Tackling Molasses Crinkles

By Laura Freeman

While delivering freshly baked cookies to her elderly neighbor, Crystal sees a shady stranger inside the house and sneaks to the back door to determine if he's friend or foe.

Nick catches sight of a suspicious person outside and thinks it's a porch pirate looking for Christmas packages. He drives the thief to the ground with a football tackle. Only his victim is his hostess's neighbor, stunned by the force of the impact and furious about her broken cookies.

After this meet-cute gone wrong, can these two adversaries find common ground and discover the tragic secrets that have brought them together?

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Nov 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781509238569

Laura Freeman

Laura Freeman has illustrated several books for young readers, including the Nikki and Deja and Carver Chronicles series, and Natalie's Hair Was Wild, which she also wrote. Laura grew up in New York City, and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two children. www.lfreemanart.com Instagram: @laurafreemanart Twitter: @LauraFreemanArt.

Book preview

A shadowy figure was climbing onto the bottom step of the deck. He didn’t give the thief time to go any farther. He grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him from his perch, tackling him to the ground. Something in his hands flew into the air as he forced the porch pirate to the ground. Gotcha!

Nick heard the whoosh as air escaped from crushed lungs. He’d experienced the wind being knocked out of him countless times. It was part of the game of football. His job as a professional defensive end was to sack the quarterback before he could throw the football. He enjoyed hearing the air escape as he knocked the surprised opponent to the ground with all of his two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of hard muscle.

He lifted his full weight from the gift raider. It wasn’t a quarterback. It wasn’t even a man. He’d tackled a young woman. Her eyes were as big as the moon above and filled with shock and fear. She opened her mouth, but no words escaped. She gasped for air.

Can’t breathe! she managed to whisper between attempts to fill her lungs.

I’ve had the wind knocked out of me plenty of times, he reassured her. Take little breaths.

Tears filled her eyes instead. What had he done? He offered to help her to her feet, but she batted at his hands with snow-covered gloves. She turned her back and searched the snow until she uncovered a battered container topped with a torn and flattened red bow.

Praise for Laura Freeman

Laura has written six books in the Impending Love historical romance series published by The Wild Rose Press.

IMPENDING LOVE AND WAR:

With a realistic sequence on a canal boat, great humor as Cory explains courtship to the dunderhead Douglas, and Tyler’s ingenious argument in the ending courtroom scene, this spicy story hits every note.

~Akron Beacon Journal

IMPENDING LOVE AND DEATH:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Clever banter, strong characters, and a great detail to history pulled me in. I couldn’t put the book down. Jem was smart and spunky, and easily held her own besides Logan, who was charming and captivating. A perfect match.

~Devon McKay

Tackling Molasses Crinkles

by

Laura Freeman

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.

Tackling Molasses Crinkles

COPYRIGHT © 2021 by Laura Freeman

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 Debbie Taylor

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 978-1-5092-3856-9

Christmas Cookies

Published in the United States of America

Chapter One

The spicy fragrance of cloves, cinnamon, and ginger mixed with molasses filled the kitchen in a warm cloud of exotic scents as Crystal carefully removed the freshly baked cookies from the oven.

The heat steamed the windows, but outside large, icy flakes cascaded down in a steady wave and piled up in a thick, white blanket of snow. The meteorologist had predicted six inches, and those wishing for a white Christmas had been granted one.

The aroma of freshly baked cookies and the gentle snowfall made the holidays a little more bearable. Crystal’s parents had booked a cruise, and she was home alone. They had invited her to join them, but she had started a new job and didn’t have enough vacation time saved up to leave work for two weeks. She had been lucky to leave the office early. It was Christmas Eve, but her boss had wanted her end-of-year reports completed. He must not have read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and had no problem imitating Scrooge.

The job was temporary, hopefully. She had recently graduated from college but was so far in debt she had accepted the first job available. Her parents had offered to forgo the cruise and help her pay down some of the loans, but they had helped enough, and she wanted to take responsibility for her own life. They deserved the reward of a vacation and second honeymoon. She didn’t begrudge them the time alone. Having a grown daughter living with them had to be difficult. But college debt made