Snowbound - Harlequin.com

JANICE KAY JOHNSON
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picked partners and rooms. Fortunately two of the
rooms each had a pair of queen beds, so the three boys
went in one of those and three of the girls in the other.
Another pair of girls shared a room and Fiona claimed
the first room at the head of the stairs.
John went in with her to help her make up the bed.
Setting the armful of linens on a chair, she looked
around with approval.
“Dieter told me the lodge was really nice. This is
lovely.”
He’d bought the place as-is, but it was in good
shape. Her room was typical: polished plank floors
with a rag rug to add warmth, a bed built of peeled
Ponderosa pine and covered with a puffy duvet,
antique pine dresser with a mirror that showed a
wavery reflection. The artwork varied from room to
room, giving each character. She was in the one he privately
thought of as the Rose Room, with cottagestyle
paintings in which roses smothered fences and
arbors and tangled in old-fashioned hedgerows. He
tended to put women in here.
With quick, efficient movements, he and Fiona made
up her bed with snow-white sheets and duvet cover.
When they’d finished, she looked at him over the bed.
“I don’t think you told me your name.”
“Fallon. John Fallon.”
Her smile was a thing of beauty, somehow merry and
so warm he had the sudden illusion of not needing the
fire downstairs. “It’s nice to meet you, John Fallon.
You’re a kind man to try to hide how much you wish
we hadn’t shown up on your front porch.”