Buch lesen: «Stranded For The Holidays»

Chapter One

Grinning, Jonas Stone snapped a quick photo of his son. In a pint-size Stetson and cowboy boots, four-year-old Hunter looked adorable sitting in Santa’s lap.

From the mounted loudspeakers at the edge of the town square, strains of “Winter Wonderland” provided a festive note. Friends called out greetings to each other.

Pretty much the entire population of Truelove, North Carolina had turned out for the annual Christmas parade. And also for the free hot chocolate, courtesy of the Mason Jar, the local diner on the other side of the green.

Nursing a cold, Jonas’s mother had remained at the ranch, opting to skip the parade and the visit with Santa. Per tradition, the Truelove Christmas parade always landed on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

But it seemed to Jonas that Christmas came earlier every year. At least, the trappings of Christmas. If it wasn’t for his son, he’d just as soon bypass the holidays.

Or maybe he was getting old. Old, alone and—according to his also widowed mother—dangerously close to being forever set in his grumpy ways.

Enthroned in the gazebo, Santa—aka Truelove’s mayor—patted Hunter’s jean-clad knee. “Have you been a good boy this year?”

“I think so, Santa.” Hunter’s dark brown eyes swung to Jonas. “And a weally good cowboy, too. Wight, Dad?”

His son’s breath fogged in the crisp, mountain air. The cold front and plummeting temperature had necessitated pulling out their winter coats before they’d left the ranch this morning.

Jonas smiled at his little cowboy. “A very good cowboy.”

“Mrs. Santa will be so pleased.” Mayor Watson’s pale blue eyes twinkled. “And what is it you’d like Santa to bring you this Christmas, my boy?”

Hunter’s eyebrows drew together like twin caterpillars. “It’s some-ding I weally, weally want, Santa.” Cupping his mitten, he whispered in Santa’s ear.

Jonas scanned the Blue Ridge vista surrounding the small Appalachian community. Low, thin clouds enveloped the mountains. The chill in the air hinted of coming snow.

And if it wasn’t already snowing on the mountain at FieldStone Ranch, it soon would be. They’d need to get on the road soon.

“You’re sure that’s what you want for Christmas, Hunter?”

At the note of concern in Mayor Watson’s voice, Jonas turned from his contemplation of the dreary skyline. Hunter’s head bobbed. “I’m sure.”

With the freezing temperature, Mayor Watson’s rather bulbous nose had turned an appropriate cherry-red. “Not a new rope? Or a saddle? Or—”

“Dat’s the only ding I want for Chwismas, Santa.” Hunter’s face turned unusually solemn.

Watson tugged at his snow-white beard. “That sort of gift is kinda hard to come by.” His eyes darted to Jonas. “And best given by your father.”

“But Dad’s gonna need your help, Santa.” Hunter crossed his arms over his skinny chest. “Gwam-ma says, God’s help, too.”

Jonas raised an eyebrow. “Wow, that must be some gift.”

Watson chuckled nervously. “Thank you for coming to see me today, Hunter.” He eased the little boy off his lap. “I hope you have a merry Christmas. Make sure you get a candy cane from my helper.”

He steered Hunter toward the steps, where the grandmotherly ErmaJean Hicks waited. With her silvery hair tucked inside a green felt hat, she resembled a jolly, if somewhat plump, elderly elf.

Watson caught Jonas’s coat sleeve. “Uh, Stone. I feel I ought to warn you.”

He frowned. “Warn me? About what?”

“I’d hate for Hunter to be disappointed.” The mayor cut his eyes to where Hunter waited at the bottom of the steps, happily licking the red stripe off the peppermint cane. “Telling a Christmas wish isn’t the same as blabbing a birthday wish...”

“Hunter’s a great kid,” Jonas agreed. “If he only wants one thing for Christmas, I’ll do my best to make sure he gets it.”

The mayor cleared his throat. “Fact is, Jonas, the only thing Hunter wants for Christmas this year is a mommy.”

Jonas stared at him. “A what?”

“You heard me.” Watson winced. “I wish you well with that. Next?”

