The Bachelor's Christmas Bride

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She suddenly couldn’t help yearning to feel those sexy roller-coaster lips pressed to hers…

Would they be as soft and warm as they looked? As supple? What kind of kisser was he? Not pinch-lipped the way Wes sometimes was, she thought. Relaxed, confident, natural—that was Dag and probably how Dag kissed…

But that wasn’t anything she should be thinking about!

She jerked her eyes away just about the time Dag said, more to himself than to her, “But you’re engaged… to a Rumson…”

Dear Reader,

It’s Christmastime in Northbridge and there’s no place Dag McKendrick would rather be. Family, friends, decorations, festivities and genuine goodwill toward everyone. It’s home.

For Shannon Duffy it’s something else. It’s a place to spend the holiday with the biological brother who has come into her life after a year of losses. Losses that not only included her parents and her beloved grandmother, but also the end of her three-year-long relationship with a politician all of Montana thinks she’s still engaged to.

Proximity—and the fact that Shannon is selling Dag her late grandmother’s house—brings Shannon and Dag together. But Dag’s dauntless high spirits are just what she needs. So like any Christmas treat, Shannon lets herself indulge a little. And then a little more. And then a little more.

But that’s Christmas for you…

I hope yours is wonderful, and that the new year brings with it only the best of everything!

Happy, happy holidays!

Victoria Pade

About the Author

VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.

The Bachelor’s

Christmas Bride

Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Chapter One

“Ho! Ho! Ho! What good skaters you are!”

Shannon Duffy smiled a little at what she saw and heard in the distance when she got out of her car.

After a long drive from Billings, she’d just arrived in the small town of Northbridge, Montana. At the end of Main Street, she’d spotted a parking space near the town square and pulled into it so she could get out and stretch for a minute.

Not far from the parking area was an open-air ice skating rink and it was there that a group of preschool-age children were apparently being taught—by Santa Claus—how to skate. Or at least they were being taught by a man dressed in a Santa suit, using the ho-ho-hos to encourage them.

Christmas was a little more than a week away and Shannon was anything but sorry to have it herald the close of the past year. It had been a rough year for her.

Very rough…

But as she breathed in the cold, clear air of the country town, as she watched the joy of kids slip-sliding around the ice rink that was surrounded by a pine-bough-and-red-ribbon-adorned railing, she was glad she’d come. She already felt just a tiny bit less disconnected than she had, just a tiny bit less alone, almost as if the small town her late grandmother had loved was holding out its arms to welcome her.

Shannon had suffered three losses this year. Four, if she counted Wes.

She’d lost her dad at the beginning of January, and her mom just three months after that. Their deaths hadn’t come as a surprise; both of her parents had been ill most of their lives. But when, in August, her grandmother had suddenly and unexpectedly had a heart attack and died, too, that had been a shock. And it had meant that her entire family was gone in just a matter of months.

Then her relationship with Wes Rumson had ended on top of it all….

But now her trip to Northbridge was twofold. Primarily, she was there to attend the wedding of and spend the holiday with the people she’d come to think of as her New Wave of family.

Two months earlier she’d been contacted by a man named Chase Mackey. Out of the blue he’d made the announcement that he was one of three brothers and a sister she’d been separated from when she was barely eighteen months old, when they’d lost their parents to a car accident and—with no other family—had been put into the system and up for adoption.

Shannon had known that she was adopted. She just hadn’t known—before Chase Mackey’s call—that she had biological siblings out in the world.

And not even too far out in the world at that since Chase Mackey had been calling her from Northbridge where her grandmother had lived and owned the small farm that Shannon had inherited at the end of the summer.

The farm was the second reason she was in Northbridge. Today she was to attend the closing on the sale of the property that she had no inclination to keep.

“Ooh, Tim! You okay?”

One of the little boy skaters had fallen soundly on his rump and Shannon heard Santa’s question as she watched him race impressively to the child, clearly not inhibited by the bulky red suit and what was obviously padding around his middle.

Tim was a trouper, though. He fought the tears that his puffed-out lower lip threatened, let Santa help him up and get him steadied on his feet again. Then, casting nothing but a glance in the direction of the adults who looked on from the sidelines, the child let Santa ease him back to the group without making a bigger deal of the fall than it had called for.

Shannon silently approved of how the whole thing had played out.

Not that she had any reason to approve or disapprove, it was just that she was missing her job and some of that kicked in as she watched the scene.

She’d taught kindergarten since she’d graduated from college. It was a job she loved, but she was currently on sabbatical. Her grandmother’s death had just been one blow too many and she’d needed to take some time.

