The Most Unusual Gift

By Natalie-Nicole Bates

It's Christmas time and Eriah Jameson has returned home to restart his family's business. Due to his wild-child past, no one is friendly or welcoming to Barrow Haven's black sheep.

 

Aylin Meyers lost her job when Eriah's father took ill. She knows Eriah needs her help getting his business up and running again. But she doesn't trust him. If he fails, she knows it will dishonor his father's memory.

 

Aylin knows that at Christmas, it's the right thing to help your fellow man – no matter how wretched he might be.

 

As Aylin gets to know Eriah, she sees a different side of him that the town never saw.

 

Perhaps the black sheep has changed forever.

 

Still, can she be sure this side of Eriah is real, and not just a facade he's perfected over time to get his way?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paperlate Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223515777

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Natalie-Nicole Bates is a book reviewer and author. Her passions in life include books and hockey along with Victorian and Edwardian era photography and antique poison bottles. Natalie contributes her uncharacteristic love of hockey to being born in Russia. She currently resides in the UK where she is working on her next book and adding to her collection of 19th century post-mortem photos.    

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Natalie-Nicole Bates

The Most Unusual Gift

A Short Story

First published by Perfectly Poisoned Press 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Natalie-Nicole Bates

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Natalie-Nicole Bates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Natalie-Nicole Bates has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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Chapter 1

Chapter Separator

It wasn’t as though she had any place better to be during the Christmas holidays.

Aylin Myers enjoyed her quiet existence in her own little world, pouring candles and crafting perfumed oils from the privacy of her own home. But the need for an automobile forced her out into the cold.

Her little business exploded overnight, and she desperately needed a car to make deliveries to bespoke little shops all around, and outside of the city.

The yearly Barrow Haven Christmas Market attracted thousands of eager, last-minute holiday shoppers over one day. It was the perfect way to make a few quick dollars. Combined with the money she’d saved, buying a used car that would get her from place to place, was now within reach—If her handcrafted candles and perfume were a hit with the shoppers.

With perfume titles like ‘Funeral Flowers’ and ‘Garden of Graves,’ her dark wares might scare off the happy holiday crowds looking for cheap, handmade, feel-good gifts for their friends, work acquaintances, and of course, their loved ones.

The December weather was extremely wicked this year. Standing with only the shelter of an open market stall, on an early Saturday morning, caused Aylin to once again in her mind justify being outside in below freezing temperatures.

She’d arrived early, and made the stall as festive as possible to attract potential buyers. She wound strings of brightly colored fairy lights around the support poles of the shelter and hung a pine wreath decorated with antique glass baubles. She bought bunches of fresh mistletoe and holly berries from a vendor and hung them from the support beams.

Carefully, she laid out her assortment of candles. Some from Victorian-era molds, she procured by scavenging antique stores, flea markets, and garage sales. She took the inspiration for the names for her gothic scented perfumed oils from her experiences