Under the Mistletoe

by Lisa Jackson

Genres: Holiday books; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"Under the Mistletoe," Lisa Jackson

Megan Johnson's marriage is over—or so she thinks. When her husband Chris lands in the hospital, fighting for his life, she remembers the unexpected joy of their first Christmas together. . .

Originally published within OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS anthology.

Release date: October 28, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 110

Sample

Austin, Texas

Friday, December 19, 7 P.M.

You’re a hard woman to find. Professor Marisa Thompson stared at the text. You’re a hard woman to find. Was this a joke? No one was looking for her. She’d barely been back in Austin forty-eight hours. But as she reasoned this was a mistake, silent warnings whispered.

As she considered responding to the number with the Texas area code, a knock at her office door had her sliding her phone back into her back pocket.

“Professor Thompson, bet you don’t know what the other professors are calling you?”

Marisa raised her gaze to the junior professor’s smiling face. Kyle Stone wore a Santa hat cocked sideways over shoulder-length sandy blond hair and his nose glowed red, a sign he’d had too much tequila punch at the history department’s holiday party. She tugged off her glasses and tossed them on a pile of manuscripts she’d marked up in red ink. She reached for a cold cup of coffee, stood, and moved to a small microwave in the corner of her office. Christmas music drifted through the hallways of Garrison Hall. “I don’t bet. But it’s Scrooge, no doubt.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest and he strolled into her office. “How’d you know?”

“I have a reputation.”

“Their teasing is good-natured.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He pouted, clearly making fun of her sour mood. “Why didn’t you make an appearance at the party?”

“Just didn’t.” She put the mug in the microwave and punched in one minute. Behind the lectern or cutting through the jungles to a Mayan ruin, Professor Marisa Thompson was at home. Ancient languages buried by time, neglect, or malice were easier to grasp than a holiday packaged in disappointment and wrapped in bows of false promises. The Christmas season was a time to be endured, not celebrated.

“More sour than usual.”

“I miss the jungle.”

You are a hard woman to find. The text tugged at her concentration before she brushed it away.

She’d returned two days ago from a six-month sabbatical spent in the jungle west of the Yucatan in Mexico, hunting for evidence of the Mayans who’d lived in the region one thousand years before the Spanish had arrived. Two weeks before she was to leave, she stumbled upon a hole in a large limestone mound. The hole had been carved out centuries ago by grave robbers and offered a glimpse into a tomb. She’d been able to squirm inside the hole and with a light had found a cavern covered with ancient writings. It had been the single most important find of Mayan language in decades. She’d wanted to keep digging and work until the entire site had been mapped and catalogued. But her time and money had run out thirteen days later and she’d been forced to leave her ruins behind, until she could find sponsors to pay for her return.

“Everyone was asking about you. This is your first Christmas back in Austin in several years.”

The seasonal travel had been deliberate. Life was easier when she vanished during the holidays. However, this year a lack of funding and the university’s schedule dictated a return to campus to teach graduate classes in the spring semester. And so here she now sat in her small office, trying to immerse herself in her ancient languages and hide from the holidays and festive coworkers. Of course, she could go home to her Hyde Park home in central Austin, but that would mean facing too many unpacked boxes delivered this morning from the storage company. The boxes had valued papers and books and memories—items that belonged to her mother, items she’d not been able to look at in the seven years since her mother’s death.

“Bradley and Jennifer were there. He’s been talking nonstop about your trip to Mexico and your find.”

She allowed a twinge of disappointment with the mention of the ex-boyfriend. “That so?”

Kyle lowered his voice a notch, speaking in a conspirator’s whisper. “He’s itching to work with you on your find.”

Six months ago Bradley had dubbed her adventure a fool’s errand. “He wasn’t the one sifting through rubble and rock in one hundred degree heat.”

“He’s never loved field work.” Kyle picked up a limestone rock from Marisa’s bookshelf. “Hard to chase the financing when you’re in the boonies.”

