One Season And Dynasties Collection

‘Oof …’

He fell backwards and the latte he’d been carrying toppled, leaving a trail of pale brown on the white snow.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home? When did you arrive? Do you know how many times I tried to phone you? What on earth is wrong with that place? Why can’t you get a decent signal there? And how dare you tell me you love me in a message?’ She finished by slapping her gloved hand on his chest. Her knees pinned him to the ground beneath her.

All he could see was her face. Her curls were escaping from the sides of the black furry hat and her cheeks were tinged with red. A face that he’d longed to see for the last twelve days. It looked perfect.

He lifted his head from the snow. ‘Is this a happy-to-see-me greeting or a mad-as-hell greeting?’

She furrowed her brow for a second then she broke into a smile and bent towards him, kissing the tip of his nose. ‘What do you think?’

His head sagged back against the snow. ‘Thank goodness.’ He moved underneath her. ‘Can I get up now?’

Her grin spread from ear to ear as she turned her head sideways and noticed people staring at them lying on the pavement. ‘I suppose so.’

He stood up and brushed the snow from his back. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

‘Me, too.’

‘Can we go inside?’

‘Yes, I mean no. I want to do something first. I promised myself I would do something the next time I saw you. Come with me.’ She grabbed his hand, waiting until he’d grabbed the handle of his wheeled suitcase and pulled him across the road.

‘Sounds ominous. Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

She walked quickly along the road, in her excitement almost forgetting he was pulling a heavy suitcase through snow. But in a few moments she stopped and smiled. ‘In here,’ she said.

He looked around him, puzzled by the surroundings. They’d moved away from the busy street to a small church with an even smaller cemetery, virtually hidden from the road. Its tiny spire was the only thing that made it noticeable among the surrounding buildings.

‘I didn’t even know this was here.’

‘Lots of people don’t. But two hundred years ago this was one of the main roads into Glasgow.’

He waited while she pushed open an iron gate and walked behind the railings. He followed her in, totally bemused.

‘What on earth are we doing here? Is this the church you normally go to? You’ve never mentioned it.’ He looked around at the old worn gravestones. Some of the writing was barely visible now, washed away through time, wind, rain and grime. ‘Looks like no one’s been buried here in a very long time.’

Cassidy nodded and pulled him under one of the trees. All of a sudden her rose-tinged cheeks looked pale. He could feel the tremors in her skin under her coat. The snow was starting to coat the fur on her hat in a white haze.

Her voice was shaking as she started to speak. ‘You told me you loved me.’

He clasped his hands around her. ‘And I do, Cassidy. I didn’t want to tell you like that, but things happened so quickly and I didn’t want you to think I’d just walked away. I wanted you to know how I felt about you. I wanted you to know that I was definitely coming back.’ His voice tailed off.

‘I didn’t want you to think I was abandoning you.’ It was so important to him. To tell her that he wasn’t like Bobby or her parents. To tell her that he would never abandon her. That he wanted to be with her for ever.

Her eyes were glazed with hidden tears, but she didn’t look unhappy. Just very determined.

‘What is it, Cassidy? What’s wrong?’

‘I was wrong. When I spoke to you about Christmas and its traditions and not leaving Scotland—I was wrong.’

The cold air was making her breath come out in a steam. Short blasts.

‘You were right when you said it was about the people—or person—you spend it with.’ Her eyes swept around them, taking in the ancient church and graveyard. ‘I love Scotland. You know I love Scotland. But I love you more and I want to be wherever you are.’

Brad blinked, snowflakes getting in his eyes. A two-hour flight, followed by another fourteen-hour flight, all worrying about Cassidy. How she would be, whether she would forgive him for leaving without saying goodbye, whether she would be angry with him. ‘You love me,’ he said slowly, his sense of relief sending a flood of warm blood through his chilled skin.

She nodded, the smile on her face reaching right up into her brown eyes.

‘You love me,’ he said again.

‘Yes, yes, I love you. Do you want me to shout it out loud?’ Her voice rose, sending some birds fluttering from the tree above.