It was a job she loved but might not be going back to. At least not exactly the way she’d done it before, not if she accepted her old friend’s offer and moved to Beverly Hills instead….

But that possibility was in the mulling stages and for the next week and two days she was just going to get to know her new brother, and her new nephew, and try to enjoy this first holiday without the only family she’d ever known.

She looked away from Santa and the skaters and took her cell phone from her coat pocket. She’d lost service just before getting to Northbridge and she wondered if she was back within range or if she was going to have a problem while she was here.

No problem, she had service again.

And a message…

The message was from Wes’s secretary, informing her that Wes wanted to know when she arrived safely at her destination.

Shannon appreciated the concern the same way she’d appreciated it when Wes had inquired about her plans for the holidays to make sure she wasn’t spending them alone.

But merely the fact that it was Wes’s secretary calling now rather than Wes himself was a glaring reminder of why she’d turned down the proposal of the man she’d been involved with for the last three years.

Wes Rumson. The Hope-For-The-Future of the Rumson family political machine that had provided a long history of Montana’s district attorneys, senators, representatives, mayors and now—if Wes’s campaign was successful—a governor.

The man who would have definitely provided her with the bigger life she’d always wanted, always dreamed of having. If she’d just said yes to his on-camera proposal.

But she hadn’t. Regardless of how it had appeared, she hadn’t. She’d said no.

Of course the general public didn’t know that yet, only a select few insiders did. But still, she’d said no.

And she wasn’t going to call and talk to Wes’s secretary now, so she sent only a text message that yes, she had arrived safely in Northbridge. Then she added a cheery Merry Christmas!

Maybe just being near a jolly old Saint Nick was giving her some much-needed Christmas spirit.

Although when she returned her phone to the pocket of the knee-length navy blue wool coat she was wearing, and glanced at the skating teacher again, it struck her that this particular Saint Nick wasn’t old at all. That behind the fake beard and mustache, under the red hat that he wore at a jaunty angle, was a much younger man with broad shoulders and impressively muscled legs that powered those skates expertly.

No, he was definitely not old. He was fit and trim and strong and…

And she didn’t know what she was doing standing there ogling him. Especially when she knew she should be on her way.

Taking one more deep breath of the clear air and a last glance at the snow-covered town square, at the festively decorated octagonal-shaped gazebo at its center, and finally at the tiny skaters enthralled with the somehow-sexy-seeming Santa, Shannon got back into her sedan.

The fact that she would be seeing her new brother again made her want to make sure she didn’t look too much the worse for wear from the drive, so she pulled down the visor above her and peered into the mirror on the underside of it.

She’d tied back her long, dark, walnut-colored hair into a ponytail in order to keep it neat. The plan had been a success because it looked the same as it had that morning. She wasn’t sure she liked the new mascara she’d used to accentuate her blue-green eyes, but at least it had stayed on. So had the blush that dusted her cheekbones to add some pink to her pale skin and give her oval face some definition. But her glossy lipstick needed refreshing so she took the tube from her purse and did that.

Otherwise, she decided she was presentable enough to meet Chase Mackey where he lived with Hadley—the woman he was marrying on Saturday.

Take a left on South Street. Pass three mailboxes outside of town. Turn right at the fourth.

Shannon read her directions again to make sure she had the number of mailboxes correct.

She’d met Chase twice since he’d made contact with her, but he’d come to Billings each of those times—much the way her grandmother had over the years. This was Shannon’s first trip to Northbridge since she was barely twelve.

According to Chase, he and his business partner Logan McKendrick had bought a section of an old farm that they had converted to meet their private and business needs. Logan lived in the original farmhouse. There was work space and a showroom for Mackey and McKendrick Furniture Designs as well as a loft where Chase lived, and a separate apartment he’d offered to Shannon for the holidays. So she wouldn’t merely be visiting her newfound brother and the woman who would be his bride, she would apparently also be having a lot of contact with Logan and his family.

And with her nephew, Cody.

Cody was the fifteen-month-old son of Shannon and Chase’s oldest sister. The death of Cody’s mother was the reason Chase was now raising Cody, and what had revealed the far-reaching family ties that had brought Shannon and Chase together. Chase had brought the baby on both trips to Billings so Shannon had had the opportunity to meet the adorable baby and she couldn’t wait to see him again.

She flipped the visor back up, and when she did she saw that the skating lesson had apparently ended because Santa and his not-quite-elves were all taking off their skates.

Thinking to leave before the parking lot got busy, Shannon buckled her seat belt and turned the key in the ignition.

Click, click, click. Nothing.

