As the snow falls, her touch sets him aflame...

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Texas billionaire Chase Ferguson has one regret: leaving Miriam Andrix to protect her from his public life. When a snowstorm strands her in his mountain mansion, their passion reignites, and it’s too hot to resist! But reality—and scandal—arrives with the thaw. Chase turned his back on happiness once. Will he fight for what he truly wants this time?

A former job-hopper, JESSICA LEMMON resides in Ohio with her husband and rescue dog. She holds a degree in graphic design currently gathering dust in an impressive frame. When she’s not writing supersexy heroes, she can be found cooking, drawing, drinking coffee (okay, wine) and eating potato chips. She firmly believes God gifts us with talents for a purpose, and with His help, you can create the life you want.

Jessica is a social media junkie who loves to hear from readers. You can learn more at jessicalemmon.com.

Also by Jessica Lemmon

Lone Star Lovers

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

A Snowbound Scandal

Jessica Lemmon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07666-1

A SNOWBOUND SCANDAL

© 2018 Jessica Lemmon

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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For John.

There’s no one I’d rather be

snowed in with than you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Extract

About the Publisher

One

Mayor Chase Ferguson’s best friend and head of his security team strolled into his office, sheet of paper in hand.

“Busy?” Emmett asked.

“Extremely,” Chase answered, droll. He’d been staring at the same spot on the wall for going on twenty minutes trying to figure out how to answer the governor’s email.

“I won’t be long.” Emmett wasn’t smiling, but Chase could tell his best bud was amused. Emmett knew Chase better than anyone—better than his own family in some cases. With a flick of his fingers, Emmett dropped the sheet of paper on the desk.

Chase lifted the printed color photo. In it, a delicate, thin woman, mouth open in an angry shout was holding a poster board. On the poster was a photo of a bird dripping with black goo and the words painted around the image read OIL KILLS. An angry crowd in the background held similar signs, but it was the woman in clear focus that snared his attention.

Soft, dark curls blew over fine cheekbones and plump lips. Even now, years later, he didn’t have to try to recall the feel of her elegant, slim body against his. Mimi Andrix was runway-model thin with small breasts and subtle curves. The years had been good to her, depending on how recently this photo was taken.

“When was it taken?” Chase asked.

“Three years ago, in Houston.”

“How did you come across it?”

“One of your campaign staff alerted me. It was mailed to the office alongside a letter threatening to send it to Jamie Holland.”

Chase’s opponent. An all around `not-so-nice guy with questionable ties to big, bad men in Texas, and involved in too many illegal activities to list.

“We’re trying to find out where it’s from, but so far no luck,” Emmett said in the same flat, matter-of-fact tone.

Chase grunted. Ah, election season. He was on his second term and preferred to stay where he was for as long as his city allowed him. Not only was he one of Dallas’s youngest mayors, but he was also one of the few politicians interested in the seat who was unbribable. As a son of the Fergusons and one-third owner of Ferguson Oil, Chase had plenty of money of his own. He didn’t crave power or prestige. He craved justice. Staying in office meant crowding out potentially corrupt politicians. Jamie Holland, for example.

“I recognized her right away.” Emmett tapped the edge of the photo. He’d been on the three-month-long trip where Chase had met Mimi. Emmett was one of the few people who knew what had transpired between them all those summers ago. All that had gone well before it’d gone sideways.

“She should know that she’s a potential target for publicity.” Mimi hated politics. She wouldn’t appreciate being dragged into the mud during his upcoming campaign if and when news of their previous relationship saw the light of day.

“I tracked her down. She lives in Bigfork. You have a trip scheduled for Montana soon, don’t you? Why not tell her in person?” His friend smirked knowingly.

“Somehow I doubt she’d welcome me with open arms.” The last time Chase had seen her, he’d put her on a plane leaving Dallas for Bigfork. Her face was red from a combination of anger and devastation—both of which he’d put into her expression. She’d hated him then and he doubted her feelings for him had warmed since.

“She works for a conservation society. Some environmental group. Her bio on the website mentioned ‘saving the planet.’”

That drew a proud smile to Chase’s mouth. Mimi’s giving and loving heart had been so huge it’d encapsulated not only him, but the environmental causes she’d cared about so passionately. Not until she’d come with him to Dallas did she know the extent of Chase’s involvement in one of the biggest enemies to the environment—her words. The oil industry was his family’s industry.

But she didn’t call it quits between them when she found out. Chase was surprised she’d seen around his inherited billions that had come from the very industry destroying the causes she’d championed, but she had. She’d tearfully told him she didn’t hold it against him and that they’d work through it and that the only thing that mattered was how they felt for each other.

He’d been the one who’d ended it. It’d killed him to do it. Even though they never would’ve worked out, he’d cared about her and would’ve preferred ending their relationship on better terms.

“Do you ever wonder,” Emmett said as he turned for the door, “if you two had married how that would’ve gone?”

“No.” Chase never second-guessed decisions. The point of making one was that you didn’t have to revisit it.

“Seeing that photo made me wonder if she’d have bent to your will and become a proper politician’s wife, or if you would’ve caved to hers and been alongside her protesting the evils of big oil.”

The bagel Chase had for breakfast turned to stone in his stomach. He didn’t like thinking about what would’ve happened. What could’ve happened.

What a colossal waste of resources.

“The first one,” he answered. Which was exactly why he hadn’t continued a relationship with Mimi. She was too good at being who she was to be dragged into politics, having to explain herself or apologize for her past. Chase’s desire to protect her had dominated his decision to put her on that airplane. Clean breaks were best, and he’d told her as much at the time.

Emmett shut the door behind him, leaving Chase in his office with thoughts he didn’t care to have. He’d had plenty of brief relationships in the ten years since he and Mimi had ended theirs. He didn’t know if it was the age they’d been at the time—him twenty-six to her twenty-three—or if it’d been the high of a summer fling, but she stood out in his mind to this day. The rare act of being wrapped in her arms for three months had felt more like three years.

Whatever it was, she’d left a mark. An indelible one.

Back then, he hadn’t been as conservative as he was now. He’d been more like his father, Rider. With a rough edge. His mother, Eleanor, had taken it upon herself to sand those edges down on her boys. It’d worked on Chase, and while Zach fell into line with the company, his wild streak was still strong. Chase’s had been buried long ago. Hell, it was probably on the bottom of Flathead Lake in Montana.

Once he’d become certain of his political interests, he’d gladly gone from rough to refined. If he hadn’t gone the refined route, he imagined he’d have turned out like Emmett, who was best described as rough on the edges and in the middle. Emmett had started out in security—a perfect fit for his bulk and brawn—and it wasn’t long before Chase had asked him to run his security detail.

Emmett was still in charge of security, but his duties now spanned anything that had to do with Chase’s position as mayor. Loyalty was the one luxury you couldn’t buy in the world of politics, so Chase considered himself lucky that a lifelong friend had his back.

He lifted the photo again and tried to imagine himself with Mimi today. It’d been ten years since he’d seen her—since he’d said goodbye. She’d accused him of being a coward. Of being too obtuse to see what she’d seen so clearly. She’d stood on the airfield before boarding the private plane and shouted over the whining engine that they loved each other and were the kind of couple who could last forever.

