Laura Haley-McNeil is an award-winning author of romantic suspense and women’s
fiction in novel length and in short stories. Her work has been featured in
several women’s magazines. She has studied piano and ballet and has been a
board member for two community orchestras. She and her husband reside in
Colorado. When she isn’t writing, she jogs, bicycles and crochets.
Laura’s Silver Bells
Christmas was always a special time when I
was growing up. My mother’s birthday was Christmas Eve and because of that family
and friends remembered her birthday. Though I come from a large family, my
mother opened her home to everyone. The week before Christmas, Mom would spend
time shopping and cooking and when Christmas Eve came, she would invite
everyone she knew, and some people she didn’t know well, to come to the house
to celebrate Christmas. The house was decorated with boughs and lights and
smelled like a forest with all the evergreen trimmings.
The tree was always beautiful with
multicolored lights and tinsel, which I don’t think anyone uses anymore, and
decorations that we made when we were children. She also had a collection of
silver bell Christmas ornaments. She collected one every year so they’ve been
embossed with the year she collected them. The older ones are tarnished, but
the newer ones were treated so that they wouldn’t tarnish. When Mom and Dad
grew older, they sold their home and moved into an apartment. They only had
room for a small tree. When they moved, they gave away their Christmas
decorations, but not the silver bells. Those were the only ornaments they
placed on the tree, but they were so beautiful, the tree didn’t need any other
decoration.
My parents are gone now. When my sisters and
brother and I were sorting through their belongings, we found the silver bells,
one for each Christmas my parents had been together. We divided them up and now
each of us has a silver bell collection. I love placing them on the tree in my
home. It makes me remember the wonderful Christmases my parents planned for us.
I miss my parents very much, but am so grateful for the memories they created
for us and the reminders that hide all year in the Christmas ornament box to be
revealed this special time of year when we decorate for Christmas.
I hope you’re enjoying a wonderful holiday
season. I wish you peace, joy, and love as we celebrate the most wonderful time
of the year.
Love,
Laura
Blurb
for Crystal Creek Christmas
When a blinding snowstorm shuts down the
Crystal Creek Ranch's cattle operation, the Whitlochs have one mission - save
the cattle. ER doc Jake Whitloch joins in the rescue, but the form he finds in
a snowdrift is no cow. It's a woman, a woman who consumes his thoughts despite
that two carat diamond sitting on her ring finger.
Noelle Beaupré thanks the rugged doctor for rescuing her from freezing to death and the Whitlochs for taking her into their home, but now it's time for her to leave the ranch. She longs to stay with the man who's determined to protect her, but she doesn't dare. Her deadly secret is in hot pursuit. Any delay and she'll endanger the family who opened their home to her.
Noelle leaving Crystal Creek Ranch? Jake can't let her go, but how can he convince her he'll to anything to keep her safe?
This book includes your favorite Crystal Creek characters from Book One of the Crystal Creek Series and several new characters, including Max Whitloch's children from his previous marriages who come to the ranch for Victoria and Garrett's wedding. All Max's children will have their own books as they pursue their quests for love.
Guarding Her Heart Book #1
Crystal Creek Christmas Book #2Noelle Beaupré thanks the rugged doctor for rescuing her from freezing to death and the Whitlochs for taking her into their home, but now it's time for her to leave the ranch. She longs to stay with the man who's determined to protect her, but she doesn't dare. Her deadly secret is in hot pursuit. Any delay and she'll endanger the family who opened their home to her.
Noelle leaving Crystal Creek Ranch? Jake can't let her go, but how can he convince her he'll to anything to keep her safe?
This book includes your favorite Crystal Creek characters from Book One of the Crystal Creek Series and several new characters, including Max Whitloch's children from his previous marriages who come to the ranch for Victoria and Garrett's wedding. All Max's children will have their own books as they pursue their quests for love.
Guarding Her Heart Book #1
A Ring Around Her Heart #3
Steeling Her Heart #4
Risking Her Heart #5
Defending Her Heart #6
Crystal Creek Boxed Set Books 1 – 3
Crystal Creek Boxed Set Books 4 – 6
Crystal Creek Boxed Set Books 1 – 6
Want more romantic suspense? Download a free short story: laurahaleymcneil.com.
