Dreaming Of A Western Christmas: His Christmas Belle / The Cowboy of Christmas Past / Snowbound with the Cowboy

The look she sent him could bake biscuits.

* * *

First thing the next morning, he gobbled Jase’s overfried eggs and bacon, outfitted his gelding and a sure-footed mare he’d picked out with bedrolls and his saddlebag, and strode over to Colonel Clarke’s quarters to collect Miss Suzannah Cumberland.

She was waiting on the front porch, and he had to look twice to be sure it was really her. The red plaid shirt was filled out in all the right places, and the jeans clung to her saucy little butt like they’d been washed and shrunk on her body.

He looked at her hard and his mouth went dry. She looked crisp and clean and brand-new. And damn pretty. She’d caught her shiny wheat-colored hair at her neck with a red ribbon, and the wide-brimmed black hat he’d picked out rode jauntily on the top of her head.

He swallowed and led both horses up to the porch. “Here’s your mount. Name’s Lady.”

She nodded. Brand picked up her saddlebag and slung it behind the saddle, then waited.

She didn’t move.

“Come on, Miss Cumberland. We’re wasting daylight.”

“I—I did not expect the horse to be so large,” she said. The quaver in her voice made Brand’s gut tense. Oh, for cryin’ out loud.

“All horses are ‘large.’”

“Yes, I see.” Still she didn’t move.

“You want to change your mind?” he prompted.

“N-no. I will adjust.”

Adjust! Riding a horse took a lot more than “adjusting.” What she needed to do was get on the damn horse.

Slowly she descended the wide porch steps and edged over to where he stood holding her mare’s bridle. “How do I... I mean, is there a method for mounting?”

“Yep. Put your left foot in this stirrup and grab onto the saddle horn, that little knob in front of the saddle.”

She did as instructed, and he laid one hand on her behind to boost her up. It was so warm and plump under his palm he broke out in a sweat.

She peered down at him. “It is quite far to the ground. Farther than I thought.”

“Hold on to your reins and for God’s sake don’t kick the horse.” He mounted the black, leaned over and lifted the reins out of her white-knuckled grip. “Relax. I’m going to lead your horse till you get used to ridin’.” He touched his boot heels to the gelding’s sides and moved forward. The gray mare stepped after him, and Miss Cumberland let out a screech.

“It’s moving!”

“Damn right,” he said dryly. “Horses do this all the time. Just hang on.”

He walked both mounts past the goggle-eyed sentry and out the gate while she clung to the saddle horn with both hands and made little moany sounds. God, four hundred miles of this was going to be pure hell.

After a couple of miles he pulled up and laid the gray’s reins in her hands. The gloves Jase had picked out for her were so large the ends of her fingers were floppy. He didn’t want to think about those soft lily-white hands getting sweaty inside the leather.

He didn’t want to think about her at all. Either she’d get used to the rigors of the trail or she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t be his fault if she suffered. This wasn’t his idea, and it sure wasn’t his choice.

* * *

Suzannah detested this man. He was blunt and overbearing and ungracious as only a Yankee could be. A Yankee with no social graces. If it weren’t for her beloved John’s letter, written in haste before a campaign, she would turn tail and run back to Mama and the plantation she loved.

Her back ached. Her derriere had gone numb hours ago, and the need to relieve herself was beginning to feel overpowering. Did this man never rest? How much longer could she stay in the saddle without begging him to stop? She caught her lower lip between her teeth. How humiliating it would be to beg!

But...humiliating or not, in a short time she would be reduced to doing just that. A very short time. She could scarcely imagine begging a Yankee for anything. Papa would turn in his grave.

The man—Brandon, he’d said his name was—had led her horse for an hour this morning, but then he’d stopped, grunted something and handed the reins to her. From then on she was on her own. He had not spared her so much as a single glance of those hard gray eyes. No approval of her desperate efforts at controlling this huge gray beast. Not a word of encouragement.

She eyed his lean, blue-shirted frame moving easily on the shiny black horse in front of her. Not once had he looked over his shoulder to see if she was still plodding along behind him. Odious man! Her beloved John would never, never treat a lady this way. Never.

She was concentrating so hard on the dust-swirled trail ahead of her she failed to see his raised arm and the signal to stop until she almost blundered into him.

“Water ahead,” he said. “Gotta rest the horses.”

“The horses! What about the riders?”

“Water’s for them, too.” He spoke the words while gazing ahead to a single spindly-looking tree, more dirty gray than green. Never once did he look at her. Fury battled with desperation as she tried to estimate how long it would take to reach the shade. And personal relief. Too long.

“Could we not move a bit faster?” she called.

He didn’t answer, just kicked his mount into a trot. She touched her boot heels to the horse’s sides as he did, and it jolted forward. With a cry she hurtled up level with him and would have passed him had he not leaned sideways out of the saddle and grabbed her reins.

“Whoa, girl. Whoa.” He then proceeded to walk both animals toward the tree as if he had all the time in the world. Well, she didn’t.

He pulled up by a stream tumbling over large flat rocks, and Suzannah gritted her teeth. The sound of running water triggered something in her body, and without thinking she swung her leg over the saddle horn and dropped to the ground.

Her legs buckled. She grabbed onto the dangling stirrup and suddenly there he was behind her, one hand gripping her leather belt.

“I have to—”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do. Over there.” He laid his hand on her back and shoved her toward the tree.

There was no privacy at all. The tree trunk looked no wider than a sleeve press, and the sparse branches would not screen a four-year-old child.

“I trust you will turn your back, Mr. Wyler?”

“We’ll take turns. You first.”

It was so much easier for a man, she fumed. Just unbutton and... She, on the other hand, would have to shimmy her jeans down over her hips, then lower her underdrawers and squat practically in plain sight.

She perched on her haunches with her bare bottom exposed and watched to be sure he didn’t peek. While she did her business, he brought their horses to the stream and bent to fill his canteen. He did keep his back to her, for which she thanked the Lord who created men and women.

His voice startled her. “You finished?”

“Y-yes.”

“Come on over here, then. Fill up your canteen.”