Free Snowbound Bride-to-Be by Cara Colter Page A

to him he could smell the scent of lavender on her skin.
    Life was playing a cosmic joke on him, why not laugh?
    Why keep fighting this? He was stuck, she was stuck, they were in this together, whether he liked it or not. The powerful surge of intensity he was feeling toward her was only because of the crisis nature of the situation. People in situations like this tended to bond to each other in way too short a time.
    He could not act on that. Maturity was being required of him. A certain amount of cooperation was going to be needed to get them through this, but nothing more.
    There was no sense railing against the unfairness of life. He’d already done that, and it made no difference. It never changed what was, it only made the experience more miserable than it had to be.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice still light with laughter. “I should have listened to you. I should have taken the bedding off, let you take the mattress, followed meekly behind—”
    “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I can certainly picture you in the meek position. Submissive, even. Would that be before or after you strung lights on the roofline and knocked out a wall or two?”
    “Hmm,” she said, pretending thoughtfulness. “Let’s make it before. I might be too tired after to be properly meek.”
    Then they were laughing again, and he noticed her laughter was sweet, uncomplicated, real, like when Tess laughed.
    “I’m sorry, too,” he said, finally, “for taking out my frustration at having my plans interrupted on you. And for calling your house an old wreck. It isn’t really. It’s a Victorian, probably built at the very end of the eighteen-hundreds or in the early nineteen-hundreds.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “I’m an architect. Though I have to admit, I avoid old-house projects like the plague. People are never realistic about what it’s going to cost to restore an old building.”
    “Don’t you think old buildings are romantic?” she asked.
    Given the startling intensity between them, he did not want to discuss anything about romance with her.
    “Not at all,” he said. “You get in and the walls aren’t square, the floors aren’t level, the fifty-year-old addition is being held up by toothpicks. I prefer new construction, and my real preference is commercial buildings.”
    She was silent for a bit, and he hoped she was contemplating getting out of this old place before it ruined her financially, but naturally that wasn’t what she was contemplating at all.
    “We could start over,” she decided.
    “Could we? How?”
    “Like this.” Her hand found his in the darkness. And shook it. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Emma White, the meek, submissive owner of the White Christmas Inn.”
    Her hand was soft in his, and again he felt something when he touched her that went beyond the sizzle of chemistry. Quiet strength. He turned his head to see her in the faint shadows being cast by the fireplace in the other room.
    “I’m Ryder Richardson,” he played along, despite the facthe knew this was a somewhat dangerous game, that he was incredibly aware of the loveliness of her hand and her scent.
    Still, he was reluctantly amazed by how good it felt to play along with her, to let go of his legendary self-control, just a little bit.
    She was silent for a while. “Do you think,” she said hesitantly, “just in this new spirit of cooperation, you could tell me what a really good Christmas feels like? You said you’d had good Christmases. Just so I know exactly what to do for the Christmas Day Dream.”
    She was moving him further and further behind enemy lines.
    “Come on,” he said, “you have some good Christmas memories.”
    Her silence nearly took what was left of his heart.
    Ryder was amazed to find his carefully walled world had a hole in it that she had crept through. He was amazed that he wanted to go there, to a good, good Christmas, to share it with her, to make it real for her, but for himself, too. To relive