It's getting to be that time of year again - the holiday season. I just love reading holiday books through the whole month of November and continuing straight through New Year's. Today we have a very special guest, Julie Rowe, who is here to talk to us today about her new release, Secret Santa, in the Timeless Keepsakes anthology. Be sure to enter the raffle below for the great prizes on this tour!
Take it away Julie!
The Tradition of Secret Santa
I grew up on a small farm in the Canadian prairies which means we were pretty self-sufficient. We had a large garden, so our veggies were either fresh or pickled. We ate our own beef and chickens (don’t get me started on the chickens – I remember picking feathers out of my hair for hours!), and we didn’t have a lot of money for extras, like store bought items. We had a great Christmas tradition though that lasted all of December when my brother, sister and I were kids. This Secret Santa tradition made Christmas fun and taught us to appreciate more than just the presents under the tree.
At the beginning of December my mother would put a small cradle for baby Jesus under the Christmas tree. It was the family’s job to fill the cradle with straw, but you had to earn every straw that went into the cradle by anonymously doing something nice to another member of the family. We picked a new name out of hat every few days and that person was the recipient of our gift of good deeds. The good deed could be anything, making someone’s bed while they were in the bathroom, putting a cup of hot chocolate next their bedside table before bed or sneaking an extra special snack in their lunch. It became a bit of a competition to think up new and nicer things to do for each other. By the time Christmas Day rolled around, we were way more proud of the huge mound of straw in the cradle than we were of the new doll, truck or stuffed animal we received. Getting to be a Secret Santa turned out to be the best gift of all.
In my Timeless Keepsakes story—Secret Santa—nurse Kenzie Bowman, grieving the death of her twin brother,receives an unexpected gift at the staff Secret Santa party: the bullet that killed him and a message of hope and love. That message is the real gift.
Do you have any Secret Santa traditions in your family? What is the best gift you’ve ever received that didn’t cost money?
That was such a cool tradition. Thanks for sharing it with us Julie. Here's a little excerpt from Secret Santa
Chapter One
“I hate Secret Santa,” Kenzie Bowman
muttered to herself. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the
wall, as far away from the crowded hospital’s emergency department lunch room
table as possible. The table was covered in wrapped boxes and gift bags. A bevy
of nurses rummaged through them looking for their name on a tag, squeals of
glee and laughter filling the remaining space in the room.
Anyone walking by would
think it was Black Friday. They’d be lucky if they didn’t end up treating one
of their own for a bloody nose.
She used to love
Christmas. The decorations, buying just the right gift for a friend, singing
carols, and spending time with the people she loved.
Until last year.
Until her twin brother,
Kennon, was killed on Christmas Day.
Now, she just wanted
the entire event to be over. She never wanted to see another Christmas tree,
hear another Christmas song, or taste eggnog ever again.
Her friend Amy surfaced
from the circling sharks with a gift in each hand. “I found yours, Kenzie,” she
said with Christmas cheer that darn near dripped sugar.
Oh joy.
Amy bounced up to
Kenzie and thrust the gift into her hands, then proceeded to rip the paper off
her own.
“Ohh,” she squealed,
segueing into a victory dance as she hoisted her booty into the air. “A bottle
of Baileys! Santa loves me, yes he does.” Amy paused mid-dance to lever her
laser-sharp gaze at Kenzie. “Your turn, Ebenezer. Open it.”
“What’s the point? I
don’t wear perfume, I don’t like scented candles, and I don’t drink alcohol. We
know the likelihood of one of those three items being in this box is
eighty-six-point-three percent.”
“You sound like a computer
when you talk that way,” Amy said, enunciating each word individually.
“Better than having
your eardrums blown out by indiscriminate screaming.”
Amy’s eyes narrowed to
two slits. “Open the box.”
“Have I mentioned how
much I hate Secret Santa?”
“The box, Kenzie. Now.”
“Fine.” Kenzie rolled
her eyes and picked at the festive paper. “But if this gift sucks it’s going
home with you.”
Amy’s fierce expression
slowly turned into a frown. “You don’t just hate Secret Santa, you hate
Christmas, don’t you?”
“Do you blame me?”
Christmas was supposed to be a time of joy and love, spent with friends and
family. All that was impossible for her now. She and Kennon had been all each
other had for eight years now. A heart attack had taken Dad from them. Mom
followed him to the grave four months later.
Amy glanced away at the
crowd of nurses and doctors for a second, then met Kenzie’s gaze. “I suppose
not. But it’s not healthy for you to brood.” She watched Kenzie’s fingers as
they slowly peeled the tape from the paper. “Come to my place Christmas Day,”
Amy said, the words rushing out of her mouth like a five-year-old who’d had too
much candy. “Don’t stay home alone. Please.”
