Carter Bravo's Christmas Bride

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But after opening that door in his mind and seeing a family with Paige on the other side, well, he wasn’t quite ready to spend the evening with her. It was all too new and also a little bit scary.

He had to find just the right way to bring it up to her.

And he needed to find out for sure if they had the necessary physical chemistry together.

And hey. What if she just said no?

Uh-uh. He wasn’t ready to see Paige. He could blow this whole thing before it even got started if he didn’t handle it right.

So that night he stayed home.

* * *

Paige spent the day on household stuff. She bought groceries and baked a casserole, vacuumed and dusted the downstairs.

And the whole day she kind of dreaded the evening, when Carter would show up and she’d have to deal with him while knowing that her sister—and apparently most of the people they knew—believed that Paige was in love with him.

And that he was in love with her.

Awkward. Embarrassing. Too strange for words.

She hardly knew what to say to him—to Carter, of all people.

But then, as it turned out, he didn’t show up.

And that just made her sad. So she put on some old yoga pants and a baggy sweatshirt, streamed a tearjerker on Netflix and ate a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.

* * *

The next morning, Sunday, Carter considered chickening out again and not showing up at Paige’s to walk Biscuit with Sally, not being there to get the coffee going.

But if he bailed on their usual routine again, he’d have to admit to himself that opening the door in his mind had freaked him out just a little—hell. Who was he kidding?

Opening that door freaked him out a lot.

But freaking out was no excuse to turn wimp and bail on his girls.

So he walked Biscuit with Sally as usual and then let himself back into Paige’s quiet house and made the coffee.

He was standing at the fridge, staring inside, trying to decide what to make for breakfast as his brain kept insisting on circling back to the mind-altering concept of Paige and him and a houseful of baby Bravos, when he heard a soft sigh behind him.

A hot bolt of lightning seemed to surge across his shoulder blades and the hair on the back of his neck stood to attention. Bizarre.

He shut the door and turned around.

And there she was: Paige, leaning in the doorway, wearing that old plaid robe, flannel pajamas and silly fuzzy slippers he’d seen a hundred times. She’d tried to comb her hair, but she must have slept on it hard, because it still stuck up on the left side.

“Hey,” she said. The single huskily spoken word seemed to hit him in the chest and then curl around him like a hug.

“Mornin’.” Damn, she was cute. With those big brown eyes and that soft, pretty mouth. Not aggressively sexy, not showy like most of the women he’d dated. But hot in her own down-to-earth, real sort of way. The more he looked at her, the more he thought he could definitely tap that.

And wouldn’t it be great to live here with her in the house she grew up in, to stop going back and forth between their houses? Her house was homier than his, a perfect place to raise their family.

If she would have him.

She was so smart. And she could be intimidating with that steady, unruffled way she had of looking at a guy. Since that bastard in college broke her heart, she didn’t give her trust easily—not to men, anyway.

But he had a head start on that, being her best friend and all.

“What?” She straightened in the doorway.

“Nothing.” It came out nice and calm, giving zero hint of the nervous energy churning inside him. “I was thinking eggs Benedict. I didn’t make muffins, but I see you have some store-bought.”

“Sounds wonderful.” She went to the coffeepot and filled a mug, turning back around the way she did almost every morning, leaning on the counter for her first sip. A pleasured sound escaped her.

Would she make sounds like that in bed?

He realized he really wanted to find out.

The big brown eyes were soft and shadowed. He couldn’t really read them. She said, “You’re good to us, Carter. Thank you.”

“I never did anything I didn’t want to do.” It came out gruff, low. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say and he wondered where the hell it came from.

But those soft lips turned up in the beginning of a smile. “I know that.”

“I like it here, with you. With Dawn.”

“I’m glad.”

He was maybe three steps away from her. It would have been so easy, to close the distance, take the mug, set it on the counter. Draw her into his arms...

“Carter, hey!” Dawn chirped from the doorway, shattering the moment. She joined him at the fridge, pulling the door open again and taking out a carton of orange juice. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Eggs Benedict,” said Paige.

“Yum. Just what I was I hoping for.” Dawn edged around Carter, set the pitcher on the counter and opened the cupboard to get down the juice glasses.

Paige and Dawn got the table ready and he cooked the food. They sat down to eat. Things started getting really strange about then. He kept having the feeling that something was going on at that table between the sisters, as if they knew something he didn’t and both of them were on edge about it.

They told him repeatedly, way more times than necessary, how much they loved his eggs Benedict. Then they started in on Christmas stuff—on how they were looking forward to Rocky Mountain Christmas, Justice Creek’s big holiday shopping event next Saturday.

Next Saturday was also the date of the Holiday Ball at Justice Creek’s world-famous Haltersham Hotel. It was a charity event to support the local children’s shelter. Carter had bought a bunch of tickets at a chamber of commerce auction months ago and passed them out at the shop. He’d given some to Dawn and Paige, as well. At the time, he’d planned to take Sherry. When they broke up, he’d gotten Paige to agree to go with him.