Operation Mistletoe Magic Read online

  About Operation Mistletoe Magic

  Christmas is looking grim for Melissa Allen. She has no one to celebrate with, as her boyfriend of five years left her for her best friend and, after losing her home in a fire, she has nowhere to live. Left without a choice, she accepts the offer to the stay with family friends Rob and Linda Nicholls.

  Chris Nicholls is excited about bringing his five-year-old daughter, Jasmine, home to Lakefield, Ontario for her first white Christmas. The trip is a surprise for his parents, though no one is more surprised than Chris when he finds his childhood best friend in his parent's spare room. Surprise soon turns to delight as Chris has always had feelings for Melissa, feelings that are only getting stronger the longer they are together.

  But Melissa has had her fill of heartbreak, and isn't willing to fall for a man who is only going to leave. And Jasmine? She doesn't want to share her daddy with anyone. If Chris has any hope of convincing Melissa and Jasmine that they have a future together as a family, he'll need all the mistletoe magic he can get.

  About Nicki Edwards

  Nicki Edwards is a city girl with a country heart. Growing up on a small family acreage, she spent her formative years riding horses and pretending the neighbor’s farm was her own.

  Nicki writes medical rural romance and when she isn’t reading, writing or dreaming about rural life and medical emergencies, she can be found working as a Critical Care Nurse in a busy Intensive Care Unit, where many of her stories and characters are imagined.

  Nicki lives in Geelong, Victoria, with her husband and their four teenage/young adult children. Life is busy, fun and at times exhausting, but Nicki wouldn’t change it for anything. Visit her at nickiedwards.com.au.

  Also by Nicki Edwards

  Escape to the Country

  Escape to the Country 1: Intensive Care

  Escape to the Country 2: Emergency Response

  An Escape to the Country Novella: Operation White Christmas

  Escape to the Country 3: Life Support

  Escape to the Country 4: Critical Condition

  The Peppercorn Project

  First published by Momentum in 2016

  This edition published in 2016 by Momentum

  Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  Copyright © Nicki Edwards 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia

  Operation Mistletoe Magic

  EPUB format: 9781760551070

  Cover design by Danielle Hurps

  Edited by Julia Knapman

  Proofread by Laura Cook

  Macmillan Digital Australia: www.macmillandigital.com.au

  To report a typographical error, please visit momentumbooks.com.au/contact/

  Visit www.momentumbooks.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy books online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  To those people who wish they could leave their Christmas decorations hanging year-round.​

  Contents

  About Operation Mistletoe Magic

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Acknowledgments

  About Nicki Edwards

  Also by Nicki Edwards

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  There was no doubt about it. Someone had painted a red bull’s-eye in the center of Melissa Allen’s heart and they had faultless aim.

  A month earlier her perfect little world had tilted, slid and then slipped right off its axis. Now it lay shattered at her feet like a glass snowdome.

  The police car turned down the gravel road and slowed to negotiate the firetrucks and rubber-necking neighbors. In the back seat, Melissa squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists into balls at her side. “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “It’s bad,” the young police officer sitting beside her replied softly. She touched Melissa lightly on the shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t have anyone you can call?”

  Not anymore.

  A hollow ache of loneliness attempted to envelop Melissa. She let out a small sigh and looked across at the policewoman. The newly graduated officer hadn’t grown up in the small village of Lakefield and wouldn’t know anything about Melissa’s personal life.

  “My brother’s overseas and my parents live in Florida.”

  And who cares where Andrew is.

  “Can we contact them for you?”

  Melissa clutched at her purse on her lap and squeezed. “Even if they wanted to help, they wouldn’t be able to.”

  Melissa’s parents were old and had moved south to the States in search of a warmer climate. She rarely saw them and these days only kept in touch with the occasional phone call and less occasional visit. Her brother Justin lived in Dubai and she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him in person. She made a mental note to Skype him and let him know what had happened.

  The car pulled to a stop and Melissa braced herself. When the two police officers had arrived at the hospital to break the news that Melissa’s house had burned down, she’d been doing her best to distract a two-year-old boy who needed an intravenous cannula inserted into his arm while mentally planning what she was going to do after work that day. Relaxing in front of the fire with pizza and a good book was top on her list.

  Instead, with barely a word, she’d calmly set down the bottle of bubbles she was blowing and numbly gathered her bag and keys. She had followed the officers to the police car in a trance, ignoring the concerned looks on the faces of her colleagues.

  For the entire twenty-minute drive from Peterborough to Lakefield Melissa determined that she would hold it together and act brave no matter what confronted her. But the second she gazed out the car window, shock slammed against her chest and a cry escaped. She gaped in disbelief at the scene in front of her as though it was a set from a Hollywood horror movie.

