Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)
    A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)
    A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)
    Ebook91 pages59 minutes

    A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)

    By Jodi Thomas

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook


    A shy soul and an adventurous heart. As the holidays approach, can they find happiness together?

    Maria Anne Davis was on her way to an exciting career as a chef in Dallas, until a terrible car accident left her blind. Ever resilient, Maria has reinvented her life on her own terms, starting a business out of her home kitchen, selling her jams and jellies to the local grocery.

    Maria loves romance novels, and despite her bold spirit, she fears she'll never have a big love affair like ones her heroines experience. That is, until she realises how much she cares about the quiet Wes Whitman, the owner of the grocery.

    Wes can't keep Maria's wildly popular jam on his shelves – just like he can't keep the fierce, beautiful Maria out of his thoughts. But how could a firecracker like Maria come to love a shy, nervous man like him? Maybe all they need is a grand affair. Wes needs to convince Maria that some affairs last forever, though – just in time for Christmas.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Australia
    Release dateOct 1, 2017
    ISBN9781489248282
    A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)
    Author

    Jodi Thomas

    New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas is a fifth-generation Texan who sets many of her stories in her home state, where her grandmother was born in a covered wagon. She is a certified marriage and family counselor, a Texas Tech graduate and writer-in-residence at West Texas A&M University. She lives with her husband in Amarillo, Texas.

    Read more from Jodi Thomas

    Related to A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Contemporary Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      ‘In the Country of Women’: Featured Nonfiction from Susan Straight

      Nov 19, 2019

      In our latest edition of featured nonfiction, we present an excerpt from National Book Award finalist Susan Straight’s new novel, In the Country of Women, out now from Catapult. The post ‘In the Country of Women’: Featured Nonfiction from Susan Strai

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Simple Heart (1997)

      Mar 1, 2022

      A Simple Heart (1997)
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Cuts

      Dec 1, 2023

      “Next?” The row of ancient men on the cracked vinyl seats gave no response, as if enchanted into muteness. Isabella Bruni repeated her question, turning it into more of a statement. Surely one of the guys would come forth and deposit himself in her c

      17 min read

    • Article

      Helen

      Jun 5, 2023

      She was a friend of my family—the Carlins, as I have chosen to call them. She and my father met in the fifties through the editor of the architecture magazine where she began her career. My father had taken her out a few times. They were never lovers

      30 min read

    • Article

      The Eulogy

      Jul 13, 2022

      The Eulogy
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Only Rule

      Jul 13, 2020

      There is only one rule in polite English society, but it is iron clad. Of course, polite English society is a fiction. For one thing, its members are rarely polite. Politeness is for the middle classes rather than those who live off ancestral acres o

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Cycles

      Nov 10, 2022

      His online profile was promising: good hair, straight teeth, college degree. And he was nice-looking too, in his photo anyway, standing on a clifftop with the sun rising over his welldefined, muscular shoulder. He was attractive enough, the kind of u

      18 min read

    • Article

      A Nice Day Out

      Jan 8, 2021

      A Nice Day Out
      5 min read

    • Article

      Refusenik

      Jan 1, 2021

      I was promised a girl held her glossy image, shatterable, ice skating on a Soviet pond. I’d never seen snow but for the cut out paper flakes hung in school hallways. I only knew rain as intermittent confusion. Los Angeles in the ’80s. We set fire to

      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Aug 9, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Duplex

      Jun 9, 2020

      I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart. My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey,

      21 min read

    • Article

      Left To Lose

      Jul 10, 2022

      Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore. The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always

      11 min read

    • Article

      La Bohème

      Mar 1, 2022

      ON A SATURDAY or Sunday afternoon in the cold early months of 1988, I sat alone at a table for two in a Greenwich Village diner, twenty-four years old, hopelessly young, my notebook open in front of me. At the table next to mine were three people, al

      13 min read

    • Article

      Scenes From A Marriage

      Mar 23, 2022

      Scenes From A Marriage
      6 min read

    • Article

      That Particular Sunday

      Jul 6, 2023

      That Particular Sunday
      26 min read

    • Article

      'You Think It, I’ll Say It' Shows Curtis Sittenfeld At Her Best, Where Gender Meets Class

      Apr 24, 2018

      Sittenfeld trafficks in the minor humiliations of fictional women who often self-sabotage, or at least overthink.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Now Is the Time

      Nov 24, 2020

      Now Is the Time
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 251

      Mar 15, 2022

      The Art of Fiction No. 251
      20 min read

    • Article

      Scenes From A Marriage

      Mar 23, 2022

      Scenes From A Marriage
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella)

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Christmas Affair (A Ransom Canyon novella) - Jodi Thomas

      CHAPTER ONE

      TRAVIS FULLER TURNED UP the collar on his jean jacket and tried to slide farther down into the backseat of the sheriff’s cruiser. He hated the way cop cars always smelled of vomit and stale coffee. He hated cold days. He hated little towns and he hated the deputy who picked him up from the Lubbock airport like he was a rescue dog going to a new home.

