She’d experienced nothing but heartache at the caprice of love.

And with that firmly in mind Casey wrapped her hand around the handle of her suitcase and turned back to the inn with a certain grim determination. She ploughed through the growing mounds of snow and marched up the steps, out of the snow, onto the cover of the porch.

Something wet and cold brushed the hand she had her car keys in. Casey dropped the keys and gave a little shriek of surprise, and then looked down to see Harper had thrust a wet snout into her hand.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked the dog.

A deep voice, as sensual as the snow-filled night, came out of a darkened corner of the porch.

“Keeping me company.”

Snowflakes

and

Silver Linings

Cara Colter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CARA COLTER lives in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is a recent recipient of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the “Love and Laughter” category. Cara loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her or learn more about her through her website: www.cara-colter.com.

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With thanks to Shirley and Rebecca

I am in awe of your creative genius,

amazing discipline, and unflagging professionalism.

Contents

PROLOGUE

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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

CHRISTMAS.

Turner Kennedy was a man who took pride in his ability not just to cope with fear, but to shape it into a different force entirely.

He had jumped from airplanes at 8,200 meters into pitch blackness and an unknown welcome.

He had raised all kinds of havoc “outside the fence” in hostile territory.

He had experienced nature’s mercurial and killing moods without the benefit of shelter, sweltering heat to excruciating cold, sometimes in the same twenty-four-hour period.

He had been hungry. And lost. He had been pushed to the outer perimeters of his physical limits, and then a mile or two beyond.

He had been the hunted, stranded in the shadows of deeply inhospitable places, listening for footfalls, smelling the wind, squinting against impenetrable darkness.

It was not that he had not been afraid, but rather that he had learned he had a rare ability to transform fear into adrenaline, power, energy.

And so the irony of his current situation was not lost on him. After a long period away, he was back in the United States, a country where safety was a given, taken for granted.

And he was afraid.

He was afraid of three things.

He was afraid of sleeping. In his dreams, he was haunted by all the things he had refused to back down from, haunted by a failure that more fear, on his part, might have changed a devastating outcome.

And maybe it was exhaustion caused by that first fear that had led to the second one.

Turner Kennedy was afraid of Christmas.

Maybe not the coming Christmas, specifically, but of his memories of ones gone by. Those memories were lingering at the edges of his mind, waiting to leap to the forefront. Today, it had been seeing an angel Christmas tree topper in a store window.

Without warning, Turner had been transported back more than two decades.

They came down the stairs, early morning light just beginning to touch the decorated living room. The tree was eight feet tall. His mother had done it all in white that year. White lights, white Christmas ornaments, a white angel on top of the tree. The house smelled of the cookies she had baked for Santa while he and his brothers had spent Christmas Eve on the backyard skating rink their dad had made for them.

It had been past ten when his mother had finally insisted they come in. Even then, Turner hadn’t wanted to. He could not get enough of the rink, of the feeling of the ice beneath his blades, of the cold on his cheeks, the wind in his hair, the power in his legs as he propelled himself forward. The whole world had seemed infused with magic....

But now the magic seemed compromised. Though the cookies were gone, nothing but crumbs remaining, Santa hadn’t been there. The gifts from Santa were always left, unwrapped, right there on the hearth. This morning, that place yawned empty.

He and his younger brothers, Mitchell and David, shot each other worried looks.

Had they been bad? What had they done to fall out of Santa’s favor?

His parents followed them down the steps, groggy, but seemingly unaware that anything was amiss.

“Let’s open some gifts,” his father said. “I’ve been wanting to see what’s in this one.”

His dad seemed so pleased with the new camera they had gone together to buy him. His mother opened perfume from Mitchell, a collectible ornament from David. She’d looked perplexed at Turner’s way more practical gift of a baseball mitt, and then laughed out loud.

And just as her laughter faded, Turner had heard something else.

A tiny whimper. Followed by a sharp, demanding yelp.

It was coming from the laundry room, and he bolted toward the sound before his younger brothers even heard it. In a wicker basket with a huge red bow on it was a puppy. Its fur was black and curly, its eyes such a deep shade of brown a boy could get lost in them. When Turner picked it up, it placed already huge paws on his shoulders, and leaned in, frantic with love, to lick his cheeks. Much to the chagrin of his brothers, Chaos had always loved Turner best of all....

Turner snapped himself out of it, wiped at cheeks that felt suddenly wet, as if that dog, the companion who had walked him faithfully through all the days of his childhood and teens, had licked him just now. The last time Chaos had kissed him had been over a dozen years ago, with the same unconditional love in his goodbye as had been in his hello....

To Turner’s relief, his cheeks were not wet, but dry.

For the third thing he was afraid of, perhaps even more than going to sleep and the coming of Christmas, was tears.

He got up, restless, annoyed with himself. This was the fear, exactly. That something about Christmas would weasel inside him and unleash a torrent of weakness.

He went to the barracks window. It was temporary housing, between missions. Would there be another mission? He wasn’t sure if he had it in him anymore. Maybe it was time to call it quits.

But for what? It had been a long time since he had called anyplace home.