  The older policeman had told her that very little was salvageable, but nothing could have prepared Melissa for this. The front of the little weatherboard cottage barely looked damaged, but the entire rear end of the house that backed onto the lake lay in a soggy mess of smoldering charcoaled timber. It was unrecognizable as her beautiful little home.

  Tears threatened and panic fluttered in her chest and flapped its way up her throat. Where would she live? What about her clothes and her things? Would insurance cover it? She pushed the worries back down and wiped at her eyes. The questions could wait. So could the answers.

  She stepped out of the car and the icy claws of winter grabbed at her neck and squeezed. The piercing shriek of a hawk drew her attention and she glanced into the leaden sky to watch it climb, circle and climb higher before disappearing out of sight in the darkening sky. She grimaced as thick white flakes began to fall. Wrapping her scarf tighter around her neck she buttoned up her coat over her nurse’s scrubs and tugged her woolen hat lower
over her ears. She avoided the pitying looks from her neighbors and forced herself to walk closer to the burned-out ruins of her cottage. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream. Or both.

  “I’m really sorry, Melissa,” the policewoman said gently, keeping step beside her.

  Melissa puffed out her cheeks and exhaled in a rush. “Story of my life,” she replied.

  So much for bad things only happening in threes.

  The first thing that went wrong happened back in the middle of November when Melissa was told her contract at the hospital wasn’t being renewed after the New Year. She was gutted. She loved her work as a pediatric nurse, but the small hospital where she worked was closing down its children’s ward. The timing sucked, but she’d shrugged off the blow and kept smiling. She was a good nurse, and finding another job shouldn’t be too difficult, even if it meant going to one of the much larger hospitals.

  Things skewed further a week later when her car was stolen from the front of her house one night. Since then she’d slept with one eye open and had even been online looking at rescue dogs for protection. Problem was, a Doberman would take up too much room in her little house and as cute as the idea of a puppy sounded, the idea of toilet training in winter lacked appeal.

  The absence of a car was a nuisance, but Lakefield wasn’t large and Melissa had managed by catching the bus into Peterborough for work or walking wherever she needed to go locally. She liked to look on the bright side of things. Her former car was a rust bucket and insured for more than it was worth so there was no point complaining about the inconvenience of not having her own wheels. Once the insurance claim was through she’d buy a much nicer car. Win-win.

  But two weeks ago, on the first of December – a date she’d never forget – her entire life nosedived, plummeted, then hit rock bottom, producing a tsunami of ugly tears.

  Andrew McIntosh, Melissa’s long term boyfriend – the “love of her life” boyfriend, her very own Dr. McDreamy boyfriend, her “I-can’t-wait-to-get-married-to-you-one-day-Melissa” boyfriend – dumped her without warning. Dropped her and ran off with Ashleigh Noble, Melissa’s former best friend who hadn’t lived up to her name.

  And now this. The lakeside cottage she’d scrimped and saved for had evaporated in a wispy plume of smoke into the late afternoon sky.

  Breathe in, breathe out, she commanded herself as she gazed at the mess before her. It’s just a house. She could replace her stuff. And she wasn’t hurt. At least not physically.

  She stood on her front lawn and surveyed the mess. Earlier that morning pristine white snow had blanketed the grass. Now, the heat of the fire had melted the snow and the water from the firehoses had washed it down the street toward the lake where it streaked the road like rivers of volcanic ash.

  A burly fireman approached her. He wore a helmet, the collar of his coat was turned up around his ears and his face was covered in soot, but she recognized him anyway. Everyone knew and loved Rob Nicholls. He was partially retired now from his veterinary practice, but still worked one day a week as well as volunteering for the fire brigade. Growing up, Melissa had enjoyed more meals around the kitchen table in his home than she had in her own but it had been years since she’d last spoken to him.

  “Hey love,” he greeted her gruffly. He yanked off his gloves and stuffed them into his pocket. “Sorry about your cottage.”

  Melissa nodded mutely.

  “Looks like an electrical fault. Did you leave your Christmas tree lights on when you went to work?”

  She bit back the retort at his gentle rebuke. Didn’t everyone leave their lights on this time of year?

  “Yes,” she mumbled.

  He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, further smearing the grime across the bridge of his nose. “It’s an old cottage. I’m really sorry but we couldn’t do anything but hose it down. The wiring had probably had it.”

  He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know. On top of needing new footings and a new roof, the cottage definitely needed rewiring. It was on Melissa’s never-ending list of things to do when she won the lottery. Unfortunately she was never going to win the lottery, because she never remembered to enter it.

  A bitter wind whipped up off the lake and tore between the houses, stinging her cheeks like needles. It shot straight through her coat to her skin, biting down to her core. She shivered involuntarily and her teeth clinked together like ice cubes in a glass.

