Christmas on Mistletoe Lane--Includes a bonus short story

by Annie Rains

  head over heels…and ends up in

  physical therapy.

  Please turn the page for a preview of Springtime at Hope Cottage.

  Available Spring 2019

  CHAPTER ONE

  Definitely not in Kansas anymore.

  Or, in Josie Kellum’s case, New York City. She’d barely stepped off the ramp and into the airport before she’d realized she was in for a culture shock. And that was saying a lot, considering her home state was a proud blend of people from around the world. All cultures and people except perhaps the sort that lived deep in the mountains of North Carolina.

  Readjusting the carry-on bag on her shoulder, Josie weaved her way toward Baggage Claim. Just looking around, she could guess who the locals were, arriving back home from their travels. They didn’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere unlike her city counterparts, who were few and far between. Even now Josie was rushing, though her flight had landed early, and for the first time in ages, she wasn’t chasing a deadline.

  She slowed at Baggage Claim and retrieved her brightly colored luggage.

  Understandably, her best friend, Kaitlyn Russo, couldn’t meet her here today. Kaitlyn ran a successful bed and breakfast, which demanded someone always be there to play hostess. When Josie had assured Kaitlyn she could grab a cab to Sweetwater Springs, Kaitlyn had only laughed.

  “A forty-five-minute drive will cost you those red-soled shoes you love so much.”

  “Christian Louboutins,” Josie corrected. “And they’re more than shoes. So I’ll just rent a car, then.”

  “When was the last time you actually drove a car, Jo?”

  Kaitlyn raised a good point. Josie took public transportation everywhere she went. She didn’t own a car, and she’d never driven one down the side of a mountain.

  “Don’t worry,” Kaitlyn told her. “I’ll find someone to pick you up. Mitch has a friend that drives that way all the time. Maybe he can swing by and drive you in.”

  Mitch’s friend. That was the extent of Josie’s knowledge on who she was looking for right now as she scanned the surrounding area. There were a few people holding signs as they stood against the wall near Baggage Claim. An older woman with white hair. An African American man in a uniform of some sort. Maybe Josie should’ve thought to make a sign that read MITCH’S FRIEND to hold up.

  As Josie was pondering what to do next, someone tapped her left shoulder. She whirled around, catching one heel of her Christian Louboutins on the wheel of her rolling luggage. She tried to steady herself with the handle but it retracted with her quick movement.

  Was she being mugged? Because that would be the ultimate irony. All these years, she’d lived in the city where she was most likely to get mugged, and a small-town airport was where it was going to happen.

  Two arms latched on to either side of her, breaking her fall. How nice of her attacker to keep her from hitting the floor. Looking up, she met two darker-than-night eyes cast in a tanned, angular face.

  “You can take everything except my computer. And my phone,” she said as she tried to get her feet back under her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not that I think you want a luggage full of women’s clothing but there’s a little money in there.” She pulled away from him and then secured her cross-body purse. Opening it quickly, she snatched a small can of Mace.

  “Whoa!” The man took several steps back and held up his hands. “What are you doing?”

  “Defending myself. You grabbed me from behind.”

  The man’s dark brows dove toward his nose. He could be a model. He didn’t need to attack innocent women if he was struggling financially. This guy was far better looking than some of the models in Loving Life, the popular magazine that she worked for.

  “I didn’t grab you from behind. I tapped your shoulder. Are you Kaitlyn’s friend?”

  Josie swallowed hard. “Are you…Mitch’s friend?”

  He gave a small nod before glancing back down at her can of Mace still primed at his face.

  “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to touch people you don’t know?” she asked, shoving her can back into her purse. “That’ll get you killed in some places.”

  “And evidently blinded here,” he muttered. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  Josie cringed. “Listen, I’m sorry. I just…I was expecting you to be holding a sign and standing over there.” She gestured toward the small group of sign holders.

  The man followed her gaze and nodded. “Okay. Any other expectations I should know about? Because I happen to like my eyes. I prefer to keep them.”

