Small Town Christmas Read online

  “My ma used to say there wasn’t any ill wind that didn’t blow some kind of good,” she rejoined. “Look on the bright side; maybe the hurricane will take out Golfing for God, although I’m having trouble understanding why you want that to happen. It sounds like Golfing for God is like a national treasure or an eighth wonder or something like that.”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Golfing for God is a running joke in this town. It’s the kind of place that makes people laugh at me and my kin. And that’s something they’ve been doing for generations.”

  “Generations?”

  “Yeah. My forebears once owned all the land around these parts. The land was part of a big plantation. My great-great-something granddaddy came back from the Civil War and proceeded to lose the farm in a poker game. The story is he left a suicide note penned to the Lord, asking for forgiveness and making a special request that the angels watch over his family, who he left destitute, I might add.

  “Anyway, my forebears have been eccentric ever since. My granddaddy built Golfing for God, and my own daddy runs it and claims to regularly converse with angels. Daddy would be heartbroke if Hurricane Jane took out Golfing for God, especially when Hurricane Hugo didn’t lay a glove on it.”

  “Your father talks to angels? Really? That’s kind of cool.”

  “No, it’s not. Thanks to Chancellor Rhodes’s ill-advised suicide note that invoked the heavenly host, there has always been at least one Rhodes in every generation who has gone off the deep end and talked with angels. It’s like a family curse. And me and my two brothers and sister are not going to end up like that if we can help it.”

  “You really believe this? I would have thought that a negative person such as yourself might—”

  “Yeah, I believe there is a strain of serious mental illness that runs in my family. I’m going to rise above it.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s a positive approach. But really, have you ever considered that Golfing for God was spared by Hurricane Hugo as a sign that the Universe approves of it? I think it’s pretty positive to have a pipeline to angels.”

  “Do you believe in angels? Really?”

  She shrugged. “I think metaphorically, being in touch with the forces of the Universe is way cool.”

  “You are insane. And so is my daddy. I am not going there.” He glanced down at her breakfast. “Are you done with that?” he said, clearly changing the subject.

  She looked down at her plate. She’d managed to pack away most of the meal, but not all of it. “Yeah. But I wonder if I could get a box. I have a feeling it might be a while before my next meal.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll feed you until the buses are running again. C’mon, let’s go.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is where we part company.”

  Clayton P. blinked down at her. “You do realize this storm’s going to get worse before it gets better? You can’t stay here.”

  “Why not? It’s a free country.”

  He leaned in. “Because you have no money, no clothes, and no place to stay. Now, get up.”

  “I’m not budging. You can’t make me.”

  He grabbed Jane by the arm and hauled her to her feet with one powerful yank. His use of force sent fear radiating right through her. She tried to pull away, and he put his face right in hers. “You’re a brat, you know that? Someone needs to tan your backside.”

  “Lemme go,” she gasped. She didn’t need anyone tanning her backside. Pa had done enough of that when she was young. Every instinct in her body screamed that she needed to run—and run fast.

  She pulled against his grip, and he released her. She whirled away, racing for the door like a coon with a bloodhound on her tail. She didn’t think about the storm, or the poncho, or anything except getting away from him. A girl on her own needed to run when her instincts told her it was time. She hit the door and pushed through it. A wall of wind and water hit her with the force of… well… a hurricane.

  Her namesake smacked her upside the head with a fury designed, no doubt, to beat some sense into her addled brains. Hurricane Jane might have blown her all the way to Kingdom Come, too, if it hadn’t been for Clayton P., who materialized out of the wall of rain and wind and folded her up in a pair of strong and gentle arms.

  He was so enormous that he blocked the wind with his big body and seemed utterly immovable despite the forces buffeting him. “Are you all right?” The concerned look on his rain-drenched face chased away the sudden panic. It also did something to her insides—as if she had just taken a deep draught of something at least one hundred proof. Heat flowed from her belly to every one of her extremities. How could a really big guy who’d just scared her silly make that kind of heat inside her? It was not a hopeful sign. It was scary.

  But she nodded anyway, momentarily struck dumb by the strong and benign feel of his hands on her shoulders.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said above the roar of wind and rain. The look of contrition on his face seemed genuine. He turned and pulled her with him up the street. As she walked beside him, clinging to his impressive arm, it occurred to her that either Clay Rhodes and the hurricane were in league and out to mess up her life, or the big man was just too darned stubborn to let tropical-storm-strength winds knock him around.

  Either way, she had gotten the message: The Universe and Hurricane Jane meant for her to go with him.

  Faith Aldridge learns it’s true. Everything is bigger in Texas: the trucks, the trouble, the love of a lifetime…

  Going Cowboy Crazy

  Available now

  Chapter One

  IF YOU THINK MY TRUCK IS BIG…

  Faith Aldridge did a double take, but the bold black letters of the bumper sticker remained the same. Appalled, she read through the rest of the signs plastered on the tail end of the huge truck: DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS; REBEL BORN AND REBEL BRED AND WHEN I DIE I’LL BE REBEL DEAD; I LIVE BY THE THREE B’S: BEER, BRAWLS AND BROADS; CRUDE RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS.

  She could agree with the last one. Whoever drove the mammoth-sized vehicle was crude. And arrogant. And chauvinistic. And a perfect example of the rednecks her aunt Jillian had warned her about. Not that her aunt Jillian had ever met a redneck, but she’d seen Jeff Foxworthy on television. And that was enough to make her fear for her niece’s safety when traveling in a state filled with punch lines for the statement—

  You might be a redneck if…

  You have a bumper sticker that refers to the size of your penis.

  The front tire of her Volvo hit yet another pothole, pulling her attention away from the bumper stickers and back to her quest for an empty parking space. There was no defined parking in the small dirt lot but, even without painted lines, the occupants of the bar had formed fairly neat rows. All except for the crude redneck whose truck was blatantly parked on the sidewalk by the front door.

  Someone should report him to the police.

  Someone who wasn’t intimidated by law enforcement officers and didn’t worry about criminal retaliation.

  Faith found an empty space at the very end of the lot and started to pull in when she noticed the beat-up door on the Ford Taurus next to her. Pulling back out, she inched closer to the cinder block wall, then turned off the car, unhooked her seat belt, and grabbed her purse from beneath her seat.

  Ignoring the trembling in her hands, she pulled out the tube of lip gloss she’d purchased at a drugstore in Oklahoma City. But it was harder to ignore the apprehensive blue eyes that stared back at her from the tiny lit mirror on the visor. Harder, but not impossible. She liberally coated her lips with the glistening fuchsia of Passion Fruit, a color that didn’t match her plain brown turtleneck or her conservative beige pants. Or even the bright red high heels she’d gotten at a Payless ShoeSource in Amarillo when she’d stopped for lunch.

  A strong gust of warm wind whipped the curls around Faith’s face as she stepped out