Love at First Snow: A Christmas Miracle Read Free Page A

one.”
    “Harlan Matthews, the former mayor of Friday
Harbor, built that place years ago.”
    He nodded. His dad bought the place from
Harlan Matthews just before Blake was born, and it had been the
family vacation spot ever since. Anymore, he only visited once a
year—around Christmas, usually for a night—yet he couldn’t bring
himself to sell it.
    “Nice house. I didn’t realize anyone
actually lived there.”
    “It’s a vacation house. Doctor, what do I
owe you?” he asked.
    “It’s Sarah, and nothing.” She smiled a sad
half-smile. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
    “Well…I’d love to offer you something for
keeping you so late,” he said.
    She carefully wrapped the kitten in a towel
and placed him in a cardboard cat carrier then filled a bag with
cat food. “Merry Christmas.”
    When she smiled at Blake, a genuine
heart-thumping, pulse-pounding, set-a-man-on-his-ass smile, he
said, “I make killer hot-buttered rums, old family recipe. I just
happen to have some batter.” Yeah, sorry soul that he was, he’d
made some just that afternoon. Getting blitzed on hot-buttered rums
on Christmas Eve had once been a family tradition.
    “Are you inviting me for a drink?”
    He never got embarrassed in front of the
ladies. It just didn’t happen to him. But heat raced from his neck
to his face. “I guess I am.”
    Regret flashed in her eyes. “I’d better go
home. Cyrus here is tired.” She pointed at the big lug of a dog
snoring in the dog bed. As if sensing they were talking about him,
the beast thumped his tail.
    “Okay, well, if you change your mind, you
know where I live.” Blake hoisted the cat carrier in one hand and
grabbed the bag of food with the other.
    The doc held the door open for him. “Thanks
for the offer,” she called as he trudged to his SUV.
    Blake got in and started the engine. Then he
got out and wiped the snow off the windows. The accumulation was
astounding. He hesitated, torn between leaving a woman alone to
navigate the snowy roads and minding his own business.
    With a sigh, he got back in and drove out of
the parking lot. He could barely take care of his own troubles, let
alone someone else’s.

 
    Chapter 3—Ho, Ho, Ho, and Hot Buttered Rums
    Sarah puttered around the clinic for another
hour or so then left. She gripped the steering wheel with white
knuckled hands as she drove down the county road. If it weren’t for
the trees lining the sides, she’d never be able to tell where it
was. Clearings proved especially tricky, and she crept along, her
truck in four-wheel drive. Cyrus rode shotgun, now fully awake.
Obviously, he didn’t like the road conditions either.
    After a few miles, the snow came down
harder, making it difficult to see anything, even the trees. The
blinding snow cleared for one miraculous moment, and she recognized
the driveway on her left: Blake’s house. Sarah slowed the truck to
a crawl, pulled toward Blake and the kitten by some unknown force.
Something about Blake drew her in, something that compelled her to
stop, to check on him, even though it’d been less than an hour
since she’d last seen him. A sucker for wounded animals, she
guessed one damaged male fit in that category, too. Maybe she’d
take him up on that hot-buttered rum, which sounded darn good right
now.
    No. She should drive on by, forget about him
and the kitten. She’d given him her emergency number; he’d call her
if the animal took a turn for the worse. Yet, Sarah had caught that
flicker of hope on his face when he’d invited her for a drink. The
man shouldn’t be alone on Christmas Eve. She knew that as sure as
she knew her own pain.
    Of its own volition, her Jeep turned down
the steep driveway. Keeping her truck’s wheels in Blake’s SUV
tracks, she wound her way down the steep road, sliding sideways at
times, lower and lower, until the water from Madrona Channel
gleamed in the moonlight a hundred yards below. As a lifelong
resident of the islands, she knew this house. One