PERFECT

PERFECT

by Autumn Jordon

Dylan Kincaid totally screwed up Thanksgiving and now he’s faced with
Christmas. Thrown into the frightening role of both mother and father while his
brother and sister-in-law are off serving their country, all Dylan wants is to
make Christmas perfect for his two nieces. But time is running out.

Down on her luck Charleston, SC restaurateur, Darcy Witherspoon is
licking a wounded ego when she arrives in Black Moose, VT and meets the
handsome Maple tree farmer. Wanting a happy holiday herself, she teams up with
Dylan to make a perfect Christmas.

Neither is interested in a holiday affair, but the magic of Christmas has
something more everlasting in store for the couple. An absolutely perfect love!

Other Titles By Autumn Jordon

Seized By Darkness

His Witness To Evil

In The Presence Of Evil

Obsessed By Wildfire

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales, is entire coincidental.

PERFECT

COPYRIGHT 2012 by Dianne Gerber

A Noble Oak Publications/ published by arrangement with the
author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author
except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted material in
violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Contact Information:
[email protected]

Publisher: Noble Oak Publications

Cover design by Autumn Jordon

Copy editor Red Wing Editing Services

Published in the United States of America

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank
Rita Henuber and Anne Marie Becker for their

encouragement and
help in brainstorming this story.

Your friendship
means so much.

I wish you the happiest
of holidays.

And to my
wonderful husband, Jim.

You’ve changed my
life. Without your support and love,

I would not be who
I am.

You are my hero.

Even from a block
away Darcy Witherspoon could feel the inferno’s heat.

Gusts lifted off
the winter bay and shoved thick smoke between the buildings on Market Street,
shrouding the street lights decorated with French horns laden with holiday
ribbons. The mélange charm of Charleston disappeared and all Darcy could do was
watch as the black haze rolled towards her like a tsunami.

She coughed into
the back of her hand in quick little spurts that left her lungs aching for more
relief. She pressed her lips together to keep the foul scent of everything that
encompassed a charred four-star restaurant from coating her throat further. Her
nostrils burned and she dug deep onto her wool coat’s pocket, fumbling around
her car keys to release a tissue from its carrying case. She blinked over and
over, tearing over the sting in her eyes.

As much as she was
trying to hold it together while watching her life’s work fold up like a
Chinese puzzle box and collapse onto lapping amber flames, she couldn’t. Hot
tears streamed down her ashen, soot-smudged cheeks.

“Miss, you need to
move back,” an officer, standing at her elbow, said. “We have more emergency
equipment heading this way and if we don’t move now, they’ll run us over.”

His cruiser’s
flashing lights bounced off his golden name tag. Officer W. Tanner.

“I need—” She
nodded, but her legs remained still, even though she could hear the siren’s
blare getting closer, and louder, and deafening.

“Shit!” The
officer wound an arm around her waist and swept her off her feet, dragging her
between two parked cars to the safety of the sidewalk.

To anyone who
might have witnessed the cop’s heroic act, Darcy probably appeared to be a
statue, or an idiot who had stood in the middle of the street, mesmerized by
the fire. Most likely the last.

The cop’s
ash-speckled face appeared in front of her nose, followed by his very pointed
index finger. “Don’t move,” he ordered between clenched teeth.

Like he had chased
her down already.

She adjusted her
pea coat and then latched onto his gaze. “My name is Darcy Witherspoon. The
alarm company called me. The Sweet Grass Inn is my business,” she said,
pointing beyond his shoulder. Her heart winced, thinking about the hundreds—
no, thousands—of hours she had spent working her ass off over the past two
years making Sweet Grass a beautiful restaurant. The dozens of baskets she had
named the restaurant for and selected herself to decorate the marble-floored
foyer and dining room were pieces of gorgeous art, and now gone.

“Was your
business.” The cop glanced over his shoulder at yet another crack of snapping
timbers.

She opened her
mouth to give him a piece of her mind but someone in the distance screamed,
“Blessed mother of… Get the hell out of there.”

In the murky
darkness of predawn, fire personnel scrambled, jumping over hoses that pulsed
as if life pumped through them while sparks shot up into the dark sky.

Officer Tanner
looked back to her with wide eyes and his shoulders slumped as if someone had
left the air out of them. “I’m sorry, Ms. Witherspoon. Nice place. I took my
wife there for our twentieth anniversary last October. The food was excellent.”

His tone was
sincere. Words of praise usually had her walking on air and working even harder
to make Sweet Grass into a renowned five-star restaurant, but now, all they did
was add to her sorrow. She had lost what was the most important thing in the
world to her.