He moved aside as Hunter’s best friend, little Maisie McAbee, scrambled onto Santa’s lap, clutching a list in her small hand.

What had just happened?

“Here.” Smirking, ErmaJean thrust a candy cane at Jonas. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

Stifling a groan, he scanned the crowd milling around the square for the rest of the Double Name Club—GeorgeAnne Allen and his great-aunt, IdaLee Moore. The trio were notoriously known as the Truelove Matchmakers, and where there was one, the others weren’t usually too far behind.

The three old ladies were infamous for poking their noses where they didn’t belong. They took the town motto—Truelove, Where True Love Awaits—a little too seriously.

Ethan Green—ErmaJean’s grandson—and his wife, Amber, had been the matchmakers’ most recent matrimonial success story.

But after Jonas’s wife, Kasey, walked out on them, he had decided women were trouble he didn’t need. He’d take his life on the ranch with Hunter any day over some high-maintenance, commitment-phobic woman. He didn’t need that kind of heartache. Once burned, twice shy.

Clamping his Stetson onto his head, he shouldered past the older lady. “Excuse me, Miss ErmaJean.”

Married, divorced or spinster, the “Miss” was an honorary title of respect bestowed on any Southern lady who was your elder. No matter if the woman was elderly or not.

Lines fanned from the corners of ErmaJean’s glacier-blue eyes. “You’re on my radar now, Jonas Stone.” She wagged a bony finger. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint a child at Christmas, would we?”

Grunting, he took hold of his son. “On the way home, we need to have a talk, Hunter.”

Shaken by the heartbreaking scene she’d stumbled upon, AnnaBeth Cummings ran toward the bridal dressing room. Gut clenching, she left her engagement ring beside her bouquet and quickly scribbled a note.

Please don’t try to find me, Scott. Be happy, MaryDru. I’ll be in touch. I need a little breathing room. All my love, AnnaBeth

Strains of organ music filtered from the sanctuary where family and friends awaited a Saturday-morning wedding that was never going to happen. The wedding her stepmother, Victoria, liked to call The Social Event of the Season.

AnnaBeth’s heart raced. She had to hurry before it was too late. Before her father and Scott stopped her.

Or worse, Victoria, who was a force of nature. As in a hurricane. Tornado. Tidal wave. Firestorm.

She must make her getaway before Victoria could strong-arm her and Scott into doing something they’d regret.

AnnaBeth had no idea where she should go or what she should do with The Rest of Her Life. Yet a strange certainty that she was doing the right thing began to build inside her. And a budding excitement.

Grabbing her coat and her suitcase—she was glad it hadn’t already been transferred to the limo—she ran for the parking lot. She ran for her life. She ran to find her life.

Leaf-barren trees lifted forlorn branches to the desolate, late November sky. Behind the wheel of her car, she turned off her cell phone and glanced in the rearview mirror. With a pained expression, she adjusted the ridiculously large, ivory satin bow affixed to the Juliet cap on her head a smidgeon. It didn’t help.

“Sweet potatoes,” she muttered.

But after such a dire beginning, the day could only get better from here. Right?

Snowflakes began to fall from the leaden sky. Headed west on Interstate 40, she drove for hours. Plenty of time to reflect on where everything had gone so catastrophically off-course.

Awaiting her father’s arrival to escort her down the aisle, she’d been stricken with anxiety over her upcoming nuptials. So she’d decided to break tradition and see Scott one more time before the ceremony.

And discovered more than she’d ever bargained for when she found her two most favorite people in the world—Scott and her younger half sister, MaryDru—in each other’s arms, saying an agonizing goodbye. She’d slipped away before either of them spotted her.

Images from the last few months filtered through her mind. Like suddenly coming upon her sister and Scott. The stammers. MaryDru’s blushes. One or both of them always making an excuse for not being together in the same room.

How had everything gone so terribly wrong? How could she have not seen the love blossoming between her sister and Scott?

From the beginning, she’d had doubts about marrying Scott. But probably a thousand times since his proposal, she’d reassured herself that what she was feeling was nothing more than prewedding jitters.

