Spotlight & Giveaway: Christmas At Home by Carolyn Brown

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Carolyn Brown to HJ!

Hi Carolyn and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Christmas At Home!

 
Good morning to all y’all, and thanks to Sara for inviting me back to HJ to talk about Christmas at Home, a reissue of Mistletoe Cowboy.
 

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

Sage and Creed cross horns when she finds out that her grandmother is selling the family ranch to him. But there’s little they can do about the whole mess but get to know each other since they’re stuck together in the worst snow storm Texas has ever seen.
 

Please share your favorite lines or quote(s) from this book:

*So much for visions of having a friendship with the woman; hell, he’d be lucky if she didn’t try to murder him in his sleep.
*“I don’t have cooties. And it’s only for three weeks. And I like Miz Ada right well, but darlin’, she ain’t God. That place ain’t holy.”
*She was stuck in a house with no electricity with a cowboy she didn’t know and didn’t even want to like. And he was sexy as the devil when he grinned.

What inspired this book?

My husband (Mr. B) and I were on a research trip to the Palo Duro Canyon out in the Texas Panhandle. As we passed several ranch roads leading off the main highway through the canyon, my imagination went wild. What was back that dirt road? What did it look like when winter snows came? Could they even travel this highway when it was iced over in the winter? Before we got back home, I was plotting Mistletoe Cowboy, which is being reissued today as Christmas at Home for all y’all who missed it with the original cover and title.

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

Always.
Sage thought she was coming home to save the ranch that her grandmother was about to sell. Creed thought he was buying a ranch with no strings attached. Both of them had to learn to live with each other through the worst snowstorm Texas had ever seen.

What was your favorite scene to write?

The one where Sage and Creed realize they are going to have to live together:

Here’s a little snippet.
The living room soon warmed and the smell of coffee filled the house. Maybe she should whip up some pancakes for breakfast. Grand loved them and that would sweeten her up to see Sage’s point of view. She had just set the mixing bowl on the cabinet when the back door swung open.
“It’s about time you came in from the cold,” she said as she turned.
Her hand flew up to her pounding heart and she backed up against the cabinet.
The abominable snowman pushed his way into the house behind something that was either the ugliest dog on the face of the earth or an alien from a faraway planet. The huge thing set a galvanized bucket of milk on the table and a basket of eggs right beside it before he stomped his feet on the rug under the coatrack. The dog stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor and shook from shoulder to tail, sending even more snow flying everywhere in her kitchen. When it melted there would be water everywhere and her socks would be soaked.
“Who the hell are you? Get out of here and take that miserable mutt with you,” Sage said.
Creed removed his old felt cowboy hat and pulled off the face mask. His nose was scarlet and his dark eyelashes dusted with snowflakes. And of all the crazy things, there was a spring of mistletoe stuck in the snow on his shoulder as if it had grown there.
“I’m Creed Riley, ma’am, and I reckon if you want to throw your dog out in the snow that’s your business, but I’m not that mean or cruel to animals. And I’m here to stay since I’m the cowboy who bought this ranch. I guess you’d be Sage Presley. I didn’t think you’d make it home in this blizzard. I heard the roads were closed off.”
He was well over six feet tall because Sage had to look up to him. His brown hair was a bit too long, and his mossy green eyes were rimmed with black lashes topped with heavy dark brows. His deep voice held a definite Texas drawl.
She backed up to the cabinet and braced herself against it. “Where is Grand? Is she behind you?”
“No, left a day early since the storm was coming in. I expect she’s in Pennsylvania by now where it’s fifty degrees and sunshiny today. Crazy, ain’t it? We get a blizzard and the east coast is downright pleasant. At least it was yesterday when she called to tell me that she’d made it fine and to tell you so when you got home. Guess her cell phone’s battery was dead and her sister didn’t have one so she called on a pay phone from the airport.”
Sage rolled her eyes. “You have got to be kiddin’ me!”
“No, ma’am! That’s the truth and that’s really not my dog. I’m bringing my two huntin’ dogs out here soon as we make this sale legal, but this old boy just appeared out of nowhere this morning and rushed right in with me. I figured he belonged on the property. He wasn’t none too pretty when he was covered in snow, but it was covering a multitude of ugly, wasn’t it?”
Sage crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
He ignored her and started peeling away layers of clothing, taking the time to hang them on a coatrack just inside the back door. He didn’t stop until he was down to jeans, socks, and a red and black flannel shirt.
What have you done, Grand? she thought.

