Christmas Love

By Hazel Gower

This is a re-release.
Luna is just starting to get her life back on track. Her deadbeat ex-husband left her in debt, and she's close to having it all paid back. She just has to stick with working two jobs, leaving her with only a few hours to sleep each night, at least until the new year. She promised herself that she would never let another man in her or her children's life again.

When sleep claims Luna, her four-year-old twins leave the house and go over to visit the new neighbor, Derick, who's a detective. She awakes and panics when she can't find her children. When she finds them with Derick, instead of waiting for an explanation she verbally attacks him.

With the rash way she spoke to him, Luna didn't think she would ever see him again, so she's shocked when she wakes up in the hospital with Derick sitting vigil. Her cold has gotten the best of her, and the doctor has ordered her to take it easy. That's difficult to do with two lively children, but Derick comes to her rescue.

When Derick moved next door to a single mum he never expected to find himself instantly attracted to her. The way he's introduced to her should have been his first clue to stay away from her. He just can't stop thinking about her, and he knows that there's something there between them.

On his way home from work one night he pulls over someone who is driving slowly and finds Luna looking very unwell. When she becomes sick and then passes out he takes her to the hospital and decides that he's going to help her.

The more time Derick spends with Luna, the more he finds himself falling for her. He even comes to love her children. Derick had given up on ever finding his one, and as his feelings grow for Luna he comes to realize she is his one true love.

With Christmas just around the corner can he convince her to give him the chance to prove she's his one, his true love?

Bonus: Includes two short Christmas stories: The Douglas Family and The Wolfen Family from Armageddon Mates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hazel Gower
• Release date: Jan 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005895679

Hazel Gower

I'm a mother of four amazing children. I started writing down my story ideas in high school, and never really stopped. Writing, I have to say, is my salvation. After I've gotten all the kids in bed and have cleaned up, I sit at my computer or sometimes a notebook with a pencil and relax, write, and escape.I love to hear from any of my readers, so feel free to send me an email and like me on Facebook.

Book preview

Christmas Love

By Hazel Gower

Finding Love – Friends- Book 1

Copyright © 2022 Hazel Gower

Christmas Love, by Hazel Gower

All rights reserved. 2022

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author or publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use the material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, are coincidental.

Edited by Pamela Tyner

Cover by Jess Buffett Graphic Designs

MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR

THIS BOOK IS set in Australia. In Australia the legal age to drink, vote, and get married is eighteen. The characters speak Australian English, so if you see the word ‘arse’ instead of ‘ass’ it is because that’s how we say it in Australia where the book is set. If you find a word you haven’t heard before, look it up or message me I’d be happy to talk to you.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my book.

Hazel Gower

Dedication

To my fans, thank you for always wanting more.

Back Cover Copy

Luna is just starting to get her life back on track. Her deadbeat ex-husband left her in debt, and she’s close to having it all paid back. She just has to stick with working two jobs, leaving her with only a few hours to sleep each night, at least until the new year. She promised herself that she would never let another man in her or her children’s life again.

When sleep claims Luna, her four-year-old twins leave the house and go over to visit the new neighbor, Derick, who’s a detective. She awakes and panics when she can’t find her children. When she finds them with Derick, instead of waiting for an explanation she verbally attacks him.

With the rash way she spoke to him, Luna didn’t think she would ever see him again, so she’s shocked when she wakes up in the hospital with Derick sitting vigil. Her cold has gotten the best of her, and the doctor has ordered her to take it easy. That’s difficult to do with two lively children, but Derick comes to her rescue.

When Derick moved next door to a single mum he never expected to find himself instantly attracted to her. The way he’s introduced to her should have been his first clue to stay away from her. He just can’t stop thinking about her, and he knows that there’s something there between them.

On his way home from work one night he pulls over someone who is driving slowly and finds Luna looking very unwell. When she becomes sick and then passes out he takes her to the hospital and decides that he’s going to help her.

The more time Derick spends with Luna, the more he finds himself falling for her. He even comes to love her children. Derick had given up on ever finding his one, and as his feelings grow for Luna he comes to realize she is his one true love.

With Christmas just around the corner can he convince her to give him the chance to prove she’s his one, his true love?

Bonus: Includes two short Christmas stories: The Douglas Family and The Wolfen Family from Armageddon Mates.

Content Warning: contains some sexual content

Chapter 1

Luna

Eight hours at her secretarial job and Luna was exhausted. Her day job wasn’t that taxing, but the night job that she worked Thursday through Sunday nights was draining her. Luna didn’t think she could keep on the path she was on, living off so little sleep. Maybe in the new year she could quit one, but right now she needed both. Luna tried to catch up by going to bed early Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night, but with twins it never worked out.

She fought her lids as they drooped shut and squinted at the road. She was around the corner from her house. Luna’s twins sung to ‘Pink’ she had on to help keep her awake. Luna turned into her street and crawled to her house and parked. The little two-bedroom cottage style house sat between two larger ones. The house to her left had just been bought a little over a month ago. Luna hadn’t seen the person who’d bought it, even when the movers came almost two and half weeks ago.

Getting out of the car, Luna grabbed her purse and got out her keys and shut the door. She opened the backseat door, leaned in, and undid her son Rex’s and her daughter Layla’s carseat belts, and they climbed out beside her only for them to run to the front door. Shutting the door, she made her way to her kids, put the key in her fly-screen, opened it, and did the same with her door. Shuffling her kids inside, kicking the door shut behind her, she guided her children straight to her lounge room where she turned on the TV and put it on the kid’s channel. Luna paused in front of it for a moment, guilt washing over her at her poor parenting, before she sighed and went to the kitchen and made her two four-year old’s Vegemite sandwiches and each a cup of milk and placed it all on the coffee table.

Mummy is just going to lay down for a while on the sofa and have a little rest.

Okay, Mummy, Rex said before he shoved the sandwiches into his little mouth. She made him two and one and a half for his sister.

Yeah, love you, Mummy, we’s be good. Layla grinned, and Luna smiled at her Vegemite covered face.

It was five hours before Luna’s mum would come so she could leave for her second job at a popular bar called Right Track. The owner Kevin Right, was a friend of her dad’s, and because of that, he paid her in cash. Thanks to her deadbeat—literally dead, murdered by a loan shark—husband, Josh Brickton, Luna now had huge debt that she was working her arse off to pay so she didn’t have to sell her cottage or her car.

Luna’s parents offered to give her the money to pay the debt, but she couldn’t let them bail her out. They had helped her with so much already, and she wanted to show them she could make the right decisions and be an adult. She’d already made so many mistakes, the biggest marrying her arsehole husband. Luna should have known Josh wasn’t right for her when her parents didn’t like him.

Luna’s parents were pretty easy going. They were modern-day hippies. Vegetarians who were dedicated to all-natural products and never anything that could harm animals. Her mother owned a shop that only sold environmentally friendly products, and yes, her mother offered her work at her shop, but Luna enjoyed meat and she saved every penny she had so she bought cheap, which meant a lot of things that her mother didn’t approve of. Luna’s father was a vet, and he worshiped the ground her mother walked on. They both worked hard.

Scrubbing her face to try and keep her eyes open