Snowbound at Christmas by Jennifer Ryan

Author:Jennifer Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Goldie tipped back in the rocking chair situated beside the river rock fireplace. The living room was chaos. Passive observation wasn’t her thing, but somewhere between groping Kit in the car and wrapping her legs around his hips in the driveway, she’d lost her ever-loving mind.

Quinn, in a “Books Make Me Happy, You Not So Much” hoodie had draped her shoulders with one of Annie’s crocheted blankets while Edie broke an Olympic speed time trial procuring a mug of buttered rum from the kitchen. Kit stood in front of the ten-foot-high Christmas tree, filling everyone in on the events that had reduced her from the organized and efficient proprietress of Thistle Do—to this trembling wreck risking second-degree tongue burns to chugg her drink.

One person wasn’t shaking her head like the three Kane brothers, or clucking in sympathy like their three women, or even engaged in what appeared to be a tyrannosaurus ambush beneath the coffee table between Annie’s son, Atticus, and a young woman who looked vaguely familiar. The old woman in the opposite rocking chair regarded her with a tight-lipped stare through the bifocals perched on the edge of her hooked nose.

“Happy holidays, Grandma Kane.” She lifted her mug in greeting. Everyone in town called the matriarch of Hidden Rock Ranch Grandma.

“What’s so happy about it?” Grandma snapped. “From where I sit, it’s a noisy, overcrowded mess. Know what day it is?”

Goldie fixed her gaze on the cloves and cinnamon floating in her honey-covered beverage. Could she glug it discretely? Because if so, for once her lightweight reaction to alcohol would be a help instead of a hindrance.

“It’s The Bachelor quarter finals.” Grandma continued. “Guess who’s going home tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither. And why might that be?”

“Um . . . because it’s not on yet?” Goldie hadn’t used this meek tone since she was eight years old and had run through the home goods tent at the Brightwater County Fair, tripping over her own feet and careening headfirst into a table of canned vegetables, breaking Grandma’s heirloom tomatoes entry. The old bat still carried a grudge.

Grandma made a “wrong answer” buzzer sound. “Because two fools drove off my driveway and now we’ve got more uninvited guests joining the big storm slumber party.”

“More?” Atticus ducked his head out from under the table. “What do you mean?”

“It means that you’ve got a perfectly good cabin up yonder hill, and the question I have is why you aren’t there, tucked in bed like a good boy because you know Santa is watching and—”

“Quit it, Grandma.” Sawyer’s tone was kind but firm. “I know you’re riled up about missing your favorite show, but family first. We decided, and you agreed, that we should face the blizzard together, and the big house has the most space.”

“We have a feast in the kitchen.” Edie dusted off her red apron that was a near match for her flaming hair. “I’ve been cooking all day. We could be snowed in for a week and still be eating chocolate chip cookies.

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