“I’m so sorry I took Sadie.”
“I’m not. I’m glad she was there for you.” His attention was snagged by two men hauling a coffee table. “Hey, guys, you can start piling stuff in the truck. We’ll take as much home with us as we can.”
The men changed directions. “Whatever you say, Santa.”
“Paul, no,” Kelly croaked.
“No, you don’t want to come back home with me? Or no, because you think I’m only doing this out of pity?”
She scrubbed her hands over her face, sloughing off water. “Not pity, but I know you’re only here because you’re such a good man. The best I’ve ever met. Of course you’d try to help.”
“You’re right. Of course I’d try to help. Because I’m in love with you.”
She fell forward, her hands on her knees. “I’m not all that.”
“All what?”
“That. Whatever you made me out to be in high school, whoever you’re in love with. Ms. Popular with the perfect life. I could never live up to the fantasy of me you’ve always had in your head. I’m a mess.”
Yeah, she kinda was at this moment in time. But that didn’t change a thing. “Did it never occur to you that perhaps I did see you for who you really are, flaws and all? And I would want you anyway?”
She shook her head and hugged herself tighter.
“I always thought, if you’d just give me a chance, I’d show you how perfect we were for each other,” he said. “But I was playing the victim. I was being so passive, waiting for you to make all the moves. I turned myself into that chump. I never took a risk. I never put myself out there to win your love. Not in high school or in all the years after.”
She swiped angrily at her tears. “Can’t you hear me, Paul? I’m not anybody’s dream girl.”
“Maybe not, but I’ll tell you who you are. You’re Kelly Sawyer, the person with the courage to take a huge risk to come to me. You’re the one who broke out of your comfort zone this year to try new things and take all kinds of leaps. I could learn a lot from your example. I mean, look at me, hidden away in the hills with my predictable, stagnant life. Or, at least, it was, until you blew that all out of the water. You’re the one who saved me. Can you see that?”
At the sight of fresh tears, he took another step closer, wanting so badly to take her into his arms. But he could tell she wasn’t quite there yet.
“No. I’m pretty sure you’re the one who was doing the saving.” She looked around and let her eyes follow a woman hauling a trash bag full of her belongings to the truck bed. “You’re still having to save me.”
He set a hand on her arm. “Kelly, listen. There’s a reason it never worked out for me with anyone else. And there’s a reason it never worked out for you with anyone else. There’s a reason we’re standing here tonight, just like this.”
“Yeah, and that reason is I didn’t pay my rent for nearly six months.”
He could no longer stand not to hold her. He took off his Santa jacket and put it over her head like a cloak to shield her from the rain, and then he pulled her into his arms. “You could have told me all that, you know. It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“How do you know that?”
He nuzzled his cheek against her forehead. “Because I have loved you for nearly all my life, Kelly. And I know you didn’t always feel that love from me, and I did a terrible job acknowledging it, much less showing it, but it’s always been there. I just needed you to remind me to have a little faith in love and in myself.”
She gazed up at him through glassy eyes. “That reminds me of what you told that one kid’s mom, the one who wanted her son to tell her he loved her. You said that love is a lot like Santa on Christmas Eve. You know he’s out there, even if you never hear the sleigh bells or see his reindeer. You just have to believe.”
So, she remembered. “Exactly. There’s always a few people every year that I have to remind about why it’s so important to believe in magic, to have faith. That’s what Santa Claus is here to remind us all. About magic and love and faith. I guess this year I needed that reminder, too.”
“So did I,” she said with a sniff.
“Will you come home, Kelly? I don’t know what you have planned for the rest of your life, but I’m gonna fight for it to include me.” He tipped his head toward Sadie. “Me and Sadie.”
“On my way here tonight, I was bargaining with God, telling him I’d never say yes again to anything if he’d just stop ruining my life. But, you know what? You were right. There was a reason my Year of Yes was such a disaster. There was a reason none of my other yeses worked out.” She cupped his cheeks. “You’re my yes, Paul. The only yes I’ll ever need.”
