The Maverick's Christmas To Remember. Christy Jeffries

in Fiji on their honeymoon. Like me, she’s new to Rust Creek Falls, so I’m not really sure who she’d want me to call locally. I think her parents are college professors or something but I don’t know where they live.”

      It seemed so intimate to be talking about the personal details of a woman he’d never met. A woman whose brown hair fell in soft waves against the denim of his jeans. Craig cleared his throat. “What’s her name?”

      “Caroline Ruth,” Josselyn said, then put the truck into gear.

      Caroline.

      Her body was slender and petite, but she had curves in all the right places. A rush of shame filled him as he realized he was blatantly staring at an unconscious lady. An unconscious and vulnerable lady with a body encased in delicate, clingy feminine fabric that would never suit life on a ranch. Not that Caroline looked like the type to spend much time working in the outdoors. He narrowed his gaze toward her high-heeled sandals and the bright pink polish on her toes. She never would’ve fallen off that chair if she’d been wearing sturdy boots and functional jeans. But she was a wedding planner, so what did she know about physical labor?

      Josselyn took a bend in the two-lane highway a bit too sharply and Craig instinctively wrapped his hand around Caroline’s waist to make sure she didn’t accidentally tumble off the seat. The touch sent an electric vibration up his arm, making him feel like even more of a creep, so he yanked his hand away quickly, but didn’t know where to put it. Lifting his elbow to the top of the backrest, Craig studied her face for signs of pain or discomfort. Fortunately, she appeared to be completely relaxed in her unconscious state, almost as though she were blissfully at peace.

      Caroline Ruth was definitely an attractive woman, he’d give her that. Still. He was in no position to be noticing such things, and she was clearly in no position to be receiving his unwanted attention. Craig shifted guiltily in his seat and Caroline’s eyes suddenly shot open.

      “Hey there,” Craig offered weakly. What else was he supposed to say to a complete stranger with her head in his lap? Caroline smiled dreamily at him before her lids fluttered closed and she was out cold again.

       Chapter Two

      Caroline heard steady beeping before feeling something squeeze around her upper arm. It took considerable effort to raise her eyelids, and when she finally got them to stay open, there were a few seconds of blurriness.

      Where was she?

      What had happened?

      “She’s awake,” a woman said, and Caroline blinked several times until the light fixture in the middle of the white ceiling came into focus. She wiggled her toes as her hands flexed against something that felt like a starched sheet. Was she in a bed? She was definitely lying down.

      “Caroline?” someone else asked and she turned toward the voice, her eyes narrowing on the person standing beside her. A woman with steel-gray curls and smooth skin the color of dark copper placed a calming hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

      “Where am I?” Caroline asked.

      “You’re in the emergency room at Kalispell Regional. I’m Dr. Robinson. Do you remember what happened?”

      Caroline shook her head and then flinched at the stabbing pain that shot through her forehead.

      “Careful, now,” the doctor continued. “From what I understand, you hit your head pretty hard. Your friends brought you in and we did an MRI while you were still unconscious. We think you have a concussion, but we’d like to get a CT scan of your brain to rule out anything more serious.”

      “My friends?” Caroline asked, then turned toward the other woman in the room. She sighed when she saw Josselyn Weaver on the other side of her bed.

      “Hey, Caroline.” Josselyn squeezed Caroline’s hand, accidentally dislodging some little white wires and causing a shrill beep.

      “Don’t worry. It’s just the oxygen reader,” the doctor offered, putting the plastic device back over Caroline’s pointer finger. “You up for answering some questions?”

      “Sure,” Caroline said as she tried to sit up. She was relieved that the rest of her body cooperated and that her head was the only thing hurting.

      “Do you know your name?” Dr. Robinson asked.

      “Caroline Ruth.”

      “And what day is it?”

      She blinked a couple of times until it came back to her. “November 21.”

      “Good.” The doctor’s bright white smile was reassuring. “And what did you have for breakfast today?”

      Caroline’s stomach rumbled at the reminder. “Only a couple of bites of a protein bar. I should’ve gotten a breakfast sandwich at Daisy’s this morning but I didn’t want to be late for my appointment.”

      “Oh? What kind of appointment?”

      “I’m a wedding planner.”

      The physician looked over to Josselyn, who nodded in agreement. The questions must be part of some kind of test and Caroline hoped she was passing.

      Dr. Robinson lifted a finger in front of Caroline’s nose. “Do you know where you live?”

      Caroline’s eyes followed the finger as she rattled off the address for the tiny guest house she’d rented in the heart of Rust Creek Falls several months ago. The sooner she answered everything and proved she was perfectly fine, the sooner she could get something to eat.

      “What’s the last thing you remember before coming to the hospital?”

      “I was talking to Josselyn about her wedding and I climbed up on a chair to get the binder with a brochure for a venue when...” Caroline trailed off as she couldn’t recall what had occurred after that. Lifting her fingers to stroke her forehead, she asked, “Is that how I fell?”

      “Yes,” Josselyn said, sighing as though she’d been holding her breath up until this point. “You went face-first into one of the shelves on your way down and were out cold. We didn’t want to wait for an ambulance, so we brought you straight to the ER.”

      “We?” Caroline asked and looked around the room. There was another man near the partitioned curtain of the exam room, but he’d been talking to a nurse outside and she’d assumed he was another doctor.

      “That’s—” Josselyn started, but Dr. Robinson cut her off.

      “Do you know the name of this man?”

      “No idea,” Caroline replied, hoping her honesty wouldn’t mean that she couldn’t get a snack soon. When she’d been ten years old, her dad had to be rushed to the hospital near the faculty housing at Berkeley. He’d insisted that it was only heartburn and asked Caroline to go to the cafeteria and get him some vanilla soft serve to soothe the acid. Turned out it was a perforated gallbladder and because he’d eaten the ice cream, the anesthesiologist delayed the surgery until his stomach was empty. It had been a long ten hours of her dad doing his awful Oliver Twist impression by begging for more food and insisting he was starving.

      “Technically, she hadn’t met me prior to her fall.” The man the doctor had just asked about stepped forward and placed an arm around Josselyn’s waist. “I’m Drew Strickland, by the way. You’re planning our wedding. We had just walked in the door and you’d turned to look at us. That’s when you got your foot twisted in the chair and fell.”

      “We?” Caroline asked again, feeling like a parrot. Her eyelids were getting heavy again and all she wanted was a hot breakfast sandwich and a nap. “Who’s we?”

      “Me and—” Drew was cut off by Dr. Robinson holding up a hand like a stop sign.

      “Do you remember them walking in the door before you fell?”