Dad's E-mail Order Bride. Candy Halliday

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СКАЧАТЬ to any male as hot—wickedly or otherwise—always made Graham cringe. Graham prayed Rachel would stay away from guys like Gil who liked to kiss and tell before moving on to the next woman.

      “You’re looking good, Graham,” Gil said as he bent down to secure the plane’s tie lead to the dock. He straightened with a menacing smirk on his face. “In fact, you don’t look a day over forty.”

      “Don’t push it, Gil,” Graham warned. “I won’t turn forty until tomorrow. I’m holding on to thirty-nine as long as I can.”

      “Well, I brought you one hell of a birthday present,” Gil said, “that’s for sure.”

      “Yeah?” Graham assumed Gil was referring to the log splitter he’d finally decided to buy rather than continue splitting wood the hard way. This birthday served to remind him he wasn’t getting any younger. So he’d circled the splitter in the outdoorsman catalog, and he’d left his credit card in plain view for his daughter’s benefit.

      Rachel had obviously taken the hint and made the purchase on the Internet the way they did their big-item shopping. Her last words before she left for school were to remind him to stay near the lodge so he wouldn’t miss Gil when the plane landed with his birthday present.

      “Need any help?” Graham quizzed, offering to assist Gil in unloading.

      Gil laughed. “No, but you probably will.”

      Graham was puzzled by his answer. And he was even more confused when Gil walked back to the plane and opened the passenger side door. There were no fishing parties scheduled for the weekend—a promise he’d made to Rachel—even though May was a peak month for salmon.

      Whether Graham liked it or not, his daughter was throwing him a big party on Saturday. And Rachel had been so proud of herself for making the arrangements he hadn’t had the heart to disappoint her.

      But what the…?

      A tall blonde stepped from the plane.

      Skintight jeans tucked into high-heeled boots.

      Legs that went on forever.

      Gil winked at Graham when he reached for her hand. And Graham went from confused to downright stunned. She could have been a model on the cover of a fashion magazine. And now she was walking in his direction.

      Graham didn’t say a word when she came to a stop in front of him. Her high heels brought them almost nose-to-nose, and her eyes were as blue as the fur-trimmed parka she was wearing.

      She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips.

      Graham was tempted to kiss her again.

      Until she said, “Happy. Birthday. Graham.”

      Her words were so stilted and robotic Graham took a quick step backward. And when he looked past her, Gil was standing at the rear of the plane grinning from ear to ear.

      Just last month Gil had told him about a Russian hooker he’d met in Nome who could barely speak English. And he’d bragged he could fix Graham up with her on a moment’s notice.

      So the joke was on him.

      Gil had paid the hooker to kiss him for his birthday.

      Graham was prepared to be a good sport and laugh the whole thing off—until Gil unloaded two matching pink suitcases and placed them on the dock.

      “Hey!” Graham called out in a panic and hurried in Gil’s direction.

      It would be just like Gil to take the joke too far—to pay the blonde to give him more than just a birthday kiss. But damn! Had Gil forgotten there was an impressionable teenage daughter to consider?

      Graham made it to the plane just as Gil was reaching out to close the cargo bay door. He grabbed Gil by the arm to keep that from happening.

      “Okay, Gil, the joke’s over,” Graham told him. “You seem to have forgotten I have a daughter. So pick up the luggage, get your friend back into the plane and—”

      “Whoa!” Gil said, jerking his arm away. “She isn’t any friend of mine. I’ve never seen her before.”

      “This isn’t funny,” Graham warned.

      Gil looked past him for a second. “Your guest doesn’t seem to think this is funny, either.”

      Graham glanced over his shoulder.

      The frown on her face sent a shiver up his spine.

      “Wait right here,” he told Gill.

      Gil shook his head. “No way. I have a hot date with a redhead in Ketchikan tonight and I’m already behind schedule. The blonde is your problem. I’ll be back to pick her up on Monday when I drop off your guests for next week.”

      Graham took a threatening step forward. “Don’t be a wiseass, Gil. I have no idea who this woman is. And she certainly can’t stay here all weekend.”

      Gil peered around him again. “Don’t you be a dumb ass, Graham. Whoever she is, she’s a knockout, man. And you’ve got a big lodge with a bunch of empty rooms for her to choose from. If you don’t know her, get to know her. That’s what I’d do.”

      “I’m not you,” Graham said between clenched teeth.

      “Your loss,” Gil said and bent down to unfasten the tie lead.

      “I mean it, Gil,” Graham said. “Don’t you leave this dock until I get this straightened out.”

      Graham turned and walked in the blonde’s direction. He was midway to where she stood when the sound of the noisy engine coming back to life jerked Graham’s head around.

      “Dammit, Gil!”

      Gil’s reply was a final salute before he sped across the cove. Two seconds later the only chance Graham had of his birthday present leaving before Monday lifted into the air. Two seconds more and the plane flew around the cove and disappeared out of sight.

      Graham looked over his shoulder again. Now she had her hands on her hips. And she didn’t look one bit happy.

      That made two of them.

      WHEN THE FLOATPLANE left without her, the first thought that crossed Courtney Woods’s mind was to jump off the dock and start swimming to the mainland. And she might have done just that had she not been so upset with the man walking up the dock in her direction.

      She obviously didn’t measure up to Graham Morrison’s standards. She’d seen the shocked look on his face the second she stepped off the plane.

      But did she really look so different in person than she did in her pictures? Or was Graham one of those guys who only got into the fantasy part of an online relationship? Now that she was actually standing on his dock in the flesh, all of the interest was gone.

      But why send her the airplane ticket?

      Why invite her to his birthday party tomorrow?

      Why СКАЧАТЬ