They were the sweetest words he’d ever heard. “You know what this means, right? Next Christmas you’ll have to upgrade from elf to Mrs. Claus.”
Sadie pushed between their legs, not wanting to be left out. Paul and Kelly crouched to get her in on the hug. Over Sadie’s head, Kelly smiled at Paul. “Being your Mrs. Claus would be the greatest honor of my life.”
Then she leaned over the best dog in the whole world to kiss her very own Santa right there on the lawn for all of hell and creation to see—no mistletoe required.
Read on for an excerpt from
ONE MORE TASTE
Book Two in the One and Only Texas Series
Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Chapter One
Not everyone was lucky enough to drive a haunted truck. Then again, lucky wasn’t a word Knox Briscoe would use to describe his current predicament. On a prayer, he turned the key in the ignition, but the Chevy offered him nothing but a dull click in response.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said, although if anyone had actually heard his declaration, it’d have to be ghosts, or perhaps some unseen wildlife. Because there was nothing or nobody in this stretch of backcountry other than him and his truck, a roadside sign proclaiming Briscoe Ranch Resort straight ahead in three miles, and a wide, calm lake nestled in the Texas hills.
He tried the key again. Nothing but that maddening click.
He tapped a finger on the steering wheel, denying himself any more grandiose a reaction because Knox was nothing if not a man in command of his emotions.
He popped the truck door open to the crisp October day. His freshly buffed black dress shoes hit the gravel with a crunch. Given the statement he’d planned to make on this, his first day as part-owner of Briscoe Ranch, it wouldn’t do to soil his suit with engine grease. He shrugged out of his sports coat, hung it on a hanger he kept in the back seat for just such a purpose, tucked the ends of his blue silk tie into his shirt, and rolled his shirtsleeves to the elbows before pulling the truck’s hood up.
He’d never considered himself much of a car guy until he’d inherited this one through his dad’s will three years earlier. It’d taken a lot of YouTube videos and conversations with his mechanic for him to get up to speed on maintaining the thirty-year-old truck, but it’d been worth every hour and dollar spent. None of that new knowledge was going to help him today, though. Nothing obvious was broken or out of place, and the engine had plenty of oil and other fluids.
Knox patted the truck’s side. “Okay, Dad. Message received. You don’t want your truck on Briscoe Ranch property. I get it. But don’t you want to be there to see poetic justice done, even if it’s just in spirit, with your truck?”
God, he felt like a moron, talking to his dead father, but what other explanation was there for the ’85 Chevy Half-Ton’s mystifying quirks or the neck-prickling sensation that he wasn’t alone every time Knox got into the cab? Even in death, it seemed, his dad had decided to stubbornly hold his ground against the father and brother—Knox’s grandfather, Tyson, and his uncle Ty—who’d excommunicated him from the family before Knox’s birth. Even in death, his dad refused to let his prized truck lay one spec of rubber down on Briscoe Ranch property. Which sucked, to be honest. It would’ve been icing on the cake to have his
dad’s spirit there, watching Knox take control of the very business his dad had been robbed of.
Behind the wheel again, he gripped the key in the ignition and closed his eyes. Please work. Please.
Click. Click. Click.
“Okay. But this sucks. I didn’t want to show up for the meeting in a Town Car with a driver like a mobster goon who’s there to shake everybody down. Would you at least let me get to the entrance of the resort before stalling the truck again?”
Wow. Bargaining with a ghost. Knox’s freak flag was really flying this morning. “Never mind. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
After another futile turn of the key, Knox grabbed his messenger bag and stepped out of the truck, then rummaged around the copies of the Briscoe Ranch shareholder contract his lawyers had prepared until he found his cell phone.
As the phone rang with his office in Dallas, he spotted a for sale sign ahead of him, demarcating a gated driveway a few yards from the lake. He walked along the road to it, the phone to his ear. Was there a house at the end of that twisty, tree-lined driveway? Did the property border the resort? Looked like it might. Perhaps he’d buy it and expand the resort even more than he’d originally planned.
