by Heidi Rice
A Marietta Christmas
The Men of Marietta
Heidi Rice
A Marietta Christmas
Copyright© 2018 Heidi Rice
Kindle Edition
Tule Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Publication by Tule Publishing Group 2018
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-949707-60-1
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
A Marietta Christmas
The Men of Marietta series
Excerpt from Tempting the Deputy
About the Author
A Marietta Christmas
Flipping heck, winters in Montana are bloody freezing!
Charlotte Foster did a whole body shiver as she slammed the truck door. She breathed into her hands which, despite two pairs of gloves, were already feeling the chill, only two seconds after she’d jumped out of the heated cab.
The reflection of the fairy lights looped down Main Street twinkled in the frozen snow which edged the sidewalks as she headed across the courthouse’s parking lot. Her destination: Grey’s Saloon—and the now annual pre-Christmas get-together she, her twin sister Emily, Molly, Keely and Gabriella had organized for their own hotties and the seven other first responder hunks Charlie had photographed a year and a half ago now for Marietta’s very own charity calendar, Marietta Men for All Seasons.
Last year the Hottie-Toddy, as Charlie had christened their meet up, had been arranged to celebrate the amazing sales of the first run of the calendar, and to launch the reprint Em had designed for the New Year. This year they had decided to do the get-together again the Friday evening before Marietta’s Christmas Stroll—as a chance to catch up with everyone’s business and enjoy a pre-Christmas drink now that Thanksgiving was out of the way.
She’d driven past Harry’s House on the way here and hadn’t been able to stop grinning at the sight of a group of carefree teenagers having a snowball war in the front yard. Harry’s House was the reason they’d all gotten together a year and a half ago. The calendar had been done to raise money for the house named after Harry Monroe, where kids that needed it could find a quiet place, or a friendly space, or even just someone to help them with their homework. And thanks to the spectacular sales of the Marietta Men for All Seasons calendar and a bunch of other great Marietta fund-raising initiatives, Harry’s House was now doing what it was supposed to do—providing a backdrop for snowball Armageddon.
As she passed the Main Street Diner, still buzzing with the evening’s supper crowd, her heart butted her tonsils. The kids who used Harry’s House weren’t the only ones whose lives had benefited immensely from their calendar. Her whole life had been changed for the better in the last twenty months, too.
After spending years wandering the UK and Europe and then the US, looking for the perfect shot as a freelance photographer and believing she didn’t need or want a place of her own—she’d somehow found her way home to this small Montana town, and made a space in her heart for her very own cowboy. Rancher and reserve sheriff’s deputy Logan Tate. Aka Mr. December.
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.
Her very own cowboy who was probably going to be scowling when she arrived at Grey’s from the number of messages he’d been sending her during her half-hour drive from their ranch The Double T. She hurried down the sidewalk, breathing heavily, and fished the phone out of her parka to read Logan’s latest love text.
Where the hell are you? Is everything okay?
She could read the panic in his voice, and felt the familiar prickle of guilt. Better to keep walking and put him out of his misery than stop to text him a reply—especially as her fingers would probably freeze.
It was only eight o’clock. She was only half an hour late—not at all bad for her. Plus, she had a good reason for her tardiness, she thought, as she examined the screen saver she’d uploaded to her phone before leaving the ranch.
She’d had important business in her dark room that couldn’t be rushed, developing the batch of black-and-white shots she’d taken that morning of Logan and his former ranch hand Flynn O’Connell while Flynn’s mare Baby give birth to her first foal.
Charlie clicked the photo app to admire her favorite shot from the shoot in more detail as she walked. Her breath clogged her lungs all over again.
The close-up of Logan’s hands as he wiped amniotic fluid off the newborn colt was like a snapshot of the man himself and everything she had come to adore about him. Scarred, tough, strong, gentle, his hands were beyond sexy, but also utterly dependable.
She blinked back the sting of happy tears and shoved the phone back into her parka.
Good grief Charlie, do not start crying or your lashes will freeze to your eyeballs.
Honing in on the yellow glow of the lights from Grey’s Saloon at the end of the block, she could hear the sound of music and laughter drifting into the night. She was just about to open the bar’s doors when she spotted Lyle Tate’s truck parked across the street in front of Marietta National Bank.
Her heart lifted. Cool, Em must have gotten back from picking up her lover, Logan’s brother Lyle, from his week-long smoke-jumper off-season training session in Bozeman. But then she squinted. Was that steam on the windows? And why did the truck appear to be rocking?
A laugh popped out of her mouth as she realized what was going on.
Bloody hell, Em! You wild woman!
She choked back another laugh. Boy, was she going to have some serious taking-the-mickey ammunition when the two of them finally made an appearance at the Hottie-Toddy.
Shoving open Grey’s doors, her gaze captured Logan straight away, almost like a homing beacon.
