Del hates Christmas. As a child, she spent too many Decembers on the streets after her parents abandoned her. As an adult, the enforced family focus, the clients who see the holidays as an excuse to get gropey, and the mistletoe her well-meaning colleague Maureen hung over her work desk just seals the deal: December sucks.
If only it could stay Halloween for a couple of months instead. Del loves the excuse to slay monsters, the spooky atmosphere—and of course, the werewolves. Because everyone knows werewolves make the best lovers… Pity they’re not real.
When Maureen conjures up a list of eligible bachelors for the holidays and insists Del take her pick, Del does the only reasonable thing: she lies. And when nosy office Grinch Rafael Kane asks who the lucky fellow is, Del announces it to the whole office: she’s getting a dog.
So now, the first item on Del’s holiday to-do list? Find a dog. Fast. Because if she doesn’t, nothing will protect her from Maureen’s list of Miami bachelor rejects.
A charming, sensual romance for everyone who believes in found families, happily ever after—and werewolves.
Chapter One
There was mistletoe over my desk. Honest to goodness mistletoe hanging over the remains of my Halloween festivities. The Great Pumpkin was now overshadowed by a hemiparasitic shrub.
When I’d left for a conference two hours ago, my desk had been a bastion against the winter holidays. A snow-free island in an otherwise elegantly decorated office suite dedicated to art.
The gallery’s front foyer with the dark wood paneling and over-stuffed pine-green tub chairs was now displaying glass and metal snowflakes in dazzling designs.
The main negotiating room, with the long table suitable for a fleet of lawyers, had a festive Seasons Greetings banner with pine trees and bright red birds signed by various Miami athletes.
The hall had garlands, multi-colored lights, and occasionally holiday music blaring out of incautiously opened offices.
But this?
This monstrous greenery was not supposed to touch my space.
Elegant Miami’s main art gallery across the MacArthur Causeway was a glittering gem of holiday art. But over here, at the offices on Miami Beach that had been selected specifically to be near my boss’s favorite house, things were toned down. This was where Elegant Miami hid the nitty gritty details of business. It was the safe space for the sales people that spent all day on the phone with overseas clients; it was the home base of the style teams who went and decorated Miami palaces with carefully curated art from around the world; it was a soulless sovereignty of the contracts office where Maureen and I made sure every jot and tittle were in place.
Tittle was one of my co-worker’s favorite words. It means the dot over a lower case I or J, but it sounds funny. Stuck in an L-shaped, linoleum-floored concrete bunker with two high windows that looked at the neighboring building a foot away and that always smelled of nail polish and mildew, we took our fun where we could find it.
But I drew the line at plastic Naughty Santa window clings blocking the little sunlight available. Being held hostage by forced holiday cheer was not part of my paycheck.
“Happy holidays, Del!” Maureen jumped out from behind my desk wearing a bright blue sweater with silver bells, dancing elves, and snowflakes. The bell at the end of her bright pink Santa hat with pole dancing elves jingled as she stilled.
I stared, carefully counting to ten in every language I could remember, willing the other half the contracts team to vanish. It wasn’t enough. Maureen and her seasonal cheer remained where they were.
“Don’t you love it? I’m going to spray some fake snow too!” She pointed around at the sad, red tinsel garlands hanging off the black filing cabinets and the tiny palm tree that was sagging under a strand of rainbow lights.
“That’s really not necessary,” I said carefully circling around the hazardous airspace of the parasitic plant of unwanted kisses.
What was Maureen even thinking? Who on earth was I going to kiss here? It was against my personal policy to kiss clients or married people. That left Rafael Kane, office grinch, as the only possible target of unwanted contact.
Granted, he was a hot and sexy Office Grinch, but he was also the person voted most likely to ruin a party. He didn’t chitchat. He didn’t get distracted. He didn’t waste time talking to coworkers, going to long Friday lunches, or building friendships.
Rafael Kane went to work, smiled for his clients only, and made Elegant Miami over fifteen percent of our yearly profit. We all loved him for his sales acumen, and stunning good looks, but no one around here considered him a friend.
Very early on, I’d tried. But Rafael Kane had taken one look at me, snarled like I’d stabbed his grandma, and avoided me ever since.
Which suited me just fine.
