Rugged Defender. B.J. Daniels

       Chapter One

      It all began with a kiss. At least that’s the way Chloe Clementine remembered it. A winter kiss, which is nothing like a summer one. The cold, icy air around you. Puffs of white breaths intermingling. Warm lips touching, tingling as they meet for the very first time.

      Chloe thought that kiss would be the last thing she remembered before she died of old age. It was the kiss—and the cowboy who’d kissed her—that she’d been dreaming about when her phone rang. Being in Whitehorse had brought it all back after all these years.

      She groaned, wanting to keep sleeping so she could stay in that cherished memory longer. Her phone rang again. She swore that if it was one of her sisters calling this early...

      “What?” she demanded into the phone without bothering to see who was calling. She’d been so sure that it would be her youngest sister, Annabelle, the morning person.

      “Hello?” The voice was male and familiar. For just a moment she thought she’d conjured up the cowboy from the kiss. “It’s Justin.”

      Justin? She sat straight up in bed. Thoughts zipped past at a hundred miles an hour. How had he gotten her cell phone number? Why was he calling? Was he in Whitehorse?

      “Justin,” she said, her voice sounding croaky from sleep. She cleared her throat. “I thought it was Annabelle calling. What’s up?” She glanced at the clock. What’s up at seven forty-five in the morning?

      “I know it’s early but I got your message.”

      Now she really was confused. “My message?” She had danced with his best friend at the Christmas Dance recently, but she hadn’t sent Justin a message.

      “That you needed to see me? That it was urgent?”

      She had no idea what he was talking about. Had her sister Annabelle done this? She couldn’t imagine her sister Tessa Jane “TJ” doing such a thing. But since her sisters had fallen in love they hadn’t been themselves.

      “I’m sorry, but I didn’t send you a message. You’re sure it was from me?”

      “The person calling just told me that you were in trouble and needed my help. There was loud music in the background as if whoever it was might have called me from a bar.”

      He didn’t think she’d drunk-dialed him, did he? “Sorry, but it wasn’t me.” She was more sorry than he knew. “And I can’t imagine who would have called you on my behalf.” Like the devil, she couldn’t. It had to be her sister Annabelle.

      “Well, I’m glad to hear that you aren’t in trouble and urgently need my help,” he said, not sounding like that at all.

      She closed her eyes, now wishing she’d made something up. What was she thinking? She didn’t need to improvise. She was in trouble, though nothing urgent exactly. At least for the moment. And since she hadn’t told anyone about what was going on with her...

      “Are you in Whitehorse?” she asked.

      “No. I haven’t been back for years.” There was regret in his voice that made her think he hadn’t left because he wanted to. Odd.

      “Me either. I came home to be with my sisters for the holidays. I appreciate you calling though. It’s nice to know that if I was in trouble, you’d...” He hadn’t exactly said that he’d come running. “Call. It’s good to hear your voice.”

      “Yours too. It’s been a long time.”

      Too long. She wondered if he ever thought of her—and their kiss. Her sisters referred to Justin T. Calhoun as her high school boyfriend. But in truth, they’d barely gotten together before she’d had to leave for college. There’d just been that snowy-day kiss. He’d gone on to reportedly get engaged to Nicole “Nici” Kent, break up, and then get married to and divorced from Margie Taylor while Chloe had been busy getting her journalism degree and working her way up from one newspaper to another larger one.

      While she’d dated some, none of the men she’d met stood up to what she called The Kiss Test. None of them had come close to Justin’s winter kiss.

      “So how long are you staying in Whitehorse?” he asked, dragging her from her thoughts.

      “Until the first.” The truth was, her plans after that were rather up in the air. Not even her sisters knew the real story. “Maybe longer.”

      “So you’ll be there for the New Year’s Eve Masquerade Dance.”

      It was only days away. Annabelle had been trying to talk her into going but Chloe had been adamant that she wasn’t. Her sisters had dragged her to the Christmas Dance and that was bad enough. Nothing could change her mind... Except Justin.

      She hedged. “I haven’t made up my mind yet about going. Are you thinking about it?” she asked hopefully.

      He laughed. “You and I never got a chance to dance.”

      They’d never gotten a chance to do a lot of things. “No,” she said. “You dance?”

      He chuckled. “You’d have to be the judge of that. Maybe I’ll see you there. It’s been nice talking with you, Chloe. You take care.” And he was gone.

      “Maybe I’ll see you there”? Not, “I’ll see you there”? Not, “let’s make it a date and I’ll come back to Whitehorse”? But still her heart was a hammer in her chest. Just the thought of seeing Justin again...

      She told herself that it had been years. He might have changed. The chemistry might not even be there anymore. How could she even be sure it had been there to start with? It had been just one kiss.

      The doorbell rang, followed by the front door opening and excited voices. Moments later, she heard noisy chatter on the stairs. Chloe wanted to put her head back under the covers.

      “I bet she’s not even up yet,” she heard TJ say.

      “Well, we’d better wake her up otherwise we’re going to be late.”

      Chloe didn’t like the sound of this. Before she could move, her sisters burst into her bedroom.

      “Get up, sleepyhead,” Annabelle said. “We have a surprise for you.”

      She didn’t like surprises and said as much. Also she suspected she’d already gotten one of her sisters’ surprises this morning.

      “Annabelle volunteered us to work at the local soup kitchen today just like we did as kids,” TJ told her. It had been one of their grandmother’s pet projects. When their parents were killed in a car wreck, the three of them had moved to Whitehorse, Montana, to live with the grandmother they’d never met. Grandma Frannie was gone now, but she’d left Annabelle her house a few months ago, which their sister had readied for them for the holidays.

      “It will make you a better person,” TJ said, sounding enough like their grandmother that Chloe had to laugh.

      “Fine. Let me get dressed.” She watched her sisters start to leave. “Justin just called me.”

      They both froze before turning to face her. “Seriously?” Annabelle said, clearly trying to keep her face straight. “What did he say?”

      “That