That Christmas Feeling: It's Never too Late for Love Anthology Series, #2

By Karyn Gerrard

Though Connall Doyle achieved many of his professional goals, model, sometimes actor, along with a modicum of financial security, his life of late has been empty. Christmas this year does not hold any appeal. But when offered the chance to go on a sports and poker trip to a secluded wilderness camp, Connall jumps at the opportunity to escape the city and tragic holiday memories.

 

A spur-of-the-moment holiday excursion brings the devastatingly handsome Connall to Kerrie Kelleher's doorstep during Christmas week. It is not only his stunning good looks that draw her but the sadness she sees in his eyes. Surrounded by all the holiday trappings and a searing hot attraction Connall cannot deny, he begins to wonder if 'that Christmas feeling' will be enough to heal a painful past and allow love to enter his heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: KG Publishing
• Release date: Oct 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994076953

Karyn Gerrard

Karyn Gerrard, born and raised in the Maritime Provinces of Eastern Canada, now makes her home in a small town in Northwestern Ontario. When she’s not cheering on the Red Sox or travelling in the summer with her teacher husband, she writes, reads romance, and drinks copious amounts of Earl Grey tea.   Even at a young age, Karyn’s storytelling skills were apparent, thrilling her fellow Girl Guides with off-the-cuff horror stories around the campfire. A multi-published author, she loves to write sensual historicals and contemporaries. Tortured heroes are an absolute must.   As long as she can avoid being hit by a runaway moose in her wilderness paradise, she assumes everything is golden. Karyn’s been happily married for a long time to her own hero. His encouragement and loving support keeps her moving forward.   To learn more about Karyn and her books, visit www.karyngerrard.com.

Book preview

Summary

Though Connall Doyle achieved many of his professional goals, model, sometimes actor, along with a modicum of financial security, his life of late has been empty. Christmas this year does not hold any appeal. But when offered the chance to go on a sports and poker trip to a secluded wilderness camp, Connall jumps at the opportunity to escape the city and tragic holiday memories.

A spur-of-the-moment holiday excursion brings the devastatingly handsome Connall to Kerrie Kelleher’s doorstep during Christmas week. It is not only his stunning good looks that draw her but the sadness she sees in his eyes. Surrounded by all the holiday trappings and a searing hot attraction Connall cannot deny, he begins to wonder if 'that Christmas feeling' will be enough to heal a painful past and allow love to enter his heart.

Dedication and Acknowledgements

That Christmas Feeling was previously published in 2012. It has been revised, re-edited, and more than thirteen thousand words added.

It is book #2 in the It’s Never too Late for Love Anthology Series, where the characters find love later in life (late thirties and beyond). Because this is an anthology series, each story is a standalone and are not connected. Stories in this series will be both contemporary and historical romances.

I certainly recommend the 1968 album release, That Christmas Feeling by Glen Campbell. It has been a Christmas staple in my family for decades.

Check out the new (mainstream) contemporary romance series, The Wicked Men of Rockland City with a sneak peek of book #1, He’s the Wicked Bad at the end of this book.

Chapter 1

Connall Doyle hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season. It had nothing to do with his shoes being too tight or his heart being two sizes too small. (To sort of quote the Grinch) Though lately, he wondered if he even possessed a heart at all.

Holding his glass of Connemara Irish single malt whiskey tight in his fist, he gazed out the large picture window of his downtown Toronto apartment.

Time to assess.

He reached thirty-nine years of age—soon to be forty in three months—and was semi-wealthy, good-looking, and in peak shape. He’d achieved many of his life goals.

Connall couldn’t pigeon-hole himself in a particular way career-wise. The past thirteen years had consisted of various acting assignments—mostly in Canadian television—but enough to garner recognition by winning the Canadian version of the Emmy, the Gemini Award, for his lead role in a police drama.