  She laughed nervously. She kind of liked his eyes too. And his face. His skin was a perfect bronze color that made her suspect he was American Indian. “Um, no. Well, yes. I guess we should make introductions since we’ll be spending the next forty-five minutes in your vehicle together.” She held out her hand. “I’m Josie Kellum. Aka Kaitlyn’s friend.” He took her hand, and a shock wave of warm tingles slid up her fingers and down her spine.

  “Tuck Locklear. Mitch’s friend.” He looked down at her bags. “I’d like to help you with your bags—the ones with women’s clothing and a little money—if that’s okay.”

  “Um, yes. Thank you.”

  Way to go, Josie. She tended to get a little high strung after pulling several late-nighters in a row. It was a combination of not enough sleep, too much caffeine, and too little human interaction. She’d needed to finish her upcoming articles before this trip though. That way she could relax and let her hair down, so to speak.

  Tuck led her to a Jeep in the parking lot and loaded her luggage into the back while she climbed into the passenger seat. A large chocolate Lab lifted its head from the floor of the back seat as she settled in.

  “Oh, hi there. And who are you?” she asked on a laugh.

  Tuck climbed into the driver’s seat and petted the Lab’s head. “This is Shadow,” he told her before addressing the dog. “She’s a friend, Shadow. Lie down.”

  The Lab looked at Josie once more and then did as Tuck asked.

  Josie noticed the dog’s harness read THERAPY DOG in large block letters. She wondered why Tuck needed one, but considering they’d only just met and she’d already tried to single-handedly blind him, it was best not to pry. “Thank you again for picking me up.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she filled the silence with the next obvious question. “So, what do you do?”

  “Do?” He glanced over.

  “For a living. I’m the executive editor for the lifestyle section of Loving Life magazine. Not that you asked.”

  Work was always her crutch in social situations. Other people tended to tell tales of their latest vacation. Or they whipped out pictures of their significant other or their pair of angelic-looking kids. Some even had cute, far-too-spoiled dogs that they showed off proudly on their cell phones. Everyone had someone, even Lisa Loner, the woman who’d been dubbed the office’s wallflower. Just last week, Josie had been cornered by Lisa in the hall while going for her third cup of coffee. In a rare show of personality, Lisa had been bubbling with excitement to show off her new engagement ring and tell the dramatic story of how the guy she’d just met had proposed.

  Even though Josie was skeptical of such a short relationship, she also found herself feeling small in some way. She didn’t have a guy or dog to love her unconditionally. She lived alone in a tiny apartment on the Upper East Side. The closest she’d come to any sort of vacation in the last year was happening now, sitting shotgun in a Jeep with a man who likely regretted agreeing to this favor.

  “I’m a physical therapist,” he said.

  “Oh.” Josie looked over, trying to fit Tuck into the mold of all the physical therapists she’d met before. Most of them were clean-cut ex-jocks wearing khakis and polo shirts. Although handsome, Tuck had long hair and his muscles were lean rather than bulky. He wore a relaxed pair of jeans and a T-shirt
. “Kaitlyn said you come this way often. Do you work at a hospital nearby?”

  “There you go with those expectations again.” A smile lifted his cheeks. “No, I see patients in the wild, meaning at their homes, out in public, and sometimes literally in the woods. It’s more natural than using exercise machines in an air-conditioned building with a TV mounted on the wall.”

  “Sounds interesting,” she said, keeping to herself the fact that, if she were a patient, she’d prefer the machines and daytime television.

  “Shadow is my therapy dog. She works alongside me.”

  Hearing her name, the Lab lifted her head once more.

  Josie was about to pet her but then pulled her hand away. She’d written an article on therapy dogs once. There were rules about socializing with them.

  “It’s okay,” Tuck said. “Shadow isn’t working right now.”

  “Oh. Good.” Josie moved her hand and petted the top of Shadow’s head. She was soft and leaned into Josie’s touch. “What a good girl you are.” Even though the dog wasn’t working now, Josie felt herself immediately relax.

