Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 33474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
In the middle of the festive season, gardener Jase finds himself renting in a new neighbourhood, tending yet another garden that won’t belong to him. But when a boisterous golden retriever brings Robin into the yard, something magical in Jase wakes up.
Jase wants to gift his new neighbour the Christmas tree of his dreams—a real live fir, grown in Robin’s own back garden—and win his heart in the process. From young sapling to fully-fledged Douglas fir in less than a year? That would be magic.
He has a plan to make it happen, and it all seems to be coming along well . . . until ‘awesome, amazing’ Lyle shows up. Lyle is also crushing on Robin, and he has the most annoying advantages: He’s smart. He’s witty. He’s ridiculously good-looking.
And he got there first.
The race to Robin’s heart is looking tough; Jase must outdo Lyle at every romantic opportunity. So that, this Christmas, he’ll share the tree with the one he loves.
~ ~ ~
"Magic For You" is a slow burn Christmas novella. This rivals-to-lovers, surprise love story is the fourth book in the "Love & Family" series, set in Wellington, New Zealand.
The books in the Love & Family series are standalone romances, and can be read in any order.
TABOO FOR YOU: Sam & Luke’s story
MADE FOR YOU: Ben & Jack’s story
HAPPY FOR YOU: Felix & Mort’s story
MAGIC FOR YOU: A Love & Family Christmas novella
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
“There’s no magic anymore.”
The bench I’m sitting on overlooks the garden I made—lovingly designed, built and tended—over the last half-year. My boyfriend—ex-boyfriend now, I suppose—paces the creaking veranda between me and the view.
“You must feel that too. Or rather, not feel,” he says.
The gift I prepared for him sits heavily in my lap, wrapped in colourful-Christmas-tree paper. Twenty minutes ago—hell, ten minutes ago, I thought I’d be watching him unwrap it right now.
“Say something.”
I smooth a crinkle in the gift wrapping and try to keep my tone even. “It’s Christmas Day.”
He hears the accusation in my voice, despite my efforts.
He crouches before me. “Shitty timing. I know.”
I look at him.
His eyes are teary, but I’m not sad. I’m tired. His voice shakes. “I was too nervous to tell you. I kept putting it off. I don’t know why it suddenly came out like that.” His voice drops to a whisper. “It doesn’t stop it being true.”
“No magic,” I repeat, and cast my gaze behind him to the garden. I guess it’s goodbye. Another garden full of baby trees I don’t get to see mature.
My boss, Mr Cole of Cole’s Gardening, knows a woman who knows a woman who has a rental available. It’s the shittiest house on the best block—a rundown square box from the sixties that looks like it hasn’t seen a paint job—or a lawnmower—since it was built. For a drop in rent, I offer to fix up the garden.
I begin on the first day of the new year. Flex my neck side to side and pull on my gardening gloves. My fingertip catches on a little split in one seam; these are the last in a string of industrial pairs I wore through in my last garden and they’ll fill up with dirt in no time, but they’ll do for today. Clearing the noise—the weeds and the overgrowth. Seeing what’s here.
He was right. We aren’t right for one another. We should feel a zing, he’d said. We should feel comfortable. We should want—no, need to go beyond to make each other smile. We should be perfect to each other, warts and all.
The heavy work, the taste of sweat, the sun boring down on my exposed back . . . gradually, the bones of the garden begin to show. I snip the last of the roses into shape; there are seven, evenly spaced in a graceful curve. Beneath them I can see the clear form of a bed, and the fading blades of tulips and daffodils poking up through straggling chamomile plants. Someone loved this garden once.
The sun is high and hot now; I can feel the sweat soaking my t-shirt and running down my spine. I pull the shirt off with dirty glove-covered hands and move across the newly cut grass to my dirt-covered Cole’s Gardening Services truck, parked temporarily across the footpath, to shift the compost on the back to a pile on the driveway.
Mid-shovel, something moves in my peripheral vision. A sandy-haired guy and a sullen teenager walking in my direction, deep in conversation. I hurriedly pull the last of the compost from the truck and jump down to clear the narrow strip left of the concrete for them, then plunge the shovel into the pile and lean on the handle as they pass.
Sandy-haired guy’s gaze slides over me and he says, exasperated, “That’s why you stay in school.”
I straighten a bit. “Are you for real, mate?”
The teenager snickers and keeps walking. The older guy, perhaps twice the teen’s age, stalls and looks at me. I eye him up and down. He’s the pretty type. His jeans are tight and his t-shirt is clean, locally designed. The shoes look like they’ve never seen mud or even a puddle. The way he holds himself as he comes forward, brow pinched, is distinctly . . . academic. A thinker. He clasps his hands behind his back.
“Did you call me?”
“I called you out.” I lean more heavily onto the shovel. “I didn’t like what you were implying.”
He flushes and glances in the direction the youth hurried off in.
I laugh shortly. “Whatever. Off you go.”
He faces me again and shakes his head. He even steps forward, virgin shoes pressing on crumbs of compost. “That was spectacularly rude of me.”
I arch a brow.
He clears his throat. “My—he’s only fourteen. I was trying to—”
“That’s how you apologise?”
He meets my eye steadily. “Right. I’m sorry.”
Movement near the hedge next door. I grimace. Looks like someone is enjoying his brother’s embarrassment.
“I also have a much younger brother.” I swipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. “I don’t care what he ends up doing for a living as long as he’s happy.” I project my voice. “But I’d be upset if he didn’t go to school. Not for learning facts, but for learning who you are. What you believe in. What you want.” I glance back at Mr Academic. “Even if it’s just to hang out with mates.”