Her Special Ops Santa: a Secret Santa story by Aurora Russell

Author:Aurora Russell [Russell, Aurora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romance Fiction
Publisher: Totally Entwined Group
Published: 2022-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

“Rise and shine, buttercup!” Heidi screamed in her ear. Okay, well, fine, she didn’t actually scream the words—more spoke them in a normal voice—and she wasn’t that close to Rose, either, but Heidi might as well have been holding a megaphone for the way the words seemed to spike into Rose’s very skull. When she opened her mouth to protest, she noted that it felt simultaneously two sizes too large and so dry that there might have been tumbleweeds blowing across it. A tiny little rattlesnake named Sid had likely taken up residence overnight…or a Gila monster named Petunia. At that precise moment, Rose might actually welcome a death by venom.

Rose gave a groan of pure agony and covered her head with her pillow. “Just let Sid and Petunia kill me in peace.”

“Well, I don’t know who Sid and Petunia are, but Edie and I aren’t ready to give up and let the Grim Reaper have you yet—first, because we love you too much and second, because Alec would freaking annihilate me. Your brother can be a scary dude.” Rose felt Heidi lift up a corner of the pillow, which had mostly been muffling her words…although not nearly enough.

“Finally,” Hy continued, her tone becoming gleeful, “because you are a rockstar with an obviously very bright future in fairytale karaoke ahead of you, as you proved last night with your extremely creative and impassioned version—complete with interpretive dance—of the entire score of a certain animated mermaid movie.”

At this, Rose sat up with alarm, the rapid movement nearly making her stomach lurch. “You’re joking, right?” she said reflexively. It can’t be true…can it? But then vague memories of holding a wooden spoon from the kitchen and singing her heart out into it as tears streamed down her cheeks filtered into her psyche, and she made a sound like a wounded animal.

“Oh, God, you’re not joking.” She answered her own question.

“Nope, I sure am not,” Heidi answered unnecessarily…and did she have to sound so chipper?

Rose glared at her best friend from under her eyelashes until another horrible thought occurred to her. “Oh, Good Lord, I can never face Edie again!”

Heidi sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why, because now she knows how weird you are?” She made a face. “News flash, Rosie, she knew you were delightfully strange long before she met you, from all my stories about us. She thought you were hilarious.” Hy’s smile dimmed slightly. “Although neither one of us wanted to see you so sad and uncertain…but everyone has to let off steam sometimes. You’ve more than earned the right.”

At the reminder of the events of the day before, Rose’s chest grew tight with sadness and disappointment.

“It was silly, but I had really fallen for him, I guess, and I thought he felt the same way.”

Heidi squeezed Rose’s hand, and they both turned when there was a sound from the hallway.

“I bring offerings, but I can just leave them here?” Edie turned the statement into a question, and Rose could tell that Heidi was leaving it up to Rose to decide.

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