Short and fun holiday story. Alice is a city girl from LA, but when her best friend decides to get married at a winery in Oklahoma, Alice arrives a week early to make sure everything goes smoothly. She doesn't expect to get stranded by a freak snowstorm. Desperate for a project, she decides neighboring rancher and fellow strandee Clay needs her services as a matchmaker. Clay isn't really interested in her matchmaking efforts, but if it gives him a chance to spend more time with her, he'll take it.

The sparks flew between Alice and Clay from the minute they met. Alice tries to resist - Clay is all wrong for her. She's LA, he's Oklahoma, and she'll only be there for a week. She knows long-distance relationships don't work. Then there are their opposite opinions on love. Alice believes that a successful match depends on shared interests and that chemistry doesn't last. Clay is of the firm belief that if there's no chemistry, there's no chance of anything else developing. I liked his chemistry challenge to her (which he won, of course) and how he uses it to spend more time with her. It doesn't take long for the sparks to burst into flame, and the heat between them is pretty intense. But it's more than just physical, and I enjoyed the time they spent together outside of the bedroom. The decorating scene was sweet, and I loved how easy it was for them to talk to each other.

The short fling turns into something deeper pretty quickly, and Clay can easily picture Alice in his life. The same pictures show up in Alice's head, but she has a bit of tunnel vision over her life in LA, so she continues to insist that anything further is impossible. I wanted to shake her when she walked away and felt that she earned every bit of her unhappiness. Clay was pretty miserable, too, until a kick in the pants talk from his friends made him see that he gave up too quickly. I loved Clay's big moment at the end, though his solution wasn't much of a surprise.

This was a nice setup for the new series. I look forward to reading more. ( )