I frowned. If Maureen thought there was any chance of an office romance, my desk would look like an ad for the Great Bridal Expo. I needed tiny white seed pearls and chiffon as much as I needed mistletoe, which was about as much as a shark needed a tuba.
My idea of a good date was streaming a good murder mystery. I liked crime shows, creepy horror movies, and all things Halloween. People joked that I was a pagan, but that wasn’t exactly true. I just loved the idea of magic. It made sense to me.
I should have loved the idea of Santa, except I can’t remember a time I wasn’t poor, and Santa doesn’t visit poor kids.
December was my own personal hell. No winter solstice bonfire would ever be big enough to burn away all my anger at the forced cheer, demand for gifts, and unseasonable expectations.
I wasn’t making New Year’s Resolutions, I did that on my birthday in July.
I wasn’t meeting anyone under the mistletoe, I wasn’t that desperate.
I wasn’t going to participate in the annual gift exchange, because somehow I always wound up with the bar of soap stolen from the pay-by-the-hour motel down the street.
I would be skipping the party, hitting the white sand beaches of Miami with a pink drink in hand, and spending my three days off catching up on N.W. Gehson’s Serial Killerz series.
Maureen moved out from behind my desk and pouted. All of five-foot-nothing, she was a cute, apple-shaped woman with sunset pink hair and perpetually purple lips from a permanent makeup choice she made thirty years ago when she was twenty-one, drunk, and planning to be an exotic dancer all her life.[1]
In the bright blue sweater, she looked like the world’s glummest Sugar Plum Fairy. She was holding a shiny blue paper with the words “All I Want For The Holidays” and a blank space for a holiday wish on it.
If I ignored the paper, I might escape further holiday interrogations.
“I… I was just trying to be nice!” A huge tear shimmered in her eye.
“I know.” I patted her shoulder and tried very hard not to look at the tattoo peeking above her collar that HR insisted she keep covered during work hours. “But I don’t like Christmas.”
“This year is going to be different!” Maureen assured, her smile turning on like a floodlight in turtle season. “I figured out why you don’t like Christmas.”
“Because it’s a commercial farce to celebrate capitalism?”
“No, silly! Because you’re single! No one’s giving you the good gifts.” She winked and tried to bump me with her hip, but since her head only comes up to my shoulder even in kitten heels, it didn’t quite work.
I scooted around her and into my three-sided box of an office.
There were sparkly confetti snowflakes covering the nameplate that had been a gift from one of my favorite metal-work artists.
Delinna Farmer was not a name that deserved to have snow on it. Especially fake snow.
Shaking the snow off the metal cut-out of my name, I smiled up at Maureen. “Really, Maureen, I’m fine.”
“You will be!” She pulled a scroll of candy pink paper out of her cleavage so it unrolled in a long, curling list. “This is Auntie Maureen’s list of acceptable bachelors in the greater Miami area.”
“Maureen,” I said, sitting down and giving her my very best glare, “if Rafael Kane is mentioned even once on that list, I will murder you. Right here and now. There will be blood all over your dancing elf sweater. No jury will convict me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tried that. Obviously there’s chemistry there, but Rafe could have chemistry with a doorknob, so it doesn’t matter.” She put the list of names—written in pink and purple ink—on my desk. “Names. Numbers. Histories. Sizes.”
“Siz—Oh!” I covered my mouth. “Sweet mother of pearl! Maureen! This is so invasive!” I crumpled the list up and dropped it in the recycling bin.
“A girl’s got to know…”
“I do not need to know anyone’s sizes!” I shouted as the door to the contracts office opened and the devil himself walked in.
Rafael’s brown eyes went wide, his tan face frozen in a rictus of horror.
“I’m not participating in the company Christmas party and I’m not ordering the shirts,” I said loudly, willing Maureen to play along. Rafael might be the office grinch, but nobody gossiped as much as his people in the sales department. If he even guessed at the content of Maureen’s list, I’d have every art gallery employee and intern in the greater Miami area sending me extra details.
Maureen, oblivious to the threat of Dick Pic Armageddon, crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Why not? What’s wrong with the holiday party?”
“Because…” I scrambled for an excuse that wouldn’t insult Maureen’s party planning. “…I’m seeing someone.”
