Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set

by Cari Lynn Webb, Linda Warren, Mary Anne Wilson

  Georgie wasn’t a good one. She was deceiving everyone. She yanked her fingers out of the solution, the warmth no longer soothing, and wiped her hand on the towel.

  “What about your sister?” Estelle leaned closer to Georgie. “Is she marrying a good one?”

  “Conner Hannah.” Georgie shifted her gaze to her sister. She hadn’t seen Lily quite so happy in years. Yet even more, there was a confidence in Lily now. As if her sister had found a strong foundation and knew she could bloom without second-guessing herself. With Conner, Lily wasn’t alone. “Conner seems like he’s good.”

  “That makes my own heart full.” Iris smiled warmly.

  Was Georgie’s heart full? A full heart wouldn’t further her career, would it? Or honor her mother’s memory. Only helping people not suffer the same unexpected loss of a family member would do that. She hadn’t needed a full heart in the past. Still, she glanced from Fee to Lily to Iris. All three women had full hearts. All Georgie had was a tweak of regret.

  “What’s your full name, Georgie?” Iris took out a pen and piece of paper from the tote-style purse on the seat beside her.

  Distracted by her partially full heart, Georgie recited her full name.

  “It’ll fit nicely.” Iris wrote something across the paper, then presented it to Estelle, who nodded.

  “What will fit?” Georgie asked.

  “Your name on Dr. Cummings’s office sign.” Iris shifted and displayed the paper to Georgie and the others. “His full name is Theodore Laurence Cummings. There are two more letters in his name than yours. This will work out just fine.”

  “Dr. Cummings’s offices are half a block from the Silver Stake Saloon.” Estelle pointed at the front window. Her pretty dangle bracelets slipped down her arm. “Make a right at the stop sign. Then a left when you come to Possum Trail Park.”

  Georgie forgot her heart and considered the women. “Isn’t Dr. Cummings using his offices?”

  “Only at his convenience.” Emma caught Georgie’s gaze in the large mirror and frowned. “And that’s not frequently.”

  “He spends more time in Livingston at his other offices these days.” Estelle shook her head. “As if Livingston has more going for it than Falcon Creek.”

  “We’ve got Pops watching for his car,” Iris said. “It’s a sunburst yellow color and very hard to miss.”

  “If Pops spots the doctor’s car, a signal goes out,” Emma explained. “I’m convinced it’s speed dialing or some such thing by how fast the word spreads throughout town, but Pops won’t reveal his messaging ways.”

  Georgie grinned. Finally, something that made sense. Pops being evasive about his methods and ways. Georgie wouldn’t put it past him to have a superpower.

  “Front and Back Streets fill with cars,” Estelle said. “Looks like the Fourth of July parade with all the cars trying to get into the doctor’s parking lot.”

  “You could take over Dr. Cummings’s offices and open your own practice,” Iris said.

  “That’s…” Lily gasped, then slapped her palm over her mouth. Her gaze widened in the mirror as if she considered the suggestion and liked the merits more and more with each passing minute.

  Georgie blinked and forced herself not to flinch. Not to disrupt the precision nail painting being applied to her fingernails. Open her own practice? In Falcon Creek? She’d gone from sisterly bonding to the improbable. Impractical. Impossible.

  “If you had normal patient hours, you could see everyone and still walk across the street for happy hour at the Silver Stake,” Estelle continued, as if Georgie had agreed to the idea. As if Georgie had jumped on their implausible doctor train. “The bar has even extended its happy hour.”

  “My grandson Roman works there.” Iris lifted her eyebrows at Georgie. “Be sure to meet him. He claims to be happily single.”

  Estelle shook her head. “No one is truly happily single.”

  Georgie wanted to raise her hand. She was happy. Truly happy.

  “Georgie has a boyfriend,” Fee offered and moved two chairs closer to the conversation.

  “He’s a cowboy in the rodeo,” Lily added.

  “He’ll do just fine.” Iris nodded. Estelle agreed, another low hum.

  “For what?” Georgie asked.

  “Sticking around, dear.” Iris tapped her fingers on the leather seat.