He bent his head and kissed her. Taking her sweet lips against his own, pulling her close to him, keeping out all the cold that surrounded them. He’d wanted to do nothing else for the last twelve days. Twelve days and twelve long nights without Cassidy in his arms had driven him crazy.

‘How do you feel about fourteen-hour flights?’ he whispered.

She pulled backwards a little, nodding slowly. ‘To North Woods, Wisconsin?’ She reached up, pulling her hand from her red leather glove and running her finger down the side of his cheek. ‘I think that’s something we can do together.’

He sucked in a breath. She was prepared to go with him to see his daughter. She was prepared to meet the challenge of their life together. She’d come full circle. Just like he had. Eighteen months ago he couldn’t have been lower. Cassidy had lit up his world in every way possible. He couldn’t imagine life without her.

A shiver stole down his spine. He nuzzled into her neck. ‘You’ve still not told me, what are we doing here, Cass?’

He watched her take a deep breath. She looked at him steadily. ‘I’ve decided I’m a modern woman and want to embrace life—in every way possible. I’ve always loved this place—especially in the winter.’ She swept her arm across the scene. ‘How do you feel about this as a wedding setting?’

Brad froze. She hadn’t. She hadn’t just said that, had she?

She looked terrified. Now that the words were out, she looked as if she could faint on the spot.

‘Did you just propose?’ He lifted his eyebrow at her in disbelief.

‘I think so.’ She trembled.

He picked her up and spun her around. ‘Isn’t this supposed to be my job? Aren’t I supposed to go down on one knee and propose to you with a single red rose and a diamond ring?’ He pressed his face next to hers, his lips connecting with hers again.

‘You were taking too long,’ she mumbled. ‘It took you a full month to kiss me. What chance did I have?’ She hesitated. ‘So what do you think?’ There was fear in her voice, still that little piece of uncertainty.

‘I think you should look in pocket twenty-four of your calendar.’

‘What?’ She looked momentarily stunned. Not the answer she was expecting.

Cassidy’s brain was desperately trying to click into gear. She’d just asked the biggest question in her life. What kind of an answer was that? She hadn’t looked at the calendar since the night Brad had left—she’d just assumed he wouldn’t have had a chance to fill it before he’d gone.

He set her feet down on the ground. The grin on his face spread from ear to ear, his head, shoulders and eyelashes covered in snowflakes. ‘Well, I’m not entirely a modern man. This is my job.’ He dropped to one knee on the snow-covered grass. ‘So much for taking too long—let’s just cut right to the chase. Cassidy Rae, will you do me the honour of being my wife? Will you promise to love, honour and keep me, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live?’

She dropped to her knees beside him. ‘That’s not a proposal.’ She looked stunned. ‘That’s a wedding vow.’

‘That’s okay,’ he whispered, pulling her even closer. ‘I’ve already got the wedding ring.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Pocket twenty-four?’

He nodded. ‘Pocket twenty-four. I didn’t know there was a church around here. I was hoping that we could say our own vows.’

She giggled. ‘Looks like I’m going to be a Christmas bride after all.’

He looked completely confused. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

She smiled. ‘Well, one day I might tell you a little story …’

EPILOGUE

One year later

‘YOU’VE got to pick the best stones, Cassidy. They need to be flat on both sides.’ The blue eyes regarded her seriously before the little face broke into a broad smile. ‘That’s why I always win,’ she whispered, giving a conspiratorial glance over her shoulder towards Brad, who was standing at the lakeside waiting for them both.

‘What’s going on with my girls?’ he shouted.

Melody held her gloved hand out towards Cassidy as they walked back over to Brad.

Cassidy looked down at the blonde curls spilling out from the green woolly hat. She gave Brad a smile. This was their third visit to North Woods, Wisconsin, and Brad had finally been allowed some unsupervised access to his child. Melody was a loving, easy child who, luckily enough, seemed totally oblivious to the tensions between her natural parents.

She spoke to Brad online every week and had been happy to meet Cassidy, loving the fact that her dad had a Scottish wife. She’d even painted Cassidy a picture of them all living in a Scottish castle.

