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

Under him, her soft body was rising and falling like a pistol as she kept pace with his need, encouraged it, fanned the flames and, finally, glued itself to his in an absolute epiphany of satisfaction that convulsed both of them as they almost passed out from the climax.

She clung to him, shivering with pleasure in the aftermath. Neither of them could stop moving, savoring the dregs of passion until they drained the cup dry.

“Wow,” she whispered as she looked into his eyes.

“Wow,” he whispered back. He looked down their bodies to where they were joined. They hadn’t even thought of turning out the lights. He was glad. Looking at her, like this, was a joy he hadn’t expected.

“Beautiful,” he breathed.

She smiled slowly. “And to think I was nervous about the first time,” she said.

“Obviously unnecessary, since I have skills far beyond those of most mortal men…oof!”

She’d hit him. She grinned, though. And then she wiggled her eyebrows and moved her hips ever so slowly. Despite the sting, and the discomfort, pleasure welled up like water above a dam in a flood.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered as he began to move, looking straight into her eyes. “Yes. Do that.”

He smiled. “This,” he murmured, “is going to be indescribable.”

And it was.

When they got back, in time for the Christmas celebrations at Skylance, nobody could understand why, when Cort whispered, “first base,” Maddie almost fell down laughing. But that was one secret neither one of them ever shared with another living soul.

Christmas Cowboy (#ulink_2dac408a-8312-535b-b9c7-e2b2880e8a40)

Chapter One (#ulink_542b96ee-353d-50ae-bdce-0231086ab8cc)

It was the holiday season in Jacobsville, Texas. Gaily colored strands of lights crisscrossed the main street, and green garlands and wreaths graced each telephone pole along the way. In the center of town, all the small maple trees that grew out of square beds at intervals along the sidewalk were decorated with lights as well.

People were bundled in coats, because even in south Texas it was cold in late November. They rushed along with shopping bags full of festively wrapped presents to go under the tree. And over on East Main Street, the Optimist Club had its yearly Christmas tree lot open already. A family of four was browsing its sawdust-covered grounds, early enough to have the pick of the beautifully shaped fir trees, just after Thanksgiving.

Dorie Wayne gazed at her surroundings the way a child would look through a store window at toys she couldn’t afford. Her hand went to the thin scar down an otherwise perfect cheek and she shivered. How long ago it seemed that she stood right here on this street corner in front of the Jacobsville Drugstore, and backed away from Corrigan Hart. It had been an instinctive move; at eighteen, he’d frightened her. He was so very masculine, a mature man with a cold temper and an iron will. He’d set his sights on Dorie, who found him fearful instead of attractive, despite the fact that any single woman hereabouts would have gone to him on her knees.

She recalled his jet black hair and pale, metallic eyes. She’d wondered at first if it wasn’t her fairness that attracted him, because he was so dark. Dorie had hair so blond it was almost platinum, and it was cut short, falling into natural thick waves. Her complexion was delicate and fair, and she had big gray eyes, just a shade darker than Corrigan’s. He was very handsome—unlike his brothers. At least, that was what people said. Dorie hadn’t gotten to meet the others when she left Jacobsville. And only Corrigan and three of his brothers lived in Jacobsville. The fifth Hart male wasn’t talked about, ever. His name wasn’t even known locally.

Corrigan and three of his four brothers had come down to Jacobsville from San Antonio eight years ago to take over the rich cattle operation their grandfather had left to them in his will.

It had been something of a local joke that the Harts had no hearts, because they seemed immune to women. They kept to themselves and there was no gossip about them with women. But that changed when Dorie attended a local square dance and found herself whirling around the floor in Corrigan Hart’s arms.

Never one to pull his punches, he made his intentions obvious right at the start. He found her attractive. He was drawn to her. He wanted her. Just like that.

There was never any mention of marriage, engagement or even some furtive live-in arrangement. Corrigan said often that he wasn’t the marrying kind. He didn’t want ties. He made that very clear, because there was never any discussions of taking her to meet his brothers. He kept her away from their ranch.

But despite his aversion to relationships, he couldn’t seem to see enough of Dorie. He wanted her and with every new kiss Dorie grew weaker and hungrier for him.

Then one spring day, he kissed her into oblivion, picked her up in his arms and carried her right into her own bedroom the minute her father left for his weekly poker game.

Despite the drugging effect of masterful kisses and the poignant trembling his expert hands aroused, Dorie had come to her senses just barely in time and pushed him away. Dazed, he’d looked down at her with stunned, puzzled eyes, only belatedly realizing that she was trying to get away, not closer.

