Christmastime Cowboy

He wasn’t sure what the woman he’d ordered his coffee from had looked like. The woman Sabrina had accused him of flirting with. That was the funny thing. Sabrina had been seething at him about how he could never know her, all the while assuming she knew him.

He wouldn’t point out the hypocrisy, though, because there was no point. She was already mad at him. He would wait to throw something like that at her when she was relaxed and fine. That, at least, would result in a little more amusement.

Not that he should try to make Sabrina angry, or enjoy it in any fashion. But he found that he did.

“Sorry,” he said, not feeling sorry in the least.

“I don’t believe that.”

“That’s okay. A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing.”

She made a strange scoffing sound and tapped the top of her coffee cup. “Oh, I know. Believe me.”

They walked on in silence. Until Sabrina cleared her throat. “So, what have you been up to for the past...well, since I’ve seen you?”

He chuckled. “I don’t actually think you’re interested in that, Sabrina.”

“I am interested in that, Liam. Do you know how you can tell? Because I asked. If I wasn’t interested, I wouldn’t have.”

“Well. You have seen me a couple of times in Ace’s bar, and you didn’t ask me then. In fact, if memory serves, you just left.”

“Right. Well, I remembered that I had somewhere else I wanted to be.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere? Root canal?”

“Surprisingly, you’re not the first woman to say she’d rather get a root canal then be around me.”

Sabrina laughed, a short, somehow-unamused sound that was more than a little bit forced. “Well, I do hate to be unoriginal. Maybe not a root canal then. Maybe getting towed behind a fishing boat by my big toe?”

“That I haven’t heard.”

He didn’t answer her question, and she didn’t press. And then they had reached the end of the street, arriving at the vacant corner building he thought would be the ideal location for the showroom. They would catch most of the traffic as it came through Copper Ridge, and quite a bit of foot traffic too.

Anyone headed down to the beach would most likely come this way, and anyone headed out toward the winery itself, or to the town of Gold Valley, would pass through as well.

He could tell Sabrina all of that, but she was smart enough to figure it out on her own, and to see the advantages the location would bring to Grassroots. He had a feeling that any resistance she was putting up was just for the sake of it. Because she was still pissed at him. Which he had known, because of the aforementioned running out of the bar when she had seen him. Not that his own reaction had been neutral.

But that was the thing about her. The thing that he could never quite figure out.

He could forget women he’d had sex with. He had forgotten women he’d had sex with. More than once. He wasn’t exactly proud of his behavior in that particular arena, but it was what it was.

And before Sabrina, he had never gotten close to a woman without getting naked with her. And even then, there had been a limited emotional connection. He had his reasons for that, and they were good reasons, in his opinion.

Still, Sabrina had defied everything he’d known about himself. At least, in the end that was what it had added up to.

He hadn’t seen it coming. Not from the beginning. That was the important part. Meeting her hadn’t felt like anything special at all. It had seemed safe. Easy. If he’d had any idea what his feelings for her would turn into, he would have pushed her away a hell of a lot sooner.

But then he probably wouldn’t have gotten a full ride through school, so he supposed everything happened for a reason.

Still, he had not expected seeing her to feel like a punch in the chest. She had walked into Ace’s, those beautiful blue eyes widening as they had met with his. Like a magnet. The moment she had walked in he had looked, and she had found him.

As if there was no space between them at all. As if there weren’t thirteen years between them. Thirteen years and some hard decisions and some hurt.

And then, just like that, the moment had snapped in half, reality coming down on it like the fall of an ax. And she had run right out the door.

It had damn well ruined his night. He had been determined then that he was going to break the dry spell that he’d been in the midst of since he’d come back to the ranch. But then, of course, all he had been able to think of was Sabrina.

“This is it,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys.

“Are we meeting Gage here?”

“Nope.” He jammed the key into the lock and turned it. The lock was gold, ornate and old-fashioned. Not original to the building, he didn’t think. But possibly from the 1930s. Which was an odd thing to be focusing on, but it was that or continue to ruminate on Sabrina.

He pushed the cranberry-colored door open and gestured for her to go in first. She did not. Instead, she stood there, staring at him.

“I got the keys from Gage last night. He said it was fine if we had a look around.”

She was still staring at him.

“He’s not a real estate agent,” Liam said, walking into the building since it didn’t seem like she was going to. “He has other things to do that don’t entail hovering over us while we look around. Anyway, I thought you might appreciate the chance to speak freely.”

He could tell by the tentative steps that Sabrina took inside that she had been hoping Gage West would be here to act as a buffer between them. Liam had been hoping for no such thing. He didn’t want her to have a buffer. He didn’t want a buffer at all.

He didn’t need one. He was more than capable of dealing with the situation. Actually, he relished the chance to do this. Because he might have taken a deal a long time ago to stay away from Sabrina, but now, no man owned him. Least of all Jamison Leighton.

Which meant he could be here with her if he wanted to be. And actually, she was the one who had to play nice with him. The Leighton family didn’t hold a single damn thing over his head anymore.

He turned a slow circle and looked around the room. It was clean and in good condition. There was no furniture in it of any kind. It was just big and empty. Picture windows looked out over Main Street and out toward the Chamber of Commerce, the Crab Shanty and, beyond that, the ocean.

It was the best of Copper Ridge, all visible there from the shop.

They would need a counter, some coolers and a seating area. But, given that they planned to keep everything simple, it should come together pretty quickly. He had done a lot more with less.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

And then, a moment later he realized his mistake. Because there was no way Sabrina was going to let this be that simple. If he had voiced a complaint, he would be much more likely to get her on board.

Her lips twitched, and then her left shoulder. “I don’t know about that. And really, I think that Lindy should come and look at everything before we make decisions.”

“I was under the impression that Lindy had enough on her plate, and that she wanted you to handle it.”

He could see that Sabrina wasn’t used to being challenged directly. It was another thing that was interesting about her. Another difference. When he had known her she had been a lot more open. Sweeter. A lot more likely to crumple if pressure was applied.

Now she might be more outwardly brittle, but he had a feeling it would take an iron squeeze to get her to crack.

And when she did... Yeah, he was afraid she would shatter. And he had no intention of shattering her. Messing with her a little bit while they worked on this project was one thing. But he wasn’t a total dick.