Make-Believe Mistletoe

Chapter One

Lucy Guerin had never quite understood the appeal of a white Christmas. After all, the holidays were traditionally a time for travel, and snowy weather had a way of seriously impeding travel plans. When Bing Crosby crooned about glistening treetops, he had probably not had anything like this in mind, Lucy thought glumly, staring out the rapidly icing windshield of her small car.

She had asked Santa for a man for Christmas, but she hadn't meant Jack Frost.

Ice storms happened fast and sometimes without much warning in the Ozarks. The weather guy Lucy had listened to had said that, depending on the temperature, there would be rain or snow or maybe ice. His own guess had been rain changing to light snow with little accumulation.

He had been wrong.

The ice on twisting, rural Highway 65 through north central Arkansas was growing thicker by the moment, causing Lucy's car to slide perilously. It was rapidly getting dark at 5:00 p.m. on this December 23. Between the heavy clouds and early sundown of winter, little natural light remained to guide her way. The beams of her headlights splintered off the falling ice. She was still several miles from the nearest town, and the only sign she saw warned that the next five miles of road were winding and steep. Great.

She wasn't going to make it much farther. Her back tires skidded, and it was all she could do to keep the car from sliding off the road. Though this highway was usually well traveled by Branson-bound tourists, the combination of the weather and the approaching holiday had the road almost empty now. Only one other vehicle was visible, an ancient pickup truck following at some distance behind her, also headed north.

Maybe all the other would-be travelers had listened to better weather forecasters.

It was quite a relief when she spotted a driveway ahead-a long gravel road leading to a rock and redwood house set at the foot of a rocky hill. She slowed her car to little more than a crawl to study the place. Evergreen and hardwood trees surrounded the area, but a fair-size yard had been carved out of the woods. The yard was surrounded by a chain-link fence with a gate that crossed the driveway.

A single security pole lamp sat beside the house, casting a dim glow over the place. There were no Christmas lights or other decorations visible, and the windows seemed to be heavily draped or covered with blinds, so Lucy couldn't tell if there were any lights on inside. For all she knew, no one was home. But she could at least park in the driveway and get off this dangerously slick road before she smashed her car into a mountainside.

She skidded again as she made the turn into the gravel driveway. Holding her breath, she brought the car to a stop in front of the chain-link gate. The old pickup truck slid in behind her, its driver obviously coming to the same conclusion she had about the hazards of traveling farther.

Now what? Lucy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, staring at the house and wondering if the gate was locked. She could see now that there was another large building behind the house, a workshop, perhaps. No lights in those windows, either. She couldn't call for assistance from here; her cell phone wasn't picking up a signal. This, she thought, must be the very spot people referred to when they said “out in the boonies.”

It was getting darker by the minute, and the freezing rain and sleet were falling harder. She heard the distant crack of a tree branch snapping beneath the weight of accumulating ice. She had to do something.

A tap on her driver's side window made her start. She looked around to see an elderly African-American man huddled beneath a black umbrella that was having little effect against the pelting ice. She rolled down her window and he asked, “Are you okay, miss?”

He looked as though the strong winds would topple him right over-or carry him away by the umbrella like Mary Poppins. “I'm fine, but you should get out of this weather.”

“You think that gate's locked? Maybe if we blow our horns, someone in the house will come out to let us in. My wife wants me to keep driving, but I don't think I can get much farther in this.”

“Absolutely not.” He shouldn't have driven this far.

Lucy reached for her door handle. “You go back to your wife. I'll see if I can get someone in the house to help us.”

She slipped a little when she stepped out of her car, clutching at the door for balance. Ice bombarded her head and slid down the inside collar of her inadequate leather jacket. She had a heavy parka but it was in her trunk, as she hadn't expected to be out of her car long enough to need it before reaching her destination.

After making sure the older man was safely back in his truck, Lucy moved carefully toward the gate. The gravel driveway provided a bit more traction than a smooth surface would have, but the hard-packed rocks were still slick and wet. Thank heaven she had worn hiking boots with slip-resistant soles. She had selected them more because they completed her outfit of a heavy hand-knit green sweater and boot-cut jeans than because she had expected to do any hiking, but she was grateful for them now-not that even boots helped much in this weather.

The gate was latched but not locked, she discovered in relief. Cold seeped through her thin leather driving gloves when she lifted the latch and pushed the gate open far enough to allow her to slip through. Literally slip through. She nearly fell on her butt before she caught her balance.

Her curly red hair was wet and icy, and her face was so cold it hurt. She wouldn't have been surprised if an icicle formed on the end of her nose. Huddling into the fashionable leather jacket, she carefully climbed two slick rock steps to the covered porch that ran the length of the single-story house. It felt somewhat better to be under cover, but no less miserably wet and cold.

