The Magic Cat of the Hidden Springs Inn and Spa

By Kari Kilgore

A Blizzard of Love

A cozy night of reading suits Henry Satterfield just fine as a Christmas Eve blizzard settles in.
He hopes no one shows up at the inn to disrupt his solitude.
Steve Lake fights the snowbound interstate and changing his plans to get home to Tennessee.
The prospect of a warm place for the night eases his disappointment.
Zortea the Magic Cat knows best when romantic sparks fly.
Will Henry and Steve heed Zortea's sensible advice or miss their chance for happily ever after?

 

Also available in the collection A Kaleidoscope of Cat Tales: Five Stories of Cats and People Who Love Them

 

An excerpt from The Magic Cat of the Hidden Springs Inn and Spa:

Exit to the Best Holiday Gift of All

Accommodations! Two big chain hotels, both probably booked solid in this storm. Steve squinted, trying to catch the text on a third logo that promised it was only 0.3 miles away.

The Hidden Springs Inn and Spa, complete with a cartoon image of steaming hot water. Steve groaned and closed his eyes for a quick second.

He didn't care one bit whether that meant a commercial hot tub, a hotel bathtub, or an actual hot spring. He wouldn't mind if the inn cost ten times what any of the chains did.

He couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than soak this rotten drive away. He'd call his parents and break the bad news once he was able to pry his fingers loose from the steering wheel.

Steve simply couldn't face one more mile in a freak blizzard tonight.

"Please, oh please, kind sir. Tell me you have room at your inn for one more wandering soul tonight."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Nov 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393261629

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

The Magic Cat of the Hidden Springs Inn and Spa

For Zortea

---

Who seems to be put together out of spare parts

but her heart works better than most people’s do

THE MAGIC CAT OF THE HIDDEN SPRINGS INN AND SPA

KARI KILGORE

SPIRAL PUBLISHING, LTD.

CHAPTER 1

As far as Henry Satterfield was concerned, the owners of the Hidden Springs Inn and Spa had clearly found the line when it came to tasteful holiday decorations. And then promptly jumped over that line and kept running, in matching pairs of red and green bedazzled high heeled boots.

Five fully decorated Christmas trees dominated the broad lobby, each highlighting a different style that did not coordinate with the others. The biggest was a perfectly shaped Fraser Fir, with the stiff, stubby leaves loaded down with every variety of non-traditional ornament available. Dark, modern colors, LED lights that oozed from one color to the next, not a scrap of tinsel to be seen. At least that one smelled good, fresh and green.

Surrounding that were what Henry thought of as the Especially Smelly Ghosts of Christmas Past, from a Nineties department store special that came pre-decorated, a fake bendy limbed Seventies version reeking of cigarettes, all the way back to an honest-to-goodness aluminum model that reeked of other things, each loaded with decade-appropriate ornaments and potentially hazardous lighting.

The only tree Henry secretly loved was the one the inn’s current owners–Suzie and Lloyd Fletcher–had given him complete freedom with. The Fletchers