Free What a Bride Wants by Kelly Hunter

since you’ve seen her?”
    “ Three years, maybe four.”
    “ You should try and see her more often.”
    “ Now you’re being bossy.”
    “ Guess I am. Still, she is your mother. Maybe you should think of her as an underutilized strategic resource.”
    “ Yeah, no. Pretty sure that’s not going to work either. How about I say that I hope she’s happy and leave it at that?”
    “ We’re really quite different when it comes to family, aren’t we?”
    “ You noticed.”
    Hard not to, thought Sawyer grimly, and hot on that thought came the notion that now would be a good time to tell Ella what he needed to tell her about his family. He looked to the window, at the snow now falling thick and fast. Ella followed his gaze and frowned.
    “ What are your thoughts on eating in and staying overnight?” she asked. “Because I have a sneaking suspicion that unless we leave now we’re probably not going to get out. And even if we do get out, I’ll probably not get back in tonight. Or you could go and I could stay,” she added belatedly.
    “ Where’s your father?”
    “ He went to Livingstone with a load of hay. He’ll either be back soon or he’ll stay put for the night.”
    Sawyer frowned . He’d been perfectly willing to annoy Ella’s father, what with his continued interest in Ella and the kissing in the park, but this was a whole new level of inappropriate behavior.
    “ We won’t be completely alone,” she offered next. “Carl and Jem live in the bunkhouse by the barn and there’s a rope line between them and the barn and the house. It’s under snow, but it’ll pull up if anyone needs to get about in a whiteout.”
    Better, but only slightly.
    “I’m really sorry to put you in such an awkward position.”
    “ You keep worrying about my reputation. Do you ever worry about yours?”
    “ Er… mine’s pretty sound,” she offered lamely.
    “ You barely know me.” That was the crux of it. “You don’t know who you’re getting mixed up with, Ella.”
    “ Reese employed you.”
    “ He barely knows me.”
    “ Mardie trusts you.”
    “ Are you really going to trust Mardie’s instincts when it comes to men?”
    “ Ray gave you a room.”
    “ In a truck stop bunkhouse.” He glanced outside again. “Will that calf be okay out there in that?”
    “ Ha!” she said. “You can’t imply that you’re bad news with one breath and ask about the welfare of the calf in the next. That’s not how it works.”
    “ Could be a ruse.”
    “ Could be, but I trust my instincts. The cow and calf will be fine. They’re in a well sheltered pocket – that’s why it was so important to get them there this afternoon. As for us staying here tonight—” Ella shrugged. “Whether my father returns or not, I figure we’ll be fine too.”
    “ Where do you get your certainty from, Ella?”
    “ No one ever showed me how to be any different.” She glanced up at her mother’s portrait and then quickly looked away. “It’s a turn-off, isn’t it?”
    “ No.”
    This time her glance was for him and it was a startled one. For all her bravado and strength, Ella Grace Emerson had some vulnerabiliti es too.
    “ No, it’s not a turn-off. Don’t ever change.”
    “ Oh. So.”
    “ Couple of things I need to tell you about, Ella. About me. About my family. Before we settle in for the night.”
    “ Good things?”
    “ No.”
    “ Yeah, didn’t think so. Do we need wine? I think we need wine. And a fire in the living room and a casserole in the oven.” And then the phone on her father’s desk phone began to ring. Ella reached out and picked up.
    Her father, unless Sawyer had missed his guess.
    He listened as Ella told her father that she’d shifted the pregnant cows to the shelter of the foothills and that there was a calf on the ground already. She told him that, yes, Carl and Jem had shifted the rest of the stock to more sheltered locations. She told him she’d see him in the morning.
    “ You didn’t