Renee Roszel - Her Mistletoe Husband

“You’re a challenge, Miss Crosby.” “You’re a challenge, Miss Crosby.” She eyed him with skepticism. Something seemed to dawn on her, and her green eyes went appealingly wide. “What do you think you’re going to do? Seduce me?” “Yes,” he whispered. She flinched and he experienced a twinge of compassion. He didn’t like putting her out of her home. But she would be okay. Elissa Crosby had more backbone than any ten women he knew. As they swayed intimately on the dance floor, he could feel her slim body move subtly against his. He found himself growing more and more aroused by her reluctant nearness. Lord, she was a temptress, even when temptation was the last thing on her mind. Damn the woman! If she would only throw herself at him, he’d grow bored and lose interest. He gazed into those sexy, guarded eyes again, his lips quirking in self-mockery. Like hell he would. Bowing his head, he lowered his face toward hers. Enchanted Brides - The Myth Enchanted Brides The Myth The stately D’Amour mansion stands majestically in the countryside, its absentee owner rumored to be living in Europe. Glosed for years, this mansion has a charming myth surrounding it. Legend says that the mansion is enchanted and that “an unmarried woman who sleeps within its walls on her birthday, when the moon is full, will marry the first man she sees in the morning.” Her Mistletoe Husband is the third in Renee Roszel’s spellbinding Enchanted Brides trilogy. Also in the Enchanted Brides trilogy: To Marry a Stranger (#3470) Married By Mistake! (#3488) Praise for the trilogy: “Renee Roszel delivers a fast-paced, humorous tale as she blends commanding characters with a strong premise and lovable secondary characters in Her Mistletoe Husband.” —Romantic Times “Ms. Roszel adds sound characterization to a touching premise to win our hearts.” —Romantic Times on To Marry a Stranger Title Page Her Mistletoe Husband Renee Roszel www.millsandboon.co.uk Dedication To my real-life sisters, Norda and Ronda. Can you find yourselves among the three Crosby sisters? CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN EPILOGUE Copyright

“You’re a challenge, Miss Crosby.”

She eyed him with skepticism. Something seemed to dawn on her, and her green eyes went appealingly wide. “What do you think you’re going to do? Seduce me?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

She flinched and he experienced a twinge of compassion. He didn’t like putting her out of her home. But she would be okay. Elissa Crosby had more backbone than any ten women he knew.

As they swayed intimately on the dance floor, he could feel her slim body move subtly against his. He found himself growing more and more aroused by her reluctant nearness. Lord, she was a temptress, even when temptation was the last thing on her mind.

Damn the woman! If she would only throw herself at him, he’d grow bored and lose interest. He gazed into those sexy, guarded eyes again, his lips quirking in self-mockery. Like hell he would. Bowing his head, he lowered his face toward hers.

Enchanted Brides

The Myth

The stately D’Amour mansion stands majestically in the countryside, its absentee owner rumored to be living in Europe. Glosed for years, this mansion has a charming myth surrounding it. Legend says that the mansion is enchanted and that “an unmarried woman who sleeps within its walls on her birthday, when the moon is full, will marry the first man she sees in the morning.”

Her Mistletoe Husband is the third in Renee Roszel’s spellbinding Enchanted Brides trilogy.

Also in the Enchanted Brides trilogy:

To Marry a Stranger (#3470)

Married By Mistake! (#3488)

Praise for the trilogy:

“Renee Roszel delivers a fast-paced, humorous tale as she blends commanding characters with a strong premise and lovable secondary characters in Her Mistletoe Husband.”

—Romantic Times

“Ms. Roszel adds sound characterization to a touching premise to win our hearts.”

—Romantic Times on To Marry a Stranger

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my real-life sisters,

Norda and Ronda.

Can you find yourselves among the three

Crosby sisters?

CHAPTER ONE

ELISSA’S elbow hit the floor with a thump, waking her and making her wince. She groaned, but as soon as the sound was out of her mouth, she clamped her hand over her lips.

What if he heard?

A shiver raked her body, but the reaction had more to do with her terror than the cold. She blinked, clearing away the blur of sleep. It was dark, very dark, except for the slash of light at the bottom of the door to the closet where she was hiding. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep, but even in her fright exhaustion had finally taken its toll.

The slash of light at the bottom of the door!

She realized it must be after dawn. Around midnight she’d scrambled into the deserted D’Amour mansion through a loose board nailed over a window. She’d been sure the man following her hadn’t seen where she’d entered, but just to be safe, she’d hidden in this upstairs closet, barely breathing. For hours. Then she’d fallen into a fitful sleep.

Her whole body ached and felt cramped. It was so cold. Of course, being December, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Still, Elissa wasn’t accustomed to sleeping in closets in abandoned, unheated mansions. Stiff from the cold and the cramped position she’d been curled in, she shifted her wristwatch into the light stream. Seven o’clock! She couldn’t believe it.

