Page 117 of Snowbound Surrender

They barely had time to bring themselves upright when the banging resolved into heavy thumping, and the door’s closures snapped. The door burst open from the outside, smacking against the wall, and a whirl of cold air and snow rushed in.

“See. I told you they were all right.”

Teddy Potts and Frank Hoover stumbled into the saloon, stomping snow from their boots. Starla came rushing in after them, wrapped in a modest, wool coat, with boots of her own.

“Thank the good Lord!” she exclaimed, rushing toward Miranda and Randall. She stopped halfway across the room, her eyes going wide and a grin melting the worry on her face. “Well I’ll be! Looks like you took my advice after all.”

“Your advice?” Miranda realized a moment too late that the top few buttons of her blouse were undone, her skirt was hitched up, Randall’s shirt was untucked, and the two of them were still half bent over the table.

Starla burst into outright laughter. “Yep. I didn’t have a thing to be worried about after all.”

“Worried?” Randall cleared his throat and stepped away from Miranda. He attempted to spruce up his appearance, but gave up after only tucking his shirt in halfway. “What were you worried about?”

Starla puffed out a breath, threw out her hands, and looked at the two of them as though they’d just sprouted from the cabbage patch yesterday. “Why, there’s been a big storm, in case you hadn’t noticed. The whole town was buried in four feet of snow.” She studied the two of them with a bemused grin, then added, “No, no, I don’t suppose the two of you did notice.”

Miranda exchanged a look with Randall that said they’d both been caught red-handed. But it was Starla, so Miranda chose to forego the usual stammering and blushing and making excuses. “Wehavenoticed the storm. We’ve been trapped in here for days. We cleaned the whole place from top to bottom,” she peeked at Randall, “in preparation for converting it to a fine restaurant.”

“Well!” Starla exclaimed.

“You mean you’re closing down the Bucket?” Frank lamented.

Starla twisted to him. “There are two other saloons in town, Frank, and if that’s not good enough for you, you can always head over to Cold Springs.”

Frank grumbled, but didn’t argue. Starla turned back to Miranda and Randall, an almost comical look on her face. “Honey, the storm passed days ago. Folks have been digging out all week. Why, the only reason no one touched The Holey Bucket or bothered to dig it out until now was because we all thought you’d taken shelter at the hotel.”

“What? No, we’ve been here the whole time,” Miranda answered. “Didn’t you see the lights in the windows?”

Behind Starla, Teddy laughed. “You wouldn’t ask that if you could see what the building looks like from the outside.”

Miranda’s curiosity was instantly piqued. She headed for the door, grabbing her winter coat from the peg beside it. Randall jumped after her, fetching his coat as well. They bundled up in a hurry, then followed Teddy, Frank, and Starla outside.

At first, Miranda couldn’t believe her eyes. The streets of Mistletoe were far, far clearer than she would have imagined. It was obvious that there’d been a massive snowfall, but equally as obvious that the streets and businesses lining Main Street had been cleared and dug out. The saloon was the only building that hadn’t been touched. In fact, it looked as though the neighbors had shoveled their snow against the sides of the building, convinced it’d been abandoned.

“You mean we’ve been trapped tight in there alone with nothing to do for days when we could just as easily have dug our way through a little snow and gotten out?” Randall laughed as he asked the question.

Miranda shot him a look, trying hard not to laugh herself. Thank God in Heaven above they hadn’t tried to get out! In fact, now that she thought about it, they easily could have broken free, if only they’d been less wrapped up in each other and more aware of their surroundings. If that wasn’t a statement on the lives they’d both been living up until that point, she didn’t know what was.

“It’s downright pretty out here,” Randall said, pivoting to look around at Main Street. While the snow wasn’t pristine anymore, it was still dazzling white. The sun had already set, even though it couldn’t have been later than five o’clock, and bright moonbeams flooded the scene, making everything look new and exciting.

“Who would have guessed that all this beauty and moonlight was out here waiting for us,” Miranda said. She wasn’t talking about the landscape around them.

“Who indeed,” Randall answered. He turned back and met her eyes, then—bold as brass—swept her into his arms, and kissed her soundly.

Miranda’s only regret with the kiss was that their coats kept them apart. Nothing had ever felt so crisp and promising and right, and no moonbeams had ever sparkled as bright.

The sound of Teddy and Frank clearing their throats and coughing brought Miranda back down to earth. “And who is this gent anyhow?” Frank asked, as protective and fatherly as Uncle Buford would have been.

A flash of mischief filled Miranda as she spun to face the two older men and Starla. She kept her arm tight around Randall and his around her. “This is my fiancé, Mr. Randall Sinclair.”

“Oh. Ah.” The two older men lost their frowns and smiled at the two of them.

Starla hid her mouth behind a gloved hand, her eyes dazzlingly bright. “That’s some letting go,” she said when she finally dropped her hand.

Miranda couldn’t help but laugh, not just because taking Starla’s advice had changed her life after all, but because she’d just realized that not a soul in town knew her well enough to question the story of a fiancé she’d never told anyone about arriving in Mistletoe just in the nick of time to help her through the blizzard. If they played their cards right—and she would never take the analogy of playing cards lightly again—they could marry before the year was out, lickety-split, and no one would bat an eye. Why there was a possibility they could marry on Christmas if…

“What day is it?” she asked.

Teddy and Frank guffawed as if she was joking. But Starla seemed to understand just how deeply Miranda and Randall had lost track of time. “Honey, it’s Christmas Eve,” she told them.