Page 64 of The Mistletoe Kisser

She laughed. It was as good as a gold star from the man. “We should head back. You’ve got an emergency to tackle, and I’ve got wreaths to make.”

He looked earnestly into her eyes. “If I were smarter, I’d have taken you up on your offer.”

“Youaresmarter. You’d have to be different, and I don’t want that. I kind of like you the way you are.”

“Surly and unfiltered?”

“Brooding and realistic,” she decided. “I hope you find your partner, Ryan.”

“I hope you find the love of your life, Sam.”

She stifled a sigh. “Let’s get back before you freeze your West Coast ass to the saddle. Think you’re up for a trot?”

“Most definitely not.”

Ten minutes later at a slow and awkward trot, the stone barn on the hill came into view. “That’s John Pierce Brews,” she said, slowing her mount.

“Part of the legacy?” Ryan asked.

“When Jax came home from LA, it was with two aims: to win back Joey and to start the brewery. He knocked them both out of the park… eventually.”

“She looks like she’d put up a good fight.”

“You’re not wrong. Rumor has it the first time Jax saw her when he came home, he kissed the crap out of her and she slapped him so hard, people in town heard it,” Sammy said.

Ryan snorted in amusement.

A shrill whistle cut through the air, and she spotted her former crush and current client Carter Pierce bundled up against the cold next to his pickup truck. Summer’s blonde head popped up on the other side of the hood. They both waved and Sammy returned the greeting.

“That’s Carter Pierce and his wife, Summer. And their twins,” she added with affection when two toddlers practically tumbled out of the back seat.

“Older brother to goat guy and the mayor, right?”

She glanced at him, surprised. “You sure get around a lot for a guy who can’t wait to get out of here.”

Blue Moon CommunityFacebook Gossip Group

Frieda Blevins: Spotted! Veterinarian Sammy Ames canoodling with sexy stranger at Villa Harvest! Is love in the air for our single Sammy?

Bill FitzSimmons: Has anyone seen my Velcro pants? I can’t remember the last place I ripped them off.

18

Sunday, December 22

Ryan rolled out the kinks in his shoulders and slid the chair back from the kitchen table to survey the progress. It was late morning. His eyes were bleary. His ass was sore from sitting on a goddamn horse the day before.

In between fantasies of what would have happened had he taken Dr. Sammy Ames up on her offer, he’d eaten half of a vegetable korma casserole he’d found in Carson’s freezer for breakfast and methodically picked his way through nearly every single shoebox, ruthlessly organizing, scanning, and tallying as he went.

His weapons of choice were a laptop with spreadsheets, highlighters—yellow for important, red for essential—a three-hole punch, and a now-empty pot of coffee.

Great-Uncle Carson had saved every grocery store receipt from 1983. He’d also used his tractor loan statements to write out shopping lists.

Organizing as he went, Ryan banded the receipts together and put them back in the shoebox now labeled Potentially Sentimental Paperwork. Property tax paperwork went into one binder. Farm equipment statements and manuals went into another. There were seven years of recent tax filings rolled up and secured with blue rubber bands. He’d found nothing of interest in the taxes. No mention of mortgage interest. No late fees or back taxes due.

He’d moved on to the paper statements from Blue Moon Bank. Opening each one, scanning it with an app on his phone and uploading them to the cloud before stashing the originals in yet another binder. He raised his eyebrows at the current account balances. He’d assumed that his elderly great-uncle living in a shabby farmhouse eating casseroles supplied by his neighbors was living Social Security check to Social Security check.

However, the six figures in CDs and $50,000 in savings told a different story.