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One Winter's Day: A Diamond in Her Stocking / Christmas Where They Belong / Snowed in at the Ranch
Marion Lennox
Cara Colter
Kandy Shepherd
Fate has brought them together…Chef and single mum Lizzie Dumont is putting her past behind her and moving on. She has no time at all for jaw-droppingly handsome Jesse Morgan – even if she can't forget that incredible kiss she shared with him!Julie and Rob McDowell couldn’t have imagined life without each other. Until a tragic accident tore their family – and their marriage – apart. But now they're stranded together. And Rob is determined to prove their future is worth fighting for…Single mum Amy Mitchell still dreams of meeting a man who could be a father to her son. A wrong turn leads Amy and her baby son to Ty’s door. Snowbound together Amy’s optimism and her baby’s smiles start to thaw Ty’s heart.
About the Authors
KANDY SHEPHERD swapped a fast-paced career as a magazine editor for a life writing romance. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter, and a menagerie of animal friends. Kandy believes in love at first sight and real-life romance—they worked for her!
Kandy loves to hear from her readers. Visit her website at: www.kandyshepherd.com (http://www.kandyshepherd.com).
MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, Marion writes for the Mills & Boon Medical Romance and Mills & Boon True Love lines. (She used a different name for each category for a while—readers looking for her past romance titles should search for author Trisha David as well.) She’s now had more than seventy-five romance novels accepted for publication.
In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost).
CARA COLTER lives in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is a recent recipient of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the Love and Laughter category. Cara loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her or learn more about her through her website, www.cara-colter.com (http://www.cara-colter.com)
One Winter’s Day
A Diamond in Her Stocking
Kandy Shepherd
Christmas Where They Belong
Marion Lennox
Snowed in at the Ranch
Cara Colter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08522-9
ONE WINTER’S DAY
A Diamond in Her Stocking © 2014 Kandy Shepherd Christmas Where They Belong © 2014 Marion Lennox Snowed in at the Ranch © 2012 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.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u3692ee5e-e3b0-525b-af6e-44b8a3cd0b54)
About the Authors (#uf1c3e6a8-8c5d-5c7d-b890-f7137dd56b7b)
Title Page (#u36a90d6e-08e3-5c31-9757-fe92252d27ff)
Copyright (#ub4b62ab1-1e48-50c2-bc3d-58e4f83974b5)
A Diamond in Her Stocking (#u3fa9ce7c-0709-5c82-9ae6-4e6cc6a08e32)
Dedication (#ub798c01e-bfa7-5b57-8390-45c5418c9939)
CHAPTER ONE (#u95686a3e-6d94-5d1b-afa7-244881a7fd65)
CHAPTER TWO (#uec8e4175-b61b-5c12-aae4-5f45afa82145)
CHAPTER THREE (#u4bbe149b-06d3-5c51-8156-00d2a97ff736)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ud7cf5439-b55c-54ac-b3a2-c9a2d4c83e0d)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u1c441452-6267-553a-b3b0-4a2bad4481e3)
CHAPTER SIX (#u3bdb4ef4-b02e-5d0e-9b9b-9d85ab8ae817)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ub7b22ee8-2beb-5810-bc06-0f7d239f13f3)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u5f3f17b2-c9d6-59d8-86af-55a199829a8e)
CHAPTER NINE (#u0621dbc3-0353-506f-b52f-b24e7314b0d9)
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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Christmas Where They Belong (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
Snowed in at the Ranch (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
A Diamond in Her Stocking (#ud56d94bd-93ea-5ea5-9819-c5e5228162a2)
Kandy Shepherd
To the A-team, Cathleen Ross, Elizabeth Lhuede
and Keziah Hill, with heartfelt thanks for the
friendship and support.
CHAPTER ONE (#ud56d94bd-93ea-5ea5-9819-c5e5228162a2)
AS LIZZIE DUMONT looked around at the soon-to-open Bay Bites café, her new place of employment, she vowed she would never reveal how she really felt about the way her high-flying career as a chef had crash-landed into a culinary backwater like Dolphin Bay. Not when people here had been so kind to her.
