by Jennie Marts
His heart stopped. Lord, she was beautiful.
She smiled at him, and his pulse raced. He didn’t know how it had happened, but this woman had captured his heart and soul. And taken his mind to a lustful place filled with dozens of ways he wanted to explore her body.
He smiled back and lifted the bowl of batter. “Good morning. You up for some waffles?”
“Yes, I’m famished.” She gave him a naughty grin, and his heart turned over in his chest. “I seemed to have worked up quite an appetite.”
He gestured to the fridge. “Me too. I’ve already eaten a pound of bacon and a side of beef, but I seem to still be hungry.”
She laughed. It was a dumb joke, but he’d tell dumb jokes all day if it made her laugh. Made that sound of happiness bubble out of her.
She walked toward him, put her arms around his waist, and hugged him close. “Merry Christmas.”
Flutters of happiness filled him. Geez, he felt like a teenager. A horny teenager. She’d only done two of the buttons on the shirt, and it fell open, exposing the pale crests of her breasts. He hugged her back, leaned down, and grazed her lips with his.
She deepened the kiss, and he slid his hand under the tails of the shirt and caressed her bottom. She moaned against his mouth, and he lost it.
He could feel the blood pumping in his veins as he lifted her onto the counter and pulled her legs around him. Fumbling with the two buttons, he released them and pushed the shirt off his shoulders.
Holly was in his arms, naked, and on his kitchen counter. It was a merry Christmas indeed.
##
Holly put the bite in her mouth, the fluffy waffle mixing with the smooth sweetness of the syrup, and groaned with bliss. Food suddenly tasted so much better to her now.
She sat at the kitchen table, the flannel shirt buttoned again, but her hair now mussed in a wild tangle of mind-blowing sex-head. She beamed at Levi as he wolfed down his third waffle. “Thanks for breakfast.”
He grinned back at her, a smudge of syrup on the side of his lip. “Thanks for, you know, that thing you did, with your tongue.”
She laughed out loud. And it felt amazing.
The owl fluttered in the cage on the counter, and Levi nodded toward it. “I think it’s ready to go home. Want to help me set it free?”
“Yes, absolutely.” She pushed back her chair and grabbed her coat.
Levi carried the cage out onto the front porch. The sun glistened against the snow, and the ranch looked like a magical winter wonderland. He opened the front of the cage and the bird tentatively stepped forward.
Holly watched as it took a few small steps forward, shook out its feathers then pushed off in flight. She clapped her hands as the bird soared through the sky, healed and free.
Tears filled her eyes. She felt so much like that bird, trapped in a cage filled with pain and confusion, wondering how she got there.
But now she was set free.
She’d taken those same few tentative steps then spread her wings and flown.
She glanced at Levi.
He gave her a nod of understanding, and she knew by the look in his eyes that he no longer saw her as that wounded bird, afraid and lost in the shadow of despair.
The list flickered through her mind. She’d come home to her roots and faced her fears. All of them.
Last night, she had listened to her heart, a heart now healed through the patience and love of this man, and she’d let herself fall. Fall in love with a cowboy who’d saved her life, and made her waffles, and sang her happy birthday.
Santa must have heard her wish and given her a cowboy for Christmas. And what a cowboy.
She felt happy. And alive. The magic of Christmas had seeped into her heart and healed the brokenness hidden there.
Flickers of thought crossed her mind. Christmas magic. Santa.
The special bell.
The words of Nick, the barista, echoed in her head as she dug frantically in her coat pocket. He’d said she would only hear it when she listened with her heart. When she found herself open to new possibilities. When her heart began to heal, she’d hear the bell.
Her hand clasped around the cool metal ball and she pulled it from her pocket. She held her breath as she shook it.
A smile lit her face as she heard the sweet, clear jingle of the Christmas bell.
THE END…
…And just the beginning.
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Books by Jennie Marts, USA TODAY Bestselling Author
The Page Turners series (Romantic Comedy/Cozy Mystery)
Another Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got No Body
Easy Like Sunday Mourning
Just Another Maniac Monday
Tangled Up In Tuesday
A Cowboy For Christmas
A Halloween Hookup
The Bannister Brothers Books (Romantic comedy/Sports Romance)
Icing On The Date
Worth The Shot
Skirting The Ice
The Hearts of Montana series (Western Romance)
Tucked Away
Hidden Away
Stolen Away
Cotton Creek Romances (Romantic comedy)
Romancing The Ranger
Hooked On Love
Keep reading for an excerpt to Another Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got No Body where an ordinary school teacher lets her friends set her up on six blind dates and one of them might be with a murderer.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my hero
Todd
The one who makes Christmas magic happen in my life
every day of the year
Acknowledgments
My thanks always goes first to my husband, Todd, the one who puts up with constant chatter about plot lines and imaginary characters and the world they live in. Thank you for cooking meals, buying groceries, and putting up with me being in my pajamas, glazed look in my eyes, typing on my laptop from the time you leave in the morning until you walk in the door from work that afternoon.
Thanks so much to Kristin Miller. Your friendship and plotting help is invaluable!
