Snowbound Bride-to-Be by Cara Colter

bothered.
    Wait, maybe that was him!
    Despite the fact she’d ordered herself not to, she spent a moment more trying to do something with hair made crazier by the Santa hat.
    “Tess and I would tie for first place in the bad-hair-day contest,” she told herself, combing some curl conditioner through her hair. The flattened curls sprang up as though she had stuck her finger in a socket, not exactly the effect she’d been looking for.
    On the other hand, she was not conducting a dalliance, so the worse she looked the better, right? She was hardly a temptation!
    And never had been. When Peter’s old girlfriend, Monique, had reentered the picture, he had gone back to her.
    And blamed Emma! Her attention to the inn had caused him to be unfaithful. It hadn’t been his fault, it had been hers .
    She left the room, that memory fresh enough that no member of the male species was going to look attractive to her! Then she had to go back for the television she had gone up for in the first place.
    Trying to look only composed, indifferent , neither a wild child nor a woman scorned, she moved into the great room, placed the TV on a small rosewood end table and plugged it in.
    She needn’t have worried about her hair. Or about being seduced by a warrior. Or about giving in to her own impulses.
    A typical man, from the moment that television was plugged in, Ryder was totally focused on it. He made no effort to hide the fact he was appalled by its size.
    “That isn’t a TV,” he grumbled. He moved his chair to within a foot of it, the snoozing baby a part of him, like a small football nestled in the crook of his arm. “Oh, wait, it is. Imported from the land of little people, the only place on earth that is known to make a seven-inch screen.” He held out his hand, and Emma slapped the remote into it.
    “Nine,” she told him.
    He turned on the TV.
    “Color,” he commented with faked amazement. “Quite a concession to the times, Emma. Quite a concession.”
    Well, at least he hadn’t even noticed the hideous, pathetic effort she had made to fix her hair.
    Ryder began grimly switching from channel to channel.
    “You should have televisions in the rooms,” he said, not lifting his eyes from the set. “Men like that. A lot.”
    “Actually, I know that.”
    He gave her a skeptical look, as if somehow she had managed to give him the impression she was the least likely person to know what men liked. A lot.
    Her hidden wild child did know. Maybe if she had let that wicked woman out now and then, instead of trying so hard to be circumspect, Peter would still be hers.
    “Well,” he said, with a hint of sarcasm, “why pander to what people like, after all? Never mind good business.”
    Is it that clear to him, on the basis of our very short acquaintance, that business isn’t exactly my strength? Should she put in television sets next year? She hated herself for even thinking it! For letting her judgment be so influenced!
    “I want people to engage in the experience I offer,” she said, aware she was arguing as if she was making a case before the Supreme Court. “The White Pond Inn is about old-fashioned family time. Games in the parlor. Fishing at the pond. Hikes. Reading a book in a hammock. Watching fireflies.”
    How wholesome. Not a hint of wild child in that!
    But she might as well have spared herself the effort. She had lost his interest. He settled Tess on the long length of his thigh. The baby, her face smudged with cookies, and her hair tangles intact, sighed with contentment in her sleep. She settled onto his leg, her padded, frilly rump pointed in the air, her legs curled underneath her tummy, her cheek resting on his knee. In moments, a gentle little snore was coming from her.
    Ryder’s one hand rested on her back, protective, unconsciously tender. It would have made a lovely picture to go with Emma’s decor, except for the fact that his other hand had a death grip on the remote control.
    And then there was the