  Then her cell phone dinged loudly from her purse. Josie faced forward and pulled it out to check the caller ID, and her stress level jumped right back up—both because of the endless fires to put out at her workplace and because she’d taken that moment to look out her window at the steep drop of the mountainside.

  Turning away from the window only led her eyes to her driver, which spiked her blood pressure for a whole separate reason.

  * * *

  Tuck knew the type. Work obsessed, self-absorbed, and, judging by her luggage and fancy leather purse, materialistic.

  Not his type.

  He listened as Josie talked on the phone, suddenly sounding firm and a tad bossy. His own phone vibrated in the middle console. He shifted his gaze for just a second as he navigated down the mountain. Sweetwater Springs was only another ten miles away, and he couldn’t get his passenger to her destination soon enough.

  Tuck recognized the number on his caller ID as the same one that had called earlier. A Beverly Sanders had left a message asking him to call her back. He hadn’t yet. He wondered if the woman was a prospective patient. If so, she should’ve called his office number. He had a secretary that he shared with the local home-health occupational and speech therapists in Sweetwater Springs. Only current patients got his cell number, and only to use during emergencies.

  After a moment, his phone dinged with another voicemail. He’d check it later. Right now, his passenger was still talking on her own phone.

  “All right, Dana. Yeah. I’ll take care of it…I know I’m on vacation but this can’t wait…Uh-huh. Bye.” Josie tapped a button on her phone and placed it in her lap.

  From the corner of his eye, Tuck caught his passenger looking at him. She opened her mouth to speak. Can’t we just ride in silence the rest of the way?

  “So, Kaitlyn and Mitch are happy, huh?” she finally said.

  Tuck gave a small nod. “Mitch is happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.” And Mitch deserved it after all his years running from the ghosts of his past. Tuck, on the other hand, was faced with his late wife’s ghost every day. Even now, after moving to a new home on Blueberry Creek, Renee seemed to be everywhere.

  His fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly as he refocused on Josie.

  “Kaitlyn seems happy too,” she said. “I miss her back home in New York. We used to have lunch together at least once a week.”

  Tuck guessed that Josie had to schedule those lunch dates in her calendar. She probably scheduled her showers too.

  And he shouldn’t be thinking about her in the shower. While her personality wasn’t the most attractive in his opinion, he could admit that her looks were. She had long, naturally blond hair that was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her skin was smooth and creamy. By all appearances, she looked like she hadn’t seen the sun in years. When she’d captured his attention with a can of Mace primed at his face, he’d stared at her long enough to see that her eyes were almost a turquoise blue.

  Josie’s phone made a ridiculous, high-pitched meow from her lap.

  Shadow stood at attention in the back seat and gave a soft bark.

  “Sorry. That’s just a text message alert,” she told Shadow. “I don’t have any cats stowed away with me—I promise.” She read the text and started laughing to herself.

  In contrast to the meow, this was a pleasant sound. Tuck smiled for a moment.

  Then her phone meowed again. And again. It continued to meow while her fingers tapped against the screen in response until he pulled his truck onto Mistletoe Lane where the Sweetwater Bed and Breakfast was located.

  He pulled into the driveway of the two-story Victorian house that his friend Mitch and his fiancée, Kaitlyn, had inherited last November and parked. “This is it.”

  “Wow.” Josie stared out his windshield at the inn.

  Tuck pulled his gaze away to keep from staring at her. “I’ll, uh, get your luggage and help you in.” He hopped out and opened his back hatch to retrieve her belongings.

  Josie was standing beside him before he knew it with her laptop bag thrown over her shoulder along with that expensive-looking purse. “I got it,” she said. “Thanks again for the ride.” Without waiting for him to respond, she grabbed the handle of her luggage from his hand and smiled at him.

  “You sure?”

  She nodded. “Positive.” She held out her other hand.

