Free A Bride For Abel Greene by Cindy Gerard

gave her new hope. There wasn’t—in the most literal sense—a snowball’s chance in hell that he was going to get that lane cleaned out anytime soon.
    “It’s going to take a mighty big shovel to clear out all that snow.”
    He shoved his hands deep into thick leather gloves. “It just happens I’ve got a mighty big shovel.”
    He snagged a set of keys from the key caddy by the door.
    “You need keys for a shovel?”
    “I need keys for the Cat.”
    She felt another stirring of unease. “Cat?”
    “As in Caterpillar. I’ll have the drive cleared out within the hour. You might want to use the time to pack.”
    “Well, hell,” she sputtered, as she shivered in the wake of the winter-cold air that had sneaked in when he’d stalked out the door. “Now what are you going to do, Kincaid?”
    As it turned out, she didn’t have to do much of anything. Fate—and the interference of Abel’s friends—did the doing for her.

Five
    W hen she first heard the roar of an engine shortly after Abel stalked outside, she assumed he was firing up his plow. Then it dawned on her that the sound had started out faint and gotten louder.
    Mackenzie scooted away from the table and peeked out the kitchen window—just as a pair of sleek, black snowmobiles crested a ridge and zigzagged through a stand of trees, shooting snow in their wakes.
    She’d seen snowmobiles in pictures and films—but none had done justice to the gleaming pair of space-age-looking machines that slowed to a crawl, then idled to a stop by Abel’s back door.
    The riders were as futuristic in appearance as their transportation. Dressed in black boots and gloves, snug black suits and black, visored helmets, they looked like a pair of Darth Vader clones gone ice age. The drama of their entrance was offset only by the antics of a big, brown Labrador retriever that bailed out of the sidecar attached to the bigger machine.
    Mackenzie watched as the riders each threw a leg over the back of their snowmobiles and stood, knee-deep in snow, while the dog leapt in comical, animated circles around them.
    “Woa! Check out those machines.”
    “Yeah. Woa,” she repeated, as Mark, apparently drawn by the roar of the engines, had left his vigil in the loft and joined her by the window.
    “Who is that?”
    As fascinated as Mark, she watched the pair approach the kitchen door. Even more fascinating was the way they met Abel there. The taller one of the two, obviously male and almost as tall as Abel, extended his hand. The smaller rider, undoubtedly female and model slim, embraced him.
    “Looks like we’re about to find out,” she murmured, and braced herself for meeting some people who were evidently important to Abel.
     
    “It’s her,” Mark whispered, just short of openmouthed gaping. He stared in star-struck awe as J.D. and Maggie Hazzard pulled off their helmets, zipped out of their snowmobile suits and made themselves at home in Abel’s kitchen. “It’s Maggie. The Maggie,” he repeated, unable to stop himself.
    The statuesque brunette, whose face and figure were recognizable to every male who had a heartbeat and every female who’d ever dreamed about being perfect, just smiled.
    “She had that effect on me, too, the first time I saw her.” A grinning J. D. Hazzard was quite openly as smitten as the rest of the world with his famous wife, who had recently, and at the top of her career, retired from the world of fashion modeling to try her hand behind the camera. “But you get used to it after a while,” he confided, and gave his wife a sympathetic look. “Too bad she’s so plain. But hey, love is blind, right Stretch?”
    “Deaf, too,” Maggie retorted, with as much teasing warmth as her husband, “or I never would have fallen for that line of bull you dish out, Blue Hazzard.”
    Mackenzie listened to the playful banter, as overwhelmed as Mark by Maggie’s beauty and fame. She was just as taken by J.D.’s blond good looks and how perfect the two of