A Husband for Christmas: Snow Kisses / Lionhearted

“I came to see Melly, of course,” she shot back, her face hot and red. “To help her get ready for the wedding!”

“Then you’ll be staying for a month,” he said matter-of-factly, daring her to protest. How could she when she’d stated the lie so convincingly?

She swallowed. “Well...”

“I understood you were designing her a dress?” he continued.

“Yes,” she agreed, remembering the sketches she’d already done. Over the past few years she had discovered that she enjoyed designing clothes much more than modeling them.

“My God, you’re quiet,” he observed, his eyes narrowing against the smoke of his cigarette. “You used to come home gushing like a volcano, full of life and happiness. Now you seem...sedate. Very, very different. What’s the matter, honey, is the glitter wearing off, or are you just tired of going around half-naked for men to look at?”

She gasped at the unexpectedness of the attack and drew in a sharp breath. “Cade Alexander McLaren, I do not go around half-naked!”

“Don’t you?” he demanded. He had that old familiar look on his face, the one that meant he was set for a fight. “I was up in New York one day last month on business and I went to one of your fashion shows. You were wearing a see-through blouse with nothing under it. Nothing!” His face hardened. “My God, I almost went up there and dragged you off that runway. It was all I could do to turn around and walk out of the building. Your father would have rolled over in his grave!”

“My father was proud of me,” she returned, hurting from the remark. “And unless you missed it, most of the people who go to those shows are women!”

“There were men there,” he came back. He crushed out the cigarette. “Do you take off your clothes for men in private, too, Abby?”

She lifted her hand to hit him, but he caught the wrist and jerked. She found herself looking straight into his narrowed eyes at an alarming distance. But worse, she felt the full force of his strength in that steely grip, and she felt panic rise in her throat.

“Let me go, Cade,” she said suddenly, her voice ghostly, her eyes widening with fear. “Oh, please, let me go!”

He scowled, freeing her all at once. She drew back against her door like a cornered cat, actually trembling with reaction. Well, now she knew, didn’t she? she thought miserably. She’d wondered how she’d react to Cade’s strength, and now she truly knew.

“Remember me?” he asked angrily. “We’ve known each other most of our lives. I was defending myself, Abby. I wasn’t going to hit you. What the hell’s the matter with you? Has some man been knocking you around?” His face became frankly dangerous. “Answer me,” he said harshly. “Has one of your boyfriends been rough with you? By God, if he has...!”

“No, it’s not that,” she said quickly, drawing in a steadying breath. Her eyes closed on a wave of remorse. “I’m just tired, Cade. Tired. Burned out. Too many long hours and too many go-sees that didn’t work out, too many demanding photographers, too many retakes of commercials, too many fittings, too many temperamental designers....” She slumped back against the door and opened her eyes, weary eyes, to look at him. “I’m tired.” It was a lie, but then, how could she possibly tell him the truth?

“You came home to rest, is that what you’re telling me?” he asked softly.

“Is it all right?” she asked, her eyes searching his. “A whole month, and I don’t want to interfere with your life....”

“That’s a joke,” he scoffed. His eyes went over the shapeless dress. “You don’t know what a joke it is.” He turned abruptly to open the door. “Let’s go in. It’s freezing out here. We can sit around inside for the rest of the night and watch your sister and Jerry climb all over each other.”

He sounded utterly disgusted, and she laughed involuntarily. “They’re engaged,” she reminded him.

“Then why don’t they get married and make out in their own house?” he growled.

“They’re trying,” she said.

He gave her a hard glare before he opened his door and went around to open hers. “The wedding can’t be soon enough to suit me,” he said. “The only place I haven’t caught them at it is in a closet.”

“They’re in love.” She stepped down from the running board, landing in the soft, cold snow. “My gosh, you’re old-fashioned, Cade.”

“Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed that before?” he asked as they walked toward the house through the driving snow. It tickled Abby’s face, melting cold and wet over her delicate features.

“It’s hard to miss,” she agreed. She glanced up at him, walking so tall and straight beside her. He moved with easy grace, long strides that marked him an outdoorsman. It would take wide-open country like Montana to hold him. “But people in love are notoriously hard to separate.”

“What would you know about love?” he asked, shooting a glance down at her. “Have you ever felt it?”

She laughed with brittle humor. “Most people have a crush or two in a lifetime.”

“You had one on me once, as I remember,” he said quietly. He was staring straight ahead, or he’d have seen the shock that widened Abby’s pale brown eyes.

“I’m surprised you even noticed,” she muttered. “In between raising cattle and fighting off girls at square dances.”

“I noticed.” The words didn’t mean a lot, but the way he said them did. There was a world of meaning in the curt, harsh sound of them.

She drew in a slow breath and wrapped her arms around her chest, averting her gaze from him. Would she ever forget that night? Despite the recent experience that had soured physical relationships for her, she felt an explosion of pleasure at the memory of Cade’s warm, rough mouth on her own, his hands touching her so gently....

They were at the back door. He opened it and let her into the warm, dry kitchen ahead of him. Calla had apparently stepped out for a minute, because it was deserted.

“Abby,” he called.

She turned at the entrance to the dining room and looked back at him. He’d pulled off his hat, and his dark hair glittered damply black in the light.

His eyes slid down her body, taking in the ill-fitting clothing, and went back up to her flushed face and wide, soft eyes. The tension was suddenly between them, the old tension that she’d felt that night at the swimming pool when he’d seen her as no other man ever had. She could feel the shock of his gaze, the wild beat of her own heart in the silence that throbbed with unexpected promise.

“Are you happy in New York?” he asked.

She faltered, trying to get words past her tight throat. She had been—or she’d convinced herself that she had been—until the incident that had made her run home for shelter, for comfort. But always she’d missed Painted Ridge...and Cade.

“Of course I am,” she lied. “Why?”

His tall frame shifted impatiently, as if he’d wanted an answer she hadn’t given him. He made a strange gesture with one hand. “I just wondered, that’s all. I saw your face on a magazine cover the other day,” he added, studying her. “One of the better ones. That means something, I gather?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a wan smile. “It’s quite a coup to have a cover on that kind of magazine. My agency was thrilled about it.”

His eyes wandered over her face, searching eyes that grew dark with some emotion she couldn’t name. “You’re beautiful, all right,” he said quietly. “You always were. Not just physically, either. You reminded me of sunlight on a morning meadow. All silky and bright and sweet to look at. Whatever happened to that little girl?”

She felt an ache deep inside, a hunger that nothing had ever filled. Her eyes touched every hard line of his face, lines she would have loved to smooth away. She withered away from you, she wanted to tell him. Part of her died when she left Painted Ridge.

But of course she couldn’t say that. “She grew up, Cade,” she said instead.

He shook his head and smiled—a strange, soft smile that puzzled her. “No, not quite. I carry her around in my memory and every once in a while, I take her out and look at her.”

“She was dreadfully naive,” she murmured, trying not to let him see how his statement had touched her.

He moved slowly toward her, stopping just in front of her. He towered over her, powerful and big and faintly threatening, and she fought down the fear of his strength that had already surfaced once that night.

She looked up, intrigued by the smell of leather and wind that clung to him. “I’d forgotten how tall you are,” she said involuntarily.

“I’ve forgotten nothing about you, Abby,” he said curtly. “Including the fact that once you couldn’t get close enough to me. But now you back away the minute I come near you.”

So he had noticed. She dropped her eyes to the front of his shepherd’s coat. “Do I?”

“You shied away from me in the calving shed tonight. Do you think I didn’t notice? Then in the truck...” He drew in a deep breath. “My God, I’d never hurt you. Don’t you know that?”