Gingerbread Knight

By Pam Binder

Graham, a mysterious, enchanted knight, is skilled at finding lost things. His latest assignment is to find a woman and her cookbook—if he wants to win his mother's freedom.

Devon did not intend to visit medieval times. She simply opened her grandmother's cookbook. Now she desperately wants to get back to her own time and doesn't know how. But she is still a woman who will stand up to the bully in the kitchens to protect the weak and helpless.

When Graham falls in love with this courageous, cheerful woman from the future, he knows he must find another way to free his mother. Turning Devon over to an uncertain fate makes as much sense as gingerbread cookies without the ginger. Together they devise a dangerous plan, knowing failure means they will never see each other again.

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Nov 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781509238460

Pam Binder

Pam Binder is an award winning, Amazon and New York Bestselling author. Pam loves Irish and Scottish myths and legends, smiles and Wonder Woman's belief in love. Pam is a conference speaker and teaches two year long novel writing courses, After The First Draft and Write Your Story. Pam writes historical fiction, contemporary fiction, middle grade and fantasy.

Book preview

The woman spoke to him as though he were not a giant but a person of an acceptable height. She spoke to him as though his appearance was not scarred but pleasant to the eye. Did she see beneath the mask?

She had stopped talking and yet still held his hand between hers. Her hands were a woman’s hands—small, graceful, and capable of boundless strength and courage. She looked at Graham expectantly. She wanted him to respond. What did she expect him to say?

He had not done anything he considered out of the ordinary. He was a knight, pledged to protect the weak and innocent. Yet he knew she expected a response.

He understood how to react to people who feared him. This was a new experience. He rehearsed his words. He wanted to ask why she did not fear him. He wanted to ask if she knew why he felt as though he could listen to her voice until the end of time. He discarded the questions for neutral ground.

Thank you for your kind words, but it is a knight’s sworn duty to protect. His voice growled out like a beast, but it was too late to draw it back.

She did not startle or jump in reaction to the sound of his voice. In truth, she seemed amused.

You look hungry, she said. Come with me. She turned and retraced her steps to the kitchens as though expecting him to follow.

She was right. He was hungry. Starving. But it was more than hunger. It was desire.

Gingerbread Knight

by

Pam Binder

Christmas Cookies

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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.

Gingerbread Knight

COPYRIGHT © 2021 by Pam Binder

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

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Abigail Owen

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Edition, 2021

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-3846-0

Christmas Cookies

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To my lovely sister, Marilyn

who loves cookies as much as I do.

Chapter One

Keep the cookbook safe, the old woman said. But don’t open it.

Devon Avery studied the field-green cookbook with the gold clasp that the shopkeeper had given her. She hadn’t been interested in the moldy old thing before. But now that she’d been told not to open it, all she could think about was how to break the clasp.

She hated the word no, and all the words and phrases like can’t, and shouldn’t, and you’d better not. Each one acted like a call to arms to do the exact opposite. Not that it had helped. No matter how she tried, and wished it were different, she was an abysmal failure when it came to magic and casting spells. She should make peace with it, her mother said, but it wasn’t easy. She felt as though she were letting her family down.

But that was all beside the point. Her focus was on finding her grandmother, who of late was always wandering off. Devon was worried about her grandmother, not just today but over the last few months. Her behavior had become more and more erratic, and this morning she’d walked out without letting anyone know where she was going. Devon’s family was catering a Renaissance-themed wedding on a nearby estate in Stratford, England, the believed birthplace of William Shakespeare, when her grandmother left. Her mother blamed the onslaught of some sort of dementia, but Devon didn’t want to believe that was the issue and had volunteered to find her grandmother. So far, all efforts had failed.

Reluctantly, Devon handed the cookbook back to the woman. Thank you, but I’m not interested in another cookbook. I have plenty. Especially one that you say I mustn’t open.

Devon had been searching for her grandmother, and the musty bookstore seemed the logical place to start. It was exactly the kind of place her grandmother loved. The store was a blend of used books and all things magical from crystals to jewelry made from semi-precious stones. The icing on the cake was the shopkeeper. She had that wise-woman vibe, with chin-length white-blonde hair, hoop earrings, rings on all her fingers, and stacks of bead bracelets on each wrist. In a lot of ways she reminded Devon of her grandmother.

As I mentioned when I first came in, I’m looking for my grandmother. She’s about five feet tall, wears her white hair about the length of yours, and her eyes are the same color as mine—one green and one blue. Oh, and like me, she’s dressed in clothes like those worn by servants in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Devon paused. My family is catering the wedding on the Dundee estate this weekend. You may have heard the legend, that the Dundee’s ancestors hosted Queen Elizabeth I and her court over the Twelve Days of Christmas celebration, although there isn’t a record of it in the history books.

Most legends contain a pinch of truth. The shopkeeper pushed the cookbook back into Devon’s hands and smiled. You have your grandmother’s eyes, one blue and one green. I understand now why Madeline wanted us to meet. She phoned, and it was her wish that I give this cookbook to you. It is a first edition from the fifteenth and sixteenth century.

Devon nodded out of politeness. The age of the cookbook explained its oldie-moldy smell, but not the shopkeeper’s odd behavior or how she knew her grandmother’s first name. Her grandmother never gave it out, except to family and friends. She preferred people address her as Lady Avery. But how did my grandmother know I’d be here? And how long ago did she phone?

She said she’d meet you back at the estate. Shouldn’t you be getting back to the estate’s kitchen before your gingerbread cookies burn?

Relief washed over her. Her grandmother was safe. The shopkeeper’s warning about the gingerbread cookies burning was odd, to say the least. She’d made the cookies and put them in the oven before she left, but she hadn’t turned on the oven. The cookies only took ten minutes to bake, and she had sensed it would take a while to find her grandmother. But then, Devon had grown up with odd, strange, and weird. All the women in her family had magical abilities except Devon. They had said she’d come into her magic when she turned twenty-one. That had been five years ago, and she was still waiting.

How did you know I was baking gingerbread? Devon lowered her voice even though they were alone in the store. Do you have magical abilities?

Instead of answering Devon, the shopkeeper shoved Devon out of the store like she was shooing a swarm of misbehaving school children. Once Devon had crossed the threshold, the woman shut the glass door, rattling the door chimes.

Devon turned the door handle, but it was already locked. She waved to get the shopkeeper’s attention and held up the cookbook. I don’t want this.

The shopkeeper turned over the sign to read Closed, then flipped off the lights and disappeared into the store.

Just peachy. She’d return the cookbook later. Devon stuffed the cookbook into a pocket in her long skirts and retraced her steps through the quaint town that reminded her of a village in a Jane Austen novel.

She and her grandmother shared a love of English history, and the opportunity to cater a Renaissance-themed event was the reason her grandmother had agreed to cater the Dundee wedding.

Her mother was the marketing and business genius and had expanded their cozy bake shop in Seattle, Washington into a global catering enterprise. The expansion came at a cost. Devon rarely saw her mother. Devon’s father had died fifteen years ago of a heart attack, and as a result, her grandmother had raised her. The