So what if in their eight-month engagement he’d kissed her a total of once? So what if that one time had been akin to kissing a cousin? So what if there’d been no fireworks?

Not only had she not experienced lightning, but she’d also felt nothing.

She’d chalked it up to unrealistic expectations. She told herself they shared something far more solid than sparks—friendship. Their fathers were business associates and golf buddies. She and Scott had known one another forever.

“Love will grow,” she whispered repeatedly. But it hadn’t.

Now it wasn’t so much sorrow she felt as giddy relief. She didn’t love Scott, and he didn’t love her. She refused to stand in the way of MaryDru’s happiness.

AnnaBeth’s stomach growled. Perhaps it was time to refuel, and not just the gas tank. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, she hadn’t eaten more than a bite. And in increasing dread of having to put on The Dress, she hadn’t eaten much of anything for the past month.

She shivered. The higher the elevation, the colder it became. AnnaBeth turned the heat in the car on full-blast.

The slim-fitting mermaid wedding dress wasn’t something she would’ve chosen for herself. Her hips weren’t exactly her best feature, but Victoria had been insistent. Of course, the wedding dress would’ve been perfect for MaryDru.

After driving past a sign indicating a town called Truelove was ten miles ahead, she exited the highway and veered onto a secondary road. The irony of the town’s name didn’t escape her. Maybe when she stopped for gas, she’d meet the man of her dreams.

Hey, it wasn’t impossible. Although, improbable. Yet stranger things had happened.

Right. She grimaced. Keep telling yourself that, AnnaBeth.

Had she learned nothing from her wedding fiasco? Life didn’t work like that. At least, not for her.

Snow began falling harder and faster, and dusted the winding double yellow line on the pavement. Shouldn’t she have arrived in Truelove already? She scanned the surrounding terrain, anxious for signs of civilization.

Behind her, the road had been swallowed by swirling snow. And just when she believed the situation couldn’t get any worse, the car sputtered.

“No!” She strangled the wheel. “Don’t quit on me now...”

But with a final convulsive jerk, the car shuddered to a stop. The engine died. This couldn’t be happening. Not after everything else that had gone wrong today.

Don’t panic. Try the ignition again. Please, please, please...

But nothing. Relinquishing her death grip on the wheel, she fell against the seat. Her heart pounded. What now?

Already the cold began to seep into the car. Snatching her phone off the console, she turned it on. No bars.

The deepening, storm-induced twilight would soon extinguish any last remnants of light from the sky. There was nothing to do but head on foot for the nearest shelter. Somewhere she’d taken a wrong turn. By now, she should’ve been in Truelove.

Story of her life. Wrong turn, true love MIA... Film at eleven.

AnnaBeth slipped her arms inside her wool coat, then grabbed her beaded clutch. She staggered out of the car and the wind almost knocked her down.

Having traveled about nine miles since leaving the interstate, if she followed the road, surely she’d encounter Truelove sooner rather than later.

In the blinding snow, she had difficulty establishing where the pavement began and ended. Yet sound traveled far over the snow-packed landscape, and after taking only a couple of tottering steps, she detected the sound of an engine in the distance.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she lifted her hand to flag her rescuer.

The snowstorm was turning out to be much worse than forecasters predicted. Driving conditions had grown increasingly hazardous the farther the truck climbed the mountain outside town.

Jonas would be relieved to reach the welcoming sanctuary of the ranch. As for the continuing conversation regarding a certain Christmas wish...

“Mommies don’t just appear with a big wrapped bow under the tree on Christmas morning.” He angled toward his son, strapped into a booster seat. “It doesn’t work that way.”

Hunter jabbed his thumb at the windshield. “Den what about her?”

A woman lurched onto the road in front of the pickup. For a split second, he wondered if he’d imagined her. Caught like a doe in the headlights, her eyes grew round with shock as she froze in the middle of the road.

He knew better, but he couldn’t stop his knee-jerk reaction. Flinging one arm across his son, he slammed on the brakes. The tires hit a patch of ice and the vehicle fishtailed.

