Snowbound Bride-to-Be by Cara Colter Page B

He stood up, not bothering to shut off the television, lifting the baby with graceful unconsciousness as he stood, tucking her sleeping head into his shoulder. To himself he said, almost musing. “It couldn’t get much worse than this, could it?”
    But Emma, dedicated to airing her views, wasn’t letting it pass. Just this afternoon she had been a woman totally content with herself and her circumstances. Totally. And now wild-child and woman-scorned, and wholesome-experienced-innkeeper were all wrestling around inside her in a turmoil because of him, and she found she resented this intrusion on her life.
    “No,” she agreed coldly, “it couldn’t.”
    But it did.
    The lights flickered, dimmed, flickered again, and then the room was plunged into darkness. The television went out with a sputter, the embers from a dying fire threw weak golden light across them.
    “It just got worse, didn’t it?”
    His voice in the darkness was a sensuous rasp that wild-child loved .
    “Yes, it did,” she said coolly.
    “Do you ever get the feeling the gods are laughing at you?” he asked, not for the first time that night.
    “Yes,” she said sadly, “I do.” Was now a good time to break the bad news to him? “The furnace is electric.”
    Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness. The firelight flashed gold, on the perfect planes of his face. Wild-child sighed.
    It took him a moment to get what she meant.
    “Are you saying the only source of heat in this falling-down old wreck is that fireplace?”
    “Falling-down old wreck?” she breathed, incensed, pleased that woman-scorned was taking charge, getting the upper hand. “How dare you?”
    It felt so good to say that! To stand up for herself! She wished she would have said that to Peter, at least once.
    But no, not even when he’d told her, so sheepishly, while still making it her fault he and Monique had been seeing each other, what had she said?
    I understand.
    “Your front bell sounds broken, the door handle did come off in your hand, there’s frost on the inside of the windows, and when I dropped the baby’s bottle it rolled down the floor.”
    “Which means?” she asked haughtily.
    “Probably your foundation is moving. The floor isn’t level.”
    All her work on creating pure Christmas charm, and he was seeing that?
    “Do you always focus on the negative?” she snapped. How much did it cost to fix a moving foundation, anyway?
    “I do,” he said without an ounce of apology, even though he followed up with, “Sorry.”
    “You aren’t sorry,” Emma breathed. “You’re a miserable selfish man who is intent on spoiling Christmas not just for yourself, but for your niece and anyone else who has the misfortune to cross paths with you.”
    “Well, aren’t you glad I won’t be around to spoil it for you?” he said smoothly, completely unabashed by his behavior.
    “Huh. With my record, you probably will still be around Christmas Day. Spoiling things.”
    Silence, the light softening something in his features, an illusion, nothing more. But when he spoke, there was something softer in his voice.
    “What does that mean, with your record?”
    Don’t tell him , she ordered herself. Don’t . But another part of her, weary, thought Why not? What difference does it make?
    “It means I’ve never had a Christmas that wasn’t spoiled. So why should this one be any different?”
    Silence. She’d left herself wide open to his sarcasm, so thank God he was saying nothing.
    Only when he did speak, she wished he’d chosen sarcasm.
    “You’ve never had a good Christmas?” He seemed legitimately astounded. And legitimately sorry, for the first time. But then his customary skepticism won out. “Come on.”
    She remembered last year, excited as a small child, arriving at Peter’s parents’ home. No, not a home. A mansion. A picture out of a splendid movie. The trees on the long drive lit with white lights, every window of the house lit, she could see the enormous