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      Widowed Jessie was about to give birth, and she needed help fast. Unfortunately, the closest ranch in town belonged to her brother-in-law. Though this charismatic rancher was her only hope, he was the last person Jessie wanted to be with.

      Previously published.

      A Christmas Blessing

      Sherryl Woods

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ISBN: 978-1-474-03378-7

      A CHRISTMAS BLESSING

      © 1995 Sherryl Woods

      Published in Great Britain 2015

       by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

       Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

      All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

      By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

      ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ®are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Version: 2018-04-18

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Copy

       Title Page

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      Getting Consuela Martinez out of his kitchen was proving to be a much more difficult task than Luke Adams had ever envisioned. His housekeeper had found at least a dozen excuses for lingering, despite the fact that her brother was leaning on his car’s horn and causing enough ruckus to deafen them all.

      “Go, amiga,” Luke pleaded. “Enjoy your holidays with your family. Feliz Navidad!

      Consuela ignored the instructions and the good wishes. “The freezer is filled with food,” she reminded him, opening the door to show him for the fourth time. Though there were literally dozens of precooked, neatly labeled packages, a worried frown puckered her brow. “It will be enough?”

      “More than enough,” he assured her.

      “But not if you have guests,” she concluded, removing her coat. “I should stay. The holidays are no time for a good housekeeper to be away.”

      “I won’t be having any guests,” Luke said tightly, picking the coat right back up and practically forcing her into it. “And if I do, I am perfectly capable of whipping up a batch of chips and dip.”

      “Chips and dip,” she muttered derisively.

      She added a string of Spanish Luke felt disinclined to translate. He caught the general drift; it wasn’t complimentary. After all this time, though, Consuela should know that he wasn’t the type to host a lot of extravagant, foolish parties. Leave that sort of thing to his brother Jordan or his parents. His brother thrived on kissing up to his business associates and his parents seemed to think that filling the house with strangers meant they were well loved and well respected.

      “Consuela, go!” he ordered, barely curbing his impatience. “Vaya con Dios. I’ll be fine. I am thirty-two years old. I’ve been out of my playpen for a long time.”

      One of the dangers of hiring an ex-nanny as a housekeeper, he’d discovered, was the tendency she had to forget that her prior charge had grown up. Yet he could no more have fired Consuela than he could have his own mother. In truth, for all of her hovering and bossiness, she was the single most important constant in his life. Which was a pretty pitiful comment on the state of his family, he decided ruefully.

      Consuela’s unflinching, brown-eyed gaze pinned him. Hands on ample hips, she squared off against him. “You will go to your parents’ on Christmas, sí? The holidays are a time for families to be together. You have stayed away too long.”

      “Yes,” he lied. He had no intention of going anywhere, especially not to his parents’ house where everyone would be mourning, not celebrating, thanks to him.

      “They

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