If you give us a chance.

He hadn’t, though.

Chase pulled the lap drawer on his desk open and locked the photo inside. Despite Mimi’s passionate argument, he’d known then that they couldn’t know if they’d last forever after only a handful of months. No matter how good the sex had been or the way the minutes had folded over into hours and rolled into days and morphed into months.

The smile that found his face now wasn’t one of regret, but of memory. The weeks and months before their bitter end had been filled with Mimi’s laugh and her fingers ruffling his hair. He recalled the way she sighed in his ear, hot and quiet, when he made love to her. She’d dragged him to the lake on more than one occasion, torn off her clothes and his, and talked him into skinny-dipping in the full moon’s light.

Hopefully no photos of those nights resurfaced next.

Yes, he had a lot of good memories from that summer. Like the time they had sneaked onto a massive property overlooking the lake. The house was disgustingly arrogant in its placement and had boasted shamelessly from its many windowed rooms.

Eight bedrooms. Six bathrooms. Fifteen thousand square feet.

He knew because he’d kept a close eye on the property over the years, waiting on the elusive owner to die or move out.

The owner had put the mansion up for sale three years ago, and Chase purchased it for a cool sixteen mil. It’d been completely remodeled by then. During his walk-through he’d been awestruck by the fact that the inside was more immaculate and braggadocian than the outside. Multiple fireplaces, a hot tub alongside an indoor heated pool surrounded by huge rocks and a wine cellar to name a few of the amenities.

With the purchase of the mansion he also became owner of a good slice of the Flathead Lake shoreline. Since he’d purchased the place he’d been there three—no, four—times. He tried to visit once a year, minimum. During those trips, thoughts of Mimi didn’t cling to him like moss on a rock, but passed by like a leaf on the surface of a stream. He didn’t linger on memory or the past. What was the point?

He stood from his desk to take in the city outside his office window. Dallas sat fat and happy, calm and cooling down for autumn. He was eighteen months out from reelection, and though reelection efforts were always in swing, they wouldn’t be in full swing for a while.

His scheduled trip to Bigfork was likely his last chance to flee town, to untangle himself from the political spider web for a bit. If the worst happened—if Mimi became embroiled in political mudslinging, it’d be best if he were here in Dallas, not in her backyard.

He contemplated skipping the trip for all of two seconds. He could handle the press—good or bad. It’s how he’d been elected. He wasn’t shying away from the trip because of Mimi, nor was he going there for her.

The past was the past and the future was all that mattered.

Decision made.

Bigfork, here he came.

* * *

“Honestly, Stefanie.” Eleanor Ferguson tsked her only daughter from across the dining room table.

Stefanie rolled her eyes. Her mother tended to bring out the child in her. Probably because she was treated like one whenever they gathered for holidays. Or a pseudoholiday like this one.

She slid a glance over at her brothers. Chase, in a suit and tie, fresh from working late, sat rigidly in his chair. He hoisted one regal eyebrow at her but otherwise stayed silent. Zach sat next to his wife, Penelope, but he was too preoccupied with his ten-month-old daughter to pay attention to his bickering mother and sister.

The other party at the table wasn’t family at all. Emmett Keaton, Chase’s head of security and best friend, sat at the head of the table opposite her father. He silently ate a few forked green beans and watched her, expressionless as per his usual.

God, he made her crazy.

He’d been breathing down her neck since that unfortunate run-in with one of Chase’s sworn political enemies. Emmett had watched over her like a hawk since. She’d been so aware of his presence lately, she looked forward to any event that didn’t include him. Yet here he was.

“This doesn’t count as Thanksgiving,” Stef dropped her napkin on her empty plate and her mother, who’d been insisting she take the serving spoon, dropped it back into the mashed potatoes with a sigh.

The chef-prepared meal—Mom didn’t cook—was top-notch. Golden, buttery turkey, stuffing, French green beans, and a gravy boat brimming with brown gravy. There was only one problem.

“Thanksgiving isn’t for another two weeks. This is just...” Stef shook her head. “Wrong.”

Emmett grunted what might’ve been a laugh and she sliced him with a glare. He shoveled another bite into his mouth and chewed.

“Why is he here?” she asked the table collectively.

“Rider. Remind your daughter she is to have manners in this house.” Elle looked over at her husband.

“Stef, sweetheart.” Her dad smiled. “We’re all making sacrifices. You think I want to be on a boat during my favorite holiday of the year?”

“It’s a cruise,” her mom corrected.

“Em’s here because he can’t turn down a free meal,” Chase said conversationally.

Emmett grunted again. Stef guessed that was his way of agreeing with his friend.

Neanderthal.

“It doesn’t seem right for everyone to leave during Thanksgiving.” Sacrilegious, even, but she didn’t want to be melodramatic. But honestly, did tradition mean nothing to anyone but her? Chase was vacationing at a lake in Montana by himself; Zach and Pen were traveling with their daughter Olivia to visit Pen’s parents in Chicago, which was, okay, fine, excusable; and her parents were going to be floating in the Atlantic Ocean wearing bathing suits and drinking mai tais.

“I’ll be here,” Emmett offered.

“Lucky me.” Stefanie mimicked his sarcastic smile and he went back to his food. She’d rather eat a microwaved frozen meal by herself than take him up on a shared turkey-day dinner.

“Stef, my parents would love to have you if you want to come to Chicago with us.” Pen lifted her fussing daughter from the high chair. Zach shot his wife a look that said they hadn’t talked about this.

Her brother’s wife was sweet and thoughtful and sharp and beautiful. If Zach hadn’t pulled his head from his rear and married Pen, Stef would’ve seriously considered it. Penelope Ferguson had granted them all a beautiful niece-slash-granddaughter, and Pen’s presence at parties made Stef’s life a lot brighter. As much as she’d love to hang with Pen over the holidays, however, Stef would never dream of intruding on Pen’s time with her family. This would be their first Thanksgiving with Olivia.

“I appreciate that,” Stef smiled over at her sister-in-law. “But I’ll be all right. I’ll just...decorate for Christmas early.”

“You mean late,” Zach said. “You barely waited until Halloween last year before you adorned everything that crossed your path in red, green and gold.”

Stef curled her lip at her brother. Zach smirked.

“If you change your mind, let us know.” Pen excused herself from the table to take care of Olivia and Zach stood with her.

“Need help?”

“No, I have her.” She kissed him and he smiled, adoration on his face.

So. Stinking. Sweet.

“I’m not inviting you to Montana.” Chase scooped more mashed potatoes onto his plate. “So don’t ask.”

“I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving with you, anyway,” she teased.

He pointed at her with his fork when he said, “Good.”

Her oldest brother had always looked out for her, had always been there for her. She could guarantee if she wanted to abscond to Montana with Chase, he wouldn’t hesitate taking her along. But he deserved a break, too. There’d been so much fatigue in his eyes tonight. Must’ve been a hell of a week in the mayor’s office.

“How are you spending the holiday, Emmett?” Elle asked.

“I’ll be on call. Security never sleeps.”

