A Husband For Christmas: Snow Kisses / Lionhearted

Where else were there still places like this, where you could look and see nothing but rolling grassy hills that stretched to the horizon—with tall, ragged mountains on the other side and the river that cut like a wide ribbon through it all? Cade had liked to fish in that river in the old days, when Donavan was still alive to assume some of the burden of their business. Abby went with him occasionally, watching him land big bass and crappie, rainbow trout and channel catfish.

The nice thing about Cade, she thought dreamily, was that he had such a love for the land and its protection. He was constantly investigating new ways of improving his own range, working closely with the Soil Conservation Service to protect the natural resources of his state.

Her eyes turned toward the gate as she heard a horse’s hooves, and she found Cade riding up the ridge toward her on his big black gelding. He sat a horse so beautifully, reminding her of a Western movie hero. He was all muscle and grace, and she respected him more than any man she’d ever known.

He reined in when he reached her and swung one long leg around the pommel, a smoking cigarette in his lean, dark hands as he watched her from under the wide brim of his gray Stetson.

“Slumming, miss model?” he teased with a faint smile.

“This is the place for it,” she said, leaning back against the tree to smile up at him. Her long, pale hair caught the breeze and curved around her flushed cheeks. “Isn’t it peaceful here?” she asked. “No wonder the Indians fought so very hard to keep it.”

His eyes darkened, narrowed. “A man does fight to keep the things he wants most,” he said enigmatically, studying her. “Why do you wear those damned baggy things?” he demanded, nodding toward her bulky shirt and loose jeans.

She shrugged, avoiding that piercing gaze. “They’re comfortable,” she said inadequately.

“They look like hell. I’d rather see you in transparent blouses,” he added coldly.

Her eyebrows arched. “You lecherous old thing,” she accused.

He chuckled softly, deeply, a sound she hadn’t heard in a long time. It made him seem younger. “Only with you, honey,” he said softly. “I’m the soul of chivalry around most women.”

Her eyes searched his. “You could have any woman you want these days,” she murmured absently.

“Then isn’t it a hell of a shame that I have such a fussy appetite?” he asked. He took a draw from the cigarette and studied her quietly. “I’m a busy man.”

“You look it,” she agreed, studying the dusty jeans that encased his hard, powerful legs, and his scuffed brown boots and sweat-stained denim shirt. There was a black mat of hair under that shirt, and a muscular chest that she remembered desperately wanting to touch.

“It’s spring,” he reminded her. “Cattle to doctor, calves to separate and brand and herds to move up to summer pasture as soon as we finish roundup. Hay to plant, machinery to repair and replace, temporary hands to hire for roundup, supplies to get in... If it isn’t one damned thing, it’s another.”

“And you love every minute of it,” she accused. “You’d die anywhere else.”

“Amen.” He finished the cigarette and tossed it down. “Crush that out for me, will you, honey?”

“It’s not dry enough for it to cause a grass fire,” she reminded him, but she got up and did it all the same.

“Back in the old days, Indians and white men would stop fighting to battle grass fires together,” he told her with a grin. “They’re still hard to stop, even today.”

She looked up at him, tracing his shadowed face with eyes that ached for what might have been. “You look so at home in the saddle,” she remarked.

“I grew up in it.” He reached down an arm. “Step on my boot and come up here. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t ride a horse the way you drive,” she observed.

“That’s not a good way to get reacquainted,” he said shortly.

“It’s only the truth. Donavan wouldn’t even get in a truck with you,” she reminded him. “Although I have to admit that you’re a pretty good driver on the highway.”

“Thanks for nothing. Are you coming or not?”

She wanted and dreaded the closeness. He was so very strong. What if she panicked again, what if he demanded an answer to her sudden nervousness?

“Abby,” he said suddenly, his voice as full of authority as if he were tossing orders at his cowboys. “Come on.”

She reacted to that automatically and took his hand, tingling as it slid up her arm to hold her. She stepped deftly onto the toe of his boot in the stirrup and swung up in front of him.

He drew her back against him with a steely arm, and she felt the powerful muscles of his chest at her shoulder blades.

“Comfortable?” he asked shortly.

“I’m fine,” she replied in a voice that was unusually high-pitched.

He eased the horse into a canter. “You’ll be more comfortable if you’ll relax, little one,” he murmured. “I’m no threat.”

That was what he thought, she told herself, reacting wildly to the feel of his body against her back. He smelled of leather and cow and tobacco, and his breath sighed over her head, into her loosened hair.

If only she could relax instead of sitting like a fire poker in his light embrace. But he made her nervous, just as he always had; he made her feel vulnerable and soft and hungry. Despite the bad experience in New York, he appealed to her senses in ways that unnerved her.

He chuckled softly and she stiffened more. “What’s so funny?” she muttered above the sound of the horse’s hooves striking hard ground.

“You are. Should I be flattered that you’re afraid to let me hold you on a horse? My God, I didn’t realize I was so devastating at close range. Or,” he added musingly, “is it that I smell like a man who’s been working with cattle?”

Laughter bubbled up inside her. It had been years since she and Cade had spent any time alone, and she’d forgotten his dry sense of humor.

“Sorry.” She sighed. “I’ve been away longer than I realized.”

His big arm tightened for an instant and relaxed, and she let him hold her without a struggle. His strength was less intimidating now than it had been the last time, as if the nightmare experience were truly fading away in the scope and bigness of this country where she had grown up. She felt safe. Safer than she’d felt in years.

“Four years,” he murmured behind her head. “Except for a few days here and there, when you could tear yourself away from New York.”

She went taut with indignation. “Are you going to start that again?”

“I never stopped it. You just stopped listening.” His arm contracted impatiently for an instant, and his warm breath was on her ear. “When are you going to grow up, Abby? Glitter isn’t enough for a lifetime. In the end, it’s not going to satisfy you as a woman!”

“What is?” she asked curtly. “Living with some man and raising children?”

He seemed to freeze, as if she’d thrown cold water in his face, and she was sorry she’d said that. She hadn’t meant it—she was just getting back at him.

“It’s more than enough for women out here,” he said shortly.

She stared across at the horizon, loving the familiar contours of the land, the shape of the tall trees, the blueness of the sky. “Your grandmother had ten children, didn’t she, Cade?” she asked, remembering the photos in the McLaren family album.

“Yes.” He laughed shortly. “There wasn’t much choice in those days, honey. Women didn’t have a lot of control over their bodies, like they do now.”

“And it took big families to run ranches and farms,” she agreed. She leaned back against him, feeling his muscles ripple with the motion of the horse. Her eyes closed as she drank in the sensation of being close.

“It was more than that,” he remarked as they approached the house. “People in love want children.”

She laughed aloud at that. “I can’t imagine you in love,” she said. “It’s completely out of character. What was it you always said about never letting a woman put a ring through your nose?”