If you want romance and suspense, download a sample or buy Crystal Creek Christmas now.
Excerpt from Crystal Creek Christmas
Chapter One
Dr.
Jake Whitloch white knuckled the steering wheel of the old ranch truck and
squinted through the windshield. The truck’s bumper crunched through hubcap
high snow covering the service road. At ten o’clock in the morning, the heavy
snowfall had shrouded Crystal Creek Ranch making the day as dark as night. He
flipped on the headlights.
It
was crazy to be out in this blizzard. Hunting for stranded cattle made the risk
a priority.
The
Whitloch’s hired hands corralled together their duallys and SUVs and headed out
to the back pastures, doing what they did best--risking their lives for the
good of the ranch and for the owner they admired—Rose Whitloch, Jake’s
step-mother.
Jake
couldn’t let the ranch hands do it alone. He volunteered to check the south
pastures.
He
was out in the blizzard for a reason he pushed out of his mind. In this
weather, he focused on the truck and on the road. No time to think about why he
left Philadelphia.
The
windshield wipers kicked back and forth like the Rockettes performing their
Christmas finale. The wipers flipped the snowflakes right, then left. Faster,
faster, but not fast enough. The snow piled on the windshield, piled on the
hood, kept falling, falling, falling.
Thlpt.
That
sound again. Tire tread gripping for snow, sliding over ice.
Panic
shot up Jake’s throat. Lodged like a spear gun at the base of his brain.
Tires
scraped across the gravel-snow road. Jake downshifted. Pumped the clutch.
Tapped the brakes. The mounds of snow covering the creek crept closer, closer.
The
treads lodged into a road rut, jerked to a stop. The brakes wheezed. The truck
groaned.
Jake
glanced out the side window. Not face on. He didn’t want to see how close he
was to the creek bank until his brain understood that he had a few feet of
buffer before falling over the edge.
He
shifted his eyes sideways so hard he felt the ache in the back of his head. He
ignored it. He studied the ground. The truck had stopped a few feet from the
creek’s edge.
Closer
than last time. But a few feet was a few feet.
His
lungs eased like a deflating tire. He’d been right. That was the thought he
allowed into his head. Behind that thought pulsed the real relief— he was safe.
He
eased out the clutch. The truck crept forward. He squinted through the snow
that whipped at the glass like the Enterprise traveling through space at warp
speed.
As
far as he could see, thick snow blanketed the ranch’s rolling hills and ragged
bluffs.
The
storm had started Monday. Four days ago. There was no sign of it stopping. The
snowbanks along the driveway and the paths to the barn, the outbuildings, and
the bunkhouse grew higher until they were almost as tall as his stepmother’s
two and one half-story ranch house.
The
snow was beautiful. More beautiful than the snow covered Philadelphia concrete
and asphalt he trudged through every day to work in the inner city hospital’s
emergency room. He watched the pristine white sift over the trees. It was as
soothing as soaking in a tub of scented oil.
Fluffy.
White. Snow.
Beautiful.
With
the beauty, came treachery. Namely for the cattle. They would be foraging
through the snowdrifts in search of food.
Food
that would be difficult to find during this storm.
Jake
and the hired hands navigated various parts of the ranch to make sure the
cattle stranded by the snowstorm had found the bales of hay dropped by the
helicopters.
He
saw plenty of snow but no cattle. He only prayed that no cow had been trapped
in the snowdrifts and was starving to death or worse freezing to death.
His
sister and half-sisters told him he was insane to go out in this weather.
It
would’ve been more insane to sit in the house and brood over the decision he’d
made last weekend. He had to get away, get away from the mental banter that
questioned the wisdom of his decision.
Yes,
he was glad that his half-sister, Victoria, had escaped the clutches of a
serial killer, that she and Garrett Nelson Reynolds were getting married, that
Garrett had changed his mind about pursuing his family’s vendetta to reclaim
Crystal Creek Ranch.
He
was glad Christmas was in three days.
But
with Victoria’s and Garrett’s upcoming Christmas Eve nuptials, the house was in
turmoil.
Add
to that the mysterious disappearance of Maxwell Aloysius Whitloch, Sr., Rose’s
ex-husband, Jake’s father and the father of his siblings and half siblings.
The
entire Whitloch clan had converged on the ranch to help Victoria celebrate her
wedding and to await word from their oldest brother Max Junior regarding their
father.
