The Bachelor’s Christmas Bride Read Free Page B

wiser, but still pretty lucky. Lucky enough to have been able to go on.
    The sound of a woman’s laughter drifted up to him then and he listened more intently.
    Had Shannon Duffy come across the backyard from the garage apartment?
    And why should he care whether she had or not?
    He shouldn’t.
    He didn’t.
    But when he heard the laugh again and recognized it as his half sister Hadley’s laugh, he stayed put, continuing to rub his knee rather than go down the way he might have otherwise.
    It was just good manners, he told himself. They were sort of the co-guests-of-honor. If Shannon was here, he should go down. If she wasn’t here yet, there was no rush.
    Yeah, right, it’s just manners…
    Okay, maybe he didn’t hate the idea that he was going to get to see her again. But only because she made for a pleasant view.
    Dark, thick, silky, walnut-colored hair around that pale peaches-and-cream skin. A thin, straight nose that came to a slight point on the end that turned up just a touch. Lips that were soft and shiny and too damn kissable to bear. Rosy cheeks that made her look healthy and glowing from the inside out. Eyes that at first had seemed blue—a pale, luminous blue—and then had somehow taken on a green hue, too, to blend them into the colorof sea and sky together. And a compact little body that was just tight enough, just round enough, just right…
    A beauty—that’s what Shannon Duffy was. No doubt about it. So much of a beauty that he hadn’t been able to get the image of her out of his head even after he’d left her to her brother this afternoon when he’d come up here to shower.
    So much of a beauty that he’d had to rein in the urge to stare at her every time he’d had the opportunity to see her today.
    No wonder she’d snagged herself a Rumson….
    Wes Rumson, the newest Golden Boy of the Montana clan that had forever been the biggest name in politics in the state. It had been all over the news a couple weeks ago that not only was he going to run for governor, he was also engaged to Shannon Duffy. When Dag had heard that, he’d figured that was the reason she was selling her grandmother’s property.
    It was also one of the reasons that no matter how great-looking she was, he would be keeping his distance from her.
    Engaged, dating, separated—even flirting with someone else—any woman with the faintest hint of involvement or connection or ties to another guy and there was no way Dag would get anywhere near her. And not only because he wasn’t a woman-poacher—which he wasn’t.
    He’d learned painfully and at the wrong end of a crowbar that if a woman wasn’t completely and totally free and available, having anything whatsoever to do with her could be disastrous.
    So, beautiful, not beautiful, he wouldn’t go anywhere near Shannon Duffy.
    At least not anywhere nearer than anyone else whowas about to share the holiday with her as part of a larger group.
    Nope, Shannon Duffy was absolutely the same as the decorations on the Christmas tree, as the lights and holly and pine boughs and ribbons all over this house, all over town—she was something pretty to look at and nothing more.
    But damn, no one could say she wasn’t pretty to look at….
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    â€œA neckruss goes on your neck, a brace-a-let goes on your wristle.”
    â€œRight,” Shannon confirmed with a smile at three-year-old Tia McKendrick’s pronunciation of things.
    After a lovely dinner of game hen, wild rice, roasted vegetables and salad, followed by a dessert of fruit cobbler and ice cream, everyone was still sitting around the table in the dining room of Logan and Meg McKendrick’s home.
    Wine had also been in abundance and had left Shannon more relaxed than when she’d arrived this evening. She assumed the same was true for her dinner companions because no one seemed in any hurry to get up and clear the