Snowed in at the Ranch

Ty scanned the room, every muscle taut. Amy could have sworn he was prepared to lay down his life for her and Jamey, two near strangers. A strange emotion clawed at her throat.

Then, when Ty saw there was no emergency, he stood down. Instantly. He went from ready to relaxed in a second, though a certain level of annoyance marred his altogether too handsome features.

But while Ty relaxed, Amy felt as if her nerve endings were singing with tension. It wasn’t just that he had been prepared to lay down his life for them, either.

No, Ty Halliday was nearly naked, clad only in boxer shorts.

And if the smoke alarm had not been going off before, it certainly would have started now. Because Ty Halliday was nearly naked. Even his feet were sexy!

He was everything she had imagined he would be, only about a hundred times off the scale of where her imagination went to.

His dark slashing eyebrows, the dark shadow of whiskers on his face, had made her think his hair would be dark under the cowboy hat he had worn.

But he was blond, his wet hair the color of antique pieces of gold in a just opened treasure chest.

But the astonishing color of his hair held her attention for only a millisecond. He was lean and strong and his skin was flawless. His arms, corded with muscles of honed steel, were deeply tanned, a color that didn’t go away, apparently, even in these long days of winter. His legs were equally powerful-looking: long, straight, made to curve around a horse, or a bucking bull, or…

She couldn’t go there. Instead, she let her hungry gaze go to his chest, deep and smooth. His shoulders were impossibly broad and his stomach a perfect washboard of rippling, hard muscle. Ty was just way too hot to handle, and as the smoke detector continued to shriek, Amy was aware her own five-alarm fire had started going off deep inside of her.

She dared look at the boxers. Her mouth fell open.

Ty Halliday was wearing bright red boxer shorts, low, snugged over his flat hips and the taut lines of his lower belly. And what were his red boxer shorts covered with?

Santa, his sleigh and twelve reindeer. She presumed twelve reindeer, because she really shouldn’t count.

She didn’t want to appear too interested, but she could not draw her eyes away until she had read the words that were also dancing across the shorts.

Have you been naughty or nice?

For the second time that day, she started to laugh. She laughed so hard the tears squirted from her eyes.

Or maybe that was the smoke.

Ty folded those gorgeous muscled arms over an equally gorgeous muscled chest, planted his long, muscled legs far apart.

If it weren’t for the shorts, he would definitely have the intimidating presence she was fairly certain he was aiming for.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” he yelled over the screaming alarm, the baby howling and her laughter.

“You don’t?” she gasped.

“No, I don’t,” he said sternly.