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“He should be here soon. Brett Johnsson?”

“BrantJohnsson?”

Darcy snapped her fingers. “Yes, that’s right. I’d better fix that.” She gritted her teeth as she searched for a pen to rewrite his first name.

Layla turned away to hide her grimace.

Gah. Brant Johnsson.

The last time she saw him she hoped it was the last.

Granted, she’d only physically bumped into him once, but that was enough. He attended many of the big holiday fundraisers during the Christmas season since his clients were sponsors. Everyone put Brant Johnsson on their guest list because he was the kind of fun, charismatic guy you wanted at parties. His face was plastered all over the news too. His lights installation business, Light the Night, was responsible for practically all the displays on the buildings downtown now.

The company had grown so much that he was moving farther away from residential clients in favor of business contracts. She only learned that from the profile she read about him in theMinneapolis Star Tribunelast month. The photos showed him and his employees decorating the Midwest State Bank with their bucket truck and scaffolding. There was a big splashy photo of Brant hanging on a ladder with a tool belt around his waist, smiling down at the photographer like he was some dashing, light-stringing celebrity. Wearing his trademark denim shirt and dark, polypropylene pants, he looked ready to climb a mountain rather than hang Christmas lights. The photo clearly showed his personality: bold, daring—and she hated to admit it—too good-looking for his own good.

She took a deep breath. Their last meeting flashed through her memory, and it stung her all over again.

Still, she was a professional. If she ran into him during her stay, she’d act as if nothing happened. She’d come to Blueberry Point Lodge to decorate for a client, not relive the most humiliating incident of her career at the hands—er, lips—of Brant Johnsson.

Chapter Two

Light flurries.Yeah, right.

Brant Johnsson squinted through the windshield at the snow blowing sideways across the road. Beside him, Jeff sat quietly, an unusual state of being for his right-hand man. Brant counted on Jeff to be his comic relief when things got hairy. But here Jeff was, sitting as silent as stone. That was a sure sign that this surprise October snowstorm was a doozy.

As a lifelong Northerner, bad weather usually didn’t rattle Brant. He’d driven through a good share of blizzards. But it was near dark, and visibility was getting worse, and his tires should have been replaced before the first big snow; he just hadn’t had the time. He gripped the steering wheel tighter even though he’d been white-knuckling it since they’d left Dentsen.

“Are you doing okay?” Brant could use a little of Jeff’s lighthearted banter. He hadn’t uttered a peep since they stopped to de-ice the wipers in the last town. “I don’t think you’ve been this quiet since you fell off the ladder and got the wind knocked out of you.”

Jeff snorted. “I’m having flashbacks to when Sandy and I did a three-sixty on I-494 last year.”

“I remember you telling me about that. It sounded awful then, and I sure don’t want to think about it now.”

“I’ll be quiet then. I can’t think about anything else.”

Twenty minutes later, the lighted sign for Blueberry Point Lodge appeared before his turn. He almost missed it. The truck skidded for a few heart-stopping seconds until the tires grabbed the road. His grip eased on the wheel as Brant allowed himself to breathe again. As they turned into the gravel drive, he thanked the heavens they’d made it safely. If this snow was here to stay, his schedule would suffer.

Through the rivulets of melted snow streaming down his driver’s side window, he noticed Sean Stetman standing underneath the carport, hunched against the driving snow pellets. Brant shut off the engine. Beside him, Jeff let out a long, low whistle and unbuckled himself.

“You get a gold star for driving through that,” he said.

Brant shook his head. “I’d settle for a beer.”

Outside, the wind howled. The pellets stung his face. He squinted as he grabbed the bag from the back of the cab. Then he and Jeff hurried inside the inn as Sean held the door open for them.

“I was half expecting you to postpone,” Sean said, hunched over from the wind barreling straight into the house. “This storm took everyone by surprise.” He shut the door now that they stood inside the side entrance. Sean shuddered despite the quilted flannel he wore.

“If I wasn’t three-quarters of the way here already when it started, I might have.” Brant shook Sean’s hand then introduced Jeff.

“I hope this doesn’t affect your schedule too much,” Sean said. “Of course you can stay as long as you need to.”

They followed Sean into the main house and up the grand double-wide stairs. Sean showed Jeff to his respective room then led Brant down a second, more narrow set of stairs on their way to Brant’s cottage on the back lawn.

“These were the servants’ stairs from when the house was first built,” Sean explained over his shoulder. “It’s a shortcut to the kitchen. We use this more often than the big staircase.”

“I’m all for efficiency.” Brant ran his hand over the curved plastered wall. Overhead, he could see all the way to the third-floor landing. They didn’t make houses like this anymore.

“I put you in the closest cottage,” Sean said to Brant. “I hope that’s okay.”