  “Hasn’t been a cowboy who came to Falcon Creek and left,” Estelle said. “They all plant their boots and grow roots here.”

  But Georgie wasn’t sticking around. Or putting down roots. Her boots were boarding a plane to England. In a little more than a week.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Could you pick me up at Jem Salon?

  Sure. Be there in five. Everything okay?

  GEORGIE STARED AT Zach’s reply to her text message. Cursor flashing as if mocking her. How could she explain she was both okay and not okay all at once?

  Her hair, intricately twisted around her head with wispy strands curled to frame her face, and her makeup, expertly applied to appear natural and enhance her eyes, made her appear bridal party perfect. Picture-ready. Her glossy nails shimmered like frozen snow.

  Inside, her heart ached. Between the talk about opening her own practice in town and last-minute wedding particulars, Georgie had sipped champagne, snacked on cheese and bonded with her sisters. Selfies of champagne toasts and the sisters wrapped in a group hug had been sent to Amanda and Peyton, wish you were here tags attached. They’d pulled up funny family photos on their phones of bad hair days and awkward teenage years, laughed and cried at pictures with their parents. Shared old dating stories and things they hadn’t known about each other. Mostly, they’d reconnected.

  But Georgie was moving out of the country soon. That ache settled deeper. She knew she’d miss her sisters and her family. She’d accepted that. It shouldn’t be possible to miss them even more, when she hadn’t even left yet.

  Georgie clutched her phone. She would honor her mother in the best way she knew how. And if she hurt, so be it. She typed: I’m fine. Finished here.

  On my way. Zach’s reply came quickly.

  And with no more questions asked. Georgie rubbed her chest. She’d miss Zach, too.

  Georgie tucked her phone into her purse and hugged her sisters. If she held on tighter than usual, no one stopped her. “Zach is coming to get me.”

  Lily lifted her eyebrows up and down. “Hot date night.”

  Fee clinked her champagne glass against Lily’s. “We want details.”

  “Don’t blush, Georgie.” Lily laughed. “I’m going to find Conner and get him to take me out, too. I don’t want to waste all of this.”

  The salon door opened, and Zach stepped inside. Lily and Fee greeted him from their salon chairs.

  Georgie thanked Emma and the stylists, hugged her sisters one more time and walked toward Zach, suddenly unsure if calling him in for an escape had been her best idea.

  “I feel like I should be taking you out for a night on the town.” Zach tipped his hat up and settled his intense gaze on her. “You look incredible.”

  “Thanks. It’s just hair and makeup.” Only Zach looked at her as if he didn’t want to stop looking at her. Her stomach fluttered the tiniest bit.

  Behind her, Lily and Fee offered their encouragement for a fun evening alone.

  “I’m feeling a little underdressed.” He ran his hands over his jacket. “And unprepared.”

  “I hope I didn’t pull you away from something.” She’d been the one wanting to be pulled away. Needing to be pulled away. Now she was being pulled again. Only this time toward Zach.

  “Just the Once Was Barn. Nothing that couldn’t wait.” He opened the door to the salon, waved goodbye to her sisters and stepped outside. “Where can I take you?”

  “Can we not go to the dining hall tonight?” Georgie asked.


  “Sure.” He shrugged. “It’s so crowded, they’ll probably not even notice we’re missing.”

  “I love them. I really do,” she said. “It’s just a lot sometimes.”

  “I imagine the Silver Stake will be a bit much, too.” Zach pointed down the street toward the bar and restaurant. Cars lined the street, the bar’s parking lot already full.

  “My dad, grandfather and sisters will be arriving in two days.” She stuffed her gloved hands into her jacket pockets. “Is it wrong to want a minute? I know it makes no sense. There’s no purpose to it.”

  “No, it’s not wrong.” He adjusted her scarf under her chin and grinned. “If you don’t mind takeout, I have an idea.”

  “What do you have in mind?” And will you continue to look at me like I’m the one you’ve been waiting for all your life? Make me believe for one moment we could be more than pretend?

  “Spaghetti or hamburgers for dinner,” he suggested.

