A Christmas Baby For The Cowboy

Who had bid on him?

“Once, twice, sold,” Jo said, speaking faster than any real auctioneer Cash had ever heard. She banged her gavel on the podium that had been placed on the stage for just that purpose. “Alyssa Joan Emerson, come on up here and rope your prize.”

Of all people, not only an Emerson, but Lizzie—Alyssa. He couldn’t get over how his best friend’s kid sister had bloomed into a beautiful woman. Her wavy strawberry-blond hair was grown out now, more blond than strawberry. He didn’t recall her eyes being so very...brown, like deep, rich dark chocolate.

Little Lizzie Emerson, all grown up.

* * *

Alyssa wasn’t in all that much of a hurry to claim her prize, as Jo had called winning Cash Coble. She wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision at all. This might very well rank up there among some of the most foolish decisions she’d ever made.

But when no one else offered to buy Cash, her soft heart had gotten the best of her and her mouth had worked faster than her head.

Her oldest brother, Eddie, accused her of letting her empathy get the best of her. She led with her heart instead of her head. She felt too deeply—and then acted on those emotions even—often—to her own detriment.

She couldn’t seem to help herself. She chose to believe the best about people, even when they showed themselves to be untrustworthy.

Was she crazy, bringing Cash back into her life? Even without all she’d heard about the kind of man he’d turned out to be, she suspected Cash would be a problem for her.

She had so many other challenges to face.

Despite her best efforts, tears burned at the backs of her eyes and she blinked rapidly. Cash would be a constant walking, talking reminder of the brother she had recently lost. Cash and Aaron had been best friends since childhood. After graduating from high school, they had traveled the pro rodeo circuit together.

Sweet, fun-loving Aaron.

How was it that he’d been the one to get behind the wheel of a car drunk and fatally crash into a tree when Cash was still alive?

It didn’t seem fair.

Alyssa was ashamed that such a horrible thought had passed through her mind, and yet there it was.

She didn’t want Cash here. She wanted her big brother back, with his jokes and smiles and unceasing teasing.

Ironically, there had been a time when she would have given anything to have Cash notice her. As a teenager, Cash had worked in the Emerson family’s hardware store part-time. Their store was the town catchall, not only carrying hardware, but boots, clothing, gardening supplies and animal feed. Once upon a time, she’d had a crush on the boy whose dark hair flopped over his forehead and into his impossibly blue eyes, but too much had happened in her life since high school to consider those errant feelings as anything more than childhood fantasies.

Little Lizzie Emerson had grown up. While she was still called Lizzie by a select few of her closest friends, most people now referred to her by her given name, Alyssa.

She didn’t give much stock to rumors, but from what she’d heard around town, Cash was a heavy drinker. He’d got a woman pregnant and then walked away from his responsibilities to the baby. She couldn’t respect a man like that.

She had no idea why she’d piped up with a bid at the last second.

Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. Cash was the logical man for the job she had in mind. He’d worked at Emerson’s Hardware in his youth and already knew how she did things. She could put him straight to work without having to explain everything.

Which was why, despite everything, he was a good fit for the work she needed done. Kickfire, a major brand name in boots and Western wear, had contracted with her to sell their products in her store. That meant a lot of rearranging, building new display cases, creating a window display and, just before Black Friday, putting out the new stock.

But she wasn’t really going to trust him. Emerson’s was the one solid thing she had left in a world that had completely tilted awry.

She intended to lay down the rules and keep a sharp eye on Cash to make sure he didn’t screw up.

But first things first. She threaded her way to the front of the crowd and marched up onto the stage. This auction was supposed to be fun, and she’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Count on her to make a cheerful town event into something stressful instead of something sweet.

Nice one, Alyssa.

“Here’s your lariat, dear,” Jo said, pressing the rope into her hand. “Now, you go lasso your handsome cowboy.”

Cash wiped the sweat from his brow, then planted his hat back on his head, challenging her with his gaze.

Wonderful. He was intentionally making it more difficult for her to successfully swing a loop around him. She could adjust the lariat until it was big enough to go over Cash even with his hat on, but it wasn’t as if she was an expert roper. She owned a hardware store. If her toss was the slightest bit off, the coil would bounce right off his black Stetson.

Was he throwing down the gauntlet? Did he think she wasn’t good enough for him?

Tough bananas. She was the only one willing to rescue him today and he was just going to have to deal.

Was he expecting all the pretty single ladies to treat him as if he was still hot stuff, falling all over him as they’d done when he was a teenager?

Well, he wasn’t.

Not anymore.

He most definitely wasn’t a teenager. He’d filled out in all the right places. He’d grown a couple of inches taller. His shoulders were broader, his face a hard chisel of lines and his muscles more defined.

But for all that, he wasn’t hot stuff anymore.

Now that she was closer to him, she could see that his eyes were sunken into his head, with dark circles shadowing his gaze. His skin was roughened from the sun, which might have appeared rugged were it not for the stress lines on his forehead and etched around his eyes. The week’s worth of scruff on his face only increased the shadow.

“Do something, Cash,” demanded a man in the crowd, a voice Alyssa couldn’t identify.

Alyssa’s gaze switched to a short man in a gray suit and shiny black shoes. Everyone else in the crowd had on blue jeans.

Alyssa looked back at Cash and raised an eyebrow in question.

“Let’s get this over with, Lizzie.” Cash swept his hat off his head with a grunt and gestured for her to rope him.

Alyssa adjusted the lariat and swung it in the air a couple of times to get a feel for the weight. She was a shopkeeper’s daughter and had zero ranching experience, but she was standing all of two feet away from Cash.

How hard could it be?

She swung the rope toward Cash, mimicking the actions she’d seen her brother Eddie and her neighboring rancher friends do a thousand times. But instead of soaring in a nice loop up and around Cash, the noose tightened too early and swung off to one side.

It would have dropped to the ground, but at the last moment, Cash’s hand darted out to grab it. Her cheeks heated as Cash slowly and deliberately loosened the lariat and threaded himself through it until the noose circled his waist.

Was he intentionally trying to embarrass her?

Well, she wasn’t going to let him.

She yanked the rope tight around Cash and turned her back on him, leading him off the platform, her fashionable cowboy boots thumping loudly down the stairs. She didn’t care when the rope became taut and he appeared to be pulling back, scuffling his feet behind her.

Too bad for him that she was more stubborn than he was. If he was going to dig in his heels, she would just pull harder. He’d have to give in sometime.