Christmas In Snowflake Canyon by RaeAnne Thayne Page A

anyway. See what being alone in that house for only a few days is doing for me? I’m turning into my grandma Pearl, ready to talk anybody’s ear off.”
    “If you don’t mind, I’ve got two of those for now and I’d like to keep it that way, all things considered.”
    How could he joke about his missing parts? She did not understand this man.
    Needing a little distance, she took a look around the cabin and decided on a whim what else was needed.
    “I’m going to go outside and cut some evergreens to arrange on the mantel, along with the lights your sister was talking about. That will make it perfect in here.”
    He looked wary. “Fresh pine boughs weren’t on Charlotte’s list.”
    “This is what you call improvisation,” she said with a smile.
    His gaze shifted to her mouth and stayed there for just an instant, long enough for heat to bloom inside her and her thoughts to tangle like strings of Grandma Pearl’s Christmas lights.
    She grabbed the pair of scissors Charlotte had provided them for cutting ribbons and hurried outside into the December afternoon.
    The cold mountain air slapped more than a little sense back into her.
    Any attraction to Dylan Caine was absolutely ridiculous. Two people could not be more opposite. He was gruff, rough-edged, slightly dangerous. He had seen things, probably done things she couldn’t even imagine, and he had the battle scars to prove it.
    She was, in his words, a cream puff. Why would a man like him ever be interested in her?
    What had she done in her life that had any meaning? Beyond the project to help that group home where she had made only a halfhearted effort, what had she ever done for someone else?
    Oh, her family donated to various charities. Her mother sat on some philanthropic boards in town and helped out with a few causes.
    Those were her parents’ efforts, desultory as they might be.
    The past two years, Genevieve had spent in selfindulgence and self-pity. She was really rather tired of it. Even if her parents hadn’t reined her in, she wanted to think she soon would have come to that realization on her own—but she would have done it in her lovely little flat in Le Marais, not stuck here.
She sighed as she clipped another pine branch. She didn’t have any business being attracted to the compelling, dangerous Dylan Caine, but they could at least be friends. She might be as crazy as Grandma Pearl but she thought he had enjoyed listening to her talk about the house.
    She had a feeling maybe he needed a friend as badly as she did.
    As much as he loved his baby sister, right now he wanted to wring her neck.
    Was this what he had come to? Of all the assignments she might have found for him, why the hell would she put him to work hanging Christmas decorations with Genevieve Beaumont? Did she think he wasn’t capable of anything more?
    He glowered as he carried a couple of the empty boxes outside to the porch to be hauled away later.
    It didn’t help anything that when he looked at Gen, all he could see was someone beautiful and perfect, with a whole world of possibilities ahead of her. She might be going through a tough time right now—though, really, did she think dealing with her grandmother’s ugly house was the worst thing that could happen to a person?—but life would even out for her. Her parents would probably come around and she would return to Paris to her life of frivolity and fun.
    He shoved a smaller box into another one a little harder than he’d intended and it ripped just as Genevieve returned to the porch with her arms full of evergreens.
    “Sorry it took me so long but I tried to cut from the side of the trees that faces away from the recreation center and the cabins.”
    “Won’t those turn brown before Christmas?” Even from here, he could smell them—tart, crisp, citrusy.
    She frowned and looked down at the boughs in her arms. “My parents always have a fresh-cut wreath and it’s good from Thanksgiving until New Year’s. I think