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Snowbound With The Single Dad
Cara Colter
What he wants for Christmas…His billions can’t buy!Widower billionaire Aidan Phillips is determined to give his daughter the traditional country Christmas she wants. But his vibrant hostess, Noelle McGregor, is showing him that money can’t buy happiness. As a snowstorm swirls outside, Aidan recognizes the pain in Noelle’s mesmerizing eyes, and finds himself opening up about his past. Might he have found the perfect present for his little girl after all: a mommy for Christmas?
What he wants for Christmas…
His billions can’t buy!
Widower billionaire Aidan Phillips is determined to give his daughter the traditional country Christmas she wants. But his vibrant hostess, Noelle McGregor, is showing him that money can’t buy happiness. As a snowstorm swirls outside, Aidan recognizes the pain in Noelle’s mesmerizing eyes, and finds himself opening up about his past. Might he have found the perfect present for his little girl after all: a mommy for Christmas?
CARA COLTER shares her life in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, nine horses and one small Pomeranian with a large attitude. She loves to hear from readers, and you can learn more about her and contact her through Facebook.
Also by Cara Colter (#u43ab6e6a-dc9b-58bf-afd9-ff3cab34d8b4)
Snowflakes and Silver Linings
Rescued by the Millionaire
The Millionaire’s Homecoming
Interview with a Tycoon
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
The Pregnancy Secret
Soldier, Hero…Husband?
Housekeeper Under the Mistletoe
The Wedding Planner’s Big Day
Swept into the Tycoon’s World
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Snowbound with the Single Dad
Cara Colter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07844-3
SNOWBOUND WITH THE SINGLE DAD
© 2018 Cara Colter
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Carol Geurts,
who shows dignity, courage and integrity
through all of life’s storms.
You are an inspiration.
Contents
Cover (#u272161ec-f9aa-56c1-93c8-933de8210a2e)
Back Cover Text (#u3d44e1a7-4154-510f-b7d8-ba2806294243)
About the Author (#u88c4963d-91a1-57d9-b2e5-53c47a5e295c)
Booklist (#u479e23d9-57bf-5743-9a37-505fabef6557)
Title Page (#uddb5d14e-a257-50cf-95a5-53be3a99cf5c)
Copyright (#u198364a5-f84c-5ec5-bfc3-ad1284a5b90b)
Dedication (#u29947876-6411-5662-89c3-6bd29f084f93)
CHAPTER ONE (#u243d63ff-c039-53ae-8731-06b3f64ce339)
CHAPTER TWO (#u20f3e008-a764-5a9e-b7f5-e9547cd30e18)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf8e60263-ffe0-526d-8aed-a909a284a537)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u2e7a97ac-2335-5a25-9c95-b4c4290fcaf7)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u43ab6e6a-dc9b-58bf-afd9-ff3cab34d8b4)
“THERE’S MY LITTLE Christmas star!”
Noelle felt a swell of joy as she watched her grandfather, Rufus, shut down the tractor and climb down off it. He paused to lift the old black Lab, Smiley, out of the cab. Then he turned and came through the snow toward her, Smiley shuffling behind him with his happy grin in place, despite the dog’s pained gait.
She was relieved to see that, unlike Smiley, her grandpa was agile, surprisingly strong-looking for a man of seventy-eight years. He was dressed for cold, in a thick woolen toque, mittens and a lined plaid lumber jacket.
His embrace, too, was powerful as he came and hugged her tight, lifting her right off her feet.
He put her down and regarded her. “You haven’t been losing weight, have you?”
“No,” she said quickly, although she wasn’t at all certain. She had always been a slight girl, but she hadn’t been near a weigh scale since the abrupt end of her engagement. Noelle was fairly certain you could not lose weight eating chocolate ice cream for supper. And also, sometimes, for breakfast.
Their worry was mutual. It was to be their first Christmas without Grandma McGregor. In those months after Grandma had died, there had been something in her grandpa’s voice on the phone, which Noelle had not heard before—a weariness, a disconnect, as if he was not quite there. Sometimes he had made mistakes about what day it was, and seemed confused about other small details of daily life. Other times he had reminisced so obsessively about the past that Noelle had been convinced he was declining, too, dying of a broken heart.
