A Peace Offering

A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2019 Advent Calendar collection Homemade for the Holidays.

Dover Billings has sold his handcrafted wares at the Dickens Fair in San Francisco for over twenty years. He's not as outgoing as the other artisans at this yearly Victorian celebration and prefers to observe the festivities from the shadows. That is until a new corset maker moves into the booth next door and unsettles his carefully constructed life. Landry Malcolm is handsome, well-dressed, and the life of the party… one Dover wants no part of. Too bad he's attracted to his confident younger rival.

Landry desperately wishes to get through to the beautiful artist next door, but every move he makes seems to be the wrong one...until a drunken kiss seems to break through Dover's serious demeanor. Miscommunications seem to plague any attempts to find common ground, leaving Landry wondering what—if anything—he can do to make things right. Will a custom-made peace offering open the door to friendship, cooperation… and maybe more?