The Christmas Ranch

She mulled that as she opened a can of tomatoes and poured the contents into the saucepan. “Are you on leave, then?”

“I had my twenty years in so I retired.”

It had been the toughest decision of his life, too, but he didn’t add that.

“You gave up your career to take care of your nephew?”

He shifted, uncomfortable. “I’m not quite that noble. I’d been thinking about leaving for a while.” That was somewhat true. As he headed into the tail end of his thirties, he had started to wonder if he still had the chops for what was basically a younger man’s game. He had started to wonder what else might be out there, but he hadn’t been ready to walk away quite yet and had all but committed to re-up for another four years, at least. Everything changed after that phone call from Cami.

“So what will you do now? Are you sticking around Pine Gulch?”

“Only until my sister’s sentencing. I’d like to go back to the San Diego area where I have a condo and a couple of job offers, but she begged me to stay until she is sentenced so she can see her son once or twice. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let Joey finish school here since he has friends and seems to be doing okay.”

“San Diego is nice. Pretty beaches, great weather. An excellent place to raise children.”

He let out a breath, more uneasy at her words than he should be. He was now raising a child. How the he—er, heck was he supposed to do that? The past few weeks had been tough enough. Looking ahead at months and possibly years of being responsible for a boy who wanted little to do with him was more daunting than his first few weeks of BUD/S training.

He would get through this new challenge like he did that hellish experience, by keeping his gaze focused only on the next minute and then the one after that and the one after that.

Right now, the next minute was filled with a beautiful woman in his kitchen, moving from counter to stove to refrigerator with a graceful economy of movement he found extremely appealing. He liked having her here in the kitchen, entirely too much.

Something about her delicate features, the pretty blue eyes and those wild blond curls held back in a ponytail, made his mouth water more than the delicious aromas now wafting from the saucepan she was stirring on the stove.

He wasn’t sure he liked this edgy feeling. As a rule, he tended to favor control, order.

His turbulent childhood probably had something to do with his need for calm. He had a feeling Hope was part of it, too—after the way he had screwed up on his very first mission as a SEAL, he had channeled all his guilt and regret into becoming a highly trained, totally focused, hard-as-titanium special warfare operator.

His platoon members called him Frío, the Spanish word for cold. Not because he was unfriendly or unfeeling but because he generally turned to ice under pressure.

Come to think of it, that need for order might be one of the reasons he and Joey were struggling to find their way together. Seven-year-old boys—especially troubled, unhappy seven-year-old boys—tended to generate chaos in their wake.

He’d need to find a little of that ice water in his veins pronto and remember he had enough to deal with right now without this unexpected and unwelcome attraction to someone who would likely hate him if she knew who he truly was.

* * *

She hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t much of a cook, but maybe she had exaggerated a little.

She wasn’t terrible exactly, she just generally didn’t have the patience or time for it. There was something quite satisfying about having one specialty, though, and she could say without false modesty that her red sauce was something truly remarkable.

Rafe Santiago and his nephew were in for a treat—if she could relax enough to finish the job while the man glowered at her from his position leaning against the counter next to the sink.

Why did he seem so familiar? She wished she could place him. It could just be that she had encountered more than her share of big, tough military types.

Usually they turned her off. She tended to gravitate toward scholars and artists, not big hulking dudes with biceps the size of basketballs.

The truth was, Rafe Santiago made her nervous and it was a feeling she was completely unaccustomed to.

She forced away the feeling and focused instead on the red sauce. She gave the pot a stir and then grabbed a clean spoon so she could taste it.

“Mmm. Needs more oregano.” She shook in a little more and stirred a few more times then grabbed another clean spoon to taste again. “There it is. Perfect. See for yourself.”

“I trust you.”

“Come on. Try it.” She held out yet another spoon for him. After a moment, he rolled his eyes then leaned in and wrapped that very sexy mouth around the spoon.

“Right?” she pushed.

He gave a small laugh that held no small amount of appreciation. “Wow. That is much better than anything I could have come up with.”

“Again, to be clear, a good red sauce is literally one of my very few skills in the kitchen. My aunt Mary despaired of me ever learning to even scramble an egg. I have conquered a halfway decent omelet and the red sauce, but that’s about it. Oh, and couscous. I just spent three years in Morocco and you can’t leave the country without at least trying to make tagines and couscous.”

“In the space of five minutes, you’ve gone from starting a club for people who are helpless in the kitchen to spouting culinary words I barely even know.”

“A tagine is both a cooking implement and a dish. Sort of like the word casserole. It’s a pot that comes with a domed lid. Tagines are also very delicious meat and vegetable dishes, kind of like a stew. I make a really delicious one with honeyed lemons and lamb.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“Maybe I’ll make it for you sometime.”

As soon as the words escaped her mouth, she wanted to yank them back. Why on earth would she say that? She wasn’t going to be cooking for the man again. She shouldn’t be here now. She had a million other things to do at the moment and none of them had anything to do with fixing a red sauce for Rafe Santiago, even if she was incredibly drawn to the man.

How could she help it, when he talked about giving up his military career to rescue his nephew? It was a wonder she hadn’t melted into a mushy pile of hormones on his kitchen floor.

“So what time will Joey be back?”

He glanced at the clock on the microwave.

“Hard to say. I told him five-thirty. So far obeying the rules doesn’t seem to be one of his strengths.”

She smiled a little at his disgruntled tone. “Well, you’ll want to give the red sauce about fifteen minutes more than that, stirring every few minutes. Don’t forget to stir. Seriously. Don’t forget! I always set a timer to remind me every two or three minutes. If you start your pasta water boiling now, you can add it just as Joey gets back.”

“That’s it? You come in, throw together dinner and then just take off? You could at least stay and eat it with us.”

Oh, she was tempted. If circumstances had been different, she would have jumped at the chance. But, again, she had a million things to do and she couldn’t afford any distractions. Rafe Santiago was the very definition of the word distraction.

“Sorry, but I can’t.”

He gave her a challenging sort of look. “Why not? That would at least give you a chance to finally bring up the reason you came here in the first place.”

She laughed. “Ulterior motive? Me? Why, you suspicious man. You mean I can’t convince you I stopped by just to save you from certain culinary disaster?”

“Yeah, sorry. Not buying it, though I won’t complain about the pleasant secondary outcome.”

Oh, she liked this man. Entirely too much. Again, she thought how familiar he seemed and was vexed that she couldn’t place him.

“All right. You caught me. The truth is, I found an excellent way for Joey to work off the cost of replacing my truck window.”

“I suspected as much.”