And a Cup of Good Cheer

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Gail looks forward to her annual Christmas shopping trip to the high-end specialty foods store. Until her phone keeps interrupting with news alerts and a barrage of texts from her husband, Ron.

Ron never texts her, and the messages grow increasingly weird. He wants a figgy pudding and he wants one right now!

Gail soon realizes her family needs her—and her Christmas spirit—to save the day.

"Rusch is a great storyteller."

—RT Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Dec 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201076474

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

And A Cup of Good Cheer

AND A CUP OF GOOD CHEER

KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH

WMG Publishing, Inc.

CONTENTS

And A Cup of Good Cheer

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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

About the Author

BREAKING NEWS NOTIFICATION

’Tis The Season to Say Humbug!

Keep your doors and windows closed this holiday season. Rogue Christmas carolers are causing mayhem all over the city. Read More

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Gail shut off her phone’s screen with a sigh, stuck the phone in the back pocket of her jeans, and tugged her winter coat over it all. One small break in the final day of her Christmas shopping, and the news interrupted. It always interrupted.

She sighed and headed down the ice-covered sidewalk. She wasn’t alone. Other holiday hopefuls had come downtown searching for last-minute gifts—and parking places.

Dirty snow heaps the size of a small child blocked half the parking places on the street. Cars moved carefully through the ice ruts left by the vehicles that had driven by since the snowplow hit this route not three hours ago. She knew the timing, because she had to sit behind the plow while she waited to get into the parking garage—only to discover, once she was inside, that the garage instituted Special Holiday Rates! which were three times higher than the unspecial normal rates that didn’t have little mistletoe doodads decorating the os on the signs plastered everywhere.

If she had known that the Special Holiday Rates! would be so expensive, she would have parked blocks away and trudged.

She had planned a day of trudging anyway, because the last few items on her Christmas list weren’t online any longer, and even if they were, not a single online retailer was guaranteeing Christmas delivery anymore.

Two days left, and apparently no one wanted to trust the overnight package services, not that she blamed them.

Not in this snow.

The storm wasn’t quite a blizzard by Midwestern standards. No winds to speak of, no thunder and lightning, no whiteout conditions. Just steady snow—and not the flaky fluffy kind—for the past three days now. Add frigid overnight temperatures, and it didn’t matter how much snow got plowed, how much sand or salt got laid down, how many streets got cleared, the white stuff compacted underneath tires and turned into ice ruts.

She had one last stop before heading home. Since she had parked in the parking garage (and learned that her favorite department store didn’t validate Special Holiday Rates!), she decided to use the convenience of