Lone Star Christmas

For a moment, his uninvited visitor seemed caught off guard. Perplexed, almost. Then she stiffened and squared her shoulders, even more militantly. “For your information, cowboy, I don’t need ‘permission’ from anyone.”

Amused, he looked her over slowly, head to toe. “Then your husband wouldn’t mind you creating a ruckus?”

Another long, thoughtful pause. Followed by a glimmer of inscrutable emotion in her eyes. “No,” she said finally. And without another word, left it at that.

Which meant what? he wondered. Her husband was used to her temperamental ways? Or was just so weak he had no say? Her cagey expression gave no clue. Nash knew one thing, however. If she were his woman he wouldn’t want her out here, stirring up trouble with a group of cattle and horse wranglers temporarily turned lumberjacks. “And you are?”

“Callie McCabe-Grimes.”

Of course she was from one of the most famous and powerful clans in the Lone Star State. He should have figured that out from the moment she’d barged onto his property.

Nash indicated the stacks of freshly cut Christmas trees around them, aware the last thing he needed in his life was another person not into celebrating the holidays. “Sure that’s not Grinch?”

Her thick lashes narrowed. “Ha, ha.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m your neighbor, to the east.”

Ah, yes. Nash nodded. “The owner of the Heart of Texas Ranch and Corporate Retreat.”

He’d heard that the hot-shot marketing wiz had apparently decided to stop helping everyone else get rich and go into business for herself. And while Nash respected the latter, he detested dealing with the diva-offspring of famous Texas families. Especially those who felt that, by virtue of their name and connections, they should automatically rule whatever roost they found themselves inhabiting.

“Well, then,” Callie huffed, “if you know that, then you also know that my business is located in the valley between Sanders Mountain and Echols Mountain.”

Lifting a brow, Nash took in the pink color staining her pretty face and the mutinous twist of her soft, voluptuous lips. “So?”

“So—” she waved at the dozen chain saw-wielding cowboys behind him, and the other six wrapping up recently shorn holiday trees “—all that racket you are making is carrying over onto my property!”

Nash squinted at the searing emotion in her eyes. This conversation was getting stranger all the time. “What did you expect when you set up shop next to a lumber operation?”

“There was no lumber operation when I purchased the property six months ago!”

Nash supposed that was true enough. He shrugged. “Well, there is now.”

Panic warred with the fury on her face. “Since when?”

“Since I inherited the property from my great-great-uncle two months ago.”

Callie sobered. “I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Echols’s passing.”

Nash studied her, pushing aside his own lingering grief. “You knew my uncle Ralph?”

“No,” she admitted kindly. “I never had the pleasure.”

“But if he was anything like me...?” Nash couldn’t resist goading.

The stubborn look was back. Callie folded her arms in front of her in a way that delectably plumped up her breasts. “Let’s hope he wasn’t.”

Nash tore his gaze from the inviting softness. Unable to resist teasing her a little more, however, he grinned. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s the season to be jolly?”

Callie sighed in exasperation and shoved her hands through her chocolate-brown curls. “First of all, cowboy, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

Yet, for him and his business, anyway, time was a wastin’. “It will be three days from now.”

Callie threw up her palms in frustration. “Three days in which I will lose my mind if this racket keeps up.”

No doubt about that. After all, from what he’d witnessed thus far, she did seem a little high-strung. He shifted his gaze to the pouting ripeness of her lips. Damned if he wasn’t longing to kiss her, here and now, even though he knew as a married woman she was strictly off-limits.

Slowly, he let out a breath and returned his thoughts to the murky business at hand.

“And what would you have me do about it?” he asked grimly.

“I don’t know.” She paused to bite her lip, then asked, “Use one chain saw at a time?”

This time, Nash wasn’t the only one who laughed.

When the ruckus from the men standing behind him quieted down, he winked at her and said glibly, “I’ll think about it.”

She stamped closer, not stopping until she was just inches away from him. “I want you to do a lot more than think about it, cowpoke!”

Nash took exception to her tone.

Her attitude.

Hell, just about everything about her.

His own temper rising, he schooled her quietly. “My name is Nash. Or Mr. Echols to you. And if that’s all...”

Before he even had one ear covered up again, she planted her hand in the middle of his chest. Warmth spread instantly from beneath her delicate palm. Pooling in his chest, sliding ever downward, past his waist, to the place he least wanted to feel a rising pulse.

“Hold on there a minute, cowboy!” she declared. “I’m not done!”

Heart pounding, Nash plucked her hand from his chest like some odious piece of trash. “Too bad, little lady. Because I am.”

She sniffed indignantly. “You can’t just start up something like this without considering how it’s going to affect everyone around you!”

Nash smiled. “Seems like—in your view anyway—I already have.” He put the sound guards back on his head, then the hard hat, and gave his men the signal to resume.

She propped both hands on her hips. And this time she did stomp her pretty little foot as the whine of power saws echoed in the cool late November air.

Nash couldn’t hear her muffled words of outrage, but he sure could see Callie McCabe-Grimes mouthing something as she glared at him, slapped her palms over her ears and spun on her heel. Her hips swaying provocatively, long luscious legs eating up the ground, she marched back to her truck and climbed into the cab. Then she extended her arm out the window, looked him right in the eye and offered him a surprisingly unladylike gesture before turning her pickup around and peeling away.

He stood there a moment, chuckling at her moxie. It was a good thing their personalities mixed about as well as oil and water, he thought, watching the dust fly in her wake. Otherwise a woman that beautiful and spirited could easily waylay him. And a distraction like that was something he did not need.

Especially at this time of year.

* * *

“THERE MUST BE something I can do to stop that big buffoon!” Callie complained to her sister Lily over Skype, as soon as she got back to the ranch.

With the cool expertise of an accomplished attorney, Lily McCabe rocked back in her desk chair, at her Laramie, Texas, law office, and listened intently.