Holiday Haunts

By Wendy Dalrymple and Imogen Markwell-Tweed

Christmas is the perfect time of year to fall in love; especially if you're a specter or a retail employee, that is. At Holiday Falls Mall, love blooms in sweet and spooky ways for four shop employees during the holiday season. This collection features two stories from queer romance writer Imogen Markwell-Tweed, and two stories from sweet romance writer Wendy Dalrymple for a unique, intertwined anthology of paranormal romance novelettes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094434360

Wendy Dalrymple

Wendy Dalrymple crafts highly consumable, short and sweet romances inspired by everyday people. When she’s not writing happily-ever-afters, you can find her camping with her family, painting (bad) wall art, and trying to grow as many pineapples as possible. Keep up with Wendy at www.wendydalrymple.com!

Book preview

Holiday Haunts

A Paranormal Christmas Romance Collection

By: Imogen Markwell-Tweed and Wendy Dalrymple

Holiday Haunts

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

Copyright© 2020 by Imogen Markwell-Tweed and Wendy Dalrymple

To my friends, who have stopped looking at me like I have three heads when I gush about how truly romantic it is to be a ghost on Christmas. - IMT

To my mom and dad, who taught me the love of magic, Christmas, art and reading. - WD

Forward

It’s hard to find a more magical, more romantic time of year than Christmas. The deep, dreamy longing of unrequited and first love seems to hit hardest this time of year for lonelyhearts and the happily in love alike. Maybe it’s the frosty air that makes us want to cling closer to the ones we love. Maybe it’s the heartbreaking lyrics of Last Christmas or the addictive, syrupy sweet messages in your favorite holiday rom coms. Whatever the reason, there’s just something about the season that makes everything sparkle and shine just a little bit more.

But Christmas can be a little spooky, too, and really, who can blame ghosts for wanting to come back down to earth during the happiest time of year? Charles Dickens proved just how frightening Seasons’ Greetings can be with his gothic classic A Christmas Carol, setting the stage for spooks and spectres to come out and revisit the ones they love in literature and film. Where would we all be without the Ghost of Christmas Past?

We are so pleased to bring you this collection that marries some of our favorite motifs; romance, the paranormal and Christmas! In Holiday Haunts, you’ll find four paranormal romance stories all taking place in Holiday Falls Mall somewhere in the snow-swept Midwest. The first and second stories in this collection are from queer romance author Imogen Markwell-Tweed and feature an WLW romance and an M/M romance. The third and fourth stories are written by sweet romance author Wendy Dalrymple and feature F/M romances.

To our readers; thank you for supporting indie romance writers! We love bringing the world our unique stories with happily-ever-afters, so if you enjoyed our paranormal Christmas romance collection please read a review! Until next time, happy holidays and a happily ever after to one and all!

Up to Snow Good

By: Imogen Markwell-Tweed

Gemma watched from the corner of the cafeteria as a child — ignored by her mother and father as they argued about the Macy’s bill — built a mashed potato snowman.

It was huge. Teetering on ridiculous. The little girl had even managed to use french fries— and why had her parents given her mashed potatoes and french fries?— as little arms and a nose. It was impressive. As if feeling her gaze, the girl’s head snapped up and she froze. She grinned at her and pointedly looked away: she would not be ruining her art project with any sort of adult camaraderie with her parents today.

She hated the mall this close to the holidays. People were meant to be happy, but they were so stressed out with wanting to be happy that they were almost incapable of it. Families fought about money, about privacy, about gifts none of them actually cared about. Kids were both desperately needy and miserably forgotten, and it clung to them until the new year like a hangover.

Propping her chin on her fist, Gemma looked around. She spotted a similar child building a moat out of his burger. Gemma winced. The ketchup was the river. That kid was going to get scolded for sure.

A mall Santa and a goth woman were chatting. Two elves were standing in line without their hats on, laughing at some unknown joke. The guy who worked at the bookstore was balancing two trays in his hands that he was definitely going to nab from the cafeteria despite the no-trays-off-the-floor rule. All the tables were full of either people or their trash. Only Gemma’s table, with her and her alone, was clean and empty.

She sighed. Her lunch break was almost over. She was going to need to book it if she was going to make it all the way to the other side of the mall in time. Her clerk job at the one lone video game shop in the mall was, A) boring, and B), boring. Twelve year olds and their haggard, confused moms came in, and that was it. Everyone else bought their games online. Even Gemma bought her games online, despite the 5% discount offered to her. Plus, being a woman meant that if a customer over the age of twelve did come in, she had to argue her way into assisting them because no one believed that a girl could like video games.

Please. It was insulting.