“Watch out, Dad,” Hunter yelled.

But the pickup continued to slide forward. He fought the wheel, pumping the brakes to stop the truck’s momentum.

God, please, help... Don’t let me run her over.

With only inches to spare, he brought the truck to a grinding halt. His breathing ragged, his heart drummed in his chest. Through the back-and-forth motion of the windshield wipers, he stared at the woman with the slightly askew bow wrapped around her head.

“She’s de one, Dad!” Bouncing in his seat, Hunter strained against the safety harness. “Dank You, God. Danks, Santa. She’s de one I want for my mommy.”

But as her eyes rolled into her head, the white-faced woman in the long, Christmas-green coat crumpled to the pavement.

He shut off the engine, and clambered out of the truck. Sick fear roiled his belly. He stared at the pale woman, lying motionless on the pavement. No blood. He could’ve sworn he hadn’t hit her and yet...

Pressing two fingers to her neck, he checked for a pulse. Slightly elevated, but steady.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?”

Truck door slamming, Hunter joined him. They peered through the blowing snow at the woman on the ground.

Hunter’s face scrunched. “Did you kill her, Dad?”

Adam’s apple bobbing, he gulped. “I—I don’t think so...”

“How come she doesn’t wake up den?”

Good question. Grim scenarios of head and spinal injuries floated across his vision. But he couldn’t leave her lying on the pavement. The freezing cold would send her into shock.

Hunter squatted beside the woman. “God sent us a pwetty one, didn’t He, Dad?”

Jonas lifted his hat and resettled it on his head. “She’s not...” But he could see where his son got the wrong idea about the woman.

A big bow on her head, frothy ruffles of fabric also peeped from underneath the hem of her bright green coat. She did look like a gift package. Wrapped especially for him.

Jonas frowned. Not him. Hunter. No... Not Hunter, either.

His son was right, though. She was a pretty woman. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes, but the reddish hue of her hair emphasized the alabaster fairness of her skin. She had a generous mouth—as if she did a lot of smiling.

Not that there was anything to smile about at the moment. Who was she? What was she doing on a deserted mountain road in a snowstorm?

Something catching his attention, Hunter wandered to the shoulder of the road. Returning, he handed a bead-covered purse to his father.

Jonas didn’t like going through her private possessions, but if anything ever qualified as an emergency, he reckoned it was this. Lipstick. A brush. Breath mints. Keys...

His head came up. Squinting in the fading light, through the falling snow he discerned the dull glint of an automobile parked on the side of the road. She must have broken down or run out of gas.

A sports car. Something foreign. Something fast. And something that cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Not the usual vehicle found in the Blue Ridge. Had she been on the parkway and gotten lost? He dug deeper into her purse.

A dead cell phone. A credit card. Figured. His efforts were rewarded when he came across a driver’s license.

Hunkering near the woman, Hunter touched a tentative finger to the delicate skin on her hand. “She wooks wike a snow pwincess. Our snow pwincess.”

“She’s not our anything, Hunter. Her name is Anna... AnnaBeth...” He held the license to the beam of the headlights. “AnnaBeth Cummings.”

Not from around here—her residence was listed as Charlotte. A flatlander—as if the fancy getup and expensive car hadn’t already told him that.

“Maisie’s got a book about a pwincess who fell a-sweep wike our snow pwincess.” Elbows resting on his knees, Hunter cocked his head. His cowboy hat tilted. “The pwince has to kiss her to wake her up.”

Jonas pinched the bridge of his nose. “We don’t go around kissing people we don’t know, son.”

“But she’s my mommy, Dad. It would be okay for me to kiss her, wouldn’t it?”

And before Jonas could stop him, Hunter leaned over and kissed the woman’s forehead.

She stirred.

“It’s wowking, Dad.” Hunter bolted to his feet. “I told you. Maisie was wight.”

The woman’s eyelids fluttered.

“Kiss her, Dad.” Hunter tugged at his coat. “Help her wake up.”

