Resting Scrooge Face: A Short Story

by Meghan Quinn

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance; Second Chance Romance

Synopsis

From USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling author Meghan Quinn comes a festive short romance about old flames and mistaken identities.

After a bad breakup, Nola wants nothing to do with Christmas, especially in her quaint hometown of Bright Harbor, Maine. Infuriatingly charming and cheery, Nola’s surroundings only worsen her sour mood.

To make matters worse, Caleb, the boy who broke her heart years ago, is all grown up and still living in town. While doing her best to avoid him, Nola bumps into the local mailman, who gives her a mysterious letter. And when she finds that the writer is a fellow Scrooge, she can’t help but feel her spirit lifting.

Nola writes back to her new pen pal—who, unbeknownst to Nola, is none other than Caleb. When Caleb gets a response hand delivered by the mailman, he’s intrigued by the mystery sender. A friendly correspondence develops—and quickly turns flirtatious.

Although Nola and Caleb claim they can’t stand each other, they can’t deny the simmering attraction that brought them together in the first place.

Can these nameless pen pals write their own love story—or will they be too caught up with the ghosts of their Christmases past to find a future together?

 

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Release date: November 29, 2022

Publisher: Amazon Original Stories

Print pages: 80

Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) escapist/easy read (1) heartwarming (1) satisfying ending (1) strong chemistry (1)

Sample

PROLOGUE
**CALEB**

Dear Christmas,
I despise you.
Harsh? Maybe.
But why must your snappy anthems and heartwarming magical stories about
family and togetherness follow me around?
Why are there twinkling lights, shiny baubles, and joyous children everywhere
I look?
Why must we spend hours standing in the frigid cold to watch one single tree
be lit up by a town mayor? We all know what a tree looks like with lights on it at
this point—there’re over a dozen scattered along the white picket fences lining
Main Street.
And most importantly, why must your devoted admirers—in their ugly
Christmas sweaters with their fresh-from-the-oven, poorly decorated gingerbread
men—follow me around town asking who I’ll be kissing under the mistletoe this
year?
The answer is no one.
NO ONE!

That ship sailed many years ago, when I messed up the one good thing in my
life. So, if anyone is listening, if anyone wants to offer some temporary relief from
this cheerful and uplifting merriment, also known as my own personal purgatory,
it would be most appreciated.
Sincerely,
Resting Scrooge Face

“Whatcha writing?” Arden asks as he steps into my hardware store.
My head snaps up to see the seventy-year-old mailman wearing a red-and-green-striped
turtleneck under his bowling shirt.
Yeah, not even my closest of friends—despite the forty-year age difference—can stay away
from the pressures of having a holly jolly time.
“Nothing,” I answer as I crumple up the letter and toss it in the trash. Why did I think writing
out my disdain for the holiday season would be helpful? “Are you ready to go?”
He holds up his bowling bag and smiles. “Ready. But it seems as though you’re not. Where’s
your bowling shirt?”
“In my truck. I’ll change when we get there.”
“It would look nicer if we showed up to bowling night already dressed. More intimidating.”
I heave a heavy sigh and place both my hands on my register counter. “Arden, I just suffered
through two hours of helping curly-haired grandmas in festive yuletide vests asking me what
Christmas lights I thought would look best wrapped around them for some sort of Christmas
parade that’s going down at the senior living community this week. Excuse me if I just need a
freaking second.”
“You know, ‘bah, humbug’ would have been less wordy.”

“Noted,” I answer. “Let me close out the register, and then I’ll drive your wrinkled ass over
to Port Snow.”
As I pull my till and start to move it to the back office, he calls out, “This boorish antijoy
attitude you’ve been wearing recently—it doesn’t have anything to do with Nola Bisley coming
back into town, does it?”
I pause, my back muscles tensing as my grip on the till grows tight. Does my piss-poor
attitude—including my insane letter to Christmas—have anything to do with the one that got
away, the woman who just so happened to move back to our small, wintery town in the heart of Maine?

Absolutely, it does.