Christmas Cowboy: Will of Steel / Winter Roses

“Well, you can’t take a nice woman to a dance in a dirty truck,” he stated.

“I wouldn’t have minded.”

He turned to her at the passenger side of the truck and looked down at her solemnly in the light from the security lamp on a pole nearby. His face was somber. “No, you wouldn’t. You don’t look at bank accounts to judge friendships. It’s one of a lot of things I like about you. I dated a woman attorney once, who came here to try a case for a client in district court. When she saw the truck, the old one I had several years ago, she actually backed out of the date. She said she didn’t want any important people in the community to see her riding around in a piece of junk.”

She gasped. “No! How awful for you!”

His high cheekbones had a faint flush. Her indignation made him feel warm inside. “Something you’d never have said to me, as blunt as you are. It turned me off women for a while. Not that I even liked her. But it hurt my pride.”

“As if a vehicle was any standard to base a character assessment on,” she huffed.

He smiled tenderly. “Small-town police chiefs don’t usually drive Jaguars. Although this guy I know in Texas does. But he made his money as a merc, not in law enforcement.”

“I like you just the way you are,” she told him quietly. “And it wouldn’t matter to me if we had to walk to Billings to go dancing.”

He ground his teeth together. She made him feel taller, more masculine, when she looked at him like that. He was struggling with more intense emotions than he’d felt in years. He wanted to grab her and eat her alive. But she needed careful handling. He couldn’t be forward with her. Not until he could teach her to trust him. That would take time.

She felt uneasy when he scowled like that. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to blurt that out and upset you …”

“You make me feel good, Jake,” he interrupted. “I’m not upset. Well, not for the reasons you’re thinking, anyway.”

“What reasons upset you?”

He sighed. “To be blunt, I’d like to back you into the truck and kiss you half to death.” He smiled wryly at her shocked expression. “Won’t do it,” he promised. “Just telling you what I really feel. Honesty is a sideline with most people. It’s first on my list of necessities.”

“Mine, too. It’s okay. I like it when you’re up-front.”

“You’re the same way,” he pointed out.

“I guess so. Maybe I’m too blunt, sometimes.”

He smiled. “I’d call it being forthright. I like it.”

She beamed. “Thanks.”

He checked his watch. “Got to go.” He opened the door for her and waited until she jumped up into the cab and fastened her seat belt before he closed it.

“It impresses me that I didn’t have to tell you to put that on,” he said as he started the engine, nodding toward her seat belt. “I don’t ride with people who refuse to wear them. I work wrecks. Some of them are horrific, and the worst fatalities are when people don’t have on seat belts.”

“I’ve heard that.”

He pulled out onto the highway. “Here we go, Jake.

Our first date.” He grinned. “Our uncles are probably laughing their ghostly heads off.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” She sighed. “Still, it wasn’t nice of either of them to rig the wills like that.”

“I guess they didn’t expect to die for years and years,” he commented. “Maybe it was a joke. They expected the lawyer to tell us long before they died. Except he died first and his partner had no sense of humor.”

“I don’t know. Our uncles did like to manipulate people.”

“Too much,” he murmured. “They browbeat poor old Dan Harper into marrying Daisy Kane, and he was miserable. They thought she was a sweet, kind girl who’d never want anything more than to go on living in Hollister for the rest of her life.”

“Then she discovered a fascination for microscopes, got a science degree and moved to New York City to work in a research lab. Dan wouldn’t leave Hollister, so they got a divorce. Good thing they didn’t have kids, I guess.”

“I guess. Especially with Dan living in a whiskey bottle these days.”

She glanced at him. “Maybe some women mature late.”

He glanced back. “You going to develop a fascination with microscopes and move to New York?” he asked suspiciously.

She laughed out loud. “I hope not. I hate cities.”

He grinned again. “Me, too. Just checking.”

“Besides, how could I leave Sammy? I’m sure there isn’t an apartment in a big city that would let you keep a calf in it.”

He laughed. “Well, they would. But only in the fridge. Or the freezer.”

“You bite your tongue!” she exclaimed. “Nobody’s eating my cow!”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Good point. I’m not exactly sure I know how to field dress a cow. A steer, sure. But cows are, well, different.”

She glared at him. “You are not field dressing Sammy, so forget it.”

He sighed. “There go my dreams of a nice steak.”

“You can get one at the restaurant in town anytime you like. Sammy is for petting, not eating.”

“If you say so.”

“I do!”

He loved to wind her up and watch the explosion. She was so full of life, so enthusiastic about everything new. He enjoyed being with her. There were all sorts of places he could take her. He was thinking ahead. Far ahead.

“You’re smirking,” she accused. “What are you thinking about?”

“I was just remembering how excited you get about new things,” he confessed. “I was thinking of places we could go together.”

“You were?” she asked, surprised. And flattered.

He smiled at her. “I’ve never dated anybody regularly,” he said. “I mean, I’ve had dates. But this is different.” He searched for a way to put into words what he was thinking.

“You mean, because we’re sort of being forced into it by the wills.”

He frowned. “No. That’s not what I mean.” He stopped at an intersection and glanced her way. “I haven’t had regular dates with a woman I’ve known well for years and years,” he said after a minute. “Somebody I like.”

She beamed. “Oh.”