What a lousy way to begin a birthday. First the flat tire, then, when she’d realized the flat was her spare, and started to walk home, there had been movement in the brush. A man. A big man. Something had glinted in the light of the full moon as he’d skulked from bush to bush—a wristwatch? A belt buckle? The blade of an ax? Her survival instincts had gone into high gear, especially after the unsigned letter she received last week. Threatening and scary. The police had taken a report and said they’d look into it. Even so, the sergeant had tried to reassure her, explaining it was most likely a prank, nothing to be worried about.

Nothing! Well, she’d like to know what they’d think now, after she’d been forced to huddle in a closet all night. She stood, swallowing to bolster her courage, assuring herself that not even a certified nutcase would hang around in subfreezing temperatures all night. Taking a deep breath she cracked open the door and peered into the bare room. Cobwebs, dust motes and the smell of must were her only companions. Sunlight streamed in the dingy arched windows, the brightness of the day strengthening her resolve. Stalkers belonged to the night, didn’t they?

As she emerged from the closet, the creak of the door sent a tingle of apprehension along her spine, but she controlled her reaction. “Elissa, are you a man or are you a mouse?” she muttered, then shook her head, her lips quirking. “Okay, so you’re neither. Just go.”

As soundlessly as she could, in a mansion that seemed to squawk and groan with every step, as if it were a cantankerous old grump, she made her way down the grand staircase and along the dark hall to the den. After peering out of the window through which she’d eatered, she determined that no large men with hatchets were lurking nearby. With a prayer on her lips, she slipped outside, not the easiest thing to do in her tweed suit’s slender skirt.

From her vantage point at the side of the house, she could see her old sedan, a hundred yards down the road, but she couldn’t see the front of the mansion. She hugged herself, watching her breath frost the air. What was she to do? Getting back to her inn and to a telephone was high on her list—just below staying alive. The trip would be cut in half if she took the shortcut through the woods. With a determined nod, she pivoted toward the back of the manor.

As she rounded the comer, a massive male figure loomed. “Oh, my Lord!” she cried. He was still here! Reacting on instinct, the self-defense course she’d taken flashed through her mind. She clawed at the stranger’s face and shot her knee up, finding her target. “Take that you pervert!” she yelled.

The intruder groaned then doubled over, and she knew she’d debilitated him enough to make her escape. She lurched away, scrambling into the woods. Stumbling and tripping along the rocky path, she cursed her unsuitable pumps. Her lungs burned with the cold, her brain whirring as she cast around in her memory. Who was that man? She only got a glimpse of him, but he seemed too well dressed to have been slinking around in the woods all night. And, unless he’d taken an advanced course in personal hygiene, he didn’t resemble any of her down-and-out law clients. She had a feeling she would have remembered those extraordinary eyes—the color of silver lightning—even squinting in pain and shock.

As she reached the back steps of her inn, she paused to get her breath. Sucking in gasps of stinging air, she decided it didn’t matter if she recalled him or not. He had to be someone from her time as a Kansas City lawyer. She’d only practiced for four years, and that seemed like an eternity ago. But apparently she wasn’t forgotten. Somebody with a very big grudge remembered her.

She hugged herself, stifling another shiver and exhaled a frosty cloud. The most important thing at the moment was, she’d gotten away. Sinking to the lowest step, she pushed a shaky hand through her fiery curls. She was baffled. Had this man blamed her for losing his case and for his being sent to prison? Or was he possibly the relative of some victim who felt that her defense had set a guilty man free? If that were the case, then why had he waited years after she’d given up the practice of law to come after her? Her move from Kansas City had been no secret. Whoever he was, she hoped a knee to the groin was enough to make him change his mind about coming after her.

Unfortunately she had her doubts. “Who are you, mister?” she mused in a winded exhale. “What do you want with me?”

Elissa felt better with the attention of the two young patrolmen who had answered her call. They’d checked around the D’Amour mansion and searched the woods between the estate and her inn. They’d even taken her tire into town and gotten it patched and returned her car to her. She loved small towns. You wouldn’t catch a Kansas City cop doing that.

The two officers promised to increase their patrols in the area and took down her sketchy description of the man she’d kneed that morning. One of the cops, built like a professional football player, startled her by asking her out to dinner. She was working on a nice way to decline and still get her extra night patrol when the front door of the inn opened.

She looked up to see at a towering man backlit by afternoon brightness. Dressed in an impeccable suit he seemed to completely block her door. He was handsome, his chiseled features marred only by three scratches along his jaw. When he met her gaze, she saw a flash of silver lighting in his eyes, and she screamed.

Plucking up the letter opener from the reception desk, she brandished it in his direction. “That’s the pervert who attacked me this morning! Get him!”

At that moment a second man slipped inside the door. Elissa recognized him as a detective in the Branson police department. A wiry man with ginger freckles on his balding skull, his name had something to do with food, but she couldn’t remember what. She stilled with her weapon thrust forward, making her look like Teddy Roosevelt pointing out the whites of his enemy’s eyes.