The Bachelor's Christmas Bride. Victoria Pade

alone with her things, with the cubby, with the house. She was grateful for that, and once he’d gotten to his feet and left the room, she swiveled around to take one last glance at it.

      The wallpaper was gaudy and overwhelming but she still had fond memories of being here with her grandmother on those few visits, of the fact that despite not spending much time here, it had still felt like an extension of home.

      “I think he’ll take good care of your house, though, Gramma,” she whispered as if her grandmother might be listening.

      Then Dag came back with a cardboard box.

      “It must be late—it’s starting to get dark,” Shannon said with a glance out the window as she accepted the box from Dag. “We should probably be going.”

      “Probably,” Dag confirmed, holding out a hand to help her to her feet once everything was in the box.

      She could have stood without aid but she didn’t want to offend him by refusing, so she accepted the hand up.

      “Thanks,” she said, wishing she wasn’t quite so aware of how big and strong and warm his hand was. And how well hers fit into it.

      But wishing didn’t make that awareness go away and as soon as she could, she took her hand back. Somehow regretting it when she had—another of those crazy blips, she decided.

      Dag seemed completely oblivious to the odd effects he could have on her and once she was on her own again, he bent over and picked up the box. He tucked it neatly under one arm and motioned for her to lead the way out.

      “I have a favor to ask you,” Shannon said as they went back downstairs.

      “Sure,” Dag responded without hesitation as he set the box from upstairs on top of the two boxes of things he’d been keeping for her in the entryway and picked up all three as if they weighed nothing.

      “I can take one of those,” she said before saying more about the favor.

      “They aren’t heavy. Just lock the door and pull it closed behind us.”

      Shannon did, returning to the subject of the favor as they went toward her car.

      “What if the favor I have to ask is something you’ll hate? Shouldn’t you hear what it is before you say sure?” she teased him, having no idea where the flirtatious tone in her voice had come from.

      “I think I can handle whatever you dish out,” he flirted back. “What is it?”

      As Shannon unlocked the trunk of her car, she said, “When the wedding is over, could you spare some time to go Christmas shopping with me? I bought Chase and Hadley’s wedding gift at a store in Billings where they’d registered, but Christmas gifts are different. I thought I might get an idea what to buy after being with them, and then it occurred to me that since you’re here and you know everyone better than I do, you’d also know what they might like.”

      “I could probably do that,” Dag said as he put the boxes in the trunk. “We can go on Sunday—ordinarily not all the shops in town are open on Sundays, but this close to Christmas everything is.”

      “I would be eternally grateful.”

      “No problem.”

      And there would be no scheduling conflicts or meetings or public appearances or other obligations that prevented him from accommodating her request—the things that would have kept Wes from doing it at all. Shannon had become so accustomed to Wes putting her off if she did ask something of him that Dag’s ready agreement seemed unusual to her.

      But she didn’t say that. Instead she closed the trunk and headed for the driver’s side of the car. Dag managed to reach it at the same time and leaned around her to open her door.

      Again she thanked him.

      “I’ll see you back at Chase and Logan’s place,” she said then.

      “Right behind you,” he answered, closing her door with that same big hand pressed to the panel that had been wrapped around hers a few minutes earlier.

      That same big hand that her eyes stuck to when he waved it at her and even as it dropped to his jean pocket to dig out his keys.

      It had felt so good….

      Shannon yanked her thoughts back in line and started her engine, putting her car into gear and heading for the road that led away from the house just ahead of Dag.

      Dag, who did stay right behind her all the way home, making it difficult for her to keep from watching him in her rearview mirror.

      Dag, who she was thinking about seeing again tonight during the rehearsal dinner.

      Dag, who she knew she shouldn’t let cloud her thinking at all.

      And yet somehow he seemed to be anyway.

       Chapter Four

      After the wedding rehearsal Friday evening, the dinner was in the poolroom section of a local restaurant and pub called Adz. The pool table had been removed and replaced by dining tables to accommodate what was a large wedding party. The lighting was dim and provided mainly by the candles on each table and there was a roaring fire in a corner fireplace made of rustic stone. The entire place reminded Shannon of an English pub she’d visited on a recent trip to London.

      Shannon knew very few people there, and those she did know—Chase and Hadley, Logan and Meg—were busy mingling. Dag was the only other person she knew and he ended up being a godsend because while he was not her formal date to the event, he stayed by her side as if he were, as if he recognized that she was an outsider and had taken it upon himself to make sure she didn’t feel that way.

      Not that Shannon hadn’t become accustomed to being in rooms full of strangers during the past three years. Dating a politician made that a common occurrence and she’d frequently been either expected to stand beside Wes, smile and say nothing, or had been left alone among strangers while Wes glad-handed and networked and basically scoured the crowd for votes or endorsements or funds. But still she appreciated that Dag kept her company. It was a nice change.

      And it came in particularly handy when Dag’s other brother and sisters headed their way.

      “Oh, I’m not going to remember which of your sisters is which,” she said quietly to Dag as they approached the spot in front of the fire where Dag and Shannon stood.

      “We just wanted to tell you how happy we are that Chase found family,” Tucker said as he and his sisters joined them.

      Tucker was easy—he was the only other McKendrick male. But even though Shannon had been introduced to the sisters earlier, she’d been introduced to so many people tonight that she couldn’t remember which was which.

      “I’m happy about it, too,” Shannon answered the third McKendrick brother.

      “I was just telling Shannon about our names,” Dag lied then. “About how with me and the girls, Mom filled in the birth certificates and chose the names when Dad wasn’t at the hospital so he wouldn’t have a say. How Dad knew the game by the time Tucker was born and made sure he got to pick Tucker’s name. But the rest of us—” Dag pointed to each sister as he explained “—Isadora, Theodora and Zeli—those were all Mom.”

      Shannon was so grateful to him for making that easy for her that she could have hugged him. Instead she just cast him a smile and went along with the ruse that they’d been discussing the names before. “I like unique names, and they give you all something to talk about right off the bat.”

      “That’s true,” Zeli agreed with a wry laugh that insinuated that she never got away without talking about her name the minute it was mentioned.

      “We all saw you on the news, Shannon,” Issa said then. “You looked so shocked—you must not have had any idea that you were going to be proposed to.”

      “It was a surprise,”