A Bride For The Holidays

This marriage ploy was purely a business arrangement.

So why this sudden, wild desire to make their pact anything but pure?

“Money can’t buy happiness, Mr. Dragan!”

“But money lets you look for happiness in a lot of nice places.”

A chill dashed down Trisha’s spine. Suddenly the idea of spending two weeks with the luscious Lassiter Dragan became a disgraceful travesty. From the first instant she’d met him she’d been drawn to the man. But the fairy tale had dissolved, disappeared, and she mentally hauled out all her defenses.

She wouldn’t walk out on their deal. But any crazy illusions Trisha might have had about The Gentleman Dragon being a modern-day Prince Charming had to be stomped to dust.

Renee Roszel has been writing romance novels since 1983 and simply loves her job. She likes to keep her stories humorous and light, with her heroes gorgeous, sexy and larger than life. She says, “Why not spend your days and nights with the very best!” Luckily for Renee, her husband is gorgeous and sexy, too!

Renee Roszel loves to hear from her readers. Send your letter and SASE to P.O. Box 700154, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74170 U.S.A. Or visit her Web site at www.ReneeRoszel.com.

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3682—HER HIRED HUSBAND

3705—THE TYCOON’S TEMPTATION

3725—BRIDEGROOM ON HER DOORSTEP

3752—SURRENDER TO A PLAYBOY

A Bride for the Holidays

Renee Roszel

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To animal rescue societies that take in the broken, abused and abandoned four-legged angels among us.

Adopt a dog or cat.

Give yourself the gift of unconditional love.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE ringing phone blasted through the stillness of the empty coffee shop like a tornado siren. Trisha’s breath caught and froze in her chest. She instinctively knew this was the call she’d been waiting for.

Her last chance.

The polished aluminum and white-tiled surroundings evaporated from her consciousness as she vaulted over the mop bucket part-time employee, Amber Grace, had dragged out to clean up a spilled latte.

Trisha grabbed the wall phone’s receiver, fumbling, almost dropping it before she managed a firm enough grasp to lift it to her ear. “Ed’s Gourmet Java Joint.” She swallowed, forcing the nervous quiver from her voice. “Trisha August, Day Manager, speaking.”

She recognized the caller’s voice—the bank loan officer, telephoning with his verdict. Her heart pounded so furiously she could hardly hear over its deafening beat. This was her moment of truth—whether she would get her small business loan, or not.

Caught between wrenching anxiety and frothy optimism, she listened, nodded, hardly able to squeeze in more than a brief “yes” or “no” as the loan officer talked in a tone that was mincingly polite but distant.

Her heart sank. She’d heard that same thumbs-down speech so many times she couldn’t stand hearing it again. “But, I’m very responsible and I’m a hard worker. I’ll do anything for a loan!” she blurted, interrupting the lecture she knew was about to end in “Thank you for your interest in Kansas City Unified Bank.” “I’ll do anything you ask!” she cried. “Please, just give me a chance!”

Without even the courtesy of a pause to pretend he gave her plea some thought, the loan officer delivered his “Thank you for your interest” line and hung up.

Trisha stood there with the receiver clenched in a fist. Raw anger at the unfairness of the world overwhelmed her. She could do this! She could make a success of herself, if somebody would only give her a chance! Her throat aching with fury, she slammed the receiver on its hook. “You can’t borrow money if you don’t have money!” Frustration and resentment coloring her words, she twisted away from the phone. “How does anybody ever open a business?”

“That’s a good question,” came a male voice. The comment had been spoken softly, the tone rich and deep and stirringly masculine.

Startled that a customer had entered without her notice, Trisha’s gaze shot to the serving counter. A man stood there. A tall man, clad in a camel overcoat that Trisha guessed was made of the finest cashmere. His broad, expensively garbed shoulders twinkled with melting snow. Dark hair glittered, too. As fetching as all that sparkling and twinkling was in a fluorescent glare that didn’t ordinarily show anyone to advantage, her attention was captured by his face.

