The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

to the living room.

      He froze, stared, moved forward.

      Last night, when he had gone to bed, the tree had been at the same stage as when he had walked in the evening before. The lights had been on it, but nothing else.

      Now, as if Santa’s elves had appeared in the night, it had been transformed into a glorious thing. The lights had been left plugged in and winked with bright cheer. The star shone like a beacon from the top of it.

      Astoundingly, the tree had been completely decorated.

      Ty could barely see the offensive artificial branches there was so much stuff on the tree. He was sure those few scant boxes of decorations could not have filled the branches like this.

      Almost against his will, he was drawn closer.

      He had smelled popcorn. Strings of it were looped around the tree. And he had smelled baking. Because she had made up for the lack of ornaments by hanging cookies. He stepped closer again. The cookies were shaped like round ornaments, and like trees, and like Christmas parcels, all decorated with different colors of icing and sprinkles of candy.

      It occurred to Ty that Amy must have arrived with all the things needed to make such intricate cookies stuffed into her little car, intent on making the perfect Christmas for her little boy.

      And then, sometime yesterday, her intention had shifted.

      She hadn’t done this for Jamey.

      They were leaving. They were leaving today.

      No, she must have been up half the night doing this for him. Why? Ty thought he had made it clear that he did not invest in the sentiment of it all.

      And that was probably why. She had been driven to show him what he was missing.

      Great. He had managed to invoke her pity.

      He tried to harden his heart to it, but it didn’t work. Ty was shocked by how the gift of it wiggled by his customary cynicism, and made him feel a deep sense of humility.

      Ty reached out, pulled one of the cookies off the tree, bit into it. It was delicious. He allowed a small smile. Perfect for him. An edible tree.

      The chores needed doing, and he turned to leave all this magic behind him. He needed space around him—his space—to clear his head. And then he saw her.

      Amy Mitchell was not in the guest room. She had fallen asleep in the big easy chair, curled up, her legs underneath her, her chin down on her neck. Her curls were flat in places and standing straight up in others. Her shirt was gaping open at the throat. The book he’d been reading and had left on a side table was spread out, open across her chest.

      Had his choice of books told her something about him? He’d never been to university, but last year he had come across a reading list and was making his way through it. He moved Homer’s The Iliad gently from her breast.

      There was a blanket in a basket beside the chair and he hesitated. And then he took it and unfolded it, tucked it around her with a tenderness that astounded him. He fought off an impulse to touch those crazy curls.

      He was glad she would be gone soon.

      There was nothing in him that knew anything about being with a woman like this. She had seen his world was a hard place, with no soft edges, and made him the gift of the tree. Trying to show him something, or save him from something.

      It didn’t really matter which, because there was nothing in him that knew about the sensitivity and softness that would be required to appreciate a woman like this.

      She represented everything he could not have.

      And everything he had convinced himself he did not want, until he had heard her voice singing to the baby last night, woken up to the remarkably gentle gift of the tree. And he suspected that was her intention.

      To let him have a glimpse at a softer world. To make him know he was missing something.

      He turned his back on her swiftly. The thing about what she was offering him—once a man tasted that, he could start craving it. Craving was weakness.

      He yanked on his boots, hat and coat, out of sorts now as he went out the back door. There he paused, stunned by what he saw. He had known from the muffled sounds this morning that it had snowed.

      Nothing could have prepared him for how much.

      The accumulated snow, when he stepped off his back stair, was nearly at his knee. In his lifetime, he had not seen so much snow in one dump. And the dump wasn’t over. Though no snow was falling at the moment, the sky was leaden, the mountains obscured by thick, ominous cloud. He sniffed the air and could smell the threat. There was more snow coming.

      He plowed a path with his boots, around the side of his house, to the front. He surveyed his driveway, though he had already known what he would see.

      Her car was somewhere under a mound of snow that was precisely the same size and shape as an igloo.

      It would take a hard day of plowing with his tractor to make his driveway reappear from under a stretch of snow that rolled clear to the mountains. And with more snow coming, was there any point in tackling that task?

      Besides, beyond his driveway would the roads be open? Possibly. He would be able to turn on the radio and find out.

      But what if the roads were open? A big truck with four-wheel drive and a driver with more guts than brains could get through on them.

      But Ty felt as if it would border on criminal to allow her and the baby to leave in these conditions.

      These conditions. The reality hit him.

      Snowed in.

      Ty remembered “snow” days from when he was a kid. Days the school bus couldn’t get through on the roads. And since then, every few years there would be a day or two when he didn’t get to the driveway with the plow and was stuck on the place.

      It was never a big deal. He always had a freezer full of beef, a pantry stocked with tinned goods.

      But now he had unexpected guests. And if felt like a very big deal, indeed. How long was she going to be here?

      With a sinking heart, he realized it was going to be another day, at the very least.

      He reminded himself the native people, so in tune with this land and the larger picture, would say just to make the best of it.

      But when he thought of her singing to the baby, and that tree in his house, her gentle gift to him, and when he thought of how he felt tucking the blanket around her, he knew how easy it would be to feel attached to them.

      That had really been his unspoken motto through much of his life: No Attachments.

      He refused even to own a dog, the most pragmatic of men, he didn’t see a cute little puppy. He saw how it was going to end.

      Amy was stuck here. He was stuck with her. It was his job now to make sure they all got out of it with no one getting hurt.

      He had to be indifferent to her. He had to. Not for his sake, but for hers. A long time ago, when he’d run wild on the rodeo circuit, a girl had told him, tearfully, Cowboy, you are the kind of guy who breaks hearts. Because you don’t have one.

      So he just had to be himself, which was a heartless bastard. That shouldn’t be too difficult for him. When he was able to get the driveway clear, Amy Mitchell would be so glad to get gone, that little car would go down the road as if it had been shot from a catapult.

      As he was finishing up his chores, the snow had started again. The flakes were huge and wet, nearly obliterating his house from his view.

      He came in the back door, knowing he had to tell her the bad news quick and get it over with. He glanced up from the porch and saw Amy sitting at the kitchen table. She looked pale, and her eyes smarted with tears.

      At first he thought she must have already figured