Silent Night, Star-Lit Night (Second Chance at Star Inn)
Ruth Logan Herne
Chapter One
December 18, San Diego, California
Suitcase. Laptop. Purse. Emergency supply bag. Lack of chocolate noted. Remedy situation ASAP.
E.R. nurse Mia O’Loughlin threw a couple of extra candy bars into the small cooler bag, just in case. She picked up her keys and slung her purse over her shoulder as a crisp, quick knock sounded at the front door of her suburban San Diego apartment.
Her heart froze, despite the California warmth of the December morning.
The knock came again, more insistent.
No one ever came to her door. No one had knocked on her door since the morning when two uniformed officers arrived to tell her Daniel had been killed in action three days after arriving in Afghanistan.
She stared at the door, wished for a peephole, then scolded herself and moved forward. “Yes?”
“Mia?”
She sucked in a deep breath, bit her lip, and had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
She knew that voice. Knew it well, and there was no reason for the person with that voice to be standing outside her door. She pulled the door open and came face-to-face with Jed Michael Taylor, Daniel’s longtime best friend from central Washington. He’d stood with Daniel at their wedding. He’d been a pallbearer at Daniel’s funeral. And now he was here, facing her through the screen door, one brow thrust up. “May I come in?”
“No.”
He frowned instantly. “No? Why?”
She wanted to growl. And maybe throw things. But she’d been wanting to do that for a while, now.
Not Jed’s fault, her conscience scolded.
It wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t keep her from longing to pummel something in the hopes of making things right again. A part of her was scared to death that would never happen. The other part wanted to throttle the fearful side. She’d become her own conundrum by default.
She pushed the door open, then gripped her bag. “I’m actually just leaving to head north for Christmas. What are you doing here, Jed? Are you on a buying trip?” It was a rhetorical question, because no one running a retail enterprise depending on fourth-quarter sales would be making a buying trip the week before Christmas.
“No, ma’am.” He stepped in and of course his gaze went straight to her rounded belly. His eyebrows hiked and he clapped a hand to the back of his head as if he’d never seen a pregnant woman before. “Whoa.”
Whoa?
Blame third-trimester discomfort and/or hormones, but his reaction nearly got him killed. “Listen, you.” She used her free hand to grab hold of his button-down shirt just below his thick, rugged, about-to-be-strangled neck. “That is not how you react when you see someone within weeks of giving birth. Got it?”
He feigned fear until she released the shirt. “Got it. And no, I’m not here to buy things for the store. I’m here to escort you home.”
He did not just say that, did he? “You’re what?”
He tipped a finger to the brim of his oatmeal-toned cowboy hat, about as out of place in Southern California as you could get. “Jed Taylor, at your service.”
“How did you get here?”
“Flew.” He glanced around the stark apartment, and if he noted its austerity, he kept it quiet. “Commissioned by my mother and your aunt Pauline. You might have been gone awhile, but you know that no one in Roslyn, Washington, argues with Auntie P.”
“You let two women boss you around?”
“Sure did.” He flashed her a lazy grin and reached for her other bag. “And it appears I’m just in time. Is this all that’s going?”
“Jed, listen—”
He stepped back, sent her a look of incredulity, and shook his head. “No argument allowed. When my mother and Auntie P. are on the warpath this close to Christmas, I do whatever I’m asked to do. In this case it was to hop on a plane, come down here, and drive back home with you. The other option would have been for Auntie P. to ride shotgun with you, which made it a non-option. I think you actually owe me a debt of gratitude.”
Auntie P. was a dear soul, one of those women everyone loved, but her non-stop chatter could wear a person down really quick. If Mia was given the choice of a two-day excursion trapped in the front seat of a car with Auntie or Jed, the tall, muscled cowboy took the prize.
“It’s Christmas week, though.” Mia stared up at him while she clutched the bag’s handle. “The store has to be crazy busy.” Jed’s family owned and ran Taylor’s Farm, Ranch, and Home Supply, a thriving business near Roslyn and Cle Elum, a short jog north of I-90. He also ran a noteworthy cattle and horse operation, Taylor-Made Farms, just west of town. The Taylors were the people every other family longed to be. Cohesive, industrious, smart, and nice, and almost every Sunday she’d seen them troop into the rose-bricked church just up the road from the apartment she shared with her pot-smoking, beer-drinking dad. The Taylors were a family united. She envied that back then, but she envied a lot of stuff back then. Maturity had smartened her up some.
“Store and ranch, both,” he admitted. “Although I’m hoping my absence will sharpen Uncle Pete’s appreciation for my regular contributions at the store. We’ve gotten heavy December snow, and that means hay feeds and blizzard watch. They’re predicting early storms, then early warming from El Ni?o come spring, but in the meantime, we’ve got four hundred head of cattle that can flounder in that wet snow if it piles up. So if you’re all set?” He swept the packed bags a quick glance. “Let’s roll.”