What was the most difficult scene to write?

This book was so much fun to write that I really didn’t have a difficult scene, but maybe this one was a little tougher than the others. This was a time when they were talking about music but trying to face the fact that they were attracted to each other.

Brad Paisley began to sing a song called “Long Sermon.” It talked about two boys sitting in church listening to a long sermon when they’d much rather be outside in the sunshine in a boat doing some serious fishing.
Creed kept time with his thumbs on the steering wheel and sang along with the chorus.
“Ever done that?” Sage asked.
“Oh, yeah, I have. How about you?”
“Don’t tell God but I’ve painted dozens of pictures in my mind while the preacher sermonized,” she said.
“Where do you go to church? Claude?”
She shook her head. “We go over to the chapel at Canyon Rose on Sunday afternoons.”
“Afternoons?” Creed asked.
“The preacher comes from Amarillo. It’s just a little missionary church so we have our Sunday service at two thirty on Sunday afternoons. Unless the canyon fills up with snow and the preacher can’t get down the roads.”
“Baptist?”
Another shake of the head. “Methodist. But everybody in the canyon comes to it. Catholic. Methodist. Holiness. We don’t pay much attention to denomination.”
An Alan Jackson followed that song and then there was a five-minute spread of news that talked mostly about the power outages and the snowstorm. That was followed by the weatherman telling them that there was another cold front coming across the plains and would hit that night. Temperatures would drop even further, but there wouldn’t be any moisture with it.
“However,” he said, “folks can begin to rest assured if they live in the Palo Duro Canyon that they are going to have a white Christmas. Don’t put the sleighs up yet. You might need them and the horses to get around. And for the next hour we’ll be taking requests for your favorite holiday songs by country artists. And our first request is from a listener in Claude who wants to hear ‘Joy to the World.’”
“I love Christmas carols,” Sage said.
Creed kept time with his thumb on the steering wheel. “We used to go caroling in Ringgold. We’d gather up at the church and Daddy would hook up a trailer to the back of his pickup. He’d throw some little square hay bales on it for the O’Donnell crew to sit on as they played. Those folks can play anything that’s got strings on it. And we’d go all over town, then we’d cross the Red River into Terral, Oklahoma, and serenade those folks too.”
“That sounds like fun. We should do it here,” she said.
“Maybe next year,” he said. “We’ll plan it early and get lots of folks to go with us.”
“I’ll be Home for Christmas” by John Berry started playing.
Grand would at least be home for Christmas. Why couldn’t they all live on the ranch? Grand, Essie, Creed, and Sage?
You can’t have it both ways, Sage. Grand’s voice pestered her again.
“O Come All Ye Faithful” was the next song.
Faith! That meant trust. She wanted to have the faith to believe that everything would work out for the best in the end, but it wasn’t easy for Sage. That old adage about changing what she could and accepting what she couldn’t came to mind. The last few words that said she wanted the wisdom to know the difference played through her mind like a broken record.
Creed reached across and covered her hand with his. The heat was still there in all its radiant glory. Sparks still bounced off the windows of the tractor cab. She looked out across the snow-covered canyon, but it didn’t take her mind from Creed and the way he’d controlled her body the day before.
Accept it. Stop fighting what is right in front of you and accept it.
“What’s your favorite?” Creed asked.
“Favorite what?”
Part of your sexy body? Your eyes. No, your muscles. Hell, don’t know.
“Christmas carol,” he said when she didn’t answer right away.
“‘O Holy Night,’” she said. “Yours?”
“Well, I like ‘Momma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,’ but my favorite is probably ‘Mary, Did You Know.’ That one brings tears to my eyes.”

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

It showcases my cowboy writing style ten years ago when the original book was written. I like to think I’ve my style has honed a little more since then.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

That miracles and magic can happen all year when you trust your heat, but they do seem to come around more often at Christmas when love is in the air.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I’m working on a novella to go in the back of Second Chance at Sunflower Ranch which will be out next June. Upcoming releases include:
The Wedding Gift, (a short audible), November 10
The Wedding Gift, Dec. 8
Hummingbird Lane, April 6, 2020
Love, Drunk Cowboy (a reissue April 27
Life with a Cowboy, (novella) April 27

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

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Excerpt from Christmas At Home:

