Stockings and Suspenders (8 page)

The bright smile I adored so much
returned, lighting our small corner of the world. “I’m here now, for good, my
love. Now come over here and kiss me.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. In a
couple of strides, I had her in my arms. “Do you get to keep your magic
though?”

“Yes.”

I held her close, knowing the case had
closed. I had chased and caught Miss Kringle, and as we kissed, my heart
melted. I was no longer a skeptic. I was a man besotted by an elf.

The End

www.crmoss.net

Other Books
by C.R. Moss:

Wild
West Weekend

SNOW
ANGEL

Jezebel
Jorge

Copyright © 2011

Chapter One

“I'm almost to the North Carolina
line,” Minerva said, all the while white knuckling the steering wheel of her
Mini Cooper. “There's no one else on the road so at least I don't have to worry
about any dumbass drivers not knowing how to drive in bad weather.”

“That's because most people are
already at home with their families,” her sister Meagan said, “and when you do
get here you've got to remember not to use language like that in front of the
kids.”

 “Since when did dumbass become a
dirty word?” Minerva kicked the wipers into high gear as snow flakes pelted her
windshield.

“Well, you are the expert on smut.”
Her sister's voice got all snooty. “Please don't mention your writing in front
of Jackson's family."

 “One of my smutty books happens to be
on the current New York Times bestseller list,” Minerva said, stifling a laugh
as she thought about her brother-in-law's uptight family and how they would
react when they opened their signed copies of her latest erotic romance. She
might not have a man to bring home for the holidays, but she now had a six
figure three book contract and a nice ebook backlist bringing in steady royalty
checks. Not a bad trade off if she did say so herself.

Her sister kept right on yacking until
Minerva finally said, “It's really coming down out there. I'd better focus on
my driving.”

She clicked disconnect on her iPhone
before Meagan could get in a final warning to drive safely or behave in front
of company. Sometimes it was really hard to believe the two of them were
related. They might had shared a womb and been split from the same egg, but the
two of them were about as different as identical twins could possible get.

No lie, the snow really was starting
to pile up and even on the sunniest of days her stomach always knotted up while
driving through the Pigeon River Gorge. The curvy twenty some mile stretch of
I-40 had been blasted through a mountain and was notorious for rock slides.
There were no exits, nothing but flimsy looking barrier walls on one side of
the road and a river on the other.

Minerva squinted to see through the
snow flakes cursing herself for stopping in Knoxville the day before. Like
she'd needed to throw herself that little pity party. She shouldn't have gotten
that hotel room. It would have been just as easy to have gone on to Asheville and drink that six pack of Smirnoff Ice from the comfort of her sister's guest
room.

The car skidded on what must have been
a patch of black ice and the bag of books she'd gotten the day before crashed
to the floorboard. Her heart raced almost as bad has it had when she'd seen a
whole stack of her books sitting in a used bookstore the day before.

“Well, that pretty much sums up my
whole career careening out of control,” she said after taking a breath and
tightening her grip on the steering wheel.

Marvey, her olde English Bulldog
snorted from the backseat.

“I'm sorry, Mar Mar,” she said. “I
guess my driving is getting as bad as my writing. Or lack thereof.”

She'd never been at a loss for words
when she'd had to sneak in writing time between pouring drinks and ringing up
vibrators. Minerva had never wasted time staring at a blank screen when she'd
been rushing back and forth between working those two other jobs. Maybe it was
time to call Hustler Hollywood and see about putting in some part time hours.
It wasn't like she'd been setting the world afire busting out another best
seller. Sometimes she seriously wondered if she even had another story left in
her.

She took a sip of Diet Coke to try to
clear her head. The way the snow was coming down she should be watching the
road instead of letting her mind wander.

About fifty miles down I-40 to Newport and the sky had darkened; the ground already white. She took a quick sip of Diet
Coke and decided to keep driving. Another sixty or so miles to go and they
would be.

Minerva thought back to standing in
that used book store yesterday staring down a whole shelf of her books. She'd
bought a gently worn copy of Bleeding Hearts and paid with cash to keep the
clerk from seeing her matching name on her MasterCard. Then she'd checked into
a local Knoxville motel and read the entire book from cover to cover in an
alcohol induced haze that made it hard to believe she'd been the one to even
write the best selling book.

Just as her mind started meandering to
an even darker place the car skidded on what must have been another patch of
black ice. In a panic she slammed on the breaks. Wrong decision. The car spun
out of control and went careening into an embankment.

After she stopped shaking Minerva
gunning the gas petal. The Mini Cooper spun in the snow, refusing to move in
either direction. She hadn't had this damn car three weeks yet and had probably
already scratched the lightning blue paint job.

“Why didn't I pay the extra two grand
for the performance package with that dynamic traction control?”

Marvey didn't have an answer.

“Damn.” No signal on the cell. “What
the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

Marvey only sighed in commiseration
and refused to budge when Minerva eased open the car door and stepped into the
snow. Of course her heavy duty dog walking boots would have been in the trunk.
The new suede boots were going to be ruined just from walking around the car to
inspect the damage. It didn't look all that bad except for the tail end of her
tiny car being stuck in a drift of snow.

Standing outside the car and shivering
in the cold, she tried her cell again. No luck on getting any kind of signal.
She got back in the car, deciding to wait it out. After close to thirty minutes
of just sitting there without a single car driving by Minerva mulled over their
options. “Should we try to walk back to the last exit?”

