The Christmas App (Now and Forever Romance Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Regina's Books

  Regina's Bio

  THE CHRISTMAS APP

  by

  Regina Duke

  The Christmas App

  Copyright © 2018, 2019 Linda White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from Regina Duke.

  Published by RD Books

  United States of America

  Electronic Edition: March 2019

  Digital ISBN 978-1-944752-31-6

  This book is a work of fiction and all characters exist solely in the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to places, events or locales are used in a fictitious manner.

  Digital formatting by StevieDeInk, [email protected]

  Edited by Marian Kelly, RavensGateEditing.com

  Cover by StevieDeInk

  Cover photo from Fotolia.com

  Can a Christmas app help Camryn Talbott step out of her sister’s shadow and find what her heart really yearns for—true love!

  The Christmas App is number 3 in the Now and Forever Romance series.

  CHAPTER 1

  Camryn Talbott held her head high as she sashayed past the cubicle workers to her private office. She knew she looked good. Her short blond hair was exquisitely styled, her shoes were way beyond her budget, and thanks to her generous sister, she was able to wear the very latest in…the previous year’s fashions.

  But that was okay. After all, it made smart business sense to keep clothes that looked great. And her sister had superb taste, matched by a superb salary. Her sister, Aiden, was the Vice-President of a major corporation and she wasn’t even forty yet. The role model she represented had haunted Camryn since she was old enough to understand the word “competition.”

  She reached her office and closed the door softly. Only then, in her private space, did she slump and let her purse slide to the floor. She lowered her computer bag by its strap and dragged it toward her desk. Her spotlessly clean desk.

  Aiden’s desk never seemed to have any paper on it. And someone must wax it every night. But Camryn was not a clean-desker. She was an out-of-sight-out-of-minder. That meant she needed her projects in view at all times so she wouldn’t forget one. But if Aiden had made it to the top with a clean desk, then darn it, Cam would empty that sucker every night. She’d ordered three dozen magazine holders, and at the end of the day, she tidied each pile on her desk and deposited it in one of the holders, which she then placed on a bookshelf by the window. Then, every morning, she moved her work back to her desk and wasted precious minutes setting her projects out where they had been the day before.

  And Christmas was coming. That meant she would get to hear all about Aiden’s most recent towering achievements. Oh, goody.

  She toyed with the idea of using nail polish to delineate their space on the desk top, but the boss would probably object.

  She plopped into her chair and wondered if middle management was as high as she would ever get. She liked her job well enough. Okay. Kind of. Sort of. But she went home late every night and often had to take work with her. Every time a new position opened in the company, she would consume every word of the job description, hoping against hope that one line might read, “Personal happiness guaranteed.”

  So far, no luck.

  What she really, really wanted was to go home every night to a slobbery dog and two perfect children and a husband who looked at her the way other men looked at a thick-crust pizza. Someone hungry for her. Someone who would say, “Don’t worry, babe. We got this. We’re a team.”

  That was her big secret. No way she would admit those desires at a family gathering. Can you imagine the ridicule Aiden would heap upon her?

  When Camryn was born, Aiden was a sophomore in high school. Fifteen years between them. Camryn knew she shouldn’t compare herself to her sister. After all, Aiden had a huge head start. Their professional parents had prepped her for college, coached her in business techniques, and did all they could to ensure her success in the working world.

  By the time Camryn came along, they were tired. She was grateful if they made it to her school awards ceremonies. But where her parents had lagged, Aiden seemed driven to pick up the slack. “Make your mark in the world, Cam. Get out there and build your own security. Once that’s done, you can think about a home life.”

  Camryn stared glumly at her desktop computer. Her laptop was okay for home, but the company wanted her hooked into the system. Every time she set her fingers on its keyboard, she could feel invisible shackles clamping around her wrists. She sighed heavily and turned it on.

  It took two or three minutes for all the shared programs to prepare themselves for action, so she unbuttoned the jacket of her tailored suit and slipped into the lunch room for a cup of coffee. Seven others were doing the same, and they all greeted each other silently, with nods and half-smiles.

  “Aren’t we a happy lot?” thought Camryn. The three men in the room let their eyes linger a bit on the lines of her suit. One of them blushed when she caught him looking, and that made her smile. She took her coffee mug—“World’s Greatest Manager”—and returned to her office.

  When Cam was just one of the girls in the office, she had dated now and then. Aiden had scolded her. “Never date inside the company! Recipe for disaster.”

  Well, that eliminated a lot of people because Cam didn’t have the time or the inclination to bar hop. She was too busy taking night classes. When she finally made manager, she despaired when she discovered she would be working evenings, because there was so much to do. Still no date time, and on top of that, she had to drop her night classes.

  Cam sipped her coffee and leaned back in her chair. She stared glumly into the dark brew. “I think I’m miserable,” she confessed.

  Her computer beeped. Odd. It usually played the company logo and theme music, seven annoying chimes that ran up the scale like a reminder that she should be climbing the competitive ladder.