He stood straight and tall in snow boots, battered jeans and a checkered shirt, his shearling jacket draped over the barstool in front of him, looking ruggedly hot, not unlike all the other calendar hotties who were ranged around the bar. Mr. January, the fire chief, Langdon Hale, was standing by the jukebox busy shooting the breeze with local paramedic and former Mr. March Patrick Freeman, and FEMA official Kurt Mayall, their Mr. May, who looked enough like Chris Hemsworth to make Charlie want to start quoting Thor movies at him and make inappropriate comments about his hammer. Tom Reynolds, their flying doc, aka Mr. June, had been cornered by some eager young thing at the far end of the bar. While Rob Shaw, the sheriff, was deep in conversation with his K9 officer Brett Adams—aka Mr. August and Mr. February. She couldn’t see Mr. September, Gavin Clark, but she suspected the ER doc was probably stuck on shift. Her gaze finally rounded back to the other end of the bar where Mr. October, fireman Kyle Cavasos, Mr. November, forest ranger Todd Harris, and Mr. April, search-and-rescue pilot Jonah Clark, were all arguing about something mightily important—probably
ice hockey—while Logan refereed.
She had a weird moment of deja-vu from the time twenty months ago when she’d been sitting in one of the booths in Grey’s admiring the same smorgasbord of hotness and had the brightest idea of her entire life—namely getting them all to pose nekkid, or as nekkid as she could get them, for charity. But this wasn’t quite the same smorgasbord of hotness she conceded, because as well as Marietta’s first responders, standing with some of them were the women they had hooked up with over the last year, and who Charlie now considered some of her best friends.
The super brainy Keeley Andersen-Clark was rolling her eyes as she joined in the hockey debate tucked next to her husband, Jonah. While Todd had his arm anchored around Molly Cordero’s waist as if he was worried she might wander off.
Yeah, never going to happen, Todd.
She couldn’t see Gabby—aka Gabriella Marco the owner of Main Street Dinner—but then she was probably stuck at the diner until the supper crowd eased and would be along any minute. And wasn’t it sweet that Gabby’s fella Kyle—Mr. Strong, Silent and Not All That Sociable—kept glancing at the saloon’s doors and checking his watch.
Charlie stamped the snow off her boots, and took an extra minute to appreciate everything she’d gained in the last twenty months. Not just friends, but a much bigger family, because that’s what every one of these people were to her now.
All through her childhood, even when her parents were still alive, it had just been her and her twin Em against the world. And now she had a whole gang of people who would stand up for her, would fight for her and—especially all these heroic first responders—probably die for her, too. That wasn’t even counting her old New York flat mate Evie Donnelly, an Irish journalist, who was Flynn’s main squeeze these days and was shacked up with him on their fledgling horse ranch this evening nursing her pregnant belly and their new colt.
But last, and most of all, there was Logan.
As if he’d sensed her, her very own Mr. December turned and his sky blue eyes locked on her face.
The weariness seemed to lift as well as the nausea that had been bugging Charlie on and off for a few days now as he marched toward her with a scowl on his face. The scowl disappeared as his lips—shadowed by the stubble he’d accrued while staying up all night with Flynn and a laboring mare—quirked on one side.
The heat pounded into her sex on cue. Seriously, the only thing hotter than Logan Tate’s scowl was that rare, but no longer rusty, smile she had become completely addicted to.
“About damn time,” he said, curling a callused palm round her neck and drawing her toward him so he could drop a kiss on her forehead. “Where the heck have you been? You’re late?”
Grasping the front of his shirt, she tugged his head down, to redirect the welcome kiss from her forehead to her mouth and grab some lip-on-lip action before they joined their friends. After all, it was almost eight hours since she’d seen him last.
Logan took the hint and, framing her face in warm palms, settled his mouth on hers. His tongue delved deep, taking control of the kiss, and exploring the recesses of her mouth for one hot, sweet moment. But just as Charlie threaded her fingers into his hair, ready to pull him in for more, he disengaged with a laugh and cupped her shoulders, to hold her at arm’s length.
“That’s enough, this is a public place,” he murmured, but the mocking tone, the lust-blown pupils and the now full-blown smile gave the game away—he wasn’t embarrassed by her attempts to maul him in public. More like supremely turned on.
Progress.
“Spoilsport,” she grumbled.
“Hey now, you wouldn’t want me to have to give us both a citation for indecent behavior,” he said, slinging his arm around her waist and leading her over to greet their friends.
“Promises, promises,” she muttered under her breath and got a playful slap on the butt for her pains.
“Behave yourself,” he said in that raw, husky, slightly tortured tone that promised a delicious retribution for them both when they got back to The Double T later tonight.
My work here is done.
*
Charlie was still greeting people and chatting and generally trying to catch up with everyone at once, when Gabriella Marco popped through the door of the saloon, ten minutes later. With her long raven hair pulled back in a loose braid and her face flushed, she looked wind-swept and excited—and not just to see Kyle, who wrapped her in a bear hug as if he hadn’t seen her in months instead of probably about forty-five minutes.
