North Pole Unlimited Collection 3, page 1
North Pole Unlimited Collection 3
Ben and Jilly, Frank and Ginger
Elle Rush
SBD Entertainment
Contents
Acknowledgements and Dedications
BEN AND JILLY
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Bonus Recipe: Candy Cane Cookies
FRANK AND GINGER
Blurb
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Interlude
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Bonus Recipe: Lemon Squares
More Books from Elle Rush
About the Author
Ben and Jilly Copyright © 2020
Frank and Ginger Copyright © 2021
Copyright and published by Deidre Gould
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations used in articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Acknowledgements and Dedications
This book is dedicated to the one I love. Thanks, Ross, for being the person who would save me if I ever threatened to become the Grinch.
* * *
Special thanks to Ali B. for suggesting the name for Ben’s dog in my newsletter contest. It was so close to the “Spirit” of Christmas that I couldn’t resist.
* * *
My appreciation to the amazing people who helped on this book, my editor Dayna Hart and proofreader Kim Cannon.
* * *
And thank you to all my supportive writing friends: Susan Hayes, Melanie Ting, Sidney Bristol, Megan Matthews, Jenn Fischetto, Susan Saxx, Kate Willoughby, L.C. Allenye.
BEN AND JILLY
A North Pole Unlimited Romance
By
Elle Rush
Blurb
When North Pole Unlimited’s #1 elf turns Scrooge, a new flame and his furry sidekick need to jumpstart her Christmas spirit before it’s too late.
* * *
Executive assistant Jilly Lewis has never resented Christmas before, but this year, the company’s resident matchmaker and holiday disaster-fixer has learned her family is going to be elsewhere during the most wonderful time of the year.
* * *
Ebenezer “Ben” Fredericks is giving up the road for a desk job at North Pole Unlimited. He has lots of things to do as he reorganizes his life in the town of December, but number one on his list is getting Jilly back into the Christmas spirit.
* * *
He’ll need to enlist help to put the jingle back in Jilly’s step, and his new co-workers and neighbours in December are eager to pay back Jilly for her years of spreading Christmas joy everywhere she goes.
* * *
Can Ben put the ho-ho-ho back in Jilly’s holidays, or will she find coal in her stocking on Christmas morning? Only Santa knows.
* * *
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Chapter 1
First week of December
North Pole Unlimited Headquarters
December, Manitoba, Canada (25 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg)
* * *
“Merry freaking Christmas.” Jilly Lewis, December’s number one Christmas cheerleader, glared when the box, which had been balanced on the arm of the sofa, slipped off and spilled all its ornaments over the cushions. “Bah, humbug.”
It didn’t matter. Her house was already a disaster. Four containers of holiday decorations littered the beige carpet in her living room, her coffee table was covered with a mess of candles and picture frames, and a massive length of fir branches wound with lights lay in the middle of the hall. Jilly ignored them all as she fought with her dining room table. She’d already removed one leaf, but the second refused to cooperate. The table hadn’t been its original size since she’d purchased it twenty-four years earlier because she’d always had a full house for every holiday.
But not this year. This year, everybody had abandoned her. She’d be alone for Christmas. Her dining room would have an echo because it was so empty.
Jilly gave the slat an extra-hard tug, but it didn’t budge.
Before she could let loose the frustrated growl building in her throat, a flash of light on the living room wall distracted her. It was immediately followed by the rumble of a massive engine.
Her lonely, terrible night just got a little better.
Squeaks and rattles got louder as she opened her front door and waited for the semi-truck to come to rest. After all the lights were extinguished, a form clambered down and walked around the massive machine. “Is it too late?” a man called from the street.
“Not at all. Come in out of the cold,” Jilly said.
When trucker Ebenezer “Ben” Fredericks returned from a trip, he dropped his tractor trailer at the North Pole Unlimited loading docks, and then swung by her house so he could hand over the associated paperwork after hours. It had grown from a “drop and leave” event to her inviting him in for a drink and conversation. It was a tradition now. One that she’d miss, since this was his last run.
“Thank you. The heater in this old beast is acting up, and I’m half-frozen.” When he got closer, Jilly saw a few curls of brown hair around the edges of a brown toque, and a hint of white in his brown mustache. She wasn’t sure if the white was frost, icing sugar, or Ben’s silver fox natural looks coming through.