Shayla, his younger sister, who also worked as Briscoe Equity Group’s office manager, picked up on the fourth ring. “Don’t tell me Ty Briscoe’s giving you shit already. I told you that you should’ve brought Yamaguchi and Crawford with you.”
Maybe another boss would’ve bristled at such insubordination, even by a blood relative, but Knox had developed a deep mistrust of kiss-asses over his years as an entrepreneur, which was why he valued Shayla’s loyalty and honesty so much. And, in this case, she was absolutely correct. Linda Yamaguchi and Diane Crawford were his firm’s lawyers, who Knox should have brought along today as he usually did for business acquisitions. But Knox wanted to close this deal on his own, eye-to-eye with the uncle he’d never met before they’d started this negotiation—the uncle whom Knox was going to ruin, just as Ty had ruined Knox’s family.
“You can tell me ‘I told you so’ later, but that’s not why I called. My truck broke down three miles from Briscoe Ranch. I need a driver, and I need him to get here in—” He lifted the flap of a clear plastic box affixed to the for sale sign and pulled out a flier.
The photograph gracing the center of the flier drew his eye. A grand, modern house sitting on a hill overlooking the lake. It was exactly the kind of dwelling Knox was hoping to move into somewhere in the vicinity of Briscoe Ranch since he couldn’t very well run the show from his home base of Dallas, five hours away.
“Hello? Are you still there?” Shayla asked.
“Sorry. Something caught my eye. If you could have the driver here in less than an hour, that would be great. Can you find me someone?” His meeting with Ty Briscoe wasn’t for another two hours, but he wanted to take one last walk around the resort without any of the employees knowing who he was or why he was there.
“I can’t imagine that being a problem.” He heard the fast click-clack of keyboard typing. “And . . . let’s see . . . Nope, no problem. Your car will be there within the half hour.”
“Thanks, Shay.”
“You bet. And Knox? I’m proud of you. Dad would be proud, too. You know that right?”
Knox eyed his broken-down truck. He had to believe Dad would be proud of him for taking ownership of the family business, despite this hiccup. Otherwise, what would be the point of Knox putting himself through all this? “Thanks, Shay. I’ll talk to you soon.”
As the call ended, the crackle of tires on gravel snagged Knox’s attention. He pivoted around, expecting to see a Good Samaritan pulling to the shoulder to see if Knox needed help, but his truck was the only vehicle in sight—and it was rolling backwards, straight toward the lake.
Dropping the flier, his messenger bag, and his phone, he took off at a sprint. “No! No, no, no. Shit!”
This couldn’t be happening. He’d engaged the emergency brakes—hadn’t he?
The truck was picking up speed as it backed towards the lake. Knox lunged toward the door handle. He was dragged along a few feet before finding his footing again. He dug his heels into the ground and yanked. The door swung open. He staggered and hit his back against the side of the hood, but managed to rebound in time to throw himself in the cab.
He stomped on the parking brake. It activated with a groan, but the truck wouldn’t stop. He pumped the manual brake. Nothing happened. The truck bounced over rocks hard enough to make Knox’s teeth rattle. He turned the key. Again, nothing. Nothing except a splash as the back of the truck hit the water.
“Jesus, Dad! Help me out, here!” he shouted.
The truck slammed violently to a stop, pitching Knox forward. He bit his tongue hard. The burst of pain and taste of blood was nothing compared to his relief that the truck, with him in it, hadn’t submerged any deeper in the water. His pulse pounded in his ears, even as his labored breathing turned from panicked to annoyed. “I don’t get it. What are you trying to tell me? I thought this was what you wanted.”
With a hard swallow, he thumped a fist against the steering wheel, jolting himself back into composure. All this talking to ghosts was getting out of hand. Today, of all days, he could not afford to be off his A-game. He fixed his Stetson more firmly on his head and gave himself a stern mental lecture to get a grip.
All business again, he assessed the situation. Not knowing what had caused the truck to stop or if any sudden movements would jostle it back into motion, he rolled the driver-side window down and peered over the edge to stare at the brown-green water, thick with silt and mud that roiled through the liquid like thunderstorm clouds. The water lapped at the bottom of the door, not too deep, but the back tire and back bumper were fully submerged. If the truck had rolled only a few more feet into the lake, Knox would’ve been in real trouble.
