Mr Bear

By Jessi Hammond

Freya and her daughter Dani have fled Australia, and her controlling ex-boyfriend, and settled into a tiny English village.

Leif is still recovering after his life was shattered because of his job. To deal with the pain, both physical and mental, he carves little 'woodens' and decorates the village tree each Christmas.

But Freya's past is catching up to her, and Leif needs to put his past behind him to save her and Dani – and himself…

A romantic suspense set at Christmas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kincaid Publishing
• Release date: Dec 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215118870

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About this book

Freya and her daughter Dani have fled Australia, and her controlling ex-boyfriend, and settled into a tiny English village.

Leif is still recovering after his life was shattered because of his job. To deal with the pain, both physical and mental, he carves little ‘woodens’ and decorates the village tree each Christmas.

But Freya’s past is catching up to her, and Leif needs to put his past behind him to save her and Dani – and himself…

A romantic suspense set at Christmas.

Mr Bear

One

Freya locked the front door behind her, flipped up her jacket’s fur-lined hood to shield her face from the worst of the wind, and trudged along the narrow lane toward the school. The snowplows had been through early that morning, pushing snow up against the fences as she and Dani had watched from her Great-Aunt’s lounge room window. No, her window now. Well, her window until she decided what to do with the tiny four-roomed stone cottage.

At present, she was hoping to stay. Her visa allowed her to stay here in England for a year, which she figured would definitely be long enough to work out what to do next. And Dani seemed to be settling in well at school.

But this weather… This was just ridiculous.

She’d never experienced snow before. She’d lived in Brisbane for most of her life; the lowest temperature there had been three or four degrees. Today, according to the weather report on the TV, it would be lucky to reach zero.

No wonder Dani hadn’t wanted to go to school this morning. Her eight-year-old daughter felt the cold even more than Freya did; she’d got a cold that hadn’t shifted for over four weeks a few days after they’d arrived here three months ago.

But at least here she was safe.

There was no way Tony could find them here, not halfway around the world, in a tiny town in northern England. Only her mother knew she’d left Australia; most of her school friends had melted away when she and Tony got together in Year Twelve, and their friends were all his friends, not hers.

So when Great-Aunt Ruth had died, leaving Freya her house and all its contents (apart from the bear, the solicitor had said, but that was not in the will, just her instructions to him), she’d seen it as a clean break, a new start.

She hadn’t realised it would be so cold here.

Or so… Christmassy.

Tony hadn’t done Christmas. He thought buying presents and decorating trees was a waste of money he could spend on himself. Freya had tried to make Christmas fun for Dani, but it had been hard.

But here… Loeth