Stef eyed him over the rim of her water glass, trying to decide if that was true or not. She didn’t know Emmett that well, only that he and Chase had been friends for years, and that Emmett was part of the backdrop of nearly every big event in recent history. She assumed that behind those hulking shoulders and permanent scowl of his, she’d find a loner who worked 24/7, and not much else. He didn’t seem to have a life other than one involving the Ferguson family.

Not five minutes later, Penelope returned without Olivia, explaining her daughter had missed a nap and was too tired to deal with dinner.

“It’s Zach’s turn so I’m off the clock.” She refilled her wineglass with dark red wine and gestured to Stef with the tipped bottle. “Join me?”

“Always.” Stef allowed Pen to fill her glass, feeling a ping of loneliness. Stef was used to her family being around, to big parties and to-dos year-round. Save when Zach had lived in Chicago for a stint, they’d been together as a family most of the time. The business they held stakes in kept them in each other’s orbit.

So, yeah, Stef wasn’t used to being alone, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be. This year she’d embrace Thanksgiving on her own and build that muscle.

It was time her family started seeing her as a twenty-nine-year-old anyway.

Two

Bundled in her knee-length pea coat, Miriam Andrix marched up the asphalt-covered parking lot, her head down to thwart the icy wind. She was born and raised in Montana, but every winter she experienced here made her a bit less tolerant of the cold. Which was ridiculous. She was only thirty-three, for Pete’s sake. It wasn’t as if she was her seventy-five-year-old grandmother who kept the thermostat set on eighty degrees at home.

She peeked up from her trudge so that she didn’t mow over a shopper who’d just overspent on groceries, and then tucked her chin again and watched her laced boots move her forward. Her destination? Whole Foods Market in search of fixings for sweet potato pie, as assigned by her mother. This was the first year Miriam had been placed in charge of dessert. Typically, she made a side dish like potatoes au gratin or cranberry sauce.

Mom’s rules were anything but simple when asking her four children to participate in the preparation of Thanksgiving dinner: no canned ingredients, organic if you can. She also provided the family recipe cards for the requested dish—tweaked by each generation to add an extra dash of cinnamon here or an additional crushed garlic clove there. And since Miriam was responsible for a dessert she wasn’t comfortable making, she wasn’t taking any chances on shopping at the corner market. She might well spend her entire paycheck in here, but at least she could guarantee that only the most beautiful sweet potatoes would go into her pie.

At the entrance of Whole Foods, the automated doors swished aside and the fragrant scent of mulled cider wafted out. She lifted her head and closed her eyes to inhale her most favorite scent—autumn—when a competing smell mingled with the cider.

Sandalwood. Pine. A touch of leather... And eerily familiar. As was the voice that crashed into her like a runaway shopping cart.

“Mimi?”

She snapped her head up and her gaze collided with a man taller than her by several inches, his devastatingly handsome face broken up by the frown on his forehead and additional lines at the corners of his gray-green eyes. His jaw sported a barely-there five o’clock shadow, and his hair was in the same disarray she remembered from ten years ago—the one crooked part of Chase Ferguson that couldn’t be tamed.

“Chase. Hi.” She blinked again at the man in front of her, having the half-crazed thought that she’d summoned him with her mind. A week ago she’d received a photo of herself in an envelope she’d had to sign for. Along with the photo was a letter from the mayor of Dallas’s office—Chase’s office—that was signed by a woman’s hand. Miriam had read the two neatly typed paragraphs and tossed the letter into the trash. There was no action step for her, merely a “making you aware” note that she might be mentioned in Mayor Chase Ferguson’s upcoming campaign and “may be called upon in the future” for her cooperation.

But throwing the letter into the wastebasket hadn’t removed the memories of Chase from her head. For a solid week, she’d reflected on the summer they’d spent together, fumed anew at the senseless way he’d cast her aside and played out a few scenarios wherein she’d enjoy humiliating his mother—whom Miriam blamed in part for Chase breaking things off.

“I didn’t expect to run into you while I was here,” the man from her past was saying. It was the same deep, silken voice she remembered, but his Texas drawl was diminished, no doubt due to rigorous training from a speech coach.

“That’s my line,” she said with a flat smile, stepping aside to allow a woman pushing a stroller to go in ahead of her.

Chase palmed Miriam’s arm and physically moved her to the side of the automated door, and if she was still twenty-three and over-the-moon crazy about him, she might have said that his hand was warm and brought back memories of the summer they spent with each other, most of those days wearing as little clothing as was legal. Sometimes less.

“Yes, I suppose that would be your line.” His smile hitched at one corner and dropped like it’d never been there. He adjusted the paper grocery bag in the crook of his arm.

“What are you doing in Montana?” She had to ask. Because seriously—what?

“My annual break from the political hoopla.”

Annual?

A brisk wind cut through her coat and she pulled her shoulders under her ears. “I received a letter mentioning said hoopla.”

“Good. It’s only fair for you to know. We suspect someone on my opponent’s camp dug that photo up.” He sounded so distant standing not a foot away from her. The same way the letter had sounded—probably because it’d been written by a member of his staff and not Chase himself. Too many years had passed for that to hurt, but part of her had felt the sting of loss that he hadn’t bothered with a personal note.

“Where are you staying?”

“I have a place here.”

“You do?” News to her.

“On Flathead Lake.”

Another memory hit her—one of her cajoling him into skinn-dipping in that lake. On the shoreline on private property in the middle of a warm July night. The water had been cold despite the calendar’s date, but Miriam had talked him into it. Watching Chase undress and dive in ahead of her had been one of the highlights of her summer. He had a great ass.

She studied his broad shoulders and tall form, feeling that same commanding presence now. The pull he had on her might have shrunk, but he sure hadn’t. If anything, he’d grown both physically and figuratively. Hell, he was as big as Texas in a way—in charge of part of the gargantuan state with a billionaire fortune in his back pocket.

“Pinecone Drive,” he said as if he’d been waiting to share that bit of intel.

“You don’t mean...the house on the hill with all the windows?” She adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder as the doors swished open again. More cinnamon smells assaulted her and tempted her into the warmth, out of the brisk wind and away from the physical reminder of the summer fling that had gone from scorching hot to corpse cold in three months’ time.

“One and the same. I bought it a few years back. I always liked the way it looked. I don’t visit much, unfortunately.”

“And now you’re here with...your family?” Wife? Kids? she thought but didn’t add.

“Alone. My parents are going on a cruise to Barbados and my brother Zach and his wife and their daughter are spending the holiday in Chicago.”

“Zach’s married.” She smiled at the idea of Chase’s younger brother married with a child. She’d only met him once, but had warm memories of the smiling blond guy with green eyes. Chase’s younger sister had been fresh out of high school at the time but Miriam had met her too, in passing. “And Stefanie?”

“She’s good. Single. It’s good for her.”

“Yeah. It’s good for me, too,” Miriam couldn’t help saying.

“For me, as well.”

They had a mini standoff, meeting each other’s gazes for a few seconds. In that protracted moment, she could feel a whisper of the past roll over them. It spoke of what could’ve been if they’d stayed together instead of separated. What would’ve been if... So many ifs.