The wind was still howling like a son-of-a-bitch when Creed awoke at daylight. Why in the hell had he decided to buy a ranch in the middle of the winter? Sure, he’d liked the land when he looked at it a week ago and he’d seen potential for raising Longhorns and growing hay come spring. No sir, it didn’t look bad at all at fifty degrees and with the sun shining on the winter wheat.
And God only knew the price was right. Right, nothing! It was a downright steal and he’d felt an inner peace that he hadn’t known in a long, long time when the owner had showed him around and made the deal with him. But he hadn’t planned on the canyon filling up with snow on his first night in the house.
The weatherman said after that the blizzard was going to stall out right above the canyon and wouldn’t move on toward the east for at least three more days. That was the last thing he’d seen on the television the night before because the electricity had flickered and then gone out for good.
The phone service had gone out before the electricity. His cell phone’s battery would soon be dead and the battery in his laptop would have bit the dust during the night. So there he was all alone in a blinding blizzard with a hundred head of cattle corralled in a feedlot behind the barn.
He wasn’t acquainted very well with the house, so he moved slowly when he slung his legs out of the bed and made his way across the bedroom floor. He shivered and opened the door wider to let in more heat. At least he had the little two-bedroom house all to himself until the blizzard came and went and things thawed out.
He put on three pairs of socks, long underwear, jeans, and a thermal knit shirt. He topped that with a thick flannel shirt and peeked out the window. There was nothing but a chill from cold glass and thick falling snow beyond that. But rain, snow, sand storms, or heat, cattle had to be fed and taken care of, and the lady had said that if he wanted to buy her ranch, he’d have to take good care of it for the next three weeks. She’d be home the day before Christmas to see if he qualified as a buyer. If she liked what he’d done, she’d sell. If she didn’t, he’d only wasted three weeks.
Her words, not his!
It was December so he didn’t expect eighty-degree weather, but he sure hadn’t figured on eight inches of snow coming down in blizzard-strength wind either, and that’s what the weatherman predicted. Two inches of snow or sleet crippled folks in Texas as much as two feet so they’d be a while digging out from under eight inches for sure. At least he wouldn’t have to contend with the granddaughter. No way could she get into the canyon in a storm like this. She could just hole up in her fancy hotel in Denver where the gallery showing was for her paintings. La-tee-da, as Granny Riley used to say about all things rich and famous.
The stipulation for the sale was that Sage Presley could live on the ranch as long as she wanted. Well, Creed could live with the painter in her own house on the back forty of the Rockin’ C to get the ranch for the price Ada Presley quoted. She could play with her finger paints and take them up to Denver and Cheyenne every year. Their paths might cross once in a while and he’d tip his hat to her respectfully. He’d never heard of her, but that didn’t mean much. In Creed’s world a velvet Elvis was art and pictures torn out of coloring books held up with magnets graced the front of his mother’s refrigerator.
Creed didn’t care what Sage did for a living or what she looked like as long as she stayed out of his way. Miz Ada had said that he’d best be prepared for a shit storm as well as the big blizzard because Sage did not want her to sell the ranch. At least the storm had kept her away from the canyon, and by the time she could get to the ranch she would be cooled down.
He made it to the bathroom, illuminated only by the fire in the open-face wall heater, and then down the hall way and halfway across the living room before he stumped his toe on the rung of a rocking chair.
“Shit!” he muttered.
His coveralls, face mask, and hat were hanging on a rack beside the back door, and his boots waited on a rug right underneath them. He zipped the mustard-colored canvas coveralls all the way to his neck, pulled the face mask over his head, and pushed the bottom behind the collar of the coveralls. Then he stomped his feet down into his work boots and crammed an old felt hat down on his head. It was a tight fit with the knitted mask, but a cowboy didn’t even go to do chores without his hat.
He leaned into the whirling wind on the way to the barn located only a football field’s length from the house. He’d run that far lots of times when he was quarterback of the Gold-Burg football team and never even thought about it. But battling against the driving snow sucked the air out of his lungs and by the time he reached the barn he was panting worse than if he’d run a fifty-yard touchdown. The barn door slid on metal rails and they were frozen. At first he thought muscles, force, and cussing wasn’t going to do the trick, but finally he was able to open it up enough to wedge his body through.
The air inside wasn’t any warmer, but at least it didn’t sound like a freight train barreling down the sides of the canyon. He shook off a flurry of white powder, grabbed his gloves from the bale of hay where he’d left them the night before, and pulled them on.
“Won’t make that stupid mistake again,” he said.
He hiked a hip onto the seat of the smaller of two tractors and planted a long spike implement into a round bale of hay and drove it up close to the double doors at the back of the barn. He got off the seat, opened the doors, and ran back to get the hay out before the cows came inside. They had crowded up under the lean-to roof and eaten the last of the bale he’d put out the morning before. It took a lot of hay to keep them from losing weight in the winter. He just hoped he’d hauled enough big round bales from the pasture into the barn to make it through the storm.
The feeding job that should have been done in half an hour took twice that long. The two breeder sows holed up in the hog house were so cold that they barely grunted when he poured a bucket of food in their trough. One rooster was brave enough to come out of the hen house and crow his disapproval before he hurried back inside. When Creed finished feeding, it was time to milk the cow. Glad to be back inside the dry barn, he filled a bucket with grain and gave it to the cow. While she got started on her breakfast, he fetched a three-legged milking stool and a clean bucket from the tack room. His hands were freezing, but he couldn’t milk with gloves.
