Robyn
Marrying Miss Kringle
Lucy McConnell
Orchard View Publishing LLC
Contents
Marrying Miss Kringle
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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
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
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About the Author
Marrying Miss Kringle
Robyn
The North Pole is melting…
Christmas will be ruined…
Robyn Kringle’s sisters make falling in love look easy; but, Robyn’s struggled for three years.
Set ups? Tougher than peanut brittle.
Club hopping? Not her jam.
Online dating? Like her fruitcake—full of nuts!
With children all over the world counting on stockings full of goodies, Robyn has just two weeks left to find her one true love and save Christmas.
She has a plan.
She’s enlisted help.
But a handsome, and scroogie, security guard stands in her way.
One fantastic kiss and her world flips.
Can a Kringle marry a grinch; or will Christmas Magic disappear forever because Robyn followed her heart?
You’ll love this Santa romance because everyone loves Christmas.
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This story is an irresistible contemporary romance about a not-so-humble cop who splits his raffle ticket with an unlucky waitress and the actor who falls in love with her.
(An It Could Happen to You retelling with a twist!)
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Chapter 1
Robyn
Robyn Kringle made her way into the family gathering room. The warm wooden paneling called to her. Though she loved living in an ice castle, the blue-and-white walls were too bright for her mood today. She needed walnut wood and a Yule log to chase away her blues. Chocolate would help too, which was why she had a small box of hand-dipped homemade lemon truffles in one hand and a cup of cherry hot chocolate in the other.
The ovens were misbehaving, acting like they were in a tropical climate instead of the North Pole. Her strawberry candy canes had come out limp and sticky, and the watermelon ones weren’t worth talking about. Baking was supposed to be the easy part of life. Recipes had specific instructions, and when followed, they resulted in beautiful confections delivered by Santa and enjoyed by children the world over.
She pushed the door with her hip, but it stuck and she bounced off, splashing hot chocolate on her hand. Growling, she balanced the box on top of the cup, shook off her fingers, swiped her hand on her raspberry-colored apron, and gave the door a good shove. It popped open with a wood-on-wood scrape that sent shivers over her arms.
The sound also startled two of her sisters, Stella and Ginger, who had been sitting on the couch. They popped up like kids caught sneaking cookie dough. Come to think of it, Stella had a glint in her eye that said they may have raided Robyn’s cookie stash before hiding in the family room. “What are you two up to?” she asked, making her way to the large red brick fireplace. She set her cup and box on the side table, next to Mom’s rocker, and faced her sisters.
Stella, the only other single Kringle, as she liked to call them, picked up her laptop and hugged it to her chest. “Right now? Nothing.” Her black hair was past her shoulders now. She’d chopped it off and worn it spiky several years ago and had been growing it out since.
Ginger—or Santa, as she had inherited the silver snowflake tattoo that should have been Robyn’s birthright—shoved Stella. “Tell her.”
Stella twisted her lips. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
The two of them locked eyes and battled it out silently.
Robyn groaned. These two had spent the year plotting out matchmaking schemes for Robyn.
They’d tried online dating—a bust.
Asking friends from college to set her up—epic fail.
And hitting the singles scene in every major city from London to Singapore—exhausting and often embarrassing, as Robyn had major dance skills from the 1980s but none from this decade.
Each new scheme had a higher level of desperation that scrambled Robyn’s confidence like a fork whisking egg yolks. Three of her younger sisters had found true love and saved Christmas in the process. As the oldest, she should have been the first to stand at the altar. Yet here she was, thirty-two years old and counting, with no husband, children, or Christmas hero status to her name.
Stella finally broke eye contact with Ginger and flipped on Robyn—her face a mask of fake serenity. “How much do you love me?”
Instantly wary, Robyn squinted. “Why?” Stella didn’t invoke that question unless there was a catch—a double-decker with extra frosting catch. Thank goodness Frost had given her a makeover last year when they’d gone to Elderberry, Oregon, to help Frost find her husband, Tannon. The two of them, and Tannon’s son, Brody, had moved into their own suite in the castle. Frost was over the mail room and spent most of her days organizing and reorganizing letters to Santa.
Thanksgiving was late this year—the last weekend of November, which gave them just twenty-seven days until Christmas Eve. It was one of the shortest holiday seasons they’d had in decade.
No one felt the pinch like Robyn, who had to find her true love, marry him, and return to the North Pole in time to make enough candy to stuff stockings for every child on the planet or Christmas Magic would perish. Being a Kringle wasn’t all cookie binges and sleigh rides.
Stella lifted onto her tiptoes, making her knee-high black leather boots crinkle. “Because I just solved your marriage problem.”