He even obtained a recurring role in season five of The Walking Dead—until a zombie ate his face off. Lately, he’d been modeling for catalogs, sales flyers, and clothing lines in the downtime between acting jobs.

Though not a household name, Connall was known in certain circles and therefore one of those men who looked vaguely familiar to many, but not so much that he was mobbed by admiring fans. In short, he never snagged the preferred tables at restaurants or was given special consideration but reaped the benefits of comfort, money—and respect from his peers. Nominal fame and privilege were enough for him.

As he slid open the patio door, a blast of frosty air hit him square in the chest. The temperature hovered below freezing. There was no snow as yet. Stepping out on his small balcony, he observed the teeming humanity moving about on the streets below. Car horns, sirens, busy sidewalks, people passing, children laughing.

Now he sounded like a Christmas carol. All that was missing were the silver bells.

Leaning on the railing, he took a long pull on his Irish whiskey and let it slide down his throat, giving him the illusion of warmth. Deep inside his soul, he was as frosty as the early winter wind whipping about his face. What to do during the next three weeks? His next job wasn’t until mid-January, a guest-starring role on an American network horror show, which meant a trip to Vancouver.

He already knew his lines; his near-photographic memory had certainly come in handy for the acting projects. His agent was in the process of setting up an audition for a three-episode villain arc with the casting director of a Netflix mystery miniseries, which was also filming in Vancouver.

There was a possibility of a guest-starring role later this year on an American cable television show which filmed right here in Toronto. Good thing Connall had won the Gemini; it certainly opened a few more doors. It was enough that he could live comfortably, by Toronto standards.

But back to the Christmas season—which was already in full swing.

Frowning, he stepped into his living room and slammed the door. Today was December the twenty-first. One option was to visit the family. There was more than one email from his parents sitting in his inbox. They wanted him to come home to Nova Scotia for Christmas. His younger brother, Rory, and his family would be there for the festivities. They could all be together if the fates allow.

Damn. He was doing it again: thinking in Christmas carols.

Frankly, he couldn’t bear all the good cheer and warm feelings. Not this year. All that he wanted was for Christmas to pass unobtrusively and without incident. Throwing back the rest of his drink, he flopped into his leather recliner, stretched out his six-foot-two frame, and laid his arm across his eyes.

Connall brooded in the dark for a long time, and couldn’t stop the wretched memories from flooding his whiskey-soaked brain. Last year on the twenty-third of December, he got the call. His fiancée had been in a traffic accident, hit by a city transit bus while crossing the street. By the time he had arrived at Toronto General, Trish was gone.

Thankfully, her parents completed the identification process before he had arrived. Not sure that he could’ve done it. Connall heard from a nurse that Mrs. Fisher had fainted: the closed casket at the service proof as to why.

Trish’s father would only shake his head and say, Terrible. Just terrible. Connall wasn’t sure he was speaking of the condition of Trish’s remains or the entire situation. No doubt both.

Christmas last year, in a word, sucked.

Connall exhaled. Getting through the funeral on Boxing Day had been bad enough. However, the events leading up to the accident sliced deep, heaping guilt on top of the pile of grief.

Why? Trish had caught him cheating.

Something he never imagined himself doing. Somewhere along the line, he had lost sight of a great deal, including his code of honor.

Is it cheating if you didn’t have actual sex?

Because he hadn’t, not that it excused his abhorrent behavior. A stupid episode with a nameless woman he had met—check that—picked up in a coffee shop near where he was posing for underwear shots for Hudson’s Bay.

Why had he done it?

He was with Trish for more than three years and had never once strayed.

An idiotic mistake. Beneath him. Unfair to his fiancée.

To top off the humiliating and sleazy incident, a second-tier, tabloid paparazzi had taken photographs of him kissing the woman against the wall in the dimly lit alley behind the diner. But it was not dim enough. It was him in the photos, there was no mistaking him. He had ground his body against the woman as she rested her leg on his hip, her skirt hiked up with his hand splayed on her