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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: Jenna Brady and Mitch Wilson were the victims of a cruel office joke, with ugly political undertones when someone cancelled her Thanksgiving dinner party for her, and invited Mitch. The two find a connection in shared roots, and Jenna's renewed faith. But can Mitch keep another prank from ruining her life just before Christmas? Contemporary Inspirational Novella

eBook Publisher: By Grace Publishing/Short and Sweet, Published: 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2005

34 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [614 KB], eReader (PDB) [99 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [78 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [70 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [148 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [136 KB], hiebook (KML) [266 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [209 KB], iSilo (PDB) [65 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [81 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [159 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [105 KB]
Words: 23442
Reading time: 66-93 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Jenna slapped the shower door open and stomped out onto the bath mat. She was glad for the steam clouding the tiny medicine cabinet mirror. The last thing she wanted was to see her eyes swollen from the tears that insisted on coming.

Why was she so upset? She had known since Friday no one was coming for Thanksgiving. She had known since October she couldn't fly home to be with her family; she had to leave Sunday morning for that conference in Miami and the PR materials hadn't been due from the printer until Wednesday. She still had to assemble her press kits, and she had no hope of help from anyone in the office. Jenna had given up begging long ago, especially when it came to so-called friends from work whom she had invited for Thanksgiving dinner.

The tears started when she called home last night to wish everybody happy Thanksgiving, and no one was there.

Of course. They're at church. Where else would they be? she had thought as she listened to the answering machine spew its cheerful greeting. Suddenly unable to breathe, much less speak, she had hung up without leaving a message.

If only she had a church to attend. Even by herself. Sometimes Jenna doubted anybody went to church anymore. Had she left God behind in Pittsburgh when she moved to Sacramento?

Sleeping in until ten that morning had given her a headache. She skipped breakfast and spent half an hour on the Internet, picking up her e-mail. Her stomach ached and aspirin made things worse. Now, the age-old remedy of a steaming hot shower and raspberry scrub gel had failed her. Jenna blinked back more tears as she pulled on her new emerald and coral jogging suit. No need for that new burgundy velveteen hostess dress.

"Yeah, happy Thanksgiving," she muttered, and the scratch of an oncoming cold filled her throat.

The doorbell chimed. Jenna raked both hands through her tangled, wet hair as she hurried to the door. Had Mrs. McGuire down the hall fallen again? Had she sent little Brittany to fetch her? Goodness knew the tiny five-year-old couldn't help her obese grandmother into a chair, much less back up onto her walker.

For half a second, Jenna seriously considered pretending she wasn't home. After all she had done for the McGuires, they could have asked if Jenna had any plans for Thanksgiving. For the last two weeks all they could talk about in the apartment building elevator and lobby was their big family dinner in the complex's party room. Jenna had wanted to reserve that room, but only five co-workers had accepted her invitation. Then they cancelled, all in a row, late Friday afternoon.

As if choreographed.

"Hi."

The stranger standing on her plastic straw welcome mat held a bakery box balanced on one hand and clutched several paper-wrapped bottles in the crook of his other arm. His wide smile dimmed and the sparkle faded from his gray eyes when Jenna stared a few seconds too long. He glanced over her head--he had to be at least six-foot-eight!--and surveyed the ordinary, un-decorated apartment.

"Uh--, I'm sorry, you must have the wrong apartment." Jenna reached for the doorknob, which had slipped from her fingers.

She hoped she wasn't blushing. Blue-black curls and wide shoulders always made her light-headed. Especially in a casual GQ package of a dressy hunter green sweatshirt, new jeans, and cowboy boots.

"Jenna Brady?" His voice matched the rest of him, a baritone waterfall.

"Uh, yes."

"Mitch Wilson." He started to hold out his hand, but the bags slipped. He grinned as he clutched his bundles close again.

Jenna might have stopped going to church since she moved to Sacramento, but there were some things she wouldn't change. No wine ever entered her apartment. Not even in the hands of a man straight out of her long-abandoned, lonely dreams.

"Mitch ... Wilson," she echoed as her brain slipped back into gear. "You're the new guy up in the Inner--" Jenna blushed, wishing she could think a few steps ahead of her mouth.

"The Inner Sanctum?" Mitch chuckled. "I've heard a lot worse in the last month, believe me." He glanced into the apartment again. "I know I'm early, but I'm still learning my way around town and..." He shrugged.

"Early." Something was very wrong here and Jenna felt tears prickling at the backs of her eyes as comprehension filtered into her aching brain. "Something weird is going on here. Maybe ... we should talk." She stepped back and gestured for him to come in.

Mitch headed for her table, covered with PR folders and brochures and bookmarks to assemble for the conference. It should have been covered with a gold tablecloth, ceramic turkey napkin holders, and Granny Malone's funny old turkey-painted plates. Jenna had hauled them all the way from Pittsburgh last year, with such high hopes of entertaining co-workers with nowhere to go at the holidays. She had once held such high dreams and ideals, to be a witness in the 'foreign land' of California. Just look where that had gotten her.

