall and pulled out her phone. She opened her email and quickly typed an email to Greg, asking if she could schedule the conference room for two on Wednesday, then sent the email before Parker and his boss even finished talking. She chuckled all the way back to her desk. Payback for stealing her parking space.

  Valeria, her normally on-time coworker and best friend, didn’t arrive until ten after nine. She blew into their team’s quadrant like a snowstorm, bringing in a rush of air and a flurry of excitement with her.

  “Good morning, Sunshine,” Kelli said. “You’re rather happy today.”

  Valeria collapsed into her chair at the desk kitty corner with Kelli’s with a sigh. “It was a really good morning. I thought I was going to be here early, but then Rhett—”

  Kelli slapped her hands over her ears. “La la la! What’s the rule about being late?” She took her hands off her ears when it was clear Valeria wasn’t going to finish her sentence.

  Her friend let out a huff of air. “That I can’t tell you why if it involves something Rhett and I did until we’ve been married for at least six months. Preferably twelve.” She grabbed the poofy fluff ball that they usually tossed back and forth when they were brainstorming and threw it at Kelli. “I’ll tell you what the real solution is, though—Oh. You didn’t have so great of a morning, did you?”

  “Parker Brockbank in Trade Shows stole my spot, so that wasn’t great.” Kelli threw the poof ball back and turned to her computer. “But I came up with some great ad copy for the Business Success magazine campaign.” Her boss, Liz, was sure to be impressed. Kelli didn’t need promotions, the corner office, or a fancy title. What she did need was for her boss, Liz, to be impressed. To see her as a valuable member of the team.

  “Oh yay!” Kelli said when she saw that she’d gotten a response from Greg. “I heard that Parker wanted the conference room tomorrow at two, so I emailed Greg right then and it looks like I got it.” She grinned. “He even said, ‘You emailed just in time, too. Someone requested it less than a minute after you did.’”

  Valeria laughed and gave her a high five. “That’s my girl.” But she’d been studying Kelli the whole time she’d been talking. “Okay, today’s good. It was last night, then, that was bad.”

  “How do you always know?”

  Valeria smiled and threw the poof back to her. “Now, see, if I say what your tell is, then you’ll stop doing it. Last night. Spill.”

  “My dad came over.�
��

  “Oh, good! I know you’ve been feeling like you haven’t seen him enough lately.” Then her face dropped. “Oh. He brought the evil stepmother with him.”

  “JoAnn isn’t evil. She’s just...” Kelli wanted to end the sentence with, “a thief who stole my dad,” but she was trying to be an adult about this. “She just wants to work on blending the newly combined family.”

  “A family that she doesn’t want you to be a part of.”

  Kelli nodded and didn’t let herself think of it fully. She wasn’t about to let the door open on that much pain—no one needed to know how much that hurt her. Not even Valeria.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, my dad texted to ask if he could bring me over a couple of eclairs from Petrocelli’s. I should’ve known right then and there that he was buttering me up. He didn’t tell me that he was bringing JoAnn with him—that was a surprise I got to enjoy when I opened the door, threw my arms around my dad’s neck, and saw her standing there.

  “So they come in and sit down in my living room and my dad awkwardly hands me the pastry box. Then he and JoAnn look at each other, and I can see that my dad is nervous, but JoAnn gives him an encouraging smile. So he starts talking about how this is the first Christmas they are celebrating since getting married and about how difficult it is to bring two separate families into one and all that. So they decided that for Christmas, it might be best to do that in isolation and get away to have some bonding time.”

  “So...” Valeria said, “he wants you to go hang out with him and JoAnn and your three new stepsisters over Christmas at some secluded cabin in the mountains? Like with no escape?”

  “Honest to goodness, that’s right where my mind went, too. And I was wondering if I could possibly get along with three teenagers who want nothing to do with me and want every second of my dad’s attention. But no. No cabin in the mountains—a beach resort in Cabo San Lucas. And when he said that they needed to bring two separate families together for bonding, they meant my dad and JoAnn’s daughters.”

  “They didn’t invite you?” Valeria’s voice was every bit as incredulous as Kelli needed it to be. It was one of the reasons why she made the best friend ever.

  “Nope. My dad tried to sell it by saying how awesome it would be for me to celebrate Christmas with him early, and to have some one-on-one time. And how much more special it would be to spend all day with him on the twenty-first instead of the entire week of Christmas, because the twenty-first happens first. And how great it will be for me to be free to do whatever I wanted over Christmas break instead of being tied down by family things.”

  “Please tell me you told him what you really think of that.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Val? Tell him to cancel the trip?”

  “Or tell him to invite you. And to remember that you are every bit as much a part of the family as JoAnn’s daughters are.”

  Kelli shook her head. “It was just me and my dad against the world since I was in eighth grade. I got to hang out with my dad more than most people do. JoAnn’s girls are in junior high and high school. They’ve been without a dad for a few years, and they’re desperate for time with mine. Maybe I should just give him up. I mean, I’m twenty-six years old. I shouldn’t need to see my daddy all the time anymore.”

  She didn’t even consider mentioning to Val how it felt like she had lost the only family she had when her dad got remarried, but she could tell by the look on Valeria’s face that she knew it without Kelli saying.