“It’s my problem?” Robyn lifted one eyebrow in an older-sister stare-down. Stella had a string of broken hearts staggering behind her and not an engagement ring to be seen. This could have been her year to get married. If only she hadn’t—
“It’s all of our problem.” Ginger interrupted Robyn’s thoughts. She went to the door and heaved it open, causing the same creaky noise that Robyn had made when she came in. “The wood in the castle is swelling. Do you know what that means?”
“That it needs an ibuprofen?” Stella snarked.
Ginger stuck her fists on her wide black belt. Her red velvet skirt swished around her ankles as she paced the room. “It’s absorbing water.” She moved to the bookshelf and rapped her knuckles on the back. It sounded … thick. “The castle is melting.”
“Melting!” Robyn snatched up the chocolate box and popped a morsel of chocolate lemony goodness in her mouth. The milk chocolate melted on her tongue in the most soothing way, and the lemon came in with a kick that started her thinking process. “How fast?”
“Lux estimates the integrity of the ice will be at zero on Christmas Day.” Ginger spoke low, as if she was afraid the walls would hear her and start to worry. The castle was made of Christmas Magic, changing with the
family’s needs. The day Robyn’s room had transformed from a child’s room to a teenage girl’s room with a queen-sized bed, a beautiful makeup table, and a larger closet was a cherished memory. She’d felt like the Magic had seen her that day, had known she longed to move from the playroom to the kitchens and take her place as a contributing Kringle.
Lux, their science-loving sister, was over all things mechanical. She had a way with engineering like Robyn had with sugar, and she had built a substation that converted Christmas Magic into electricity and stabilized the flow to prevent power surges from shutting down machines.
Ginger touched the single snow globe on the shelf, her face drawing into a grimace. A whole collection of snow globes used to grace those shelves. But last year, when the North Pole had begun to tip because no one had gotten married yet, the decorations had fallen to the floor and smashed.
Mom was heartbroken. She’d taken a lifetime to gather snow globes, most of them representative of a family trip or holiday tradition.
Dad had taken the sleigh to Austria to purchase a replacement for their honeymoon snow globe. It was beautiful, with a small replica of St. Rupert’s Church inside and a water wheel on the base. When shaken, the snow gathered on the church spire and bell tower, creating an inviting Christmas Eve scene.
Tipping was one thing. Her cakes and goodies were lopsided, until she leveled the ovens with shims. But melting ice was a whole different issue. No wonder her kitchen acted like a tantrum-throwing two-year-old today, defying her at every turn.
It wasn’t only her kitchens at stake! Just in this room were items more valuable than her store of gourmet candy flavorings. The carpet they’d gathered on as children to open presents, the mantel where they’d hung their stockings every year, the family painting above the fireplace—all of it could be ruined by water.
And then there were the elves and the reindeer to worry about. Neither could swim, and both were tied to Christmas Magic. If the Magic went away, the elves turned to dust and the reindeer couldn’t fly. They’d be forced out into the frozen North to roam as a wild herd. Maybe they’d make it far enough to find food, but that was a slim possibility. The only way to save them was for either her or Stella to get married this year—before Christmas.
She gave her sister a stern look. “Stella, you’ve got to talk to your preacher.”
Stella lifted her nose. “He’s not my preacher.”
Ginger nudged her. “He’s only dating that woman because you left him last Christmas Eve in Oregon—after kidnapping him on a sleigh with a flying reindeer, I might add.”
Stella sucked in hard, revealing the cords in her neck. “He can date whomever he wants. Just because she’s a goody-Good-Lister doesn’t mean he’s in love with her. I’m focusing on Robyn this year. She’s the oldest; she should get married first.”
Robyn undid her apron and folded it with crisp movements. Being the oldest and single was bad enough; having the very same fact pointed out by other people was downright embarrassing. She brushed it off with a “Pah-lease. It’s not 1813.” She hurried on before either of them caught on to her false bravado. “And I agree with Ginger. Flying away in a sleigh didn’t earn you any points. In fact, flying him there with Prancer was a bad idea too.” Prancer was a fast but slightly unstable reindeer with a crazy look in his eye that made everyone but Stella think twice before harnessing him to a sleigh.
“It was Christmas Eve. Hell-o. Wrapping presents for the whole world ring a bell? I was on a deadline, and we barely made it.” She flopped onto the couch, throwing her arms and legs out as if Christmas Eve was last night and she was exhausted. “Besides. He’s a pastor. He preaches miracles all the time—I’ve heard him. A flying sleigh shouldn’t cause him that much alarm. Not enough that he wouldn’t talk to me come January.” She plucked at the frayed hole in her designer black jeans.
Ginger gave Robyn a look that said help your sister out and go along with her scheme.
