Page 1 of The White Chocolate Christmas Wish

CHAPTER ONE

HOPE

The sharp rap on my front door sent a jolt through me, and I nearly dropped the scrub brush I’d been clutching.Colton.I hurried to answer, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Hey,” I breathed as I swung open the door. “Thanks for comin’.”

Colton’s broad shoulders filled the doorframe, and his easy smile warmed me despite the December chill. It was Tennessee, of course, so it was nothing like the winters they got up north. But it was still cold enough that I could see his breath when he exhaled into his cupped hands.

“No problem. What’s the big emergency?”

I tugged at a strand of hair that had fallen loose from my bun. “Well, it’s not exactly an emergency, but...”

Colton’s brow furrowed. “Everything okay?”

“Yes! I mean, I think so. It’s just—“ I took a deep breath,backing into the house with a shaky laugh and beckoning him inside. “Sorry, come on in.”

He entered the house with a grin, making my foyer feel a whole lot smaller due to his sheer size. The man had been a football player in high school and looked like he could make do in the pros now that he was an adult, but he’d joined the Marines instead.

“Anyway,” I said as I closed the door, “I was cleanin’ the fireplace, and I found… somethin’. Somethin’ hidden, and maybe somethin’ we’ve been lookin’ for?”

His eyes lit up with curiosity. “That so?”

I nodded.

“Lead the way.”

I smiled. Even in the face of my bumbling around like a fool, he was still so easygoing. Charming. And as we made our way to the living room, I was hyper-aware of Colton’s presence behind me.

Was it me, or did he smell like cinnamon and something woodsy? Probably me. It wasn’t like I had anything festive enough to smell like Christmas cologne in this house.

But if he could make the whole room smell good—like a walking, talking bowl of potpourri—what would he smell like if I got up close and personal?

Get it together, Hope. Not what he’s here for.

“So,” Colton said as we reached the fireplace, “do you normally make such a mess when you’re cleaning?”

I narrowed my eyes at his teasing tone. “Not usually.But once the grout started chippin’ away right under my scrubber, I figured I might as well go to town on it and then fix it up later.”

“Uh-huh.”

I pointed to the partially exposed metal box nestled beneath the bricks. “But then I saw that.”

Colton crouched down, examining the corner of the box buried beneath the stones.

“You don’t think it could be...?”

He glanced up at me with a half-grin when I trailed off. “The lost treasure we’ve been hunting for?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I don’t know, but if it is, I’m glad you called me and not Tuck. I can’t wait to have the bragging rights. He and Dakota have been relentless about finding that missing gold. Now I get to say we beat them.”

He shot me a wink, which sent my body into absolute tilt-a-whirl chaos. But that didn’t stop my face from scrunching up with guilt at his words.

Sharp as ever, his smile flattened. “You didn’t call me first, did you?”

“I called your office line. So, technically, Tuckercould’veanswered, but when no one did, that’s when I called your cell.”

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