"I know you asked for Cabernet, but I don't drink," Mitch said as he set down the bag-wrapped bottles. "I brought some nice sparkling cider."

"I asked for Cabernet? Is this a joke?" Her voice cracked and squeaked, somewhere between childish rage and bursting into tears. She didn't want to do that in front of someone the rumor mill said was the next CEO at Knight-Baron. "Why are you here?"

"Uh, this is Thanksgiving, isn't it?" Mitch dug into his pocket for a wad of half-sized notepaper sheets. "Here's your memo with the directions. And the one asking me to bring wine. And here's the original invitation." He held them out to her.

Jenna's fingertips burned as she took the papers. She recognized the design. Her brand-new stationery. She had been wrangling with the printing company over the order because they insisted it had been delivered on time, but she had never received it.

"I invited the people in my department for dinner today. Everybody cancelled on Friday." Her hands shook as she put the papers on the table next to the bottles. "I only invited people I knew. I thought I was inviting friends." She blinked hard, fighting another aching hot urge for tears. "That's my new stationery that I never got."

"Is Josh Calhoon in your department?" Mitch sighed when Jenna nodded. "He wants my job, and an outsider has no business starting in that high in the company. He told me so, the day I arrived from Cleveland. And he has a reputation for nasty jokes."

"But nobody ever has any proof." Jenna had heard the stories, too. She had thought she would be immune because she was such a mouse, a nobody, ignored by anyone who was anyone in the company. Sometimes she thought nobody knew she worked at Knight-Baron, even if her immediate supervisor, Brad, called her his lifesaver and claimed she did the work of three people.

"I'm sorry. You got caught in the crossfire in some nasty office politics."

"Par for the course." She tried to shrug. "There's time for you to make other arrangements. You want to use my phone?"

"Yours is the only invitation I got."

"You're kidding. The way everybody's been talking, I thought you were the most popular guy in the entire town."

"I heard you were too smart to trust company gossip."

"You heard--about me?" Jenna's face heated.

"Mr. Knight thinks you're up-and-coming." He smiled and looked around the apartment again.

Jenna wondered if he liked Salvation Army decorating. Her tables were steamer trunks, doing double duty for storage. She preferred floor pillows over chairs. Everything was clean and neat, but nothing was new or current fashion.

"Have you been to Goethe Park?" he asked before she could think of a response to his last remark. When she nodded, he grinned, making her melt a little inside. "Good, then you can show me how to get there."

"What?" Jenna laughed despite herself.

"I don't have any plans, and you don't have any plans, and I know the supermarkets are open until noon. That gives us..." He checked his watch. "Almost an hour to put together a picnic. I brought a pumpkin cream cheese pie. Or cake, or whatever you want to call it. I'd rather eat something more substantial for Thanksgiving. What do you say?"

What could she say?

She couldn't tell him she was the office outcast; Mary Poppins; the Baptist Nun. People always came to her for help with emergencies or when nobody else could be bothered because they knew she wouldn't stick a knife in their backs. Nobody ever volunteered to help her in return, though, and when she swallowed her pride long enough to ask for help, her alleged friends always had more important things to do. And yet she never learned to say 'no' and 'every man for himself.'

Jenna knew the jokes told behind her back. Mitch had been told to bring wine because everybody knew she wouldn't touch alcohol. They had chosen him because she wouldn't let men into her apartment when she was alone. She had been raked over the coals for taking that stand only three weeks after she joined Knight-Baron. Josh Calhoon had shown up at her door on a Saturday night, claiming he needed to talk to her about work. She didn't know who he was at that time and he reeked of alcohol. He hadn't been drunk enough to forget their unpleasant encounter, and the story had spread throughout the company. His version, of course.

Yet here Mitch was, standing in her apartment with the door closed. Why had she taken him at his word?

Was she so desperate and aching over being abandoned on Thanksgiving, she had given up all her morals? Or had she gone back to her childhood reliance on gut instinct? The same instinct that told her Mitch was a nice guy?

The gossip in the halls of Knight-Baron made Mitch a paragon. A gentleman. Oblivious when it came to dirty jokes. He showed no interest in any of the women there. Yet he would help a secretary who had dropped papers on the floor while the office manager who caused the accident kept going down the hall.

What kind of gossip were they going to generate on Monday, when her enemies gloated over their nasty trick?

But Mitch Wilson was handsome and kind and he knew she was a good worker. Jenna had doubted Mr. Knight even knew her name, but he told Mitch she was up-and-coming?

Wouldn't it make those nasty cats just burn if they knew she had spent the day with unattainable Mitch Wilson?

"That'd be fun," Jenna said, speaking to keep herself from thinking any further in that particular direction.