As things stood now, though, Knox’s main problem was that there was no way for him to avoid getting wet on his walk back to shore. Carefully, so as not to jar the truck back into motion, he unlatched his belt then opened the zipper of his pants. Shoes off, socks off, then pants. If he got to his first day at Briscoe Ranch on time, in one piece, and dry, it would be a miracle.
Clutching his pants, socks, and shoes to his chest, and dressed in only his shirt, a pair of boxers, and his black hat, he opened the door and stepped into the water, sinking knee deep. Silt and muck oozed between his toes. The cold ripped up his bare legs, making his leg hairs stand on end and his balls tighten painfully. Grunting through the discomfort, he shuffled away from the door until he could close it.
A series of exuberant splashes sounded from farther in the lake. It sounded like two fish were having a wrestling match right up on the water’s surface. He turned, but only saw ripples. Setting his mind back on the task at hand, he pulled his foot off the lake bottom, muscles working to overcome the suction, and took a carefully placed step toward shore.
From seemingly out of nowhere, something blunt and slimy smashed into his calf. The surprise of the hit knocked Knox off balance. With a yelp totally unbefitting a thirty-three-year-old Texan and former rodeo star, he danced sideways, fighting for his footing and clutching the clothes in his arms even tighter.
He desperately scanned the water around him, but the swirling silt had reduced the visibility to almost nothing. He held still another moment, listening, watching.
“Holy shit, are you okay?”
The man’s voice startled Knox. He looked up and saw a young guy of maybe twenty-two standing on the bank of the lake, dressed in a suit and with a panicked expression on his face. Behind him, a black sedan idled on the shoulder of the road.
“I’m fine. I think. Are you my driver?”
“Yeah, Ralph with the Cab’d driving service app. Shayla at Briscoe Equity Group ordered a premium lift for Knox Briscoe. I’m guessing that’s you since your truck’s underwater.”
And observant, too. “Yep. You see a cell phone and messen
ger bag somewhere up there, Ralph?”
“Hold up. Is that an ’85 Chevy Silverado? That’s a hell of a truck.”
“It is.” Except when said truck was haunted and decided all on its own to take a swim despite its owner’s better judgment.
“You’re lucky the tire got snagged on that rock.”
Knox took a look at the front of the truck. Sure enough, the passenger side tire was stopped by a boulder, though he wasn’t entirely sure luck had anything to do with it. “About that cell phone and messenger bag, Ralph. Would you mind?”
“Oh. Yeah. On it.”
With Ralph in search of Knox’s stuff, Knox chanced another step toward shore, keeping his head on a swivel, looking for whatever the hell it was that had slammed into him. An attack beaver? Did hill country even have beavers?
Despite his vigilance, he still startled at the sight of a massive, charcoal gray-green fish swishing through the water, coming straight at him. It had to be longer than his arm. It turned on a dime and surged at him. Knox’s curse echoed off the hills surrounding the lake.
Time to scram.
He made it two more steps before his foot snagged on a rock and pitched him forward. Desperate for balance, he reached out to grab on to his truck, but the fish had other ideas and head-butted his leg again. Knox splashed down, nearly dunking all the way underwater.
The bite of cold stole his breath all over again. He exploded back out of the water and onto his feet, spluttering and gasping.
“Fuck!” he shouted, loud enough that even if his father were in Heaven and not haunting the truck, he would’ve heard him just fine. He held himself back from adding, Thanks for nothing, Dad.
Sloughing water from his face and breathing hard through flared nostrils, Knox shifted his attention to the water in search of the piranha on steroids that had put his ability to keep a cool head to the test. The fish was long gone. Though his pants floated around his knees like dark seaweed swishing in waves, and his shoes bobbed like little black boats only a few feet away, his hat had drifted into deeper water. Terrific. Just terrific.
If Santa Were a Cowboy Page 9