Just One Kiss: A Second Chance Holiday Standalone Read online

  Just One Kiss

  J. Saman

  Copyright © 2020 by Julie Finkle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Shannof Designs

  Editing: My Brother’s Editor

  Proofread: Danielle Leigh Reads

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Also by J. Saman

  End Of Book Note

  The Edge of Temptation

  Reckless Love

  Chapter One

  LONDON

  “Dad, just stop. It can’t be helped,” I groan, leaning back in the seat of my two-door Boxster, heading up I-91 North through Vermont on the way to my parents’ winter home through what appears to be the beginnings of a storm. “The Weather Channel mentioned some snow. Like three-to-six inches max. I’m sure it’s going to be fine.”

  “When was the last time you checked that?”

  I have to think about this for a second. It’s been a long couple of days. “I don’t know. Friday?”

  “It’s Monday, London,” he not so kindly points out, his tone growing shrill and agitated. “Monday. Weather changes in this part of the country on a daily basis. We’re supposed to get eighteen-to-twenty-four inches at a minimum, and it’s expected to come down fast and hard with the added bonus of some ice mixing in. Hence why your mother and I have both been calling you non-stop for the last two days. The last two days that you’ve been ignoring us.”

  I bluster out a frustrated breath. “I was on deadline.”

  “I know. You told us that on Friday. At the exact same time we told you that you can work from anywhere.”

  I roll my eyes like the petulant child he’s making me feel like. “Stop it with that. I can’t write in a house full of people screaming and watching old movies and shouting at me about decorating the tree or which color of tinsel works best.”

  “Or making out like two horny teenagers,” I hear my sister grouse in the background, the ick in her voice unmistakable and loud, since my father always has to have me on speakerphone. Why? Who the fuck knows! That’s just how he rolls.

  “Your mother and I have not been making out like two horny teenagers.”

  “Liar,” she coughs. “They’re worse than me and Maverick.” Maverick is my eldest sister, Charleston’s—or Charlie as we call her—fiancé. That’s obviously not his real name, but since my sister’s favorite movie is Meet The Parents (Not Top Gun, as you would think) everyone calls him Maverick since she’s his Iceman. I don’t question the logic behind it, since technically it was Goose to his Maverick and Goose dies, but it’s really not worth the effort.

  “You wanna talk about horny people going at it all the time, go pop in on Savannah and Royce. They’ve been like bunnies in heat since she got pregnant.” That’s my mother chiming in, and I can’t help but growl into the phone.

  “How do you think they got pregnant in the first place?” Charlie cackles.

  “You know what?” I interject, my nose scrunched up. “Maybe I’ll turn back around. You’re right, the weather is getting bad.”

  Being the only single in a house full of over-love and over-sharing can get to be a bit much.

  Especially this time of year.

  My mother laughs, knowing I’m kidding. As much as I know my family is crazy, I love them to pieces and then a bunch more. And it’s Christmas. The universal time to be with family, crazy or otherwise.

  At least that’s how we do it.

  No matter what’s going on in our lives, we stop and get together as a family. It’s tradition. Evidently I’m a little late to the party.

  “If you had tried to write from here, you’d already be here, safe and sound,” my father cuts in, hating my mother’s over-sharing as much as I do. “But instead you’re driving into an area with blizzard warnings in a car that does not have front-wheel drive, let alone all-wheel drive. You could have stopped at the house and picked up one of the SUVs, London. I swear, sometimes you just love screwing with my sanity and blood pressure.” He sighs and I fall silent. “Where are you?” he asks, his tone softening. “Maybe you should just turn back or find a place to stay that’s safe. As much as I need you here to help me balance out your sisters and your mother, I’m worried about you driving in this.”

  I glance over at my navigation screen and then quickly back to the road. The snow is falling so thickly, I can hardly see the road ahead of me that is so terribly plowed, it’s ridiculous. This is ski country after all, is it not? Isn’t plowing snow what these people live for up here?

  “It looks like I’m close to I-89.” I think. It’s nearly impossible to tell, even on the navigation screen because every few seconds, it cycles like it’s lost. Not all that reassuring.

  My dad starts cursing into the phone. “In this weather, that will take you a minimum of two to three hours. Find a motel, London. I don’t like you driving in this.”

  “Dad, the day after tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The day after that Christmas. I just want to get there and be with all of you for the holiday. Who knows how long this storm could go on for?”

  “That’s why we told you to come up three days ago!”

  “Blood pressure,” I remind him. “And now is not the time for the I-told-you-so speech.”

  “London, for the sake of my blood pressure and your mother’s, please. I’ll send Fletcher down to fetch you with an all-wheel drive truck, but I hate you driving in that Porsche.”

