Page 21 of Jasper

“You keep your Halloween traditions, and I’ll keep my Christmas traditions, which includes round-the-clock Hallmark Channel starting the day after Thanksgiving.”

Dear God.

Hallmark.

Twenty-four-seven.

He wasn’t going to survive.

“Did you find the bedding while you were drowning in Christmas decorations?”

“Yes, the first load is washing now. If you’ll help me drag this stuff downstairs, I can start sorting it.”

Jasper looked around at all the stuff cluttering the attic floor and sighed. How had he landed in Christmas Hell?

“Sure, sweetheart. Just show me what you want to go downstairs.”

“All of it.”

Of course.

He started transferring decorations downstairs while she changed the wash and checked on the food. He could smell it every time he walked by the kitchen. His stomach rumbled. Jasper usually ate and snacked all day, but all he’d had today was a donut and some coffee. He’d been concerned about getting back before the storm hit.

“Hey, I think I got everything downstairs. I need to install the generator and then get the animals fed.”

“Isn’t it a little early?” Sloane glanced at her watch. It was barely noon.

“I’m not feeding them right this minute.” Jasper walked into the kitchen and over to where she stood by the crock pot. “Smells good.”

“I figured we had a lot to do, and cooking supper shouldn’t be one more thing to worry about. Best part of crock pots is how simple they are.”

“True.” He leaned closer and took a healthy sniff.

Sloane moved away from him. He was too tempting. And he smelled good. Most men she knew used cologne daily, and while it might smell nice, it always seemed a little chemically. Not so with Jasper. She doubted he had on cologne, or even aftershave, for that matter. It was his natural scent, and if she let herself, she’d get lost in it.

“Do I make you nervous, sweetheart?” He gave her a grin worthy of a romance novel. God, but he was sexy as hell.

“You do,” she admitted. Might as well be honest with him.

“Why’s that?” His eyes twinkled with merriment.

“For a lot of reasons, but the biggest one right now is that you look ready to eat that entire pot of roast, and I’m hungry too.”

He threw his head back and laughed, and she started cutting up vegetables. His laugh was even drool-worthy. It wasn’t fair, really. Not now when she was running for her life. Why would Fate throw this gorgeous man in her path when she had no time for him?

It just wasn’t fair.

“The weather said the storm is really building.” That stopped his laughter. Storms in the north were no joke. She’d been up here one Christmas with her mom, and they’d gotten a foot of snow. Her mother had been afraid she wouldn’t get back to Florida before Sloane’s school started back. Not that Sloane minded. A few extra days of Christmas vacation had been fine by her.

“What time is it supposed to roll in?”

“Sometime this afternoon.”

“Well, I’d best get that generator installed and fix the fence that’s down before it does.” He swiped a donut and shoved it in his mouth on the way out of the kitchen.

The man was going to go into diabetic shock before the week was out.

Sloane finished the vegetables and added them to the crock pot. The wash needed changing again, and she did that. Then she started in on the Christmas decorations.

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