A Cowboy For Christmas (A Copper Mountain Christmas) (11 page)

The back door opened with a blast of cold air and the sound of raised masculine
voices. Carson stopped as he saw her sitting at the table – and Alec, and then Lane slammed into his back.

“
What the hell’s your problem?” Lane asked.

Then he glanced over at her.
“Oh, hello. I’m Lane. We weren’t really properly introduced that night at the Diner and you were too many years ahead of me at school for us to know each other.”

“
I’m Annie,” she said, shaking Lane’s hand. He had a good hard grip and intense green eyes. He wore his hair cut short—military short, and he was an inch or two shorter than Carson and Alec. “Was that a polite way of saying I’m old?”

“
No ma’am,” he said with a wink.

She turned to Carson.
“Sorry I didn’t call first. Sienna let me stay.”

“
Of course I did. I needed some girl time. There’s too much testosterone when the Scotts all get together.”

“
What’s test-toast?” Evan asked.

“
Man stuff, kiddo,” Annie said.

“
Annie, can we talk in my office?” Carson asked.

“
That would suit me just fine,” she said.

“
Let me wash up first,” he said. He gave Evan a kiss on the head, stole two cookies and walked out of the kitchen followed by his brothers.

“
How come Uncle Carson got to eat a cookie that wasn’t broken?” JT asked.

“
Because it’s his house.”

“
Does that mean I can too?” Evan asked.

“
You both can, now that we have enough for tonight. Why don’t you go into the living room and play? I’ll bring some cookies and milk in for you,” Sienna said.

“
Yay!”

They both dashed out of the kitchen quickly.
Sienna turned to her. “You okay?”

“
Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked trying to be find the same courage she’d had when she’d driven over here earlier. But it was hard because now she had to put her faith in herself to the test and trust that when she’d realized she was in love with Carson she hadn’t been fooling herself.

“
Because you’re in love with a Scott. And they are difficult,” Sienna said.

“
I’m the difficult one,” Annie said. “I was all ready to talk to him and now that he’s here I’m sort of nervous all over again.”

“
Don’t be,” Sienna said. “Carson’s a good solid man and that’s one cowboy you don’t want to let slip away.”

Carson sat in the big leather chair behind the mahogany desk that his grandfather had given him the day he
’d graduated from college. It was solid and, as his grandfather had said, it was a serious piece of furniture for a solid sort of life. Carson had always known he’d make his life and his living here in Paradise Valley and it didn’t bother him in the least that he would never live farther than a few miles from the house he grew up in.

Thinking about the furniture kept him from giving too much meaning to the fact that Annie was here.
She was in his kitchen baking cookies with Evan and making like she wanted to be here.

Hell, for all he knew she was waiting to say goodbye to him.

Why was she here? He’d had a long, cold morning, added to the fact that he hadn’t slept worth a damn since that one night weeks ago when he’d stayed at her place.

He looked around the office that Evan had decorated with chains of popcorn and homemade reindeer antlers that he
’d cut out of construction paper. This wasn’t a sophisticated life, but it was his.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

The door opened slowly and Annie walked in with two steaming mugs in her hands.
Sienna closed the door after Annie. Annie stood there in the doorway for a split second and then took a few steps forward. She put the mugs on his desk.

“
Coffee. I remembered you like decaf,” she said.

“
And I remember you like yours very sweet,” he said.

“
We both have really good memories,” she said awkwardly standing there before sitting down on the padded ottoman that was in front of his desk.

“
Yes, we do,” he said, wanting her to be here to stay so badly that he had to clench his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her. And that made him mad. He’d never been a man to not reach out and take what he wanted. But with Annie, that kind of gesture would just spook her and make her run.

She reached up and tucked a stand of hair behind her ear and watched him for a moment,
then she took a deep breath.

“
I don’t know any other way to say this but to just get it out, and I’m scared because once I say it there’s not taking it back,” she said, on one long breath.

He almost smiled because in his heart this started to feel like she wasn
’t coming to say goodbye. And he was afraid to hope that she might have found her way to staying here in his valley with him.

“
Just say it.”

“
I don’t want to leave Montana. I was afraid that I wanted to stay because of you, but then I realized that if I was leaving just to prove that I wasn’t staying for you, that was wrong too.”

Carson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, hoping he appeared nonchalant, but knowing he
’d failed miserably. “I want you to stay, Annie. More than anything. But it has to be for you.”

“
I know. That’s what’s been tying me up in knots and last night as I was sketching my plans for the redesign of one of the guest rooms, I realized that I wasn’t drawing a house that would sell well, but my house. A place I wanted to live in. I knew then that I wanted to stay there.

