Peggy Jaeger, Author

So, the cover for my 2024 addition to the DICKENS HOLIDAY ROMANCE series, A CHEF’S KISS CHRISTMAS, will be revealed on our Dickens Facebook page during the Labor Day weekend. But…

Here’s a little from the story, which is in galleys right now, getting ready for preorder.

“What’s that?” Tony thrust his chin toward the bundle in her arms when she got in the car.

She turned to him and with her eyes wide, chin dropped a hair so she could zero in on him, she said, “A freshly cut tabletop tree. It’s barely thirty-six inches tall.”

Glaring at her, his own eyes narrowing, he said, “For Abra?”

“Nope.”

She popped the P with a flare.

“Portia.” She’d have to have a hearing deficit to mistake the warning in his voice.

“Anton,” she said back, using the same tone.

“Don’t call me that.” For some reason, he rolled his head right and left.

“We’re in your car, silly. No one can hear us. And before you have a conniption,” she held up one hand, effectively silencing him, “It’s a gift.”

“A gift?”

She nodded and said, “There you go, repeating everything again, but yes. It’s a thank you for helping me today.”

“I didn’t help you at all,” he countered. “When you called me, and then we wound up at the tree farm, I thought it meant you needed help with cutting one down.”

“Initially, that was my thought. But it seemed easier, once we got here, to have the farm hands do it. They’ll do a great job and deliver it, too. But you came with me, gave up your one free afternoon, and because of that, I wanted to say thank you, and getting you this tree is my way of doing it.”

He could argue, but he’d look like a real loser if he refused the offer of the gift.

But… “I don’t have anything to decorate it with, and like I said, I’m not investing in a bunch of things that I won’t be taking with me when I leave.”

“No worries.” She pulled out her phone and gave him the directions to the town’s secondhand store, Curious Curios.

“And we’re going there, why?” he asked, pulling onto the county road.

“Because they have a package waiting for me that I need to pick up. They don’t deliver. And before you say a package, in that deep, smokey, sexy voice,“ he clamped his mouth shut because he’d been about to do just that, “Yes, a package. It’s filled with used ornaments and tree trimmings the owner picked out for me.”

“When?” was all he could think to ask.

“What?”

“Not what. When?”

“When, what?”

The force and breadth of the sigh he expelled fogged up the front windshield. “I feel like I’m in a bad Yogi Berra movie and it’s déjà vu all over again.” Another exhale, this one followed by a cleansing inhale meant to calm him. “When did you arrange for a box of ornaments to be filled for you?”

The banter between these two centers a great deal on his inability to be anything more than monosyllabic most days and her chattiness. You can probably surmise from this quick scene, this is a grumpy/sunshine tropey-book. LOL.