A Christmas So Real

By Nadine C. Keels

A sweet holiday love story

"She turned the key between his heartstrings, and walked into her dream..."

Nearly twenty years after a painful separation, singer-songwriter Nikkita Creighton has a glorious reunion with the man whose heart she calls home. Yet, when she senses his earnest plan for a major step in their relationship, Nikkita puts a pause on it. She's only partly sure why.

But it isn't long before he presents her with an early Christmas gift. A gift that brings a chance for Nikkita to give of herself—in one of the best ways she's ever known how. Now, her giving experience may help clear the pathway to the next step in her new season of love.

You can enjoy A Christmas So Real on its own, or start earlier on in Nikkita's journey with We Were Real.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nadine C. Keels
• Release date: Oct 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215592373

Nadine C. Keels

Nadine. A French name, meaning, "hope."Her lifelong passion for the power of story makes reading and writing an adventure for Nadine C. Keels. She’s driven to write the kinds of stories she’s always wanted to read but couldn’t always find, featuring diverse and uncommon lead characters in a medley of genres. Through her books and her blog (Prismatic Prospects), Nadine aims to spark hope and inspiration in as many people as she can reach."My aspiration is for my words to help people: to bring hope, to change minds, to expand imagination, to provide entertainment, and to save lives—as other authors’ words have done for me."

Book preview

A Christmas So Real

Nadine C. Keels

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2023 by Nadine C. Keels

Cover Design:

Nadine C. Keels

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is not intended.

References to biblical events include scriptures quoted from the World English Bible.

Find Nadine online at:

www.prismaticprospects.wordpress.com

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Contents

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

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There’s More

Excerpt from We Were Real

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Chapter One

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"Nikki, I…? Don’t ask?"

She was standing at one of the windows in her suite, her light gray eyes watching the soft fall of early Saturday morning precipitation through the pane. A soft fall of bright, wintry powder that disappeared only in the places where it touched wet pavement. Heaven’s powdered sugar seemed aimed on turning the outdoors into a white weekend wonderland, by and by. Business district and all.

Here she stood in her bedroom at an extended stay hotel in the city, when the place she really wanted to be right now was over in the neighboring town. Where she’d be able to hear his voice in person, rather than only in her head.

"Nikki, I…?"

It wouldn’t mean she’d be hearing that bewildered sort of question from him again, though. No, that wouldn’t be the conversation today. The conversation on a white weekend wonderland day would be the kind that she could wrap herself up in. Settle down and bask in.

There was sure to be cider over there today. He had a thing for warm cider during cold weather. He also had such a warm way with laughter. And the warmest way of holding her, relaxing and stirring up her senses all at once into the best blend of memory and anticipation.

A pink tinge crept into her bronzy brown face at the knowledge of it.

"You mean, you told him not to ask you?" Jayme’s surprised words floated through the speakerphone following a pause, her voice uncharacteristically subdued. The pause had been so long that it’d been easy to forget for a moment that this was the middle of a catch-up conversation with an old associate.

Nikkita shifted away from the window with her phone in hand, turning her back on her view of that beckoning, snowy wonderland in the making. Her free hand went up to run absently through her loose, black curls, which she’d yet to style for the day. The evident surprise coming through the phone was no surprise to her.

What Nikkita had just disclosed didn’t sit completely right with her either. A little while before, this chummy chat had been about Jayme, a single mother raising a pair of sons and holding down a career in social work. But the two women on either sides of the phone wouldn’t truly be catching up if they didn’t somehow find themselves at this point, with Nikkita having tipped over an invisible jar to send the beans in question spilling out of it.

Her hand dropped from her hair. A sigh escaped through her plump lips.

That cherished male voice in her head, along with related memories, took over her consciousness for a moment longer.

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Ever since the middle of her adolescence, there’d been no guy for Nikkita Creighton but Ian Everson.

Ian, with his jocular self.

"You’re saying I tell bad jokes?"

"Playing with my emotions, Nik-Nik?"

"Pop my collar for me, would ya’?"

Ian. With his thoughtful self.

"Nikki? You okay?"

"Hey, Nikkita. I came here to see if you wanted company."

Ian, with his sandy complexion, graced with freckles on his nose and upper cheeks. Freckles that Nikkita had always thought of as French vanilla bean speckles.

From the day the two of them officially met as high school sophomores, seriously talking together had come as naturally to Nikkita and Ian as joking around and flirting had. He would come and sit in on her music sessions, when she’d turn up her stereo at home and play along on her keyboard, letting inspiration pour into and out of her spirit: the spirit of a developing songwriter. She would go over to Ian’s house, where the two of them would lounge in the den and watch episodes of classic television programs created during the era when drugstores on any number of American street corners had lunch counters. Lunch counters and, especially, soda fountains.

When Nikkita took to different local stages with solos to sing, Ian was there, applauding in appreciation for her. When Ian took his place at first base or in the