 by Lili Valente.jpg)
Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28750 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28750 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Being snowed in with the one man you’ve been trying your best to avoid.
Bear Hansen is a burly sweetheart with loads of sexy tattoos and big hands that did wickedly wonderful things to me the last time we met.
Things that made me want way more than a one-night stand…
Which is why I ran, blocked his calls, and stopped commenting on his cat videos. I only have a few years to launch my career. I'm determined not to end up filled with regret like my mother, so I have to focus on making my professional dreams come true.
But when Bear and I are thrown together by fate on the most magical night of the year, I find myself questioning everything.
What if I have this all wrong? What if what I want most in life is standing right in front of me, offering to love me no matter what?
Bear and I have one night to find out…
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Rose “Dipsy” Dobbs
A woman running through the airport in elf shoes,
regretting several of her recent life choices…
* * *
Through my cell phone speaker, my mother’s tinny voice frets, “You’re never going to make it! These days, you have to get to the airport five hours before takeoff, Dipsy. Five hours!”
“It’s two hours before a domestic flight, Mom, and I’m not checking luggage. I’ve got this.” I grab my rolling suitcase and zoom away from security, bells jingling on my elf shoes. “Just don’t forget to feed Hambone. He’ll be upset if he has to wait for me to get there. He likes dinner promptly at six.”
“I know that.” She sounds offended. “I never forget to feed my grandkitty.”
“Of course, not,” I say, though she forgets all the time.
But that’s partly Hambone’s fault. Most cats will meow for their dinner, making such a ruckus, they’re impossible to ignore. My sweet orange tabby lays down on the ground on his back, stretches his arms over his head, and sticks out his pink tongue, playing dead until you notice he’s being dramatic and put something in his bowl.
Unfortunately for him, Mom has a habit of ignoring living things that don’t make noise. Our kitchen window is where houseplants go to die, and we don’t talk about the ill-fated goldfish Dad thought would keep Mom company when I left for college…
“I’ll put some catnip in it for a special Christmas Eve treat, too,” Mom adds. “Your dad grabbed some while he was out getting bulbs to fix the lights on the tree.”
“Amazing,” I say. “You’re the best. I appreciate you guys.”
And I do. After the disaster in D.C., my parents graciously welcomed both Hambone and me to the basement apartment in my childhood home, no questions asked.
Like…literally no questions.
They still have no idea what went down during my East Coast failure to launch.
But that’s typical Dobbs family dynamics for you. If a situation seems fraught or messy, my parents don’t want to hear about it. They’d rather pretend I went to D.C. on vacation, not to start my first serious job, and that moving into the basement was always the plan.
It wasn’t.
Continuing to build my “scrappy girl reporter most likely to dress up in a goofy outfit and make the news fun again!” brand wasn’t, either. Fun news is fun and all, but I’m a professional. I graduated top of my class at the University of Missouri, in one of the oldest training programs in the country. Mizzou Journalism majors don’t do puff pieces; we cover serious, hard-hitting news. I’m supposed to be making a difference, not a list of the best places in St. Louis to catch a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh.
But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and in a field as competitive as television journalism, beggars can’t be choosers.
Hence the reason I’m currently dashing down a moving walkway in full elf gear, my carry-on clattering along behind me as my mother continues to list a dozen reasons why I’m probably going to miss my flight.
A heavily lined green velvet mini-dress, elf shoes with bells on the curled toes, and green-and-white striped tights wouldn’t have been my choice for a “flying home on Christmas Eve” outfit, but there was literally no time to change. We finished filming my segment for St. Louis News thirty minutes ago, seconds before it was set to air.
As soon as we wrapped “Ten Elf Tips for Spotting Santa’s Sleigh Tonight,” I jumped in a taxi, waved good-bye to my producer and cameraman through the back window, and prayed to the sweet baby Jesus for deliverance as the cabbie skidded out into the swirling snow.
I love a white Christmas as much as the next girl, but is it too much to ask that the white stuff hold off until I’m safely home for the holidays?
Apparently so…
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the moving walkway, the snow is coming down so hard I can barely see the airline workers zooming around in their little carts, loading luggage and snacks into waiting planes.
It’s gnarly out there, but the flight hasn’t been cancelled. I checked on my way through the security line, seconds before putting my mother on speaker and tucking my cell into the breast pocket of my elf dress—the better to assure her I’ll be home for our family’s annual Christmas Eve cocoa party and run like the wind at the same time.
In hindsight, I wish I’d waited to call her after I’d boarded.
Her endless stream of doom and gloom is making the race to gate 54B even more stressful.
“The weatherman said they already have six inches of accumulation at our airport,” she says, her voice pinched with worry. “Six inches, high winds, and a chance of thundersnow!”
“And a partridge in a pear tree,” I sing-pant.
“This isn’t the time for jokes, Dipsy,” Mom chastises. “Thundersnow is no laughing matter.”