Splash of Christmas

By Mary Manners

When Faith O' Fallon's best friend ropes her into attending a popular reality show audition, the last thing she expects to find at the studio is the love of her life. Ben Ward resents his family for coercing him into holding auditions to snag a date for the holiday episode of their reality show, Poolside Oasis. But when a studio mishap accidentally matches him with the lovely, rambunctious Faith O'Fallon, he finds that sometimes family knows best. This holiday season is filled with the perfect blend of heartwarming surprises splashed with a dose of sweet romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pelican Book Group
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781611164640

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A Splash of Christmas

Mary Manners

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

A Splash of Christmas

COPYRIGHT 2014 by Mary Manners

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Pelican Ventures, LLC except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version(R), NIV(R), Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Cover Art by Nicola Martinez

White Rose Publishing, a division of Pelican Ventures, LLC

www.pelicanbookgroup.com PO Box 1738 *Aztec, NM * 87410

White Rose Publishing Circle and Rosebud logo is a trademark of Pelican Ventures, LLC

Publishing History

First White Rose Edition, 2014

Electronic Edition ISBN 978-1-61116-464-0

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To Dave and Arlene Manners...your faith and kindness lift me up in so many wonderful ways. May God richly bless you and hold you close in His sweet embrace.

Praise for Mary Manners

Good for anyone who loves chocolate and happy endings. ~Becky Taylor, Kate's Kisses

Traci and Dylan captured my heart...just perfectly perfect! ~Delia Latham, Designed by Love

Such a wonderful love story. I love the characters. I love Mary Manners’ books. ~Diana Montgomery, Light the Fire

I have been telling all my friends about this incredible book and can’t wait to read more from this amazing author. ~Cheri Swalwell, Buried Treasures

... a wonderful novella that is sure to remind what the greatest gifts of Christmas are as well as leave you thankful for new beginnings! ~Laura Pol, Christmas Wishes, Special Delivery

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

~ 1 Corinthians 13:2 ~

1

Faith O’Fallon flipped through a notebook on the cluttered desk of her office at the Mountain Light Children’s Home as beads of perspiration collected along the nape of her neck. A box fan set to high speed in the window chased a sticky note from the scribble-splattered blotter, and Faith fell to her knees to retrieve it as it flitted across scuffed tile toward the foot of the file cabinet.

Snatching the slip of paper, Faith sucked in a deep, ragged breath. This task she’d recently bulldozed into seemed beyond impossible to accomplish. Yes, indeed…that’s what planning Mountain Light’s Christmas party while knee-deep into the humidity-clad days of Indian summer, with the office air conditioning stubbornly on the fritz—again—seemed to be. But Faith stood determined to see this task through to the end despite all the good, the bad, and the ugly that it brought along.

The Bad: check—she’d been turned down now at least half-a-dozen times by supporters who’d opened their pockets during previous years without so much as a flinch. The Ugly: check—the heat and oppressive humidity which lurked around every corner did little to nudge her or others in the community into the Christmas spirit.

The Good? Faith had nothing going in that area. That particular quality appeared to be AWOL at the moment.

Faith lowered the speed of the box fan as she collected the last of the scattered sticky notes and settled back into the desk chair. The sound of voices drifted…laughter mingled with shouts of glee and the light spatter of an argument here and there as children played with water toys on the side lawn. One of the counselors had, to the boundless delight of the kids, set up a few sprinklers to combat the sweltering September heat since the kids were out of school due to a teacher in-service day.

Faith couldn’t remember such a string of warm September days. The meager shower of water from the sprinklers wasn’t much in the way of recreational activities; a pool would certainly prove an all-around much better option. But said pool seemed a flight of fancy and stood purely out of the realm of financial possibility for the children’s home as Faith still