“Sorry about the cold hands, old girl,” he apologized to the cow before he started.
When he’d finished that job he headed toward the house. Steam rose up from the top of the warm milk, but it didn’t do much to melt the snow coming down even harder than it had been.
“And it’s not letting up for three days!” he mumbled.
When he opened the back door into the kitchen, a scraggly mutt raced in ahead of him. Ada hadn’t mentioned a dog and he hadn’t seen the animal before, but there he was, ugly as sin, shaking snow all over the kitchen floor.
***
Sage was an early riser so sleeping until eight o’clock had given her a stinging headache. She grabbed her forehead and snuggled back into the covers, but the pain didn’t go away. She needed a handful of aspirin and a cup of strong black coffee. She seldom won a fight with Grand when they were playing on an even field. A blasted headache would give her grandmother a real advantage. She jerked on a Christmas sweatshirt printed with Tweety Bird all tangled up in a strand of lights on the front and pulled on a pair of gray sweat bottoms. She finished off the outfit with fluffy red socks from her dresser drawer.
Grand hadn’t even stopped long enough to get a fire going. That could wait. Coffee came before warmth. Sage passed the fireplace and went straight to the kitchen. She filled the electric coffee maker, added a filter and two scoops of coffee, and flipped the switch.
“Well, shit!” she exclaimed.
Old habits sure died hard. If the lights wouldn’t work, neither would the electric coffeepot. And that left out the washing machine, the clothes dryer, and the electric churn to make butter, too.
The fact that the electricity was out wasn’t anything new in Palo Duro Canyon. If the wind blew too hard, and it did real often in the winter, the electricity went out. Grand said that if someone sneezed too loud up in Silverton or in Claude that it went out, so no electricity in a blizzard was no big surprise. That’s why they heated the house as much as possible with the fireplace and cooked with propane.
Sage opened a cabinet door and removed the old Pyrex percolator, filled it with water, put a filter in the basket, added coffee, and set it on the back burner of the stove. She wasn’t as good as Grand about knowing just how long it needed to perk, but it would be coffee in a few minutes even if it might taste like mud from the cow lot.
She found the aspirin bottle to the left of the sink and swallowed four with half a glass of orange juice. While the coffee perked, she chose several good-sized logs from beside the fireplace and got a big fire going.
“Bless Grand’s heart for bringing in wood to dry,” she said.
She sat down in one of the two rocking chairs pulled up to the fireplace and warmed her hands by the heat. And a sudden pang of guilt twisted its way around her heart. Grand was out doing chores in this godforsaken weather and she was lollygagging around getting warm. She dug her cell phone out of her coat pocket and punched in the speed dial for her grandmother to see what she could do to help and a message popped up immediately saying there was no service available.
Of course there was no service. Damn storm, anyway!
At least Grand would come inside to a good fire to warm her cold feet by and a pot of coffee all perked and ready. Poor old girl would be miserable cold and she hadn’t even had one cup of coffee yet. It was going to be a long morning for sure.
At seventy she had no business out in weather like this without any help. If Sage knew exactly where she was in the process, she would suit up and go help. But those pesky hogs wouldn’t tell her they’d already been fed or the chickens, either and starting an argument with Grand already pissed because Sage had wasted chicken scratch or hog feed wasn’t the smartest thing.
The living room soon warmed and the smell of coffee filled the house. Maybe she should whip up some pancakes for breakfast. Grand loved them and that would sweeten her up to see Sage’s point of view. She had just set the mixing bowl on the cabinet when the back door swung open.
“It’s about time you came in from the cold,” she said as she turned.
Her hand flew up to her pounding heart and she backed up against the cabinet.
The abominable snowman pushed his way into the house behind something that was either the ugliest dog on the face of the earth or an alien from a faraway planet. The huge thing set a galvanized bucket of milk on the table and a basket of eggs right beside it before he stomped his feet on the rug under the coatrack. The dog stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor and shook from shoulder to tail, sending even more snow flying everywhere in her kitchen. When it melted there would be water everywhere and her socks would be soaked.
“Who the hell are you? Get out of here and take that miserable mutt with you,” Sage said.
Creed removed his old felt cowboy hat and pulled off the face mask. His nose was scarlet and his dark eyelashes dusted with snowflakes. And of all the crazy things, there was a spring of mistletoe stuck in the snow on his shoulder as if it had grown there.
“I’m Creed Riley, ma’am, and I reckon if you want to throw your dog out in the snow that’s your business, but I’m not that mean or cruel to animals. And I’m here to stay since I’m the cowboy who bought this ranch. I guess you’d be Sage Presley. I didn’t think you’d make it home in this blizzard. I heard the roads were closed off.”
He was well over six feet tall because Sage had to look up to him. His brown hair was a bit too long, and his mossy green eyes were rimmed with black lashes topped with heavy dark brows. His deep voice held a definite Texas drawl.
She backed up to the cabinet and braced herself against it. “Where is Grand? Is she behind you?”
“No, left a day early since the storm was coming in. I expect she’s in Pennsylvania by now where it’s fifty degrees and sunshiny today. Crazy, ain’t it? We get a blizzard and the east coast is downright pleasant. At least it was yesterday when she called to tell me that she’d made it fine and to tell you so when you got home. Guess her cell phone’s battery was dead and her sister didn’t have one so she called on a pay phone from the airport.”
