Cara Colter - Snowbound With The Single Dad

“Failures by your own admission,” she said, with a toss of her head, “and should you have doubt, ask your daughter.”

Aidan glared at her, though when he spoke, his voice was carefully controlled, milder than his glare. “I think I’m beginning to take a dislike to you, too.”

“Good!”

“Good,” he agreed. He continued, his voice softly sarcastic, “It’s setting up to be a very nice quiet Christmas in the country, after all.”

“Emphasis on quiet, since I won’t be speaking to you.”

“Starting anytime soon?” he asked silkily.

“Right now!”

“Good,” he said again.

She couldn’t resist. “Good,” she said with a curt nod. They strode along the path back to the house in a silence that bristled.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he yanked his cell phone from his pocket and began scrolling furiously, walking at the same time. It took him a few seconds to realize it wasn’t going to work. He stopped.

“Is there cell service?” he asked tightly.

“We’re not speaking.”

“That’s childish.”

“You didn’t seem to think so a few minutes ago.”

“It’s just a yes or no,” he said.

“No.” She should not have felt nearly as gleeful about the look on his face as she did. Clearly the thought of not being joined to his world, where he was in control of everything and everybody—with the possible exception of his daughter—was causing him instant discomfort.

“Will there be cell service at the house?”

“No.”

“I’m expecting an important email. I have several calls I have to make.”

“Did you get cell service in the Finnish Lapland?”

“Actually, they take pride in their excellent cell service all across Finland.”

He managed to make that sound as if they had managed to be more bumpkin here than in one of the most remote places in the world.

Noelle had the sudden thought Tess’s string of Christmas disappointments might, at a level she would not yet be able to articulate—despite being five going on twenty-one—have had a lot more to do with her father’s ability to be absent while he was with her than the inadequacies of Disneyland or the Northern Lights.

“You can make the calls from his landline in the house,” she said, maybe more sharply than she intended. “And I guess you could go to the library in the village and check emails. That’s what my grandfather does. Mind you, he has to drive. You could take your helicopter. You could be there in minutes. Maybe even seconds! But it would cause a sensation. There would probably be that unwanted publicity involved.”

“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” He sounded hopeful. He was holding his phone out at arm’s length, squinting at it, willing service to appear.

“Do I look like the type of person who would pull your leg?”

He regarded her suspiciously, but didn’t answer.

It was because he didn’t answer that she decided not to tell him there were a few “sweet spots” on the ranch. One was in the hayloft of the barn. You could get the magic bars on your cell phone to light up to two, and sometimes even three precious bars, if you opened the loft door and held your arm out. If the stars were aligned properly and the wind wasn’t blowing. You had to lean out dangerously to take advantage of the service. It was a desperate measure to go sit out there in the cold trying to reconnect with the world.

And somehow she knew she’d be out there later tonight, looking at Mitchell’s latest posts about his new and exciting life, tormenting herself with all that she wasn’t.

She glanced at Aidan. When he felt her eyes on him, he shoved his cell phone in his pocket. His face was set in deep lines of annoyance, as if she had personally arranged the lack of cell service to inconvenience him.

They came over that rise in the road where they could see the house. She wondered if, in his eyes, it looked old and faintly dilapidated instead of homey and charming, especially with the snow, mounded up like whipped cream, around it. He did not even comment on the house at all, or on the breathtaking spectacle of sweeping landscapes and endless blue skies and majestic mountains.

Noelle thought that what she had said earlier in a pique might be coming true.

She disliked Aidan Phillips. A lot.

And that was so much safer than the alternative! She marched on ahead of him, without bothering to see if he followed.

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