Snowbound with Her Hero. Rebecca Winters

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       As the horses paced along in rhythm, the sleigh bells made their distinctive sounds while the sleigh swished and glided across the snow. The outing was one of sheer enchantment, carrying her back to that other magical morning on the ski slopes with Raoul.

      The scene right now was too surreal for Crystal. She closed her eyes for a little while and just listened while she dreamed about what it would be like if he had any deeper feelings for her.

      Finally, today, his kiss had brought her own feelings closer to the surface to be acknowledged. But Raoul wasn’t her lover.

      The kiss he’d given her in the bedroom was something he’d done in order to wake her up to the possibilities of life. It hadn’t been prompted by the earth-shaking desire she had for him. When she’d told him she couldn’t accept his offer to run a ski school here, he’d left it alone. His calm acceptance gave her the proof he could compartmentalize his feelings for the good of the moment.

      Dear Reader,

      We’ve all heard the expression true blue. In terms of one’s overall character it means never wavering, solid, dependable for life!

      In my novel, Snowbound with Her Hero, my heroine Crystal has learned to depend on her French brother-in-law Raoul, who in time becomes her best friend. When destiny throws both of them a curve, they realise there’s more to their deep, abiding friendship and loyalty than either had suspected. Now this true blue hero is faced with the greatest dilemma of his life. A choice has to be made that will impact upon his life and Crystal’s for ever.

      Hopefully you’ll read this Christmas story to discover the choice he made.

      Enjoy!

       Rebecca Winters

      Snowbound with

      her Hero

      Rebecca Winters

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      About the Author

      REBECCA WINTERS, whose family of four children has now swelled to include three beautiful grandchildren, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the land of the Rocky Mountains. With canyons and high alpine meadows full of wild flowers, she never runs out of places to explore. They, plus her favourite vacation spots in Europe, often end up as backgrounds for her Mills & Boon^® novels, because writing is her passion, along with her family and church.

      Rebecca loves to hear from her readers. If you wish to e-mail her, please visit her website at: www.cleanromances.com.

      No one loves the Colorado Mountains more than my son John, who started out on skis early in life and now flies down the slopes of Breckenridge like a champion. He’s a wonderful son, husband and father, and the source of inspiration for this book I’ve dedicated to him.

      CHAPTER ONE

      “PHILIPPE? OVER HERE!” Crystal Broussard waved to her dark blond six-year-old son. She stood next to her father’s car with the Marler Sports logo printed on the side. He came running out of the elementary-school entrance to the lineup of cars waiting. Being a Friday, the kids were out of school two hours earlier than usual.

      Gusting winds had shifted from the southwest to the northwest, meaning a full-scale Colorado blizzard was on its way. Soon 10,000-foot Crystal Peak, her namesake, would be whited out along with the other surrounding peaks.

      Crystal, who’d been put on skis as soon as she could walk, had been born in this 9,600-foot ski mecca and recognized the signs. The temperature had already dropped to the twenties. Soon the town of Breckenridge would be covered in even more snow, after several recent storms, the last one blanketing the area a few days ago.

      It was good news for her father’s business. Skiers from around the world flocked here and spent a lot of money on ski clothes and equipment. She’d worked part-time for her father while Philippe finished kindergarten; but now that he was a first-grader she was working full-time.

      She gave him a huge hug, forcing him to reciprocate before opening the back door for him. “I’ve missed you today. Hurry and fasten yourself in. I want to drive us back to the store before the storm hits.”

      “Can’t we just go home?”

      That’s all he ever wanted to do lately. Just go home and play quietly in his room …

      “This won’t take long. You need a new coat. This afternoon a shipment of parkas came in. There aren’t too many in your size, so we need to get you in one you like before they’re put out on the racks and taken.” With Christmas in nine days, the last-minute rush for gifts would bring the shoppers in droves.

      “I don’t want a new coat.”

      “I know you don’t, but you’ve grown and the sleeves are too short.” Just now she’d almost said that the parka he was wearing had been bought in France, where they used to live, and he’d outgrown it. But she caught herself in time, afraid he’d go all quiet. She had a hunch he was hanging on to it because it was the one he’d brought with him when they’d left Chamonix.

      Crystal needed to do something quick to help her son. Since school had started in the fall, he’d been less communicative. All she heard lately were troubled sighs coming out of him. He’d been a different child since his father’s death fourteen months ago. Eric Broussard, one of France’s great skiers, had taken a fatal fall during the downhill race in Cortina, Italy, and had died at the young age of twenty-eight, devastating everyone.

      Two years earlier the Broussard family had already been plagued by the death of Suzanne, the wife of their son, Raoul. The Broussards were an institution that owned and ran the 100-year-old premier alpine mountaineering guide club in the French Alps. The two brothers had been very close. Probably—and this was Crystal’s private theory—it was because they’d never competed. Raoul lived for climbing and mountaineering. His wife, Suzanne, had shared his passion for the mountains. Eric only wanted to do one thing. Ski.

      News of his passing sent the French ski world into mourning for a favorite son, but the hardest hit of all was to Crystal, who had to explain to a little five-year-old boy that his daddy wouldn’t be coming home.

      Crystal had been two years younger than Eric when she’d met and dated him. That was at a time when she’d been a member of the national women’s ski team and had one bronze medal to her credit. After their marriage, they’d settled in Chamonix, France, where Eric had been born and raised on skis.

      Two months after the funeral was over, Crystal had moved her and Philippe back to her parents’ home in Breckenridge, hoping it would help both of them to recover and move on. To her chagrin, Philippe had slowly gone into a shell and nothing seemed to bring him out of it, not even her two younger, fun-loving sisters, Jenny and Laura. They were in their early twenties and came and went from the house between