She hung his quilted plaid jacket on the hook at the front door, and put the kettle on while he ducked into the bathroom. When he came out, she made sure not to notice how good he looked, with the mature streaks in his slightly-too-long hair, or the crinkles on the edges of his coffee-brown eyes. She certainly didn’t comment about how trim he was under his chest-hugging sweater. Because friends didn’t notice things like that, and they were friends and nothing more. But one last accidental look wouldn’t hurt, for old times’ sake. She likely wouldn’t see him much at all after he started his new job.
Jilly opened her mouth to invite him to take a seat on the sofa, but it looked like a Christmas bomb had exploded on it. She turned to the dining room, but the table was in pieces. She’d have to clean the kitchen table in order for them to enjoy their cocoa.
“Can I help with this?” Ben asked gesturing at the dining room table.
“The last leaf is stuck. I can’t get it out. I’ll leave it if you’ll help me push the ends back together.” It would be depressing to have the big, empty table staring her in the face all month, but she’d learn to live with it.
“Let me try.” He leaned over the table and with a single jiggle, pulled the board free. “Where do you want this?”
She pointed to the wall where the other piece stood in the corner. “I must have loosened it for you.”
“It was definitely loosened,” he agreed with a laugh. He glanced into the kitchen. “You sit, and I’ll get the tray.”
Jilly slumped in the closest chair, and Ben was back before she got comfortable. He passed her a china mug full of frothy cocoa, set a plate of cookies between them, and sat across the table.
“You’re not your usual bubbly self. Rough day?”
“Everybody has abandoned me over the holidays,” she blurted. She hadn’t told anyone yet, but with Ben the news just came out.
“What?”
“My family has plans elsewhere for Christmas this year. I’m going to be all alone,” she wailed. She hadn’t ever been alone for the holidays ever.
He pushed the plate closer to her. “Tell me everything.”
Jilly picked a candy cane cookie and dunked it in her cocoa. “I’m being ridiculous. December is a busy month for my family this year. My parents are spending three weeks touring Australia to celebrate their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. My oldest sister and her husband were transferred to England in the fall, and it’s too soon for them to come home, even for the holidays. My other sister and her husband are spending Christmas with their daughter and their first grandbaby in Calgary. Which are all good reasons to miss my legendary sage-and-onion stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce, but it sucks that it’s all happening at the same time,” she sighed. She missed them already, and everybody but one sister was still in town.
“That’s a lot, and all of
“That’s true.” But it was a small comfort at the moment.
“What about Dan? He’ll be on break from university.”
She paused for a moment, reminding herself that Ben didn’t know he was poking at a sore spot. “Dan? My son? The light of my life? He’s spending Christmas Day with Alex and his family since I got them for Thanksgiving. They’re driving down for Boxing Day, so it’s not like I won’t see him, it just won’t be on the twenty-fifth. This being fair and sharing with family is no fun at all,” she whined. Not that she wanted Alex to miss Christmas with his family; she just needed someone to invent a teleporter in the next three weeks.
Ben had the nerve to laugh at her. “You’re the one who taught him those terrible habits. Shame on you.” He pushed the plate closer. “Have another cookie.”
“That’s not very sympathetic, Ben.” But he’d made her smile, which she hadn’t thought was possible. She grabbed another cookie in case he was right.
“I’m glad to see you still plan to deck the halls, though.” He studied the boxes and clear plastic bins filled with garland and ornaments strewn around the main floor.
“I’m not. Dan helped me move all the furniture and brought in the decorations from the garage last weekend before he dropped his bomb on me. I haven’t worked up the energy to put everything back.”
Ben dropped his cherry chocolate chip cookie into his mug. “What do you mean you’re not decorating? You always decorate. I’ve been dropping off my reports for two years and you’ve never had less than two trees up. Your house is Christmas Central, and that’s saying something, considering where we work.”
He wasn’t wrong. Jilly was proud of the festive displays she put together each year. She had enough variety that she could mix and match a dozen themes to keep everything fresh. “I’ll put a little sign in the window telling people Whoville is closed for the season.” She didn’t have any motivation to do all that work, not when there wouldn’t be anyone around to enjoy it. The mantle could stay bare; she didn’t need the increase to her electricity bill with all the lights she’d have to plug in. Jilly reached for another cookie. She didn’t have the heart to decorate. She’d be fine with Christmas baking. “Can we change the subject? How was your run?”
