Snow Crystal Trilogy: Sleigh Bells in the Snow / Suddenly Last Summer / Maybe This Christmas

‘Morgan’s brilliant talent never ceases to amaze.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Dear Ms Morgan, I’m always on the lookout for a new book by you…’

—Dear Author

‘Definitely looking forward to more from Sarah Morgan’

—Smexy Books

For my family, with love

Dear Reader (#ulink_968f5ff9-0313-524f-9f1b-5583804c2065),

Last Christmas my family and I decided to break with our usual holiday tradition. Instead of staying at home, we rented a log cabin in a forest near a lake. We spent our days crunching through fresh snow and our evenings curled up by a blazing log fire.

We took Christmas with us on that holiday (yes, even the turkey and don’t ever ask me about the tree…), but it occurred to me that it would be the perfect place to go if someone wanted to escape all the festivities.

There was plenty of time for dreaming and it was while I was curled up by that flickering fire watching big fat snowflakes drift past the window and trying to thaw my numb toes, that I came up with the idea for Sleigh Bells in the Snow.

My heroine Kayla hates Christmas and plans to avoid it altogether, so when she’s asked to spend a week in a log cabin in snowy Vermont as part of her job she couldn’t be happier. Jackson O’Neil is trying to save the family business, Snow Crystal Resort, and thinks public relations expert Kayla is the woman to help him.

She arrives at Snow Crystal expecting to escape Christmas, only to find herself sucked deep into the very thing she is trying to avoid. Family. And as if that isn’t bad enough, Kayla discovers Jackson doesn’t fit any of the traditional business stereotypes. Soon she’s chopping logs with Grandpa, baking with Grandma and trying not to fall in love.

Jackson has so many hero qualities. He is one of life’s tough guys—calm in a crisis, with shoulders broad enough to take whatever pressures come his way. Everyone leans on him. I fell in love with him right away. My heroine Kayla took a little longer, but life has taught her to be guarded.

Christmas is a time for giving, but the one thing Kayla cannot give is her heart. Or can she?

I hope you enjoy Kayla’s story and however you spend your time over the holidays, I wish you health and happiness.

Sarah

xx

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#ulink_8e3cb85b-b3fc-5084-bce2-abe825122c51)

First, a huge thank-you to my readers who continue to buy my books thereby giving me the opportunity to write more.

Special thanks to my brilliant and talented editor, Flo Nicoll, for her enthusiasm and insight. Working together on this book has been more fun than anyone has a right to expect from a job.

I’m grateful to my agent, Susan Ginsburg of Writers House, for her wise advice, and to the fantastic team at HQN and Harlequin UK for their support and hard work.

Without Kimberly Young and Lucy Gilmour I doubt my career would have reached this point. I owe them both a great deal.

Particular thanks to Dianne Moggy for her encouragement and for allowing me to use real-life Maple as fictional Maple in this story. All errors my own.

Love and thanks to Laura Reeth for her friendship, support and astute observations on life.

All writers need writer friends. I am fortunate to have more than I can mention here—you know who you are!—but I am particularly indebted to Carol Marinelli and Nicola Cornick.

Writers also need nonwriter friends. Love and thanks to Sue, who has been there through thick and thin and occasionally forces me to talk about real people as well as fictional ones.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful family. Love to my parents and also to my fantastic children for the hugs and laughs and for never complaining when I’m on a deadline and make them eat pizza.

Finally, love and thanks to my husband for proving that romance can happen outside the pages of a book. I am grateful to him for teaching me to ski and for patiently picking me up when I landed on my face, thus providing me with plenty of material for this story!

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_947d823b-f9be-5500-9717-2749f36614ae)

KAYLA GREEN CRANKED up the volume on her favorite playlist and blocked out the sound of festive music and laughter wafting under her closed office door.

Was she the only person who hated this time of year?

Surely there had to be someone out there who felt the way she did?

Someone who didn’t expect Christmas to be merry or bright?

Someone who knew mistletoe was poisonous?

She watched gloomily as soft snowflakes drifted lazily past the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that made up two sides of her spacious corner office. She hadn’t been dreaming of a white Christmas but it seemed she was getting one anyway.

Far below, the streets of Manhattan were jammed with tourists keen to enjoy the festive sights of New York in the holiday season. A giant spruce twinkled in front of the Rockefeller Centre, and the Hudson River glinted in the distance, a ribbon of silvery-gray shimmering in the winter light.

Turning her back on the snow, the tree and the glittering skyscrapers of Midtown, Kayla focused on her computer screen.

A moment later the door opened and Tony, her opposite number in Entertainment and Sports, appeared carrying two glasses of champagne.

She unhooked her headphones. “Who the hell is picking the music out there?”

“You don’t like the music?” The top button of his shirt was undone and the glitter in his eyes suggested this wasn’t his first glass of champagne. “Is that why you’re hiding in your office?”

“I’m searching for inner peace but I’d settle for outer peace so if you could close the door on your way out, that would be perfect.”

“Come on, Kayla. We’re celebrating our best year ever. It’s a British tradition to get drunk, sing terrible karaoke and flirt with your colleagues.”

“Who told you that?”

“I watched Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

“Right.” The music made her head throb. It was always the same at this time of year. The tight panicky feeling in her stomach. The ache in her chest that didn’t ease until December 26th. “Tony, did you want something? Because I’d like to keep working.”

“It’s our office party. You cannot work late tonight.”

As far as she was concerned it was the perfect night to work late.

“Have you seen A Christmas Carol? Or read the book?”

A glass of champagne appeared on the desk in front of her. “I’m guessing you’re not Tiny Tim in this scenario, so that makes you either Scrooge or one of the ghosts.”