Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Read online

His words sounded over-rehearsed. His voice too automatic, like a prerecorded message informing you of a past-due bill, then inviting you to have a good day. There was nothing good about a bill-collection phone call. She sensed pain, not happiness, in Zach’s childhood memory, and that pulled at her. And made her instantly want to know more. “How did you get to a ranch?”

  “Met a girl in college, followed her home to her family’s ranch in Colorado the summer after our freshman year,” Zach said.

  That answered the love part. “How did you do in your first-ever rodeo?”

  “Failed spectacularly on both the bull ride and with the girl.” A small smile softened across his face. “But I found a home on the ranch with the horses.”

  “And you’ve been riding ever since,” she said.

  “Something like that. Everything just clicked. The boots, hat and my love for horses.” Zach adjusted a pair of penguin salt and pepper shakers, then wiped his hands together as if the display was finished along with the conversation about his past. “How about you? What extreme thing have you done for love?”

  Georgie had gone to extremes to avoid love. Love hadn’t been part of her medical degree requirements. She wanted nothing to distract her from her career. Besides, she loved her work. Her work fulfilled her. “I’m not really an extreme person.”

  “That’s the thing about love.” Zach stepped closer and considered her. “Love makes you believe every risk is worth it.”

  Or it made you believe you could leave the California beach town you were born and raised in to live on a ranch in zero-degree weather with acres of land and cattle as your only neighbors. At least that was what her sister Lily believed. Now that Lily had fallen in love with Conner. There was the problem with love. Once you fell, love made the decisions, not logic and common sense. Then the chances of failure multiplied exponentially.

  “I don’t see any jewelry cases and there’s no one to guide us through this maze.” Georgie turned toward the entrance. “This was a bad idea. We should get back on the road.”

  Zach followed her to the parking lot, started the car and buckled his seat belt.

  Her cell phone buzzed. Her dad’s face filled the screen, signaling the incoming call. Georgie pushed her voice into upbeat. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Your sisters texted that you’re on your way to the ranch.” Her dad’s enthusiasm never paused. “I’ve been really looking forward to this. It’s good to have you home for the holidays and with someone special, too. I can’t wait to meet Colin.”

  “You mean…” Dread collapsed Georgie’s voice into a wheeze. “Zach.”

  “Who’s Zach?” Her dad’s tone instantly shifted into alert mode.

  And Georgie free-fell into instant panic. “Dad? You’re breaking up. I can’t really hear you.”

  “Georgie?” he shouted.

  “I’ll call you when we get to the ranch.” Georgie disconnected the call. She’d never hung up on her own dad. Never been so abrupt with him. Even when he’d called during her most intense work sessions in the lab.

  “Everything okay?” Zach asked.

  “Bad connection.” Bad decisions. She had a father who expected her to have a date. Expected to meet her “someone special.” She dropped her head back on the seat. Her cowboy could not be…

  She had no bracelet. No clothes. No date. None of the armor she’d intended to use to support herself the entire week. Everything had been so carefully planned and then it had all started falling apart in spectacular fashion.

  She needed something. Something to bolster her confidence and put her back in charge. All strategies started with a good plan. Good plans required detailed lists. She opened the notes app on her phone and began a list. “I know I said only one stop, but I need to make another one.”

  “I don’t think I can handle another antiques store.” He pulled out onto the road.

  “I need a clothing store. I can’t meet my family in a stained, wrinkled shirt.” Georgie crossed her arms over her chest, covering the dried coffee stain on her sweater. That would be like arriving for the first day of her new job without her ironed lab coat and personal protective gear.

  “But they know you’ve been traveling all day,” he argued.

  But the Blackwells did not know Georgie. First impressions mattered. Everything from her appearance to her manner would set the tone and ensure the next ten days proceeded as she intended. “It won’t take long. There’s a mall two miles away.”

  Zach followed her directions and parked the car outside the department store.

  “Tell me you have a shopping strategy.” He rubbed his hands together. His gaze was fixed on the snow quickly covering the windshield. “So we can be in and out really fast.”

  “I made a list of clothes I need for tonight and tomorrow.”

  Zach leaned over the console. “‘Black fleece-lined leggings. Charcoal boot socks. Oatmeal fleece pullover. Thick infinity scarf, gray with red or purple undertones.’”

  She tipped her phone away before he read her undergarment requirements. “I like lists.”

  “That’s a rather specific clothing list,” he said.

  “I know what I want.” And she certainly didn’t want to edge closer to him or explain that was the exact outfit she’d planned to wear to meet her sisters and her new Blackwell family. Nothing too bold but coordinated and very weather appropriate. An outfit that proved she could make smart choices outside of the lab, too.

  Zach touched her arm, stopping her from getting out of the car, and pointed at a Western goods store. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with a pair of jeans and good flannel shirt.”

  There was everything wrong with jeans and flannel for Georgie. She was not a cowgirl, a future rancher or an impostor. She was a doctor, more comfortable in a lab coat than a dress. More at ease surrounded by microscopes and petri dishes than on a date. “I never find jeans warm enough.”