  I look to my left and right out my foggy windows, but there is nothing but evergreens and snow. No towns. No signs. Not even a roadside gas station.

  I puff out a resigned sigh. “Okay, I’ll find something,” I tell him, hoping this weather abates a bit so I can just push on and make it up to the house.

  “Call or text when you’re somewhere safe. We love you.”

  “Love you too, Dad.” I disconnect the call, wiping with my hand against my windshield that is fogging up despite the defroster I have going and the heat I have blasting.

  I left New York at eight this morning and the snow started once I hit the Connecticut/Massachusetts border. It’s now noon, which means I’ve been driving in this mess forever, epically slowed down to practically a crawl since the roads are slick and visibility is shit. There are no other cars on the road, and this is what you’d call a major highway. No holiday traffic or ski warriors who are not deterred by the treacherous white stuff.

  It makes no sense to me unless they were smart enough to leave early and beat the storm. Obviously, I need to check my weather app more often or (shudder) listen to my parents more than I do.

  Instead, I am alone in a car that is not meant for this, going about twenty-five miles per hour and hoping—hell praying—that I don’t miss the exit for I-89 that will lead me up toward Burlington and my parents’ house on Lake Champlain, hovering a solid ten miles from the Canadian bor
der.

  This wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have snaked my way up through New York and then over into Vermont, but no, the highway north of the city showed a massive accident this morning and my GPS rerouted me. My stomach growls loudly, choosing this moment to remind me that I haven’t had anything to eat all day since I woke up late and had to run out the door, slurping down a to-go coffee from the deli on the corner by my apartment.

  “Don’t start,” I snap at my empty belly. “I can’t feed you. We have to make it through this shit first.”

  Turning up the music humming through my speakers, I lean forward, singing aloud to a song I know by heart. It helps to settle my slightly frazzled nerves and I push forward, scanning every snow-covered sign for the one I need. But as the miles stretch and the road grows more and more empty, my heart rate begins to spike with panic.

  Did I miss it? Did I miss the exit?

  Just as those thoughts hit me hard, my GPS starts in with ‘re-calculating route’ in that annoying, nasal voice it has. I glance over to the map, but it’s like my car is driving out into the middle of nowhere and not on a highway. The gray circle in the center of it just keeps spinning and spinning, and this is the moment that I go from a seven on the panic scale to twenty-eight.

  “Balls,” I curse. “You’re supposed to run on a freaking satellite,” I yell at the screen.

  I slow down further, glancing out my window first and then the passenger one. But it’s all the same, and I have no idea where I am. In a moment of desperation, I hit the button on my steering wheel to bring up my phone so I can call my father back, but now that’s not even working. All the names and numbers are gray.

  What the hell is going on?!

  Picking up my phone from my center console, I unlock it with my face only to find that I have no service. As in none. Zero. Not even 3G.

  “Dammit!” I scream at the top of my lungs, slamming my fist into the button to shut off the music that is happily chirping from my speakers. “Shut up!” I yell at it, running a frazzled hand through my hair and trying to rein myself in. Panicking like this will get me nowhere. I need to think. I need to calm the hell down.

  Sucking in a deep, meant to be fortifying breath, I straighten my spine and steel my nerves and resolve.

  I catch a sign that says something about a glass warehouse, a motel, a gas station, and yes. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

  But in my stupid enthusiasm, I press a little too hard on the gas pedal, and as if my car is chastising me the way my father would, the front tires start to slip and sway, skidding on the packed snow and ice that coats the road.

  “No,” I bellow, my voice skipping up a notch to a startled screech as the back tires start to get in on the action, overcompensating for the front. “Stop that. Don’t do this. Please, I swear, I’ll ease into whatever motel I find if you just stop doing that.” My hands grip the steering wheel tighter, twisting it to the right and then the left frantically, trying to realign the suddenly out-of-control vehicle.

  Oh my god, this cannot be happening.

  My foot hits the brake and the wheel shimmies, the tires making a horrific grating noise. I press on the gas once more, but instead of correcting the problem as I anticipated, the car starts to spin, doing a full 360. I slam back on the brakes but to no avail.

  We’re not stopping.

  We’re not even slowing down.

  If anything, the car is moving faster. Terrifyingly so. My heart is racing out of my chest, blood thrumming through my ears at a deafening decibel.

  My hands are flying this way and that, but now the car is gaining speed, heading straight for… “Ahhhh!” I scream, my eyes wide and unblinking, my hands white-knuckling the wheel as I barrel toward a row of trees on the side of the highway without any way to stop.

  My eyes close just at the moment of impact, my body tense and coiled as the front driver’s side hits the tree with a sickening crunch.

  The impact throws me, my head smashing into the window, and then my body lurches, slamming against the steering wheel. No airbags. I have no idea why they didn’t deploy in a seventy-thousand-dollar car, but that’s a serious problem as my head explodes with blinding pain.

