The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

staring at him, and Ty could tell she was actually holding her breath, waiting for him to suggest something really fun, and perhaps a little naughty, like maybe tasting each other’s lips again.

      And while that would definitely be fun, the repercussions of such foolishness—even allowing the thought into his brain for three or four red-hot seconds—seemed truly dangerous.

      Besides, he could tell she was not that kind of girl. But he could also tell it probably wouldn’t take much of a shove to move her in that direction.

      She was impossibly uptight, and when a string was pulled that taut, it was the easiest thing in the world to break. Plus, he had sensed something in that kiss that had made him pull back sharply from it.

      Hunger. Raw and powerful. Had it been all his? Or had there been plenty of hers, too?

      So, no, tempting as it might have been to follow the road that had opened up when she had kissed him, he had something else in mind for fun. He wasn’t taking the low road. For goodness’ sake, she had decorated a Christmas tree for him. Having any kind of naughty fun with her would be like fooling around with one of Santa’s elves.

      No, with the baby looking on a PG rating would be the best thing for everyone.

      “The most fun a person can ever have on this earth?” he asked her, adding to himself at least in the wholesome category.

      “Yes?” she breathed.

      “Playing with a horse.”

      “Oh.” She definitely looked disappointed. There was a wildcat in her waiting to be unleashed, and Ty wasn’t quite sure if he envied or pitied the man who was going to be the one to unleash that.

      “I’m actually, er, terrified of horses.”

      “I kind of figured.” He watched her fiddle nervously with the dressing around her hand.

      “What?” Her head flew up. “How would you figure that?”

      “Hmm, let’s see. You’re scared of your car getting stolen and your house being broken in to. You’re petrified of needles. Being snowed in has opened a whole world of dreadful possibilities that you never even considered before. And you’re terrified of whoever that was on the phone.”

      “My mother-in-law.”

      He wondered if she was still Amy’s mother-in-law since the husband was dead, but decided now was not the time to debate the technicalities of it.

      They were stuck here together.

      What if taking the high road meant he could show her one small thing? She had given him that Christmas tree. What if he gave her something in return?

      What if he could show her there was nothing to be afraid of?

      Given how filled she was with terror, he saw it was something of a miracle that she had packed up that baby in the middle of winter and headed into the unknown.

      A miracle, or one desperate last-ditch effort to save herself, to truly live.

      But if she could not tame all that fear, he saw the outcome as being predictable. Just as a horse went back into a barn that was engulfed in flames, Amy would go right back to what was familiar, no matter how uncomfortable that was. And that voice on the phone, shrill and demanding, asking him who he was without even saying hello? That would be plenty uncomfortable.

      Ty had told Amy he had no religion. But the truth was, you could not live in a place like this, so close to the formidable majesty of nature, without seeing the order of things, that life unfolded with reason, that sometimes the smallest things that appeared random at first ended up being connected to a larger picture.

      Was there a possibility that Amy Mitchell had arrived on his doorstep, not by accident, but for a reason?

      If that was true, he had to get beyond his petty need to protect his comfortable little world. Rise above his own fears.

      But then his eyes went to her lips.

      Starting with that one.

      What if he could give her one small gift and help her find the fearless place in her? To do that, he was going to have to require more of himself, he was going to have to be more and do better.

      “Come on. Get the baby ready.”

      “Maybe you should just go ahead without us. I can find things to do inside. It looks like a perfect day to bake bread.”

      She really didn’t want to do this. At some level, she was figuring it out. Saying yes to him right now was going to put the way she lived her whole life at stake.

      The incentive of fresh-baked bread nearly killed his new vow to be a better man.

      “Are you using the promise of fresh-baked bread to distract me? Just like I used that needle to distract you? Because, really, fresh-baked bread to a bachelor is like offering water to someone lost in the desert.”

      Was that his life? Was he lost in the desert? He had never thought so before. This little bit of a thing was shaking up his life way beyond what her size should warrant!

      He took in her look of relief.

      “So,” she said, “that’s settled. I’ll bake bread. You’ll go play with horses. We’ll both have fun, in our own ways.”

      “No.”

      “No?”

      “I don’t know that much about baking bread, but I’m pretty sure you need two hands to do it.”

      She looked, dismayed, at her wrapped hand.

      “I told you we should put a sling on it as a reminder you are on the injured list. How about if you come play with me, and then I’ll come play with you?”

      “You’ll help me bake bread?” Did she sound slightly skeptical?

      “I’ve already demonstrated my great ability to catch on with Mr. Splotchy over there. I hope baking bread is more fun than that.”

      “Well, it has to be more fun than that, but somehow I can’t see you enjoying it. It’s not very manly.”

      He laughed. “It would take more than helping to bake bread to threaten my masculinity. Do we have a deal?”

      “I don’t know.”

      That was an improvement over an out-and-out no.

      “You know,” he challenged her softly, “if you can learn to deal with a horse …”

      She nodded.

      “Your mother-in-law will be a piece of cake.”

      She went very still. She looked like a woman standing at the edge of a cliff, looking at the water below, deciding.

      She jumped.

      “Okay,” she said, “I’m in.”

      And then she laughed again. And so did he. And she let him put her arm in a sling, which made him have to fight with his demons all over again. One kiss, right on the tender nape of that neck, where he was knotting the sling.

      An hour later, he was congratulating himself because he had managed to fight off temptation and now they were all standing safely at the round corral, in his world.

      Amy was wearing a bright toque with a fuzzy pompom on top and one of his jackets to accommodate the sling. She had one arm in the sleeve, the other tucked safely inside the jacket. The jacket, a plaid logger’s coat came to his upper thigh when he wore it. On her it was past her knees.

      It made her look adorable, small and lost, like an orphan standing on a street corner waiting for someone to take her home.

      It had taken forever to get the baby into a snowsuit, but Jamey was in it now and looked like a bright blue marshmallow—felt like one, too—nestled into the curve of Ty’s arm.

      “So, this is