The Pastor's Christmas Courtship. Glynna Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ helping my folks get my grandparents’ cabin ready to sell.” At least that was the excuse she intended to use for camping out here until after the holidays. Nobody needed to know the mixed-up mess of the rest of it.

      “So, you’ve been living—where? Married, with a houseful of kids, I suppose.”

      Her smile threatened to falter, but she held it steady. “None of the above. I’m living in Philadelphia, actually, where I’m a project manager for an athletic apparel company. SmithSmith. And yourself? Still river-running?”

      It was a wild guess. Becoming a river guide was all he’d talked about after his first Colorado River rafting trip when he was sixteen, and her grandma had said he’d taken off for training right after high school graduation. So why should she be surprised to find him here in December? Most rafting companies operated with a full crew only in the summer. He probably worked at the family business in the off-season.

      “It was the adventure of a lifetime while it lasted.” A fleeting shadow flickered through his eyes, then he shrugged. “But I gave it up a while back.”

      At two years her senior, he would have recently turned thirty, an age that at one time appalled them both as prehistoric. Had a domestically inclined wife lured him away from his youthful obsession? “In other words, old man that you are now, you’ve turned river-running over to the younger generation?”

      “Ouch!” His yelp was accompanied by an exaggerated flinch. Then he laughed that familiar laugh, and her heart inexplicably leaped. Why had she so easily fallen into teasing him just as she’d once done as his tomboy sidekick? They’d long ago left those days behind.

      He openly studied her, and despite the chill air, her face warmed. Did he remember that night, too? She motioned briskly to the groceries strewn in the snow. “You’re responsible for this. If you hadn’t been stalking me, I—”

      “Stalking you? I was trying to help you. ’Tis the season. You know, ho ho ho?” Before she could stop him, he snagged the toboggan in one hand and one of her grandma’s now partially filled grocery tote bags in another and slung them into the back of his pickup with what looked to be a dwindling load of firewood.

      “What are you doing?”

      “What’s it look like? Getting you and your stuff out of the cold.” He squatted to gather the scattered contents back into the other bags. Lifting a cereal box, he waggled it at her. “Still into Cheerios, I see.”

      With a laugh, she snatched it out of his hand, recalling the afternoon that as an elementary schooler she’d been dared to sneak a family-size cereal box from Grandma’s pantry and devour the whole thing herself. Garrett couldn’t stop snickering when Grandma insisted she still clean her plate at suppertime.

      “You don’t need to do this, Garrett. I’m almost there.”

      “So indulge me.” He held out his hand for the cereal box.

      What would be the point in arguing? Used to getting his own way, the high-spirited Garrett had long marched to the beat of his own drummer. She’d once foolishly hoped they were marching to the same beat...but learned a hard, humiliating lesson. Except for that out-of-the-blue instance that he made no secret of immediately regretting, he’d never considered her as more than a pal. A buddy.

      As soon as he’d stowed the last of her bags, he helped her off with her backpack and opened the passenger-side door. But before she could hoist herself up, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction pinned them in its lights, then pulled parallel to Garrett’s truck.

      A ball-capped male poked his head out an open pickup window. “I should have figured I’d find you out here rescuing a pretty damsel in distress. Way to go, Preacher.”

      Jodi turned toward Garrett, catching his deer-in-the-headlights look of alarm.

      Preacher?

      * * *

      Uncomfortably conscious of Jodi’s questioning gaze, Garrett raised his voice over the rumble of the two vehicles. “Do me a favor, cuz, and keep this to yourself.”

      “You can count on it.” The other man chuckled, then offered a parting wave as he guided his vehicle on down the snowy road.

      Garrett didn’t meet Jodi’s eyes as he held out his hand to assist her into the truck, taking note of the curtain of straight red-blond hair now lightly dusted with snow. It would be too much to hope that she hadn’t caught Grady’s preacher remark. Nothing much ever got past Jodi, but she’d probably think it was a joke. Some days he wasn’t sure if that might be the case. God’s little joke, anyway.

      As she settled herself in to secure her seat belt, he wedged the backpack at her feet. Then he shut the door and jogged around the front of the vehicle to climb aboard.

      “Which cousin was that?”

      She’d remembered he had a bunch. “Grady Hunter, the twins’ next-to-oldest brother. Luke, Claire and Bekka are all married, and Grady’s getting hitched in February. Rio’s still single.”

      She nodded thoughtfully, as if placing long-forgotten faces to the names, maybe recalling that his mother was a sister to the dad of those cousins. He started the truck slowly down the road, its windshield wipers working overtime against the descending snow.

      Thankfully, Garrett could trust his cousin to keep his mouth shut. He sure didn’t need questions raised about his personal conduct because he’d stopped to assist an old friend. This past year he’d toed a fine line as interim pastor of Christ’s Church of Hunter Ridge—as a single interim pastor, to be exact.

      That was a slippery slope in a place used to family men. He couldn’t afford to leave doors open for criticism of his actions if he hoped to qualify for a spot on a highly-thought-of missions team. He was so close and needed a positive recommendation from church leadership to seal the deal.

      But this was Jodi.

      He couldn’t leave her stranded on a night like this because someone might not think it acceptable for him to escort her home alone. After all, they’d grown up like brother and sister, right?

      Nevertheless, his ears warmed as he shoved away a memory he hoped she had no recollection of—although, from the look on her face when she’d recognized him, the odds of that were slim to none. He was pretty sure her grandma, rest her soul, hadn’t forgotten. He’d certainly received a well-deserved earful when she’d walked in on them that Christmas Eve. Thankfully, things hadn’t gotten beyond hot and heavy kissing. But he probably still owed Jodi a long-overdue apology.

      He adjusted the windshield wiper speed. “What are you doing out here in the dark pulling that sled? Where’s your car?”

      “I use public transportation—and I didn’t want to mess with renting a car.” Her words came almost reluctantly, as if uncertain how much to share with him. “The forecast showed flurries the next few weeks, so I thought I could get around on one of the bikes at the cabin. I caught a shuttle from the Phoenix airport this afternoon.”

      Assuming they still lived in the Valley of the Sun, why hadn’t she spent the night with her folks or one of her sisters?

      “When I got here,” she continued, “I made a mistake of stretching out for an intended quick nap. Only I woke up not long before СКАЧАТЬ