She was shaking so hard she missed the doorbell the first time she aimed for it, jabbing her finger into the redwood siding, instead. The second attempt was more successful. She heard a chime echo inside the house. And then she rang it again, hoping this wasn't the secluded hideaway of a paranoid, gun-toting, bigoted survivalist.

The door finally opened to reveal the most gorgeous man Lucy had ever seen in person. Around thirty. Thick, dark hair, navy-blue eyes, chiseled features, body to die for. What little breath the cold had left in her lungs escaped in a long, appreciative sigh.

Thank you, Santa.

She blinked ice-tipped lashes to clear her vision, just in case she was imagining this apparition of masculine perfection. But no. He was still there, and still fabulous-even if he did wear a less-than-welcoming frown.

“What is it?” he asked, and his deep voice was as beautiful as his face-if a teensy bit grouchy.

“We're stranded,” she said simply, motioning toward the two vehicles in his driveway. “We need shelter.”

He looked glumly at the ice growing thicker on the ground by the moment. “There's a motel about fifteen miles down the road,” he offered without much optimism.

“We won't make it fifteen more feet. It's treacherous out there-and the old couple in the pickup need to come in out of the cold. Surely you and your family would allow us to come in for a little while?”

“No family,” he muttered. “It's just me.”

Maybe there really was a Santa Claus. Pushing a long, dripping curl out of her face, Lucy gave him a smile that stung her frozen skin and tried to look less like a wet stray cat. “We would certainly appreciate your help.”

Even as she spoke, another northbound car-this one a beige sedan-skidded into the driveway, gravel spewing as the driver brought the car to a sliding stop only inches from the tailgate of the pickup truck. There was just enough light for Lucy to see that the car held a woman and two children.

The man in the doorway let out a resigned sigh. “I guess you can all come inside.”

His enthusiasm was underwhelming, but Lucy forged on. “We'll probably need your assistance getting everyone in safely. The ground is as slick as a skating rink, and that's an elderly couple in the truck. Looks like two small children in the back seat of the sedan. It's going to be tricky.”

He nodded morosely. “I'll get my coat. You can come in, if you want. You're hardly dressed to be traipsing around in an ice storm.”

“I have a hat and a heavier coat in the back of my car. You'll need my help, I think.”

His eyes swept the length of her five-feet, two-inch, 105-pound frame, making it clear he didn't know how much help she could offer. But he merely shrugged and turned to fetch his coat.

Lucy frowned at the man's retreating back. The guy might have the looks of a Tom Cruise, but he apparently had the heart of an Ebenezer Scrooge.

Maybe Santa hadn't been quite so generous to her this Christmas, after all.

When Banner had opened his front door in response to the completely unexpected chime of the doorbell, his first thought had been that a lost Christmas elf had somehow wandered onto his front porch. The top of her wet red head came barely to his chin. She had enormous green eyes set into a pixie face with a ridiculous excuse for a button nose, a full mouth that looked incongruously sexy in the center of all that cuteness, and a curvy little figure that made him rethink his former appreciation of tall, busty blondes.

When he had learned that she was the first wave of an invasion of strangers into his cherished privacy, he had been tempted to close the door in her cute little face. But even he wasn't quite that mean, despite what some people might say to the contrary. His ex-wife, for example.

The weather was vicious. Gusts of wind slapped him across the face with icy hands. He pulled his Sherpa collar more snugly around his jaw. His wide-brimmed hat kept his hair dry, but the freezing rain blew sideways, getting him pretty wet everywhere else. He thought wistfully of his warm, dry, peaceful living room, where he had just been sitting with a crackling fire and a good book.

So much for the quiet, lazy winter evening he had been anticipating.

The elf seemed to be taking charge of the rescue. She stopped by her car, where she quickly swapped her stylish leather jacket for a heavier hooded parka. Then she slung the shoulder strap of a bulging duffel bag over one shoulder before slamming her trunk and stuffing her keys into her pocket.

“Dry clothes,” she shouted over the storm. “We're all going to need them.”

He nodded and picked his way cautiously to the pickup. The driver's door was already open and a skinny, rather frail-looking man climbed out. “My wife needs help walking,” he called out.

Banner nodded. “Hold on.”

He and the elf looked toward the beige sedan, in which the woman driver was stuffing two young children into coats, hats and mittens. “Can you give her a hand while I help the other couple in?” Banner asked the redhead.

“Yes,” she called back. “You go ahead. We'll be fine.”

A hiss of air brakes, the skid of tires on ice, and the unmistakable sound of crumpling metal made Banner whirl toward the highway. A large, southbound delivery truck had missed the curve just before his driveway, the cab plowing into the shallow ditch.

Hissing a curse, Banner started to run toward the truck, but he slowed when he saw the driver climb out of the cab, obviously uninjured. Enveloped in a heavy coat, with a broad-brimmed oiled-leather hat pulled low over his face, the mountain of a man trudged toward them.