Marisa studied the rock in Kyle’s hand. Found at her latest dig, it reminded her that she belonged in the jungle, not here. “I suppose.” The microwave dinged; she removed her coffee and sipped. The coffee tasted bitter.

“Aren’t you supposed to pick up toys for your brothers?”

She glanced at the clock on her desk. “Damn.”

Thanks to her trips to Mexico, she had avoided family gatherings, but this year had no credible excuse exonerating her from her father and stepmother’s big holiday party. She wasn’t close to her dad and his second wife, but they had two sons, Travis and Tyler, seven-year-old twins. As much as she dreaded the holidays, she had a begrudging affection for her half brothers, whom she’d not seen in over six months.

Kyle glanced at his black explorer’s watch. “If you hurry you can make it.”

The shopkeeper had called and warned her that today would be the last day he’d be open before Christmas. He was closing early this year to go on a holiday vacation. If she didn’t pick up the toys today, she’d not get them until after New Year’s.

Marisa grabbed her leather jacket and slid it over a black T-shirt embellished with a glyph symbolizing life. Pulling her long dark hair out from under her jacket, she reached for her satchel purse. Silver and beaded bracelets rattled on her wrists as she shut off her desk lamp. “I can’t believe I forgot. I swore to myself I’d not mess this up.” She might not love the holidays now, but when she’d been seven, the holiday spirit had zapped through her body like electricity, just as it did her brothers now.

“Why didn’t you order online like a normal person?”

“Because my stepmother said the boys wanted these specialty trucks from this particular store. She had the shopkeeper set them aside for me.” She shrugged. “It would be nice if I bought a nice gift for the boys. I haven’t shared Christmas with them in years.”

“I didn’t think you were motivated by guilt.”

If she hadn’t liked her brothers, she wouldn’t have taken the bait. “Easier to get the trucks, put in an appearance at their Christmas party, and be done with it all.” She scooped up her papers, dropped them in the bottom desk drawer, and digging her keys from her purse, fastened the lock. “I’ll see you after the holidays.”

“Tell me you aren’t doubling back here to the office and working on Christmas Day.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

“Give yourself a break.”

“I love my work.” And it’s all I really have.

“You are hopeless.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Merry Christmas.”

“Back at you.”

Christmas music chased after her as she hurried along the hallway and out the front door. Cold winds had her drawing in a breath as she tugged up her collar and ducked her head. With her mind squarely on reaching the toy store in time, she didn’t see the large man until he was feet from her.

“Dr. Thompson, you are a hard woman to find.”

The familiar deep baritone voice echoing the text message had her turning to face a man with broad shoulders. He wore a Stetson, white shirt, red tie, a heavy dark jacket, and silver-tipped boots that peeked out from crisp khakis. The Pecos star, clipped to his belt buckle, confirmed he belonged to an elite group of lawmen, the Texas Rangers. Only one hundred and forty-four men and women wore the Rangers’ star.

For a moment, she struggled to reconcile the man before her to memories she’d done her best to forget.

They had met six weeks ago on the Day of the Dead celebration that had beat with a fever pitch in Merida, Mexico, the centuries-old city that was the heart of the Yucatan. Music reverberated around the small university café built in the European style of the Conquistadors and coated with the white limestone of the Mayans. She’d been savoring a spicy hot chocolate and watching parading revelers, dressed in brightly colored Indian garb and carrying large gold crucifixes in honor of their Catholic faith.

The Day of the Dead festival was a remembrance of dead ancestors, and when she was in Mexico she always made a point to attend. A toast to her late mother had been on her lips when he’d crossed her path.

He’d worn a simple white shirt, jeans, and that Stetson. If not for the hat, certainly his commanding attitude gave him away as American. He sat at a table beside hers and ordered a beer in fluent Spanish spiced with a subtle Texas drawl.

Texans might squabble and carry on while inside their borders, but once they stepped over the state line, they shared a kinship. She’d been feeling festive that day, perhaps lonely, and so she’d done what she’d rarely done. She’d struck up a conver. . .