Diana Palmer Christmas Collection: The Rancher / Christmas Cowboy / A Man of Means / True Blue / Carrera's Bride / Will of Steel / Winter Roses

Odalie flushed. “Thanks.”

“This is great cake,” Cort murmured. “Can you cook?” he asked Maddie.

“Yes, but not so much right now.” She indicated the wheelchair with a grimace.

“Give it time,” he said gently. He smiled, and his whole face grew radiant as he looked at her. “You’ll be out of that thing before you know it.”

“You think so?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes, I do.”

She smiled. He smiled back. Odalie smiled into her cake and pretended not to notice that they couldn’t take their eyes off each other.

Odalie said her goodbyes and gave Maddie the collector’s telephone number so that she could thank him personally for giving her fairy a good home. But Cort lingered.

He bent over the wheelchair, his hands on the arms, and looked into Maddie’s eyes. “Later we’ll talk about going behind my back to do business with a crook.”

“I was scared. And not just that he might poison my cattle. There were so many bills!”

He brushed his mouth over her lips. “I told you I’d take care of all those bills.”

“But they all came due, and you’ve done so much… I couldn’t ask…”

He was kissing her. It made talking hard.

She reached up with cold, nervous hands and framed his face in them. She looked into his eyes and saw secrets revealed there. Her breath caught. “It isn’t Odalie,” she stammered. “It’s me.”

He nodded. And he didn’t smile. “It was always you. I just didn’t know it until there was a good chance that I was going to lose you.” He smiled tightly then. “Couldn’t do that. Couldn’t live, if you didn’t.”

She bit her lip, fighting tears.

He kissed them away. “I don’t have a life without you,” he whispered at her nose. “So we have to make plans.”

“When?” she asked, bursting with happiness.

“When you’re out of that wheelchair,” he said. He gave her a wicked smile. “Because when we start talking, things are apt to get, well, physical.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

She laughed.

He laughed.

He kissed her affectionately and stood back up. “I’ll drive Odalie home. I’ll call you later. And I’ll see you tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. And the day after that…”

“And the day after that?” she prompted.

“Don’t get pushy,” he teased.

He threw up a hand and went out to the car. This time, when he drove off with Odalie, Maddie didn’t go through pangs of jealousy. The look in his eyes had been as sweet as a promise.

Epilogue (#ulink_87952cc2-001b-5429-b3cb-9c9ec61c9e89)

Physical therapy seemed to go on forever. The days turned to weeks, the leaves began to fall. The cows grew big with calves. Rain had come in time for some of the grain crops to come to harvest, and there would be enough hay, hopefully, to get them through the winter. Maddie’s legs were growing stronger. Little by little, she made progress.

Odalie and Cort were still around, prodding her, keeping her spirits up during the long mending process. She didn’t let herself get discouraged. She created new fairies and Odalie shipped them off, carefully packed, to a man named Angus Moore, who acted as Maddie’s agent and sold her dainty little creations for what amounted to a small fortune for the artist.

The developer, sure enough, left town and left no forwarding address. Gossip was that the authorities wanted to talk to him about several cases of dead cattle on properties he’d tried to buy in several states. Maddie hoped they caught up with him one day.

Meanwhile, Cort came over every night for supper. He brought his guitar most nights, and serenaded Maddie on the porch until the nights got too cold for that. Then he serenaded her in the living room, by the fireplace with its leaping flames while she curled up under a blanket on the sofa.

From time to time, when Sadie was occupied in the kitchen, he curled up under the blanket with her.

She loved his big hands smoothing her bare skin under her shirt, the warmth and strength of them arousing sensations that grew sweeter by the day. He was familiar to her now. She had no fear of his temper. He didn’t lose it with her, although he’d been volatile about a man who left a gate open and cattle poured through it onto the highway. At least none of the cattle was injured, and no cars were wrecked.

“He was just a kid,” Cort murmured against her collarbone. “He works for us after school. Usually does a pretty good job, too, cleaning out the stables.”

She arched her back and winced.

“Damn.” He lifted his head and his hands stilled on her body. “Too soon.”

She looked miserable.

He laughed. He peered toward the doorway before he slid the hem of her T-shirt up under her chin and looked at the pert little breasts he’d uncovered. “Buried treasure,” he whispered, “and I’m a pirate…”

She moaned.

“Stop that. She’ll hear you.”

She bit her lip and gave him an anguished look. He grinned before he bent his head again, producing even more eloquent sounds that were, thankfully, soon muffled by his mouth.

But things between them were heating up more every day. She had his shirt unbuttoned just before he eased over her. Her hard-tipped breasts nestled into the thick hair on his muscular chest and one long, powerful leg eased between both of hers. He levered himself down very gently while he was kissing her, but she felt the quick, hard swell of him as he began to move helplessly on her, grinding his hips into hers.

“Oh, God,” he bit off. He jerked himself back and up, to sit beside her on the sofa with his head bent, shuddering.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered shakily.

He drew in short, harsh breaths while his hands worked at buttoning up the shirt. “Well, I’m not,” he murmured, glancing down at her. He groaned. “Honey, you have to cover those up or we’re going to be back at first base all over again!”

She looked down and flushed a little as she pulled her shirt down and fumbled behind her to do up the bra again. “First base.”

He laughed softly. “First base.”

She beamed at him. “I’m getting better every day. It won’t be long.”

“It had better not be,” he sighed. “I think I’ll die of it pretty soon.”

“No!”

“Just kidding.” He turned on the sofa and looked down at her with warm, dark, possessive eyes. “I talked to a minister.”