“You okay?” Banner called out.

A booming bass replied, “Disgusted but undamaged.”

Banner nodded. “I'm trying to get everyone inside,” he said as the large man drew nearer. “Got some women and kids and an old couple here. I could probably use your help with some of them.”

“You bet.” Banner caught a glimpse of sandy beard as the man moved closer, one big foot sliding on the ice but quickly regaining traction.

Turning back to the parked vehicles, Banner saw that the elf and the mother had the children out of the car. The redhead hovered protectively over the little ones while their mother dragged a couple of suitcases out of the sedan. The large man moved toward them to offer assistance.

Banner turned his attention to the elderly couple. The old man was standing inside the open passenger door of the pickup, helping his wife unfasten her seat belt. Moving closer, Banner saw that the woman was even more fragile than her husband. She had snowy-white hair and a wrinkled face that had faded to a soft caramel color. The shapeless cloth coat she wore wasn't heavy enough for the weather, and Banner wasn't sure how much her visible tremors were due to age and how much to the cold.

“She uses a walker,” the old man explained, nodding to the silver contraption folded and stowed behind the seat.

“That won't do any good on rocks and ice.” Banner moved closer, noting that the woman probably didn't weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. “Why don't I just carry you in, ma'am? I won't drop you.”

“He looks like a strapping young man, Mother,” the woman's husband said. “Let him carry you inside where it's warm.”

“All right.” Her voice was thin yet surprisingly strong. “But don't you go throwing your back out, son.”

As if she weighed enough to make that a concern, Banner thought, moving in to slide his arms beneath her. He'd hauled bags of dog food that weighed more. She put her arms around his neck and held tightly as he lifted her, his feet solidly planted beneath him.

The older man pulled a blanket out of the cab and draped it over his wife's head, providing some protection from the falling ice. Banner tucked it snugly around her. The old man reached for the walker. “I'll bring this. And we have suitcases under the tarp in the back.”

“Leave it. I'll come back for those things,” Banner said, worried that the man wouldn't be able to keep his balance if he tried carrying anything. It was going to be a tricky enough walk as it was. “Let's just get inside.”

He could feel the wind biting through the blanket and into the woman's coat and thin, knit pantsuit as he moved carefully toward the house. She shivered when the downpour gained strength again, and Banner instinctively hunched around her, trying to protect her as much as he could.

He worried that she would catch pneumonia on the way in, and he worried that her husband would fall and break a leg or a hip or something. He was relieved when the big truck driver rejoined them halfway to the house, having already deposited the others inside. The truck driver took the old man's arm, supporting him for the rest of the walk.

With the couple safely inside, Banner and the truck driver made a second hasty trip outside for more bags and the walker. It was almost completely dark now, and the ice was building thickly on every surface. The woods echoed with the sharp cracks of breaking tree limbs, and Banner cast a frowning glance at the overhead power lines. He figured it was just a matter of time before they were brought down by a falling branch, cutting off the electricity. Fortunately he had laid in a good supply of firewood, candles and batteries.

By the time he finally closed his front door against the storm, he was wet, cold, tired and grouchy. At least no more cars or trucks had arrived. He assumed the roads were so bad now that anyone who had been on them had found shelter elsewhere. He would be willing to bet the state police had closed the mountainous highway by now.

He only hoped the temperature would warm during the night, melting the ice and letting his stranded travelers be on their way. In the meantime, he seemed to have a houseful of unexpected guests.

He stood in the doorway of his big, wood-paneled living room, gazing rather helplessly at the chaos taking place there. Once again the young woman he had dubbed the elf seemed to be in charge. She had found his linen closet and distributed towels and was busily making sure everyone was getting dry and warm. As her hair dried, it curled even more riotously around her face, the red-gold color mimicking the fire crackling in the big stone fireplace.

The mother and two children were close to the hearth. Mom was a somewhat mousy-looking, average-size brunette with purple-shadowed brown eyes and nervous hands. Banner guessed her age to be midthirties, a few years older than himself. She was towel drying the hair of a little girl of maybe five years, a brown-eyed, pink-nosed duplicate of her mother.

A brown-haired boy whom Banner guessed to be around seven stood nearby, staring in fascination at Banner's enormous, dumb lump of a dog. The multicolored mutt sat on his favorite scrap of rug, studying the roomful of strangers with his usual unflappable acceptance of circumstances.

The truck driver had shed his big coat, but that hadn't reduced his overall size by much. Broad-faced, bearded and barrel-chested, he might have been forty, and he looked as though he'd have been as at home panning for gold in the Old West as behind the wheel of a big truck. He rubbed a towel over his bushy, sandy hair, leaving it standing in spikes around his ruddy face.

