A Dixie Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto the washboard-rough dirt lane that meandered for a quarter mile up to the house.
     
    Tears filled her eyes on viewing her property, as they often did when she’d been away, even if only for a few hours. She loved this land  . . . the smell of its rich soil, the feel of the breeze coming off the Mississippi River, the taste of its wholesome bounty. It had been a real struggle these past ten years, but she prided herself on not having sold off even one parcel from the 120-acre family legacy.
     
    “Oh, darn!” she muttered when she hit one of the many potholes. The eight-year-old vehicle, with its virtually nonexistent springs, went up in the air and down hard.
     
    She worriedly contemplated her sleeping passenger who groaned, then rubbed the back of his aching head. His eyelids drifted open slowly, and Annie could see the disorientation hazing their deep blue depths. As his brain slowly cleared, he sat straighter and glanced to the pasture on the right where sixty milk cows, bearing the traditional black and white markings of the Holstein breed, grazed contentedly, along with an equal number of heifers and a half dozen new calves.
     
    “Holy hell!” Clay muttered. “Cows!”
     
    Geez! You’d think they didn’t have dairy herds in New Jersey.
     
    Slowly, his head turned forward, taking in the clapboard farmhouse up ahead, which must be a stark contrast to his own Princeton home. She knew she was correct in her assessment when he murmured, “The Waltons! I’ve landed in John Boy Central.”
     
    His slow survey continued, now to the left, where he flinched visibly on seeing her  . . . still adorned in all her Priscilla/Madonna garishness.
     
    His forehead furrowing with confusion, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt. Then, his fingers fluttered in an unconscious sweep down his body, hesitating for the briefest second over his groin.
     
    Annie understood his bewilderment, even if he didn’t. For some reason, an odd heat—of an erotic nature, not the body temperature type—was generated when they were in each other’s presence. She empathized with his consternation. Clayton Jessup, III was a gorgeous hunk  . . . when he wasn’t frowning, that is. He would find it unbelievable that he could be attracted to a tasteless caricature of the Virgin Mary.
     
    “Can you turn down the heat?” he asked testily.
     
    “There is no heat. The thermostat broke last winter.”
     
    “Humph!” he commented as he rolled down the window on his side. “Pee-yew!” He immediately rolled it back up. “How can you stand that smell?”
     
    “What smell? Oh, you mean the cows.” She shrugged. “You get used to it after a while. Actually, I like the scent. It spells good country living to me.”
     
    “Humph! It spells cow crap to me.”
     
    Clay’s condescending attitude was starting to irk Annie. She had liked him a whole lot better when he was under the influence.
     
    “Am I being kidnapped?” he inquired hesitantly.
     
    “Wha-at?” Where did that insane idea come from? Oh, I see. His gaze riveted now behind his head where Chet’s hunting rifle rested in the gun rack above the bench seat. “Of course not.”
     
    “Where am I?”
     
    “Don’t you remember? You fell outside the hotel. I took you to the hospital emergency room. Oh, don’t look so alarmed. You just have a sprained ankle and a goose egg on your head. The doctor said you need special care for a day or two because of the reaction you had to the Darvon, and I offered to bring you out to the farm. We’re about a half hour outside Memphis.”
     
    “I agreed to stay on a  . . . farm ?” His eyes, which were really quite beautiful—a deep blue framed by thick black lashes—went wide with disbelief.
     
    “Yes,” she said in a voice stiff with affront.
     
    “Why, for heaven’s sake?”
     
    Yep, his superiority complex was annoying the heck out of her. “Maybe because you were under the