      Hell, he thought, if he ever reached his sixteenth birthday, he’d probably hate being on his own, too. He’d learned a long time ago that the next place was usually worse than the last, and Crossroads, Texas, looked to be touching the bottom of the barrel.

      Travis had made up his mind when he was seven that as soon as he turned sixteen, he’d run away and never look back. He couldn’t do a worse job of raising himself than his parents had. Both were drunks. His mother was mean and his father was stupid. Their last fight ended with her in the hospital and him in jail.

      And me? he mumbled. I have to go to hell in Texas just because I’m their offspring.

      The deputy turned his radio down and glanced back. You all right, kid?

      I’m not a kid. I’m almost sixteen.

      Right, the deputy said with a laugh. Well, Mr. Fuller, welcome to Crossroads. Looks like you’ll be staying with us for a while. You’ll love it here. The three uncles you’re bunking with are real nice guys. One was a teacher for almost forty years, one is still working as a real cowboy, and the third one, Horace Fuller, no one knows what he did for a living but he always paid his bills. He’s sort of the town hermit, and that’s not an easy title to have in a small town.

      They are not my uncles, Travis grumbled.

      Oh, right. Great-uncles. Longevity must run in your family. I’m guessing all three are past their seventieth birthday.

      I don’t care. Not one of them had any kids or a wife so I’m guessing they are not long on social skills.

      Deputy Cline didn’t argue, but added, They’ve been fixing up a place at Horace’s for you to stay. Up high, almost like a tree house. I wouldn’t be surprised if you can see the lights of town from there.

      Great. Another cage. Travis looked out the window as the deputy pulled off the highway. The town was all brown and deserted in the winter morning light. Most of the buildings were built square and low to the ground.

      You ever had an architect live here? Travis frowned.

      Nope. Not that I know of.

      I could have guessed that. Frank Lloyd Wright would have a heart attack here. Travis could spend hours looking at Wright’s work in the books at libraries. To him the buildings were art, every one a masterpiece.

      Wright? He’s that famous architect who built all those strange buildings? Deputy Cline chimed in, as if he thought he was on a game show. I’ve done carpentry work, but would have no idea where to start on something like his designs.

      He was a genius, Travis mumbled, not really wanting to have a conversation with the deputy. Cline was so new at the job he didn’t even know he wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone riding in the backseat. Travis had had enough rides to know that rule.

      As the cruiser circled round, Travis asked, more to change the subject than from interest, What’s that, a barn for tumbleweeds? He pointed to an open-air building on the land left when streets crossed in the center of town.

      Deputy Cline laughed as if he thought the question was a joke. That’s our town square. The structure in the middle was going to be a grand gazebo, but the project kind of got dropped. Maybe some committee will pick it back up in the spring.

      Travis sat up straighter. Anyone ever tell you that the town square is a triangle?

      Nope, the deputy answered too quickly to be telling the truth.

      Travis had a feeling Cline had heard the question one too many times. He was doing like folks do to anyone too young to vote when they don’t want to answer a question. Kind of like parents do when the world falls apart and they tell you you’re lucky. Yeah, Travis thought, he was real lucky. Mom was half dead, Dad would probably never get out of jail this time, and he had to go live with three crazy old uncles not even one woman thought worth marrying.

      Three weeks to Christmas and all he wanted was a bus ticket out of his life.

      CHAPTER TWO

      WES WHITMAN WATCHED Maria Anne Davis move silently back and forth from the farm pickup parked just outside the side door to her display in his general store.

      Every Wednesday she restocked the shelves with Davis Delightful Jams and Jellies, and every Wednesday he kept an eye on her from ten feet away. Standing ready to step in and help if needed, but never smothering her.

      The small woman couldn’t be much into her thirties, and there was a calculated grace about her movements. She counted her steps, touched familiar points along her path, made sure everything was in place before she carried in each crate. Maria Anne Davis might be blind, but she used her other senses and her brain.

      Watching her move was poetry in motion, he thought, and then laughed at himself for being almost romantic.

      Wes made sure everything was exactly the same as it had been the week before. Nothing was ever in the aisle to block her path. In the silence of the early morning, she stocked and he watched.

      She might be petite, but she was strong. She always dressed in jeans and a blue plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Nothing fancy. Never showy. But pretty, just the same, with her long hair tied back at the base of her neck and the dark curls drifting down to her waist.

      At first he’d tried too hard to help, then he realized Maria Anne didn’t need any help. She needed to be alone in the stillness of the dawn hours before any customers came in.

      If he left her to her work, the shelves would be stocked, all the labels facing forward, all in order.

      Every week he tried to talk to her. He liked her shy ways and the grace in her slender movements. He’d probably like her voice, too, if he ever heard it in more than a whisper.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1