Cassidy winked at Brad. ‘Melody and I needed some time to make our plan. We think we’ve found a sixer.’

‘A sixer? What on earth is that?’ He shook his head in amusement at them both.

Melody’s voice piped up. ‘You should know what a sixer is, Daddy.’ The stone-skimming champion looked at him seriously, holding up the flat grey stone in her hand like an winning prize. ‘This stone will skim across the water six times before it goes under.’

‘Aha.’ He knelt down beside her, touching the stone with his finger, ‘A sixer? Really?’ He shook his head and folded him arm across his chest. ‘No way. Not that stone.’

‘It really is, Daddy.’

Brad’s face broke into a big smile as he straightened up and slung his arm around Cassidy’s shoulder. ‘Prove it.’

They watched as Melody took her position at the lakeside edge, narrowing her gaze and pulling her hand back to her shoulder. She let out a yell as she released the stone, sending it skimming over the flat water, bouncing across the lake.

Cassidy leaned against Brad’s shoulder. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six. Your daughter was absolutely right. It was a sixer. Now, where does she get that skill from, I wonder?’

He laughed. ‘Her dad, definitely her dad. I could throw a mean ball as a kid.’

He picked up Melody, who was shrieking over her success. ‘What a star!’ he shouted as he threw her into the air, catching her in his arms and spinning her round.

Cassidy pulled her red wool coat further around her, trying to ward off the biting cold. North Woods was nearly as cold as Glasgow at this time of year.

Brad came over and whispered in her ear. ‘Happy anniversary, Mrs Donovan.’ His cold nose was pressed against her cheek as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

Cassidy felt herself relax against him. After all her worries, all her stresses, things had worked out just fine. They’d married two weeks after his proposal in the churchyard—as quickly as they legally could.

Her gran had recovered quickly from her broken hip and recuperated back in the nursing home with some expert care. She was on a new drug trial, and although her Alzheimer’s hadn’t improved, it certainly hadn’t got any worse. The relief for Cassidy was that the episodes of aggression seemed to have abated. She still visited her gran as often as possible but she was confident in the care the nursing home provided.

That had given her the freedom she’d needed to join Brad on a two-month visit to Australia and on three trips to the States to see Melody.

After a few tense months, Alison’s lawyer had finally talked some sense into his client and visiting rights had been sorted out. It meant that every few months they could have Melody for a week at a time to stay with them.

Brad had looked at a few jobs nearby and been interviewed for a position at the local hospital. Cassidy had just seen an ad for a specialist nurse to help set up an anticoagulant clinic and knew it was just what she was looking for. There was only one more thing that could make this perfect.

She turned round and put her arms around his neck. ‘Happy anniversary, Dr Donovan.’ She kissed him on his cold lips.

‘So how do you feel about North Woods, Wisconsin?’ he asked, his smile reaching from one ear to the other.

Cassidy looked over her shoulder at the lake with ice around the edges and thick trees surrounding it. ‘I think it has potential.’ She smiled.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Potential? Potential for what?’

He was waiting. Waiting to see what she would say. He didn’t know she’d just found an ad for her dream job. He didn’t know that there had been a message from the hospital after he’d left to collect Melody, offering him the job he’d just been interviewed for. But all of that could wait. Right now she wanted the chance to still surprise her new husband.

She rose up on the tips of her toes and whispered in his ear, ‘I think North Woods, Wisconsin might be a nice place to make a baby.’

His jaw dropped and his eyes twinkled as he picked her up and spun her round. ‘You know, Mrs Donovan, I think you could be right.’

The Holiday Gift

RaeAnne Thayne

A Cowboy for Christmas

With two kids and an active life, widow Faith Dustin only wants peace and quiet for Christmas. But her snowy Pine Gulch ranch is nothing but chaotic. All that keeps Faith going is her helpful neighbor, cowboy Chase Brannon. He’s always been “good ol’ Chase,” her faithful friend. Until he kisses her under the mistletoe...

