Chapter 1
Noel
It’s snowing sideways and I’m five minutes away from committing a felony.
My combat boots crunch over ice as I hike up the front steps of the crusty cabin the bartender at The Devil’s Brew sent me to. “Nash Hollis’s place,” he’d said with a smirk that should’ve warned me. “Up the ridge. Big wood cabin. Can’t miss it.”
And now here I am. Frozen, out of breath, and fueled by half a cup of lukewarm gas station coffee and a highly questionable life plan. Answering a mail-order bride ad…what the hell was I thinking?
But hey—Mountain Makeovers: Holiday Editionsaid go big or go home. So I went big.
Specifically, I answered a fake mail-order bride ad. As a joke. As a strategy. Depends who you ask.
The network said they wanted “the most festive holiday transformation in the Rockies.” I said, sure—I'll give you mistletoe, magic, and marital mayhem.IfI find a rugged bachelor with a beard, a cabin, and a soul in need of saving.
I knock. Loud. Twice.
No answer.
I fish the skeleton key out of my pocket—the one the bartender told me I’d find under a gnome statue by the woodpile—and unlock the front door.
“Hello?” I call out.
The air inside is warm. Pine-scented. Definitely inhabited. My boots scuff across a threadbare rug as I step inside.
That’s when I hear it.
A deep, gutturalthudfrom somewhere down the hall.
Then a voice. Gravel and thunder.
“Who the hell?—”
I spin toward the hallway just in time to see him.
Nash Hollis.
Towel. Body. Dripping. Steam curling off his broad, tattooed shoulders as he rounds the corner, bare feet silent on the floorboards.
He stops dead when he sees me.
So do I.
Because holy. Actual. Shit.
He’s a bear. A bear with abs. Salt-and-pepper beard, chest like a slab of marble, towel clinging low on his hips like it’s seconds from surrender. He’s not built for Christmas. He’s built for sin.
And currently glaring at me likeI’mthe intruder.
Which, okay,technicallyI am.
“What the f—” he rumbles, voice still sleep-rough, “—are you doing in my house?”
I blink, trying not to stare at the droplet racing down the center of his chest. It veers around a scar over his ribs and disappears into the towel.
Don’t follow it, Noel.
“I’m your bride.”