What a face! He wasn’t smiling, but a slight upturn at one side of his mouth, gave the impression of cavalier nonchalance. His lips were nice, wholly masculine without the exotic plumpness of some male models.

His eyes were sharp and assessing. That was obvious, even half masked beneath the long, thick sweep of his lashes. It was difficult to tell what color his eyes were, shadowed by such a sexy canopy. Brown, possibly gray.

Her hesitation must have been overlong, because the stranger with the scintillating eyes cleared his throat. “I’d like a cup of coffee.”

Trisha felt like a fool. What had gotten into her? She stepped around Amber Grace and her mop, noticing belatedly that the teenager had also gone stock-still. In an aside, she murmured, “That latte isn’t going to mop itself.”

The teen blinked, coming back from never-never land. “Oh—yeah.” Her mop began to move.

Trisha hurried to the counter and smiled, though the pleasant expression felt strained. That business loan would have helped her achieve her dream—and it was gone. She hadn’t begun to deal with the bitter and unjust defeat, but she shoved the pain and outrage to a back shelf in her brain. This was neither the time nor place to vent her spleen. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said as pleasantly as she could. “We have three special blends today, raspberry-vanilla, Jamaica-chocolate and orange—”

“Do you have anything called coffee?”

She could see his eyes better across the counter. They were gray. Steel gray. An unusual color, and attractive, yet a little too piercing for comfort.

For some bizarre reason she had trouble remembering if they had anything called coffee. Working to get her brain on track, she responded, “Uh—how about our Colombian Dark Secret?”

“As long as the dark secret is that it has coffee in it.”

She found herself smiling, an amazing feat, considering her future had just been crushed under the unfeeling boot heel of corporate banking. “I promise it has coffee in it, sir,” she said, still smiling in spite of her broken dreams. “What size would you like, biggie, biggie-extra or biggie-boggle?” As she named the sizes, she pointed out the small, medium and large cups affixed to the top of the latte machine.

“Medium,” he said.

For some reason she liked that about him. He was a no-nonsense man who called a spade a spade. No fancy pseudo-speak cluttered his world. Just bare-boned facts. “Yes, sir.” She moved away to retrieve a cup and pour him a medium order of strong, black coffee. And he would drink it black, she knew. Black, strong and unadulterated. A real man’s cup of coffee.

A real man’s cup of coffee? What a silly, fanciful thought to have about a total stranger. She shook it off.

Her back to him, she sidled to the Colombian Dark Secret spigot and pulled the lever. Funny, she could feel his gaze on her. Not that lots of customers didn’t follow her movements as she got their order, but there was something different in the way she sensed his gaze. Her cheeks grew hot and she felt a tremor of feminine excitement, to think such a man might—

“What is this business you can’t get a loan for?”

She was so startled by his question she almost dropped the paper cup. When she regained her grip on it and opened the spigot again, she glanced over her shoulder. “Oh—I’m sorry you heard that, sir. I didn’t mean to…” Now the heat in her cheeks was due to humiliation. How unprofessional of her to rant about her bad luck in front of a customer!

“No, tell me,” he said, looking completely serious. “I might know somewhere you can go for that loan.”

With the full cup of coffee, she returned to the counter. “I don’t think so, sir,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve tried every place in town, plus everything on the Internet I can find.” She indicated the cup lids in a cubbyhole beside others containing sugar and creamer packets, as well as red plastic stirrers. When he shook his head to decline, she held the cup toward him. “The only companies that would lend me money charged loan-shark interest rates.”

“That’s too bad.” He reached for the coffee cup.

Just as he was about to take it, Trisha felt a sharp jab between her shoulder blades, hard enough to knock her off balance. She pitched forward, her forearms coming into explosive contact with the coffee bar’s brushed aluminum countertop. She winced at the pain. “Ouch! What in the world…” Struggling up, she reached back to rub the throbbing spot where she’d been jabbed.

“Oops. What’d I hit?” Amber Grace asked in the nasal whine she used when she perpetrated one of her many crimes of incompetence. She turned around to face her boss. “Was it your back?”

Trisha stared at the young girl, reining in her temper with difficulty. “You think?”

