Her Christmas Temptation: The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas / What She Really Wants for Christmas / Baby, It's Cold Outside. Debbi Rawlins
Her Christmas Temptation
The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas
Barbara Dunlop
What She Really Wants for Christmas
Debbi Rawlins
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Cathy Yardley
About the Authors
BARBARA DUNLOP writes romantic stories while curled up in a log cabin in Canada’s far north, where bears outnumber people and it snows six months of the year. Fortunately, she has a brawny husband and two teenage children to haul firewood and clear the driveway while she sips cocoa and muses about her upcoming chapters. Barbara loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website at www.barbaradunlop.com
DEBBI RAWLINS lives in central Utah, out in the country, surrounded by woods and deer and wild turkeys. It’s quite a change for a city girl who didn’t even know where the state of Utah was until four years ago. Of course, unfamiliarity never stopped her. Between her junior and senior years of college she spontaneously left home in Hawaii and bummed around Europe for five weeks by herself. And, much to her parents’ delight, returned home with only a quarter in her wallet.
CATHY YARDLEY needs to get out more. When not writing, she is probably either cruising the internet or watching movies – those featuring pirate captains and those not. Her family is considering performing an intervention for her addiction to pop culture. She lives in California. Please visit her at www.cathyyardley.com.
The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas
Barbara Dunlop
For Jane Graves, author extraordinaire.
You know the rest.
CHAPTER ONE
JACK OSLAND peered through the window of his Gulfstream jet plane as an indistinct figure emerged in the scattered snow falling on the tarmac at JFK.
“Did I even mention the word kidnap?” he asked his cousin Hunter who was sitting in the opposite seat.
“I can tell you’re thinking about it,” said Hunter, turning to improve his view, the white leather creaking beneath him.
“You’re clairvoyant now?” asked Jack.
“I’ve known you since you were two years old.”
“You were a baby when I was two.”
Hunter shrugged. “You’ve got that telltale twitch in your temple.”
“That just means I’m ticked off.” Jack’s attention went back to the woman who was striding through the frozen swirls of white. Ticked off was an understatement, and he was watching the reason walk toward him.
A slim five and a half feet, her face was obscured by a fur-trimmed hat and the enormous collar of her matching, cream-colored coat.
“Maybe she’ll say no,” Hunter offered, a hopeful lilt to his voice.
“And maybe pigs fly,” Jack responded.
The woman wasn’t about to say no. Nobody ever did. When Jack and Hunter’s billionaire grandfather Cleveland Osland asked a gold digging, trophy babe to marry him, it was a done deal.
“Well it looks like dogs fly,” said Hunter with a nod toward the future Mrs. Osland.
Jack blinked.
A flash of red pulled his gaze to her high-heeled boots. Sure enough. There, prancing along at her feet, was a tiny, plaid-coated fur ball.
As the implication registered, Jack shot Hunter a triumphant look. “Am I right, or am I right?”
“Her dog doesn’t mean a thing.”
“It means she’s not turning around and going home.”
“They only loaded one suitcase.”
“You don’t think Gramps’s first wedding gift will be a platinum card?”
“Well, you still can’t kidnap her,” said Hunter.
“I’m not kidnapping her.” Jack was desperate, but he wasn’t a fool. He had no desire to give up a Malibu Beach penthouse for an eight-by-eight cell with a lumpy mattress, a leaky toilet and a roommate with a skull tattoo.
He didn’t know how he was going to stop her. But, whatever his plan, he’d have to come up with it before the jet made it to L.A.
“What exactly did your mom say to you?” asked Hunter.
“She said that Gramps was at it again, and the latest one was hitching a ride with us. That’s all I got, because she was boarding a flight to Paris, and we lost the connection. She’s on the plane now.”
“Could she have meant something else?”
Jack gave his cousin a deadpan stare. “No. She could not have meant something else. Gramps is getting remarried, and it’s up to me to put a stop to it.”
The future bride approached the aircraft, tipping her head to gaze at the fuselage. Jack caught a glimpse of straight, white teeth, burgundy lips, a smooth, flushed complexion and blue eyes that sparkled like jewels.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with Gramps’s eyesight,” muttered Hunter.
“I sure wish something would go wrong with his testosterone,” Jack returned, giving the steward, Leonardo, a nod to open the cabin door.
“He doesn’t sleep with them,” said Hunter.
Jack stared at his cousin in disbelief.
“At least not until they’re married. And then, well it sounded like sporadic attempts.”
Jack was momentarily speechless. “You actually asked Moira and Gracie about their sex lives with Gramps?”
“Sure. Didn’t you?”
“Of course not.”
Hunter smirked. “You are such an easy mark. It was your mom who told me. I guess she asked them. She was worried about a possible pregnancy.”
Jack wondered why his mother hadn’t talked to him about her fears, instead of Hunter. Jack was her son, and the CEO of Osland International, the man whose job it was to protect the family interests.
Leonardo finished lowering the aircraft staircase, and the woman’s quick footsteps echoed on metal stairs.
“You could try reasoning with her,” Hunter suggested as they rose to their feet.
Jack snorted his disbelief.
But Hunter didn’t give up. “Warn her that Gramps has done this before.”
“She’s a twentysomething trophy babe, dating an eighty-year-old man. You think there’s a chance she’ll be offended by his ethics?”
The woman in question rounded the corner in all her fur-trimmed, youth-dewy glory. The little dog barked once, but obeyed when she shushed it.
After a brief moment’s hesitation, she smiled brightly at the two of them, leading with an outstretched, manicured hand. “Kristy Mahoney. I don’t