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and famous—especially when the billionaire in question wanted nothing more than to buy the family business. She couldn’t let that happen. It would kill her dad.
    The diesel thunder of a tow truck engine announced Hud’s arrival. Peeking out of the window, she spotted Fix ‘Er Up’s owner getting out of the truck armed with a rarely-used snow blower and wearing a bright red baseball cap adorned with the Salvation Devils high school football team logo.
    “Looks like your ride’s here.” She nodded toward the window.
    Gabe kept his blue eyes focused only on her. “I’d like to do this again some time.”
    Bittersweet didn’t begin to cover it. This whole situation was as shitty as a crap car held together with Duct tape. But that didn’t change anything. So instead of shoving the tall drink of Hottie McAbs into her bedroom so they could finish what they’d started last night, she smirked. Nothing covered up disappointment like distance and distain.
    “You want to almost freeze to death in a freak snow storm in an area where the first flake sends folks to the grocery store for all the bottled water and canned goods on the shelves?”
    “No.” He settled his hands on her shoulders and turned her until she faced him head-on, sending frissons of awareness crackling across her skin. “I want to see you again.”
    It was too much, too soon with the totally wrong guy. “I don’t think so.”
    “Why?”
    Because she’d been down the bad boy path before, and it had ended with her returning a bazillion unopened wedding gifts and explaining to her family why their perfect almost son-in-law wasn’t perfect for her. But she wasn’t about to hang her dirty laundry on the line for him to see.
    She back-stepped out of his grasp. “My life just got really complicated, and I don’t have time for a meaningless fling with someone obsessed with buying my family’s business, which, by the way, we do not want to sell.”
    “Ouch.” His lips disappeared into a straight line hidden by his mustache and beard.
    He rubbed the short hairs, and she could almost feel the scratch of his beard against the curve of her shoulder. Her nipples hardened at the flashback, and she fisted her hands tight enough that her nails bit into her palms. Time to nip this shit in the bud before her resolve drowned a slow death in his blue eyes.
    “Sorry, that came out rougher than it should have, but I know all about you and your reputation.” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “I’ve read the papers, seen you on TV. You’re not someone I’m interested in.”
    His body stiffened. “That didn’t seem to be the case last night.”
    Her palms turned clammy, and her stomach did that floaty, shimmy thing again. Refusing to let on, she shrugged her shoulders and angled her chin higher. “Guess we’ll just have to chalk that up to the smexy elves’ bad influence.”
    “Too bad.” He set his cup down on the table with enough force to make her wince. “You might have found there’s more to me than what the tabloids report.”
    Which was exactly what she didn’t want to discover.
    Her office at Jacobs Fine Furnishings would have been the safe haven she desperately needed if discovering a financial bloodbath on par with the grossest slasher movie ever was her idea of utter relaxation.
    With each number in the company financials, her ulcer expanded. By the time she closed the folder holding the report, she could buy a tanker truck load of Maalox and it wouldn’t be enough to sooth the burn. She pushed the folder across the cheerful, yellow desk, needing it physically away since she couldn’t escape the bad news.
    Unless she stayed, the family business was going under. Soon.
    That would kill her dad. He’d built it up from nothing, starting with a workshop in an old barn on the family farm. Besides their family, the business was all Dell Jacobs cared about.
    She glanced up at her dad as he sat in the teal blue, straight chair, searching his