LITMIR.BIZ

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      In New England they’d always hoped for a white Christmas. She and her sisters had put on hats and mittens and boots and made snowmen and had snowball fights. Grace had accused Hope of being too bossy about where to put Frosty’s nose and Faith could no longer play peacemaker.

      Hope smiled to herself. Poor Faith. Hope and Grace hadn’t made things easy on their middle sister. Things were slightly better with their relationship now, in so far as Faith wasn’t not speaking to Hope. Grace was still put out with Hope for not agreeing to go on an assignment with her. In Hope’s defense, the opportunity to do a shoot for Style-Setter magazine was too good to pass up, but Grace hadn’t understood.

      Now Faith was in a similar predicament to Hope—Gram had asked a favor of her, too, and she was doing some special stained glass project for an English earl.

      Sometimes it seemed like the three of them were on different planets.

      A movement to the right caught her attention. It was Blake, bundled in a heavy coat with a black knitted cap on his head and huge gloves on his hands, shoveling the walkway that ran from house to barnyard. Snow flew off his shovel in great puffs as Hope took the time to study him more carefully.

      He’d annoyed her with his assessment last night, making her react when she’d truly wanted to be pleasant after getting off on the wrong foot. And in his words he was no therapist. Just a rancher.

      Looking at his scar, though, she knew he wasn’t any ordinary rancher. This was personal for him, wasn’t it? Someone didn’t run a place like this without a history. She’d bet it was all wrapped up in how he’d got that scar.

      And just like that she knew it would be best if she did move lodgings. What good would come of any sort of curiosity? She didn’t want to get caught up in anyone else’s drama. She’d had enough of her own to last a lifetime. She had a good life now and she’d fought hard for it, worked hard. Gram was wrong. She didn’t need fixing at all. What she needed was to keep busy.

      She wished she could snap her fingers and it would be Christmas already. She’d spend it with Gram and then head back to Sydney, where she belonged. She’d rather just forgo all this nonsense altogether.

      Hope showered and dried her hair, then got dressed, did her makeup carefully and straightened her unruly curls with a flatiron until they lay soft and smooth to her shoulders. When she finally went downstairs Blake was inside, curling his hands around a coffee cup while steam rose in wisps in the air.

      “Good morning.”

      He turned and smiled as if the tension of last night had never existed. It appeared they were both making an effort.

      “Morning.”

      “Is there more of that?”

      He moved his head, gesturing to the coffeemaker. “Help yourself. How’d you sleep?”

      She reached for a cup. “Better than I expected. Maybe it’s the mountain air. Or going without sleep for nearly forty-eight hours. I slept right through.”

      “It was still dark after sunrise, thanks to the storm. We really got dumped on overnight. I figured we would.”

      She poured the coffee and took the first sip—ah. The restorative, caffeine-injected brew suddenly seemed to make everything a little more right in the world.

      “How much came down?”

      “Maybe a foot and a half, and it’s still falling.”

      Her bubble of happiness popped and the coffee didn’t taste quite so good. “A foot and a half? Like, eighteen inches?”

      “Yeah. Afraid the roads are closed from here to the highway unless you’ve got a four-by-four. And of course there’s always the problem of trying to realize where the road ends and the fields begin. Try it and you’re in a ditch and calling a neighbor to haul you out. No one’s going anywhere today.”

      And there it was. Her brilliant plan to be friendly but insist on going to nearby Banff to find a hotel room blown out of the water. “For how long?” she asked.

      “Oh, rest of today for sure. If it lets up things’ll be clear by tomorrow sometime. Added to what we already had, there’s no doubt it’ll be a white Christmas this year.”

      He grinned with satisfaction—only the second time she’d seen him smile. It seemed the gruff rancher had a soft spot for the holidays. Good for him.

      Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. She could manage one more night. She could make some calls today and book a room. She let out a breath.

      “You should have some breakfast. I ate early, but Anna’s here. She’ll fix you up. Anna?”

      “You called?”

      A raspy voice came from the hall and a woman appeared just after it. She was small—barely over five feet—with eyes black as night and golden-brown skin. “Hope, meet Anna Bearspaw.”

      The woman smiled, making the skin around her eyes wrinkle, and now Hope understood why her question about whether Anna was his wife or girlfriend had made him laugh. The woman was easily fifty, her graying black hair pulled back in a sleek low ponytail.

      “Hope.” She grinned. “Blake says you liked my elk last night.”

      “Elk?” she struggled to keep the pleasant smile pasted on her face. She’d assumed the flavorful meat was beef. Didn’t Alberta boast about its beef?

      “The roast,” Blake offered. “No one does it up like Anna.”

      Hope had to swallow the saliva that pooled in her mouth at the thought of eating what had to be hunted game. She rarely ate red meat, but had made an exception rather than rock the hospitality boat. She was used to meat coming in neatly wrapped packages at the market. Her stomach turned as she imagined the process of getting a wild animal to the table.

      “It was...uh...delicious,” she offered weakly.

      “My boy John’s the hunter. We kept some for ourselves and gave the rest to Blake in trade.”

      “Trade?”

      “It’s nothing,” Blake said, putting his cup in the sink.

      “Oh, it’s nothing,” Anna parroted. She looked at Hope. “Blake has given me a job, and now that it’s just me and John at home he looks after us, whatever we need. He’s a good man.”

      It made no sense to Hope why she’d be curious to know more about Anna, but she found herself asking, “Looks after you?”

      The woman beamed. “He’s a good neighbor.”

      “We all look after each other out here, that’s all,” Blake replied.

      That was just the sort of thing Hope tried to avoid. She didn’t like having to rely on other people. She’d rather rely on her own two hands and abilities. She liked being independent. She liked her job and her circle of friends in Sydney. She had life just the way she wanted it, didn’t she? And it was a good life. Relying on help meant people thought they had the right to pry into personal matters. She much preferred privacy.

      It hadn’t always been that way, though. Not when she’d been a child. Once upon a time the three sisters had stuck together. After their parents had finally split for good they’d had to—they’d only had each other. And Gram.

      It had been Gram who had told her to stop trying so hard to hold them all together. And Gram who had witnessed her complete breakdown at eighteen, when stress had meant she’d blown her exams and lost her scholarship. It had been Gram who had picked her up and helped her get back on her feet again. No one but the two of them knew how much it had cost Gram. And Hope had paid back every cent. She’d made sure of that.

      She was still working on paying back the personal cost to her grandmother—which was why she’d agreed to this stupid scheme in the first place.

      She pushed the

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