“
The more I drew the clearer it became that just staying here wasn’t enough. In my mind I also pictured you and Evan here too. I wanted both of you to be a part of my family.”

She stopped talking and looked over at him for the first time since she
’d put the coffee on his desk. “I know I haven’t done anything to prove that I can be part of your family, but I’m here today to ask you to give me a chance.”

“
Are you sure?” he asked.

She nibbled her lower lip.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make mistakes or have moments of doubt. It’s just that I do know that I want to be here and I need to be with you.”

“
I need that too,” he said. He walked over to her but stopped before he touched her. “But I need to be sure you’re not just feeling lonely.”

“
I am lonely and scared and all the things you probably wish I weren’t, but there is one thing I know for sure and that is that I’m staying here. And if it takes me the rest of our lives to prove it to you then that’s what I’ll do.”

He pulled her into a bear hug and held her tightly to him so she wouldn
’t see the emotion in his eyes. The words he was longing to say to her slipped out. “Thank God, woman. I love you.”

“
I love you too, Carson. I think I’ve been a little in love with you since the day I saw you at the Diner but I was so afraid to trust it.”

He kissed her hard and then set her back on her feet.
“I can’t rush into anything.”

“
Me neither. In fact, I’d like to just take it slow until we both feel more comfortable. And I really want to get to know Evan a lot better. I want us to become a family if that’s what you want.”

“
Well that is all I wanted for Christmas,” he admitted.

“
Truly?”

He nodded.
“I think you were the one who got away and I never let myself let go of you.”

“
Maybe that’s because I was meant to come back to you,” she said.

“
I think you were. My family is all probably waiting right outside that door,” Carson said, realizing how quiet the house seemed.

“
Probably. Sienna said she’d try to keep them away but that Scott men are stubborn.”

“
Yes we are. And we’re loyal too. I’m yours now and that means I’m never letting you go.”

“
Good because I’ve discovered I’m pretty stubborn too and I’m not letting you go either.”

He kissed her again and kept her hand in his as he opened the door and found his brothers lounging in the hallway trying to look nonchalant.

“Good news?” Lane asked.

“
Like you don’t already know,” Carson said.

“
We couldn’t hear everything through the door,” Alec admitted.

“
But we did hear that she’s back to stay with you.”

“
Really?” Evan asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Maybe Santa does still have magic, Daddy,” Evan said. “I’m a lot closer to having a mom now than I was before I asked him for one.”

Everyone laughed and Carson kept a tight hold on Annie but realized she wasn
’t going anywhere. That rambling look was gone from her eyes and she had found what she’d been looking for, right here, in the Paradise Valley, Montana.

THE END

About the Author

USA Today
bestselling author Katherine Garbera is a two-time Maggie winner who has written more than 60 books. A Florida native who grew up to travel the globe, Katherine now makes her home in the Midlands of the UK with her husband, two children and a very spoiled miniature dachshund.

An excerpt from

Tempt Me, Cowboy

Megan Crane

Copyright © 2013

She was exactly the kind of trouble he didn’t need.

Jasper Flint could see the woman from halfway down the block, like a shot of bright color against the weathered old brick of his newest acquisition. She hadn
’t been there when he’d left the railway depot earlier that morning for a run around the outskirts of Marietta, Montana, his brand new home. There’d been nothing but the crisp blue dawn, the hint of the coming winter already there in the chill of the late September morning while Copper Mountain stood high above the town, a sleepy blue and purple giant slouching in the distance.

And the quiet.
The blessed quiet and more of the same on the wind. A far cry from the noisy, frantic, nonstop life he’d left behind in Dallas.

An hour and a leisurely five miles later, Jasper was more than ready to face a long day of renovations, the current highlight of the best decision he
’d ever made: his early retirement at thirty-five. He was ready to lose himself in the simple joy of making instead of taking, the sheer, hard won happiness in transforming something old into something new. He wasn’t ready for whatever trouble this woman had brought with her, the storm of it swirling around her despite the early morning sunlight and the clear fall day, practically casting the whole street in her shadow.

It was there in the way she stood waiting for him, impatient hands on her sweet hips and her chin tilted up—belligerent and scrappy, like she wanted to exchange a few punches right there in the street. It made him smile. He wouldn
’t mind getting his hands on her, blonde and cute and with legs that could inspire a man to wax a little poetic even in the blandly conservative clothes she wore, and preferably before she opened her mouth and ruined the perfectly decent fantasy he already had going on.

But he knew her type. Prissy and disapproving, spring-loaded way too tight and, unless he misread that downturned mouth of hers and the glare she aimed at him like she already knew him, constitutionally unhappy.

