The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes

By Marilyn Barr

Reiki Practitioner Cassie Morgan is the black sheep of her family. She would rather work over the Christmas holidays than answer her family's interrogation about her non-existent love life and career choices. She assures herself it has nothing to do with the handsome coma patient, Sergei Chekov who stars in her dreams.

Sergei wakes from blackness and dreams of a siren's call. He isn't sure who he can trust when the woman from his dreams walks into his room with his favorite childhood treat to jog his memory. Despite his attraction to her, he must escape to safety.

Cassie is heartbroken and left with nothing but questions. Who was the woman who convinced her to wake Sergei? Why is the FBI involved? And will she ever see Sergei again or will she be left to pine over the spy who loved Russian tea cakes?

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781509238934

Marilyn Barr

Biography Marilyn Barr currently resides in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband, son, and rescue cats. When engaging with the real world, she is collecting characters, empty coffee cups, and witchy things. She would love to hear from readers via her website https://www.marilynbarr.com/ where you can get a free book from her! http://www.marilynbarr.com

Book preview

Of course, but I’m not a nurse. I’m the Reiki—

Yes, the spiritual healer. You are the one I meant to find. I knew it the minute I saw you.

Great, then lead the way. I gesture to the stairs behind her and regret not asking her if she would prefer the elevator. Together we shuffle at a snail’s pace.

My Sergei’s room is the first one at the top of the stairs, dearie. She puffs with each step. I reach out to help her, but most of our residents find a helping hand to be a dig against their independence. I push open the door to the hall and wait for her to step through. She then waits regally for me to open the door to her son’s room. Sergei is in bad shape. He needs you to wake him up. He’s in a coma, you see.

If he’s not consenting, then I don’t think I can—

He would want your help. I know it. As his only relative, I give consent on his behalf. You are his only hope. She’s on the brink of tears. Her gnarled hands tangle handfuls of her sweater set like she’s wringing out a washrag. My heart pounds. Coma healing is a gray area in the number one rule of energetic healing. Never journey on someone’s behalf without their consent. Would Leslie fault me for calling her so soon after she left?

Please, for a mother’s love.

Praise for Marilyn Barr

The characters were complex and drawn with care, making them easy to root for and empathize with. A unique setting and vivid descriptions totally pulled me in (the bad guys were terrifying in the best way!)

~April the Book Dragon

Equal parts Kelly Armstrong and May Sage, Marilyn Barr is a gifted shifter romance writer. Her characters leap from the page.

~N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Reviewers

The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes

by

Marilyn Barr

Christmas Cookies Series

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.

The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes

COPYRIGHT © 2021 by Patricia AS Reuther

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 Tina Lynn Stout

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 978-1-5092-3893-4

Christmas Cookies Series

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To my mother-in-law, Theresa. Thank you for watching over us. Rest in Peace.

Chapter 1

Cassie, so glad you picked up. Mom wants to know if you are still pretending to be gluten-free, so she knows to make the yucky stuff for you at Christmas dinner. I can hear the disgust in my sister’s voice. Coming from a family of doctors, you would think they would be more compassionate to my food sensitivities. Two parents, five siblings, and five spouses span the medical field from obstetricians to pathologists. They all live in the mountainside compound my parents built when we tried to move away. In the tradition of the black sheep, I was the only one to resist the pull of tiny houses without mortgages.

I’m not pretending. As you lift spiritual layers to discover your soul’s journey, you develop sensitivities to chemicals like those used in farming wheat. If any of you took a wellness approach to life, you would probably find the gene for celiac disease or wheat allergies in our DNA. Oh Lana, I can feel your eyes rolling across the state lines. I have come to expect the same argument for every holiday. I sometimes question the five-hour drive to West Virginia. At least my parents tasked my little sister to call so I didn’t fight with them. As number five of six kids, I had plenty of siblings for my parents to choose their mediator.

Is that a yes or a no?

Yes, I’m abstaining from gluten, dairy, meat, dyes, and preservatives. However, I’m bringing digestive enzymes so Mom can make the usual feast without worrying about my special diet. Also, I will be arriving on Christmas Eve so it shouldn’t be too many meals.

Cassie don’t be like that. We want to see you. I feel like you never visit, and your calls are coming more infrequent with each passing holiday. I miss my partner in crime.

Thanks, but you know—

Hold on, Dad is asking something.

A scratching sound blasts through my cell as if Lana has pushed the phone into her ugly sweater of the day. No one has a better collection than my little sister. I look down at the one she gave me last year, and a cross-eyed duck in a Santa hat grins back at me. The patients at the nursing home where I work are going to love it.

If I ever get to work. The Columbus, Ohio, traffic gets worse with each construction project that lays half-finished. The city has become a giant craft table with grand ideas in different stages of development. Why won’t they finish one before starting the next?

Sorry, Cass. Dad asked if you were bringing a guest, but don’t worry, I covered for you.

You didn’t ask me if I had a guest!

You said you were taking some time to work on yourself when you moved, so I thought you were alone.

I moved out years ago.

Yeah, but you’re still doing that hokey stuff.

Being a Reiki practitioner is not hokey stuff. I have hospital privileges and a full-time job in pain management at OH hospice center. Everyone in the medical community recognizes spiritual medicine except for you guys. I fume with buried anger. I breathe it out my car window into the polluted, frigid air. I can’t bring personal garbage into my patient’s energetic space. I knew answering the phone on the way to work was a bad idea, but I wanted this conversation over.

"Okay, you are done working on yourself because you are perfect. Scheez. Do we need to set places for one or two people at your end of the table?"

I’m not bringing a guest. I push the words through my defeated lips and sentence myself to a holiday break of Poor forever single Cassie and "If she