Sage rolled her eyes. “You have got to be kiddin’ me!”
“No, ma’am! That’s the truth and that’s really not my dog. I’m bringing my two huntin’ dogs out here soon as we make this sale legal, but this old boy just appeared out of nowhere this morning and rushed right in with me. I figured he belonged on the property. He wasn’t none too pretty when he was covered in snow, but it was covering a multitude of ugly, wasn’t it?”
Sage crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
He ignored her and started peeling away layers of clothing, taking the time to hang them on a coatrack just inside the back door. He didn’t stop until he was down to jeans, socks, and a red and black flannel shirt.
What have you done, Grand? she thought.
The blizzard would end. The sun would come out and melt the snow. Electricity would be restored along with power lines and cell phone coverage. And Sage could have talked her out of the sale a hell of a lot easier face to face than over the telephone—if they ever got service back in the canyon.
This was Sage’s home and it wasn’t supposed to be sold to some rank stranger, even if his green eyes were sexy as hell with snow hanging on the lashes like that fake stuff out of a can that she and Grand sprayed on the windows when she was a little girl.
“Coffee smells good. Reckon it’s about ready?” he asked. “Thank goodness for a full propane tank. Miz Ada told me that she has a standing order with the propane company out of Claude. And you can wipe that mean look off your face, lady. We’re stuck here together until this ends. I’m not real happy about being holed up with you either, but it’s the way it is and we might as well make the best of it.”
Her eyes narrowed and her brow wrinkled.
You want your face to freeze with that nasty look on it? Her grandmother’s words came back to haunt her.
“Number one, Mr. Riley, you don’t tell me how to look or what to do. Number two, Mr. Riley, Grand won’t ever sell you this place, so don’t get too comfortable.”
“Rule number one, lady, I speak my mind, so get used to it. Rule number two, I’m settling in and getting comfortable because I think she will sell the ranch to me. The deed will say that you get to live on the ranch as long as you want when the sale is sealed, signed, and finished. And back to rule number one, darlin’, if you want your face to freeze like that, then just hold on to that nasty look,” Creed said.
Her face softened, but she wasn’t ready to smile and welcome the damn cowboy. Not yet, probably not ever.
“She wasn’t supposed to leave until today.”
Maybe the blizzard was a blessing. He’d see right quick that life in the canyon was too hard and he’d be ready to get the hell out of the place as soon as he could. Sage didn’t mind doing chores. She hated milking a cow, but she could do that too if the cowboy would ride on out of the canyon as soon as the roads were cleared. Hell, she’d call a helicopter and pay the bill out of her own money if he wanted to get out of the canyon before the snowplow arrived.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asked.
“Whatever you can scrounge up. I didn’t take you to raise,” she said shortly.
He smiled down at her. “Miz Ada said you’d be a handful and you’d come in here mad as a wet hen after a tornado. She was dead on, but darlin’, I am buyin’ this place. You are welcome to live on it. We can be friends, barely acquaintances, or enemies. Your choice and you don’t even have to make it today. But it’s going to be a long three weeks until she comes back and in this storm we’ve got no one but each other, so it can be pleasant or pretty damn miserable. Remember as you drink your coffee that this house ain’t very big and we are stuck in it together.”
The arrogance of the man!
He went on. “She left because of the storm and because her sister needs her, not because she was a bit afraid of you. That woman gave me the impression that she could face down the devil and own half of hell before the fight was over. You wouldn’t pose much problem.”
“You got her right, but you got me all wrong. I’m every bit as mean as she is. She raised me,” Sage said.
Creed wiped the snow from his cheeks as it melted from his lashes. “I like my eggs scrambled.”
“I like mine easy over.”
Creed raised an eyebrow. “Who’s cookin’?”
“Not me,” she told him. She wasn’t about to start cooking for him or feeding that dog he’d brought in either.
The ugly mutt looked from one of them to the other. Finally, he ambled toward the fireplace where he curled up in a ball, covered his nose with his paw, and shut his eyes.
Creed brushed past Sage and poured two cups of coffee. He set hers on the table beside the bucket of milk and leaned against the kitchen side of the bar separating the two rooms.
“You going to strain that and put it in the refrigerator or am I?”
“I’ll do it. You probably wouldn’t do it right anyway.”
It wasn’t his ranch or his cows or his milk. She’d wear Grand down with the sheer volume of her arguments even if she had to whine and pout. Like she had said, he probably wouldn’t do the job right anyway.
She went to the huge walk-in pantry, then picked up a gallon jar and a piece of clean cheesecloth. She put the cloth on top of the jar, made an indention in the top with her fist, and deftly wrapped a rubber band around the edge of the jar. Then she carefully poured the milk through the cloth and into the jar.
When the job was finished she removed the cloth, tossed it into the empty milk bucket, and set the bucket in the kitchen sink. She squirted dish soap into the bucket and ran warm water in it, washed out the cheesecloth, hung it on the dish drainer, and turned the bucket upside down in the drainer.
“You don’t waste time or motions. That’s good,” he said.
Sage picked up her coffee and carried it to the living room where she curled up in the rocking chair. Creed followed her and she did her dead level best to ignore him. He had no right to be sitting in Grand’s rocking chair with his long legs pushed toward the fire that she’d built.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Carolyn Brown brings her 100% unique and authentic voice to this heartwarming tale of the magic of Christmas.