  “Maybe you’re wearing the wrong kind.” A tease shifted through his voice.

  Maybe if she stopped noticing his charm, she’d stop considering him as her Colin replacement. She seemed to have lost more than her luggage on the flight. Her common sense still floated thirty-five thousand feet in the air. Her feet were firmly back on the ground, yet she was less sensible now.

  “Feels like we should set a time limit.” Zach tapped his wrist, then tipped his chin toward the café inside the main shopping area and the large easel announcing the day’s dessert specials. “I’m heading to the café for the Peppermint Brownie Ice Cream Cake.”

  “I’ll be done before you finish the last bite,” she said.

  “Care to bet on that?” he asked.

  She set her hand in his. “Loser has to buy the second piece of cake.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ZACH PEERED OVER at Georgie. She polished off the last bite of the to-go Peppermint Brownie Ice Cream Cake he’d purchased for her. Shopping bags in hand and a wide smile on her face, she’d located him in the café, eyed his unfinished piece of cake and declared herself the winner.

  Georgie waved her plastic fork toward the car window. “It feels like we’ve gone one hundred miles already.”

  “Thirty-five,” he said.

  “Miles,” she clarified. “That’s all?”

  “Now it’s thirty-six since we left the mall.”

  “There is nothing productive about sitting in a car that’s crawling through the snow.” Georgie leaned her head back against the seat and groaned. “Tell me something about yourself, Zach.”

  Perhaps if he told her something about himself, she’d open up about her family. He really only wanted information on one person in particular: Ethan Blackwell. Specifically, on the best way to approach the veterinarian who had refused to take Zach’s calls or answer his emails about his horse. “I can give you my sixty-second short.”

  “What’
s that?” She closed the to-go container and set it on the floor.

  “A quick summary of everything you need to know about me in sixty seconds or less. Sort of like a sound bite.” One he’d often relied on during interviews over the years. He’d never liked probing inquiries and never divulged too much personal information.

  “And if I still have questions?”

  “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know me.” She tapped her fitness tracker. “Time starts now.”

  “My parents are both gone. I’m the last branch on the Evans family tree.” He cleared his throat, dislodging a knot of grief. He was completely alone. Nothing he hadn’t been able to handle. “I live for the rodeo and the moment. In that order.”

  “Always?” She arched one eyebrow.

  “Always.”

  “It’s good to love what you do,” she said.

  “And do you love what you do?” He leaned his elbow on the console, shifting the focus to Georgie rather than himself.

  “I do,” she said. “I’m a doctor.”

  Being a doctor suited her quiet reserve and understated appearance.

  “The doctor and the cowboy.” She nodded. “Sounds like we’re characters from a movie.”

  “Who met in the ER.” He grinned. “That sounds more realistic than a chance meeting on an airplane.”

  “Except I don’t do patient care.” She frowned. “I do clinical research.”

  Now he frowned. He thought of Cody then, always upbeat and agreeing to clinical trials. Zach loosened his grip on the steering wheel, but not the ache inside him.

  Her job didn’t matter. After all, he was only driving Georgie to Falcon Creek. She wasn’t his fake girlfriend and he didn’t have to pretend to support her career. He did have to gather more information about her cousin. “How many sisters do you have?”

  “Four,” she said. “They live in California, except Lily. She lives in Falcon Creek now and is getting married to Conner.”

  “And you don’t like him,” Zach guessed.

  “I haven’t met Conner,” Georgie said. “I haven’t met my other sisters’ significant others either. They’ll all be coming in for the wedding later in the week.”

  “But you’re convinced you won’t like them.”

  “I never said I wouldn’t like them.” She stretched out her words. “I said I haven’t met them.”

  “It’s the way you’re saying it,” Zach said. “You already don’t like them.”

  “How am I saying that exactly?”

  “There’s dread in your voice, not excitement,” he said. “If you were looking forward to meeting them, you would have said just that.”

  “I’m not dreading meeting them.” Georgie crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know them, so I can’t decide whether I like them or not.”

  “That’s the polite answer.” Zach tapped the navigation screen. “We have one hundred and fifty-three miles to go at a slow pace thanks to the snow falling. You can tell me the truth. I don’t have anyone else to tell. What would you tell me if we were dating?”

  His family confidences would be much more complicated. For years, the rules had included a mask and latex gloves to protect his brother from infection. Not ever visiting their childhood home after dusk. Dusk was the time when his mother had always declared she’d endured another day, and had rewarded herself by camping out beside the liquor cabinet for the rest of the night.

  Zach accelerated, pushing the SUV and himself away from his past.

  “That’s just it.” Georgie shifted in the seat, facing toward him. “If we were in a real relationship, we’d follow a certain structure.”

  “You mean like a schedule,” he said.

  “No, I mean a blueprint.” She waved a hand around in front of her. “You know, like a relationship guideline.”

  Zach changed his grip on the steering wheel and focused on Georgie, not his own broken family memories. Only pain hovered in his past. He’d told Georgie he lived for the moment. For the present. And the present belonged to the entirely too intriguing woman beside him.