He could not stay here, at the military base, for Christmas. He hated it that emotion seemed to be breaking through his guard. It was too empty. There was too much room here for his own thoughts.

There was too much space for that thing he feared the most.

A yearning for the way things had once been.

David and Mitchell hadn’t told him not to come for Christmas, but hadn’t asked him, either. Of course, they probably assumed he was out-of-country, and he hadn’t corrected that assumption.

It was better this way. He had nothing to bring to their lives. Or anyone’s.

There were lots of places a single guy could go at Christmas to avoid the festivities. Palm trees had a way of dispelling that Christmassy feeling for him. A tropical resort would have the added benefit of providing all kinds of distractions. The kind of distractions that wore bikinis.

Turner was aware he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Not even the thought of women in bikinis could shake the feeling of ennui, mixed with the restless, seething energy that wouldn’t let him drift off.

Just then his cell phone rang.

He must have another mission in him, after all, because he found himself hoping it was the commanding officer of his top secret Tango Force unit. That Christmas would be superseded by some world crisis.

But it wasn’t his CO’s number on display. Turner answered the call. Listened. And was shocked to hear himself say, “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

It had been a voice from that thing he most wanted to avoid: the past. A time he remembered with the helpless yearning of a man who could not return to simpler things, simpler times, his simpler self.

But Cole Watson, his best friend from before Turner had ever known he had a gift for dealing with fear, had been trying to track him down for weeks. Said he needed him.

And Turner came from a world where one rule rose above all the others: when a buddy needed you, you were there.

Okay. So it wasn’t a life-or-death request. No one’s survival was on the line.

Cole was putting his life back in order. He’d lost nearly everything that mattered to him. He said he’d been given a second chance, and he planned to take it.

Was that the irresistible pull, then—second chances? It certainly wasn’t a place in the backwoods of New England called the Gingerbread Inn, though the fact that Turner had never been there was a plus, as it held no memories.

No, Cole had casually mentioned that the inn sat on the shores of Barrow’s Lake, where a man could put on his skates and go just about forever. That sounded like as good a way as any to spend the holiday season.

As good a way as any to deal with the energy that sang along Turner’s nerve endings, begging for release. It sounded nearly irresistible.

CHAPTER ONE

CASEY CARAVETTA SIGHED with contentment.

“Being at the Gingerbread Inn with the two of you feels like being home,” she said. She didn’t add, “in a way that home had never felt like.”

“Even with it being in such a state?” Emily asked, sliding a disapproving look around the front parlor. It was true the furniture was shabby, the paint was peeling, the rugs had seen better days.

“Don’t you worry,” Andrea said, “You are not going to recognize this place by the time I’m done with it. On Christmas Eve, Emily, for your vow renewal, the Gingerbread Inn will be transformed into the most amazing winter wonderland.”

“I am so humbled that all the people Cole and I are closest to are going to give up their Christmas plans to be with us,” Emily said.

“Nobody is giving up their Christmas plans,” Andrea answered. “We’re spending a magical Christmas Eve together, and then scattering to the four corners, to be wherever we need to be for Christmas.”

Except Casey, who didn’t need to be anywhere. And the inn, despite its slightly gone-to-seed appearance, would be the perfect place to spend a quiet day by herself.

The thought might have been depressing except for the gift Casey had decided to give herself....

Outside, snow had begun to fall, but the parlor’s stone hearth held a fire that crackled merrily and threw a steady stream of glowing red sparks up the chimney.

Until she’d received Andrea’s plea to take a little extra time off work and come to the Gingerbread Inn to make magic happen for Emily and Cole’s renewal of vows, Casey had been looking forward to Christmas with about the same amount of anticipation she might have for a root canal.

In other words, the same as always.

Except, of course, for the gift, her secret plan to get her life back on track.

Now, here with her friends, cuddling her secret to her, Casey actually felt as if she might start humming, “It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....”

“That sense of home doesn’t have a thing to do with looks,” she said, wanting to share what she was feeling with her friends.

Belonging.

She had never felt it with her own family. At school, she had been the outsider, the too-smart geek. Her work was engrossing, but largely solitary.

But being here with Emily and Andrea, the Gingerbread Girls all together again, Casey felt hope.

Even though, sadly, Melissa was not here. Why did it take a tragedy for people to understand that friendship was a gift to be cherished, and not taken for granted?

Casey and Andrea had spent two days together here early in December, Casey seeking the refuge of friendship to try and outrun her latest family fiasco. Really, any given year she might as well block out all of December on her calendar and write “crisis” on it.

But before her meeting with Andrea it had been far too long since she and her friends, who’d always called themselves “the Gingerbread Girls,” had been together.

After seeing Andrea, Casey had made her decision.

Now, she was loving the fact that they were as comfortable as if they had been together only yesterday. Sentences began with “Remember when...” and were followed by gales of laughter. The conversation flowed easily as they caught up on the details of one another’s lives.

“Speaking of looks, I can’t believe the way you look,” Emily told Casey for about the hundredth time. “I just can’t get over it.”

“You should be modeling,” Andrea agreed.

“Modeling?” Casey laughed. “I think models are usually a little taller than five foot five.”