  Warm stickiness dribbles down my face as the car shifts and moves a little more before stopping completely, wedged against and under the tree.

  I fall back into my seat, panting for my life and searching around the car. I sit here for a stunned, silent moment, mentally assessing everything. I have no idea if anything else is injured other than my forehead. I move my toes in my Uggs then my fingers.

  “Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I just crashed,” I whisper.

  Outside, I see nothing but white. Trees and an endless fucking sea of white.

  I glance down at my lap and then over to the console, but I can’t find my phone. A splatter of blood drips from my face onto my jeans.

  Blood.

  Oh my god. My stomach immediately rolls as my vision sways. I take a few deep breaths, forcing myself not to think about that. About the red, wet, sticky stuff that’s now everywhere. I touch it with my fingers and that’s just the wrong thing for me to do because it makes the dizziness worse. But holy bejesus, it really is everywhere. I scramble for my purse that fell into the well on the passenger side, searching for something, anything that will help wipe the blood off my face and body.

  I have to get rid of it.

  Dizziness consumes me as I move. A fresh wave of nausea hits me hard, cold sweat coating my skin like bad makeup. I close my eyes, fighting the black prickly dots around the edges of my vision before I reopen them, find my purse, and pull out my pack of tissues.

  I wad up a ball in my hand and press the paper into the cut on my forehead. A whimper passes my lips at the sharp, shooting pain that accompanies that, but I soldier on, determined to find my phone and get the hell out of here.

  My cell is on the other side of the passenger seat, but the second I pick it up, I know it’s useless. I had no service before the crash and looking at the screen now, I see it’s no different.

  Fucking hell. What am I going to do now?

  Chapter Two

  MILES

  “Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him…” Taylor Swift, unfortunately, sings through my speakers as Betsy howls appreciatively, snuggling into my side and bumping my shoulder with her nose.

  “Don’t cuddle up to me,” I warn her. “We really need to have a serious discussion about your taste in music. It’s insanely emasculating that I allow my dog to dictate the music choice in my own truck. If anyone ever saw this, I’d never hear the end of it.”

  Not that anyone is ever in my truck besides me or Betsy, but still. It wouldn’t be good. And really any excuse to get rid of this once and for all, I’ll take.

  Betsy is undeterred by my threats. She knows they’re baseless.

  She nudges me again, barks, and I sigh, pressing a button on my steering wheel to turn up the angsty chick music. When I rescued her from the shelter last month, this is what came with her. Taylor Swift. “It’s the only thing that soothes her,” the girl told me with a gleam in her eye as she tried, and failed, to hide her smile.

  So here we are. Driving along the snow-covered highway, headed home with a truck full of groceries that will last us well through the new year, listening to Taylor belt out song after song. Some pop. Some country.

  All giving me a headache.

  I have the plow on the front of my truck up, but as the snow is really coming down, I’m starting to debate lowering it to clear some of the highway. If not just for me, but other motorists coming this way as it doesn’t seem like the state has started plowing yet.

  This storm hit us quickly and a bit unexpectedly.

  What was supposed to be a small dusting, just a few inches, has turned into a nice old nor’easter, complete with ice and wind and buckets of heavy snow. Personally, I love it when it gets like this. I hunker down in my shop and ignore the outside world. No t
ourists I have to make nice with coming through. Just me and my work.

  Well, and now Betsy.

  But uninterrupted peace and quiet.

  Exactly the way I like to spend the holidays.

  Just as I decelerate and lower the plow to tackle some of the heavy wet stuff, Betsy starts barking. Loud and urgently. She shuffles across her seat, pressing her snout against the foggy glass, scratching at the door.

  “What’s up, girl? I can’t let you out here. The snow is coming down too hard. We’ll be home in fifteen minutes. You can hold it until then.”

  But she’s not giving up, growing more demanding by the second, and that’s when I catch it—the flash of glowing red amidst the white about fifty yards off into the woods.

  Shit. A car must have lost control and crashed.

  “Alright, girl. I see it. Calm down.” I pat Betsy’s back, slowing down and plowing my way over to the side of the highway. I don’t dare take the truck into the bank. Though it could probably handle it, I’d rather not risk getting stuck myself. I stop, placing the truck in park and narrowing my eyes through the windshield, trying to get a better look at what I’m facing.

  The tiny sporty convertible looks like it hit a tree, but I can’t see anyone. They’re probably still in the car instead of trying to brave the elements. I’m tempted to call the police, but I need to know the situation of the driver or other passengers before I do that.

  If it’s just the car that’s stuck and no one is hurt, I can call Earl, who might be able to drag it out of here before things get any worse.

  But if they’re hurt, that’s a different story.