It Must Have Been the Mistletoe(4)

“There wasn’t a sign,” Alison called, protecting her eyes from the rain, which was slowly increasing to a downpour. “I’m sorry. I—I’m looking for Ettie Lee Harper. Does she live here?”

“There’s nothing here for you. I don’t have any antiques to sell, I’m not lookin’ to buy life insurance and I don’t wanna leave my savings to whatever charity you come callin’ for.”

A younger man appeared at the door and gently took the gun from the old woman’s hands. They whispered something to each other and the woman nodded and went back inside.

“Just hop on back into your car and get on out of here before Ettie Lee has to shoot you,” he said.

“So that was Ettie Lee.” Alison took a step forward, then realized the man still had the gun in his hands. “I’m here about her music. My name is Alison Cole. From East Tennessee State. I heard her sing on an old recording and I wanted to talk to her about her songs.”

Alison wiped the rain out of her eyes and pasted a friendly smile on her face as the man turned aside to discuss the matter with Ettie Lee. Though she’d met resistance before when speaking to mountain folk, Alison had never been on the business end of a shotgun.

A moment later, the elderly woman reappeared at the door and motioned to her. “Come on in, then,” she called in a wavering voice. “I wouldn’t wish this weather on my dogs.” She cocked her head toward the man holding the gun. “Is she coming?”

“Yes, I believe she is, Miss Ettie.”

“Is she pretty?” Ettie Lee shouted.

“Hard to tell, Miss Ettie. Right now, she looks like a drowned rat.”

Alison stepped up on the porch and pushed the damp strands of her bangs aside, then sent the man with the gun a cool look. But the moment their eyes met, she realized that she hadn’t seen much beyond the muzzle of the gun pointed at her. She swallowed hard as her gaze took in the details of his features.

He was beyond handsome, his eyes a piercing blue and his lips chiseled perfection. A day’s growth of beard shadowed the planes and angles of his jaw and cheeks. Thick dark hair brushed the collar of his chambray shirt. When he smiled at her, she felt a shiver skitter through her body.

It had been so long since she’d had this kind of reaction to a man. Just last week, she’d been complaining about the lack of interesting men in her life over lunch with her best friend, Tess Robertson. Tess had warned her that the right man might come along at the most unexpected time.

She’d even presented Alison with a beautifully wrapped Christmas present—a box of condoms, insisting that they both needed to make a New Year’s resolution to be a little more naughty and a little less nice.

Well, this man was certainly a surprise, as was the tiny thrill that raced through her when she met his gaze. All kinds of wicked thoughts rushed into her head. Maybe Tess had been right. At the most unexpected time and in the most unexpected place.

She tipped her chin up and gave him a coy smile. “You know what they say about men with big guns,” she muttered.

“Come on inside,” he said, arching an eyebrow as she passed. “We’ve got a fire going. You can dry yourself off and get warm.”



DREW PHILLIPS CLOSED the cabin door behind the stranger and watched as she dripped water on Ettie’s floor. Though he’d said she looked like a drowned rodent, his claim was far from the truth. Even soaking wet, Alison Cole was just about the most beautiful woman he’d seen in…in longer than he could remember.

He’d been trying to avoid looking at her since she’d arrived. There was something about her that he found so alluring, something that had caused his blood to warm and his pulse to quicken the instant their eyes met. She wasn’t drop-dead, Hollywood gorgeous, the kind of beauty you found on the pages of magazines. Instead, she had a simple, natural beauty that even stringy wet hair and a lack of makeup couldn’t diminish.

Drew groaned inwardly. Since he’d opened his practice a year ago, his sex life had been practically nonexistent. Making the decision to leave an urban hospital and move back to the mountain had been easy, but he’d never considered what the lack of available women would do to his libido. He’d just assumed that there would be opportunities, and if there weren’t, he’d spend the weekend in town.

But there were always emergencies, people to look after, home visits to make, and the weekends slipped by without any break from his duties. All work and no play had made Drew a very horny boy. And now, with a beautiful woman standing nearby, his thoughts would naturally turn to sex.

“Why don’t you get yourself out of that wet jacket,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. He slowly pulled the garment off, the scent of her teasing his nose.