After returning the hug with interest, Gabby opened the large bag she had hooked over her shoulder. “I’m so pleased, the presents I ordered online last week arrived this morning. And they’re even cuter than I thought they would be.” Producing five gifts—all the size of a large, slim book—brightly wrapped in Christmas paper and ribbon, she distributed one each to Charlie and Keely and Molly to a chorus of thanks.
“Where’s Em?” Gabby asked, still holding the final two. “I got one for us all to keep us warm this winter.”
“Don’t ask,” Charlie said, relishing Lyle and Em’s arrival now even more. Once they were finally finished getting jiggy in Lyle’s truck on a public street she was so going to burn both their asses.
Tut, tut. Em, you bad, bad girl.
“Hey, don’t I get one?” Kyle asked.
“You’ll get your present later, mi amor,” Gabby shot straight back.
“Good to know.” Everyone laughed as Kyle pulled her in for a consolation kiss.
“Open them now,” Gabby demanded, once she and Kyle had disengaged from their own display of indecent behavior. “I think it might give us inspiration for our next Marietta Men for All Seasons calendar.”
“We’re not doing another calendar,” said Todd, sounding pained.
“Yeah, Harry’s House is up and running already,” added Kurt, who had joined them from the other end of the bar.
“And no way in hell am I getting my chest hair ripped out at the roots again any time soon,” Logan supplied.
“And I’m not getting my nipples out in sub-zero temperatures again, either,” Jonah chimed in, too. “Those poor suckers haven’t recovered from the last time.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Keely, her expression coy and playful as she arched an eyebrow. “Your nipples looked pretty healthy the last time I inspected them.”
It was Jonah’s turn to get ribbed by the increasingly rowdy crowd.
Charlie was just about to rip open her gift, when she heard Lyle’s amused voice from behind her. “What’s that about Jonah’s nipples? Did we miss something important?”
“Em! You’re here,” Gabby shouted and gave Charlie’s twin—who looked suspiciously warm and flushed for someone who had just stepped in from the cold—a welcome hug. “Where were you?” Gabby asked, because Emily, unlike Charlie, was never late. “I’ve got something for you,” she added handing Em her gift.
“Don’t answer that Emily Foster,” Charlie piped up, her moment to shine finally having arrived, because Lyle looked fetchingly flushed, too. “On the grounds that it might incriminate you and get you a citation from Deputy Hardass here.” She jerked her thumb toward Logan, using the nickname that had once been a way to jerk his chain, but had become one of her most affectionate terms of endearment for him. “For indecent behavior.”
“Charlie!” Emily’s flush darkened.
Her sister had always been the smarter, more sensible and less impulsive of the two of them—so teasing was, of course, required in these circumstances.
“I was just welcoming Lyle home,” Emily added, by way of explanation. “I haven’t seen him in over a week.”
“Well, all I can say is, I’m shocked Em, shocked I tell you,” Charlie said, not shocked at all, but enjoying her sister’s now radioactive blush and the fact that Lyle Tate had managed to push her far-too-sensible sister so completely out of her comfort zone since they’d hooked up last April, she actually looked more sheepish
right now than embarrassed. “I simply can’t believe you’d both risk frostbite to the most important parts of your anatomy. And on a public street no less.”
Charlie tutted loudly.
“Don’t you worry about that none, Charlie,” Lyle Tate replied, his Montana sky eyes—so much like Logan’s—twinkling with mischief, and not looking remotely embarrassed, or sheepish. He grabbed Emily’s waist and nuzzled her now flaming cheek. “All the most important parts of my anatomy are the opposite of frostbitten right now. In fact, they’re practically glowing. Aren’t they, honey?”
Charlie hooted, Emily blushed harder, Logan groaned and the rest of their friends laughed. Charlie and Logan’s brother Lyle shared a dirty sense of humor—which was Emily and Logan’s cross to bear.
“Jesus, Lyle,” Logan said, sternly, like the over-bearing big brother he was and always would be. “Please tell me you and Emily weren’t just having a booty call in your truck on the middle of Main Street in sub-zero temperatures.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Lyle shot back looking smug, like the wicked little brother he was and always would be.
“Forget Lyle’s important bits,” Molly Cordero piped up and held up the present she must have unwrapped while the rest of them were teasing Emily and Lyle.
A tanned, topless, dark-haired hottie standing in front of a tree with an adorable dog slung casually over his shoulders stared back at Charlie. It was the front page of another calendar with the words Australian Firefighters printed down the side. So that would be his firefighter’s overalls he had riding low on his hips, would it? Not that Charlie was looking at the overalls, or the doe-eyed pup for that matter, because her attention had definitely snagged on that huge expanse of Aussie firefighting muscle.
“Check out the important bits of this guy’s anatomy,” Molly said, with emphasis, clearly having snagged her attention on all that the Aussie firefighting muscle, too.