“The world’s loss,” Andrea said with a giggle, and took a sip of her wine.

Casey sipped hers, as well. Emily, pregnant, her baby bump barely noticeable beneath her sweater, was glowing with happiness and was sipping sparkling fruit juice instead of wine.

Next year at this time, that could very well be me, Casey mused, and the thought made her giddy.

“How do you get your hair so straight?” Andrea asked. “You didn’t have it like that when I saw you earlier this month. Remember how those locks of yours were the bane of your existence? All those wild curls. No matter what you did, that head of hair refused to be tamed. Remember the time we tried ironing it? With a clothes iron?”

Would her baby have wild curls? Casey hoped not.

“I always loved it,” Emily said. “I was jealous.”

“Of my hair?” she asked, incredulous. She touched it self-consciously. She had a flat iron that was state-of-the-art, a world away from what they had tried that humid summer day.

Still, her curls surrendered to the highest setting with the utmost reluctance, and were held at bay with enough gel to slide a 747 off a runway. And yet as she touched her hair, it felt coiled, ready to spring.

“I thought you were quite exotic, compared to Andrea and me.”

“Really?”

“Why so surprised?”

Maybe it was her second glass of wine that made her admit it. “I always felt like the odd woman out. Here was this wonderful inn, out of an American dream, filled with all these wholesome families, like yours and Andrea’s. And then there was the Caravetta clan. A boisterous Italian family, always yelling and fighting and singing and crying and laughing, and whatever we were doing, we were doing it loudly. Next to you and Andrea, I felt like I was a little too much of everything.”

“But you weren’t like that,” Emily said. “You were always so quiet and contained. If you were too much of anything it was way too smart, Doc. Thinking all the time.”

Casey dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t mean that. You were both tall, reed thin and fair, while I was short and plump, and had skin that came straight from the olive grove. You had well-behaved blond ponytails. I had dark tangles and coils that did whatever they wanted. You both have that all-American look, Emily, with your eyes like jade, and Andrea’s like sapphires.”

“There is nothing wrong with your eyes!” Andrea declared.

“Ha! My grandmother used to look at my eyes and say they were so dark she could see the devil in them. And then she’d cross herself.”

Would Casey’s baby have her eyes? Did she get to choose the eye color of the father? So much to learn!

“The devil? That’s ridiculous, especially given how studious you were. But still, I always thought you were unusually striking, and faintly mysterious,” Emily insisted.

“A model,” Andrea reiterated. “I think you should be a model.”

“A model,” Casey snorted. “Believe me, I’m quite happy doing research at the lab.”

“As noble as medical research is, Casey, isn’t that a tad dull?” Emily asked.

“I love it,” she said honestly. “I have such a sense of purpose to my days, a feeling I could make the world a better place.”

“Isn’t it a little, well, depressing? Childhood cancers?” Andrea pressed.

“My twin brother died of nasopharyngeal cancer when he was six,” Casey said. And so a family unravels.

“I’d forgotten,” Andrea said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was long before I met you,” Casey said. “Don’t worry about it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Emily give her little baby bump a protective pat. “And don’t you worry about it, either. Childhood cancers are extremely rare,” she assured her pregnant friend.

Casey was aware she might have chosen her work in some effort to make right all that had gone wrong in her family. But regardless of her motives, the order of science, after the unfolding chaos in her family, appealed to her. The wine hadn’t, thankfully, loosened her tongue enough to tell them why she’d chosen the vow renewal over spending Christmas with her widowed mother.

“Maybe you could model on the side,” Andrea said hopefully.

“Why would I want to?” Casey asked. “Talk about dull. Good grief. Hours on hair—” well, okay, her hair took nearly that long, anyway “—and makeup? I’d expire of pure boredom.”

“Men,” Andrea said knowingly. “You’d meet a zillion guys. How many do you meet in your dusty old lab?”

No sense pointing out there was not a speck of dust anywhere in her lab!

“And then,” Andrea continued dreamily, “you could meet the right one. Look at how much Emily loves being married. Renewing her vows! And Rick and I will probably have a spring wedding. If you could find the perfect guy, all our kids could grow up together here in the summers, the same as we did.”

How quickly things could change! Just a few weeks ago Andrea had been as determined not to fall in love as Casey herself was. Her friend was no weakling, so Casey inadvertently shivered at how love could overpower the most sensible of plans.

Emily shot Andrea a warning look that clearly said, Careful, Casey is recovering from a broken heart—last year’s Christmas crisis. Then she tactfully tried to guide the conversation in a different direction. “Anyway, the inn is for sale.”

Andrea appeared pained for a minute, but then shrugged it off. “I don’t know. I’ve seen how Martin Johnson, the electrician, looks at Carol. I think he’s a man capable of restoring the Gingerbread Inn to its former glory. And it seems it would be a labor of love.”

“Carol is resisting him,” Emily said. “I’m afraid I overheard a bit of a shouting match between them.”

“Well, I’m going to help things along. I’ve already asked him to come and help with the lighting for the vow renewal, and he seemed very eager to say yes!”