Marvey gave her a 'fuck no' look that
she agreed with. She'd gassed up in Newport so the tank was still sitting close
to full. As long as the butt warmer didn't conk out they would be fine. Surely
a highway patrolman or a snowplow would be driving by soon.

Minerva pulled her iPad out of the
backpack. No wifi signal either. Not that she'd really expected one in the
middle of nowhere. That left her with nothing to do but open the iBooks app and
find someone else's words to read.

Stephen King probably wasn't the best
stuck-on-the-side-of-the-road-choice, but his demons seemed a lot less scary
than the ones eating away at her self-confidence. She'd gotten so lost in
Full
Dark, No Stars
that she about jumped right out of her skin when someone
tapped on her window.

 Hoping for a Good Samaritan instead
of a serial killer, she rolled down the window without even thinking to grab
the Mace canister in her glove box. Her heart skipped a beat when she looked up
and saw the gorgeous hunk of a man on the other side of the door. 

“You all right?” He asked with a
beautiful eastern Tennessee twang.

“My car's stuck,” she said stating the
obvious.

“What the hell were you thinking out
driving in a Matchbox car with it snowing like this?”

Minerva would have been offended if
his smile hadn't been so dazzling and those eyes. A girl could drown in their
depths of lightening blue, almost the exact color of her Mini.

“I was supposed to go to my sister's
in Asheville. Do you think you might be able to get my car back on the road?”

He looked strong enough to just pick
up the Mini and sit it right back on I-40.

“There ain't no way you'll make it
through the Gorge.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?”

“I've got a crockpot full of homemade
chili back at my cabin and a case of beer in my truck.” He flashed a wicked
smile than sent a jolt of electric energy straight to her pussy. “I'd be glad
to let you stay at my place until the weather breaks.”

Talk about Santa making an early
delivery. A guy who looked like he'd stepped right off the cover of a romance
novel offering her shelter from the storm. If he did turn out to be a serial
killing rapist at least she might die with a satisfied smile on his face.

Of course it was unlikely that he was
actually a serial killer rapist, she knew that if he'd been any kind of a
threat Marvey would have already gone into guard dog mode backing the handsome
stranger away from her car. Dogs were better judges of character than humans.
People who weren't familiar with Olde English Bulldogs often mistook them for
their Pitt Bull cousins so if he wasn't an animal person he'd have backed off
or showed some kind of nervousness around Marvey.

“It's getting cold out here.” He
zipped up his leather jacket. “Whatta say? Can I give the two of you a ride?”

“I'd appreciate that,” Minerva said.
“Maybe I can get hold of AAA if you have a landline at your house. I can't get
a signal on my cell.”

He laughed. “My brother-in-law's the
AAA tow for this area and I can assure you, he's not gonna leave my sister and
their baby girl to come out and pull your toy car out of a snowdrift tonight.”

A jolt of erotic heat went through her
body as he opened the door and offered her his hand. “Name's Brian, Brian
Carson and you are?”

“Minerva Madison,” she said, impressed
with the feel of his calloused hand. This was a man who worked with his body
instead of sitting behind some desk.

“That writer?”

That caught her off guard to where she
nodded and gave him a surprised hint of a smile.

“I got your book for my sister. I'm
not much of a shopper so every year she makes me a list of what I should get
everyone and she had your book,
Bloody Hearts
, down as what she wanted.

Her heart did a little pitter patter
over him even remembering her name, much less the title.

“Now I'm gonna have to unwrap it and
get you to sign it. Will you sign it for her?”

“It's the least I can do.” This time
her smile felt genuine, going all the way to her eyes. “What with you being so
nice and helping us out like this.”

Minerva slid her iPad back into her
backpack and reached for her purse. “Our bags are in the trunk.”

“Cute dog.” He bent to scratch
Marvey's head when she jumped over to the passenger seat. “What's her name?”

“Marvey, and she's a bit of a bad
weather diva.”

He picked all seventy plus pounds of
her up into his arms like she was one of those fru-fru lap dogs. She snuggled against
his chest, already deciding that a man who kept her from having to get her paws
wet was a-okay in her book. So much for being a vicious over-protective
watchdog.

“I've got a Rott and he's the same
way. I have to clear him off a snow free patch of ground to keep Bubba from
shitting right on the porch.”

“Here, give me that.” He took her
suitcase, placing it in the cargo bay behind the passenger seat. “Is there
anything else you need from your car before I go put out a flare and lock it up
for you?”

“Just the dog food and canvas tote
with Marvey's blanket and toys.”

“Bubba's gonna be excited to have him
a lady friend come a calling," he said, giving Marvey an affectionate pat
before heading back to her car.

“Lucky dog,” Minerva whispered once
he'd closed the door of the truck. Brian was hotter than hell, but a little on
the young side, probably twenty-five at the most. Not that is would stop her
from enjoying the eye candy. There certainly wasn't anything wrong with
looking.

While he lit up that emergency flare
she checked her face in the mirror on the visor of his truck and applied a
fresh coat of lipstick. At least she'd done her makeup before leaving the hotel
and changed into a clingy red cashmere sweater to show off her new curves.

“You might need these.” Along with her
car keys, he handed over her camo Northlake boots she'd forgotten in the trunk
of her car and her less than flattering brown dog walking parka.

He started up the truck filling the
cab with a warm blast of heat to go with the sexual tension already coursing
through Minerva's veins.

“So what brings you out on a night
like this?” she asked.