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CHAPTER1
“Nooooo.” Charlee Burke groaned as the red Mustang convertible limped along the side of the dirt road. “Not a stupid flat tire.”
Thump clunk, thump clunk, thump clunk.
Couldn’t she at least have made it to her cabin?
“Great way to start Christmas weekend,” Charlee grumbled as she brought the vehicle to a hard stop, the Mustang’s tires throwing up clouds of dirt. Thankfully she had the top up. She shut off the powerful engine, groaned again, and banged her forehead against the steering wheel. Damn, and she’d just aired up the tire at a service station three days ago.
This must be her punishment for ditching out on her sister’s cornbread stuffing.
Changing a tire had been on her top one hundred things to learn list, but she’d never gotten around to it. Procrastination frequently turned around and bit her in the butt.
Even better, I should have paid for a AAA membership.
Hindsight was something she had far too much of.
Her big red tote, where she kept her cell phone, lay just in reach. Who could she call? She couldn’t call her best friend, Bailey, because she was pregnant and due any day. One of Bailey’s brothers? No, they were probably all busy with their wives and kids. After all, Christmas was in two days.
Except Ace, who wasn’t married and didn’t have kids. But he was the last person she’d want to call, for a number of reasons—too damned sexy for his own good being one of them. She didn’t need that kind of temptation and she was dead set against getting involved with her best friend’s brother. Not to mention, Ace teased her every chance he got.Holy hell.
He might be with the rest of the McBrides, anyway.
She sighed. She should try to figure this out for herself, first.
Charlee grabbed a jacket, climbed out of the car, and shivered in the chill air. She slid her arms in the jacket as she looked up at angry clouds chewing up muted sunlight as a storm rolled in, leaving dark sky and rain in its wake. The weather app had indicated they were in for rain and hail today, and possibly snow tonight. According to it, the bad weather hadn’t been due until late this afternoon.
So much for the weather app. She should have watched the news instead..
She had a whole weekend to herself and wouldn’t mind spending time in her cabin curled up with a good book and hot chocolate spiked with brandy, while snowflakes drifted lazily down. Here in Prescott, Arizona, they didn’t usually get a lot of snow in December, a couple of inches or so, but this year the storm was supposed to be big. And then she was headed into the Bradshaw Mountains where the snowfall would be even deeper.
Timing is everything.
A cold wind picked up and tossed her hair around her face and chilled her to the bone. The turtleneck and light jacket she’d put on weren’t enough—she’d have to get her coat from the back seat. She popped the trunk to search for the spare tire and the jack. She’d seen it done on TV, and once when a friend had a flat back in high school. It couldn’t be that difficult.
Right?
If Bailey McBride—no, now Bailey Greer—had been here, she would have had the tire changed already. Well, not already, but soon enough.
Charlee stared into the trunk at boxes of books and bags of clothes she’d been planning to drop off at the local donation center. She was pretty sure that under all that stuff was a compartment with a tire and a jack.
She needed to have this done before some man came by and offered to help. She couldn’t trust that it would be a Good Samaritan.
Her throat tightened and she shivered, but not from cold. No…she was on a lonely backroad not frequented by many, and she didn’t like the thought of being out here alone with some stranger.
Most men could be trusted about as far as she could throw them—push them, rather—and that might be all of six inches. Maybe.
Charlee sighed. She was being too hard on the gender, thanks to one horrible experience. She needed to think of good men, like the McBrides or even Greg Baldwin, the guy she’d dated in high school. He’d been sweet, but they had gone their own ways after graduating.
Regardless, she didn’t want to be alone with a stranger.
Concentrate,Charlee told herself. She had to get this tire changed.
First, she had to get the boxes out of the way. Her muscles strained as she grabbed a small but heavy box of books then almost dumped it onto the side of the road. She dropped it with athudin the dirt.
Next came two big bags of clothes. Then she discovered a small crate of old hand weights Dara, her other best friend, had helped put into the trunk ages ago, that she’d forgotten about.
Dara and Jack—one of Bailey’s older brothers—had eloped a year ago and had just announced Dara’s pregnancy. Bailey and Seth were expecting a baby any day now. Maybe they’d have a Christmas baby.
