The Firefighter in the Snow

By Leska Beikircher

Cody Laughman, a lonely firefighter in New York City, gets a blast from the past when his late father’s lawyer approaches him with news. It has been three years since Cody’s father’s death, the family house needs to be sold. Although Cody is glad to get rid of this part of his life, there is one final thing he needs to do -- fly home to Muffin, Alaska, and make the property presentable.

He expects this to be a quick visit, just cleaning up some old memories he usually ignores. But memories are stubborn, and on top of everything else, he finds a real Christmas elf living in the attic of his house. Not a tiny fairy, but a full-grown, deliciously handsome man. He doesn’t even have pointed ears.

But can Cody open up to the possibility of finding love, when the ghost of Christmas past is still haunting him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Dec 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611525168

Leska Beikircher

Leska Beikircher is a German-Italian Waldorf classroom teacher and freelance writer. She has been living in different countries and was fortunate enough to have met with many cultures in her life—more is yet to come! Leska is mainly writing stage plays for kids and teens.

Book preview

The Firefighter in the Snow

By Leska Beikircher

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2013 Leska Beikircher

ISBN 9781611525168

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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The Firefighter in the Snow

By Leska Beikircher

Chapter 1

It had been a beautiful house, 1313 Aurora Avenue. The façade painted blue, the windows big and arched, the front door inviting. The garden once won the local Beautiful Landscapes at Home award four years in a row. It had been a welcoming house. Warmly illuminated windows at night, and meticulously arranged Christmas lights during the season.

Now it stood empty; the only house in Aurora Avenue that was a part of the dark. Not even the festive lights from the neighboring garden reached all the way through the trees and the hedge to it this year. It seemed surrounded by a cloud of impenetrable glumness. As if it were hiding in the darkness of the arctic. As if it weren’t a part of this world anymore.

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All the way across the United States, New York City was drowning in Christmas decorations. During the day, honking cars and chatting pedestrians competed with random Christmas songs that wafted out of shops and into the streets. Beautiful people whose lives were perfect smiled down from advertisements on the world below. Santa Claus took the subway, and his elves worked at the mall. At night, when the traffic slowed down, it was difficult to make out the stoplights amidst all the blinking and glowing. Three days ago, it had snowed, but the only thing that hadn’t melted was the wet chill.

A countdown glowed on a larger-than-life billboard in a quieter part of Brooklyn. It was on top of a parking garage, opposite an apartment building that had seen better days. White digits on a red background. Its light shone all the way across the street and through the window of a living room that was, ironically, perfectly devoid of any seasonal decorations. A small apartment with second-hand furniture that gave the place a random look. What could have been turned into hip, thrift-store chic by someone who cared, looked thrown together in this place; desolate. Few books were on the bookshelves. No trinkets on the windowsills, no unnecessary clutter. Even the kitchen looked like an abandoned showcase rather than a lived-in room. It held no warmth. The only thing that looked well loved was the toaster oven. The trashcan was digesting a bunch of pizza cartons.

The tenant of the place was in the tiny bedroom, also illumined by the billboard. Thirty-two-year-old Cody Laughman was dreamlessly sleeping through the first night in weeks. His black hair was trimmed short, and when he wasn’t asleep, his eyes were blue and wary. He was a firefighter; he had just got off the night shift three days ago. It always took him a couple of nights until he adjusted to the new rhythm. The red and white light of the billboard shone through the curtains and painted numbers on Cody’s exposed chest: 12:22:37. Days, hours, minutes until Christmas.

Cody turned in his sleep, in sync with the minutes on the billboard changing to 36.

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Chapter 2

Cody had always wanted to be a firefighter; it had been a childhood dream. As a boy, it had seemed to him the noblest of professions. He had also always wanted to leave his hometown and go to a big city. In a way, he had made both his dreams