Small Town Christmas Read online

  Praise For

  Praise for Jill Shalvis’s The Sweetest Thing

  “A wonderful romance of reunited lovers in a small town. A lot of hot sex, some delightful humor, and plenty of heartwarming emotion make this a book readers will love.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A Perfect 10! Once again Jill Shalvis provides readers with a sexy, funny, hot tale… The ending is as sweet as it is funny. Tara and Ford have some seriously hot chemistry going on and they make the most of it in The Sweetest Thing. Trust me: You’ll need an ice-cold drink nearby.”

  —RomRevToday.com

  “Witty, fun, and the characters are fabulous.”

  —FreshFiction.com

  “It is fabulous revisiting Lucky Harbor! I have been on tenterhooks waiting for Tara and Ford’s story and yet again, Jill Shalvis does not disappoint… A rollicking good time… If you have not read the first book yet, this one will certainly compel you to do so… The Sweetest Thing is shiny and wonderful book goodness.”

  —RomanceJunkiesReviews.com

  Praise for Hope Ramsay’s Welcome to Last Chance

  “An impressive start to a charming new series, featuring quirky characters you won’t soon forget.”

  —Barbara Freethy, USA Today bestselling author of At Hidden Falls

  “Ramsay’s delicious contemporary debut introduces the town of Last Chance, S.C., and its warmhearted inhabitants… [she] strikes an excellent balance between tension and humor as she spins a fine yarn.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Last Chance, South Carolina, is a caring community filled with the promise of hope. Come for a visit!”

  —Lori Wilde, USA Today bestselling author of The Welcome Home Garden Club

  “A sweet confection… This first of a projected series about the Rhodes brothers offers up Southern hospitality with a bit of grit. Romance readers will be delighted.”

  —Library Journal

  “Witty, touching, and absolutely delightful—this story has heart!”

  —JoAnn Ross, New York Times bestselling author of The Homecoming

  Praise for Katie Lane’s Make Mine a Bad Boy

  “A delightful continuation of Going Cowboy Crazy. There’s plenty of humor to entertain the reader, and the people of the town will seem like old friends by the end of this entertaining story.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Funny, entertaining, and a sit-back-and-enjoy-yourself kind of tale.”

  —RomRevToday.com

  “If you’re looking for a romance true to its Texas setting, this is the one for you. I simply couldn’t put it down.”

  —TheSeasonforRomance.com

  “I absolutely loved Colt! I mean, who doesn’t like a bad boy? Katie Lane is truly a breath of fresh air. Her stories are unique and wonderfully written… Lane, you have me hooked.”

  —LushBookReviews.blogspot.com

  “It will make you laugh, and then make you sigh contentedly. Make Mine a Bad Boy is a highly entertaining ride.”

  —RomanceNovelNews.com

  Chloe has always been a little bit wild. But she may have met her match in Sheriff Sawyer Thompson…

  Head Over Heels

  Available in December 2011

  Chapter 4

  “Why was man created before woman? Because you always need a rough draft before the final copy.”

  CHLOE TRAEGER

  Chloe got up before dawn, when the sky was still inky black. Every October was fire season but this October, drier than any in recent history, made it all the more dangerous. Still, there were some benefits to a dry fall, and taking advantage of it, she dressed in yoga pants and a long-sleeved tee and took her mat to the beach to work out. When she was on the road, she did yoga in some of the fanciest hotels in the world, but here, with the rhythmic pulsing of the waves crashing onto the rocks, the seagulls squawking, the sand crunching beneath her mat—this was her favorite.

  Afterward, she walked. She didn’t usually do that, couldn’t if her chest was too tight, but she had the time this morning and needed to burn some energy.

  Everything was quiet, not a single soul stirring except the seagulls and the pounding surf, but she knew her way well enough by now to get along in the predawn. Lucky Harbor was a picturesque little beach town, nestled in a rocky cove with an eclectic mix of the old and new. The main drag was lined with Victorian-style buildings, most painted in a variety of bright colors. There was a long pier that jutted out into the water, lined with a café, a few shops, an arcade, and a Ferris wheel. Since Chloe wasn’t ready to face her day, she walked the pier to the end, standing in one of the far corners between two benches so that she could feel surrounded by the ocean below.

  She gave herself a Titanic moment, closing her eyes, raising her face to the salty, still chilly air. To the east, the dark sky was tinged slightly purple with the coming day.

  It was hard to believe that she was still here in Lucky Harbor. A year ago, she, Tara, and Maddie had been living their own lives, rarely connecting, so different. Whether that was due to the mysteries of genetics from their three different fathers or simply the fact that they’d been raised separately, Chloe didn’t know. Their mom, Phoebe Traeger, had been the embodiment of a true, free spirit. She’d kept to the road, found love—often—then had moved along. Nothing had stuck to Phoebe, not even her two eldest daughters. Nothing except Chloe. Chloe had been her one concession to a traditional life, if you could consider being schooled in the back of a VW bus and eating most of their meals in soup kitchens traditional.