  “Definitely Italian.” The dinner decision was easy. Deciding what to do with the expanding flutters in her stomach and the race in her pulse was another thing entirely.

  * * *

  TAKE-OUT CONTAINERS FROM the Tuscan Tomato Ristorante waited in the back seat of the SUV, as Zach and Georgie drove through the Blackwell guest lodge gates. Zach parked in Dorothy and Elias’s circular driveway and took her hand. “It’s not the dining hall, Georgie. You don’t have to talk at all if you don’t want to.”

  “Thanks.” Georgie relaxed and curved her fingers around Zach’s. “I owe you.”

  “It’s takeout. Nothing fancy about it.” His fingers tensed around hers quickly before he let go. “Now, wait here.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Give me five minutes to get things set up.” He reached into the back seat and picked up their to-go order.

  “So, we’re not eating in the kitchen?” she asked.

  “I have something different in mind.” He turned up the heater and aimed the vent at her. “Five minutes. Stay warm in here.”

  Zach returned in four minutes, opened her car door and held out his hand. “Our dinner for two is ready.”

  Georgie set her hand in his and let him pull her into his side. He led her around the outside of the house. The light from the full moon highlighted the shoveled gravel path, curving toward the creek. The evening was cold, the winds calm.

  Georgie’s nerves fired a sudden warmth through her. “How did you know this was here?”

  A screened cedar-log gazebo stood near the creek. A fire blazed in the firepit inside. A welcoming sanctuary for those seeking privacy or solitude. Tonight, she thought, she’d reach for one of those perfect moments her mother had so often spoke of. Tomorrow was soon enough for logic and all the reasons her heart shouldn’t skip and those butterflies inside her stomach shouldn’t flap.

  “I spotted the roof of the gazebo from the sunporch.” Zach opened the log-framed door and motioned her inside. “I asked Dorothy about it.”

  Blankets and pillows had been piled on one of the benches. Their takeout waited on a small folding table. “And all of this was just in here, waiting to be used?”

  “No.” Zach laughed. “I had to borrow things from the house.”

  Georgie adjusted several of the pillows and sat on the wide bench. “This is beyond anything I imagined.” Or expected. Her cowboy set a high bar for a dinner for two.

  Zach covered her legs with a blanket, then moved the folding table closer. “I’m ready to eat. Where should we start?”

  “The cheesecake.” Georgie opened containers until she located the slice of tiramisu cheesecake. She handed Zach a plastic fork. “I’m breaking rules tonight. Want to join me?”

  Zach took the fork. His grin reached his green eyes. “I always thought dessert should be the first course.”

  They ate in silence, but Georgie felt the warmth and intimacy of the moment down to her toes. Cheesecake finished, every last bite of bread dipped in olive oil devoured and the baked ziti container scraped clean, Georgie leaned into the pillows, and Zach, then tugged the blanket higher. “This could easily become a favorite reading spot.”

  “Do you have a lot of those?” Zach stacked his feet on the edge of the firepit. His arm dropped around her shoulders.

  “I have a park bench under a big tree close to my apartment.” She smoothed her hand over the fleece blanket and watched the flames in the firepit.

  “Do you go to your bench often?” His voice was low and relaxed.

  “I haven’t been in months.” Georgie frowned. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been to her park bench. Or the last book she’d read that wasn’t devoted to medicine. She’d been completely wrapped up in her lab and her work for so long now.

  “Then it’s probably not your bench anymore.” He squeezed her.

  She had to let go eventually. She set aside her lost park bench and the twinge that letting go jabbed inside her. “I can’t remember the last time I did this.”

  “Ate pasta from a tin take-out container.” Humor skimmed over his words.

  “Takeout I recall. It was the night before my flight to Bozeman.” She took his hand, linked their fingers together. “I mean this.”

  “Outdoor dinner.” His thumb drew a slow circle across her palm. “A fire and a full moon.”

  “And good company.” She tipped her head up to look at him.

  “Did you just call me good company?” He tucked a piece of her hair back inside her knit hat.

