Rescued by his Christmas Angel: Rescued by his Christmas Angel / Christmas at Candlebark Farm. Cara Colter

to, crazier yet that she was unable to resist his need.

      But how could anyone, even someone totally emancipated, be hard-hearted enough to send a man back into the night who had come shouldering the weight of terrible burdens? Not that he necessarily knew how heavy his burdens were.

      He hesitated, like an animal who paused, sensing danger. And what would be more dangerous to him than someone seeing past that hard exterior to his heart?

      And then, like that same animal catching the scent of something irresistible, he moved slowly forward. He stepped over her tree, and she wondered if he knew how momentous his decision was.

      If he did, he was allowing himself to be distracted. He surveyed the strings of lights strewn around her living room floor, the boxes of baubles, the unhung socks. For a moment it looked as if he might run from the magnitude of what he had gotten himself into.

      But then he crouched and looked at the tree stand, a flying-saucer-type apparatus, that was still attached solidly to the trunk of the tree. It just hadn’t kept the tree solidly attached to the floor.

      “Is this what you expected to hold your tree?” he asked incredulously.