Amber Grace wore her usual sheepish “lucky-I’m-Ed’s-niece” face, but an instant later her expression changed to horror. “Oh!” She let go of the mop with one hand and pointed. “Look what you did to that man!”

Look what you did to that man!

Those seven dreadful words exploded in Trisha’s head like gunfire. She didn’t have to look to know his expensive cashmere coat was drenched with Colombian Dark Secret. A mortified sound issued up from her throat, a strangled expression of her grief at the loss of this week’s paycheck. That’s what it would cost her to get his coat cleaned. With great reluctance and even greater regret she faced the man in dripping cashmere.

His attention had dropped to the front of his coat. When their eyes met, his expression was not one of great cheer. “On second thought, a lid might have been a good idea.”

“Oh, heavens!” Trisha would have given her right arm to take back the last few seconds. “I’m so sorry!”

“Napkins?” he asked, holding out the same hand that had almost secured the cup a moment before.

“Oh—of course!” She grabbed a stack from beneath the counter. Ed was stingy with his precious, printed napkins, insisting each customer get only one. But this was an emergency. “Amber Grace, run and grab some paper towels out of the back.” She pressed an inch thick batch of napkins against the man’s coatfront, mopping coffee from the material. Knowing Ed, she would have to pay for the napkins, too.

“I can’t apologize enough, sir!” She flipped the batch of napkins to find fresh areas to absorb the spill. Sponging the man, she noticed there wasn’t a marshmallowy inch on his entire abdomen. He must have a washboard gut under all that expensive fabric. Even steeped in self-contempt and dismay she experienced a rush of feminine admiration. “I really must insist that you let me clean your stomach!” she said.

His hands covered hers, removing the napkins from her fingers and taking over the job. “That’s not necessary,” he said, sounding less put-out than she would have imagined. “I think my stomach escaped most of the coffee.”

Her gaze shot to his face. Had she actually offered to clean his stomach? Shamed to the soles of her feet, she cried, “Oh—I—I meant—your coat! I’d like to have your coat dry-cleaned, at my expense. It’s the least—”

“Just fix me another cup of coffee,” he said. “Forget the coat.”

She swallowed around the lump of wretchedness in her throat. In the five months she’d worked at Ed’s, she’d never spilled coffee on a single customer. And now, to spill a whole biggie-extra on this—this—gorgeous man—er—coat! And then, to make matters a thousand times worse, to offer to clean his stomach!

She found herself staring into his sexy but oh-so-steely gaze, mesmerized. Looking into those eyes, she experienced a strange contradiction within her. His gaze was all business and bottom-line, yet there was something compelling and exciting in the way he was able to hold her attention, something she couldn’t name. But it was there, stunning and impossible to resist. Unnerved, she realized she’d lost her train of thought. “Er—excuse me?”

He laid the soaked stack of napkins on the coffee-doused countertop and accepted the roll of paper towels from a breathless Amber Grace. “Thank you,” he said, tearing off a wad and applying it to his lapel. Odd, Trisha couldn’t recall his gaze leaving hers. “I said, why don’t you fix me another cup of coffee and forget the coat?”

“Oh—right.” Trisha was so flustered and miserable she wasn’t thinking clearly. Take a breath, she berated inwardly. Calm down or you’ll make things worse—if that’s even possible!

“Amber Grace?”

Trisha was surprised to hear the stranger speak directly to Ed’s niece, and peered at them over her shoulder as she retrieved another cup.

“Yes, sir?” Amber Grace asked, an unusually dopey smile on her freckled face.

He handed her the roll of paper towels. “Why don’t you wipe up the countertop?”

“Okay.” The teenager’s smile remained dopey and her gaze stayed on the stranger as she slowly unwound some of the towels and began to dab them on the wet counter.

Trisha turned away to fill the coffee cup, frustrated beyond words. There was no debating the fact that they would never see this customer again. Between her unprofessional rant about the loan, and Amber Grace’s ineptitude, his impression of Ed’s employees had to be pretty awful. And that wasn’t taking into account the fact that she’d flung coffee all over him! She refused to even think about the—the stomach thing. Since he was kind enough to forget it, she would, too.