Miriam tore her gaze away from him and looked through the glass doors at the cornucopia of produce waiting to greet her. She’d be safe in there. Safe from her past snuggling up and threatening to suffocate her. Standing next to Chase made her want to simultaneously move closer and back away.

A defense mechanism, no doubt.

“I’d better get going. I have to buy ingredients for sweet potato pies for my family’s Thanksgiving.”

“My favorite.”

“It is?”

“But I couldn’t find it in the freezer section, so...” Chase reached into the grocery bag and pulled out a frozen cherry pie, then from behind it a frozen pizza.

“You can’t be serious. Pizza for Thanksgiving dinner?”

“I have wine at the house, too. I can be fancy.”

He was “fancy” incarnate. From his shiny shoes to the expensive suit hiding under a long, dark coat. A tie was cinched at his neck just so. He smelled of wealth and warmth. It was harder to imagine him eating a meal that came from a box than it was to picture him pouring wine from a bottle with a thousand-dollar price tag.

“If frozen pizza sounds too labor-intensive, I may go the route of grilled cheese,” he said. “I have a loaf of sourdough and three types of cheddar in this bag.” He offered a brief smile. She watched his frowning forehead relax and a hint of levity tickle his lips. The transformation kicked her in the stomach. In that brief half of a second Chase had looked years younger. Ten years younger to be precise. He’d reminded her of the boy she’d fallen in love with.

And oh, how she’d fallen. So hard that if she’d broken bones it’d have been less painful than the broken heart she’d suffered. He hadn’t been there to catch her. He’d simply stepped out of the way.

“Well. Enjoy your bread and cheese, in whichever form you choose.” She offered a curt nod, and without ending the conversation gracefully, turned away.

“Mimi, wait.” A masculine hand shot out in front of her, his arm brushing hers as he offered a business card. His deep voice rumbled in her ear, “My personal cell number if you have any issues. Any at all.”

She swallowed thickly before accepting the card. Then nodded, and, without looking back, dashed into the grocery. She skipped the temptation of a cider with whipped cream at the cafe, terrified that any delay might prompt Chase to follow her in and resume their stilted conversation.

A conversation that had no place in the current year. A conversation that could only end in an argument since she and Chase were on the opposite sides of many, many topics.

Not the least of which was the state of her heart when she’d boarded a plane that long-ago summer.

She stopped at the display of sweet potatoes, but there were only two knobby yams left. She clucked her tongue at her timing, which couldn’t be worse. Both for sweet potato shopping and running into ex-boyfriends who should look a lot less tempting.

The simple black-and-white business card weighed heavy in her hand but she couldn’t part with it just yet. She shoved it into her purse and instead debated her next step. Either bribe the woman next to her into relinquishing a few of her sweet potatoes or buy the damn things in a can and hope to God her mother didn’t notice.

Three

“Kristine Andrix. Saver of the day!” her youngest sister announced as she strode into Miriam’s apartment the next evening. Kristine placed a handled paper sack on the counter and Miriam peeked inside, gawking at the gorgeous produce within.

“Oh, they’re beautiful!”

“And organic. I bought them last week since I started eating sweet potatoes for breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Ever the health nut, Kris was always up to some culinary experiment or another. Last year she was vegan and brought her own Tofurkey to Thanksgiving dinner; this year she was vegetarian but only ate “whole foods.”

“Yeah. You bake the potato ahead of time, then in the morning pull it out of the fridge, warm it and top it with peanut butter and cinnamon.”

“That...actually sounds delicious.” Miriam moved to the sink to scrub the spuds. “What time are you driving to mom’s tomorrow?”

“I’m going tonight.”

“Tonight?” So much for the wine she’d picked up. She was hoping they could share a glass while she regaled her sister with the tale of the Billionaire Mayor in Bigfork.

“Brendan and I were invited to stay the night.” She waggled her eyebrows.

“In the same room?”

“Crazy, right? Dad never would’ve allowed it.” Kris’s mouth pulled into a sad smile. They all missed him so much. The holidays were the hardest. “I think Wendy helped lighten up the entire household.”

“Yes, all it took was her bringing Rosalie home for Christmas.”

“Mom prides herself in being progressive.”

“I’m bummed, though. I was hoping we could polish off a bottle of wine like we used to...” Miriam decided not to add the words “before Brendan” to that statement. She wouldn’t rob her sister of her happiness. She placed the washed potatoes on a pan and Kristine started stabbing them with a fork.

“Why not go tonight?” Kris lived in Bigfork, not too far from Miriam.

“I have work to do. A report that should’ve been done earlier this week.”

“Seems unfair for you to work on the biggest drinking day of the year.” Her sister quirked her lips.

“Well, I’m staying Thanksgiving night so that we can raid the stores at the crack of dawn on the biggest shopping day of the year.”

“Too bad you’re not still dating Gerard. Brendan would’ve had someone to talk to.”

“Gerard wasn’t a great talker.” It’d been the reason they split. He hardly shared anything about his life, little or big. How his workday went, his plans for the weekend or the fact that he’d been seeing another woman at the same time he’d dated Miriam. His silence had been absolute on that front. “We have a horrible track record of having boyfriends at the same time, don’t we?”

“The worst.”

Kristine and Miriam were ten months apart. Their older siblings Ross and Wendy had a six-and four-year gap on Miriam, respectively. Given that the two youngest Andrix daughters had never not remembered the other being around, Kristine and Miriam felt more like twins. They shared the same wavy dark hair that curled on the ends, and had similar full-lipped pouts. Kristine was built more like Wendy, though, on the curvier side, whereas Miriam couldn’t do enough leg exercises to thicken her spindles into anything resembling curves.

“Speaking of boyfriends...” Potatoes wrapped in foil, Miriam slid the tray into the oven. She set the timer and then leaned on the counter while Kristine poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher. “I ran into Chase Ferguson at Whole Foods.”

Mouth agape, Kris blinked. “Come again?”

“I was walking in and he was walking out. He’s on vacation. I guess he bought the estate on Pinecone Drive.”

“The one with the indoor pool and the wine cellar and a million bedrooms?”

“Uh-huh. And fifteen thousand square feet overlooking Flathead Lake.”

“Wow.” Kris’s eyes sought the ceiling in awe, then jerked back to Miriam. “You seem awfully calm about this.”

“I’ve had a few hours to cope.”

“You were so in love with him.” Kris shook her head in a pitying fashion. “Like, gone.”

“Yes, thank you for that reminder.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Oh, you know. Tall, dark and handsome.”

“Ouch.” Her sister winced. “Who’s he here with?”

“No one. Not a single soul.”

“Really...because his wife and kids are in a Tuscan villa on holiday while he’s here writing his memoirs?”

“There is no wife. There are no kids,” Miriam said. “At least I don’t think there are any kids. We didn’t get past him mentioning he was single.”

“Sounds like you two had quite the conversation.” Her sister deftly raised one eyebrow.

“We mostly stood shivering in the cold while trying to find the balance between polite and concise. His parents and siblings are going out of town over Thanksgiving weekend, so he came here to enjoy his rarely used mansion and eat frozen pizza instead.” Miriam fingered the bent corner of the recipe card her mother had given her. “He said sweet potato pie was his favorite. I never knew that. Do you know why?”

