She was going to have to stop in Lexington and see if she could catch a flight to Miami, screw the cost. Not that planes would be taking off in this weather, but maybe by morning. If she flew out first thing, she could be in Florida in plenty of time for her four o’clock sail time. All she had to do was make it to Lexington without losing her sanity from being pummeled with schmaltzy Christmas carols or without losing control of her car in the snow.
When she leaned over and hit the radio again and found the Rolling Stones she nearly wept in gratitude. Classic rock she could handle.
But not her car. As the highway unexpectedly curved and dipped, she fishtailed in the thick snow.
Blue only managed a weak, “Oh, crap,” before she gripped the hell out of the wheel and slid sideways down the pavement, wanting to scream, but unable to make a sound.
She was going to die.
If there hadn’t been anyone else on the road, she might have managed to regain control. But there was no stopping the impact when she swung into the lane next to her, right in the path of an SUV. She wasn’t the only idiot on the road and now they were going to die together.
Blue closed her eyes and hoped there were bikinis and margaritas in the afterlife.
Santa was the man. Christian Dawes sang along to the radio at the top of his lungs, the song reminding him of his childhood, when he had listened carefully on Christmas Eve for the telltale sound of reindeer hooves. Tossing the trail mix out for the reindeer to chomp on, putting the cookies on a plate for Santa, the magic and wonder and awe of waking up to a ton of presents, those were some of his best memories.
Someday when he had his own kids, he’d create all of those special moments for them, but right now Christian was content to play awesome uncle, arriving on Christmas Eve loaded down with presents for all his nieces and nephews. His trunk was stuffed with spoils, and he’d brought enough candy to earn glares from his two sisters and potentially make someone sick. But it wasn’t Christmas until a kid stuffed his face with candy then hurled after a session on the sit and spin. That’s what home videos and infamous family stories were made of.
Unfortunately the lousy weather was slowing him down on his drive from Cincinnati to Lexington. He’d left work later than he’d intended anyway, then by the time he’d hit Kentucky, he’d been forced down to thirty miles an hour because apparently the road crews had taken the holiday off and had decided not to plow. He hoped his family wasn’t holding up dinner for him at his parents’ house.
If he wasn’t gripping the steering wheel so hard he would call someone and let them know he still had a couple of hours ahead of him, but he had no intention of reaching for his phone. A glance to the right showed a car next to him, but other than that, he could barely see the road in front of him. He needed Santa to dip down and give him a lift in his sleigh or it was going to be midnight before he arrived.
What he didn’t need was a car accident.
In his peripheral vision, he saw the car next to him slide, spinning out so fast that Christian only had time to swear and tap his brakes before he hit the car with a crunch and they went careening towards the guardrail. When his SUV stopped moving a few seconds later, despite his efforts to turn the skid, he had the other car pinned against the railing.
“Shit!” Christian turned off his car and leaped out, almost taking a header in the thick snow, but terrified that he’d injured someone. “Are you okay?” he asked, yelling through the howling snow as he peered into the driver’s side window.
The major impact of his SUV’s front end had been in the backseat and trunk, so he hoped if there was an injury it wasn’t serious. But with the snow smacking him in the face and the window plastered with wet flakes, he couldn’t really see anything.
He knocked on the glass and when it started to slide down, he sighed in relief.
“Are you okay?” he said again now that the person in front of him could hear him.
“Are you okay?” she said simultaneously.
He nodded.
She nodded.
And Christian became aware that he was staring at the most strikingly beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his whole life.
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Copyright © 2011 Kensington Publishing Corp.
“Hot!” copyright © 2011 Kathy Love
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So I Married A Demon Slayer Page 29
