Free The Airman's E-Mail Order Bride (Heroes of Chance Creek Book 5) by Cora Seton

his face and taken in all the differences in his body since she’d seen him last, just like he had when he looked at her photo.
    I won’t leave my door unlocked , he wrote back when he’d thought it through. I’ll open it for you and frisk you before I let you into my room.
    That ought to break the ice , Heather wrote.
    Colt chuckled. She was right. When can you get here?
    Tomorrow night around eleven o’clock. I looked at a map and the airline schedules and should be able to make it by then. I’ll message you when I’m near. Tell me the name of your hotel and your room number.
    Colt rolled his eyes. Heather hadn’t had to look at any map to know where Billings was, but he wouldn’t end their game now before he knew what she meant to do next. Tomorrow night. He wasn’t sure he could wait that long. He swiftly keyed in the information she asked for.
    Can’t wait .
    Me, either .
    Heather’s heart pounded when she pulled into a parking spot down the street from the Four Spruces motel in Billings the following evening. She, Richard and her mother had flown home from Colorado that afternoon and her mother had been happy to keep Richard overnight.
    “Going to make a start on having that adventure?” she had asked and Heather was sure she’d blushed.
    “Maybe. I could use a night alone,” was all she said. Her store was closed for New Year’s Day, but she’d have to get up early tomorrow morning to drive back to Chance Creek to work. She’d asked Susan to open the store just in case she got held up, but after being in Colorado these past few days she couldn’t take any more time off.
    It was Camila who’d come up with this outrageous idea. “Colt’s a man,” she’d said when Heather protested there was no way he would agree to it. “He’ll definitely agree to it.”
    She’d been right. Colt apparently thought he’d covered his tracks when he apologized to Helena . Now that she knew he knew who she was, this whole enterprise had taken on another dimension. Colt didn’t want to sleep with Helena; he wanted to sleep with her . He hadn’t asked her to be his fake wife, though, which left her uneasy. He’d mentioned another woman when they’d first started to communicate and she wondered if he’d contracted her to play the part already or if he was biding his time.
    Camila had suggested she get Colt naked, tie him to the bedposts and leave him there as payback for playing games. Heather told her that was far too predictable. Besides, she didn’t want payback. She wanted Colt to fall in love with her. She planned to use this night to make him remember how good it was when they were together. She wouldn’t let him go without a fight.
    She was taking a big risk. If it turned out Colt only wanted a one-night stand to slake some kind of curiosity about her, she would have bared herself to the worst kind of rejection. It would be hard to continue to live in Chance Creek and watch Colt marry someone else after renewing their intimacy that way.
    The alternative was even worse, though. She’d spend the rest of her life wondering if she could have had Colt if she’d just fought a little harder. She thought she knew why Colt was holding back. He felt guilty about being with her when Austin had still wanted her, and about his father’s death, as well. She needed time to convince him neither of those things made it wrong for them to be together now.
    Could she do that in just one night?
    She hoped so.
    Heather pulled up the hood of her wool winter coat and tucked all her hair inside of it, refusing to dwell on the future. Since the coat’s hemline fell well below her knees and it was big enough to wear over her bulkiest winter sweater, it made it seem like she was doing her best to hide her identity. She hoped that Colt would keep to his promise to cover his window and keep the lights off. At the end of their tryst, if he didn’t want to marry her, she needed to be able to pretend that he didn’t know who she