  But this morning, it beeped. She frowned at it. A small box in the middle of the screen blinked at her. She leaned toward it and read, “Click here for a special greeting from IT.”

  Information Technology? She’d been down there a few times, mostly when she was in a cubicle. Her finger hovered over her mouse. What if it was some kind of dangerous worm?

  She got up and looked out the door. Thirty conscientious heads were bent over their work, and three others were probably cruising porn sites. They’d be sorry when IT—Information Technology, the computer techs—initiated their recently announced crackdown on those naughty little behaviors. But no one appeared to be having a computer crisis. If the little box on her screen was malware, surely it would have affected the eight-a.m. crowd first.

  Management arrived at nine.

  She closed the door and returned to her desk. She took another sip of coffee to fortify herself, then clicked on the blinking box.

  Her computer screen turned into a glorious snowy Christmas scene, with reindeer peeking out of a barn and shadows of chubby people passing behind curtained windows. An oboe played “Silent Night.” And as she watched, a winged angel appeared at the top of the screen and tapped a wand—did angels have wands?—three times. On the third tap, a decorated Christmas tree beg
an to form, beginning with the top of its crowning star on down to the base, where squirrels ran back and forth with tiny gifts.

  “Awwww.” Cam surprised herself. Had that come out of her? She thought she’d lost whatever Christmas magic she’d been born with. Aiden had schooled it out of her. Marketing, that’s all it was. Marketing.

  And yet…no ad popped up to destroy the lovely scene. Instead, a bar of text ran slowly across the bottom.

  “This greeting comes with a full heart. It will disappear in ten seconds…unless you hit the space bar. Ten…. Nine…. Eight….”

  Cam hit the space bar. The text disappeared, but the graphic remained. So lovely.

  “Great,” she sighed. “How am I going to get any work done?”

  As if it had heard her question, the image shrank to an icon on her desktop, leaving all her other business-related programs accessible.

  “Son of a gun.” She cocked her head to one side and clicked on the icon. It took over the screen again. She clicked again and it minimized. She smiled. “Okay,” she said to herself. “Maybe everyone in Management got one.”

  She dove into her work and every time she needed a break, she clicked on the icon. Lovely.

  At noon, she went to the lunchroom, carrying her meager little granola bar. She bought a diet soda out of the machine and sat down in a chair by the wall. She refused to eat at her desk, regardless of Aiden’s advice. Instead, she picked up a Good Housekeeping magazine and began reading about homemade Christmas ornaments. Well, she’d never have time to make them, but they were very cute. Little leftover ball ornaments decorated to look like Santa and his elves. The half hour sped by. She left the magazine open on the chair and returned to work.

  The afternoon moved by as easily as the morning had, thanks to her little icon friend. And when she left for her apartment, she decided that tonight she would watch the Hallmark channel and leave her work at the office.

  CHAPTER 2

  The next day Camryn went to work feeling a little more comfortable about her job and not as depressed about Christmas. Truth be told, a tiny part of her was hoping she might get another Christmas card, or at least be able to revisit the digital card from the day before, on and off during her day.

  She said, “Good morning!” as she filled her coffee cup, leaving three of her workmates opened-mouthed with disbelief. She also looked around a little more carefully than usual to see if anyone looked curious. Was anyone watching her for a reaction? If so, she thought that might give them away. No, she didn’t see anyone with that special gleam in his eye.

  Slightly disappointed, she went into her office, closed the door, plopped down at her desk, and sipped her coffee. No point in waiting any longer. She turned on her computer and stared at the screen as it went through its usual dance in preparation for loading programs. Then it played “Jingle Bells.” Her coffee frozen halfway to her mouth, she listened to the quick xylophone rendition of “Jingle Bells.” After a few seconds, the music faded and a new digital Christmas card bloomed from the center of the screen. It started out with the Christmas scene from the previous day. However, when the Christmas tree appeared, it was covered with decorations that looked incredibly familiar to her. Suddenly, she realized the ornaments on the tree were the same as the ones that she’d been reading about in the lunch room the day before. Cute little balls of elves and a fat jolly Santa.

  How that could be? How could they be the same? Was it some kind of weird coincidence? Had they been there the day before and she just didn’t notice? She waited for the Christmas card to reach the point where she was instructed to press the spacebar in order to keep the card or let it fade away. She pressed the spacebar. The card minimized. She set her coffee cup down and struggled to keep from running out of her office. She paused at the door, opened it carefully, and stepped calmly past the numerous cubicles to the corridor. Once she was out of sight of her coworkers, she couldn’t help herself. She broke into a trot. She went straight to the lunch room, where she spotted yesterday’s magazine right where she had left it. She went over and quickly found the page that described how to make the ornaments that she would never have time to make, and in her haste, she ripped the page from the magazine. She could not pull her eyes away from the illustration. She walked right into the door, then realized that she needed to be more careful. So she tucked the page inside her blouse and then walked with purpose back to her office.