  “Do you have anywhere to go?” Rob asked kindly. Dark eyes reflected genuine sympathy and concern. “Family? Friends?” He paused. “Boyfriend?”

  Melissa shook her head. He knew her parents had moved to Florida. He probably also knew the details of Andrew’s disappearing act.

  Rob ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “We always have room at our place, you know.”

  “Oh no. Thank you but I couldn’t possibly impose,” she said quickly.

  “If you don’t say yes, Linda will skin me alive for not helping you out. You know what she’s like. She loves picking up strays and orphans. And she loves you. The minute she finds out about the fire she’ll—”

  “I really couldn’t,” Melissa interrupted.

  Warm eyes met hers. “We’ve missed you, sweetheart,” Rob said softly.

  Tears formed in her eyes again. She’d missed them too.

  Their son, Chris, had been Melissa’s best friend all through school and Rob and Linda had been a much needed set of second parents to her. She sighed. Chris Nicholls. At one point in time, losing touch with Chris would have seemed inconceivable, yet she hadn’t thought about him in years.

  Everyone had presumed they’d end up together, but they hadn’t wanted to ruin their friendship by dating, so they’d dated other people instead. The truth was, Melissa had hidden a secret infatuation for Chris, playing an academy award winning “just friends” role the entire time she’d known him. It would have devastated her if he found out how she felt about him and didn’t feel the same way. So she’d chosen the best option – acting like she didn’t have feelings for him in order to preserve the single most important relationship in her life.

  In their final year of school Melissa met someone – she couldn’t even remember his name now – and Chris had met Erin. From that moment, everything they’d had together slowly unraveled. The two couples double-dated once or twice, but Erin was so jealous of Melissa’s friendship with Chris that she did everything to keep them apart and jeopardize their relationship.

  High school ended and when Chris and Erin went to university in Toronto to study medicine and Melissa stayed in Peterborough to do nursing, they drifted further apart. Time, distance and Erin made sure of that.

  They kept in touch for a while, but gradually the phone calls became text messages then eventually silence. One of Melissa’s deepest regrets was allowing their friendship to slip through her fingers so easily.

  Last time she’d seen Chris was at his wedding to Erin and she’d barely been able to keep it together for the entire service.

  Over the years she’d kept busy with her job and avoided the Nicholls family. She’d also pushed the memories of her friendship with Chris to a dark corner of her mind, locked the door and thrown away the key. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d succeeded. At least that’s what she thought, until seeing Rob again.

  The policewoman touched Melissa on the arm. “Sounds like you’ve got someplace to go at least. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Melissa shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  She handed Melissa a card. “There are a list of emergency numbers here. Don’t hesitate to call them. They can help you with clothes and things.”

  Melissa dredged up a small smile and stuffed the card into her coat pocket. “Thanks for your help.”

  “I’ll be off then. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas,” Melissa replied automatically.

  With less than two weeks until Christmas, there was no way it would be a merry Christmas
this year.

  Chapter 2

  It was shaping up to be another busy shift for Chris Nicholls. It was nine o’clock on a Friday night, less than three weeks before Christmas, and the small emergency department at the Birrangulla Base Hospital in central New South Wales was over capacity.

  They’d passed the record number of patients ever seen in a twenty-four-hour period at seven-thirty that evening and the stinking hot weather was doing nothing to keep people away. Chris anticipated they’d see at least another dozen or more patients before he turned into a pumpkin at midnight. It was his final shift before his annual leave and he was supposed to finish at eleven, but at this rate he couldn’t see that happening.

  In the well-appointed resuscitation bay worried parents Karly and James sat with their twelve-day-old baby, Sofia. The baby had been born a week before her due date but was a good weight and had been feeding well, and both parents had been enjoying the euphoria of first time parenthood. That was until four o’clock that afternoon when Karly took Sofia for a routine check-up with the maternal and child health nurse.

  On examining Sofia, the nurse thought she appeared to be in mild respiratory distress. The warning bells sounded loudly enough in her head that she suggested Karly take Sofia straight into the emergency department. From there, things went downhill quickly as they often did with sick babies and children.

  By six-thirty Sofia had deteriorated to the point that Chris had no choice except to insert a breathing tube and connect Sofia to the ventilator. It was the first time he’d tubed a newborn and the sweat had streamed down his back. Luckily, Georgia, the emergency consultant, was an experienced doctor and she’d calmly assisted and quietly encouraged him.

  Sofia was stable now, but Chris wouldn’t relax until the NETS retrieval team arrived. NETS, the Newborn and pediatric Emergency Transport Service, was a moving intensive care unit for kids. They would fly Sofia and her parents to Sydney where she would be taken straight to the children’s hospital.