Christmas Blooms

Published by: eXtasy Books

Author : Gabriella Bradley

ISBN :978-1-4874-4381-8

Page :142

Word Count :40500

Publication Date :2025-12-26

Series : #

Heat Level :

Available Formats :

Category : , Contemporary Romance , Romantic Suspense and Mystery , Mystery and Suspense , What's New

BrandsExtasy Books
Product Code: 978-1-4874-4381-8

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The Christmas season finds Serena Douglas reeling from the sudden disappearance of her six-year-old daughter, Cassie, while shopping at a department store.

Brad Shaw, a local craftsman working in the store’s garden center, discovers Cassie’s hiding place. Brad’s gentle manner and understanding nature comfort the distraught mother, and their shared experiences with grief and loss forge an immediate connection.

The family’s fragile peace is shattered when Cassie disappears again, this time on her way to a birthday party. Finding her in Serena’s abandoned family farmhouse in Linden yields a shocking discovery.

Serena Douglas’s voice cracked as she called her daughter’s name for the third time. The cheerful holiday music from the department store’s speakers suddenly seemed sinister, drowning out her increasingly desperate calls. She had only looked away for a few seconds…just long enough to check the price tag on a winter coat…and in that brief moment, Cassie had taken off, disappearing between the crowded racks of clothing.

“Cassie?” Serena pushed through a rack of winter coats. “Cassandra Douglas, where are you?” she called in a hushed voice.

Thirty seconds earlier, she had been there, beside her, admiring a display of snow globes in the next aisle while Serena checked coat sizes. Where could she be? Children didn’t simply evaporate. Her heart stuttered, but she forced herself to breathe—no need to panic.

She crouched to a child’s height, peering beneath the clothing racks. “Cassie, honey, this isn’t funny. This is not the time or place to play hide and seek. Come out now.” She used a stern tone that usually worked. Not this time. No response.

Serena straightened and slowly spun around. The holiday shopping crowd ebbed and flowed, hurrying past her, a sea of strangers carrying shopping bags and checking their lists. But no little girl with untied shoelaces and mismatched socks walked among them.

She ran through each aisle from front to back several times, but no Cassie. Returning to the coat rack where her child had gone missing, she approached a young salesgirl folding sweaters nearby. “Excuse me. I can’t find my little girl. She’s six and wearing a red hooded coat. She has dark curly hair. She was just here.”

The young woman smiled patiently. “Kids wander off all the time. Have you checked the toy department? That’s usually where we find them.”

“No, she wouldn’t—” Serena started to protest, but of course, Cassie would. Her daughter had such a vivid imagination. Any part of the store could become an enchanted forest or a fairy castle, especially the toy department. “Which floor?”

“Third floor.” The salesgirl pointed at the escalators.

Serena tried desperately to remain calm. Would Cassie have gotten on the escalator by herself? She walked briskly toward the escalators, trying not to run or panic. But inwardly, her heart pounded against her ribs.

Droplets of sweat dotted her forehead as she tried to bypass shoppers just standing on the escalator. Why was the thing moving so slowly?

She gaped when she finally reached the third floor… So many toys! Her gaze traveled over the displays and came to rest on Lego sets. The one put together and on display was a castle. Right up Cassie’s alley! She hurried to it.

“Cassie!” She called out louder this time, drawing glances from shoppers. She ignored them, scanning the bright displays of dolls and building sets, looking for Cassie’s familiar red coat and wild, dark hair.

Her gaze caught on a display in the center of the aisle of a toy train. A memory ambushed her of the day Derek had taken Bobby to a toy store in the city with an elaborate train set in the window. Her phone had rung as she’d been making dinner.

Bobby’s excited voice immediately started babbling about miniature villages and working signals. “Dad says we can stay another half hour, Mom, please?”

She had agreed, of course.

The memory receded, leaving her disoriented beside a stuffed animal display. Her hands began to tremble, and she clenched them into fists. “Cassie!”

“Ma’am?” A man approached, his name tag reading Assistant Manager. “Is everything all right?”

“My little girl.” Serena swallowed hard. “I can’t find her. She’s six and wearing a red hooded jacket. She was with me when I looked at coats one floor below, then suddenly she was gone.”

The man’s expression shifted from polite inquiry to professional concern. “How long ago was this?”

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.” To Serena, each minute felt like an hour. “I’ve looked everywhere I can think she’d be interested in. She can’t have gone far and must be in the store somewhere.”

“Let me call security.” He took a cellphone from his pocket. “We’ll make an announcement and have our team start looking. Children usually don’t go far.”

Usually.

Serena thought of plane crashes and how they usually didn’t happen either.

“What’s her name? Hair color?”

“Cassie. Cassandra Douglas. She has dark curly hair.”

The music stopped. “Attention shoppers. We have a Code Adam. We’re looking for Cassandra Douglas, who is six years old. She answers to Cassie. She has dark curly hair and is wearing a red jacket. If you find her, please bring her to the information desk. Cassandra, please go to the nearest register if you hear this announcement and wait for your mother.”

Code Adam. Named for a boy who had never been found.

Serena’s stomach twisted violently.

“Security will check all the exits,” the assistant manager assured her. “No one leaves with a child fitting that description. Please go to the information desk. I’ll check the rest of this floor.”

But Serena continued to search.

The next ten minutes were a blur…checking behind displays, questioning the children’s department employees, scanning the faces of every small, dark-haired child. With each empty aisle, each shake of a head, each Sorry, haven’t seen her, the fear in Serena’s heart spread.

“She has to be here.” Her whispered words sounded thin and reedy in her ears.