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Snowbound Baby
SUSAN MEIER
Subject: OVER MY HEAD!From: cooper…bryant@bryantdevelopment…comTo: ty…bryant@bryantdevelopment…comYou know me too well to call me a hero, but I rescued two strangers from this deadly blizzard after spotting their vehicle !in near white-out conditions. Now I'm sharing a secluded cabin with gorgeous Zoe Montgomery and her adorable infant. When I first started out, saving my precious ranch was all that mattered to me, but now…well, it's about all I can do to keep up with my new domestic duties and keep my eyes (and hands) off Zoe. But Cooper Bryant, devoted husband and dad? fhat would take a Christmas miracle….
“You’re not seducing me!”
“Why? Because I ignored you this afternoon? Honey, what’s going on between you and me has nothing to do with getting along, or making a commitment or even exchanging phone numbers. And right now your body’s telling me you feel the same things I do.”
“You are so crude!”
“I’m certainly not hearts and flowers.” There. It was out. The thing Cooper had wanted to deny all day. The thing he wanted Zoe to understand. The thing he needed for both of them to get beyond.
“I’m a hearts-and-flowers kind of girl.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I wouldn’t be romantic.”
“I don’t want romance. I want love.”
Dear Reader,
As the days get shorter and the approaching holidays bring a buzz to the crisp air, nothing quite equals the joy of reuniting with family and catching up on the year’s events. This month’s selections all deal with family matters, be it making one’s own family, dealing with family members or doing one’s family duty.
Desperate to save his family ranch, the hero in Elizabeth Harbison’s Taming of the Two (#1790) enters into a bargain that could turn a pretend relationship into the real deal. This is the second title in the SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE trilogy. A die-hard bachelor gets a taste of what being a family man is like when he rescues a beautiful stranger and her adorable infant from a deadly blizzard, in Susan Meier’s Snowbound Baby (#1791)—part of the author’s BRYANT BABY BONANZA continuity. Carol Grace continues her FAIRY TALE BRIDES miniseries with His Sleeping Beauty (#1792) in which a woman sheltered by her overprotective parents gains the confidence to strike out on her own after her handsome—but cynical—neighbor catches her sleepwalking in his garden! Finally, in The Marine and Me (#1793), the next installment in Cathie Linz’s MEN OF HONOR series, a soldier determined to outwit his matchmaking grandmother and avoid the marriage landmine gets bushwhacked by his supposedly dowdy neighbor.
Be sure to come back next month when Karen Rose Smith and Shirley Jump put their own spins on Shakespeare and the Dating Game, respectively!
Happy reading.
Ann Leslie Tuttle
Associate Senior Editor
Snowbound Baby
Susan Meier
Bryant Baby Bonanza
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Susan Meier
Silhouette Romance
Stand-in Mom #1022
Temporarily Hers #1109
Wife in Training #1184
Merry Christmas, Daddy #1192
* (#litres_trial_promo)In Care of the Sheriff #1283
* (#litres_trial_promo)Guess What? We’re Married! #1338
Husband from 9 to 5 #1354
* (#litres_trial_promo)The Rancher and the Heiress #1374
† (#litres_trial_promo)The Baby Bequest #1420
† (#litres_trial_promo)Bringing up Babies #1427
† (#litres_trial_promo)Oh, Babies! #1433
His Expectant Neighbor #1468
Hunter’s Vow #1487
Cinderella and the CEO #1498
Marrying Money #1519
The Boss’s Urgent Proposal #1566
Married Right Away #1579
Married in the Morning #1601
** (#litres_trial_promo)Baby on Board #1639
** (#litres_trial_promo)The Tycoon’s Double Trouble #1650
** (#litres_trial_promo)The Nanny Solution #1662
Love, Your Secret Admirer #1684
Twice a Princess #1758
†† (#litres_trial_promo)Baby Before Business #1774
†† (#litres_trial_promo)Prince Baby #1783
†† (#litres_trial_promo)Snowbound Baby #1791
Silhouette Desire
Take the Risk #567
SUSAN MEIER
is one of eleven children, and though she’s yet to write a book about a big family, many of her books explore the dynamics of “unusual” family situations, such as large work “families,” bosses who behave like overprotective fathers, or “sister” bonds created between friends. Because she has more than twenty nieces and nephews, children also are always popping up in her stories. Many of the funny scenes in her books are based on experiences raising her own children or interacting with her nieces and nephews.
She was born and raised in western Pennsylvania and continues to live in Pennsylvania.
Snowbound Holiday Punch
2 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp allspice
4 sticks cinnamon
½ c sugar
2½ c water
1 c frozen lemonade
1 c frozen orange juice
2 pint cranberry juice
1½ quarts ice water
Combine spices, sugar and 2½ cups water in saucepan. Simmer ten minutes, strain and cool. Combine lemonade, orange juice and cranberry juice and add to spice mixture. Just before serving, add ice water. Pour over ice in punch bowl for serving.
Ginger ale can be substituted for ice water.