“I’m assuming because in the short summer months you two spent boinking each other in the lake, you never broached the topic of pie preferences?”

“Fair point.” Miriam smiled. “I was going to say it’s because we ended before sweet potato pie season. It’s been ages since I’ve thought about him... I mean really thought about him. It was a silly summer fling and I was swept up.” Her gut pinged with warning at the lie. Miriam ignored that ping. She would rather make believe she never loved him than consider that she’d been right about them living happily ever after if he hadn’t discarded her so callously. Half kidding, she added, “I could invite him to Mom’s for dinner. Bury that axe for good.”

“Do it.”

She faced her sister’s wide-eyed gaze. “What? Why? I was joking.”

“Burying the axe for good would be cathartic. Once you’re around each other again you’ll both see that you are not the Miriam of ten years ago. You’re the Miriam of today. It’d do Chase good to see what he’s been missing.”

“Thanks, Kris.” Miriam was touched, but not sure she agreed. “He’s not missing much. Other than a job I love, I have no husband, children or Nobel Peace Prize to wave in his face.”

“None of that matters.” Kristine swept Miriam’s cell phone off the dining room table and offered it, but then frowned. “Unless... You probably don’t have his private number. I didn’t think about that.”

“Actually, I do. He handed me his card.”

“Bury the lead why don’t you! Why’d he give you that?” Kris was grinning, her eyes twinkling. “For like, a holiday hookup?” She blinked, then screwed her eyes toward the ceiling. “That’d be a great book title.”

Her sister the freelance editor never shut her brain off.

“It would be a great title for a work of fiction.” Miriam snatched her phone away and shoved it into her back pocket. “Remember that protest I did years ago with a conservation group in Houston?”

“Big oil, right?”

Miriam nodded and explained the letter that’d arrived last week. “He didn’t plan on seeing me while he was here, so I don’t know what the offer of calling him if I need anything was about.”

“Told you. Holiday hookup.” Her sister shrugged. “You should invite him for no other reason than we can skewer him at the dinner table about being a dirty politician while you’re the Snow White of Bigfork.”

Miriam had to laugh at her sister’s imagination.

“Plus, it’d be fun to watch Mom go from simmer to boiling over while she tries to make sense of a mayor at her table.”

“It was a dumb idea. Forget I mentioned it.” Miriam just hadn’t liked the thought of him alone on a holiday. How ridiculous was that? She wasn’t in charge of his well-being.

“Spoilsport.”

Topic dead, they went back to chatting about everything but sexy mayors and summer flings.

Two hours later, the pies had finished baking and were cooling on the stovetop. Miriam had poured herself a glass of red after Kristine left, and camped out on the sofa, laptop and charts spread on the coffee table for work. But the website she’d pulled up had nothing to do with work. It was the City of Dallas website, particularly Chase’s headshot. He looked merely handsome in that still frame. He’d been devastatingly gorgeous in person.

Chase’s business card in hand, she rubbed her thumb over his phone number.

One glass of wine was all it took to weaken her resolve. That and the smell of sweet potato pie in the air.

“Damn him.”

She swiped the screen of her phone, dialed the first eight digits of the phone number, then paused.

Why should she care if her ex-boyfriend ate alone on Thanksgiving? Shouldn’t she embrace the idea of the jerk who broke her heart spending the holiday alone in a way-too-big-for-one mansion? Except she’d always been horrible at holding grudges, and even the blurry, faded memories of her broken heart couldn’t keep her from completing the task.

She dialed the remaining digits and waited patiently while the phone rang once, twice and then a third time. When she was about to give up, a silken voice made love to her ear canal.

“Chase Ferguson.”

“Chase. Hi. Um, hi. It’s Miriam.”

“Miriam?”

“Andrix,” she said through clenched teeth. Was it that he’d had so many other women in his life over the last decade that he couldn’t keep track of them? Or was it that he’d forgotten her already even though she’d bumped into him yesterday afternoon?

“I know. I think of you as Mimi.”

That husky voice curled around her like a hug. He’d always called her Mimi, and to date had been the only person who had, save her best friend in the third grade. Her family either called her Miriam or Meems.

“Is everything all right?” If that was concern in his voice, she couldn’t place it. His tone was even. His words measured.

“Everything is fine. I, um.” She cleared her throat, took a fortifying sip of her wine and continued. “My mother lives about twenty minutes north of Bigfork. We make enough for Thanksgiving dinner to feed ten extra people. You’re welcome to join us tomorrow night.”

She pressed her lips together before she rattled off what would be served and how she’d baked two pies that were presumably his favorite. She wasn’t begging him to show up, simply extending an invitation as an old acquaintance.

Silence greeted her from the other end of the phone.

“Chase?”

“No. Thank you.”

She waited for an explanation. None came. Not even a lame excuse about having to work like she’d used tonight. Though she truly did have to work. She scowled at her laptop and his handsome mug before snapping the lid shut.

“Will there be anything else?” he asked. Tersely.

At his formal tone, ire slipped into her bloodstream as stealthily as a drug. Her back went ramrod straight; her eyebrows crashed down.

“No,” she snapped. “That concludes my business with you.”

“Very well.”

She waited for goodbye but he didn’t offer one. So she hung up on him.

“Jerk.” She tossed the phone on the coffee table and rose to refill her glass. She’d called out of the kindness of her heart and he’d made her feel foolish and desperate.

Just like ten years ago.

“This is who he is, Miriam,” she told herself as she poured more wine. “A man who owns a sixteen-million-dollar mansion he rarely visits. A man whose only interest is to increase his bank statement and buy up beautiful bits of land because he can.”

She swallowed a mouthful of wine and considered that, as much disdain as she’d had for Chase’s mother then and still, Eleanor Ferguson had been right.

Miriam and Chase were better off apart.

Four

Miriam hadn’t been in her mother’s kitchen for more than five minutes before she started airing her grievances about Chase and the phone call from last night.

Kristine was placing freshly baked rolls into a basket and her brother Ross snatched another one and dunked the end of it into the gravy.

“He’s the mayor of what?” their older brother asked around a bite.

“Dallas, dummy,” Kris replied. “And stop eating my rolls. I made three dozen and you’ve already snarfed three of them.”

“Four.” He argued. His mouth curling into a Grinchy smile.

Kristine sacrificed one more that she tossed at him, but Ross, former college football player that he was, caught it easily, struck a Heisman pose and absconded to the dining room.

“He doesn’t act thirty-nine,” Kris grumbled. “Anyway. Chase is a jerk and I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“Yeah, well. I’m sorry I didn’t say what I thought to say until after I hung up.”

“Such as.” Kristine motioned with a roll for Miriam to go on.

“I would’ve informed him that I wasn’t one of his underlings and I deserved better treatment than a haughty No. Thank you.” She dipped her voice into a dopey tone that didn’t sound like him, but made her feel better. “I’d have told him that I became a success without his billions and in a field where I wasn’t causing global warming. My line of work is admirable.”

“It is, sweetie.”

“Thank you.”

