Cold nights. Hot kisses...
On a much-needed ski getaway with her girlfriends, the last person Reyna Allen wants to run into is the lawyer who ruined her life. The tattoo artist’s bitter divorce left her with nothing, and she blames her ex-husband’s attorney, Garrison Richards. Now firelight dinners, winter walks in the Adirondacks and toe-curling chemistry are daring her to give in to the one man she refuses to ever trust.
Garrison is good at his job—and where Reyna’s concerned, he may have been a little too good. He regrets the role he played in her divorce and intends to show Reyna that he’s found his moral compass since then. But as their mutual heat thaws her resolve, will doubts put the freeze on their relationship—before he can convince her that they’re the ones meant for happily-ever-after?
“This place is beautiful!” Reyna took in a deep breath of the night air. “I’m so blessed to come here every year.”
Happiness lit up her face, her black eyes reflecting the paleness of the snow, her mouth lifted in a smile. Garrison wanted to kiss her. He wanted to feel those cool lips under his own and breathe in the happiness she felt. But he knew that wouldn’t be welcomed. At least not yet.
Garrison took a step back from her. She turned from the stunning view to frown at him. “What?”
Her eyes were slightly tilted in her face, like a fox’s. Her full mouth parted with her question and stayed temptingly open. Garrison gave up the tight rein on his control and reached for her. He drew in her startled breath and gave her back one of his own.
He trembled as if caught in her snowstorm. He felt cold and hot at once, needing the pressure of her body against his to ground him. Her mouth was cool on his, the soft petals of her lips still at first, then she pressed close to kiss him back. A sound of pleasured appreciation rumbled at the back of his throat and he felt her sigh, her lips parting to give him the scorching inside of her mouth. She tasted sweet, like red apples and whiskey. Not spicy at all. Only heat and pleasure.
Tattoo artist Reyna Allen was crushed when the fairy-tale marriage to her high school sweetheart turned out to be a grim nightmare. The failed relationship left her unwilling to trust again. But when Garrison Richards, a cold enigma of a man, reenters her life and strips himself bare to her, literally and metaphorically, Reyna’s determination to keep romance at arm’s length falters.
Garrison is not all what he seems. Wrecked by his mother’s lifelong and fruitless search for love in dangerous places, he carries his own wounds. But sometimes it is the most damaged people that come together to create the most beautiful things.
Join me, dear reader, as we follow their journey.
Lindsay Evans
Snowy
Mountain
Nights
Lindsay Evans
LINDSAY EVANS was born in Jamaica and currently lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia, where she’s constantly on the hunt for inspiration, club in hand. She loves good food and romance and would happily travel to the ends of the earth for both. Find out more at lindsayevanswrites.com.
To my readers, old and new.
Thank you for sharing your time with me.
This new journey of mine wouldn’t be possible without Sheree L. Greer, Angela Gabriel and Dorothy Lindsay. As my beta reader, Sheree has read more romance novels than she’d ever even thought possible and Angela has suffered with me through many plotting sessions over dinner and ice cream. Dorothy Lindsay has simply always been there.
Kimberly Kaye Terry, as ever, thank you.
Contents
Dear Reader
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
“I hope you know that thirty-six-year-old men can die from overwork.”
Garrison Richards’s secretary, Anthea, walked into his office and put an envelope on his desk. He looked up from scribbling on the yellow legal pad, surprised at the darkness that had fallen outside his windows.
He didn’t dignify her comment with an answer. But she apparently didn’t need him to say anything.
“Your train ticket and other essentials are right here.” She tapped the envelope with a manicured finger. “The weekend at the resort is already paid for. Your train leaves at eight in the morning.”
He put down his pen and glanced at his watch, frowning. It was much later than he thought. Nearly ten o’clock. New York, a bright and glittering jewel, flashed in its beautiful finery from his twentieth-story view.
“Are you kicking me out of my own office on a Thursday night?” he asked.
“Yes, I am. With the help of your mother.”
Garrison assumed that his mother had paid for the resort and train tickets, while Anthea made sure his schedule was clear. With help like this, who needed a wife?
Anthea stood at his desk with the warm overhead light spilling over her still features, looking more motherly than his actual mother, in her practical gray pantsuit, the spectacles sitting