Not—it went without saying—the sort of woman he usually found hanging around, waiting for him to show up. Not enough cleavage, for one thing. And definitely not enough teased hair. He liked his women cheap and obvious and all but flashing neon signs above their heads to shout out their availability.

This woman looked like trouble.
Expensive trouble and a whole lot of work. He was in the market for neither.

Jasper slowed to a stroll as he drew near, eyeing her not-nearly-tight-enough pants and definitely-not-slinky-enough top, that thick blonde hair twisted back from her face in a way that shouted sensible, with something uncomfortably close to regret. He wondered what it would be like to have a woman like this—her figure concealed by her outfit instead of starkly presented to him like a Vegas buffet—throw herself at him the way the bimbos did so easily. But that was the paradox, of course. The good girls had steered well clear of him even before he
’d had money, like he had darkness grafted on to his very bones and they could scent it in the wind.

He
’d learned to live with cheap and calculating. He’d even have said he liked it, the predictability and the ease of that kind of woman, the uncomplicated nature of such mercenary transactions, until now.

“
Sorry,” he said when he was close, letting his Texas roots have their way with his drawl, and surprised to discover he meant it. “You’re not really my type.”

She blinked, her lips parting slightly, which drew his attention to what might have been the most carnal mouth in the whole of the West. It hit him like a hammer, pounding an impossible lust through his body to pool in his sex.

What the hell? “I–what?” It was like she could read his mind, and it made her stammer.

“
I like easy and sleazy.” He grinned slightly, imagining that mouth of hers engaged in practices that would fall under both headings. “I’m afraid I’m true to my redneck roots.” He flipped the bottom of his ratty green Stars t-shirt up to wipe at his face, and when he lowered it, was more delighted than he should have been to find her staring at his abdomen with a look on her face that suggested he’d smacked her over the head with a hammer of his own. His grin widened. “I don’t really go for the disapproving schoolmarm thing. But I sure do appreciate the thought.”

She blinked again. Then understanding flooded over her surprisingly readable face and Jasper watched in fascination as she went pale, then a deep red. A blush? When was the last time he
’d seen a woman blush? His ex-wife had been incapable of it—and, for that matter, just about everything else it turned out a marriage required.

Jasper banished thoughts of that blessedly short-lived disaster, and concentrated on the woman in front of him instead. He couldn
’t seem to keep himself from imagining what that blush might look like in far more interesting places. And were those freckles across her delicate cheeks, complicating the creamy sweep of her skin?

He didn
’t understand why he found that so intriguing. Or why it made him want in a way he hadn’t felt in so long, it took him a moment or two to recognize what that particular feeling, sharp and intense and roaring in him so loudly, even was.

“
It’s seven thirty in the morning.” She sounded scandalized. Her eyes were a blue to rival the Montana sky, and they widened in what had to be horror, which he felt like a heat wave throughout his body, reminding him how dark and perverse he was compared to an undoubtedly pure, small town sweetheart like this one. “On a Monday.”

“
It wouldn’t matter if it was the sweet spot of a Saturday night,” he told her, enjoying himself immensely despite his own twisted soul. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it, could he? “It still wouldn’t work out, unless you’re hiding a honky tonk or two beneath that Head of the PTA outfit of yours.”

“
I most certainly am not.” But her hands moved to the ruffled part of her blouse, then her quiet little belt buckle, as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing and had to remind herself by touch. Or make sure it was still there.

Or maybe she was as baffled by these garments, neither of which he
’d ever seen on a woman under sixty-five years of age, as he was.

“
I’m afraid we’re just not meant to be, darlin’,” he drawled, more Texas in his voice than usual and a fire he couldn’t quite control beneath it.

That rattled her for a moment, he could see it in that intense blue of her eyes, but then she squared her shoulders and tilted that chin of hers back up anyway. Scrappy, he thought again, and with a purely male jolt of approval that boded ill for the both of them, he just knew it.

“What on earth would make you think someone would show up and proposition you at this hour?” she demanded. “What kind of degenerate are you?”

Jasper realized then that she had no idea who he was. He found that notion wildly liberating. And, strangely, arousing. He couldn
’t remember the last time someone hadn’t known who he was and acted accordingly. He’d forgotten what it was like—the honest responses that had nothing to do with his net worth, the total lack of artifice or calculation, that look on her face that suggested he was nothing but a man, and a rather unappetizing one at that.

He thought he loved this place already, and he
’d been here all of two days.

“
The kind of degenerate you appear to be hanging around on the street waiting for,” he replied easily, not at all surprised that he was enjoying himself now. His brows arched up. “At seven-thirty. On a Monday.”

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