Miriam had completed her degree in agricultural sciences, going on to do compliance work behind a desk for a few years until she realized how wholly unsatisfying it was to push papers from one side of her desk to another. Five years ago, she’d found the Montana Conservation Society and stumbled into her calling. She’d started as program manager and was then promoted to director of student affairs. She mostly worked with teenagers. She taught them how to respect their environment and care for the world they all shared. She found it incredibly rewarding to watch those kids grow and change. Several of the students who came through MCS wouldn’t so much as step on an ant if they could help it by the time she was through with them.

And yet Chase had dismissed her like she was a temp on his payroll.

“I should’ve gone over to his big, audacious house and told him what I think of his wasteful habits and egomaniacal behavior.”

“Who, dear?” Her mother stepped into the kitchen and gestured to the basket of rolls. “Kristine, to the table with those, please. We’re about to start.”

“No one,” Miriam answered. “Just... No one.”

Kris shuffled into the dining room and Judy Andrix watched her go before narrowing her eyes and squaring her jaw. Since Miriam’s father, Alan, had died five years ago of complications from heart surgery, her mom had taken it on herself to play both the role of mom and dad. It wasn’t easy for any of them to lose him, but their mother had taken the brunt of that blow. Thirty-nine years of marriage was a lifetime.

“Miriam, would you grab those bottles of wine and take them to the table for me?”

“Sure thing.” Relieved the conversation was over, she did as she was asked.

Halfway into dinner, however, her wine remained untouched and her food mostly uneaten.

“Meems, what’s going on in your world?” Wendy’s girlfriend, Rosalie, asked conversationally.

Miriam blinked out of her stupor and realized she’d been staring at her mashed potatoes, Chase on her mind. “Work. That’s about it.”

“How did the camp go this summer? I meant to ask but I was so busy.”

Busy being a surgeon. It happened.

Miriam filled her in on the camp for eighth graders she’d cochaperoned. “You haven’t lived until you’ve been in charge of thirty hormone-riddled teens in tents.”

Wendy nudged Rosalie with her shoulder. “That’s what I keep warning her about every time she brings up having children.”

“Children are great,” Ross’s wife, Cecilia, said at the exact moment their five-year-old daughter Raven threw her butter-covered roll on the floor.

“Raven!” While Ross went about explaining to his daughter that the food belonged on her plate and not on the rug, Wendy and Rosalie answered questions from Kristine about having children. Surrogate, they agreed, but they weren’t against adoption.

Mom interjected that she didn’t care how any of them went about it so long as she was given another grandchild.

“Or two,” she added with a pointed look at Kris and Brendan, who wisely filled his mouth full of stuffing rather than comment. “Meems, have you been seeing anyone?”

And that’s when the last strand on the rope of Miriam’s dwindling patience snapped.

“I’m sorry.” She stood abruptly from the table and the room silenced. Even Raven seemed to sense the importance of the moment and stopped her complaining. Every pair of eyes swiveled to Miriam. “I have to run an errand.”

“What? Now?” Her mother’s voice rose.

“I’ll be back in an hour, tops. That leaves plenty of time for dessert. Feel free to start playing games without me.” She could easily make the round trip to Bigfork and back before the traditional board game battle began. And she didn’t mind at all ousting herself from a conversation involving families and children when there was a man very nearby who was going about his evening as if she didn’t matter. Been there, done that. She didn’t care to suffer a repeat of ten years ago.

Miriam rushed into the kitchen and rifled through her mother’s cupboard for a plastic storage container. She sliced one of her pies and slid three large wedges into the container before snapping on the lid. She’d show him what he was missing all right.

She was pulling her coat over her shoulders when her mother appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. Judy eyed the pie in the container.

“Where on earth are you going in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner?” Her mother was a narrow, thin woman whose supermodel good looks couldn’t be ignored, even if she was in her early sixties.

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Miriam gave her mother’s arm a squeeze. “But there’s someone I have to talk to or I won’t be able to enjoy a single second of my holiday. I just... It’s something I have to do.”

“And a phone call won’t cut it?” Judy leveled a knowing smile at her third child.

“No.” Miriam wouldn’t risk a repeat of that robotic blowoff from last night.

“It’s snowing again.”

It was, but... “I have four-wheel drive.”

“I suppose if I stand here and try to talk you out of it, you’ll go anyway, only a little later than you intended on account of my keeping you.” Her mother folded her arms over her chest. She knew her daughter well.

“One hour. Tops.” Miriam repeated, wrapping her hand around the doorknob.

“At least take the mayor a plate of food,” her mother called before Miriam could escape. “You can’t only show up with pie.”

“How did you—?” Miriam leaned around her mother to glare beyond the doorway where Kristine sat in Dad’s former seat at the table.

Kris blew a kiss and waggled her fingers in a wave.

* * *

Only a year old, the Ford F-150 was equipped to glide through snow like it was popped corn. But as she drove closer to Bigfork, the visibility dropped and it was more like trudging through wet sand. It wasn’t “her” truck, per se, but had been provided graciously by MCS. She’d been begging for two years for a vehicle that could haul, tow and not give out if she had to drive up a mountain and rescue someone’s lost dog. Sure, that had only happened once, but she’d had to hike most of it on foot since her compact car hadn’t been equipped for the elements. It was practical for her to have a vehicle that could handle Montana’s terrain.

Thanks to those elements, the twenty-minute drive to Bigfork was stretching to sixty. She’d encountered traffic and low visibility, and on top of that her gas gauge was dangerously close to E. At a top speed of twelve miles per hour, she was getting nowhere slowly. Because she’d underestimated the weatherman and overestimated her F-150, there was no way she’d make it back to her mother’s house in this mess.

But Miriam still intended to make her way to Chase’s. She wasn’t giving up a scant few miles from his house. No way.

At a stoplight, she keyed in a quick text to Kris. I’m going to be celebrating at home alone tonight! Bigfork is buried. :(

Before the stoplight turned green, Miriam’s phone rang.

“You have to come back!” Kris said in greeting.

“It’s a mess out here.” Windshield wipers swiped away the gathering snow and Miriam turned right toward Pinecone Drive and the mayor of Dallas.

“I thought that storm was supposed to miss us.”

“Yeah, well, evidently Bigfork caught the edge of it. I’m in a winter wonderland.”

“You’re still on the road?” asked her downtrodden sister.

“I am, but I’m almost home. Tell everyone I’m sorry. I’ll call later when I get settled.” She forced a smile as she mentally kicked her own butt for leaving her mom’s house. “Hey, maybe you can video chat me in later.”

“Is that Miriam? Is she all right?” their mother called in the distance.

“She’s fine!” Kris called back. Then to Miriam, “I’ll let her know you’re all right and home safe... That is where you’re going, right? Home?”

“Of course.”

“Meems.”

“I have to go.” Miriam hung up on Kris, who clearly could not be trusted with sensitive information, and resumed her drive to Chase’s mansion. If Miriam didn’t go to him like she’d vowed, the entire trip would be a waste.

Once she looked him in the eye and made sure he understood who she’d become, she could be on her way. Who was she? A woman who didn’t take crap from anyone. A woman who’d found herself and her way in the decade that separated them. Her biggest worry was that she’d remained a still frame in his mind: standing next to a private plane, tears running down her face, begging him not to leave.

