Stranded For The Holidays

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.