No
word came.
That
was when Jake had snatched up the battered cowboy hat he wore whenever he
visited the ranch, borrowed the foreman’s keys to the ranch truck, and ventured
into the snowstorm.
Jake
guided the truck over the bumpy road. Snowflakes batted the windshield. The
wipers shoved the flakes aside but a new blanket covered the windshield almost
as quickly as the wipers whisked them away.
It
was between swipes of the blades that he saw the dark form in the snowdrift.
That swelling he sometimes felt in his throat when he worked in the emergency
room flooded him. The rush always accompanied unwanted emotions, emotions that
bordered on fear, anxiety, that not-a-good-feeling feeling.
The
form didn’t move, didn’t react to the sound of the engine charging through the
snow.
He
edged closer. The size of the form should have grown larger. Instead, it seemed
to shrink. It was small, too small to be a cow. It had to be a calf. But in the
middle of winter? He may be a city slicker, but even he knew calving season was
in the spring.
“How’re
you doing out there, Doc?” Ralph’s, the foreman, voice crackled over the
walkie-talkie.
Jake
pressed the talk button. “I haven’t seen any cattle, but there’s something up
ahead. I’m going to check it.” Jake aimed the headlights over the mound and set
the emergency brakes. “I’ll radio you once I find out what this is.”
“Leave
it, Doc,” Ralph said. “No reason to risk your life for a cow. It’s snowing
concrete blocks. When this storm lets up, me or one of the hands will check it
out.”
“Don’t
worry, Ralph. It’s not a cow. It’s too small to be a cow. I’ll get back to
you.” Jake turned off the walkie-talkie.
Arguing
with Ralph was wasting precious time if this mound was an actual living,
breathing creature. Human or animal, Jake was in the business of saving lives.
He
pulled up his coat collar and shoved down his cowboy hat until the band caught
his ears. He climbed out of the cab and hunched his shoulders. Snow beat at his
face and slapped his chest. He tucked his chin and barreled into an army of
snowflakes.
In
the few minutes since he’d first spied the mound, the snow had nearly covered
the dark shape.
He
reached a gloved hand toward the form and dusted away the snow. A streak of
strawberry blond hair glinted beneath the flakes.
A
snare drum heartbeat battered his rib cage. What was he seeing? A fox? No.
Lying in the snow was hair, not fur.
He
bowed over the form and with both hands brushed heaps of snow away from the
figure.
Dark
lashes appeared as two velvet crescents in a face as white as the snow.
“Dear
God.” He breathed.
The
form was a person, a small person, a child. What was this child doing wandering
through a snowstorm?
Adrenaline
shot through his veins. The familiar metallic taste of the emergency room
lifesaving mode burst into his mouth. Someone in trouble. Save the person in
trouble.
The
muscles around his throat clenched. He’d worked in an emergency room long
enough to know the many reasons children ran away. From home? From someplace
else?
He
scooped his arms beneath the tiny body, braced his back and lifted the child
from the snow mound. The lightness stunned him. The poor thing weighed less
than a bag of oats. How could a human weigh so little?
The
child’s wool jacket was slippery with snow, and the unconscious form slid
through his arms. He shifted the limp body and held it close.
His
hand pressed a pillowy soft shape. He jerked upright. The stirring within
heated him like a hot numbness that made him want to dive into the snow to cool
off.
In
his arms was no child. In his arms, he held a woman.
Buy
Links
Amazon
Crystal Creek Christmas
Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Serieshttp://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Creek-Christmas-Book-ebook/dp/B00Q5V2FYW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450408634&sr=1-1&keywords=crystal+creek+christmas
Kobo
Crystal Creek
Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Serieshttps://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/ebook/crystal-creek-christmas
Barnes
and Nobel
Crystal Creek
Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Serieshttp://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crystal-creek-christmas-laura-haley-mcneil/1121493147?ean=2940151317207
IBooks
Crystal Creek
Christmas Book 2 of the Crystal Creek Serieshttps://itunes.apple.com/us/book/crystal-creek-christmas/id982599818?mt=11
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/heartstrings/id988418118?mt=11
Social Media
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I love the bells you mention. What a great way to remember your parents at the holidays. All the best with your story. I love the cover.
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