Or worse, the one who’d emailed and called him after she’d come home to Montana. She’d been so weak back then, but Chase had always maintained his strength.

“Clean break,” he’d told her, and he’d meant it.

Meanwhile, she’d continued to declare her love for him and had reiterated her claim that they were meant to be. Never had she been so wrong before or since.

Chase’s mother, Eleanor, had seen Miriam not as a lifelong mate for her son, but a preoccupation he couldn’t afford. Miriam knew because the only phone call answered from Chase’s cell phone happened to be answered by Eleanor herself.

On Thanksgiving.

Miriam blinked in shock. She’d completely forgotten that fact.

But yes, it’d been Thanksgiving. She remembered excusing herself from the room while her siblings and parents were unboxing a new board game. Then she’d shut herself in Kristine’s bedroom and called Chase. She’d been thinking then about how she was the only one of them at the table not coupled off.

The more things changed...

She heard those words in her late father’s voice, her heart squeezing as she remembered his big laugh and bigger presence. He’d been comforting, but notably frustrated while she nursed her broken heart that winter. He’d been exactly what a father should be.

She turned into the lakeside neighborhood where the wealthiest residents of Bigfork lived, rolled by the snowy, pricey new builds with their lack of trees and yard space, and toward the older part of the neighborhood. The houses closer to the lake sat on high hills, were spread much farther apart and had exponentially higher price tags.

Ten minutes of slow-crawling her way toward Pinecone Drive, and she was navigating through dark trees and an abandoned road piled deep with snow.

This is a bad idea.

Not braving the storm—she was confident in her driving abilities and her trusty Ford to get her both in and out of this mess—but confronting Chase. That phone call from ten years ago replayed in her mind and her gloved hands gripped the steering wheel, her shoulders wilting.

Chase Ferguson’s phone. Who is this?

The woman who’d answered had been older. An air of sophistication outlined every word she spoke. Miriam had recognized Eleanor’s voice instantly, but she refused to let the woman bully her. Her future with Chase involved only them—or so she’d believed.

Listen, darling. I appreciate that you have an affinity for my son, however I can’t allow this to continue. He has aspirations for a political seat. He has a future involving Ferguson Oil. Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn’t be a hindrance to those goals? If you love him, truly, you’ll support him by letting him live his life here in Dallas without you.

Miriam never found out if Chase had asked his mother to handle his dirty work for him, or if Eleanor had taken the call and kept her son in the dark. In the end, Miriam guessed it didn’t matter.

She’d reached out. He’d stayed hidden.

Dumb. Dumb of her to come tonight.

At the base of the gargantuan property, she waited for the wipers to swipe the gathering snow from the windshield to assess the situation. The property was nestled in the trees, the clearing blocked by a gate with a keypad she’d have to drive up to. Her truck would make it, of that she was sure. And even if she wasn’t, she wasn’t risking using the last of her fuel to turn back. She could only hope that Chase had a few gallons of gasoline to fill her tank up so that she could drive home, or else...

No. She wasn’t entertaining that thought.

She climbed the steep, snowy hill, her tires sliding enough that her heart hammered against her throat. Thankfully, the driveway evened out at the gate so she didn’t slide backwards in the snow. She pressed a button on a callbox to request to be let in. A camera lens attached to the device stared at her from its unblinking mechanical eye. Miriam grabbed the container of sweet potato pie from the passenger seat.

While she waited, snow covered her windshield and drifted inside. He might not be here, she thought miserably. Or maybe he’d been caught in the storm while gathering supplies and was holed up in a hotel somewhere—

“Mimi.” Chase’s low timbre sailed out of the speaker, at once surprised and scolding.

“Hi.” She waggled the container. “Pie delivery. I won’t stay long.” There was a significant pause, but no response. She swore she could feel his laser-like glare through the camera. A buzz sounded as the iron gates swung aside through the gathering snow.

The white stuff on the driveway was untouched by tires or boot prints. After debating leaving her truck running, she shut it off to save fuel and climbed out. The walkway to the front door had been shoveled at some point, but since then a few inches of snow had filled in the gaps.

She shuddered as icy wind sliced through her hair, the temperature colder coming off the frigid lake below. A porch light snapped on and Chase appeared outside wearing a sweater and jeans and sneakers that didn’t appear weather resistant.

“Running shoes in this weather. Are you crazy?” She pulled three containers filled with his dinner and dessert from the passenger seat and then shut the door.

“You’re calling me crazy? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I told you I won’t be long.” She shoved the pie container into his hand and his scowl deepened. Her teeth chattered, partially from nerves. This was the moment she’d been waiting for—to set Chase Ferguson straight. On her terms. She glanced around at the pale moonlit mounds of snow. Okay, not exactly her terms, but it was too late to back out now.

“Get inside,” he commanded, his breath visible in the cold. Out of habit she locked her truck and it beeped briefly, letting her know. Chase glared over her shoulder at the sound, but she refused to let him scare her off from what she came here to say. She was going to set him straight, then turn this big bastard around and drive straight home.

Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

She’d really miss playing games with her family tonight. A dart of regret shocked her ribcage. And then a dart of something else when Chase cupped her elbow and started toward the house.

“Watch your step,” his low voice rumbled as he gestured to the nearly invisible porch steps. “You’d better have a good reason for being here other than bringing me pie.”

Oh, no worries, Mayor McCheese. I have one.

Five

Chase had known Miriam was headstrong, but driving through a snowstorm to bring him dinner was a touch more than headstrong. It was dangerous. Miriam being in danger wasn’t acceptable—especially when he was the cause.

Inside, he shut the door behind them as she checked out the interior of the house. He looked with her, admiring the rich warm-colored woods and the tall, beamed ceilings. Every inch of this place had been polished to dustless perfection, and it should’ve been, given what he paid his housekeepers.

Logs were stacked in the fireplace, the matches sitting next to a newspaper pages he’d twisted for kindling. He’d left his task when the buzzer to the gate rang. He’d had groceries for the week delivered that morning and a cord of firewood had been delivered after that. The weatherman had predicted the storm with its massive amounts of snow to miss Bigfork, but Chase wasn’t taking the risk. Luckily, he’d heeded the warnings and overprepared...which was less than he could say for his gorgeous houseguest.

“Would you mind directing me to the ‘wing’ where you keep your kitchen, Daddy Warbucks?” Mimi asked with a snide smile.

Nice to see her sharp wit was intact.

“What are you doing here?” It was the most obvious question and the answer she should have offered upon showing up unannounced at his doorstep.

“You said if I needed anything...” She craned her chin to look up at him since he’d already ascended the three steps leading to the kitchen. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her cheeks had lost some of their fullness allowing rose-colored cheekbones to angle across her model-like features. The thinness of her face made her lips appear even more plump—and far more kissable than they ought to.

He took the remaining containers from her and gestured to the entryway closet with his head. “Hang up your coat.”

“I’m not staying that long. The storm is worsening and—”

“And you’re going to wait it out here.” Over his dead body she’d navigate through this blizzard tonight.