  “Yeah, I believe I did.” Friends made for good company. And Zach was a friend. “Don’t let it go to your head.” And she wouldn’t let Zach, her friend, get to her heart. Even in this one stolen moment.

  “You’re okay, too.” His gaze dipped to her mouth.

  Her throat dried. Her pulse kicked up. “Just okay?”

  He reached out, smoothed another strand of her hair off her cheek. His touch soft. Gentle. Nerve-firing.

  Georgie held her breath.

  His gaze searched her face, then settled, locking on hers. Intense and consuming. “You’re so much more than just okay.”

  Tomorrow she’d blame the heat from the fire. The starlit sky. The wine they’d shared over dinner. Tonight, reasons drifted by, uncatchable, like the falling snowflakes.

  It was only Zach. Only her. Alone in the gazebo.

  And Georgie wanted to break one more rule.

  She leaned in. Zach met her halfway. And, finally, their lips met.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ZACH OPENED HIS eyes before sunrise. Restless and unable to stop replaying his evening with Georgie. Specifically, the kiss they’d shared. The one now imprinted on him like a mark from a hot branding iron. He rose and stretched the kinks from his back, added a blanket over Georgie, who was curled on her side in the bed, then gathered his clothes and left.

  The power tools he’d borrowed from the shed loaded into the ATV, Zach retreated to the Once Was Barn to work on Dorothy’s new bench. A fitting place for him to spend his morning, as he had to start considering his future.

  One time-stopping, breath-stealing kiss aside, his relationship with Georgie had a time limit. And the end was fast approaching.

  He had to remember why he’d come to Falcon Creek. It wasn’t to find a home or a woman to give his heart to. He’d made a promise to his brother.

  Promise me, Zach. No regrets. Make your life count. It’s not too late to have the life we always dreamed about.

  How many hours had Cody and he spent in the hospital room or in their small cabin, watching the rodeo on TV, imagining Zach on that same national stage? Cody had researched training methods for Rain Dancer as a yearling, a colt, then a gelding, and collaborated with Marshall to train the horse for a successful calf-roping career. Zach had honed his own riding skills and deepened his bond with Rain Dan
cer. And all the while, the brothers had envisioned their own home. Their own land. Their own stables. Zach had only to enter the arena and win.

  After Cody’s death, Zach had finally dedicated himself to the rodeo and the brothers’ dream. He was close to achieving everything they’d wanted. But not without his horse.

  Zach parked the ATV outside the Once Was Barn and texted Wade for an update on Rain Dancer. Next, he had to approach Ethan Blackwell. He had a promise to keep.

  Several hours later, the sun fully awake and his system requiring sustenance, Zach loaded the pieces of the bench into the ATV and stopped by Ethan’s large-animal clinic. The Blackwell vet wasn’t in the clinic or on the property. Zach needed a shower and change of clothes, and hoped that Georgie, like Ethan, was elsewhere—there could be no more kissing Georgie. He returned to Dorothy’s house.

  Georgie swung open the door and greeted him. “Good! You’re back. We have work to do.”

  “What kind of work?” He eyed her. She’d scrubbed off yesterday’s makeup and replaced it with very little, returned her hair to its usual ponytail and wore another of her sister’s oversized sweaters. The cuffs were rolled above her wrists and the high collar was bundled around her chin. She looked just as striking and even more appealing in the morning light.

  Just like that, he misplaced his own warning to himself. He reached for her, wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her, fully and soundly.

  She leaned back and touched his cheek. A smile, soft like a secret, curved her lips upward. “Good morning to you, too.”

  “Now I’m ready to work.” He released her. “But first, I need to unload the ATV, then find some food.”

  She followed him outside.

  “What are you doing?” He turned around and frowned at her. “You don’t have a coat on.”

  “Helping you.” She hopped from one booted foot to the other and smashed her bare hands together.

  He was used to working alone and hardly ever asked for help. Hadn’t asked her now. He shouldn’t have kissed her again. Shouldn’t have refreshed his memory. None of their relationship was real. But when she was in his arms, it felt real. “You’re freezing. Go back inside.”