Years ago Chase blew his chance with the woman he’s loved since childhood. Now he’s determined to step out of the friend zone...and into the role of husband. But the scared and stubborn Faith won’t let herself fall. With Christmas just days away, Chase will need all the magic of the season—and the help of her two matchmaking children—to unwrap a second chance at love.

To Lisa Townsend, trainer extraordinaire, who is

gorgeous inside and out. And to Jennie, Trudy, Karen,

Becky, Jill and everyone else in our group for your

example, your encouragement, your friendship, your

laughter—and especially for making me look forward

to workouts (except the burpees—I’ll never look

forward to those!).

Chapter One

Something was wrong, but Faith Dustin didn’t have the first idea what.

She glanced at Chase Brannon again, behind the wheel of his pickup truck. Sunglasses shielded his eyes but his strong jaw was still flexed, his shoulders tense.

Since they had left the Idaho Falls livestock auction forty-five minutes earlier, heading back to Cold Creek Canyon, the big rancher hadn’t smiled once and had answered most of her questions in monosyllables, his mind clearly a million miles away.

Faith frowned. He wasn’t acting at all like himself. They were frequent travel companions, visiting various livestock auctions around the region at least once or twice a month for the last few years. They had even gone on a few buying trips to Denver together, an eight-hour drive from their little corner of eastern Idaho. He was her oldest friend—and had been since she and her sisters came to live with their aunt and uncle nearly two decades ago.

In many ways, she and Chase were really a team and comingled their ranch operations, since his ranch, Brannon Ridge, bordered the Star N on two sides.

Usually when they traveled, they never ran out of things to talk about. Her kids and their current dramas, real or imagined; his daughter, Addie, who lived with her mother in Boise; Faith’s sisters and their growing families. Their ranches, the community, the price of beef, their future plans. It was all grist for their conversational mill. She valued his opinion—often she would run ideas past him—and she wanted to think he rated hers as highly.

The drive to Idaho Falls earlier that morning had seemed just like usual, filled with conversation and their usual banter. Everything had seemed normal during the auction. He had stayed right by her side, a quiet, steady support, while she engaged in—and eventually won—a fierce bidding war for a beautiful paint filly with excellent barrel racing bloodlines.

That horse, intended as a Christmas gift for her twelve-year-old daughter, Louisa, was the whole reason they had gone to the auction. Yes, she’d been a little carried away by winning the auction so that she’d hugged him hard and kissed him smack on the lips, but surely that wasn’t what was bothering him. She’d kissed and hugged him tons of times.

Okay, maybe she had been careful not to be so casual with her affection for him the last six or seven months, for reasons she didn’t want to explore, but she couldn’t imagine he would go all cold and cranky over something as simple as a little kiss.

No. His mood had shifted after that, but all her subtle efforts to wiggle out what was wrong had been for nothing.

His mood certainly matched the afternoon. Faith glanced out at the uniformly gray sky and the few random, hard-edged snowflakes clicking against the windshield. The weather wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t horrible either. The snowflakes weren’t sticking to the road yet, anyway, though she expected they would see at least a few inches on the ground by morning.

Even the familiar festive streets of Pine Gulch—wreaths hanging on the streetlamps and each downtown business decorated with lights and window dressings—didn’t seem to lift his dark mood.

When he hit the edge of town and turned into Cold Creek Canyon toward home, she decided to try one last time to figure out what might be bothering him.

“Did something happen at the auction?”

He glanced away from the road briefly, the expression in his silver-blue eyes shielded by the amber lenses of his sunglasses. “Why would you think that?”

She studied his dearly familiar profile, struck by his full mouth and his tanned, chiseled features—covered now with just a hint of dark afternoon shadow. Funny, how she saw him just about every single day but was sometimes taken by surprise all over again by how great-looking he was.

With his dark, wavy hair covered by the black Stetson he wore, that slow, sexy smile, and his broad shoulders and slim hips, he looked rugged and dangerous and completely male. It was no wonder the waitresses at the café next to the auction house always fought each other to serve their table.

She shifted her attention away from such ridiculous things and back to the conversation. “I don’t know. Maybe because that’s the longest sentence you’ve given me since we left Idaho Falls. You’ve replied to everything else with either a grunt or a monosyllable.”

