eyelids fluttered.
“Kiss her, Dad.” Hunter tugged at his coat. “Help her wake up.”
But it turned out the snow princess didn’t need his help after all.
He found himself gazing into the loveliest, emerald-green eyes he’d ever seen. And something, not entirely unpleasant, shifted in his gut.
Snowflakes brushed AnnaBeth’s cheeks. Her eyelids fluttered. She became aware of a biting cold. For inexplicable reasons, she found herself lying flat on her back in the road.
A cowboy stood over her. Two cowboys. Or maybe she was seeing double.
The smaller, duplicate cowboy leaned against the older one. Through her lashes, she took another quick, surreptitious look at the tall cowboy.
For a split second, she believed somehow she must’ve fallen backward to another place and time. Yet truck headlights glowed on the pavement, and she guessed she hadn’t left present day. But, oh, how delicious this particular reality was turning out to be.
The older cowboy pushed the brim of his gray Stetson higher onto his forehead, revealing short-cropped blondish hair. His features were rugged. His jaw chiseled.
In short, he was every cowboy fantasy she’d ever entertained, all rolled up in the man looming over her in the middle of the road.
A few years older than her, stark fear dotted his chocolate-brown eyes.
If she hadn’t already swooned, she would have now. In the ordinary course of her life, she didn’t run across many men who looked like him.
He was so totally swoon-worthy. Maybe this was a dream. A lovely, lovely dream from which she hoped never to awaken.
AnnaBeth became aware that the little blond boy—the mini-me cowboy—was speaking. Patting her hand, he smiled, his small teeth white, even and perfect.
She thought he said, “You’re going to be my mommy.”
But she must have misunderstood. And, anyway, the man—God’s Cowboy Gift to Women—said something she didn’t catch in that delicious, raspy voice of his.
She sighed, content to float forever in a cocoon of bliss. “A lovely, lovely dream...”
“More like a nightmare,” the cowboy growled.
Her eyes flew open. Okeydokey. He looked better than his manners. Trust AnnaBeth to find the one grouchy cowboy on the planet.
Palms planted against the pavement, she pushed to a sitting position. Hello...
As if someone had shaken a snow globe, the truck, the boy, the man and her insides whirled. Her world spun.
The cowboy took hold of her elbow. “Not so fast, ma’am. Take it easy.”
She put her hand to her head. Good to know he wasn’t totally devoid of manners.
“Did you hit your head? Are you in pain?” He scanned her features. “Can you stand? Do you think anything’s broken?”
Only my heart...
She gaped at him. Overwhelmed by the utter hunksomeness of him. Stop gawking, AnnaBeth.
Was she dead? If she was, then wow... Just wow. The view here was tremendous.
“Ma’am?”
The cowboy maintained a firm, steadying grip on her arm. For which she was grateful.
“Yay!” The little cowboy fist-pumped the air. “You didn’t kill her.”
Using the cowboy as a counterbalance, she carefully got to her feet. The dress didn’t make it easy.
She blushed. “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you. I did everything I could not to hit you—”
“You didn’t hit me.”
She gazed into his face. He must be well over six feet tall. Underneath the fleece-lined Carhartt jacket, he was a big man with broad shoulders. His sheer handsomeness took her breath.
If there was one thing she knew, it was clothes. But unlike most of her male acquaintances, the clothes didn’t make this man. Rather, it was the other way around.
“Not your fault. I fainted. Thankfully, I didn’t hit my head. I’m fine.”
He smelled good, too. Something woodsy with notes of leather and hay.
So she did what she did when she didn’t know what else to do—she babbled.
“I don’t usually faint, but I haven’t eaten anything today. Actually, I haven’t eaten anything in about forty-eight hours. But I couldn’t, you see. My stomach was simply tied in knots.”
Brow furrowed, the cowboy eyeballed her like he’d never seen her species before. She wasn’t unused to such reactions from men.
The little cowboy tucked his small hand through the crook of her arm. “I wike her, Dad, don’t you?”
Dad? She wilted. Oh.
The cowboy was married. Of course, he’s married, AnnaBeth. Are you an idiot? This hunk of man had to have been lassoed into matrimony long, long ago.
“Sweet potatoes,” she muttered.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
She disentangled herself from his grasp. Off-limits, AnnaBeth. She was delusional to have imagined someone like her unremarkable, big-hipped self could ever find herself rescued by someone tall, blond and available.
AnnaBeth motioned toward her vehicle, which was rapidly disappearing under a mantle of falling snow. “My car broke down. And before that, I got lost.”
Little Cowboy hadn’t let go of her arm, but she didn’t mind. It was nice. He was like a human muff. And so, so cute.
The cowboy’s deep brown eyes sharpened. “Where were you headed?”
“Nowhere. Anywhere. I mean, I hadn’t planned much beyond getting out of town. ‘Head west, young man,’ they used to say. So I guess I decided to take their advice. Except in my case, it would’ve been ‘head west, young woman,’ you see.” Taking a quick breath, she touched her hand to where the gigantic bow had dipped over one eye. “You do see, don’t you?”
It was only after the words left her mouth, she realized how nonsensical she must sound. His gaze held a hint of alarm.
Her stomach tightened. Yet how could she hope to say anything sensible with his handsome self staring at her like that?
Jonas was beginning to believe that maybe she had hit her head. She didn’t look like a criminal on the lam, but what did he know? As his mother was quick to remind him, he didn’t get out much.
Of course, the woman being a flatlander could possibly explain the absurdity of the situation. Flatlanders did illogical and ill-advised things.
Like driving an expensive sports car on a mountain in a blinding snowstorm. His eyes cut to the enormous bow on her head. In a fancy, pre-Christmas party getup, no less.
Unlike the usual mountain twang he was accustomed to, she spoke in one of those soft, honeyed Southern drawls.
The pretty flatlander smiled at him. Brightly. Those eyes of hers...
She held out her hand. “Where are my manners? We haven’t been introduced. My name is AnnaBeth