She remembered, red-faced even now, how he’d pulled away and stood up, breathing raggedly, eyes blazing with frustrated desire. He’d treated her to a scalding lecture about girls who teased. She’d treated him to one about confirmed bachelors who wouldn’t take no for an answer, especially since she’d told him she wasn’t the sleep-around sort.

He didn’t buy that, he’d told her coldly. She was just holding out for marriage, and there was no hope in that direction. He wanted to sleep with her, and she sure seemed to want him, too. But he didn’t want her for keeps.

Dorie had been in love with him, and his emotional rejection had broken something fragile inside her. But she hadn’t been about to let him see her pain.

He’d gone on, in the same vein. One insult had led to another, and once he’d gotten really worked up, he’d stormed out the door. His parting shot had been that she must be nuts if she thought he was going to buy her being a virgin. There was no such thing anymore, even at the young age of eighteen.

His rejection had closed doors between them. Dorie couldn’t bear the thought of staying in Jacobsville and having everybody know that Corrigan Hart had thrown her aside because she wouldn’t sleep with him. And everybody would know, somehow. They always knew the secret things in small towns.

That very night Dorie had made up her mind to take up her cousin Belinda’s offer to come to New York and get into modeling. Certainly Dorie had the looks and figure for it. She might be young, but she had poise and grace and an exquisite face framed by short, wavy blond hair. Out of that face, huge gray eyes shone like beacons, mirroring happiness or sorrow.

After that sordid evening, Dorie cut her losses and bought a bus ticket.

She’d been standing right here, on this very corner, waiting for the bus to pick her up in front of this drugstore, when Corrigan had found her.

Her abrupt withdrawal from him had halted him in his tracks. Whatever he’d been going to say, her shamed refusal to look at him, combined with her backward steps, stopped him. She was still smarting from his angry words, as well as from her own uninhibited behavior. She was ashamed that she’d given him such license with her body now that she knew there had only been desire on his part.

He hadn’t said a single word before the bus stopped for her. He hadn’t said a word as she hurriedly gave her ticket to the driver, got on the bus and waited for it to leave without looking his way again. He’d stood there in the trickling rain, without even a raincoat, with his hands deep in his jean pockets, and watched the bus pull away from the curb. That was how Dorie had remembered him all the long years, a lonely fading figure in the distance.

She’d loved him desperately. But her own selfrespect wouldn’t let her settle for a furtive affair in the goldfish-bowl atmosphere of Jacobsville. She’d wanted a home, a husband, children, everything.

Corrigan had only wanted to sleep with her.

She’d gone, breathless and sick at heart, all the way to New York City, swearing her father to absolute secrecy about her movements.

There had been a letter, a few weeks after her arrival, from her father. In it, he told her that he’d seen Corrigan only once since her departure, and that he was now hot in pursuit of a rich divorcée with sophistication dripping from her fingers. If Dorie had any parting regrets about her decision to leave town, that was the end of them. Corrigan had made his feelings plain, if he was seeing some woman already.

Dorie wondered if her father hadn’t said something unpleasant to Corrigan Hart about his daughter’s sudden departure from home. It would have been like him. He was fiercely protective of his only child, especially since the death of her mother from heart disease some years past. And his opinion about philandering men was obvious to everyone.

He believed in the old-fashioned sort of courtship, the kind that ended in marriage. Only a handful of conventional people were left, he told Dorie over and over. Such people were the cornerstones of social order. If they all fell, chaos reigned. A man who loved a woman would want to give her, and his children, his name. And Corrigan, he added, had made it clear to the whole town that he wanted no part of marriage or a family. Dorie would have been asking for heartbreak if she’d given in to Corrigan’s selfish demands.

Her father was dead now. Dorie had come home for the funeral as well as to dispose of the house and property and decide her own future. She’d started out with such hopes of becoming a successful model. Her eyes closed and she shivered unconsciously at the memories.

“Dorie?”

She turned at the hesitant sound of her name. The face took a little longer to recognize. “Abby?” she said. “Abby Clark!”

“Abby Ballenger,” the other woman corrected with a grin. “I married Calhoun.”

“Calhoun!” Dorie was momentarily floored. The younger Ballenger brother had been a rounder and a half, and he was married? And to Abby, of all people, the shy and sweet girl for whom Calhoun and Justin had shared guardianship following the death of their parents.

“Surprising, isn’t it?” Abby asked, hugging the other woman. “And there’s more. We have three sons.”

“I haven’t been away that long, have I?” Dorie asked hesitantly.

“Eight years,” came the reply. Abby was a little older, but she still had the same pretty gray-blue eyes and dark hair, even if it had silver threads now. “Justin married Shelby Jacobs just after I married Calhoun. They have three sons, too,” she added on a sigh. “Not a girl in the bunch.”

Dorie shook her head. “For heaven’s sake!”