Contents
Chapter One (#u636eb5e6-6070-5d71-81d5-5fa3c52768ef)
Chapter Two (#u15418a1e-ae96-54a3-8fc6-776823ce9ce3)
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)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“Son of a…”
Cooper Bryant cut off his curse, needing all of his mental and physical energy to maneuver his eighteen-wheeler around a Toyota that was stuck in the middle of the snow-covered mountain road. Passing the car, he peered down, ready to make a gesture to let the driver know exactly how he felt about people who blocked the way. But he saw the stranded motorist was a young woman. And she had a baby in the back seat.
Shoot!
Well, he couldn’t stop to help. Ironically, the shortcut that he’d cajoled from the turnpike tollbooth attendant hadn’t allowed him to outrun the storm, but had, instead, slowed him down. The twisting, winding route up the Western Pennsylvania mountain couldn’t be taken with any kind of speed. The curves all seemed to hug the edge of the world. And once a semi lost speed climbing a steep slope, it was impossible to get it back. If Cooper stopped now, his truck would stay exactly where it was until the state plowed away the snow.
He made it another couple hundred feet, but his wheels began hesitating. Cooper knew his truck wasn’t going to reach the top. Unlike the driver in the Toyota who had simply parked where her car had stopped, he eased his vehicle onto the first shoulder he found that had more than six inches of space between his truck and a cliff, and cut the engine.
He didn’t like wasting precious hours like this—however, lost time was better than a wreck. He didn’t have one of the elaborate, expensive trucks with sleeping quarters, but he’d passed several hunting cabins. One of them, if not all of them, probably had a woodstove. He had two sandwiches, a thermos of coffee, soap, towels, a blanket and a shaving kit. He could be comfortable for the night, and rested when he got back on the road tomorrow.
Hoisting his backpack of supplies, Cooper jumped out of the cab and into the crystallized white snow. He had switched his trademark cowboy boots for thick work boots at the truck stop off the turnpike exit, but he still had his black Stetson and denim jacket. Unfortunately, they weren’t much against the bite of the unforgiving mountain wind. Cooper was an Arkansas boy, born and bred, but he’d transplanted himself to Texas where he and a buddy had bought a ranch. For the past three years he’d been saving the money he made driving truck to increase the herd and he’d been everywhere from Oregon to Florida. He’d experienced cold, wind, even snow…but not like this.
He tucked himself more tightly inside his jacket as he made his way down the hill. Only about twenty feet from his truck he saw a cabin. Small, with chipping white paint and a sagging roof, the structure was nonetheless good enough for the night. He was about to turn down the snow-covered lane when he remembered the young woman in the Toyota.
And her baby.
Shoot!
He sighed. He wasn’t much on company. Ever. His beliefs were so far out of sync with those of the general population that every time he opened his mouth he seemed to get into an argument. In his reckless youth, that had led to some nasty bar fights. Even his own brothers had said he was always making trouble and kicked him out of their lives eight years ago.
Determined to keep his world peaceful, he wasn’t somebody who went looking for human contact. So, fate should have known better than to throw a stranded woman in his path. He might be able to help her find shelter, but he wasn’t about to play gin rummy until the snowplow came through. If she was a chatterbox who needed constant entertainment, she’d get on his nerves and he’d probably end up making her cry.
Yeah, this was going to be peachy.
Still, he started walking to her car. He didn’t get too far before he realized it was at least two football fields away. If he went down the mountain to offer the woman the opportunity to share a cabin, he wouldn’t simply be going the length of two football fields to get her. He would have to walk those two football fields back up again.
Shoot.
He didn’t want to let a mama and baby freeze to death, but she should have known better than to travel on a day like this.
Cooper continued down the mountain anyway. Slipping and sliding as the powerful wind pushed him along the steep slope, he traveled the distance in what he knew had to be record time. In only a few minutes, he rounded a curve and saw the Toyota. It was now covered with snow, and he could see no sign of exhaust coming out the back. Cooper guessed the driver was either gone or she’d quit running her motor to save gas for the long night. Though he knew having her along would be nothing but irritation to his already frayed nerves, he couldn’t stop a surge of male ego. If she was still in that car, she would be really glad to see him.
With the wind urging him on, he half ran the rest of the way, almost losing his balance twice on the icy incline. When he reached the car, he tapped on the driver’s side window. The snow-covered glass began a very slow descent, but it stopped after about four inches. Then the barrel of a gun greeted him.
Cooper jumped back. What the hell!
“Get lost,” the young woman yelled. “I don’t have any money and I’m not willing to share my car with you. I have a baby.”
“I don’t want to share your car. My truck’s parked just up the road.” Cooper paused long enough to curse under his breath because his heart was jumping like a jackrabbit. Only an idiot used a gun so carelessly. “Look, I passed three hunting cabins on my walk down the hill. I saw you on my way up but couldn’t stop. If you want, you can spend the night in a cabin with me, and I’ll take care of the woodstove. If you don’t, that’s cool, too.”
