Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick!. Brenda Harlen

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       Chapter Two

      Trey Strickland had been happily living near and working at the Thunder Canyon Resort for several years now, but he never passed up an opportunity to visit his grandparents in Rust Creek Falls. His family had lived in the small town for nearly a decade while he was growing up, and he still had good friends there and always enjoyed catching up with them again.

      Now it was December and he hadn’t been back since the summer. And whenever he thought of that visit, he thought of Kayla Dalton. Truth be told, he thought of Kayla at other times, too—and that was one of the reasons he’d forced himself to stay away for so long.

      He’d slept with his best friend’s little sister.

      And he didn’t regret it.

      Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure he could say the same about Kayla based on her demeanor toward him the next day. She’d pretended nothing had happened between them, so he’d followed her lead.

      He suspected that they’d both acted out of character as a result of being under the influence of the wedding punch. According to his grandmother, the police now believed the fruity concoction had been spiked and were trying to determine who had done so and why.

      Trey’s initial reaction to the news had been shock, followed quickly by relief that there was a credible explanation for his own reckless behavior that night. But whatever had been in the punch, the remnants of it had long since been purged from his system, yet thoughts and memories of Kayla continued to tease his mind.

      As he navigated the familiar route from Thunder Canyon to Rust Creek Falls, his mind wandered. He was looking forward to spending the holidays with his grandparents, but he was mostly focused on the anticipation of seeing Kayla again, and the closer he got to his destination, the more prominent she figured in his thoughts.

      He’d had a great time with her at the wedding. Prior to that night, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few dozen words over the past several years, so he’d been surprised to discover that she was smart and witty and fun. She was the kind of woman he enjoyed spending time with, and he hoped he would get to spend more time with her when he was in town.

      But first he owed her an apology, which he would have delivered the very next morning except that his brain had still been enveloped in some kind of fog that had prevented him from remembering exactly what had happened after the wedding.

      He didn’t usually drink to excess. Sure, he enjoyed hanging out with his buddies and having a few beers, but he’d long outgrown the desire to get drunk and suffer the consequences the next morning. But whatever had been in that wedding punch, it hadn’t given any hint of its incredible potency...

       It was morning.

       The bright sunlight slipping past the edges of the curtains told him that much. The only other fact that registered in his brain was that he was dying. Or at least he felt as if he was. The pain in his head was so absolutely excruciating, he was certain it was going to fall right off his body—and there was a part of him that wished it would.

       In a desperate attempt to numb the torturous agony, he downed a handful of aspirin with a half gallon of water then managed to sit upright without wincing.

       The quiet knock on his door echoed like a thunderclap in his head before his grandmother entered. She clucked her tongue in disapproval when she came into his room and threw the curtains wide, the sunlight stabbing through his eyeballs like hot knives.

       “Get up and out of bed,” she told him. “It’s laundry day and I need your sheets.”

       He pulled the covers up over his head. “My sheets are busy right now.”

       “You should be, too. Your grandfather could use a hand cleaning out the shed.”

       He tried to nod, but even that was painful. “Give me half an hour.”

       He showered and dressed then turned his attention to the bed because, as his grandmother was fond of reminding him, it wasn’t a hotel and she wasn’t his maid. So he untucked one corner and pulled them off the bed. There was a quiet clunk as something fell free of the sheet and onto the floor.

       An earring?

       He slowly bent СКАЧАТЬ