Cara Colter - Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

Hanna nodded. “A king’s ransom. Mistletoe is even more dear.”

Oh, gee, did she have to bring up mistletoe? Around him, of all people?

“Oh, I know mistletoe is pricey,” he said. “I bought some once.”

“You have never bought a tree but you bought mistletoe?” Crazy to be curious, but she was. “Why?”

He looked off into the distance. “I think I had this cheesy idea that if I carried it around in my pocket I could haul it out and hold it over my head and collect lots of free Christmas kisses.”

She felt a shiver along her spine at the thought of meeting Sam Chisholm under the mistletoe.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CARA COLTERlives in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is the recent recipient of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the ‘Love and Laughter’ category. Cara loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her or learn more about her through her website: www.cara-colter.com.

To all my incredible new friends in New Zealand: the Browns, the Burtons, the Emmersons, the Pilkingtons and the Kalinowskis. Thank you. Your genuine kindness and generosity humbles and amazes.

Contents

Cover

Introduction “So …” He took her cue and changed the subject, all business. “A real tree fetches a pretty good price in the city?” Hanna nodded. “A king’s ransom. Mistletoe is even more dear.” Oh, gee, did she have to bring up mistletoe? Around him, of all people? “Oh, I know mistletoe is pricey,” he said. “I bought some once.” “You have never bought a tree but you bought mistletoe?” Crazy to be curious, but she was. “Why?” He looked off into the distance. “I think I had this cheesy idea that if I carried it around in my pocket I could haul it out and hold it over my head and collect lots of free Christmas kisses.” She felt a shiver along her spine at the thought of meeting Sam Chisholm under the mistletoe.

Title Page Meet Me Under the Mistletoe Cara Colter www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author CARA COLTER lives in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is the recent recipient of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the ‘Love and Laughter’ category. Cara loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her or learn more about her through her website: www.cara-colter.com .

Dedication To all my incredible new friends in New Zealand: the Browns, the Burtons, the Emmersons, the Pilkingtons and the Kalinowskis. Thank you. Your genuine kindness and generosity humbles and amazes.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“I QUIT!”

Hanna Merrifield held the phone away from her ear, and then tucked it in close again so her coworkers at the upscale accounting firm of Banks and Banks would not be disturbed by the loud, belligerent voice of her caller.

“Now, now, Mr. Dewey,” she said, her tone conciliatory, “you can’t just quit.”

“Can’t?” Mr. Dewey shouted, outraged. “Can’t?”

“It’s just that,” Hanna said soothingly, resisting the temptation to hold the phone away again, “you would be leaving me in quite a pinch.” Her eyes slid to her desktop calendar. “It’s November thirtieth. Christmas is only weeks away.”

“Hang Christmas.”

That sentiment expressed how she had felt herself a million times or so. Hanna closed her eyes against the work, piled in neat stacks on her desk, each screaming its urgent deadline. Not now, she wanted to shout at Mr. Dewey, the manager of Christmas Valley Farm.

The farm had been in her family since the late 1800s. But Hanna had become the sole, and reluctant, owner of it upon the death of her mother six months ago.

Christmas Valley Farm. The place that she never wanted to go back to.

And it really, until this phone call, had looked like she might never have to.

“Isn’t someone coming to look at it tomorrow?” she reminded Mr. Dewey. “A potential buyer?” She didn’t add finally. “If you could just hang on until the showing, give me a chance to find someone else to manage it, I would be most appreciative—”

“Have a listen to this.” A terrible noise came over the phone line: the screeching of tires and blaring of horns.

“What on earth?”

“It’s that damn pony. Evil, she is. She’s out on the road again. I’m done. I’m done with the midget horse, I’m done with people knocking on my cottage door day and night demanding trees and wreaths and sleigh rides. I’m done with all the ho-ho-ho and merriment. I hate it all, and the dwarf horse, Molly, the most.”

Really, he was summing up the way Hanna herself had often felt growing up on the Christmas tree farm. But that feeling of being exhausted and fed up and one hundred percent done with all things Christmas didn’t come at the beginning.

Her resentments—about all the work, and all the demands, and the elf costume, and her father’s new and inventive gimmicks to sell trees and wreaths—piled up by the end of the frantic weeks leading to Christmas.

“Mr. Dewey,” Hanna said tentatively, “Have you been drinking?”

“I have, but not nearly as much as I plan to be.”

And with that, the phone went dead in Hanna’s hands. She called back instantly—surely he didn’t intend to leave Molly in the middle of the highway—but Mr. Dewey did not pick up.

She sat at her desk for a moment, completely paralyzed. A horse loose on the highway. And no manager on the farm’s best—well, only—twenty-four income-earning days?

The farm’s profits had dwindled over the past decade, but still rose in Hanna’s throat when she thought of trying to meet those expenses herself.

The place had to sell. It was more imperative now than ever. She would have to meet the buyer tomorrow herself. Maybe that would be a good thing. She couldn’t imagine Mr. Dewey, in his current frame of mind, doing the best job of presenting the farm for sale.

Then what? Hanna asked herself. She could not take the weeks until Christmas off work. She forced herself to breathe.

One thing at a time.

It was a two-hour drive to the farm in upstate New York. The cantankerous Molly could well be dead by the time Hanna reached there.

Hanna had the uncharitable thought—one she was sure she shared with Mr. Dewey—that Molly’s demise could be nothing but a blessing. Maybe, if the pony was gone, he could even be convinced to come back to work.

It was a mark of her desperation that she would want him back.

But, right now, she had other worries. One thing working in a huge accounting firm had taught her?

Liability, liability, liability.

“I’m so sorry,” Hanna stammered to Mr. Banks, a few minutes later, “I have to leave. Family emergency.” This was, technically, not quite true, as she no longer had a family.