Hot for Preacher

Chapter 1

One

Girl meets town (and preacher)

Dixie

My van dies in the middle of the smallest main street in Tennessee. Check your text messages for a second, and you’d miss the place, it’s that small.

“We’re so close to Nashville.” Lie. We’re hundreds of miles away. I doubt it works, but I pump the gas pedal hard. Here’s to threats taking the place of routine automobile maintenance. “Don’t you dare—”

Blanche’s engine rattles once, the automotive equivalent of the finger, and falls silent. She’s picked now to hit the pause button on the soundtrack of my life.

“Screw you, too, Universe.” I coast to a stop next to a weathered sign boasting WICKHAM HOLLOW—POPULATION 403. The number 3 has been recently painted over a 2.

My phone lights up with another text from Dear Old Dad: Still waiting on your answer, Dix. Christmas album won’t record itself! Tell me you’re in!

Twenty years since his one hit and he’s still milking “Jingle Bell Dash” like it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Guess when you’re Hank Pearl, you never let a good Christmas miracle go to waste.

I’ll deal with him later. I flip the phone off with both hands, then turn the key. Nothing. Not even a click.

After three months of playing dive bars across the South, sleeping in this van, and living on gas station coffee and whatever the venues will comp, I’m finally, officially, completely screwed. And broken down—in a town so small it probably rolls up the sidewalks at sunset.

Wood smoke drifts through my busted passenger window, along with the faint scent of something that might be cow manure. Fantastic. I’ve gone from chasing country music dreams to sitting in actual cow-scented purgatory.

I climb out to assess the damage, my joints protesting like angry old ladies. The February air bites through my leather jacket, but I ignore it. Irritation chases the cold away. Plus, my whole body already feels like I’ve been used as a stress ball by a very enthusiastic giant.

The van looks as pathetic as I feel—listing slightly to the side, rust eating through the wheel wells, bumper held on with duct tape and spite. Home sweet home for the past two years, and now we’re both stranded in Mayberry’s depressing cousin.

I’m glaring at my phone while I call absolutely no one, because I have no one to call, when I hear the rumble of an approaching truck.

It’s a rust bucket that’s seen better decades, with a paint job that might once have been blue and a toolbox bouncing around in the bed. Through the half-open windows comes the mournful baying of what sounds like a very large, very dramatic dog.

The truck slows, then stops. Because of course it does. In a town this size, a broken-down stranger is probably the most exciting thing to happen since the cow responsible for the delightful aroma got loose.

The driver leans out his open window and tips his head at me.

Holy shit, they grow them big here.

He’s enormous—easily six foot four, built like he wrestles bears for fun and wins—and his full, dark beard screams “I’m a lumberjack who chops my own firewood!

” An impressive collection of deltoid and trapezius muscles are compressed in his flannel shirt.

Objectively, he’s hot. Subjectively, he sports the serious, proud face of a Southern Mr. Darcy.

I can smell the judgment from where I stand next to my busted-down vehicle.

“Evening, ma’am,” he says in a deep, male voice. Brown eyes regard (judge) me.

Ma’am. I instantly age forty years and develop an urge to tell kids to get off my lawn.

“Hail and well met,” I snark back.

If he talks like a Southern gentleman from the nineteenth century, I’ll do him one better and greet him like we’re living in the Renaissance even if he hasn’t dressed the part.

His beard is not well-groomed, fashionable Henry VIII facial hair—it’s thick and dark, slightly mussed as if he’s run his fingers through it, and epically full.

For a brief moment, I allow myself to imagine him taming its wild splendor each morning with a wooden comb.

My hairy rescuer surveys me. “Can I help?”

“Nope. I’ve got this. I have YouTube and a friend on the way from Nashville,” I lie.

He frowns, an adorable crinkle forming between his thick eyebrows. She refused my offer? Does not compute!

“It’s late.” More frowning.

I roll my eyes. “You can tell time!”

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here alone.”

“And I don’t need company.”

I’m a solo act.

When the dog bays, he gives it a look. “Hush up, Huck.”

“Seriously? Huck?”

At the sound of his name, the dog makes enthusiastic noises. He’s on the large side for a dog (albeit proportional to his oversize owner), muscular and brindle patterned. His tongue lolls out in excitement, his nose working overtime.

“Huck is a good Southern boy who had an unfortunate encounter with some huckleberry jam when he was a pup. The name stuck.” The lumberjack/truck driver delivers this information completely deadpan, radiating calm and capable. Ugh. “Is it okay with you if I get out of my truck?”

“And then what?” Pretty packages do not guarantee pretty presents.

His eyes crinkle up at the corners as he actually goddamn smiles. My own narrow. If I was a snake, my rattles would be sounding a warning. Back off, dude.

“Chains,” he volunteers.

“Kinky, but no thanks.”

The pink flush on his cheekbones is even more adorable than his forehead crinkle.

“I’ll hook it up.” We both consider this unfortunate word choice for a second.

The pink on his cheeks deepens to a rosier, more embarrassed color.

I think he mutters something about a time to keep silent, but I can’t be sure and don’t care.