Tanner laid his
hand on her forearm. “Do you have someone you want to call? Family? Husband?
Someone to come and stay with you until the fire is contained. The fire marshal
will want to talk to you.”

“I’m not married.”
She had been married to her work and her only close relative, her mom’s older
sister, Aunt Emily Ann, was on an extended holiday with her senior social group
somewhere off the coast of Spain. Her friends… Her mind whirled, thinking of
who her friends were. Most of her relationships had fallen by the wayside
because of her work ethic. She had people she could call, and they’d come stand
by her side, but they wouldn’t understand her loss. The only person who would
understand what she was feeling was Tom. “Tom.”

“Good.” Tanner nodded.
“Where’s your car? Or did you take a taxi?”

“No. My car is
right there. The black Mitsubishi.” She pointed across the street behind them
to where her car was parked at an angle with its front tire on the curb and the
ass end hanging out into the traffic lane. She hadn’t taken time to correctly
parallel park between two other vehicles before jamming her car into park and
jumping out into the middle of the deserted street to watch the fire obliterate
her life. “I guess I didn’t do a good job parking. Did I?”

“I wouldn’t ticket
you.” The officer led her by the elbow across the street toward her car. “Get
in and stay put. Call Tom. I’ll bring the fire marshal to you as soon as I
can.” He gave her a final nudge before racing toward the inferno.

Darcy stood
holding onto the cold handle for a moment before pulling her cell from her
coat’s left pocket and her keys from her right. As she slid onto the seat and
closed the door, sealing her off from the smoke and muffling the noise a
four-alarm fire created, her phone rang through to Tom’s cell. The moment she
heard his mumble, “This better be fuckin’ important,” she let loose the flood
of tears she’d been trying to hold back to a minimum. “Everything is lost.” She
swiped the tissue under her nose and down her cheeks. “I feel so—lost. What am
I going to do?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s me. Darcy.”

Tom flung the
covers off his head, clutching the phone tighter. His bed moaned its
disapproval as he jumped and shifted up to sit against his headboard. Darcy’s
sobs had him twitching to grab his pants and race to her side, but it wasn’t
that easy. They were a thousand miles apart. “Calm down. Talk to me. What’s
wrong?”

His stomach
churned, listening to her wretched account of the last hour. When she was
through and all he heard was sniffling, he said, “I’m sorry, hon. At least no
one was hurt. It all can be replaced.”

“It! Replaced! It
was Sweet Grass. My dream.”

A honk came
through the line and he yanked the phone back from his ear. She had blown her
nose and he knew her gloves were coming on. Good girl. She’d need that fighting
spirit.

“I thought you’d
be the one person to understand how I’m feeling right now.”

She was right. He
hadn’t chosen the best words. Even though they were the absolute truth, they
were not what she needed right now. “You’re right. I do understand. I’d
probably be at the end of my rope if The Grist Mill went up in flames. I know
how hard you’ve worked. I know how much Sweet Grass meant to you. I do.”

“I know,” she
murmured so softly, and he wished he could beam himself to her side and wrap
her in a hug.

“I know you know.
That’s why you called me.” Swinging his legs out from under the blankets, he
clicked on the light next to the bed and grabbed the pen and pad out of the
nightstand drawer. “Now, this is what you’re going to do. I’m sure you have to
hang around the scene and be interviewed by the fire marshal or a cop.”

“Yes. An officer
told me to stay put already. What do you mean interviewed?” Her weary tone
elevated and he knew he was in for a real bout.

“He’s going to ask
you a million questions. I don’t want you to get your southern bloomers all
twisted and get defensive with the guy.”

“Why would I get
defensive?”

“Because some of
the questions are going to sound like he’s accusing you of starting the fire.”

Without seeing
her, he knew without a doubt, flames just flared in Darcy’s green eyes. Her
sudden intake of air gave away her shift in attitude. She went from
docile-keep-to-herself Darcy to you-don’t want-to mess-with-me-Darcy in under
three seconds. That intake of air had caused him to take a step back on several
occasions—especially after the first time he poked her self-control too hard.

 “I would never do
anything like that. You know how hard I worked my ass off to come up with the
money to buy that old building when it went up for sheriff’s sale. And the
effort it took to remodel it. It was perfect. Why in God’s name would I destroy
it all?”

“Insurance.”

“What do you mean
insurance?”

“The economy is
tough. Businesses are closing.”

“Yeah, well. I was
doing just fine.”

“And that’s why
you don’t have to worry.” Tom glanced at the clock. Five a.m. He had just
crawled into bed two hours ago after a very busy night at his own restaurant.
He swiped his hand over his face and back over his bald head. “Look—it’s the
man’s job to find out what caused the fire.”