  Once she was sitting in front of her computer again, she tried to calm herself by sipping at her coffee. She took a deep breath, then unfolded the illustration from the magazine and laid it on the desk. She clicked on the icon for the e-card and the Christmas tree in all its glory showed up on her screen. Sure enough, her instinct had been correct. The ornament that she loved so much in the magazine was now part of the digital Christmas card. How could that possibly be? She wracked her brain, trying to remember who had seen her in the lunch room yesterday, but frankly, she hadn’t paid any attention to the other occupants, as usual. Now she had a mystery on her hands.

  She let the card run from beginning to end. It was so adorable, and she knew how much work had gone into it. She’d been studying computer graphics at night school, before she took a shot at her middle management position and actually got hired. She frowned at the screen. Was the message at the end of the card slightly different? This time it said, “Sent to you with a full heart from a secret admirer. Wishing you holiday joy.”

  She leaned back in her office chair and wondered how she was supposed to think about business when she had this glorious gift from an unseen admirer on her screen. With a deep, longing sigh, she minimized the card and got to work.

  But she could hardly wait for lunch time. By 11:30 she had convinced herself that she should test her theory. She would pick a different magazine and find a different Christmas ornament to admire. When no one thought she was looking, she would take a mental inventory of everyone in the room. She was so excited now, she could hardly wait for lunch time. She never had a secret admirer before.

  I wonder what he looks like?, she thought. The anticipation she was feeling made everything move in slow motion. At five to twelve, she could stand it no longer. She took her purse, walked normally past the cubicles outside her door and moved at a dignified pace toward the lunch room. Once again, she couldn’t stop herself from trotting the last few feet. She grabbed the handle of the door and opened it.

  No one. The lunch room was empty. She felt depression descend upon her. Oh well, it was a lovely fantasy. How could she have thought that anything would really come of it? But she was a person who carried her plans through to completion, so (with much less enthusiasm) she moved to the table where magazines were spread helter-skelter. She selected a copy of Home Beautiful and sat down to eat her granola bar. She flipped past one page at a time. Someone came in the door. Her heart pounded as she glanced up. It was just Olive from down the hall.

  She kept paging through the magazine until the door opened again. She barely even looked up this time. Sigh. Wasted effort. It was Reuben, that sky-high former basketball player, who went and got an MBA so he could find a job in the real world, blah, blah, blah. She hoped he didn't sit down next to her to tell her all about his struggles in graduate school. She sighed again.

  At last, the magazine took an interesting turn. Suddenly, there was a beautiful Christmas tree on the page. She turned the page. “For the crafty among us,” it read. “Do try to make this lovely little angel for your tree.”

  It had a stockinette head and beautiful lace doily wings, and its tiny crocheted body hung gracefully below its praying hands. Okay, she thought, this is really cute. She munched her granola bar, running her finger over the little angel as she chewed. She glanced up. Where did these four other people come from? She hadn’t even noticed the door open. She tried to identify them, feeling a spark of excitement reignite within her. She would eliminate the two women, she decided, laughing softly at herself. That would never work out.

  That
left two guys. One was five foot seven, chunky through the middle with polyester trousers. She thought she recognized him from human resources. She hoped and prayed he had not sent her the card. The other fellow was about six feet tall, broad shouldered, slender but not skinny. He was taking the lid off a plastic container. That was a good sign, a male human being who actually consumed salad for lunch. She waited for him to turn around, but he stared into his salad bowl. Even when he sat down to eat, he was careful not to make eye contact. She couldn’t read his name tag from where she was.

  I know. I’ll get up and get a soda out of the vending machine. Then I’ll be able to read his name tag.

  Nonchalantly, she stroked the page lovingly, stood up, and tried to draw attention to herself by stretching and yawning. Then she said aloud, “I guess I have to go back to work now.” No reaction from anyone. She moved to the soda dispenser, selected a diet soda, pulled it out, and turned around quickly to see if anyone was looking at her. But no one was, and she still couldn’t see the name tag of the salad eater. He was hunched over that bowl like he was disarming a landmine.

  Well, back to work. It had been a fun and exciting morning, and that’s all she could ask for. When she got back to her desk, she found a phone message from her sister the VP. That certainly cast a cloud over the rest of her day. She hoped everything was okay. She loved her sister, and she didn't want anything bad to happen to her. But she suspected that the phone call was not an emergency but rather an opportunity to share some great accomplishment or career move…maybe a huge raise. She wasn’t sure. Glumly, she pressed the button to play back the call. Her sister’s voice was efficient and brisk, as always.

  “Hi, sis, just wanted to give you a heads up. I believe I’m going to be CEO before Christmas. Just wanted you to know ahead of time because I didn’t think it was fair to spring it on you in front of the family. You know how they compare you to me. Just thought I’d let you know privately. Okay then, can’t wait to see you at Mom’s.”