Someday, in the far, far distant future.

The stranger’s languid-lidded eyes seemed to have a unique effect on females. Both she and Amber Grace were doing a first-class job of making idiots out of themselves. She wondered if this man sent all women into tizzies, or if she could possibly blame her bizarre behavior on a leak of laughing gas from the dentist’s office next door? No. That was too much to hope for. They’d all be affected, and so far, the man with the great lips and bedroom eyes had only half smiled when he’d first come in. Since the spill, he hadn’t smiled at all.

From the sappy look she’d seen on Amber Grace’s face, the teenager was clearly gaga about the handsome stranger. Having made a complete fool of herself, Trisha couldn’t very well blame Amber Grace for her infatuation. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do Amber Grace’s industriousness any good, if her inattentive dabbing at the countertop was any indication.

Trisha filled the cup, returned to the counter and held it out to him, sternly telling herself to be all-business, and guard every single syllable that came out of her mouth. “Compliments of Ed’s, sir,” she said, not caring if she did have to pay for it herself. There was no way she would ask the man for three dollars and ninety-nine cents now. “You’ve been very gracious.” She decided she must make her coat-cleaning offer once more. “I really would be happy to pay for having that beautiful coat dry-cleaned.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He accepted the cup, which was far less dangerous this time, since Amber Grace had suspended her wiping duties to rest her elbows on the damp countertop. Her chin plunked on her fists, she grinned dreamily at the man.

He took a sip of coffee, then seemed to savor it. “Not bad,” he said. “I think it does have coffee in it.”

Trisha was amazed that she was once again smiling. After all that had happened, she could only call it a miracle—or an act of a person who’d gone completely insane with disgrace and defeat. Looking at his chiseled features, those seductive, silvery eyes, and most especially that lopsided, casual quirk of his lips, she decided she had to go with “miracle.” She’d never met a man before, who could shift his lips slightly, the way this stranger did, and sire an actual smile. Especially on her lips, that only moments ago she’d thought incapable of waywardness.

“Now, tell me about that business,” he said.

She was startled by the suggestion. She’d assumed he’d asked to be polite. She couldn’t imagine he truly cared. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bore you,” she said.

He took another sip of coffee. “If you really want something, you should never pass up a chance to go after it.”

He had a point. So what if she caused a stranger a little boredom compared to a shot at getting her life’s dream?

“Go on, tell him,” Amber Grace urged, her voice the rapt singsong of the hypnotized.

They both glanced at the loafing teenager, an outrageous riot of quarreling colors. Amber Grace was a sight to behold in a lemon yellow polo shirt, aqua trousers, topped by a ridiculous aqua cap, reminiscent of something a nineteen-fifties nurse might have worn. Her short, shaggy catsup-red hair was the consistency of straw, and her two golden nose rings gleamed under the glare of the lights. Amber Grace was the poster child for parental suffering, not to mention a Day Manager’s nightmare.

The horrible uniform colors weren’t Amber Grace’s fault, though. They were Ed’s. The ultra-frugal coffee shop owner had bought them on the Internet. Trisha suspected it had been during a “we can’t get rid of these terrible uniforms” sale. But Ed was not only frugal, he was shrewd. He got his money back, probably made money, since he required his employees to buy their uniforms from him.

Except for the catsup-colored hair and the nose rings, Trisha knew she looked every bit as bad as Amber Grace. Who on earth looked good in yellow and aqua under stark fluorescent lights?

The ugliness of the uniforms hadn’t really hit home until—well, until just this minute, when she realized how tacky she must look to this obviously discerning stranger, whose attire was so classic and tastefully elegant. And coffee stained, a nagging imp in her brain insisted on needling.

Trying not to dwell on things that couldn’t be helped, Trisha plucked up the abandoned roll of paper towels and tore off a bunch. The man wanted to hear about her business, so she would be wise to get focused where she might do herself some good. “Well…” As she began to sop up spilled coffee, she chanced a peek at him to gauge his expression. His eyes were not glazed over, which was more than she could say for Amber Grace’s.

