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A home for the holidays…
Grace thought she had finally found a place to belong. Coming off of ten years of tragedy and disappointments, her arrival at The Snowflake Inn finally gives her a reason to have hope for her future and the possibility of her forever-home. Until one man arrives with the power to take it all away.
Versus NOT wanting to be home for the holidays…
Riley’s world has been turned upside down. He’s back at the one place that he never wanted to return to and it looks like he may be staying longer than he had planned. Taking over The Snowflake Inn was never his dream, it was his family’s dream for him, and all Riley wants to do is cut his losses and leave. But one fiery red-head has him rethinking everything he had planned.
Both Grace and Riley had very different plans for their time at The Snowflake Inn but with the magic of Christmas all around them, and an attraction that they can’t seem to ignore, this could be the perfect time and place for everyone’s dream to come true.
Excerpt:
“It’s
killing you that I’m still here, isn’t it?” he finally said,
and she nearly jumped out of her own skin.
“Sheesh,
you scared me,” she said, willing her rapidly beating heart to calm
down. “Actually I had forgotten that you were even here. Which
leads me to ask - why are you still here?”
“Where
should I go?”
There
was a loaded question if she ever heard one. She must have smirked
because she heard Riley laugh. “Something funny?” she asked.
“You,”
he said simply. “Your face is an open book. There’s no way you
could possibly play poker.”
“My
face is not an open book,” she snapped. “You don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
“Oh,
really? You’re going to stand here and tell me that you weren’t
just thinking of a colorful retort to my question of where I should
go? That you weren’t dying to tell me exactly where you
thought I should go?”
There
was no way to hide her guilty blush. Dammit. “Fine,” she said
defensively. “You’re right; I was thinking of several options of
where you should go, but I decided to keep that to myself. Things are
awkward enough around here today without me adding to them.”
“Give
it your best shot, Red,” he said, leaning back in his chair and
crossing his arms across his chest.
“Excuse
me?”
“Go
ahead and tell me what’s on your mind. I prefer it when people are
honest. I don’t like to play games. If you have something to say to
me, then go ahead and say it.”
“It’s
not necessary, Riley,” Grace said as she busied herself around the
kitchen. She placed the last of the leftovers in the refrigerator and
turned around. And screamed. “Seriously?” she cried. “How did
you move that fast?” He was right behind her and she had to press
her back against the refrigerator door to keep an inch of space
between them.
“Military
trick. Can’t let the enemy know when you’re approaching.”
“I’m
not the enemy here,” Grace said, hating that there was a slight
tremor in her voice.
“Neither
am I,” he said with ease and then laughed at the look on Grace’s
face. He placed a finger under her chin and forced her to keep
looking up at him. “Open book,” he teased. “Now, are you sure
you don’t have something to say?”
For
just a moment Grace had forgotten that she was supposed to be mad at
him. For just an instant when she turned around and saw how close he
was, she wanted to press closer to him like she had been this morning
in the park. But once he opened his mouth, all of the reasons that
she hated him came flooding back.
With
more bravado than she actually felt, Grace shoved his hand away from
her face and did her best to stand a little bit taller. It didn’t
really matter because with Riley being over six feet tall and her
barely reaching five-foot-five, she’d have to stand on a damn chair
to make a difference.
“Fine,
you want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Sweetheart,
I already know what you’re thinking. I just want to see if
you have the guts to say it out loud.”
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