Rafael snorted in amusement as he shook his head and walked to our copy machine by the door. The sales department had a better one, one that could print posters and banners, but it was broken and the sales associates had been bouncing in and out of the contracts office all week. There was nothing like the holidays to convince the obscenely wealthy to drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on art.
“Oh, sweetie,” Maureen said, grabbing my arm and leaning in for a sideways hug as she ignored Rafael. “You don’t need to lie.”
“I’m not,” I lied. “I am in a relationship. And I think it’s serious. We’re talking about moving in together.”
From the copier Rafael gave me a look of disbelief that said, No one would ever live with you.
Maureen patted my hand with a tiny sigh of pity. “Let me guess. His name is Nick ‘The Closer’ Claus and you ordered him from the toys department at Lady Things downtown? I’ve met him too.” Her smile was wicked. “But he doesn’t count as a dinner date.”
Too. Much. Information.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the filing list I needed to finish today. Anything to get the image of my middle-aged co-worker gleefully bouncing through the adult toy store out of my head.
In my imagination, she wore a frilled pink skirt that barely covered her ample thighs. I shuddered.
My only option was to lie more, or to hope Rafael would step in to help me. “Maureen—”
“No!” Rafael shouted from across the room. “No more. Not until I leave. I do not need to hear this. Let me finish. Please. Five more pages!”
Just for that I wanted to play dirty, but encouraging Maureen would give me a heart attack. There was only one course of action left…
“I’m getting a dog,” I said before the dick pics became porno subscriptions in my stocking. “I’ve been visiting the shelters and I’m planning to adopt one over the holidays.”
Maureen’s shoulders sagged. “Honey, that does not count.”
“A dog will be more loyal than any man will!” I drew myself up, a furious dark queen with a mask of rage perfected after years of studying every campy Halloween vampire movie ever. Morticia Addams, eat your heart out. “Probably more loyal than a woman, too. It’ll love me, wait for me, and cuddle with me while I watch horror movies in December. A dog won’t make me watch cheesy Christmas specials. A dog will go for walks on the beach with me. A dog will be happy eating whatever I cook—”
“A dog should have a high-protein diet.”
Maureen and I both turned to stare.
Had Rafael Kane actually joined a conversation that wasn’t about sales? After all these years?
“Do you like dogs?” Maureen asked politely, reverting back to Sweet Office Eccentric like a chameleon. “You’ve never mentioned them.”
Rafael stared at the wall behind the copier as he realized his mistake. His body went rigid and I swear I saw a shiver of terror shimmy through him. He knew Maureen would never let him escape now.
“My mother raised dogs when I was growing up.” He finished his copy work and turned to glare at me. “I’ve seen the stuff you eat for lunch, Del. Do the world a favor and stick to stuffed animals and battery-operated toys. A dog deserves better.” He opened his mouth as if he were going to continue, then snapped it shut and marched out, back stiff.
Maureen hummed happily. “He has such a nice tush!”
“Maureen!” I smacked her arm.
“What? I’m married, not dead. I can look.”
“We’re at work.”
“Quitting time was eight minutes ago. I can lust after people off the clock.”
“You are a dirty old woman.”
“Yes I am,” she said proudly.
I rolled my eyes and remembered why I’d come back in. “I need to get my water bottles. I keep forgetting them.” Nine of them sat in a row by my spare shoes.
“Oh, is that what happened?” Maureen asked. “I thought you’d decided to decorate with them. Maybe make a shrine to your beloved agua.”
“Ha ha, funny.” I grabbed a big bag with the name of a local farmer’s stall on it and stuffed the water bottles inside. “The winter wonderland stuff… Can you keep it off my desk?”
Maureen pouted again.
“Please? I’ll bring you some of those spiced pecans you like.” If the bodega had a BOGO sale going on. If it wasn’t buy-one-get-one, I wasn’t sharing.
Her eyes went wide with delight. “Consider it gone. I will leave your corner a natural wasteland of bones, ghouls, and whatever that thing is,” she said pointing to my Zany Zombie bobblehead.
“Thank you.” I packed up and went home to research animal shelters. If I was going to be forced to participate in the holidays, I deserved to have someone who was happy to see me every day.
Surely I could get a dog for Christmas. It couldn’t be that hard.
[1] She still dances under the name Cotton Candy every other Friday down at the Sugar Strip on 4th, if you’re wondering.