“What I have in mind is a doggie boutique,” she began, “where people can come to self-groom their pets—use my equipment, tubs, clippers et cetera, to bathe and spruce them up, for a highly reduced price from what a professional groomer would charge. And they’d leave the clipped hair, dirty bath water, splashed floor, in other words—the mess—behind.”

Trisha had made her spiel a million times in the past five months, so she could tell it without thinking, which was lucky, since there was something about this man that made her thinking processes go fuzzy. “I’ve seen similar places. One in Wichita and one in Olathe. Both were doing business hand-over-fist. The customers love it. I know my shop would be a success here in Kansas City. I’ve found a vacant store in a strip center that’s for rent. With a twenty-five thousand dollar loan and a lot of elbow grease I can fix it up really nice. I even have a great name for it— ‘Dog Days of August.’

“Interesting name,” he said, drawing her gaze in time to see a quizzical lift of his brow.

“It’s really a great play on words because that’s my name,” she explained, returning her focus to her scrubbing. His eyes were hard to look into and think about anything but how sexy they were. She cleared her throat. “August. Trisha August.” She sighed long and low, expelling some of the frustration that had built up over months of rejections. “The only trouble is, I can’t get financing. I’ve worked lots of jobs over the years, at several grooming places, too, so I know all about them. The last one I worked at closed when the owner retired, so I had to take this job.”

She tossed the wet clump of towels in the trash and faced him, her expression as serious as her determination. “I’ve saved every cent I can, and I don’t mind working long, hard hours to make my dream come true,” she said. “But all the banks and loan companies give me the same speech—tired platitudes about how small businesses are very chancy, with so many failing in the first year. How banks can’t operate without strict rules. About the importance of collateral and how I’m young, have no assets, little previous business experience and on and on and on,” she cried. “Banks don’t care how hard I’d work. They only care that I’m young and poor!” Her anger surged. “I’m not that young! I’m twenty-eight. I’ve been making it on my own since I was eighteen! And if I weren’t poor I wouldn’t need a loan!”

She slapped the flats of her hands to the countertop and leaned forward, feeling spent and worn down. “That call you heard was my last hope.”

A shape moved in the corner of her eye and she shifted her attention to the shop’s door. A man in a navy uniform of some kind had entered. He wore a navy, airline pilot style hat, though there was no gold braid on it. Snow sparkled on his dark clothes. In a military-like fashion he removed his cap and clasped it under one arm to stand at attention. He was nice looking, in his mid-twenties and muscular. Trisha noticed he also had on matching navy leather gloves and boots. “Sir,” he said, “The flat has been repaired. If you’re ready?”

The handsome customer who’d been listening to her business plan, shifted toward the newcomer and nodded. “Thank you, Jeffery. I’ll be right out.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Outside Ed’s plate glass window, Trisha noticed snow highlighted in the amber glow of a streetlamp. It was barely four-thirty and already dark. The rhythm and choreography of the snowfall had not changed all afternoon. There had to be a foot on the ground by now. Though it was only December eighteenth, with all the cold and snow they’d had this month, Kansas City had a real chance of having a white Christmas this year.

The man in navy departed with military bearing, leaving in his wake a dusting of quickly melting snow. Before Trisha could offer the handsome customer her abject apologies one last time, he picked up a napkin off a small stack that hadn’t been used to sop coffee, leaned down and began to jot something on the back of it. “Your idea sounds solid, Miss August,” he said, his golden pen flashing in the florescence as he wrote. “Make an appointment with this man. His office is in the Dragan building. Tell him what you told me.” He straightened and handed her the napkin. “I think he’ll help you.”

Trisha accepted the napkin, confused. “The Dragan building?” she echoed.

He nodded, depositing his pen in an inside coat pocket. “Tell him Gent sent you.”

“Gent—okay.” She didn’t know there were any banks or loan companies in the Dragan building. “What floor? What’s the company’s name?” She was surprised at her voice. She sounded a little panicky. She knew he was leaving, and she didn’t want him to go. She didn’t like the idea of never looking into those unusual eyes, ever again.