She would put behind her the adrenalin rush of working at star-rated restaurants in the gastronomic capitals of Paris and Lyon. Give up the buzz of being part of the thriving restaurant scene in Sydney. Embrace the comparatively lowly life of a café cook.
Her sigh echoed around the empty café. Who was she kidding? That heady time in France had been the pinnacle of her career. But she’d been sinking in Sydney. Working shift after shift until past midnight in restaurant kitchens—no matter how fashionable the venues—had hardly been compatible with being a good parent to her five-year-old daughter, Amy.
With no family in Sydney to fall back on, and few friends because she’d lived in France for so long before her divorce, she’d struggled to give Amy a reasonable life. Drowning in debt, swimming against the current of erratic babysitter schedules and unreasonable rosters, after less than a year she’d been going under.
By the time her sister Sandy had approached her to manage the new café adjacent to Sandy’s bookshop, Lizzie had been on the edge of despair. She’d even been contemplating the unthinkable—letting Amy live permanently with her ex-husband Philippe in France.
Gratefully, she’d grabbed the lifeline Sandy had thrown her.
And here she was. Dolphin Bay was a rapidly growing resort town on the south coast of New South Wales, with a heritage-listed harbour and beautiful beaches. It was also, in her experience, a gastronomic wasteland—the only memorable meal she could ever remember eating was fish and chips straight from the vinegar-soaked wrapping.
But Sandy had offered her sanctuary and a new life with Amy. In return, Lizzie would throw herself wholeheartedly into making Bay Bites the best café on the south coast. Heck, why stop there? She would use her skills and expertise to make Bay Bites the best café in the country.
She let herself get the teeniest bit excited at the thought. After all, she would be in charge. No cranky head chef screaming insults at her. No gritting her teeth at an ill-chosen item on the menu she’d been forced to cook whether she’d liked it or not.
She continued her inspection, her spirits rising by the second. Sandy had done a wonderful job of the fit-out. The décor was sleek and contemporary but with welcome touches of whimsy. In particular, she loved the way the dolphin theme had been incorporated. Hand-painted tiles backed the service area. Carved wooden dolphins supported the wooden countertop and framed the large blackboard on the wall behind it where she would chalk up the daily specials.
There was still work to be done. Lots of it. Boxes were stacked around the perimeter of the café waiting for her to unpack. Large flat packages, wrapped in brown paper, were propped against the walls. She itched to get started.
But someone had started the unpacking. Outsized glass jars were already lined up at the other end of the counter to the cash register, their polished chrome lids glinting in the late afternoon sun that filtered through the plate glass windows that faced the view of the harbour.
She could envisage the jars already filled with her secret recipe cookies. Nearby was the old-fashioned glass-fronted rotating cabinet for cakes and pies she’d asked Sandy to order. The equipment in the kitchen was brand new. It was perfect. She would make this work.
Lizzie ran her hand along the wooden countertop, marvelling at the intricacy of the carved dolphins, breathing in the smell of fresh varnish and new beginnings.
‘Those dolphins are kinda cool, aren’t they?’ The deep masculine voice from behind her made her spin around. She recognised it immediately.
But the shock of seeing Jesse Morgan stride through the connecting doorway from Bay Books next door expelled all the breath from her lungs. Her heart started to hammer so hard she had to clutch her hands to her chest to still it.
Jesse Morgan. All six foot three of him: black-haired, blue-eyed, movie-star handsome. Jesse Morgan of the broad shoulders and lean hips; of honed muscles accentuated by white T-shirt and denim jeans. Jesse Morgan, who was meant to be somewhere far, far away from Dolphin Bay.
Why hadn’t someone warned her he was in town?
Lizzie’s sister was married to Jesse’s brother Ben. Six months ago, Jesse had been the best man and she the chief bridesmaid at Ben and Sandy’s wedding. Lizzie hoped against hope Jesse might have forgotten what had happened between them at the wedding reception.