But it turned out the snow princess didn’t need his help after all.

He found himself gazing into the loveliest, emerald-green eyes he’d ever seen. And something, not entirely unpleasant, shifted in his gut.

Snowflakes brushed AnnaBeth’s cheeks. Her eyelids fluttered. She became aware of a biting cold. For inexplicable reasons, she found herself lying flat on her back in the road.

A cowboy stood over her. Two cowboys. Or maybe she was seeing double.

The smaller, duplicate cowboy leaned against the older one. Through her lashes, she took another quick, surreptitious look at the tall cowboy.

For a split second, she believed somehow she must’ve fallen backward to another place and time. Yet truck headlights glowed on the pavement, and she guessed she hadn’t left present day. But, oh, how delicious this particular reality was turning out to be.

The older cowboy pushed the brim of his gray Stetson higher onto his forehead, revealing short-cropped blondish hair. His features were rugged. His jaw chiseled.

In short, he was every cowboy fantasy she’d ever entertained, all rolled up in the man looming over her in the middle of the road.

A few years older than her, stark fear dotted his chocolate-brown eyes.

If she hadn’t already swooned, she would have now. In the ordinary course of her life, she didn’t run across many men who looked like him.

He was so totally swoon-worthy. Maybe this was a dream. A lovely, lovely dream from which she hoped never to awaken.

AnnaBeth became aware that the little blond boy—the mini-me cowboy—was speaking. Patting her hand, he smiled, his small teeth white, even and perfect.

She thought he said, “You’re going to be my mommy.”

But she must have misunderstood. And, anyway, the man—God’s Cowboy Gift to Women—said something she didn’t catch in that delicious, raspy voice of his.

She sighed, content to float forever in a cocoon of bliss. “A lovely, lovely dream...”

“More like a nightmare,” the cowboy growled.

Her eyes flew open. Okeydokey. He looked better than his manners. Trust AnnaBeth to find the one grouchy cowboy on the planet.

Palms planted against the pavement, she pushed to a sitting position. Hello...

As if someone had shaken a snow globe, the truck, the boy, the man and her insides whirled. Her world spun.

The cowboy took hold of her elbow. “Not so fast, ma’am. Take it easy.”

She put her hand to her head. Good to know he wasn’t totally devoid of manners.

“Did you hit your head? Are you in pain?” He scanned her features. “Can you stand? Do you think anything’s broken?”

Only my heart...

She gaped at him. Overwhelmed by the utter hunksomeness of him. Stop gawking, AnnaBeth.

Was she dead? If she was, then wow... Just wow. The view here was tremendous.

“Ma’am?”

The cowboy maintained a firm, steadying grip on her arm. For which she was grateful.

“Yay!” The little cowboy fist-pumped the air. “You didn’t kill her.”

Using the cowboy as a counterbalance, she carefully got to her feet. The dress didn’t make it easy.

She blushed. “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you. I did everything I could not to hit you—”

“You didn’t hit me.”

She gazed into his face. He must be well over six feet tall. Underneath the fleece-lined Carhartt jacket, he was a big man with broad shoulders. His sheer handsomeness took her breath.

If there was one thing she knew, it was clothes. But unlike most of her male acquaintances, the clothes didn’t make this man. Rather, it was the other way around.

“Not your fault. I fainted. Thankfully, I didn’t hit my head. I’m fine.”

He smelled good, too. Something woodsy with notes of leather and hay.

So she did what she did when she didn’t know what else to do—she babbled.

“I don’t usually faint, but I haven’t eaten anything today. Actually, I haven’t eaten anything in about forty-eight hours. But I couldn’t, you see. My stomach was simply tied in knots.”

Brow furrowed, the cowboy eyeballed her like he’d never seen her species before. She wasn’t unused to such reactions from men.

The little cowboy tucked his small hand through the crook of her arm. “I wike her, Dad, don’t you?”

Dad? She wilted. Oh.

The cowboy was married. Of course, he’s married, AnnaBeth. Are you an idiot? This hunk of man had to have been lassoed into matrimony long, long ago.