A Lost Claus

Sandy lost her Claus, but she’ll do whatever it takes to save Christmas.

Sandy Claus inherited her family’s business—the sleigh, the reindeer, the elves—and everything was fine until her feckless husband disappeared a month before the big night. The quicky divorce is easy. Saving Christmas will be hard. Impossible without a new Claus. But she’ll do anything to avoid calling her parents, admitting her failure, and dragging them out of retirement. Can she embrace the naughty list and seduce a new Claus in time to save Christmas? Even if he doesn’t believe in holiday magic? And how will she convince the hot, unemployed pilot to stay after she succumbs to his Yuletide spice and falls in love?

A Lost Claus Tropes

Holiday magic, reverse age gap (by a lot!), down on his luck hero, romantic comedy

Excerpt

Sandy Claus rolled over and slid her hand across cool, empty sheets. She bolted up. Her husband never rose earlier than she did. He was a night owl—one of the main reasons she’d recruited him to be The Claus all those years ago.

“Treats Twinkletoes?” she called out to her head elf.

The cute little blond sashayed in with her candy cane tights in a twist, wiping her mouth. “Hey, Sandy. You’re awake…”

“Where is he?”

“Um?” Treats glanced back at the door she’d come through, then at the window, up to the ceiling. “Uh…not here?”

“You’re being obtuse on purpose. Where is he?”

Treats straightened one leg of her leggings. “Gone.”

Not again. Sandy slipped out from beneath the thick quilted covers and dropped to the floor from the huge, carved wooden sleigh bed. Treats was far too quiet.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Alabastra dropped him at the Anchorage airport early this morning. She came back crying.”

Sandy wrapped herself in her down robe and slid her bare feet into a pair of red fuzzy slippers. The urge to break down warred with the desire to murder him. “Is she okay? If he hurt her, I’ll —”

“No, nothing like that.” Treats slipped a candy cane from its wrapper and popped it between her lips, twisting her tongue around it. “He told her he’d take her with him, but when they got to the airport, he only had one ticket.”

“Why the hell would he be flying somewhere, especially on the day after Thanksgiving? It’s one of the busiest and most expensive days to fly. I swear, that man has no sense of budgeting. We could have had the reindeer fly him. After Christmas.”

“Only if he was coming back…” Her voice, normally as harsh as rough cut pine, softened to ash. 

The hair on the back of Sandy’s neck rose. “What did you say?”

“Sandy, he’s not coming back. He ditched us.”

“It’s less than a month until Christmas Eve. He can’t ditch us.” Her blood turned to ice. Why had she struggled so much in her role as Mrs. Claus? “He’s The Claus.”

Accolades:

Oklahoma Romance Writers Guild Heart Award 2024 Winner