Special thanks goes out to Terry Gregson-my proofreader extraordinaire! So thankful for your enthusiasm and willingness to help. Also, thanks to Lee Cumba for staying up late to give the final proofread.
I am so fortunate to have the writing support of amazing writers and I can’t express enough gratitude to the Colorado Indie Author Group and the Colorado Indies. I couldn’t do it without you all.
Thank you Arran McNicol of Editing 720 for always being fast, efficient and accommodating.
As always- my thanks goes out to the Killion Group! Thank you Kim Killion for taking my jumble of ideas and making it into a gorgeous cover and thank you Jennifer Jakes for your friendship and your formidable formatting skills.
My biggest thanks goes out to my readers! Thanks for loving my stories and my characters and for asking for more. I am making each of you an honorary member of the Page Turners Book Club! And I can’t wait to share the next Page Turners novel with you.
About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author, Jennie Marts loves to make readers laugh as she weaves stories filled with love, friendship and intrigue. She writes about love, laughter, and happily ever after in stories filled with cute cowboys, hunky hockey players, and the romantic comedy/cozy mysteries in the Page Turners series, which includes: Another Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got No Body, Easy Like Sunday Mourning, and Just Another Maniac Monday. Readers first met Levi, the hero in A Cowboy for Christmas in Book 1of this series.
Jennie is living her own happily
ever after in the mountains of Colorado with her husband, two sons, and two dogs whose antics often find a way into her books.
Jennie is addicted to Diet Coke, adores Cheetos, and believes you can’t have too many books, shoes or friends.
Jennie loves to hear from readers. Follow her on Facebook at Jennie Marts Books , Twitter at @JennieMarts, or Goodreads.
Visit her at www.jenniemarts.com and subscribe to her newsletter for the latest on new releases and to find out the current happenings with the Pleasant Valley Page Turners.
And now,
Another Saturday Night and
I Ain’t Got No Body…..
Chapter One
The recipe for disaster began innocently enough with a phone call during a lazy summer morning while Sunny Vale sat on the sofa reading a book. Throw in a dash of dramatic eighty-year-old woman with a fondness for reality crime television, and mix with a midnight arrival of one hunky stranger. Spice it up with an automatic weapon, and the disaster entrée was nearly complete.
“Edna, are you sure it was a gun?” Sunny asked, used to her neighbor’s tendency to exaggerate. She was anxious to get back to her latest romance novel and the bag of Cheetos she was munching on before the phone rang.
“Yes, Sunny, of course I’m sure,” her neighbor replied. “I might be old, but I never miss a CSI. I’m telling you, I saw a man, with a gun, breaking into Walter’s house last night!”
“Okay, I’m listening.” Sunny licked the orange dust from her fingertips, and set her book on the coffee table. She looked longingly at the cover photo of the muscular, bare-chested pirate who held a sword in one hand and a raven-haired beauty in the other, her well-endowed bosom bursting from her corseted bodice. Heaving a boringly B-cupped sigh, she half-wished Edna really had seen a gorgeous gun-toting stranger. He might add some much needed excitement to her ordinary life. Not that teaching second graders how to read and write didn’t have exciting moments, but it sure didn’t compare to an affair with a sword-wielding pirate.
“Why were you up in the middle of the night anyway?” Sunny asked, now resigned to hear the whole story. So far, her Saturday morning consisted of coffee, Cheetos, and fantasizing about a pirate fling. Edna’s story could only add one more facet to her exciting day.
“Because of that damn pepperoni pizza we ate last night. I got up around midnight and was looking out my kitchen window, chewing on some Maalox, when I saw this dark-colored sports car pull up in front of Walter’s house,” Edna said, referring to the house that sat between them. “Then this scruffy haired young punk climbed out and stretched like he’d been driving for a long time.”
“Young, like a teenager?”
“No, young like you. Mid-thirties or so.” Everyone seemed young to Edna, who had just celebrated her eightieth birthday by learning the Samba and going on a singles cruise. “Anyway, after he stretches, he reaches into the car and pulls out a duffel bag, then a gun that he tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Which, by the way, he filled out quite nicely.”
Sunny chuckled as she pictured Edna in her robe and favorite pink, fuzzy slippers, the words Sassy and Girl embroidered on each in glittery silver lettering. She imagined her, peering out her kitchen window, her tongue working the chalky antacid from her teeth, as she checked out a hunky, mysterious stranger’s arrival in the middle of the night. “So, did Walter let in this young, gun-wielding punk with the nice tush?”
“No, that’s just it. Walter wasn’t even there. This guy snooped around the house and garage then found Walter’s hide-a-key by the front door and let himself in. And this morning, his car is gone, like he was never even there.”
“Maybe Walter knew he was coming and told him to let himself in.” Sunny shifted to pull her legs free from under Beau, her golden retriever, who was lying across them on the sofa. Both her legs and the dog were asleep, and Sunny and Beau each groaned as she stood and headed for the kitchen.
“I doubt it,” Edna said. “I got to thinking about it and realized I haven’t seen Walter in days. Have you?”
