Teresa Southwick - Maverick Holiday Magic

Santa brought a nanny for Christmas!

Widowed rancher Hunter Crawford will do anything to make his daughter, Wren, happy—even if it means hiring a live-in nanny he thinks he doesn’t need. Merry Matthews quickly fills their house with cookie cutters, pine wreaths and true yuletide spirit. These two lonely hearts clearly belong together, but it may take an extra push from Wren for Hunter and Merry to find holiday bliss in Rust Creek Falls...

TERESA SOUTHWICKlives with her husband in Las Vegas, the city that reinvents itself every day. An avid fan of romance novels, she is delighted to be living out her dream of writing for Mills & Boon.

Also by Teresa Southwick

An Unexpected Partnership What

Makes a Father

A Decent ProposalThe Widow’s Bachelor BargainHow to Land Her LawmanA Word with the BachelorJust a Little Bit MarriedThe New Guy in TownHis by ChristmasJust What the Cowboy Needed

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Maverick Holiday Magic

Teresa Southwick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09174-9

MAVERICK HOLIDAY MAGIC

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To all the remarkably creative and talented writers

in the Montana Mavericks series

and our gifted and patient editor, Susan Litman.

All of you made working on this book a joy!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Ambling A Ranch Rust Creek Falls, Montana

Hunter Crawford knew what his father was up to.

It was common knowledge that Max had hired the local wedding planner to find wives for his six sons. Four of them were now off the marriage market and the target on Hunter’s back was getting bigger. That’s why he was suspicious of the old man pushing this big destination wedding for their brother Finn in Rustler’s Notch, Colorado. Hunter was pushing back. He’d much rather stay here on the Ambling A Ranch, where he was more insulated from his father’s meddling.

There were four cabins on this sprawling property—the big house, where his father and his brother Wilder lived, and three smaller places.

Hunter lived in one of them with his six-year-old daughter, Wren, and loved the two-story log house. It had four bedrooms, two baths, a great room and kitchen. The place wasn’t huge, but it had enough room for the two of them. The biggest selling point was that it had no bad memories from the past clinging to it. He was doing his best to keep the vibe pure of pain, for Wren’s sake. Although that could change.

His instinct was telling him that this wedding was somehow going to threaten his resolve to maintain his bachelor designation. The way he saw it, everyone had one great love in their life and he’d had his. Losing her had nearly destroyed him. He was determined not to put himself in a position where that could happen to him again. But his father and Wilder weren’t taking no for an answer and had come to give him a hard sell.

He’d reluctantly opened the door to them and they followed him into the kitchen. Might as well get this over with, he told himself as he took a breath and faced them. “I’m not going to the wedding.”

Maximilian Crawford stood beside the circular oak table and stared him down. He was a tall, handsome, distinguished man in his sixties. Tan and rugged looking, his lined face suggested a life spent outdoors—and it had been. Now he left the physically taxing ranch work to Hunter and his brothers. His hair had once been brown like his sons’ but now it was gray and earned him the nickname “Silver Fox.” He was accustomed to getting what he wanted by any legal means necessary, but Hunter had inherited his father’s stubborn streak. So neither of them blinked.

Finally, his father said, “Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“It’s important to me that the whole family is there. Your brothers and their new wives are looking forward to a little vacation in Rustler’s Notch.” The older man looked at his youngest son, a “don’t just stand there” expression in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Wilder said. “You could use a vacation, bro.”

“I’m good,” Hunter said.

“It’s actually not you I’m worried about.” Wilder settled his hands on his lean hips. “The truth is, I could use your help. The two of us are the only single Crawford men left. It’s Colorado in November. Can you say ‘snow bunnies’? It pains me to say this, but I need a wingman.”