“Good for you,” Emily said, but doubtfully. “Honestly, while Cole and I were working things out we bonded over a few cosmetic repairs around the place, but every single thing we did has made us so aware of what else has to be done. Poor Carol, on her own, could not keep up. It may have deteriorated too badly to be saved.”

They all sadly contemplated that.

The Gingerbread Inn was special. It always had been, and there could never be a replacement in Casey’s heart. The walls held memories: laughter and love, families coming together. The ghosts of their younger selves played out there on the waters of Barrow’s Lake, swimming, canoeing, sunning themselves on the dock, playing volleyball on the beach.

There would never be another place like the Gingerbread Inn. It was a refuge of simplicity in a complicated world.

“We could find a different place to spend family summers together,” Andrea suggested tentatively. “Wherever it is, or whatever it is, the three of us will be there with our soul mates. I think that’s what Melissa would have wanted us to learn. That this is what is important. Love. And I hope someday it will include all our babies. Babies who will grow into toddlers as love deepens all around us. Rick and I plan to adopt someday. Tessa would love a little brother or sister.”

Tessa was the six-year-old who would become Andrea’s stepdaughter. She was hands down the most adorable little girl on the planet.

“It’s what I want for this baby, too,” Emily said tenderly.

That old feeling of being the odd one out whispered along her spine, but Casey reminded herself she was not going to be that for long! But she was going to do things her way.

For as happy as both Emily and Andrea were now, Casey had been a bridesmaid at both their weddings. How those beautiful days had fuelled her longing for romance! But Andrea’s dreams had ended in a terrible tragedy on her honeymoon. And Casey had seen the cracks appear in Emily’s relationship almost before Emily had seen them herself.

Oh, sure, Emily and Cole were like lovers again now, and Andrea was still in the over-the-moon stage with her new love, Rick, but it was too late for Casey to believe in love.

The pain interwoven with the love in those relationships had just helped cement Casey’s resolve to wrestle her weakest point to the ground. And that wasn’t her hair, either!

“Well, you girls can believe in fairy tales if you want. I’m done with that,” she announced.

“I’ve been there,” Emily said sympathetically.

“Me, too,” Andrea said. “But the old saying is true—it’s darkest just before the dawn.” Catching Emily’s warning look, she added, “Okay. Casey doesn’t have to be with someone. She could come by herself.”

“Actually,” Casey said slowly, her heart beating hard, “I may not be by myself.”

If she told them it was like committing. Like carving it in stone. And yet who better to share this gloriously happy decision with than her best friends?

“What?” Andrea squealed. “Have you met someone new? Why did you let me prattle on about your dusty lab if you have? I’m so happy for you! Really, a year is quite long enough to recover from a rascal like Sebastian. I told you when I saw you earlier this month that eventually you would see your breakup as a blessing. And I am a testament to the fact that things can turn around in an absolute blink.”

It had been a year, almost exactly, since the rather humiliating disintegration of her relationship. Only these two women knew all the details: how a coworker had tipped her off that her fiancé, Sebastian, was seeing another woman, only days before they were going to make a Christmas announcement of their engagement!

“I haven’t exactly met someone,” Casey said cautiously, suddenly feeling vulnerable about saying it out loud.

“What is going on, Casey?” Andrea asked. “You asked me to join you here earlier in the month because you were down, but now you look great. So who is he?”

“It’s not a he. I’ve made a decision to give myself the most amazing gift.”

“What?” her friends asked in unison.

“I’m going to have a baby. I’m going to start investigating third-party reproduction and cryobanks right after the holidays are over.”

Her friends looked stunned. “Cryo what?” Emily asked weakly.

“You mean you’re going to raise a child by yourself?” Andrea finally asked.

“Why not? I’m well established. I’m financially able to afford the procedures. I’m ready. I think, on my own, I could provide as stable a family as most I’ve seen.”

“That seems very scientific,” Emily ventured. “Procedure as a way to make a baby?”

“I am a scientist!” And really, science had given her far more than her family ever had. “I’m done with romantic love. I’m saving all my love for my baby.”

Her friends were very quiet.

“Hey,” Casey said, trying for humor, when she was really disappointed they weren’t more supportive of her decision. “You’re both so serious. I said I was done with love, and that there could be a baby in my future, not that I was going to burn the Gingerbread Inn down!”

“You couldn’t,” Andrea said with dreamy satisfaction. “Rick would rescue it.”

Rick, the adorable Tessa’s father, was a fireman.

“I’m curing myself of romantic notions. I’m tackling my fatal flaw,” Casey surprised herself by announcing.

“Your fatal flaw?” Andrea said, frowning.

“I believed in romantic love,” Casey said. “Worse, I believed in love at first sight. It’s done nothing but cause me grief, and I’m done with it.”

“Love at first sight?” Emily said, puzzled. “I thought you and Sebastian worked together for some time before you agreed to go out with him.”

But her secret, even from Em and Andrea, was that Sebastian had not been her first love. Her first love she had loved at first sight. He was the one who had made her so foolishly long for love that she had been willing to overlook her own family’s history with passion, and imbue her former fiancé with characteristics he did not have.

