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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

       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

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