“So I can get you out of the middle of the road and over to the auto shop. Ma’am. That’s it, I promise.”

I eye the auto shop across the street. “Please tell me Sweetgum Auto actually fixes cars and isn’t a front for money laundering.”

It seems unlikely that a one-street town can generate enough automotive repairs to sustain an auto shop, but what do I know?

“It’s real. Deacon and Slate know what they’re doing.

” He turns off his engine and climbs out, unfolding like a giant Swiss Army knife.

There’s zero give in the body that fills out the faded blue jeans, black flannel shirt, and no-nonsense work boots.

This man can’t be fussed with his clothes. “I’m Jack Carter.”

“Dixie Pearl.” The hand he shoves at me to shake has calluses. “And before you ask—yes, it’s my real name, and no, I don’t want to hear your joke about paper cups.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His eyes crinkle with amusement that makes me want to be even surlier out of principle. “I’ll take a look at your engine just in case it’s a quick fix.”

I should tell him to go away. Stranger danger is a thing. But he has kind if judgmental eyes (damn him) and a dog with opinions, and frankly, I’m too tired and too broke to turn down help from Paul Bunyan’s slightly smaller cousin.

“Knock yourself out. But fair warning—I’ve been running on fumes and sheer stubbornness for about two hundred miles. She may be beyond salvation.”

My new friend Jack pops the hood and peers into Blanche’s mechanical guts with the focused intensity of someone who actually knows what all those greasy bits are supposed to do.

I try not to notice how his flannel shirt pulls across his shoulders.

I have much bigger problems than attractive shoulders.

Like being stranded in the middle of nowhere with seventeen dollars to my name.

Dad would have a field day with this—there’s nothing he loves more than being right about my “poor life choices.”

“Did you change the oil recently?” Jack asks without looking up.

“Define ‘recently.’”

He turns his head to give me a look that’s both patient and mildly horrified.

“Look, I’ve been prioritizing gas over maintenance.” I may sound a touch defensive. “Sue me for choosing forward momentum over proper vehicular care.”

“Might explain a few things.” He pokes around some more, straightens up to his full, mountainous height, and closes the hood. “Your fuel pump’s gone. Probably been making a whining sound for the last fifty miles.”

It’s not a question—and he’s not wrong. My stomach drops like a stone. “How long will it take to fix?”

And more importantly: Can it be done for the low, low price of seventeen dollars?

“We’ll ask Deacon and Slate, but not tonight, that’s for sure.” His voice is annoyingly calm. I bet he’d be awesome at breaking bad news to a cancer patient. So sorry! You’re terminal! “You got somewhere to stay? Or someone who can come get you?”

I look around at the handful of buildings that make up downtown Wickham Hollow. It hasn’t grown any larger in the last five minutes. A bakery, a general store, and what looks like a bar. That, plus a handful of houses and a dilapidated church at the far end of the street, is it. The whole town.

“Is there a motel? Hotel? Reasonably clean bus station?”

“No motel.” Jack scratches his beard thoughtfully. “Thaddeus Beauregard rents out his spare room sometimes, but he’s in New Orleans for the week.”

I glance down at my scuffed cowboy boots (not made for walking), then back at Jack. “Yeah, sorry to miss him. Guess it’s back to Casa de Van for me.”

“You sleep in there?” He sounds as if I’ve announced plans to winter in a cardboard box.

“It’s not the Ritz, but the rent’s reasonable and the commute’s nonexistent. Besides, I’m tougher than I look.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Jack nods, graciously agreeing with me. I’m sure he’s secretly patting himself on the back for being absolutely right about my shitty situation. “But it’s supposed to get down into the thirties tonight, and that window situation looks challenging.”

He’s inexplicably bothered by the cardboard duct-taped over my passenger window. “It’s rustic charm.”

“It’s frostbite waiting to happen.” Something in his voice makes me actually look at him instead of contemplating my spectacular life choices. “My guest room’s got clean sheets and working heat. You’ll deal easier with the van if you’re well-rested.”

A slow smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, curving his mouth up behind that wild, lush beard. He looks far more approachable when he’s smiling and trying to trick me into letting down my guard.

I stare him down. “You’re offering me a room? We literally just met.”

“Five minutes ago,” he agrees solemnly.

“I could be a serial killer. You could be a serial killer.”

It’s more likely to be me.

“Could be. But I’ve got references if you need them.

” Jack nods once, like the matter’s settled, and starts wrapping his chain around Blanche’s front grille.

“Come on. We’ll tow your van over to Sweetgum and I’ll take Huck here home.

It won’t take me two minutes to get him settled and then I’ll come back and buy you dinner.

Deacon will work his car magic tomorrow. ”

“I don’t need—”

“I know you don’t need anything.” He cuts me off with unsurprising firmness. “But seeing as this is Wickham Hollow’s first impression, I’d prefer it not be ‘stranger abandons you to freeze to death in broken van.’”

I hurry to catch up with his annoyingly long strides. “And what would be a better first impression?”

Jack’s smile is warm and annoyingly mysterious. “How do you feel about karaoke?”