  Tara’s father had taken Tara with him when he and Phoebe’s relationship had deteriorated. Maddie’s father had done the same when she’d come along a few years later. Chloe couldn’t say what her own father had done or felt, as she’d never known him. Phoebe hadn’t talked about him and had always dodged Chloe’s questions by claiming Chloe was a gift from a life well lived.

  Ahead of Chloe, the Pacific Ocean was a deep, choppy sea of black, meeting the metallic sky. The entire vista was framed by rocky bluffs, misty and breathtaking. She stood there and wondered at her fondness for this place, which seemed to anchor her like no other. She’d been fond of places before, lots of them, but she’d never had a connection like the one she’d had with Lucky Harbor.

  When she heard footsteps come up behind her, she instinctively grabbed her inhaler like it was Mace and whirled around.

  Sawyer stood there all rugged and damp from exertion and looking damn gorgeous. He took in her ready stance and then the inhaler, held out like a gun. “Going to shoot me with that?”

  Chloe shoved the inhaler back into her waistband. “What are you doing?” It was a stupid question, born of nerves. He was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, breathing heavy but not overly labored. Clearly he’d been running, which caused a yearning to well up within her to do the same. But running would be like stepping out in front of a speeding car—deadly.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Of course.” It was easier to think of Sawyer as a badge. A sanctimonious authority figure, and an irritating one at that. But whether she liked it or not, there was more to the man, much more. Yeah, he was tough, stoic, and impenetrable, but once in a while he’d reveal more, like the way his eyes filled with concern when he’d seen her injuries after rescuing the dogs, not to mention how he’d let her stretch the letter of the law that night. “I’m always okay,” she said. “Tell me what happened last night at Eagle’s Bluff.”

  He gave her one of his patented “yeah right” looks.

  Okay, so he was still more irritating than intriguing. Good to know. “Come on, Sheriff. It’ll be on Facebook if anything went down, so you might as well spill.”

  The threat was legit. Lucille ran the local art gallery and Lucky Harbor’s Facebook page with equal enthusiasm. In fact, her updates were practically required reading for Lucky Harbor residents. She reported on the happenings in town, each detail joyfully chronicled, the juicier t
he better.

  “We found no dogs on the premises,” he said.

  He shifted to go, but she asked the question that was tweaking her curiosity. “So why did you stop?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why didn’t you just keep running when you saw me out here?”

  Not a blink. Not even a shrug.

  “Sheriff Sawyer Thompson,” she murmured. “Communication master.”

  The very corner of his mouth turned up slightly. It knocked her off balance a little.

  A lot.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You couldn’t resist me.” She couldn’t say why she was poking the bear, but maybe it was her version of running…with scissors. “You saw me, and you couldn’t resist me, and so you stopped to…”

  “To…?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” she asked. “I mean, we don’t like each other. We don’t have anything in common. Whatever would we do with each other?”

  His eyes heated at that, and in reaction, her nipples contracted to two tight beads. Hmmm. Apparently they could do plenty. But before she could process that, he took a step back as if to go.

  “I scare you,” Chloe said.

  “Hell, yeah,” he admitted, shocking a laugh from her. He wasn’t afraid. Nothing scared him. But she’d learned not to tangle with the good sheriff unless she was on her A-game, and that wasn’t the case at the moment. Being in Sawyer’s presence took all of her concentration so that she didn’t accidentally give herself away. Because the truth was, in spite of the overwhelming odds of the two of them being a major train wreck if they ever got together, she wanted him.

  It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever wanted.

  After all, he was rigid where she was flexible. He was black and white, and she was all the rainbow in between, and they didn’t go together.

  Not that her body cared about logic. He was the most virile, potent, testosterone-filled guy she’d ever met. Sex with him would be fireworks, thunderstorms.

  Magic.

  But even she knew that she wasn’t ready for prime time with Sawyer Thompson. “I have to go.”

  “Now who’s scared?”

  “No, I have to get back to the inn.” It was nearly seven, and she needed to beat her sisters there. They hadn’t had any guests last night, but Tara was adamant that someone always be available, even at the ass crack of dawn.

  Someone being Chloe, naturally.

  “Know what I think?” Sawyer asked.

  “I have no idea. I never do.”

  He was leaning against the back of the bench, all six feet three inches of brawn at rest. “I make you nervous.”

  “You don’t make me nervous.” Okay, he so made her nervous. She turned to the water and tried to take a deep, relaxing breath. With the ocean in front of her—a much more relaxing view than the one of the gorgeous, smug bastard behind her—it should have been no problem. But it took a few tries, and she had to close her eyes. When that didn’t work, she added a stretch, rolling her shoulders, then lifting her arms high.

  A low sound of male appreciation came from behind her in mid-stretch, and she turned to face him.

  Sawyer’s eyes lifted from the vicinity of her ass. “What are you playing at now?” he asked softly.

  And wasn’t that just the thing. “I don’t think I’m playing,” she said back, just as softly.

  He studied her carefully, clearly searching for half truths.

  But she never dealt in half truths. Or lies for that matter. Too much to remember. Nope, she liked her life dealt straight up. Possibly the one thing they had in common.

  Sawyer stepped toward her, something in his stance making her feel like Little Red Riding Hood facing down the Big Bad Wolf. With the pier rail at her back, she tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “What?” she whispered.

  “Is there something going on with you and Lance that I should know about?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Just trying to figure out if last night’s fake caterwauling was a warm-up.”

  “For the real thing? No.” She paused. “Caterwauling?” He was giving her a complex. “It happens, you know. Screaming during sex.” Although not to her, dammit.

  “Does it?” he wondered. “Moaning, I get.” He stepped even closer. Since she had nowhere to retreat to, his body touched hers. “Panting? Definitely.” His voice dropped an octave. “Some dirty talk? Oh hell, yeah. But not that horrendous sound you were making, no.”

  He was warm, so deliciously warm. “It happens,” Chloe repeated, having to lock her knees so they didn’t wobble. She put a hand on his chest because he’d moved into her personal space and suddenly there wasn’t nearly enough air.

  “When?” he asked, his hand circling her wrist, and as he’d done once before, he let his thumb brush over the tiny tattoo there. “When does it happen?”

  “Well…in books.”

  His eyes softened slightly at this and so did his mouth. “What kind of books are you reading, Chloe?”

  “Er…” Okay, so maybe she’d been reading a lot of romances lately, so what? And maybe some erotica, too. There was nothing wrong with that, or daydreaming about being those women in the stories, the women who had enough breath in their lungs to scream in passion. “Not the point,” she said, no longer certain what the point was.

  And why the hell was he standing here teasing her instead of running? And…“Why did you ask about Lance?”

  Sawyer stared into her face for a long, speculative moment. “So that I could do this.” He cupped her jaw, then lowered his head until their lips nearly met. Not hesitant, not uncertain.

  The opposite, in fact.

  There was a beat of stillness, during which his gaze held hers prisoner while all her parts came alive and her eyes drifted shut. Their mouths brushed lightly, then not so lightly, and when his tongue touched hers, she moaned. At the sound, he threaded his hands in her hair and deepened the kiss.

  She melted into him. There was no other word for what happened. One minute her bones were there and then in the next they were gone. Then as quickly as it’d started, it was over, and she was blinking up at him, her breathing nowhere close to under control. “Okay, what…what was that?”

  Sawyer shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it tousled. “I don’t know. You drive me crazy.”

  Just what a girl wanted to hear. She used her inhaler, and he frowned. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you back.”

  “I can walk myself.”

  Her phone vibrated. She pulled the cell from her pocket and stared down at the ID. Todd. Because she hung out with Lance so much, she ran into Todd often. Occasionally he called her to see if she wanted to go out—his euphemism for hooking up.

  Chloe might have earned the moniker the “wild child” here in Lucky Harbor, but she wasn’t the “stupid child.” Everyone knew there was simmering tension between Sawyer and Todd, and she wasn’t going to be the cause of seeing it burst into flame. She hit ignore and shoved her phone back in her pocket.

  “Problem?” Sawyer asked.

  “Nope.”

  Their gazes met and held. He didn’t say anything more but stubbornly stuck by her side all the way back to the inn. He waited at the bottom of the steps while she climbed them and reached for the front door, making the mistake of looking back at him.

  He was quite a sight standing there, muscles tense and gleaming from his run, sweats riding low on his hips. He looked dangerous, alluring, and hotter than sin. “I’m going to pretend that didn’t happen. The kiss,” she clarified.

  “Can you?”

  Her nipples were still hard so she sort of doubted it. It’d been a hell of a kiss. “It doesn’t matter. The fact is that we experimented, got it out of our system. We’re done with that now.” She paused. “Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Not even a nanosecond of a hesitation. Ouch. “Okay, good,” she said, lifting her chin. “Good, then.”

  Sawyer turned and beg
an jogging back the way they’d just come. She watched him until he’d vanished from sight, then let herself drop to the top step, completely unsettled. Because for two people who valued the truth over all else, they’d both just lied their asses off.

  Country musician Clay Rhodes has suffered one-too-many broken hearts. So when Jane Coblentz gets off the bus in Last Chance, South Carolina, Clay wants to keep his distance, but soon he and Jane will be singing the same tune.

  Welcome to Last Chance

  Available now

  CHAPTER

  3

  The waitress at the Kountry Kitchen Dinette wore a salmon pink uniform with a white apron and a little plastic pin that identified her as Betty. She filled up Clayton P. Rhodes’s coffee cup and looked down at him with a sweet, unfocused gaze. He missed the look entirely.

  Betty didn’t give Jane anything like an adoring look. In fact, Betty inspected her the way a narrow-minded, small-town waitress would inspect anyone new—with a look that was one part curiosity and three parts get out of town. Jane recognized this look. Small-town people were not as friendly as the Hallmark Channel or Garrison Keillor made them out to be.

  “Meet Wanda Jane Coblentz,” Clay said as Betty poured coffee.

  “That’s Jane for short,” she said. The fiddler had insisted on calling her by both her given names, instead of the name she had been using for the last seven years.