Then, a few weeks ago, she had noticed an improvement. To her great surprise and relief, he’d actually seemed excited about Christmas. It had always been such a magical time of year in her family, partly because it was her birthday, too. Would it be too much to expect a Christmas miracle that would begin to heal their losses this year?
But when Noelle had driven into the yard and seen her grandpa had not put up a single decoration, she had felt her heart fall. Then, when she had noticed the tractor tracks, heading off into nowhere, she’d been frightened. He didn’t have cattle anymore. Where was he going? She’d followed along the tracks with great trepidation.
“Grandpa.” She sighed, feeling that sense of coming home. She got down on her knees and gave Smiley a long hug and an ear scratching before she got up and surveyed her grandfather’s project.
He seemed to be clearing snow in a large square in the middle of what used to be a cow pasture. “What on earth are you doing?”
His arm looped over her shoulder, he turned and looked with pleasure at his handiwork.
“I’m building me a helicopter landing pad,” he said, and her sense of well-being plummeted.
“A what?” she stammered.
“You heard me. Don’t go giving me that have-you-lost-your-mindlook. Come on, we’ll go to the house and have coffee. You brought everything you need for a nice Christmas at the ranch?”
She thought he might want to take the tractor back to the house, but instead he turned with her and walked the pounded-down snow of the tractor track, Smiley dogging their heels.
“Yes.” Noelle hesitated, and then asked, “I wondered why you didn’t have any decorations up yet?”
“I thought it would be good to do it together.”
Even though she had never helped with things like putting the outside lights up, she loved the idea of them working together to re-create Christmases like the ones they had always enjoyed.
“That sounds fun. I’m so looking forward to the break. I’ll be here now until just after New Year’s.”
“Ah, good. Good. Everybody else will leave Boxing Day, so we’ll have a bit of time for just you and me.”
“What do you mean everybody?” she asked, surprised.
“Oh, my goodness, Ellie,” he said, calling her by his pet name for her, “wait until I show you what I’ve gone and done. Have you ever heard of Me-Sell?”
She cocked her head at him quizzically.
“You know, the place on the interstate where you put the ads up?”
“The internet? Oh, you mean I-Sell? That huge online classified ad site?”
“That’s it!”
The thought of her grandpa on I-Sell gave her pause. He still heated his house with wood. He received two channels on his old television set—if he fiddled with the rabbit ears on top of it long enough. He did not own a cell phone, not that there was signal anywhere near here. He and Grandma had never had a computer, never mind the internet.
“I go down to the library in the village and use the interstate,” he said.
“Internet,” she corrected him weakly.
“Whatever. I decided to sell some of my old machines out in the barn. Just taking up space. Ed down the road got a pretty penny for his. He did it all on I-Sell.”
“Do you need money?” she asked, appalled that somehow this had passed her by in their weekly telephone conversations. She got out here to visit him at least once a month. Why hadn’t she noticed he was pinching his pennies? Had her own double heartbreak made her that self-involved?
“Good grief, no! Got more money than I know what to do with since I sold off most of the land except for this little parcel around the home place.”
Another of the recent heartbreaking losses had been that decision to sell off most of the land that had been in the McGregor family for generations. There was no one left to work it. In her fantasies, Noelle had hoped one day she and Mitchell would buy it back.
They came over a little rise, and both of them paused. There it sat, the home place, prettier than a Christmas card. Surrounded by mounds of white snow was a large two-story house, pale yellow with deep indigo shutters, a porch wrapping around the whole lower floor, smoke chugging out the rock chimney.
If her grandmother had been alive, the house would have been decorated by now, December 21. There would have been lights along the roofline and a huge wreath on the front door, the word HOPE peeking out from under a big red bow. The huge blue spruce in the front yard would have been dripping with lights. But this year there was not a single decoration, and it made Noelle’s eyes smart, even if her grandfather had waited for her to do it.