“I’m done with love,” Casey repeated, even more firmly than before.

“You are not!” Emily said, dismayed. “How can anybody just be done with love?”

“We buried Melissa,” Casey said. “That’s enough all by itself.”

“I understand how you feel,” Andrea said softly. “After Gunter died I wanted to give up on love, too. But I’m so glad I didn’t.”

Though Casey could not say it, the death of Andrea’s husband—on their honeymoon, no less—felt like part of her disillusionment. Giving your heart was a risky business.

“No one would be more appalled than Melissa if you made fear of love her legacy!”

The Gingerbread Girls had always bowed to Emily’s leadership, and Casey conceded slightly now. “Okay. This kind of love I’m fine with. The bonds between friends. The love between a mother and a child. Romantic love I’m done with. Finis.”

“I always love it when you speak Italian,” Andrea said, deciding in the face of Casey’s intensity it was time to lighten up.

“It’s Latin,” she said. “Not Italian.”

Andrea rolled her eyes at the correction and went on as if she had not been interrupted. “You aren’t done with it. You’re hurting right now. But it has been a year, and I think you have healed more than you think you have. You are planning on having a baby, after all. Though I do wish you’d wait for the right guy to come along, and spadoodle, life as you know it, over.”

“Spadoodle?” Casey laughed in spite of herself.

“I thought it sounded Italian,” Andrea offered with an impish grin.

“Sort of,” Emily said, as if she was considering. “Like spaghetti and noodle mixed.” And then they were all laughing, like the carefree girls they had once been. It felt again like a homecoming, it was so good to be with them.

“I agree with Andrea, though. The right guy will come along and you’ll see that every single thing about your life, including the parts that seem bad, were getting you ready for that moment,” Emily said. “Should you put off having a baby until that happens? Really, I know that’s not for me to say.”

Casey felt her friend was not entirely approving and had decided to keep it light, and she was grateful for that.

“From spadoodle to deep philosophy in the blink of an eye?” Casey said, lightly. “It’s enough to make my head spin.”

Emily grinned. “Way too deep, eh, Doc?”

“Way,” Casey said with an answering smile, and it all seemed okay again. Her decision to come here had been a good one. The sisterhood between them that allowed them to squabble and exchange confidences and well-meaning advice, and then just rest in pure love and laughter again, was balm to her soul.

“I wish you’d give love a chance,” Andrea insisted.

“I have given love a chance,” Casey said firmly. “What’s that old saying? If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. Falling in love, for me, equals heartbreak. And I’m not doing it anymore.”

“You sound sure of yourself,” Emily mused.

“I am.”

“Maybe Andrea’s right. Maybe you’ve spent too much time in the lab and it has given you this illusion about what you can control. Maybe before you fully commit to the idea of having a baby on your own, you should try getting out a bit.”

“I’m getting out. I’ve joined yoga! And I’m taking a calligraphy class. My life is exceedingly full.”

She inwardly begged Andrea not to mention that desperate call a few weeks ago when she had been so unbearably down.

Andrea, blessedly, didn’t.

But Emily said, “Full does not mean fulfilling.”

“That’s why I want a family of my own. Besides, when did you become such a philosopher? Now you two quit picking on me.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said, “I didn’t mean to pick on you. If this decision makes you happy, I’m happy for you.”

Casey just wanted to change the subject. “Andrea, tell me what I should get the adorable little Tessa for Christmas. I was thinking a nice chemistry set.”

They all laughed, and it didn’t take much of a shove to get Andrea talking about her new life and her new family. “I’ve already tucked away the giant gingerbread man Tessa fell in love with at the shop.”

Andrea went on to talk about what she was getting Rick. She was glowing with passion, that thing that Casey was most suspicious of.

Both her friends knew what a philanderer her father had been. He’d no doubt made moves on both their mothers at some time over the summers here! And when her own mom had found out? Shrieking and pot throwing and breaking glass.

And then passion clouding the poor woman’s judgment all over again.

“How is your mother since your father passed?” Andrea asked suddenly, as if she had picked it up telepathically. Such was the way between old friends.

You don’t want to know. “Fine,” Casey said briefly.

“I wish she would come for the vow renewal,” Emily said. “She’s not going to be alone because you’ve come here, is she?”

“Oh, no,” Casey managed to squeak. “She’s not going to be alone.”

She could feel her throat tightening suspiciously, and she swallowed hard and focused quickly on the inn’s dog, a gorgeous golden retriever mix named Harper. The female dog came up with her happy grin and put her head in Casey’s lap.

“This kind of love I can live with,” Casey said lightly, scratching the dog’s ears and smiling at the tail thumping on the floor. “Oh, look! It’s snowing.”

She gently maneuvered free of the affectionate pet, then got up and went to the window. She shouldn’t have told her friends she had given up on love. Maybe she shouldn’t have told them she was thinking of alternative ways to have a family, either. She had left herself wide-open to a Christmas campaign to make her change her mind.

But she’d had enough proof of the folly of love to last her a lifetime, and it should be easy enough to change the subject when it came up.

