A Spontaneous Kind of Holiday

By Shannon Muir

After losing her parents in a cruise accident, Marnie Hawklin has made her life extremely routine and predictable. She's also ended up distant from her sister Tessa, who quit talking to the family years earlier. Marnie believes she'll never find anyone to share her life with and tries to go it alone. One holiday season, Marnie finds herself pressured to help serve Christmas Eve dinners at a local community center. How will this one spontaneous act change her holiday... and her life? This novella is part of the SPONTANEOUS CHOICES ADVENTURES COLLECTION presented by INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS, and serves as a segue to launch Marnie and Zane into their own ROMANTIC SPONTANEOUS CHOICES stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Muir
• Release date: Dec 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310005336

Shannon Muir

SHANNON MUIR's short stories include suspense and mystery elements such as those found in her first full-length story from Pro Se Press, CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS DOC AND SALLY IN "THE DEATH OF BUDDY TURNER". Additionally, she's written short stories for Pro Se Press such as “Tragic Like a Torch Song” in THE DAME DID IT from Pro Se Press, "Pretty as a Picture" in the anthology NEWSHOUNDS, “Tropical Terror” in CRIME DOWN ISLAND and “Hidden History” in EXPLORER PULP. She’s also written the Single Shot New Pulp tale “Ghost of the Airwaves,” a short story offered in electronic format only from Pro Se Press.From her personal self-published projects, her best known titles in this area include the rural crime series THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA.In other genres, Shannon's published short stories include “Meeting the Monster” in the Emby Press anthology SUPERHERO MONSTER HUNTER: THE GOOD FIGHT and "Cover Story" in ARIA KALSAN: MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE.Shannon holds a BA in Radio-TV and English from Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington, which she considers to be her hometown. She also holds an MA in Communications from California State University, Fullerton, along with additional education in screenwriting, project management, library technician studies, and most recently a certificate earned with distinction in General Business with Emphasis in Marketing from UCLA Extension. Currently, she is working on a Masters of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University.She is married to FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY collaborator and fellow author Kevin Paul Shaw Broden. They live in California in the United States.She is a member of Sisters in Crime (national, Guppies, and Los Angeles, where she also served on the Los Angeles board for a two terms beginning in 2018), as well as the Toastmasters4Writers Chapter of Toastmasters International (where she serves as chapter Secretary), Women in Animation, and a Professional member of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Book preview

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COPYRIGHT

A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF HOLIDAY

A SPONTANEOUS CHOICES ADVENTURES Novella

Presented by INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS

By Shannon Muir

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Shannon Muir.

First Smashwords publication December 2014.

This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be given away or resold to others. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy from Smashwords or a vendor partner. If you want to share this work with others please purchase a copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of artists and creators.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

ALSO BY SHANNON MUIR – THE HEART'S DUTY COLLECTION

ALSO BY SHANNON MUIR – THE PHOENIX COLLECTION

ALSO BY SHANNON MUIR – FOR THE LOVE OF AIRAGOS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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DEDICATION

To all my friends that have stood by and supported me through the years.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF HOLIDAY began as a challenge to myself. If I could complete three-fourths of the way through my tenth National Novel Writing Month (which I ultimately did complete), I'd follow up in December with a novella to be completed before Christmas Eve. This novella, following the crazy holiday season of a whole new cast of characters, is the result of that challenge. I hope you enjoy it.

Please feel free to get in touch with me by social media if any of these characters grab you and you would like to read more about them. I actually discovered interesting things about them while writing and would love to revisit them again.

Shannon Muir

Glendale, California

December 2014

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PROLOGUE

Marnie Hawklin always enjoyed spending the holidays with her mother and father. She knew that it disappointed them that her sister Tessa would hardly visit, either on her own or bringing the grandkids along. However, they skillfully kept their disappointment hidden.

She watched as her mother opened up the gift envelope that her father handed over for Christmas.

My dear, Marnie's mother said with a smile. You've already given me your home, your heart, and a daughter born on Christmas Day.

She stopped opening the envelope midway to give Marnie a hug.

Come on, Mom, open Dad's envelope and see what his present is, Marnie insisted while still being tightly held in her mother's loving embrace. She liked the fact her parents still cared about her so much, but sometimes she found their strong attitude of love and affection to be awkward.

I will, dear, just a minute. But I so want to treasure this moment. I'm so blessed for every year that goes by and I get another Christmas with you, Marnie.

Finally, Marnie's mother let go and finished opening the envelope. She took out a card depicting happy couples on a cruise.

This is for real? Marnie watched her mother ask, with a bit of shock in her voice. Not a joke?

You know me, love. I don't kid. I finally decided to suck up my fear of the water and book us for that cruise you always wanted us to take. I've made you wait too many years as it is. I'm so sorry for that. This coming year, we're going to do something different.

This time, Marnie hugged her father.

Dad, that's so nice of you to do! I hope you and Mom have a great time together. You both deserve it so much!

Little did Marnie Hawklin know that would be the last Christmas she would ever spend with her parents.

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CHAPTER ONE

Marnie slammed on the snooze button for the third time. She absolutely hated her job being a bank teller, handling lots of other people's money while hardly bringing any home to improve her meager existence. Marnie's life played out simple, boring, and routine. Any attempt made to deviate from the norm met in setback and failure, not to mention disappointment.

She guessed her wave of disappointments started by never getting what she wanted for the holidays as a kid. Her older sister, Tessa, got everything she wanted every year. It didn't stop there. Tessa ended up with all the popular friends, all the hot dates, and ultimately even the perfect husband and babies. Marnie, only two years younger, didn't fare nearly as well; somehow, as much as one might think they should, good grades didn't seem to count for much. Now just days away from turning thirty, with the unfortunate luck of being a baby born on Christmas Day, Marnie thought her fortunes would never change.

She struggled to make a cup of instant coffee – living alone, she never bothered with brewing a pot – and making one of her usual frugal lunches. Today she went for a Mediterranean themed meal with hummus, pita pieces, Kalamata olives, and some feta cheese crumbles. Marnie liked making lunch quick to eat and also light on the pocketbook, while she prepared heartier breakfasts and dinners at home. This morning, she chose to scramble a couple eggs with some turkey bacon patties. Fortunately work wasn't too far away, so she could spend more time making breakfast than throwing something in the microwave and then spending tons of time on the road.

Marnie also thought practical on her wardrobe, very basic colors that mixed and matched easily and didn't have any special wash or dry clean instructions. She thought very practically in her approach to everything. In particular, Marnie liked to develop systems to make things easier and organized. She rarely broke those patterns.

As she headed out to work with her lunch in hand, Marnie looked over at the small Christmas tree set up on a table in the corner. Since Christmas Day and her birthday always fell together, it seemed strange to not at least have something up. Every year, until the year that her parents died, Marnie would always spend Christmas with her parents all day, while her older sister Tessa's family