Dream Crystal for Christmas

By Sandy Lender

What crazed maniac schedules a business conference during the week of Christmas?

Cheryl Ottlemeire thinks it's a recipe for a crappy holiday until she meets the handsome John Lorbin, who personifies Mr. Tall-Dark-n-Handsome. Wow. Is the substitute presenter too good to be true? Is the New Age-y bauble he wears too distracting? Let's see how Christmas Magic works out for these two...

Multi-award-winning author Sandy Lender puts a paranormal twist on holiday romance again with this sultry novella.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dragon Hoard Press
• Release date: Dec 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734515299

Sandy Lender

Sandy Lender is a magazine editor by day and author of girl-power fantasy novels by night. She lives in Florida where she volunteers in sea turtle conservation and parrot rescue. With a four-year degree in English and 28-year career in publishing, her successes include traditionally and self-published novels, hundreds of magazine articles, multiple short stories in competitive anthologies, a handful of APEX technical writing awards, a 2019 IMADJINN Best Literary Fiction Novel Award for her #MeToo novel She’s Not Broken, a 2020 IMADJINN Best Short Story Award for Woman Off the Grid, and a 2020 Pushcart Prize nomination for her short story Woman off the Grid. Despite the horrors of 2020, she launched a new title every month of that crazy year...

Book preview

Dream Crystal for Christmas

A Paranormal Novella

By Sandy Lender

Chapter One

No one should have to travel for business during Christmas week. Whether the person has fun family gatherings to attend or not, the crazed security, crazed fellow passengers, and crazed atmosphere overall make for a less-than-professional mood upon reaching one’s destination.

Cheryl Edith Ottlemeire decided two bad-weather flight delays gave her all the excuse she needed to embrace the concept. She would skip the Billboard Management Association’s ill-timed reception and dragged her damp suitcase through the crowded hotel lobby to find her cabana.

Oh dear. Mood lighting out there, she whispered to herself.

She looked out a bank of tall glass windows at darkness. A slight tremor pulsed through her at the idea she’d now have to drag her luggage around the dark of an unknown property trying to find her room in a sprawling landscape of buildings with their numbers hidden behind tropical shrubberies.

Given her current state of exhaustion, navigation promised to be impossible. She stopped near an over-ornamented Christmas tree not far from the side door that would dump her into the night maze. She studied the map one more time.

May I help you? a bellhop asked.

His sudden presence was startling, but welcome. Oh, thank God. Yes, please. I think I’m supposed to turn left when I step out here.

Let me get your bag for you, he said with a smile. Which cabana?

Eight.

With that exchange made, she felt the fog of anxiety drift off her chest. She glanced to the tree, aware that it blocked her view of a sunken parlor with a light jazz version of Carol of the Bells wafting toward her. If she’d had the energy, she would have stopped at the bar below for a nightcap. Something simple to take the edge off this long and tiresome day. Luckily, the bellhop’s helpfulness prevented her from peopling with the small crowd gathered there.

‘No energy for the work-sponsored reception means no energy for strangers in a bar,’ she thought to herself. ‘I just want to pass out.’

The bellhop asked her something as they stepped into the salt-scented air of Amelia Island, where humidity and warmth belied the season.

Sorry, what was that?

You’ll be near the conference center, he repeated. Are you here for the BBMA?

Yep.

The reception goes for another hour. Would you like me to drop your bags in your room so you can head over?

You’re efficient. Thank you, but I’m skipping the reception. I’m too exhausted to talk about billboards tonight.

I can understand that, he said. Long flight?

Two long flights. And delays.

I hear there’s a blizzard delaying flights out of New York, he said, as if interested in the weather in the Northeast.

That did mess up one of the planes, she said. I came from Missouri, which had its own bad weather.

As they continued the small talk that naturally occurs between hotel staff and guests, Cheryl studied the decorated palms they passed. Unlike the multi-colored lights back home, these were consistent beige-white strings draped and tacked around trunks and fronds in precisely placed order.

Like systematic art.

Fancy.

Even the lights on Cabana Eight were strung in one, tidy, artistic line along the apex of the roof.

Her room on the left side of the cabana boasted its own central air, its own kitchenette with coffee station, its own workstation with ergonomic desk chair, and, strangely enough, its own Christmas tree with multitudes of beige-white lights. ‘They must have