Gingerbread Christmas at Mustang River

Chef Laney Forrester has agreed to co-chair the charity Christmas displays at Painted Ridge Resort and build a gingerbread replica of the resort for the lobby.

With the holiday closing in, her skill at the stove cannot hide the fact that she is no pastry chef, and the showpiece is sliding toward disaster.

Ranch hand Pike Malone, once executive pastry chef at a luxury Wyoming resort, offers to help her after hours if she will give his twenty-two-year-old daughter, Chloe, a chance to train in the Painted Ridge kitchen.

Laney is glad to say yes; the chemistry between them has been sharp from the start, and after love cost her livelihood, home, and heart, a holiday fling feels like enough.

Pike’s charm covers a harder past: an injury ended his career, and the spiral that followed cost him his marriage and his relationship with Chloe.

He came to Mustang River to rebuild what he lost, and he cannot afford another mistake.