Sage Presley’s Western paintings are in big demand. She should be at her gallery’s holiday show, but she has to race back to Palo Duro Canyon in a desperate effort to prevent her grandmother from selling her ranch. How could Grand give up their home? Even though she doesn’t spend much time there these days, Sage can’t imagine the rest of her life without roots.

Sage arrives at the ranch to find Creed Riley in residence, while Grand has gone off to visit her sister, planning to return on Christmas Eve to sign the sale papers. Creed’s a seasoned rancher, and he’s ready to take over. The fact that he’s so attractive only irritates Sage more. Sure, easy for him to persuade Grand to give up her home. Sage is devastated, and to make things worse, she’s now stuck at the ranch with a blizzard closing in, no electricity, and a stranger taking up space.

Sage paints when she is angry. She paints when she is sad. She paints when she is blah… so while the storm rages outside, she spends her days in front of her easel. She feels more alone than ever before in her life, but the warmth and joy she’s painting cheer her up more and more. As the house fills up with stray animals fleeing the blizzard, and Creed proves himself to Sage over and over again, the future begins to brighten for both of them.

This heartwarming romantic Christmas story from Carolyn Brown proves that even the most unexpected situation can prove to be a true gift.

Originally published as Mistletoe Cowboy

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Meet the Author:

Carolyn Brown is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publisher’s Weekly and #1 Amazon and #1 Washington Post bestselling author and a RITA finalist. She is the author of more than 100 novels and several novellas. She’s a recipient of the Bookseller’s Best Award, and the prestigious Montlake Diamond Award, and, also a three-time recipient of the National Reader’s Choice Award. Brown has been published for more than 20 years, and her books have been translated 19 foreign languages.
When she’s not writing, she likes to plot new stories in her backyard with her tom cat, Boots Randolph Terminator Outlaw, who protects the yard from all kinds of wicked varmints like crickets, locusts, and spiders. Visit her at www.carolynbrownbooks.com.
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