Beneath that afternoon shadow, a muscle clenched in his jaw. “That doesn’t mean anything happened. Maybe I’m just not in a chatty mood.”

She certainly had days like that. Heaven knew she’d had her share of blue days over the last two and a half years. Through every one of them, Chase had been her rock.

“Nothing wrong with that, I guess. Are you sure that’s all? Was it something Beckett McKinley said? I saw him corner you at lunch.”

He glanced over at her briefly and again she wished she could see the expression behind his sunglasses. “He wanted to know how I like the new baler I bought this year and he also wanted my opinion on a...personal matter. I told him I liked the baler fine but told him the other thing wasn’t any of my damn business.”

She blinked at both his clipped tone and the language. Chase didn’t swear very often. When he did, there was usually a good reason.

“Now you’ve got my curiosity going. What kind of personal matter would Beck want your opinion about? The only thing I can think the man needs is a nanny for those hellion boys of his.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just watched the road and those snowflakes spitting against windshield. When he finally spoke, his voice was clipped. “It was about you.”

She stared. “Me?”

Chase’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He wants to ask you out, specifically to go as his date to the stockgrowers association’s Christmas party on Friday.”

If he had just told her Beck wanted her to dress up like a Christmas angel and jump from his barn roof, she wouldn’t have been more surprised—and likely would have been far less panicky.

“I... He...what?”

“Beck wants to take you to the Christmas party this weekend. I understand there’s going to be dancing and a full dinner this year.”

Beck McKinley. The idea of dating the man took her by complete surprise. Yes, he was a great guy, with a prosperous ranch on the other side of Pine Gulch. She considered him a good friend but she had never once thought of him in romantic terms.

The unexpected paradigm shift wasn’t the only thing bothering her about what Chase had just said.

“Hold on. If he wanted to take me to the party, why wouldn’t Beck just ask me himself instead of feeling like he has to go through you first?”

That muscle flexed in his jaw again. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

The things he wasn’t saying in this conversation would fill a radio broadcast. She frowned as Chase pulled into the drive leading to his ranch. “You told him I’m already going with you, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment. “No,” he finally said. “I didn’t.”

Unease twanged through her, the same vague sense that had haunted her at stray moments for several months. Something was off between her and Chase and, for the life of her, she couldn’t put a finger on it.

“Oh. Did you already make plans?” She forced a cheerful smile. “We’ve gone together the last few years so I just sort of assumed we would go together again this year but I guess we should have talked about it. If you already have something going, don’t worry about me. Seriously. I don’t mind going by myself. I’ll have plenty of other friends there I can sit with. Or I could always skip it and stay home with the kids. Jenna McRaven does a fantastic job with the food and I always enjoy the company of other grown-ups, but if you’ve got a hot date lined up, I’m perfectly fine.”

As she said the words, she tasted the lie in them. Was this weird ache in her stomach because she had been looking forward to the evening out—or because she didn’t like the idea of him with a hot date?

“I don’t have a date, hot or otherwise,” he growled as he pulled the pickup and trailer to a stop next to a small paddock near the barn of the Brannon Ridge Ranch.

She eased back in the bench seat, a curious relief seeping through her. “Good. That’s that. We can go together, just like always. It will be a fun night out for us.”

Though she knew him well enough to know something was still on his mind, he said nothing as he pulled off his sunglasses and hooked them on the rearview mirror. What did his silence mean? Didn’t he want to go with her?

“Faith,” he began, but suddenly she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

“We’d better get the beautiful girl in your trailer unloaded before the kids get home.”

She opened her door and jumped out before he could answer her. Yes, sometimes she was like her son, Barrett, who would rather hide out in his room all day and miss dinner than be scolded for something he’d done. She didn’t like to face bad things. It was a normal reaction, she told herself. Hadn’t she already had to face enough bad things in her life?

After a moment, Chase climbed out after her and came around to unhook the back of the trailer. The striking black-and-white paint yearling whinnied as he led her out into the patchy snow.