“How can that be, you just got me all the way to Northbridge?” she said to the thirteen-year-old car as she tried again.

But the same thing happened—a few clicks and nothing.

Not that time, not the next time, not the fourth time. The car just wouldn’t start again.

And the only thing Shannon knew about a car was how to drive it.

“Great,” she muttered.

As if something might have changed in the few minutes since she’d tried, she tried again, just as Santa was headed in her direction.

Still the engine wouldn’t turn over. And then there Santa was, at the window right beside her, bent over so that a pair of thick-lashed, smoldering, coal-black eyes could peer in at her.

“Need help?”

He’d tied his black ice skates together by their laces and was wearing them slung over one shoulder as if having them there was second nature to him. The beard remained in place, but even from what she could see of his face she knew she’d been right in thinking that he wasn’t old Saint Nick. The man appeared to be about her own age.

Shannon rolled down the window. “It won’t start. There was no problem when I drove in. I stopped for two minutes and now it won’t start again.”

“Pop the hood and let me take a look,” he suggested in a deep, deep voice.

Shannon had no idea if her roadside service could provide a rescue all the way in Northbridge, so this seemed like the next best thing. She pulled the lever that unlocked the hood and then got out of the car to join Santa in front of it.

He was tall. Of course he’d seemed tall compared to the kids who had surrounded him in the distance minutes earlier, but when Shannon stepped up beside him, she was surprised by just how tall he was—over six feet to her five-four. He was also much more massively muscled within that Santa suit than she’d realized.

And she had no idea why she was taking note of things like that…

He slipped his skates off his shoulder and set them on the ground. Then he found the latch that still held down the hood, released it and raised the heavy front cover of her car to expose the engine.

Shannon looked at it along with him even though she didn’t have the foggiest idea what they were looking for.

“Your battery is new so it isn’t that, and a jump won’t get you going.”

Oh, the wicked places her mind wandered to when he said that!

And again, she didn’t know why. She didn’t ordinarily have sex on the brain.

Silently scolding herself, she curbed her thoughts just as he said, “Let me try a couple of things. Get back in and turn it on when I holler for you to.”

Shannon did as she was told but after several more attempts to get the engine to start whenever Santa told her to turn the key, it just didn’t happen.

“I think you have something more going on than I can fix,” he finally called to her.

Stepping out from behind the hood, he bent over, scooped up as much snow as he could and used it to clean his hands.

Shannon got out of the car and handed him several tissues she’d taken from her glove box.

“Well, thanks for trying,” she said as he took the tissues to dry his hands. She nodded toward Main Street. “I saw a gas station up there—do you know if they have a mechanic?”

“Absolutely. The best—and only—one around here. I can give him a call for you, have him come down and take a look. He has a tow truck, too, if he needs to take it back to the station.”

Shannon checked the time on her cell phone. The closing on her grandmother’s property was in little more than an hour.

“I guess that would be good,” she said tentatively. “Do you think the mechanic could come right down? I’m kind of in a hurry to get somewhere….”

“Even if he can’t, you can just leave the keys under the seat and Roy—he’s the mechanic—will take care of it. And if you need a lift somewhere, I can probably get you there.”

Nice eyes or not, she wasn’t getting into a car with a complete stranger.

“Thanks, but I can call my brother—”

“Who’s your brother? It’s a small town, I probably know him.”

“Chase Mackey?”

“Shannon? Are you Shannon Duffy?” Santa asked.

“I am. How—”

“I’m Dag McKendrick—I’m the one you sold the farm to. Chase’s partner, Logan, is my half brother.”

The local Realtor had handled the sale. Shannon knew the name of her buyer, and that there was a family connection with her brother’s partner, but they’d never met.

“Wow, this is a small town,” she said, thinking about the coincidence.

“And I’m staying at Logan’s place until I finish remodeling your grandmother’s house. You’re set to stay in the apartment above Logan’s garage, right? So that must be where you’re headed.”

“Right.”

“So we can call Roy and have him take a look at your car while you just go home with me.”

Oh.

He made that sound as if everything had worked out perfectly. But Shannon still couldn’t help being uncomfortable with the thought of taking everything this man said at face value and totally trusting him.

“Uhh… thanks, but—”

“Come on, it’s fine. I even have candy….” he cajoled, taking a tiny candy cane from his pocket.

“You’re a stranger masquerading as Santa Claus trying to lure me into a car with candy?” she said.

He laughed and while it wasn’t a Santa-like ho-ho-ho, it was a great laugh.