Gemma sighed again, grabbing her black hair in her hand and looping a scrunchie around it a few times to make a low messy bun at the nape of her neck. She lifted herself from the chair, groaning at the way her tired feet protested, and trudged back to Dark Moon Games.

Her boss, a kind but mostly absent man, visibly relaxed when he saw her slip back in. Waving a little, he darted back to his back office, where he spent all day except when Gemma was on break. He didn’t even come in most days, only when they were getting new stock. She didn’t mind that she was working alone; her job paid well enough, above minimum wage, the shop was quiet, and she got to do whatever she wanted as she waited for customers to come in.

It was empty still when she got back behind the counter and grabbed her Switch from behind the register. She turned it on and powered up her saved Animal Crossing game. It wasn’t the most technically difficult game — or difficult at all — and it wasn’t even her favorite, but it was a relaxing way to spend her time. She played every game they sold here — that wasn’t a shooter game, at least, because she had no interest in that — so that if anyone had any questions, she could help. Picking up Animal Crossing last week had been a nice reprieve. She was determined to make the best island out of all of her online friends.

She glanced up when she heard a soft sound coming from the door and did a double take when she saw the woman walking in.

Gemma had definitely never seen her before. She would’ve remembered, both from the shock of bright pink hair, and the sleeves of flower tattoos rolling up and down both of her arms. That, and her eyes: a rich hazel so bright they almost looked yellow as she swept her gaze across the shop. She looked like she stepped out of a comic book and into the store, except she was in low-hung sweatpants and a tiny white tank top.

It’s December, Gemma blurted out. She slapped a hand over her mouth immediately, feeling the skin beneath her fingers heat up to the touch.

The woman cocked her head, frowning.

The seventeenth, she agreed.

Gemma blinked. The outfit looked like she’d just rolled out of bed, not gotten dressed, went outside in the middle of winter, and came to the mall.

But, well, who was Gemma to comment? She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She looked down at the Switch she was playing, thumbs hovering from where she’d frozen at seeing the woman walk in. She sat it down. When she looked back up, the woman was browsing the discount bin.

Gemma bit the inside of her cheek, eyes flickering back down to the Switch, and then back over to the woman. Her pink hair went just to her chin and looked like it hadn’t ever been brushed. She appeared as though she should look haphazard, but really she was just… pretty.

Gemma averted her gaze, this time forcing herself to keep her eyes away. She wasn’t going to oogle the pretty girl just because she was in here. She was better than the high schoolers that came in with their pretzels just to stare at her!

Remembering their creepy gazes and not-so-subtle whispers, Gemma was able to find some self-control deep within herself to stifle the gay part of her that was instantly drawn to the woman, and go back to the video game. She was collecting sticks for something. Focus.

As she was always able to eventually, Gemma lost herself in the game. It was the thing she loved the most about video games; the ability to dive into a whole new world, experience different and fantastical things, become someone or something new just for a few minutes.

Like, sure, Animal Crossing wasn’t as much fun as, say, Dark Souls, but it was still fun. It was still the same experience. She was so concentrated on decorating the little garden that she was growing on her island that she didn’t even notice the pretty woman come up to the counter until her voice trilled.

Hi! Do you have this but not broken? the woman asked. Gemma jumped from surprise, hand shooting to her chest as her heart flailed. It was only partly because the pretty woman was even prettier up close. She had smooth, tan skin, with big cheeks that swelled her face into a cheesy look of happiness when she smiled, and Gemma only had the state of mind to go oh! Oh no! Before she was immediately and remarkably crushing on the girl.

Um, her poor gay mind blanked out. Pretty girl, pretty girl, the caveman part of her brain said over and over again. It wanted to ask her what her favorite flower was and see if her hair was as soft as it looked. The other part, the part that was aware that not everyone was gay or capable of developing crushes in the span of .03 seconds, told her to settle down.

This game, she said again. That pretty smile of hers started to fade, probably as she began to second guess that Gemma was a regular old person capable of doing her job. She tapped the cellophane wrapped package. Gemma’s eyes fell to it for the first time. It was a RPG for the PS4 that Gemma had played a few months ago when it first came out. The package was all beat up.

It’s, um, Gemma had to clear  her throat. The game works, but it’s ugly. It’s just… how it is.

She winced. She was a professional. What was that?

The woman’s lips twitched, almost a smile. Gemma’s heart skipped a beat.

It’s a Christmas present, the woman said, tilting her head. She didn’t look away from Gemma, but a faraway look took over her face as she considered. Then she frowned. No, sorry, I need it to not look beat up. Any way you have another one?

Um… Gemma typed it into the computer, frowning as she waited for the old system to pop up. Oh, no, I don’t.

The woman’s face fell. Gemma’s eyes widened. "Um! But! I have a