  “I know! Come spend Christmas with me and Rhett. Spend the week, even. We can pretend we’re twelve and having a sleepover.”

  “In your teeny apartment.”

  “You can sleep on the couch. Or we’ll put an air mattress in that space between the tree and the kitchen.”

  “Most people call that space a ‘hallway.’”

  “It’ll be cozy.”

  “Valeria. I appreciate the offer. You know I do. But this is your first Christmas as a newly married couple. I don’t want to ruin that for you.”

  “It’ll be fun!”

  “Remember how I didn’t want to hear about your morning with Rhett?”

  “Yeah...On second thought, you really don’t want to be around us at Christmas.”

  At the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat, Kelli and Valeria spun in their chairs to see Liz.

  “Sorry to interrupt your sleepover plans, but Kelli, do you have the mock-ups for the print ads?”

  Of course Liz had to stop by when she was socializing instead of during any of the time she had been working diligently already today. She turned back to her desk and grabbed the folder that had been leaning against her binders, revealing an upside-down white paper cup that had a picture of a spider drawn on it with the words Don’t lift until you’re ready to squash it!

  Kelli screamed and shoved away from her desk, her chair rolling backwards until it hit something, then she jumped out of her chair to get more space between it and her.

  “I’ve been sitting next to that thing for more than two hours?!”

  Her heart was racing and her breaths were coming out in pants and probably everyone on the second floor had heard her scream, but right now, she didn’t care. All she cared was that there was a spider that had been crawling around who knows how much of her desk before someone trapped it with that cup, and it had been probably pacing with those spindly legs around that little circle of space on her desk the whole time she’d been working.

  And now, all she could think about was how that little stealthy, moving, vial of poison with its shiny or hairy—either was gross—abdomen, and its eight beady eyes were right there in that cup, just waiting for its chance to escape and come after her. “Someone kill it!” Her hand was on her chest, like she could manually stop her heart from beating so fast and hard.

  “Don’t worry,” Valeria said, “I’ve got you.” She grabbed a notepad and held it level with Kelli’s desk right at the edge, then slid the cup onto the notepad. Then she flipped it over and, in a move that made Kelli’s heart shudder, Valeria lifted the notepad off and looked inside the cup. She put the hand holding the notepad on her hip and tipped the cup toward Kelli. “There’s nothing in it.”

  Kelli’s first thought was that it had escaped and could possibly be on her, but in a flash she knew there had never been a spider. This was a prank. She looked out over the top of her cubicle to the crowd of people that had gathered to see what her scream was about and saw Parker Brockbank giving a sly smile big enough to bring out that adorable dimple in his right cheek, a mischievous gleam in his eye. At least he had the decency to look contrite before ducking away.

  “If you’re ever having a sluggish morning where coffee isn’t doing the trick,” Kelli said to all her coworkers gathered around her cubicle, “and you need a good old-fashioned scream to get the heart pumping, you know where to find me.”

  They all chuckled as they headed back to their own desks, then Kelli turned to Liz. “I apologize. I might have a slight fear of spiders. Um, here are the mock-ups. Let me know what changes you’d like, or if you want to meet to discuss.” She tried to make her voice extra professional to combat the dose of un-professionalism she had just shown.

  “Thank you. I will.”

  She thought she caught a slight smile on Liz’s face as she was walking away. Great. That’s all she wanted—to be the office entertainment.

  After pushing her chair back to the vicinity of her desk, she took a moment to shoot a glare the direction of Parker Brockbank’s desk, even though she couldn’t actually see it from hers. Then she sat down and faced her computer, re-straightening everything, then bringing up her email. “Are you free at one tomorrow?”

  “Of course!” Valeria said. “What do you have in mind?”

  Kelli started typing the message. “I’m emailing Greg to let him know that I need the conference room at one instead of two, so whoever wanted it at two can have it.”

  “And what are
we doing in there at one?”

  “We are spending the hour blowing up balloons and filling the conference room as full of them as we can. Unless...” She turned in her chair to face Valeria. “Do you think Parker has a phobia? Like, of snakes? Maybe we can fill it with plastic snakes instead.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m in.”

  That’s what she loved about Valeria. She gave her support, even when it meant helping with a prank, and she had fun with every bit of it.

  But Kelli wasn’t doing this for fun—she was doing it to get even.

  Chapter Two

  Parker had been running behind all day. His days usually consisted of him having to talk to person after person—on his team, in his department, in other parts of the company, and on phone calls outside of the company. So the only time he could get any good planning and researching in was if he came in at seven, before everyone else got in.

  But this morning before he left for work, his buddy Josh, who was the marketing director at a business training company, had called. He said that they were looking for a brand marketing manager, and they wanted him. Parker hadn’t even been looking for another job—especially after Stephanie had pulled the rug out from under him and made him second guess how capable he was at making valuable contributions.

  Brand marketing manager had been a job he’d had his eyes on since he’d graduated college, though. The offer had hit him like a snowstorm blowing in. ZentCube was a great company to work for, and he’d be crazy to leave. But the current brand marketing manager at ZentCube would be crazy to leave, too, so the same job here wasn’t likely to open anytime soon.