Now that Edna mentioned it, Sunny couldn’t remember the last time she had seen their mutual neighbor. Walter’s wife, Betty, died several years ago, and he seemed to finally be adjusting to life as a bachelor. He was an avid gardener and still quite fit for a man in his late seventies. The big white door to the garage behind his house often stood open all day, the radio set to an oldies station, as he putzed around the yard or tinkered at fixing one thing or another.
With the school year ending for summer, Sunny hadn’t paid much attention, but she couldn’t recall the last time she had noticed the garage door open. “I don’t think I’ve seen him lately, either. Not even working in his yard.”
“We usually have coffee once a week or so, but this last week I was so busy with those new Italian cooking classes, I never found the time. And now this strange guy lets himself into Walter’s house. I just know there’s something fishy going on here.” Edna’s voice climbed up an octave.
Sunny rinsed her coffee cup in the kitchen sink as she studied Walter’s house. The yellow and white ranch style home looked peaceful, the gardens full of colorful flowers reaching for the June morning sun. A sudden movement caught her eye as a figure emerged from the corner of the house and stooped to look into Walter’s front window.
“Edna, get away from that window!” Sunny cried, knocking on the kitchen pane.
Edna jumped and dropped the cell phone she had pressed to her ear as she looked over at Sunny, a startled expression on her face. “Gosh dangit, I dropped the phone.”
Edna’s voice sounded muffled as she bent to search through Walter’s petunias. She didn’t even have the gall to look guilty.
“Get out of Walter’s flowerbeds!” Sunny yelled. Edna reached down and plucked the phone off the ground. She waved it at Sunny with a triumphant shake before putting it back against her ear.
“Edna, what are you doing over there?”
“I’m trying to gather evidence,” she explained, as if Sunny were the ridiculous one versus the woman spying into her neighbor’s window like a wrinkled, geriatric Nancy Drew. “His car is in the garage so he might be in there, hurt or bound and gagged.”
“Well, what are you gonna do if he is? Break down the door? Get out of there. You’re trampling Walter’s flowers. I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Humph.”
Sunny heard the older woman’s grumble and imagined the eye roll that accompanied it, but Edna did get out of the flowers and start back to her own yard.
“I’m heading to the grocery store,” Sunny told her, ready to move on from this ridiculous notion of a neighborhood break-in by a gun-toting hunk. “Do you need me to pick up anything for you?” A fingerprint kit, a secret decoder ring, a sane thought, perhaps?
“No honey, I’m fine. I just went yesterday,” she replied. “But keep an eye out for this mystery guy and call me if you see Walter.”
“I will.” Sunny slipped on her flip-flops and noticed her purple toenail polish was starting to chip. So there was something to look forward to on a Saturday night, a home pedicure.
“I’ll see you at book club Wednesday night,” Edna said, referring to The Pleasant Valley Page Turners, aptly named for their small Colorado town nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
“Great. I’ve almost finished the book. See you then.” Sunny clicked off, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door. On the drive to the grocery store, she planned her shopping list in her head: milk, bread, eggs, more Cheetos, a bunch of Lean Cuisines, chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream. That about covered it.
She had her cart half-full (or half-empty because she didn’t have the ice-cream yet) when she spied a new product in the frozen food section. Opening the freezer door, she grabbed a couple bags of Mandarin Orange Chicken. Yum. She flipped the top bag over to check the calorie content, but the top had split open, and the entire package of small chicken chunks scattered across the floor. She stood stock st
ill for a moment, and prayed no one saw or heard the chicken nugget explosion.
“Some people take them home before they open them,” a voice behind her said.
Oh, crud. Sunny slowly turned around as she let the freezer door close with a thwap.
“The package was already opened,” she said to, of course, a super-cute guy with an Owen Wilson style head of dark blond hair. Why couldn’t she have flung chicken pieces at an old lady or a pimply teenager?
“Let me help.” He scooted several chicken nuggets under the freezer with his foot. “I think I’m your only witness,” he whispered and grinned.
Wow. What a grin. His left canine was just a little crooked, which made his smile look mischievous and boyish.
“Thanks. I’ve actually just been released on parole for excessive chicken spillage and driving under the influence of severe humiliation. If anyone finds out about this, they’ll send me back to the big house.” Sunny followed his lead and nonchalantly slid two frozen chicken chunks under the large freezer with her toe.
She tossed the other bag of orange chicken into her cart and tried for a quick getaway. To her surprise, the chicken-hiding accomplice followed as she hurried into the first available aisle.
“I think we’re in the clear,” he said, sneaking a glance behind them. “And I don’t think anyone followed us.” He played along with the gag, and they both laughed. She tried not to look at the chicken nugget piece caught in the cuff of his khaki pants.
“Well, thanks. I guess I better get back to my shopping.” She turned, and came eye to eye with a mega-shelf of tampons, douche, and maxi-pads. “Oh, I…um, I don’t…wrong turn.” She felt a blush crawl up her neck. Wheeling her cart around, she knocked over a ‘special night of romance’ display. Condoms, KY, and massage oil scattered across the floor.