“I won’t be good
company.”
“That’s why you should
come.”
The last of the tape
came off the paper and Kenzie carefully folded it and threw it into the garbage
can. The box in her hand was too small for a bottle of Baileys, so it was down
to perfume or candles. She opened the top, pushed aside the tissue paper, and
pulled out a glass ball about the size of her fist.
The glass was plain, no
decoration or sparkles. Something hung inside it, tied up in some string. She
turned the ball to see if she could get a better look—
A bullet.
A smashed, wrecked
bullet.
Pain seized her
diaphragm and brought her breathing to a screeching halt. The agony ricocheted
through her body until even the tips of her hair hurt.
“What’s that?” Amy
asked, staring at the ball, confusion furrowing her forehead. “It’s not very
festive looking.”
It could only be one
thing.
“The reason why I hate
Christmas.” Her voice sounded strangely calm.
“Huh?”
“This isn’t from staff,
it’s from my brother’s best military buddy.”
Why? Why would he do
this? Give her the one thing guaranteed to rip her heart out while it was only
barely still beating.
“It’s the bullet that
killed my brother.” The words came from far, far away. Almost an echo.
Amy’s gaze jerked up to
meet her own. “Your brother? But I thought he… Shit,” she breathed out as a
whisper. “How do you know it’s that
bullet?”
“Because he tried to
give it to me before.”
“He what?”
But Kenzie wasn’t
listening anymore. She was drowning in sorrow. It clouded her mind, sight, and
hearing, pulling her under into a dark and silent world. Somehow she walked
from the lunch room to the waiting room, but she had no memory of doing it.
This must be what teleportation was like. Going from location to location
without the inconvenience of conventional travel.
People turned as she
entered the waiting area, most of them likely hoping she’d call their name.
Except for one.
One man stood slowly,
staring at her face, his gaze apologetic. He was tall and fit, with a squared
face that was strong rather than handsome. Every woman in the room turned to
stare at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. His whole focus was on her.
She angled her head
back sharply then turned and walked a little ways until she got to a large
wheelchair-accessible washroom. She went inside. He followed her in and she
shut and locked the door.
Kenzie glared at the
man who had been trying to give her a damaged bullet for the past three months.
A man she’d refused to see again after their first disastrous conversation. A
man she’d told to go to hell.
A man she’d once
thought she loved.
Gage Remington.
She held out the box to
him. “I don’t want this. I never wanted to see it and to find it in a glass
ball pretending to be a Christmas ornament—” For a moment she ran completely
out of breath. “Take it.”
He made no effort to
accept the box. “Damn it, Kenzie, he wanted you to have it.”
“My brother wanted me to
have the bullet that killed him?”
“No. He wanted you to
have a reminder of what you have to live for. ‘We’re all just a bullet or a
breath away from oblivion; don’t waste yours’—wasn’t that the phrase you used
to say goodbye with?” He took a step toward her. “He made me swear. It was the
last thing he said to me before—”
She thrust a warning
finger an inch from his nose. “Don’t say it.” She paced a step or two away,
then back. “I never knew how stupid and childish it was to say the rhyme our
grandfather taught us until the damn bullet showed up.” She shoved the box at
him and spun, grabbing for the door handle, but he got there before she could
get the door open.
He took her shoulders
into his hands and turned her.
She didn’t want to see
him, didn’t want to touch him, didn’t want to face the reality of her life with
her brother—her best friend—no longer in it.
She pounded on Gage’s
chest and fought to get herself free.
He simply gathered her
up and pulled her into his intractable embrace. Someone was crying deep,
shuddering sobs that sounded like they were coming out of the throat of a
tortured person.
That’s when she
realized—she was the person crying.
About Julie
Rowe:
Julie Rowe’s first career as a medical lab
technologist in Canada took her to the Northwest Territories and northern
Alberta, where she still resides. She loves to include medical details in her
romance novels, but admits she’ll never be able to write about all her medical
experiences because, “No one would believe them!” In addition to writing
contemporary and historical medical romance, and fun romantic suspense for
Entangled Publishing and Carina Press, Julie has a short story in The Mammoth
Book of ER Romance (September 2013). Her book Saving the Rifleman (book one of
the War Girls series) won the novella category of the 2013 Gayle Wilson Award
of Excellence. Her writing has also appeared in several magazines such as
Today’s Parent, Reader’s Digest (Canada), Canadian Living, and Romantic Times
Magazine.
For
more information about Julie, please visit her online at www.julieroweauthor.com, on Twitter @julieroweauthor, or at her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/JulieRoweAuthor.
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