An internal battle began inside of Robyn. On the one end of the field was her vast understanding of the damage rejection can do to a sensitive Kringle heart. Her longtime boyfriend had broken up with her three years ago, and she still felt insignificant inside when she thought of him. On the other end of the field was her sense of self preservation. Stella had some looney-toony ideas, and she loved nothing more than to involve her sisters.
Robyn plopped on the couch and asked in a monotone voice, “What did you have in mind? I’m not saying I’m going to do it—but I’m curious.”
Stella sat up and crossed her legs. The small bells on her boots jingled as she bounced her foot. She twirled a strand of black hair around her finger. “So I was watching a Hallmark movie, and I saw this commercial for a dating show.”
Robyn shot to her feet. “I’m out.” She had a hard enough time flirting when there weren’t witnesses; having a whole television crew watch her would be like watching the Polar Express slide off the tracks and not being able to stop it.
“Listen.” Stella grabbed her hand to stop her from walking away. “You don’t have to actually go out with them on camera. They line up three possible guys, and you pick one. Super easy.”
“You don’t even have to see them. There’s partitions and stuff so you’re not judging them by their looks,” added Ginger.
“What did Joseph say about this?” Robyn’s introverted brother-in-law preferred the solitude of his woodshop to literally anything else that involved people. Well, people except for Ginger and Layla, his niece they were raising together. And maybe the Kringle clan. The poor guy had been the first one to marry into the family of five women and spent the year hiding out. Things were better when Lux brought Quik into the family. Then came Tannon. The guys hung together and got along great. Still, if anyone thought this was a harebrained idea, it would be Joseph, and she was counting on him backing her up.
Ginger twisted her fingers together. “He said he’d never do it—but maybe you should.”
“What?” Robyn made a mental note to stop all cinnamon cookie deliveries to the woodshop.
“It’s low risk, high reward.” Ginger shrugged. “Besides, we’re running out of time here.”
Robyn considered her other options and found that there weren’t any. She could hit the clubs again or reopen her dating profile, but just the thought of that was tedious. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Eee!” Stella hopped to her feet and jumped up and down, making her hair bounce. “I’m going to make you a TV star.”
Robyn held up a palm. “No! We’re not playing dress-up. I go as myself or I don’t go at all.” She’d tried on Stella’s clothing before. Not only did it not fit her the same way it fit her icicle-thin sister; the leopard-print skirts and black tops muffled her happiness. The clothing she and Lux picked out, with bright splashes of color and tailored seams, brought out the woman she was—and the one she wanted to be.
“I agree.” Ginger wrapped her arm around Robyn’s waist. The scent of gingersnaps overwhelmed Robyn, and she wrinkled her nose. Not that she didn’t love a good cookie; she just preferred fruity scents and flavors. People told her she smelled like vanilla bean. She’d always found that quite plain as far as scents and flavors went.
“Okay, fine. No drastic makeovers,” Stella begrudgingly consented. “But can we please, please, please ask Frost to whip up some new clothes? She got a shipment of fabric on a Black Friday deal.”
Robyn shook her head. “It’s December 3rd. Letters are pouring in.”
“Yeah, but she has Tannon to help.” Stella grabbed both their hands and tugged them to the door. “Besides, we all know she won’t sleep until after the holiday.”
Robyn and Ginger exchanged shrugs. Frost probably would be up until the last letter was processed and the gift delivered. She had fantastic Claus stamina. Even Ginger, who spent 24 hours delivering presents in an exhausting down-the-chimney, up-the-chimney routine, had to sleep every couple of days.
“To the Mail Room.” Robyn flopped her hand
. “I guess I’m going on the dating show.”
“Thirty-Minute Match,” Stella corrected. “We get in, we get you a husband, we get out.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Ginger smiled.
What it sounded like was a desperate attempt to trick a man into a first date. But hey, who was she to judge? She had 21 days to find a guy, fall in love, and get married. Thirty minutes was about all she had to offer.
Chapter 2
Gabe
Security Guard Gabe Fowler scanned the Spritzworks Studios lobby. Today was busy because they were filming episodes in three of the four studios in the building. The production crews and staff were anxious to wrap things up. Many of them had second jobs lined up for the holiday break between filming. Having a month off sounded great—until you realized it was a month without pay. Then, it became a hardship you had to plan for and get through, especially at Christmas.
The contestants for the popular game shows were the ones with smiles. They could go home with a pocket full of Christmas cash, a new TV, or—in the case of Thirty Minute Match—a shot at true love. He rolled his eyes. Cash and a TV sounded great, but love? Come on, that only happened in the movies. He’d spent his time in foster families, and not one of the couples that took him in had a happy marriage. Even now, in the break room, he heard more complaints about spouses than he ever heard compliments or sweet stories.
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