Ben fished the cookie out of the bottom of his mug. “Good,” he said. “I came through Minnesota on the way home from Chicago and got rerouted because of an accident. I stumbled across a cute town called Holiday Beach. It was postcard pretty. A scenic lake, lots of trees, and some rocky hills to break up the horizon. There didn’t seem to be much to it, but I heard the locals talking about some amazing cross-country trails. It also has a terrific restaurant called The Atlas that has the best roasted Brussel sprouts with garlic aioli I’ve ever had in my life.”
“I didn’t know you were a fan,” Jilly said. Not that she and Ben had eaten many meals together, but they’d run into each other at The Pumpkin Patch now and again. A deep and abiding love for Brussel sprouts sounded like something that would have come up.
“I’m not,” he replied with a laugh, “but when you show up for lunch at The Atlas on Meatless Monday and have to wait in line for the chance to order the special of a portobello burger with roasted Brussel sprouts as a side, that’s what you order. Well, that and apple spice cake with vanilla ice cream.”
It didn’t sound like a meal which would be her first choice. “I’m sorry you had to suffer through that.”
“Me too. So sorry, I did it twice. After I finished eating, I got another burger and side to go and had it for supper while I was waiting to cross the border. Speaking of…” Ben’s voice trailed off as he held up his finger in the “one minute” sign and walked to his coat. He pulled a thick envelope from an interior pocket and returned to the table. “Invoices, receipts, and other assorted paperwork from this last trip. It’s all there.”
“I’ll get it to the warehouse first thing,” she promised. This close to Christmas, the contents of Ben’s trailer would be unloaded, sorted, and back on the road by the end of the day tomorrow. “Will you miss long haul driving?”
A frown flickered over Ben’s face. He shrugged. “I loved it when I started, but after twenty years, a lot of the shine has worn off. I enjoy seeing new places like Holiday Beach, but I won’t be sorry to get off the road. I can discover new places when I’m on vacation,” he said.
“Do you think you’ll like working in a cubicle, after all that freedom?” As executive assistant to the vice-president of Human Resources, she liked to make sure the people they hired were happy. Unhappy employees tended to move on quickly, and Jilly wanted to keep Ben in town as long as she could.
With the hot chocolate drunk and the paperwork handed over, Ben pulled on his coat. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
Chapter 2
Ben Fredericks grinned as he looked around the warehouse. North Pole Unlimited took Christmas seriously, even to the extent of wrapping the huge, rolling dock doors in lights. Unlike in the corporate offices, nobody here wore Santa hats because they were a safety violation, but carols played over the loudspeakers and talk of presents and the town parade dominated the conversations.
Jilly, as she always did because she was amazing, had dropped off his trip sheets and invoices at the warehouse offices when she got to work that morning, which allowed them to start unloading while he got to sleep in after a four-day trip. Eight hours in his own bed, followed by a shower that drained the hot water tank had him feeling human again.
Now he was ready for more paperwork. Life-changing paperwork.
He was surprised to find Nick Klassen, the vice president of Human Resources, waiting for him outside the warehouse manager’s office. “So this is it? Are you sure you want to hang up your trucker’s hat?” Nick asked.
“My big rig days are about to be officially behind me.”
“Then let’s start you on your new career.”
Ben and Nick walked through the parking lots separating the distribution centre from the administrative buildings and the manufacturing warehouses. Waist-high snowbanks covered what would be beds overflowing with flowers in the summer. Ben didn’t often get to wander through the whole North Pole Unlimited complex, and he was shocked all over again at how big it was.
Nick guided him through the administrative wing, pointed out the Logistics division where he’d be working, the I.T. department, and most importantly, Nick stressed, the company cafeteria. When they finally arrived at Nick’s offices, Ben paused in the hall. He hoped everything was going to go along with his grand plan.
Jilly didn’t look up from her computer screen when they entered. “Heads up, boss. I threatened to beat Dr. Kovac with a pool noodle if she doesn’t submit her third quarter personnel review sheets by the end of the week. I don’t care how many Ph.D.’s Tinka has. I’ll take her down if I have to send her a fourth reminder.”
“I’ll call her personally,” Nick said, and Ben stifled a grin at the six foot three Viking giving Jilly’s desk an extra-wide berth.
“You don’t mess around when it comes to deadlines,” Ben said in greeting.
