A Lot Like Christmas - Dawn Atkins

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      Chase ran the back of his hand along her cheek

      Sylvie could hardly breathe. Everything in her waited to hear what he would say, what he would do.

      He gave in and pressed his mouth to hers, holding motionless, as if waiting for the spark to flare. And oh, did it flare. Just like all those years before, pure desire poured through her.

      They were reliving a memory, fixing it. For once in her life, she was going for it. Arousal sparked along her nerves, like strings of twinkle lights. She felt light-headed and pulled back just long enough to take in a gulp of air. With their hands on each other’s faces, their upper bodies close, the embrace was tender and hungry and wild all at once and she never wanted to stop.

      Dear Reader,

      I have to confess: I’m not a good shopper. I walk into a mall and get overwhelmed. That dates back to childhood when my mother would take me shopping for a special dress and I’d find something in the first store, but she would say, “Shall we keep looking for something better?” Better? There might be something better? So off we’d go, to store after store after store. All that choice wore me out.

      So why would a non-shopper write a story about a woman who practically grew up in a mall and loved it like home, its employees like family? Because malls fascinate me. A mall is a world unto itself under an air-conditioned sky. I used to have a fantasy of spending the night in the mall and exploring all the stores. You’ll see that happen in the book. Boy, did I have fun with those pages!

      This story is also about family—about how family is what you make of it. With her mother largely absent from her life, Sylvie created a family out of the mall and Chase’s relatives. The book takes place around Christmas, and even I love the crazy, festive fun of a mall at Christmas. Starlight Desert Mall does Christmas right, I think.

      So we’ve got malls, family, Christmas and falling in love. Can you see why this story was a delight to write? This is my first book for Harlequin Superromance, so I hope you’ll find it a worthy fit.

      Let me know what you think at [email protected] or visit www.dawnatkins.com.

      Best,

      Dawn Atkins

      A Lot Like Christmas

      Dawn Atkins

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      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Award-winning author Dawn Atkins has written more than twenty novels for Harlequin Books. Known for her funny, poignant romance stories, she’s won a Golden Quill Award and has been a several-times RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award finalist. Dawn lives in Arizona with her husband and son.

      In memory of my mother, the Starr of our family

      Acknowledgments

      Thanks to Thomas Randall, manager of Paradise Valley Mall, who graciously squeezed my questions into his jam-packed schedule. Any errors are my own.

      I’m also indebted to Paco Underhill, whose books Why We Buy: the Science of Shopping and Call of the Mall gave me enough intriguing shopping facts to last a lifetime.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      THIS MALL SUCKS!

      The spray-painted scrawl across the whimsical pueblo-style exterior of Starlight Desert Mall hit Sylvie Stark like a poison dart. Starlight Desert was her second home, the store owners and employees practically family.

      Now the area looked like the aftermath of a frat party. Trash bags from the Dumpster had been torn open, their contents strewn about, and festoons of toilet paper dangled from the thorny mesquite trees and soiled the silver sage hedges.

      The timing couldn’t have been worse. In an hour, the mall’s owner, Marshall McCann, would arrive to make Sylvie the new general manager—her dream almost since she started working here at age fourteen.

      Currently second-in-command, Sylvie was the obvious choice to replace Mary Beth Curlew, the former GM, who’d left abruptly two weeks ago to care for her ailing mother in Michigan.

      Mary Beth did tend to take credit for Sylvie’s work, but she’d surely recommended Sylvie to Fletcher, Marshall’s younger son, the McCann Development liaison to the mall.

      Still, Sylvie felt uneasy. Marshall was the decision-maker and he hadn’t been to the mall since before his wife, Starr, passed away from cancer three years ago. The mall had been Starr’s baby.

      Sylvie had a complicated relationship with the McCanns. Her mother, Desiree, had been best friends with Starr and when Sylvie moved in with her grandparents due to Desiree’s travel schedule when she was seven, Starr had treated her like family.

      Now Sylvie feared Marshall still thought of her as the teenage assistant who served muffins at mall meetings or the little girl sitting quietly at the noisy McCann holiday dinners.

      That was why she’d included her work history and accomplishments in the update she’d prepared—to assure Marshall that the mall was in capable hands.

      Now this vandalism threatened her moment. It felt as though she were about to host a foreign dignitary with a pile of dirty laundry on the porch. Worse, it might make Marshall believe the slight down-tick in profits meant more than it did.

      Just as Sylvie grabbed her cell phone to call the head of security, Randolph emerged from the mall, shoulder to shoulder with Betty, the maintenance manager, loaded with paint gear.

      “We’re on it,” Randolph told Sylvie when they got close.

      “Graffiti-buster primer,” Betty said grimly, hefting one of the three paint cans. The other two were gold and turquoise, the two colors the ugly scrawl had been sprayed over.

      Most malls were blah beige boxes. Starlight Desert was a feast for the eyes—a colorful take on an ancient Hohokam village, with rounded corners, wooden posts and decorative ladders, its walls painted gold, turquoise, salmon and purple, all cozily tucked into the parklike area of shade trees and desert landscaping also owned by McCann Development.

      “Marshall is due soon, so just a quick coat for now,” Sylvie said.

      Betty nodded and set to work. Two of her crew had spread out to gather the trash, determined as soldiers. Sylvie’s heart lifted at the sight. Everyone who worked here was as devoted to the mall’s well-being as she was.

      “Who would do such a thing? Is this a post-Halloween prank?” she asked Randolph.

      “It was either those Goth kids I gave hell for banging into your mom’s kiosk or those delinquents from that art group.”

      “The art kids love it here.” Sylvie had convinced Mary Beth to lease a hard-to-rent space to Free Arts, which taught art to kids from drug rehab programs or foster homes. They had to earn the privilege of coming. “At least it’s not gang tags.”

      “Just you wait,” Randolph said. “That’s

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