The older woman Banner had carried inside huddled beneath a thick, dry blanket also retrieved from his linen closet. She sat in a Windsor rocker pulled close to the fire, and the firelight flickered over her lined face, highlighting the fine bone structure that was still beautiful. She looked so fragile it scared him now to think he had carried her in; what if he'd dropped her or fallen?

Her husband hovered around her chair, his wispy gray hair already dry, his bent hands patting his wife as if to assure himself that she was all right. Banner doubted that either of them was younger than eighty.

What on earth was he going to do with all these people?

Lucy noticed that their host was standing in the doorway, looking rather dazed. She supposed she couldn't blame him. Judging by the nice fire and the mystery novel sitting open beside a cooling cup of coffee on the table next to a big recliner, he had just settled down to ride out the storm in comfortable solitude. Except, of course, for the company of his dog-the shaggiest, oddest-colored, laziest-looking mutt Lucy had ever seen.

At least the dog didn't seem to mind the company-which was more than she could say for its owner, who was definitely showing signs of stress.

Someone needed to do something to put him more at ease. Never one to wait around for others to take care of things she could handle herself, she gave him a big smile. “Thank you so much for taking us in. You've… Mr…?”

“Just call me Banner,” he said, lifting a hand to massage the back of his neck.

She nodded. “Mr. Banner.”

“Just Banner,” he corrected, letting his hand fall to his side.

“Oh.” Strange, but anyway… “I'm Lucy Guerin. I'm on my way to Springfield, Missouri, to spend Christmas with my family. Why don't the rest of you introduce yourselves?”

She knew she sounded like a too-perky cruise director, but the man who called himself “just Banner” was making her nervous, lurking glumly in the doorway like that. She turned to the mother and children behind her. “What are your names?”

The woman's face paled, as if she had been asked to make an impromptu speech in front of a large audience. The shy type, apparently-which Lucy had never been.

“I'm, um, Joan Gatewood,” the woman finally murmured. “These are my children, Tyler and Tricia. We're going to my mother's house in Hollister, Missouri, for the holiday.”

“I'm Cordell Carter,” the older man said, smoothing a spotted hand over his mostly bald head. “Everyone calls me Pop. This is Annie, my wife of sixty-two years. We're on our way to Harrison to our grandson's house.”

“Sixty-two years of marriage,” Lucy repeated in wonder. “Mrs. Carter, you must have been a child bride.”

The old woman's weary eyes brightened with her smile, which still held hints of the mischievous grin that had likely captivated her husband sixty-two years ago-and apparently still did. “I was twenty-three. And you can just call me Miss Annie. Everyone always has. 'Mrs. Carter' reminds me of my mother-in-law, and I never cared much for her, God rest her contrary soul.”

Her husband chuckled and patted his wife's shoulder indulgently, seeming to take no offense to the slight to his late mother. After so many years, Lucy figured he must have gotten used to it.

“I'm Bobby Ray Jones,” the big truck driver volunteered. “I was headed the opposite direction from the rest of you-s'posed to be in Little Rock by tonight. I'd hoped I could beat the storm, but I guess I miscalculated. My boss is going to be ticked off that I put the rig in a ditch, but that's just too bad, I guess.”

Lucy noted that Joan Gatewood was eying the big, bearded man with the same wariness she displayed toward Banner's huge dog. Apparently Joan was intimidated by large, hairy critters. As for herself, Lucy thought Bobby Ray seemed very pleasant. Everyone here seemed nice-with the possible exception of their glowering host.

“Okay,” she said, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Now that we know who everyone is…”

“What's the dog's name?” Tyler asked, pointing to the mutt.

Lucy looked questioningly at Banner.

“That's Hulk,” he said, speaking to the boy. “He answers to Hulk or Get-Out-From-Under-My-Feet-Stupid.”

The unexpected quip took everyone by such surprise that there was a brief hesitation before they laughed. Though Lucy smiled, she wasn't entirely sure Banner had been joking.

Returning to the task at hand, she said, “Now, we all need to get into dry clothes and-wait a minute.”

She whirled back to their host, her hands on her hips. “Your name is Banner and the dog's name is Hulk? I don't suppose your first name is Bruce?”

“No.” He looked at her without smiling. “You haven't wandered into a comic book.”

No kidding. Despite the joke he had just made, she hadn't seen this guy crack a smile since they had arrived. He obviously had a warped sense of humor, but he did a good job of hiding it.

Shaking her head, she turned back to the others. “We need dry clothes and a telephone so we can call our families and let them know we're safe.”

“Mommy, I'm hungry,” Tricia said, tugging at her mother's damp blouse.

“I'll start a pot of soup or something,” Banner said, and once again he sounded glumly resigned. “The telephone is on that table. Make yourselves at home.”

As he turned away, Lucy thought she heard him add beneath his breath, “It's not as if there's any other choice.”