Avoiding My Merry Birthday

July 24, 2023

Avoiding My Merry Birthday

Scrooged on her birthday!

Will fate allow Gloria to make the right choices for love?

Avoiding My Merry Birthday

by Sonja Gunter

Genre: Holiday Romance

What would life be like to share your birthday with millions of people?

Gloria White was born on December 24th—Christmas Eve—and is celebrating her 35th birthday when things go terribly wrong. Single and with no love interest in sight, she leaves work only to find her car won’t start. The arrival of the tow truck brings Nick Klaaws, who she has known since grade school, as the driver.

Shocked at seeing him, she loses her balance, falls and hits her head. This brings on a visit from a ghost resembling her boss, Mr. SC Rouge. They travel back in time, where he shows her that her soulmate has been in front of her the whole time and takes her to two possible futures.

Once back in real time, will fate allow Gloria to make the right choices for love?

Ending the call, she manually unlocked the car door and got into the driver’s seat. She tried the ignition, just for the heck of it, but the engine did not even make a grinding noise. She hit the steering wheel with the palm of her hand, and cried out, “Ouch.”
It hadn’t been worth the effort. She massaged her hand. Deciding to make the most of her time, she checked Facebook to see if anyone had left her a birthday message there. When none came up, she clicked her off her phone and sat in a lonely silence.
An unusual bright light reflected in her rear-view mirror. Squinting, she tried to make out who had joined in the parking lot. Was that the tow truck? How could help have arrived so soon? A low hum of music seeped through the air. Frowning, she tilted her head for a better angle to hear where it was coming from.
“Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh...”
Grimacing at the driver’s choice of songs, Gloria slid out of the driver’s seat to watch a red tow-truck with a wreath on the grill come closer. The Christmas music was now blaring so loud she was tempted to cover her ears. The driver must really like the age-old song, she thought.
The truck stopped in front of her car, and she bent over to retrieve her purse from the car.
“Ho, ho, ho. I heard you’re having a problem.”
The deep voice struck a chord to a long-ago memory from her childhood.
“Aren’t you into the holiday spirit?” She straightened and turned. “Sorry you had to come out on Christmas Eve—”
Gloria flung her arms outward to gain some balance as she felt herself falling. “Ohhhh, nooooo...”
Unable to evade the expected outcome, she held out her hand as she hit the ground hard. Her body jerked and then fell backward, causing her head to hit the pavement. Pain like a mother migraine surged from the back of her head to her forehead. She felt strong arms wrap around her upper body, lifting her. Before the expected blackness took over, she was able to fixate on a familiar pair of blue eyes.
“Nick?”

Amazon * Apple * B&N * Google * Kobo * Smashwords * Bookbub * Goodreads

Born and raised in the cold and beautiful Minnesota, she escaped to Illinois for seventeen years to raise two boys, and now calls Florida home. She and her husband Andy, who’s always her hero, have a new family to worry about; Cookie, an Assui-Po dog and Chip, a ragdoll cat, that their sons compare to Eeyore.

She loves to travel, read, and bowl. You can catch her writing her next novel at the lanes.

Sonja encourages you to check out her web site, www.sonjagunter.com for more info and don’t be surprised if she lets her Norwegian heritage come through in her stories. You betcha!

Website * Facebook * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads