Small Town Christmas Read online

  Swallowing down the last of her reservations, she tapped her throat and mouthed, “Laryngitis.”

  Those deep eyes grew more puzzled. “Huh?”

  “My throat,” she croaked in barely a whisper.

  His brows lifted. “Oh! Your throat’s hoarse. Well, that explains it.” He gathered her back against his side and started moving again. “For a second, I thought I had someone else in my arms besides Miss Hog Caller of Haskins County five years runnin’.” He chuckled deep in his chest. “ ’Course, Slate’s gonna love this. He always said you talked too much.”

  “Hey, Kenny! What ya got there?” A skinny man stepped off the dance floor with a young woman in a tight T-shirt with the words “Keepin’ It Country” stretched across her large breasts and an even tighter pair of jeans that pushed up a roll of white flesh over her tooled leather belt.

  “None of your damned beeswax, Fletch.” Kenny winked at the young woman. “Hey, Twyla.”

  She scowled. “I thought you was goin’ home, Kenny Gene.”

  “I was, darlin’, but I have to take care of something first.”

  “I got eyes, Kenny. And if this is the somethin’ you need to take care of, then don’t be callin’ me to go to the homecomin’ game with you. I got other plans.”

  “Now don’t be gettin’ all bent out of shape, honey,” Kenny yelled at the woman’s retreating back. “Man, that gal’s got a temper,” he chuckled. “Almost as bad as yours.”

  Faith didn’t have a temper. At least not one anyone had witnessed.

  “Now don’t go and ruin the surprise, Hope. Let me do all the talkin’.” He shot her a weak grin. “Sorry, I forgot about your voice. Man, is Slate gonna be surprised.”

  For the first time since allowing this man to take charge of her life, Faith started to get worried. Surprises weren’t always well received. Her mother had dropped a surprise a few months before she passed away, a surprise Faith was still trying to recover from.

  But this was different. It sounded like this Slate and Hope had been good friends. He would probably whoop like Kenny had done, give her a big hug and possibly a little more razor burn—and hopefully a lot more information before she made her excuses and slipped out the door.

  And no one would be the wiser. Except maybe Hope, if she came home before Faith found her. But that wouldn’t happen. Faith had every intention of finding Hope as soon as possible. She might not be a rebel, but she was tenacious.

  Tenacious but more than a little scared when Kenny pulled her inside a room with two pool tables, a gaggle of cowboy hats, and a sea of blue denim. The light in the room was better but the smoke thicker. The music softer but the conversation louder. They hesitated by the door for a few seconds as Kenny looked around; then Faith was hauled across the room to the far table where a man in a crumpled straw cowboy hat had just leaned over to take a shot.

  Faith had barely taken note of the strong hand and lean forearm that stretched out of the rolled-up sleeve of the blue western shirt before Kenny whipped the hat off her head and pushed her forward.

  “Lookie what the cat drug in, Slate!”

  The loud conversation came to a dead halt, along with Faith’s breath as every eye turned to her. But she wasn’t overly concerned with the other occupants of the room. Only with the man who lifted his head, then froze with his fingers steepled over the skinny end of the pool cue. He remained that way for what seemed like hours. Or what seemed like hours to a woman whose knees had suddenly turned as limp as her hat hair.

  Someone coughed, and slowly, he lifted his hand from the table and unfolded his body.

  He was tall. At least, he looked tall to a woman who wasn’t over five foot four in heels. His chest wasn’t big enough to land a 747 on but it looked solid enough to hold up a weak-kneed woman. It tapered down to smooth flat cotton tucked into a leather belt minus the huge buckle. His jeans weren’t tight or pressed with a long crease like most of the men in the room; instead the soft well-worn denim molded to his body, defining his long legs, muscular thighs, and slim hips.

  The hand that wasn’t holding the cue stick lifted to push the misshaped sweat-stained cowboy hat back on his high forehead, and a pair of hazel eyes stared back at her—a mixture of rich browns and deep greens. The eyes sat above a long, slim nose that boasted a tiny white scar across the bridge and a mouth that was almost too perfect to belong to a man. It wasn’t too wide or too small, the top lip peaking nicely over the full bottom.

  The corners hitched up in a smile.

  “Hog?”

  Hog?

  Her mind was still trying to deal with the raw sensuality of the man who stood before her; there was no way it could deal with the whole “hog” thing. Especially when the man leaned his pool cue against the edge of the table and took a step toward her.

  She prepared herself for the loud whoop and the rough manhandling that would follow. But what she was not prepared for was the gentleness of the fingers that slid through her hair, or the coiled strength of the hand that pulled her closer, or the heat of the body that pressed up against hers. And she was definitely not prepared for the soft lips that swooped down to bestow a kiss.

  It wasn’t a long kiss or even a deep one. It was merely a touch. A teasing brush. A sweep of sweet, moist flesh against startled gloss. But it was enough. Enough to cause Faith’s heart to bang against her ribs and her breath to leave her lungs.

  Wow.

  Her hands came up and pressed against the hard wall of his chest in an effort to balance her suddenly tipsy world. Her eyelids, which she hadn’t even realized she’d closed, fluttered open. Unlike her, he didn’t look passion-drugged. Just cocky and confident.

  “Don’t tell me I left you speechless, darlin’.” The words drizzled off his tongue like honey off a spoon, with very little twang and a whole lot of southern sizzle.

  She swallowed hard as Kenny spoke.

  “She can’t talk. She’s got that there lar-in-gitis, probably from all that actin’ she’s been doin’.”

  A smirk a mile wide spread across Slate’s devastating, handsome face. “Is that so? Well now, ain’t that an interesting state of affairs.”

  “Who cares if she can talk, Coach.” A man behind him yelled. “You call that a welcome-home kiss?”

  Two other men joined in.

  “Yeah, Slate, I kiss my cousin better than that.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re married to her.”

  “And you got a problem with that?”

  “Shut up, you two,” Kenny said. “Come on, Slate, remind her of what she’s been missin’ out on. Give her the good stuff.”

  A look of resignation entered those hazel eyes, a strange bedfellow for the dazzling grin. “Sorry, Hog,” he whispered, right before he dipped his head for another taste. Except, this time, his lips were slightly parted, and the soft kiss brought with it the promise of wet heat.

  If it hadn’t been a year since she’d been kissed, she probably could’ve ignored the tremor that raced through her body and the zing that almost incinerated her panties. But it had been a year, a year filled with loss, pain, and revelation. A year that made a cautious conformist want to be something different. Something more like an arrogant rebel, Miss Hog Caller of Haskins County, or Annie Oakley with a loaded gun.

  Or just a woman who gave a handsome cowboy a kiss he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

  With a moan, she threw her arms around his neck, knocking off his cowboy hat and forcing him to stumble back a step. A chorus of whoops and whistles erupted, but didn’t faze her one-track mind. Not when his lips opened wider, offering up all the good stuff. Teetering on the tiptoes of her high heels, she drove her fingers up into the silky waves of his hair, encasing his head and angling it so she had better access to the wet heat of his mouth. She dipped her tongue inside and sipped and tasted. But it still wasn’t enough.

  She wanted to consume this man. Wanted to slide her fingers over every square inch of fevered skin and sculptured muscles. Wa
nted to press her nose into the spot between his neck and shoulder and fill her lungs to capacity with the smoky laundry-detergent scent of him. But most of all, she wanted to stare into the rich fertile earth and endless sea of his eyes and see a reflection of her own desires—her own wants and needs.

  Slowly, her eyes drifted open.

  But it wasn’t desire she saw in the hazel depths. And it wasn’t cocky satisfaction. This time, it looked more like stunned disbelief. Obviously, Slate’s relationship with Hope didn’t involve sexual assault.

  Stunned by her uncharacteristic behavior, Faith pulled away from his lips and dropped back down to her heels. What had she been thinking? Had she lost her mind? How could she throw herself at a complete stranger? And not just any complete stranger, but Hope’s close friend? Her gaze settled on those perfect lips—lips that were slightly parted, wet, and smeared with glittery Passion Fruit—and it became crystal clear why she had lost her mind. The man was beyond hot. He was one sizzling stick of yummy, and she was a deprived child with a sweet tooth.

  “Thatta way, Hope,” a man on the other side of the pool table yelled. “You can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl!”

  “Ooooo—wee, Coach! It looks like you was missed,” someone else joined in.

  “Does this mean you’re stayin’, Little Bit?” Kenny’s friend stepped closer.

  “Stayin’?” A voice came from the back. “With enthusiasm like that, I wouldn’t let that woman out of my sight!”

  “Is that true, Slate?” Kenny asked. “You gonna let Hope go back to Hollywood after that kind of greetin’?”

  Slate blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Slowly, the shock receded from his eyes, but his shoulders remained tense. He cleared his throat twice before he spoke, but it still didn’t sound as smooth or confident as it had.

  “Well, I guess that depends.”

  “Depends on what?” someone asked.

  “On whether or not she still likes me after she finds out I let The Plainsville Panthers whup our butts.”

  The room erupted in laughter, followed quickly with grumbled comments about hometown refs. Then a man with a huge belly and an even bigger handlebar mustache pushed his way over.

  “All right, you’ve had your turn, Slate. Give someone else a chance to welcome our girl home.”

  For a fraction of a second, those hazel eyes narrowed, and the hands at her waist tightened. But then he released her and she was passed from one big bear hug to the next, accompanied with the greeting “Welcome home, Hope.”

  She wasn’t Hope.

  But, strangely enough, it felt like home.

  An ebook exclusive available now!

  Dear readers,

  My heroine Tara Daniels may not be great at relationships but she’s an expert in the kitchen.

  Come see what she cooks up!

  Contents

  Front Cover Image

  Welcome

  Kissing Santa Claus by Jill Shalvis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  I’ll Be Home for Christmas by Hope Ramsay

  O Little Town of Bramble by Katie Lane

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  About the Authors

  Also by the Authors

  Praise for Other Books

  Preview of Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis

  Preview of Welcome to Last Chance by Hope Ramsay

  Preview of Going Cowboy Crazy by Katie Lane

  Copyright

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Kissing Santa Claus is copyright © 2011 by Jill Shalvis

  I’ll Be Home for Christmas is copyright © 2011 by Hope Ramsay

  O Little Town of Bramble is copyright © 2011 by Cathleen Smith

  Excerpt from Head Over Heels is copyright © 2011 by Jill Shalvis

  Excerpt from Welcome to Last Chance is copyright © 2011 by Hope Ramsay

  Excerpt from Going Cowboy Crazy is copyright © 2011 by Cathleen Smith

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture quotations taken from the King James Bible (public domain).

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  First eBook edition: November 2011

  ISBN: 978-1-4555-1361-1