VOLUME ONE - ONCE UPON A SNOW DAY

"He wants to meet!"

Isabelle Lawson dragged her attention back to the phone. She was trying to finish typing up the edit letter that had to go out by the end of the day. "Who wants to meet?"

"Haven't you been listening? Grant!" Impatience and excitement snapped in Leah's voice.

Isabelle flipped through her mental roster, but the only Grants she should think of were a copy editor she knew at Random House and the hero of a romantic suspense she'd sent out a revise-and-resubmit request on three months before.

I never did hear back about that, she thought and reached for a pen to make note to follow up. "Who the heck is Grant?"

"The doctor."

"Why do you need a doctor?" asked Isabelle, adding a notation to the manuscript on the screen for the author to clarify the heroine's motivation.

Leah made a frustrated noise that sounded like nothing so much as a rabid Chihuahua. "Honestly Isabelle, can I get a moment of multi-task free attention here? I'm starting to think if it isn't about a character on a page or a deadline, you aren't aware of The World."

Given the extreme time crunch she'd been under for the last six months making certain that her new acquisitions were up to snuff and preparing for the release of not one, but two of her biggest debut authors yet, Isabelle decided that was an honest, if unflattering, observation. Guilt pinched, but publishing waited for no man, especially in the race to be the top digital press in the country.

"I'm sorry." Deliberately, she twirled in her chair until her back was to the laptop. "I swear, I'm paying attention now."

"Good. Some of us aren't content just reading about love. We want to actually get out there to find and experience it."

Isabelle let that gut shot sink in but didn't rise to the bait. "And Grant the doctor is...?"

"The guy I've been talking to on-line for the last three weeks."

I should have known, she thought.

Several months before, Leah had taken the plunge and signed up for on-line dating. She'd tried to drag Isabelle in with her, but Isabelle decidedly did not have time to waste on such things. Her career was rocketing, and she was well on her way to being exactly where she wanted to be. There'd be time enough for a man in her life somewhere down the road. Along with a hypothetical week at a spa and a two month vacation.

Chastising herself as a bad friend, she struggled to fully plug in to the conversation. "That's great!" Isn't it?

"He wants to go skiing."

"You kick ass at skiing, and it'll give you an opportunity to show off your curves in one of those little ski bunny outfits you like so much."

"Yes but..."

"But what? Have you gotten a creeper vibe?"

"No, not at all. He's been a total gentleman in all our chats and on the phone. But the alpaca guy was a gentleman until we met," said Leah.

Isabelle remembered the alpaca guy. He'd showed up for his first date with Leah bearing a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, a whip, and, as it turned out, the full expectation that Leah would be petting something other than his animals.

"If you meet him in public and take your own car, then you maintain control and your escape route should it become necessary," she said.

"I want you to come with me."

"On your date? Somehow I doubt Grant would be particularly enthused about that prospect."

"Not, like, on the date. As a covert observer so I can get your take on him. You know I value your opinion."

Paint it on thick, Isabelle thought.

"Besides," Leah continued, "if you come and you meet him, then he'll know there's a witness, and you have a face and a name to report to the police if I disappear."

"Oh, for the love of - " Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Not that I'm necessarily agreeing to this, but when is this rendezvous supposed to occur?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! Leah, I can't just go haring off on a work day to play chaperon so you and the skiing doctor can have a snow day. I have deadlines!"

"First, there is no such thing as a non-work day for you. Second, you always have deadlines. Third, you could totally use a snow day."

"I have not had a snow day since college."

"The fact that you say that like it's a point of pride is a sad, sad thing," said Leah. "There's more to life than work, Izzy."

"Some of us actually love our jobs," she protested.

"When was the last time you looked out a window?"

"I'm looking out a window right now." Isabelle rose from her chair and pulled back the curtain so she wouldn't be a liar. "It looks white and wet and cold. Exactly as it has since October." Five years in Colorado and she still hadn't gotten used to the fact that winter meant actual snow for months on end. If not for the summers, she thought.

"Fresh air and some sun, that's what you need," Leah declared. "You can't possibly be getting enough vitamin D the way you hole up in your office, day in and day out."

"I love how this whole thing has become a favor to me. I am wise to your ways, my girl."

Leah huffed out a breath. "Fine. I didn't want to do this, but you leave me no choice. I'm calling in my marker from Vegas."

The breath Isabelle had taken wheezed out. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. You owe me."

"You've been sitting on that for seven years. I thought we'd agreed never to talk about it, ever again." The mere suggestion of those events had a headache brewing somewhere behind her eyes. Or maybe that was the fact that she'd been chained to her laptop since 6:30 this morning.

"I'm not talking about it. I'm just calling in the IOU."

"You really want to waste it on this?" asked Isabelle. "I mean, what if you need to murder your boss and hide the body?"

"I'll risk it," said Leah. "Tomorrow. I'll pick you up at seven. You'll come with me to the slopes, meet Grant. Once we're both assured that he's not an axe murderer, you can take my car and go home to your meetings and manuscripts. You'll probably only lose out on a couple of hours of work, tops."

Isabelle sighed. "I'll see you at seven."