Snowbound Bride-to-Be Read Online Free PDF

league, and never getting even semi-serious with any one woman. That had been his life: a happy, carefree place. A guy zone of self-centered hedonism.
    He had never been deep. Insensitive probably would have described him nicely, blissfully unaware there was any other way to be.
    Now, he could walk by a complete stranger, and see their tragedies in the lines around their mouths and the shadows in their eyes. It was as if he had become a member of a secret club of sadness. Not seeing had been a blessing he had not appreciated at the time.
    A little more than a year ago, Ryder certainly wouldn’t have ever been able to spot the hurt hiding in the shadows of Emma’s eyes. He realized, uncomfortably, that even with those shadows, her eyes were amazing.
    A part of him, purely masculine, acknowledged that physically Emma was exquisite. Her features were small and perfect, her nose snubbed up a touch at the end, her lips formed plump bows of sensuality. And he was not sure he had ever quite seen that shade of eye color before, soft gray-green, moss and mist.
    Despite the outfit—was it deliberately chosen to hide her assets? Another thing he probably would not have guessed pre-fire—he could see she was delicately curved, unconsciously sensuous.
    Annoyed with himself, he realized it was the first time since the fire he had allowed the faint stir of attraction toward a member of the opposite sex to penetrate his barriers.
    Strange it would be her. The women he had been attracted to in the past were as superficial as he was. He had liked women who wore clingy clothes, and push-up bras, who glittered with makeup and jewelry, and who intoxicated with expensive scents.
    Emma had probably wiggled by his defenses simply because he would have never thought to erect that particular wall against someone like her: makeup-free, tangled hair, lumpy jeans, grandma sweater. And defiantly set on letting him know she believed .
    Still, regardless of how she had done it, it had happened. That faint stirring of something, that felt like life. Trying to call him back.
    To a place, he reminded himself sternly, that was gone.
    He shut down what he was feeling, quickly, but he could not shut down the acknowledgment that it had been a first. He did not feel ready for firsts: to laugh again, to feel again.
    Because somehow even contemplating the possibility of firsts, of returning, felt like some kind of betrayal, as if it minimized who Drew and Tracy had been and what they had meant to him. And maybe because it would require him to do what could not be done: forgive himself.
    So, in a different lifetime, when he had been a different man, Ryder might have followed that thread of attraction to see where it would lead.
    But he already knew Emma was hurt, had already seensecrets in her soft eyes that she probably would rather he not have known.
    And the man he was now was so damaged that he knew he could only hurt her more. His hardness felt as though it would take all that was wondrous about her—such as this childlike delight in Christmas—and curdle it, like vinegar hitting milk.
    It was all the smells in here, pine and pumpkin, all the decorations, her ridiculous hat making her look like an emissary from Santa, that were bringing up these uncomfortable thoughts. For the most part, Ryder was successful at warding off the worst of it.
    Still, that all this had flooded in within moments of entering this place troubled him. He would probably be better off sleeping in his car than taking refuge here.
    He’d known as soon as he stepped under the roof of her porch that this place posed a peculiar kind of danger to his armored heart. As if to confirm that suspicion, he had spotted the letters, peeking out from under the boughs of the wreath.
    Believe .
    The sign had made him want to head back to his car, find shelter elsewhere. Believe in what?
    If he’d been by himself, he would have gone back to the car, found a pub, preferably with a pool table and a