As she looked out the window, headlights illuminated the thickly falling snow. A cab emerged from the night and pulled up in front of the inn, sliding a little when it tried to stop on the icy driveway.

A man got out of the back, dressed casually in a parka with a fur-lined hood, jeans tucked into laced snow boots. He strode around to the rear and waited for the driver to retrieve his bags from the trunk. Then, with his luggage at his feet in the snow, he paid the cabbie, clapping him on the shoulder at his effusive thanks for what must have been a great Christmas tip.

It was dark and it was snowing hard, but there was something about the way the new arrival carried himself that penetrated both the storm and the night.

Something shivered along Casey’s spine.

She had the alarming feeling it might be recognition, but she shook it off.

It simply was not possible that, following so quickly on her announcement to her friends that she had sworn off love, Turner Kennedy—the first man who had ever stolen her heart—would show up here.

CHAPTER TWO

“DID SOMEBODY JUST ARRIVE?” Andrea asked. “Another member of my little work party?”

“I thought we were your little work party,” Casey said, trying not to panic. “Emily and me.”

“Well, you were, but Cole pointed out to me he doesn’t want Emily to do any heavy lifting, and he didn’t really think you would want to be up on the roof replacing strings of Christmas lights. He wanted another guy, even though I asked Martin to help with the electrical. He said he’d be happy to do it for nothing. Isn’t that nice?”

Casey was having trouble focusing on Martin’s niceness.

“Who is it?” Emily asked. “He wouldn’t tell me who he invited. He just said it would be a surprise. I’m guessing Joe.”

“I’m not sure who it is,” Casey said, though she was guessing it was not Joe! She was amazed at how normal her voice sounded, considering she was forcing words out past constricted vocal chords. Because if it was who she suspected, it was a surprise, all right. Of the worst possible sort!

And why wouldn’t Turner Kennedy be just the surprise Cole would bring to the inn? the scientist in Casey insisted on asking. It was certainly one of the available options!

Turner had been the best man at Emily and Cole’s wedding. Why wouldn’t he be here as they assembled as much of the original wedding party as was possible for their renewal of vows? Why wouldn’t he jump at the chance to help get the old inn ready for their magical day, just as she had?

Because he disappeared, Casey wailed to herself.

Still, at one time, he and Cole had been best friends. Casey had assumed the friendship had been left behind, because when she had asked—not nearly as frequently as she wanted to, and with only the most casual interest—Emily had been vague.

“Oh. I’ll have to ask Cole. I think he said Turner is overseas. He’s some kind of government contractor.”

She’d thought, in those three magical days they had spent together following the wedding, that they had known everything about each other. Government contractor? Casey had felt the first shiver of betrayal at that. He hadn’t mentioned anything about being a government contractor. But in retrospect, he had headed her off every single time she had tried to delve into his life.

Just pretend I’m a prince who found a glass slipper. And that it fits you.

“If Turner is somewhere amazing, like France or Italy,” Emily had said, thankfully not reading her friend’s distress, “Cole and I should go visit!”

And when, after waiting an appropriate amount of time, Casey had screwed up the nerve to ask if Emily had asked Cole about Turner, her friend had replied, “Cole said he’s lost touch. Men! Relationships are a low priority.”

That was actually the first time Casey had heard bitterness in Emily’s voice in reference to her busy husband. But not the last.

Why would Turner be here now? Well, why not?

Why wouldn’t he come and help celebrate Christmas with his best friend’s newly reunited and rejoicing family? It went with everything Emily had been saying about the changes Cole was making. Her husband was giving a new priority to building and keeping relationships.

That’s what Casey was doing, too, wasn’t it? Making a vow to realize the importance of friendships before it was too late? Celebrating Christmas and the spirit of love with her best friends instead of that crazy, unpredictable, painful conglomeration of people sometimes known as a family?

Even her decision to create the kind of family she had always wanted for herself seemed to be wavering, perhaps due to some combination of her friends’ lack of enthusiasm and his arrival.

Stop it, Casey ordered herself. She didn’t even know if it was Turner. But all the ordering in the world would not slow her heart as the cab pulled away, and the man bent, effortlessly picked up a duffel bag and looped the strap over his shoulder, before turning to the steps that led to the front porch.

Casey was aware she was holding her breath as he stepped toward the faint light being thrown by a string of Christmas lights with too many burned out bulbs.

The light may have been weak, but it washed the familiar contours of his face, and turned the snowflakes caught in the glossy darkness of his hair to gold.

Her gasp was audible, and she covered it with quick desperation by clearing her throat. Casey’s wineglass trembled in her hand. She set it down. She told herself to move, to get out of here fast.

Instead, she was glued to the spot, her feet frozen, her eyes locked on his face.

It was him.

It was Turner. It was Turner Kennedy in the flesh.

Not unchanged, though the changes were subtle. Something in the way he held himself made a shiver go up and down her spine. As he arrived at the bottom of the step, he paused.

He had broadened in the years since she had last seen him, youthful litheness giving way to the pure power of a man completely in his prime. What hadn’t changed was that he was exuding an almost sizzling sense of himself, who he was in the world, and what he could take on.

Anything.

