Presents, Passion and Proposals. Кэрол Мортимер

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      About the Author

      CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, “I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.”

       Look for an exciting new novel from Carole Mortimer, Jordan St Claire: Dark & Dangerous, available from Mills & Boon® Modern™ romance in January 2011.

      Dear Reader,

      What a wonderful time of year this is! A time for the giving and receiving of gifts but most of all a time for caring and sharing and being with those we love.

      I love to read books with a seasonal flavour, but I love writing them even more! It is an absolute joy for me to write a book with a Christmas setting and to indulge my love of the holiday season by having two of my characters fall in love with each other. I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

      Merry Christmas!

       Carole Mortimer

      Chapter One

      NICK glowered through the windscreen from inside the warmth and comfort of his heated car as the rain and sleet fell heavily outside, in no hurry to find a gap in the slowly moving vehicles that would allow him to edge back into the morning rush hour of bumper-tobumper traffic. Having dropped his daughter Bekka off at school for the day, he was too immersed still in the memory of their last conversation before Bekka had climbed, sulking, out of the car.

      ‘It’s not fair, Daddy! Just because my birthday is on Christmas Day…Why can’t I have someone over on my birthday like the other girls do?’

      ‘Because—’

      ‘Because “everyone is busy with their own families on Christmas Day,”’ Bekka parroted—a reminder that this was the excuse Nick had been giving her for the past week.

      ‘I’m taking you and three of your friends bowling and then out for a meal on Saturday instead—’

      ‘I want to invite someone over on my actual birthday,’ Bekka had maintained stubbornly. ‘It’s just one little guest, Daddy. Just one,’ she wheedled.

      ‘But—’

      ‘And I already know that Mrs Morgan isn’t busy on Christmas Day with her own family because she doesn’t have one!’ Bekka had announced triumphantly.

      Why couldn’t his eight-year-old daughter be totally consumed by self-interest, as most of her friends seemed to be? Nick now fumed inwardly. Why did it have to be his daughter who took in all the abandoned kittens, stray dogs, injured birds—and now widowed schoolteachers—whom Bekka knew happened to be spending Christmas alone?

      He and Bekka did okay together, didn’t they? Nick questioned with a frown.

      Bekka had lived with her mother after Janet and Nick divorced three years ago, and Nick had been trying to be both mother and father to Bekka since Janet had died ten months ago. To be there for Bekka as much as he could when business interests already took up so much of his time. And he tried—even if he didn’t always succeed!—to spend the weekends doing things that Bekka wanted to do.

      Surely he didn’t have to give up the peace and quiet of his Christmas Day, too, in order to entertain an elderly, probably bewhiskered widow, so bereft of family and friends no one else was willing to invite her to join them for the holidays?

      No, of course he didn’t.

      Nick’s heart sank again as he remembered Bekka’s last petulant shot. ‘Mummy would have let me do it!’ And then she’d slammed the car door and disappeared through the rain and sleet into the school building. Seven words. Seven little words guaranteed to guilt Nick into agreeing to whatever hare-brained scheme Bekka had come up with this time. Seven little words that meant Nick now possessed three thoroughly spoilt cats who thought they owned him, rather than the other way around, and an anti-social dog who more often than not tried to keep him out of the house rather than intruders. Plus a hamster one of Bekka’s friends had had to get rid of because she was allergic, and, of all things, a rat that Bekka had literally saved from the jaws of one of the spoilt cats.

      Add in a goat and some ducks and they could open up a damned petting zoo!

      No, he had to draw the line somewhere, Nick decided firmly, and, whether Bekka liked it or not, inviting an elderly widow—a complete stranger, to boot—to join them next week on Christmas Day, was going to be it!

      Having settled that situation to his satisfaction, Nick pressed his foot gently down on the accelerator to manoeuvre out into the traffic so that he actually reached his office some time this morning after all.

      At that exact moment a huddled pedestrian chose to step off the pavement in front of his car!

      The first indication Beth had that the car parked at the end of the school driveway was now actually moving came as she stepped off the pavement, hunched down in her duffle coat, the hood pulled low over her face to keep off the worst of the rain and sleet, and felt the slight bump of impact against her hip!

      It wasn’t a painful or hard bump, but it did succeed in knocking Beth off balance, causing her to stagger slightly as she tried to prevent herself from toppling over. A battle she totally lost as the heel of one of her boots slid on the icy surface of the tarmac.

      She fell down on her bottom—hard. Straight into one of the deep puddles that had formed at the side of the road.

      Great. Not only was her outer clothing soaked through, but now her trousers and underwear were awash too!

      ‘Are you okay?’ demanded a gruffly concerned disembodied voice from amidst the blinding weather.

      ‘Apart from my injured pride, you mean?’ Beth muttered, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. ‘Yes, I’m absolutely