Fruitcake is the laughingstock of the holiday season. But is it really an aphrodisiac instead? Motorcycle mechanic Sam McGuire is surprised to find a gaily wrapped box on his doorstep with a piece of fruitcake inside. The note on the present is an invitation to a holiday party. Intrigued, Sam attends the party -- mostly to get more of the fruitcake he falls in love with -- and meets his new neighbor, Jay Merriweather. The lure of Jay’s big family and its holiday tradition of enjoying Grandma’s fruitcake hook Sam, as does the sexy man himself. But Sam can't imagine why handsome, college-educated Jay would want someone like him, who was raised in a children’s home and barely graduated high school. Can the magic of the holiday season help two men who seem so different come together like the ingredients in a well-made fruitcake?

Blame It on the Fruitcake

I took out my pocket knife and cut off a thin slice. I figured the stuff probably wouldn’t kill me, since if it was lethal, it would’ve done in Jay Merriweather a long time ago. As I bit into it, I thought about the name Jay Merriweather. It sounded happy, merry like Christmas.


Hot damn! Fruitcake was great. Shit. How’d it gotten such a bad rep? Talk about not fair. This stuff was deadly.


I picked up the rest of the piece and started to polish it off. Then I stopped. No, wait. If I ate it all now, I wouldn’t have any for tomorrow or the next day.


Course, if I went to the party Saturday night, maybe I could boost a few more pieces to take home with me.


With a plan firmly in place, I washed up from dinner, put on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, and joined the lushes at the bar. I couldn’t decide whether I should share my great discovery or sit and listen like I usually did until my bullshit meter registered in the overload zone and I went back home.


Chapter 2