“I guess that does sound bad, doesn’t it?” he admitted. “Okay, how about this…”

He reached into one of the skates that he’d again slung over his shoulder and pulled out a wallet.

“Look—I’ll prove who I am,” he said, showing her his driver’s license.

Shannon took a close look at it, particularly at the picture. For the kind of photograph that had a reputation for being notoriously bad, his was the exception. Not only were those eyes remarkable, but so was the rest of his face.

Roller-coaster-shaped lips. A slightly long, not-too-thin, not-too-thick nose that suited him. The shadow of a beard even though he was clean shaven, accentuating a sharp jawline and a squarish chin that dented upward in the center ever so alluringly.

And his hair—like the full eyebrows she could see for herself—was the color of espresso. It was so dark a brown it was just one shade shy of black, and he wore it short on the sides, a little long on top and disheveled to perfection.

And yes, the name on the license was, indeed, Daegal Pierson McKendrick.

“Daegal?” Shannon said as she read the unusual name.

“My mother had visions of glory. She thought it sounded European and sophisticated. My sisters are Isadora, Theodora and Zeli. But you can see that I am who I say I am. And in an hour and a half we’ll be sitting across a table at the bank for the closing on your grandmother’s property. Plus, tonight we’re having a family dinner together, and we’ll actually be living within spitting distance of each other even when we aren’t together. I think you can risk a five-minute ride in my car.”

Shannon had no idea why, but she couldn’t resist giving him a hard time despite the abundance of reasons why she could trust him.

“How do I know that the person behind that beard is the person on this driver’s license?”

He looked to his right, to his left, over his shoulder, making sure none of the children he’d been teaching to skate were around to see. Then he eased the beard down just enough for her to realize that in reality he was even better looking than in the photograph.

It was only a split-second glimpse, however, before he released the fluffy white disguise that must have been held on by elastic because it snapped back into place.

Then he waved a finger between the driver’s license in her hand and himself and said, “Him, me, same guy. Not somebody who’s gonna drive you out into the woods and ravage you.”

Why did that make her smile? And maybe sound a little tantalizing?

She again had no answer to her own question but she did finally concede. “Okay. Let’s call the mechanic and then I guess I’ll have to trust you.”

Dag McKendrick took a turn at smiling at her—a great smile that flashed flawlessly white teeth. “You don’t have to trust me. You can walk—it’s about four miles straight down South Street—five minutes by car, maybe an hour or more on foot, your choice…”

“I’ll take the ride. But remember, the mechanic will know who I left with.”

“And the possible future-Governor of Montana will track me down and have me shot if anything happens to his soon-to-be wife.”

So the news had even reached Northbridge. Shannon had been hoping that somehow the media coverage might have bypassed the small, secluded town during the two weeks since Wes’s on-camera proposal.

But while she wasn’t Wes Rumson’s soon-to-be anything, she’d agreed not to refute it in public. She’d agreed to let Wes’s press people handle it in a way that saved face for him, that didn’t harm his bid for governor. And she couldn’t blurt out the truth now, on the street, to someone she didn’t know.

Even if she suddenly wanted to more than she had at any moment in the last two weeks.

Because, as she looked into Dag McKendrick’s coal-black eyes, she hated the idea that he thought she was engaged when she wasn’t.

And she didn’t understand that any more than she’d understood any of the rest of her response to this man.

But that was what she’d agreed to and she had to stick to it.

She had to.

So she bit her tongue on the subject and merely said, “I’ll get my suitcase out of the trunk while you call the mechanic. If you would, please.”

“Already sounding gubernatorial,” he teased.

Shannon merely rolled her eyes at him and reached beside the driver’s seat to release the lever that opened the sedan’s trunk.

“Just leave your suitcase, I’ll get it,” Dag McKendrick commanded as she headed for the rear of the car. “We can’t have the future First Lady toting her own luggage.”

Shannon ignored him and went for her suitcase anyway.

But as she was standing behind the car, she couldn’t keep herself from peeking around the raised trunk cover at him, telling herself it was to make sure he was using the cell phone he’d taken from the inside of that same skate his wallet had been in, and not just to get another look at him.

Dag McKendrick.

Why on earth would she care if he thought she was engaged? she asked herself.

She still didn’t have an answer.

But what she did have about five minutes later was a ride in a truck with Santa Claus behind the wheel, honking his horn and boisterously hollering ho-ho-hos to every child he drove by.

Chapter Two

On Thursday evening, in the upstairs guest room of his half brother’s home, Dag set the packet of papers for the property he now owned in the top dresser drawer. As he did, the sounds of more and more voices began to rise up to him from the kitchen.