Grandpa guffawed loudly.
“Excuse me?” Bertanana said imperiously.
“Nana. Just like the Newfoundland dog in Peter Pan,” Grandpa said.
First of all, Noelle was shocked that her grandfather knew anything about Peter Pan, let alone the name and breed of the dog. And second, why was he being so unforgivably rude?
Not that she needed to intervene. Nana was giving her grandfather a look that would have felled a lesser man—or made a train take a dirt road!
“Mrs. Sutton to you,” she said.
He flinched and Noelle saw what the problem was. He’d felt judged at Nana’s first insinuation that the dog—and its kisses—were dirty. Noelle had a terrible feeling this would not go well.
“Luggage?” Grandpa asked stiffly.
Aidan turned away from them and began to unload the helicopter. For a man who was CEO of a very large company, and moved in the rarefied circles of the very rich and very famous, he seemed every bit as strong as her grandfather. How was that possible when her grandfather was a hardworking man of the land?
With no conversation between them, Aidan and her grandfather filled the back of the side-by-side with quite a large number of suitcases and parcels, and then in went the dog, and Nana and Tess.
“Out of room,” Grandpa said, happily, his hurt feelings put aside for now. He took the driver’s seat. “You two will have to walk.” And then he roared away with a wave of his hand, leaving her standing there in a cloud of snow with Aidan Phillips.
It was obvious there was no room on that vehicle. It made sense that Noelle and Aidan would be left to walk, being neither the youngest nor the oldest of the group.
And yet if someone was looking for evidence of an ulterior motive, it would seem almost embarrassingly obvious that her grandfather had engineered an opportunity to throw them together, alone.
Aidan shoved his hands deep in his pockets and gazed off at the snow-capped mountains, something tight and closed in his face.
She could smell the leather of his jacket in the cold air, and a faint and seductive scent, subtle as only the most expensive of colognes managed to be.
“I’m having a bit of trouble getting my head around all this,” she said, her voice strained.
“As am I,” he returned coolly.
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t know who you are, though I suspect my grandfather doesn’t have a clue. I work in Clerical for a small oil company in Calgary, so I know the basics of who is who in the oil industry. I know you are the CEO of the Calgary-based Wrangler Oil.”
“And that I was married to Sierra Avanguard?” he asked quietly, his gaze disconcertingly direct on her face.
“Of course, that, too.”
“I don’t want any pictures of Tess showing up on social media,” he said. “Or anywhere else.”
It was said formidably, an order.
Really, was it unreasonable? He didn’t know her. He was just laying the ground rules. But he was also her grandfather’s guest, and it seemed a breach of her grandfather’s hospitality for Aidan to feel it was necessary to say this.
“That’s fine,” she said, matching his cool tone. “I don’t want any pictures of my grandfather surfacing, either. I’m sure his privacy is as important to him as yours is to you.”
He looked stunned. Obviously, if he had ever been put in his place before, it had been a long time ago.
He tilted his head at her, and looked a little more deeply. Reluctant amusement tickled around the line of that sinfully sensual mouth and sparked in his eyes for a second.
“Maybe he should stay off I-Sell, then,” he suggested.
“My grandfather does not have a clue what the repercussions of putting his invitation in a virtual world could be,” Noelle said. “I’m afraid I would have dissuaded him, had he confided his Old-Fashioned Country Christmas plans in me.”
“Ah.”
Noelle wondered if she should tell him there might be others coming. But were there? She decided to take her grandfather aside and find out whether, apart from sending money to strangers, he had any other confirmed guests, before setting off alarm bells. Besides, wasn’t there a possibility this was between Aidan and Rufus and she should stay out of it?
Meanwhile she had to satisfy her curiosity about how Aidan Phillips had come to be standing in a field on her grandfather’s property! Handsome men did not just fall from the heavens!
“I must say,” Noelle said cautiously, “that you hardly seem like the type of man who would be searching an online ad site to make your Christmas plans.”
“Oh? What type of man do I seem like?”
“The kind who would have a zillion much more glamorous Christmas options and invitations than this one.”
“That’s true,” he said, with a sigh that could be interpreted as regretful that he had not accepted one of his many other invitations.
“So what brings you to Rufus McGregor’s ranch for Christmas?” she pressed.
Aidan blew out a long breath and ran a gloved hand through his hair, scattering dark wisps that drifted like feathers before they settled obediently back into place. Such a small thing to find so utterly and disconcertingly sexy.
Her ex-fiancé, Mitchell, had been bald as a billiard ball.
It was the novelty of all that silky touchable-looking hair, she told herself firmly. But still, she had noticed. Not just noticed. No, noticed and found it attractive. This had to be nipped in the bud, of course.
Noelle closed her eyes for a moment. She summoned a picture in her mind of a red dress. It hung in her dark closet at home, its color dulled behind a plastic wrapper. It was the most glorious—and the most expensive—item of clothing she had ever owned.
She had bought it for the engagement party that had never happened. Now, she would never wear it. Or get rid of it, either. It would be defense against such things as this—an odd twinge of longing that had attacked without warning, the first such longing since Mitchell had packed a single bag—he’d only needed shorts and T-shirts for his new life, after all—and bid her adieu with undisguised eagerness to be gone.
“Are you all right?”
She opened her eyes. Aidan was looking at her quizzically.
“Yes, of course. I’m fine. You were going to tell me—”
He looked at her, considering. Something softened marginally in his expression. It was probably very obvious her discomfort was authentic, and that if her grandpa had something up his sleeve, she had had no part in it.
“How I came to be here?”