  “What’s that?” he asked, looking at the folded cash.

  “For your troubles.”

  He lifted his gaze to those turquoise eyes. “I’m not a cab driver, and it wasn’t any trouble.”

  She cocked her head. “I know but you didn’t have to go out of your way for me.”

  If he couldn’t tell by looking at her, this would have given away the fact that she wasn’t from around here. People in Sweetwater Springs didn’t mind helping each other out. It was one thing he appreciated about his hometown. He’d seen the stark contrast of other communities when he’d gone to college, first for his bachelor’s degree and then for his master’s. As far as he knew, there was no other town quite like this one, which is why he was never leaving again.

  “Josie, you made it!” Kaitlyn called out as she headed down the steps of the house.

  Josie turned her attention to the innkeeper, and both women squealed with delight. Tuck imagined that Shadow was standing at alert again in the back seat. His cue to get back in the Jeep and leave.

  “Thank you, Tuck!” Kaitlyn shouted.

  “No problem.” He waved and shut the door. He was running late for dinner with his friend Alex Baker, the police chief in Sweetwater Springs. Before going to the Tipsy Tavern, however, he needed to drop Shadow off at home.

  Tuck was almost to the cottage he’d recently purchased on Blueberry Creek when his phone started to ring. The caller ID showed the same number that had called before. That woman was bent on talking to him tonight. He started to reach for the phone to find out why but stopped short when he heard a high-pitched meowing from the passenger seat. It meowed a second time, and Tuck couldn’t help grinning. Josie Kellum was undoubtedly losing her mind right about now.

  He parked in his driveway and commanded Shadow to follow him to the backyard. Then he returned to his Jeep and wavered only momentarily on which direction to drive. Back to the inn to return Josie’s cell phone or to his dinner destination? He couldn’t keep the chief of Sweetwater Springs police waiting, now, could he?

  Besides, maybe it would do the beautiful Josie Kellum good to disconnect from her busy city life for just a while longer.

  About the Author

  Annie Rains is a USA Today bestselling contemporary romance author who writes small-town love stories set in fictional places in her home state of North Carolina. When Annie isn’t writing, she’s living out her own happily ever after with her husband and three children.

  Annie loves to hear from her readers. Ple
ase visit her at:

  http://www.annierains.com/

  @AnnieRains_

  http://facebook.com/annierainsbooks

  Local florist Teri Summers has her hands full of mistletoe in preparation for the holiday, yet finding someone to kiss is her last priority. But when the gorgeous new doctor makes a connection with her special needs son, Aiden, Teri finds herself wondering if she’s finally found happiness in this season of joy.

  For a bonus holiday story from another author that you may love, please turn the page to read “A Midnight Clear” by Hope Ramsay.

  Author’s Note

  This story started out as a nebulous idea about a child who didn’t like Christmas. That idea took me to the Internet, and that led me to many, many resources about autism and Asperger’s syndrome.

  I wasn’t so sure I wanted to tackle that issue, but I emailed my good friend Caroline Bradley, who is the mother of a wonderful son who is on the spectrum. She had a lot to say about Asperger’s kids: what it means to be the mother of a child with special needs and the difficulties of negotiating the holidays.

  So I would like to give Caroline my deepest and most heartfelt thanks for her willingness to share with me, for her encouragement, and for being the incredible mother that she is. I could not have written this story without her help.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Teri Summers tore through the doorway of the Last Chance urgent care clinic, skidded over the polished floor, and sagged against the reception desk. Dana Foster looked up from her paperwork, a tiny angel pin glittering from her red cashmere sweater. The angel winked at Teri.

  Or maybe Teri was hallucinating because of hypoxia. She had just run all the way from Last Chance Bloomers—a distance of at least a mile. “Is Aiden all right?” She wheezed like a broken accordion.

  Dana gave her a benign smile and said, “It’s like I told you on the phone, Teri. It’s a minor injury. He’s in with Doc Crawford right now. Through the doors, the cubicle on the right.”