Shattered Ice

Katherine Wallace’s future was frozen in perfection, spending her life safely working for her family’s New York law firm. But when her father fires her and shatters her placidity, she runs back to the last place she was truly happy—the ski slopes of Colorado. 

Gabe Gallegos planned to spend his career in the military. But when that plan blew up—literally—he had to find a new mission. Renovating his late uncle’s ski lodge seemed like the perfect solution. Except he’s never managed a bed and breakfast, he can’t cook, and his first guest is completely infuriating—a total ice queen—and sexy as hell.

Gabe’s partially-renovated lodge is a dumpster fire, and Katherine is one click away from flying home to New York. But an accident and a website snafu force them to remain together in extremely close quarters.

Can Katherine find love with a younger man who lives thousands of miles from where she’s supposed to be?

Should Gabe fight for a woman who’s likely to freeze him out?

As passion thaws the ice, they have to decide if there’s enough trust to build a future together.

Book 3 in the Melting Hearts Series

Tropes

Reverse age gap, wounded warrior, opposites attract, found family, redemption

Excerpt of Shattered Ice

Katherine

“Here you are.” Gabe held the door open, and Katherine peered inside.

“Oh.” Katherine clamped her mouth shut on the single syllable of despair. The room was institutional white, and a lingering fresh-paint smell hung in the air. A drab woven rug covered the wood floors, anchored in place by a queen bed made of knotty pine. The only spot of color was a time-worn quilt and the red numbers illuminating the clock on the knotty-pine nightstand. A single wrought-iron lamp shared the surface.

“My buddy and his wife stayed here and helped me get the room ready. Said the bed is super comfortable.”

“I assume you changed the sheets.” Shit. Katherine wished the words had remained unsaid.

Gabe crossed his arms. “I follow all standard hospitality sanitation protocols, I assure you.”

She’d pissed him off but had been far too tired to refrain from blurting the first thing that had come to mind. Fortunately, he wouldn’t be mad when she checked out early. She stepped inside, and a matching chest of drawers was revealed behind the door. She turned in a slow circle. The window was covered with a heavy faux-suede drape. At least there wasn’t another dead animal glaring down at her. But something was missing. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Down the hall, next door on the right.”

Katherine closed her eyes. It had never occurred to her she needed to specify an en suite bath. Rustic indeed. In the morning, she would find a real room in a real resort with real staff and relocate.

***

Gabe

Gabe stopped himself from slamming his prosthetic down each stair. Abusing himself or breaking the damn thing, which cost a fortune, wouldn’t change the attitude of the ice queen who’d just taken occupancy of his only completed room. The problem with booking rooms over the internet was not knowing who you were renting to. Had he known a character from his niece’s favorite movie was going to roar into his life in a four-wheel-drive chariot, he’d have marked the room booked for the foreseeable future instead of spending a day—much less two weeks—with Jadis scowling at him in his own home. And the fact that she was gorgeous, smelled like lust, and everything below his brain wanted to spend all kinds of time with her pissed him off even more. Stupid eyeballs, stupid nose, stupid dick.

Talking her through the directions of the lodge, she’d seemed vulnerable and sexy, and he’d wondered what had brought her to Alabaster. There’d been a moment when he’d been guiding her, caring for her, listening to her throaty voice, that he’d imagined they might have a good couple of weeks together. And when she’d stepped out from around the car, all long legs and blond hair, his cock had twitched, speaking to him for the first time in far too long. But as soon as he’d approached, smiling in a way that showed off his dimple, his money smile, she’d recoiled. Hated him on sight. Rejected before he’d had a chance to disappoint her. It had taken everything he had, every rule his uncle had instilled in him about hospitality, to not tell her to get back in her car and keep driving.

Accolades for Shattered Ice

Semi-finalist in the Book Life Prize from Publishers Weekly

Winner of the National Excellence in Story Telling 2023

Finalist in the New Jersey Romance Writers' Golden Leaf Contest

Finalist in the Oklahoma Romance Writers Guild Heart Awards