  “You better give me the details.” He offered a teasing grin. “I’m not sure I’ve seen a relationship blueprint before.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re single.” Irritation clipped her voice. “You obviously missed several steps.”

  Her concise matter-of-fact tone released his laughter. What was it about her that made him smile? Made him feel lighter? “I could say the same for you.”

  “Not really,” she said. “I’m single by choice.”

  If that was all it took not to have failed the relationship guidelines, then he passed. “I choose to be single, too.”

  “You followed a girl to a ranch and entered the rodeo for her.” Doubt layered through her words like the snow piling up on the side of the interstate.

  “That was years and too many bad decisions ago.”

  “Still, if she had said yes to your proposal, you’d be married now,” she argued.

  “Well, there was that minor inconvenience of the other guy she fell in love with,” he admitted. He’d only ever revealed that detail to Cody. No one else. He wasn’t a secret-sharing kind of person. He’d spent most of his life putting a spin on his home life and burying the truth so deep that he could barely recognize it.

  “Sorry.” She reached over and squeezed his arm. “You’re better alone than with someone like that.”

  And there it was—sincerity and frank honesty. Add a dash of confident optimism and that was Georgie. Exactly what he already really liked about her. He shrugged. “Lessons learned and all that.”

  “So, we’re both single by choice.” She released him and ran her hands over her leggings. “But there is still a relationship road map.”

  “So you’ve claimed.” He left his past in the snowdrift and ignored the urge to grab her hand to keep them connected. Connected right there in the present. He genuinely liked her. That would be good if they crossed paths at the Blackwell ranch in the next few days. Nothing wrong with getting along with her. It wasn’t like he’d suddenly acquired relationship goals. “If I follow this relationship road map, where does it get me? To a penthouse suite at the True Love Hotel?”

  “You end up with a partner for life.” She pulled off the wool hat she’d purchased at the store on their way out. “That was how it was with my parents.” But she winced when she said it.

  “What about love?” He ground his teeth together. Love. Really? He wanted to talk about the best means to approach Ethan Blackwell, not about love. Not again. He’d tiptoed into the romance conversation earlier in the antiques store. And only because something like misery seemed to have gripped her and he’d wanted to take it away. It wasn’t a conversation that needed to be revisited.

  “Sure, love’s part of it.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. No mirror or hairbrush required, her movements as casual as her position on lasting relationships. She added, “But there are other factors.”

  “Like what?” he asked. “Love is supposed to conquer all.”

  She skimmed over that claim as smoothly as her fingers went over her hair. “Other factors like friendship, mutual respect, shared values. Common interests.”

  For reasons Zach could only blame on the relentless snow falling on the windshield, obscuring his clear view and common sense, he continued their banter about love. “Let’s pretend that you and I fall madly in love.” Key word: pretend. Zach loved the rodeo and his rootless life on the road.

  “Okay.” Her disbelief stretched her one word like a lasso hurled toward a calf.

  Did she not believe in mad love or falling for him? Zach switched the windshield wipers to move faster. “Because we don’t share the same interests or values, we fail. Is that what your relationship guidelines state?”

  “If we had followed
the road map, we wouldn’t have ever fallen in love in the first place,” she said.

  Simple. Blunt. Matter-of-fact. Had that been his problem all these years? The love he knew—the love he’d seen—was complicated. Messy. Made a man weak and vulnerable. It exposed and abandoned. And was best avoided.

  She continued, “We would have known early on it’d never work out between us.”

  He glanced at her. “You follow this road map?”

  Georgie nodded.

  “And your sisters?” He returned his attention to the road.

  “Have not,” she said.

  He heard the deep frown in her voice. “Then you believe their relationships are going to fail?”

  “How could they not?” Her voice lowered into a gruff whisper.

  The defeat in her tone bothered him. He avoided love, but that hardly meant he didn’t believe in it for other people. “You haven’t been in Falcon Creek. Maybe your sisters have followed the road map, and everything lines up.”

  “How could they?” She clutched her hands together. “It’s only been four months since Lily met Conner and several weeks since Fiona met Simon. Not to mention Peyton and Matteo.”

  Zach rubbed his eyes. “There’s a timeline, too.”

  “Why are we talking about this?” Georgie turned the heat down to cold, as if it had been set to sweltering.

  “Because of your dread about meeting Conner and the others,” he reminded her.

  “Tell me you don’t have any standards or dating rules.” A bold defiance was wrapped around her words, daring him to deny her.

  “I don’t kiss and tell.” He winked at her.

  She scowled. The irritation tacked between her bunched eyebrows and the frustration tightening her sweet mouth made him want to kiss her. Truly, once and for all, fluster her like she’d never been. Now he’d flustered himself.

  “That’s not original.” She pushed on his shoulder, a light, playful nudge. “Tell me something serious.”

  I seriously think I want to kiss you. He cleared his throat, spilled a different truth. “Loyalty matters. A lot.” Despite everything, the all-night binges and his mother’s addictions, his dad had been loyal to his mom their entire marriage. “Actions are always stronger than words.”