Thanks to a jealous divine, whenever Chase Butler comes anywhere near Miriah, she turns into a chameleon. While her hopes of having a happily ever with Mr. Right are dashed, she’s determined to have the next best thing: a perfect Christmas.
Finding a puppy for her son, dodging the unwanted attention of her divine fling of an ex, and keeping on top of a holiday charity drive for local pet shelters sure is complicated when prone to transforming into a twelve-inch lizard with a severe allergy to snowbanks.
Since blending in has gotten her nowhere fast, she’s going to have to pull out all the stops to get what she wants, even if it lands her on Santa’s naughty list.
Warning: this holiday story contains excessive humor, action, excitement, adventure, magic, romance, and bodies. Proceed with caution.
Blending In is book ten of the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series.
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From Chapter One…
As always, when Chase Butler visited Price Financial Industry Solutions, I transformed into a twelve inch long chameleon, which made preparing the afternoon spreadsheets difficult at best. I gave it a week before I lost my job thanks to the CEO of our competitor visiting so often. Scrambling onto my desk, I nosed my trackpad closer to my keyboard. Come hell or high water, I’d finish my work on time.
To get my son the puppy he wanted for Christmas, I needed to keep my job. To keep my job, I needed to get my head out of my rear end and find every last one of Chase Butler’s faults so I’d stop my headlong tumble into unrequited love.
If I murdered Gavin, a week-long fling, a divine, and father of my child, would his curse break? How the heck was I supposed to find a man who could love me better than a frisky divine with bed-hopping tendencies when I turned into a blasted chameleon whenever a man I liked came too close?
Chase Butler needed to stop being a handsome, generous man who liked animals immediately if not sooner. Also, he needed to stop challenging my boss and coordinating competitive charity drives. If he gave up his goody-goody tendencies, maybe I’d be able to rein in my admiration.
As usual, my traitor heart refused to listen to me.
I needed to have a long talk with Gavin about his danged curse. A during-work-hours exemption would make my life a lot easier.
Flicking my tongue and using my tail to control the trackpad, I plugged data into my spreadsheet. Whatever made me able to operate touch devices had saved my bacon more than once; had I been more like a natural chameleon, I would’ve been sunk weeks ago.
My efforts worked well enough, and I enjoyed blending in with my desk, able to work without casual observers noticing me. Unfortunately, everyone in the open workspace knew I had a few quirks and a shapeshifting problem.
My desk neighbor, best friend, sometimes babysitter, and general gossip rolled her chair towards my desk. “You’re so damned lucky Alex likes your work, Miriah. Must you do this every damned charity drive?”
Charity drives always landed me in trouble. Without fail, I’d find some man who checked off every one of my boxes for a husband and father of my son. Every year, the story ended the same way.
None of the men I liked could ever see past the chameleon to the woman beneath. Most of them hadn’t even noticed my existence.
I tapped on the trackpad, opened a note file, and suggested Tiana should go suck on some goose eggs before I returned to work.
“While I understand Mr. Butler has an ass to kill for, you might be taking this a little too far.”
I checked if any of our co-workers were listening in. Fortunately, her comment went unnoticed.
Why couldn’t my tactic of ignoring Tiana work for a change? It hadn’t done me any good the ten other times the past week Chase had needed something from Alex. In person. I did my best to pretend she didn’t exist, working on calculating the charity drive results for the week and the projections for the rest of the event.
Five pet shelters and six homeless shelters running out of supplies and funding had spurred the latest charity blitz, and the holidays helped convince the company’s clients to give their brands an ethical boost. When all was said and done, I’d join in the festivities, bringing Caleb home a puppy for Christmas.
Despite my hopeless crush on Chase Butler, my son would get his puppy, and that meant working my reptilian, color-changing butt off to finish my report within the next two hours without the benefit of human hands.
“It’s hopeless,” Tiana informed me before rolling back to her desk. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
After I returned to human, I’d make a special trip to the salon, get conditioner for dry hair like she usually used, add extra oil, and to be even more helpful, add even more oil of the coconut variety so she smelled delicious, all so I could teach my fro-haired friend an oily lesson. Maybe if she needed to figure out how to get the excess oil out of her uncooperative mane, she’d leave my failed love life alone for a while.
With my luck, I’d actually unlock the secrets of fro hair care.