Christmas Cowboy: Will of Steel / Winter Roses

He chuckled as he pulled out onto the long highway that led to Billings. “We’ve had our verbal cut-and-thrust encounters, but despite that sharp tongue, I enjoy being with you.”

She laughed. “It’s not that sharp.”

“Not to me. I understand there’s a former customer of the florist shop where you worked who could write a testimonial for you about your use of words in a free-for-all.”

She flushed and fiddled with her purse. “He was obnoxious.”

“Actually they said he was just trying to ask you out.”

“It was the way he went about it,” she said curtly. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a man talk to me like that in my whole life.”

“I don’t think he’ll ever use the same language to any other woman, if it’s a consolation.” He teased. “So much for his inflated ego.”

“He thought he was irresistible,” she muttered. “Bragging about his fast new car and his dad’s bank balance, and how he could get any woman he wanted.” Her lips set. “Well, he couldn’t get this one.”

“Teenage boys have insecurities,” he said. “I can speak with confidence on that issue, because I used to be one myself.” He glanced at her with twinkling black eyes. “They’re puff adders.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve never seen one myself, but I had a buddy in the service who was from Georgia. He told me about them. They’re these snakes with insecurities.”

She burst out laughing. “Snakes with insecurities?”

He nodded. “They’re terrified of people. So if humans come too close to them, they rise up on their tails and weave back and forth and blow out their throats and start hissing. You know, imitating a cobra. Most of the time, people take them at face value and run away.”

“What if people stand their ground and don’t run?”

He laughed. “They faint.”

“They faint? ”

He nodded. “Dead away, my buddy said. He took a friend home with him. They were walking through the fields when a puff adder rose up and did his act for the friend. The guy was about to run for it when my buddy walked right up to the snake and it fainted dead away. I hear his family is still telling the story with accompanying sound effects and hilarity.”

“A fainting snake.” She sighed. “What I’ve missed, by spending my whole life in Montana. I wouldn’t have known any better, either, though. I’ve never seen a cobra.”

“They have them in zoos,” he pointed out.

“I’ve never been to a zoo.”

“What?”

“Well, Billings is a long way from Hollister and I’ve never had a vehicle I felt comfortable about getting there in.” She grimaced. “This is a very deserted road, most of the time. If I broke down, I’d worry about who might stop to help me.”

He gave her a covert appraisal. She was such a private person. She kept things to herself. Remembering her uncle and his weak heart, he wasn’t surprised that she’d learned to do that.

“You couldn’t talk to your uncle about most things, could you, Jake?” he wondered out loud.

“Not really,” she agreed. “I was afraid of upsetting him, especially after his first heart attack.”

“So you learned to keep things to yourself.”

“I pretty much had to. I’ve never had close girlfriends, either.”

“Most of the girls your age are married and have kids, except the ones who went into the military or moved to cities.”

She nodded. “I’m a throwback to another era, when women lived at home until they married. Gosh, the world has changed,” she commented.

“It sure has,” he agreed. “When I was a boy, television sets were big and bulky and in cabinets. Now they’re so thin and light that people can hang them on walls. And my iPod does everything a television can do, right down to playing movies and giving me news and weather.”

She frowned. “That wasn’t what I meant, exactly.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I mean, that women seem to want careers and men in volume.”

He cleared his throat.

“That didn’t come out right.” She laughed self-consciously. “It just seems to me that women are more like the way men used to be. They don’t want commitment. They have careers and they live with men. I heard a newscaster say that marriage is too retro a concept for modern people.”

“There have always been people who lived out of the mainstream, Jake,” he said easily. “It’s a choice.”

“It wouldn’t be mine,” she said curtly. “I think people should get married and stay married and raise children together.”

“Now that’s a point of view I like.”

She studied him curiously. “Do you want kids?”

He smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”

She averted her eyes. “Well, yes. Someday.”

He sighed. “I keep forgetting how young you are. You haven’t really had time to live yet.”

“You mean, get fascinated with microscopes and move to New York City,” she said with a grin.

He laughed. “Something like that, maybe.”

“I could never see stuff in microscopes in high school,” she recalled. “I was so excited when I finally found what I thought was an organism and the teacher said it was an air bubble. That’s all I ever managed to find.” She grimaced. “I came within two grade points of failing biology. As it was, I had the lowest passing grade in my whole class.”

“But you can cook like an angel,” he pointed out.

She frowned. “What does that have to do with microscopes?”

“I’m making an observation,” he replied. “We all have skills. Yours is cooking. Somebody else’s might be science. It would be a pretty boring world if we all were good at the same things.”

“I see.”

He smiled. “You can crochet, too. My grandmother loved her crafts, like you do. She could make quilts and knit sweaters and crochet afghans. A woman of many talents.”