If the door of the inn had suddenly crashed open and a horde of bandits had fallen upon him, she had the sense he would be ready for it. He might even enjoy it!

Casey shook the picture off, annoyed that she could be so susceptible to the whisper of imagination. She knew nothing about him. She had once convinced herself otherwise, and she had been wrong.

The faint light illuminated his face, and she shivered again, despite herself. There seemed to be a certain remoteness in his expression that was different, but what did she know? She’d been a naive young bridesmaid when Turner Kennedy had been Cole Watson’s best man.

She had been the geeky girl, the science nerd, the brain, who had been noticed by the most popular boy in the school, the captain of the football team, the boy whose picture in every girl’s yearbook was marked with inked hearts.

Despite his closed expression, Turner was still the most astonishingly handsome man she had ever seen, so good-looking that a girl could fall for him.

At first sight.

So much so that when he had taken her chin in his hands as dawn broke, the morning after Cole and Emily’s wedding, and said, “Run away with me,” she hadn’t even hesitated.

Casey had tossed years and years of absolute control right out the window.

“Three days,” he’d said. “Spend the next three days with me.”

She should have known better than to share her new resolve about love with her girlfriends. It seemed she had thrown a gauntlet before the gods and they had responded with terrifying swiftness.

“Casey?”

She turned to her friends and saw the instant concern register on both their faces.

“What’s wrong?” they asked together.

What’s wrong? She was a scientist. Andrea had been right; she spent too much time in the lab. And nothing in that carefully controlled environment had prepared her for this encounter.

She was amazed when her voice didn’t shake when she said, “It looks like Turner Kennedy is here.”

“Turner?” Emily said. “I can’t believe it! We haven’t seen him since our wedding. I thought Cole had lost touch completely.”

Emily got up, raced to the front door and flung it open. “Turner Kennedy! What a wonderful surprise!”

Casey was experiencing that trapped feeling, a sensation of fight or flight. When Andrea went into the front hallway to greet the newcomer, too, Casey quietly set down her unfinished wineglass, left the parlor by the back door and slipped up the rear staircase to her room.

She went in and softly closed the door, leaning against it as if she had escaped a twisting, foggy London street with the Ripper on her heels.

Her heart was beating hard and unreasonably fast, not entirely the result of her mad dash up the stairs.

She turned and looked at her suitcase.

Good. Not completely unpacked yet. She could throw the few things she had unpacked back in it. She could wait in here, quiet as a mouse, until the old inn grew silent, and then slink out that door and never come back.

She could spend a quiet Christmas in her apartment. Never mind that she had yearned for the company of loving friends. Never mind that she had longed for holiday traditions, for bonfires and impromptu snowball fights, hanging stockings on the hearth and making gingerbread cookies with the Gingerbread Girls. Never mind that she had longed for a little taste of the kind of Christmas she would create for her own child someday soon!

Never mind all that. She would go to her little apartment, where it was safe and everything was in her control. She could look up everything she needed to know about third-party reproductive procedures.

Maybe she’d even go to the lab for part of Christmas Day. Why not?

Her research there could be her greatest gift to the world. Ask any parent whose child had been diagnosed with cancer!

Another option would be to accept her mother’s invitation.

To join her at the Sacred Heart Mission House, where the Sisters of Mercy would be serving Christmas dinner to the poor. Where her mother, glowing with a soft joy she had never had while Casey was growing up, would remind her, ever so gently, not to call her Mom.

It’s Sister Maria Celeste.

There. Both the Caravettas—except her mother did not consider herself a Caravetta any longer—selflessly saving the world at Christmas.

Her crazy family, the reason Casey had sought refuge with her friends at the inn.

But she couldn’t stay here now.

It was one thing to say you were sworn off romantic love. It was another to be tested.

And Turner Kennedy had that indefinable something that would test any woman’s resolve, never mind one who had been locked away in a lab nursing a broken heart for nearly a year.

Or had it been longer? Had it really been ever since that three days together in a fairy-tale kingdom he had created? Just for her. A Cinderella experience. The little scrub-a-muffin noticed by the prince. The prince enchanted with her.

Only in the end, the fairy tale had been reversed. He had been the one with secrets. The one who had resisted her every effort to find out why only three days, where he was going, what he would be doing next. He had been the one who had disappeared into the night, only unlike the fairy tale, Turner had not left a single clue.

She had been left holding a memory as fragile as a glass slipper, only she had never again found the person who fit it.

But now he was here. Yes, Turner had a raw masculine potency combined with a roguish, boyish charm that had completely bowled her over on their first encounter.

Casey turned off the lights in her room and lay on her bed, staring at the glow of the mostly burned out string of Christmas lights outside her window. They were making a really ugly pattern on her waterstained ceiling. She contemplated how the hurt Turner had caused her felt recent, more recent than the hurt of her broken engagement!

In a different part of the house, she could hear everyone’s voices, Cole’s and Turner’s, raised in greeting, followed by laughter and conversation. She could, after all these years, pick out the tone of Turner’s voice. It was deep, a masculine melody touching the harp her spine had become.

It was obvious the men were now in the front room where the Gingerbread Girls had been earlier.