“No. I will not be doing that.” Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. “But I will accept a gallon or two of gas for the short drive home from here. I don’t want to get—”

“Coat, Mimi.” He came down the stairs to hover over her, his nostrils flared. “Then walk past the living room, take a right and you’ll see the kitchen.”

“I’ll follow you,” she snapped, but slipped her coat off and draped it over her arm.

He could do without the attitude, but at least she’d met him halfway.

He settled the containers—one with the sweet potato pie she’d showed him at the gate and the other two overflowing with Thanksgiving dinner.

A long would you get a load of this whistle of appreciation came from behind him.

“Wow. Every inch of this place is more amazing than the last.”

She turned a one-eighty as she inventoried the kitchen: the wide island in the center, the floor-to-ceiling cabinets, six-burner gas stove, and a shiny, double-doored fridge. She tossed her coat over one of the stools at the island. Slim jeans accentuated her mile-long legs and a cranberry sweater with a scoop neck revealed creamy, pale skin. No cleavage—a fact she’d bemoaned plenty when they were together a decade ago. He couldn’t have cared less. The sight of her in a string bikini, and the way the chilly lake water caused her nipples to point from behind the bright blue top, had been more than enough to pique his interest.

“Yeah, so turkey, stuffing, green beans. All the basics.” She folded her fingers together while she talked. “Sweet potato pie is for dessert, though, I suppose you’re grown-up and could spoil your dinner if you wanted. Did you eat?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Mimi?” he repeated.

At his tone, she narrowed eyes as brown as the forest floor. Deep mulch in color and blasting him with an accusation she hadn’t spoken yet.

“I’m here—” she pointed at the ground, seeming to gather her courage “—to show you that I’m no longer the besotted twenty-three-year-old you left on an airfield in Dallas. You may be a billionaire oil tycoon politician with a mansion the size of your hometown, but I became someone, too.”

“Is that so?” He came out from behind the island in the center of the kitchen and Mimi took a hesitant step back. He wouldn’t allow her to make him out to be some billionaire asshole without an argument in his own defense. “Tell me, then, how you’re the next incarnation of Mother Teresa.”

She snapped her mouth shut then opened it to let out a little tut of surprise. “I didn’t say I was Mother Teresa.”

“No, but you implied I’m the devil incarnate, so I assumed...”

“You have no idea what I implied. You don’t know me. You knew me.”

“Likewise.” He scanned her from chestnut hair to the toes of her knee-high boots. She dressed differently than she used to and not just because the season had changed. There was something more formal about her. Less playful than he remembered. “You grew up. I grew up. It happens.”

“Unlike you, I don’t sit around counting the zeroes in my bank account. I actually help people.”

“So do I. Are you going to cut the crap and tell me why you’re here?” It was the last time he was going to ask.

“I just did! You weren’t listening on the phone, so I had to come here in person to—”

“Bullshit. You made a twenty-minute drive—”

“That took over an hour.”

“—in this weather carting cold Thanksgiving dinner and my favorite pie. Don’t tell me you came all this way to put me in my place.”

Her pink tongue touched lips painted cranberry red to match her sweater. He knew too well that unlike the tart fruit, she tasted as sweet as honey.

“I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“I do. But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

She shrugged with one dark eyebrow and tightened plush lips he’d kissed more times than he could recall. He’d made every attempt to kiss the sunshine off her skin that summer. Back then he could’ve buried his nose in her coconut-scented hair and never come up for air.

Until reality had intruded.

“I tried to invite you to dinner at my family’s house so you wouldn’t have to eat alone,” she huffed.

“So I’m the equivalent of a stray dog in need of a bone.” He spread his arms to indicate the expansive room in which he was standing. “Do I look like I can’t fend for myself?”

“You said no!” she practically shouted.

“As was my prerogative.”

What was she up to? He kept his voice even, his tone neutral. He’d been yelled at by a great number of people in his career, and it was his second nature to tamp down any emotions that didn’t lead to an effective solution.

The line of her mouth softened. Her eyebrows lowered. Naked vulnerability bled into her expression.

Then he figured it out. It slapped him upside the head, jarring his brain.

I’m an idiot.

“I hurt your feelings,” he stated. Could he have been more obtuse? “That’s why you’re here.”

She made a pfft sound but he was right. He could tell by the way she shifted her weight onto one boot—almost squirming in his presence. Some things about Mimi had changed in the last ten years, but some things hadn’t. She was the same stubborn, beautiful, hopeful woman he’d made love to back then, but with an even sturdier backbone and harder head. She brought him Thanksgiving dinner tonight not because he was a charity case but because—

“It bothered you to picture me eating alone,” he told her.

“Why would I care about a pompous, overblown—”

“Admit it.”

He heard a deep sucking sound as she pulled in a lungful of oxygen.

“Fine,” she blew out on an exhale. “I was sitting in front of a dressed turkey thinking that if you weren’t such a stubborn jackass, you would’ve been there enjoying the spoils of a home-cooked meal. Rare in your case, as I recall.”

It was true. Eleanor Ferguson didn’t cook. She catered.

“I took it upon myself to deliver both dinner and a message, planning to turn and drive straight back to my family’s house knowing that you were both fed and informed.” A crease appeared between her brows. “Only now I’ll be heading to my apartment instead of back for dessert with my family.”

He could see and feel the regret coming off her. The expression didn’t erase the elegance of her features, and accentuated the firmer, straighter line of her backbone. She was a confusing whirlwind of attributes, but Chase saw through her air of confidence. She couldn’t hide behind the one quality she’d never possessed: ambivalence.

Mimi had never been ambivalent or calloused to the needs of others. No matter how badly they’d treated her in the past.

“Tell me more about what you do,” he said, turning to lift the lids of the containers.

“What I do?”

“Yes.” Even cool, the food was an inviting array of holiday fragrances. Thyme and sage and butter.

“Um. Okay. I’m the director of student affairs for the Montana Conservation Society. I work mostly with teenagers, but I’ve also spearheaded a recent and very important recycling campaign with a local apartment complex.”

He punched the buttons on the microwave—first removing a small plastic container of cranberry sauce thoughtfully included “on the side.”

“One of many,” Mimi added.

“You’re as passionate as I remember.” He pulled two forks from a drawer and laid them on the island.

“Is that a nice way of saying I’m misguided?”

“Not at all. The world needs more advocates like you.”

Her mouth was frozen in a half gape, like she was shocked he’d paid her a compliment. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They stood on opposite sides of the island—what a metaphor for how they’d left things—in silence as the remainder of the seconds ticked down on the microwave before it beeped. He set the containers between him and Mimi, grabbed an open bottle of wine and two glasses and poured himself one.

She placed a finger on the neck of the bottle when he tipped it toward her glass. “I’m leaving.”

“I can’t let you do that.” He poured the wine anyway and set the glass in front of her. She frowned. He offered her a fork. She shook her head.

“I ate already. This is for you.”

Chase locked eyes with the woman who used to love him, with the woman he’d nearly loved more than his own common sense. “Thank you.”

He dug in, scooping a bite of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, dunking the fork into the cranberry sauce before closing his eyes and savoring the flavors of a slow-cooked, took-all-day-to-make meal. Before he meant to, he moaned his approval.

Without another glance in her direction, he unapologetically took another big bite.