fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”
—Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy
Contents
“WHAT DO YOU want for Christmas, Chloe?”
Chloe Nolan looked over at her stepbrother’s wife, who was busily loading food into the back of their SUV, and mentally scrolled through any number of possible—yet impossible—responses.
She was not going to say: for Tanner to realize that I am a woman and not a child, and for him to realize that I am his stepsister, and not his biological sister, and it actually wouldn’t be weird at all if the two of us were to maybe get together even if only for some physical action.
Also off the table was: to lose my virginity.
Probably equally as inappropriate as: a night of hot sex.
Something. Anything to deal with her Tanner feelings once and for all.
“I like candles,” she said finally.
Candles were innocuous. They were a great thing to ask for when you had everything you wanted in the whole world—a place to live on a beautiful ranch, a thriving business as a riding instructor—except the stepbrother you found unreasonably hot.
A scented candle could never a bad thing, she supposed.
“That’s impersonal,” Savannah said, closing the back of the SUV and looking down at her phone, obviously checking items off of a to-do list. “I don’t want to get you something impersonal. If I wanted to do that I would’ve gotten you shower gel and a loofah.”
“That’s a very practical gift,” Chloe pointed out.
“I don’t want practical!” Savannah said. “Practical is what you get yourself when you go into town. Gifts are not meant to be practical.”
Chloe didn’t tell her step-sister-in-law that gifts were also not meant to be mental chores for the people who were supposed to be receiving them. Savannah was far too nice for Chloe to say that. “Well, I don’t really know what I want.”
And what she wanted was off-limits anyway.
“All right, then I’ll have to surprise you. We are going to do a little shopping before we head up to the cabin. Are you going to ride with us?”
Chloe knew that us meant Jackson, Savannah and their toddler, Lily.
And as much as Chloe loved her niece, she was going to have to pass on sharing a car with the noisy creature.
“I’m going to head up later. Plus, I want to have my own car.”
“That’s probably a good idea. But I did hear that the weather is going to take a little bit of a turn.”
“They always say that,” Chloe said, waving a hand. “Endless forecasts of snowpocalypse this and that and the other, and you know it never happens. Much to the chagrin of people who would like to be skiing right about now. At best we’ll get some anemic frost. Maybe some hail.”
Savanna laughed. “True. In Colorado, when they promise snow, we listen. But I can see why you’re a little more lackadaisical about it here. Having spent a whole winter here last year I was disappointed bitterly in what you considered a white Christmas.”
“The grass was white,” Chloe pointed out.
“The song does not go, ‘Please have frost and mistletoe.’”
“Fair enough. But I bet there will be some snow up at the cabin we’re staying at. It’s at a higher elevation.”
“Here’s hoping. I’m sure Ava and Grace will be hoping for snow,” Savannah said, talking about their brand-new nieces. The youngest Reid brother, Calder, had recently married a single mom, and her two daughters—both teenagers—and their mom were the center of his world. “Though I so hope it stays contained to the mountain and not the roads.”
“It will be fine,” Chloe said.
Their