No chance of sneaking down the staircase without being seen. Casey fervently wished they would shut up and go to bed, so she could get out of here.

Instead, Turner’s voice triggered powerful memories of a presidential suite at the Waldorf Astoria. Jumping on the beds. Sitting in front of the fireplace wrapped in a luxurious, pure white robe, while he painted her toenails red. Walking to the theater. Taking a carriage ride through Central Park.

Three days of barely sleeping, of living with an intensity that was exhilarating and exhausting, of being on fire with life and love... Strip away all the luxury, and it was his hand in hers that had caused her to feel so exquisitely alive, his eyes on her face that made her feel as if she had never felt before.

Enough! Casey shook her head clear of the memories. Finally, after experiencing what she had once seen described in a poem as the “interminable night,” she felt it was safe to creep out of her room, jacket on against the cold, suitcase in hand.

She checked the hallway. Nothing. Not a sound beyond the wheezing of an exceptionally cranky old furnace. She was pretty sure Harper slept with her owner, the innkeeper, Carol.

Casey tiptoed through the house and out the front, where the screen door shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

She froze, listened, waited for lights to come on. It was really dark out here. Even the Christmas lights had been turned off, no doubt part of the Gingerbread Inn’s austerity program.

Stumbling through the inky darkness found only in the country, Casey finally made it to her car, where she opted to use the key so there would be no blink of headlights or short blast of the horn when she unlocked it. She actually had her key in the door when it hit her.

She could not let Emily and Andrea down like this. It wasn’t about her. It was about making Emily’s day the most incredible experience of her life.

Besides, what explanation could she offer to her friends for her sudden defection? As close as she was to them, she had never let on about those three days she and Turner had spent together. Had never breathed out loud that she harbored a crush on the man, that she had waited and hoped and prayed that he would contact her again.

The memory of that—of waiting—made her cheeks turn crimson with anger.

She was acting like a thief! Acting as if she had done something wrong.

It was Turner who had breathed fire into her soul in those three days that had followed Cole and Emily’s wedding. And then he had walked away, and never, ever called. Or written. Had disappeared as if they had not shared the most intense of all experiences.

As if they had not fallen in love at first sight.

Slowly, she pulled her key out of the car door.

Casey was a scientist. She didn’t believe in the phenomena of coincidence, certainly did not believe in the universe conspiring to help people out. But really, in terms of her vow never to love again, could there be a more perfect test than this?

Could there be a better conclusion than coming face-to-face with the man who had made her aware of her fatal flaw?

It was perfect, really.

The perfect ending.

Not the one Andrea and Emily wanted her to believe in. No, in this story, the princess was not kissed awake by a prince. In this ending, the princess came awake all by herself. In her new happily-ever-after, Casey would walk away, sure of herself, entirely certain of her ability to be completely independent, to live with purpose and joy without being encumbered by a belief in the fairy-tale ending of love.

Love, even love that worked, was an uphill battle with heartache. Look at Em. Look at Andrea, having to bury her husband before her honeymoon had even ended!

Casey decided—right then and there, in the parking lot of the Gingerbread Inn, with fresh snow drifting down around her—to be on a quest, not for love, but for emotional freedom. She would rid herself once and for all of the lifelong myths and fantasies and hopes and dreams that had bound and imprisoned her.

Her life would be about her baby. Who better than a scientist to conduct the search for a donor with the perfect qualities to give her child?

She could make that decision about creating her own family in the way all the best choices were made. She would be measured and rational. She hadn’t got far in her research about how to choose a donor, but she hoped she would get to review photos. She would make sure the father of her child was nothing like her own devastatingly handsome father had been, or her immensely charming, but ultimately fickle fiancé.

The man would, especially, be nothing like Turner.

Who could turn those silvery eyes on a woman and enchant her entirely.

No, better to look for brilliance and gentleness, physical health and even features.

Really, she was surprised she hadn’t thought of it sooner—that science could provide her with a perfect father for her children!

When she thought back on it, she was a totally different woman than she had been in those few long-ago days with Turner.

She’d experienced nothing but heartache at the caprice of love. She’d buried her father, lost her fiancé to another woman and her mother to the church, attended the heartbreaking funeral of one of her best friends. She’d seen Andrea devastated by the death of her husband, and Emily by a struggling marriage. It was enough! Casey’s heart was in armor.

She was glad that Emily and Andrea had found love. She really was. But she was concluding her mission. The rejection of romantic love would make her a better mother to her future child, devoted and not distracted. Their lives wouldn’t be in a constant jumble of men moving in and out.

If the gods were throwing down a gauntlet in the face of her decision, she was accepting the challenge!

And with that firmly in mind, Casey grasped the handle of her suitcase and turned back to the inn with a certain grim determination. She plowed through the growing mounds of snow and marched up the steps onto the covered porch.

Something wet and cold brushed the hand that held her car keys. Casey dropped them with a little shriek of surprise, then looked down to see Harper thrust a wet snout into her palm.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked the dog.

A deep voice, as sensual as the snow-filled night, came out of a darkened corner of the porch.

“Keeping me company.”

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