Midnight Under the Mistletoe

“Zach, that’s wonderful. I’d think you’d want to read each of these yourself.”

“Hardly. They are letters from an old codger who settled out here and struggled to carve out a life on the plains. He was probably a tough old bird and about as lovable as a prickly porcupine. I think you are romanticizing him. Sit here beside me so whenever you have a question you can ask me. Want anything to drink before we start?”

“No, thank you, I’m fine.” As she crossed the room, his gaze raked briefly over her, making every inch tingle. She became aware of the navy sweater and matching slacks she had pulled on this morning, her hair in a ponytail.

Catching a whiff of his enticing aftershave, she sat beside him.

“The big basket is for letters and papers that go to the shredder,” he instructed. Sitting only inches from him, she was lost in his blue eyes and could barely focus on what he told her. She was even closer than she had been that first morning and it was distracting beyond measure.

“As far as I’m concerned, I think it would do the family a favor to shred all papers that don’t contain pertinent information that would affect our lives today,” he said. His voice deepened a notch and he slowed his speech. Was their proximity having an effect on him, too?

Lost in depths of blue, she was mesmerized. Her breath caught and held. He leaned a fraction closer. Her heart raced. With an effort she looked away, trying to get back to their normal relationship. Leaning away from him, she touched the yellowed envelopes in the large box as she tried to get back to his instructions.

“If there is anything about money, boundary rights, water rights, that sort of thing, then place the paper in the box marked Consider and I will read it. If you find maps, drawings, etc., then place them in Miscellaneous.”

As what he had told her to do sank in, she frowned. She picked up a tattered, yellow envelope with flowing writing across the front. “This was in the 1800s. Look at the address on it. It’s just a name and the county. You want to shred it?”

“If it doesn’t have anything pertinent to the matters I listed—rights, boundaries, money. Something significant.”

“The letter is significant if it has nothing like that in it. Isn’t it written by one of your ancestors?”

“Probably my great-great-grandfather. Maybe further back than that by one generation.”

“You can’t shred it. It’s wonderful to have all these letters from your ancestors and know what they were like,” she said, staring at him and wondering how he could care so little about his own family history. “How can you feel that way about them?”

With a smile he shook his head. “It’s past and over.”

“You have an architectural firm, so you must like old buildings.”

“Old buildings are more reliable than people. People change constantly and you can’t always count on them. An old building—if it’s built right—might last through centuries and you can definitely rely on it.”

She stared at him, wondering who had let him down so badly that he would view people as unreliable. Had it started when his mother had walked out on the family? Three young boys. Emma shivered, unable to imagine a mother leaving her young sons. Maybe that was why Zach kept his feelings bottled up. “This is your tie to your past. And your ancestors were reliable or you wouldn’t even be here now.”

“Okay, so read through the letters. If they’re not significant in the manner I’ve told you, toss them in this basket. Give me two or three of the most interesting and I’ll read them and see if I can discover why I should keep them. I think when you get into it, you’ll change your mind. I don’t want to save letters that tell how the sod roof leaks or the butter churn broke or a wagon needs a new axle.”

“I think all those things would be interesting.” She tilted her head to study him. “Family really isn’t important to you, is it?”

Shaking his head again, he continued to smile. “Sure it is. I’m close with my brothers. That doesn’t mean I want a bunch of old letters none of us will look at twice. They’re musty, rotting and of no value.” He leaned closer, so close she blinked and forgot the letters. He was only inches away and his mouth was inviting, conjuring up her curiosity about how he kissed.

“You’re looking at me as if I just sprouted fangs.”

She couldn’t get her breath to answer him. His eyes narrowed a tiny fraction and his smile vanished. The look in his eyes changed, intensifying. Her pulse drummed, a steady rhythm that was loud in her ears. “I can’t understand your attitude.”

“Well, we’re alike to a degree there—I can’t understand yours,” he said lightly. Again a thick silence fell and she couldn’t think about letters or the subject of their conversation or even what he had just said. All she thought about was his mouth only a few inches from hers. Realizing the lust-charged moments were happening too often, she shifted and looked away, trying to catch her breath and get back on track.

She stood and stepped away, turning to glance back. “I’ll get a pen and paper in case I need to take notes.”

“I’ll help sort some of these,” he said, studying her with a smoldering look.

She wanted to thank him and tell him his help wasn’t necessary. It definitely wasn’t wanted. She needed to keep space between them. Big spaces. This wasn’t a way to start a new assignment. She had no such attraction to men she worked with in Dallas, or anywhere else for that matter. Why was Zach Delaney so compelling?

It was certainly not because he was great fun or because they had so much in common. The only similarities they had were living in Texas at the same time in history and being connected in business to the same company. She had to get a grip on her reactions to him.

In every way he was not the man to be attracted to. Her boss, a world traveler, cared almost nothing for all the things that were important to her, family most of all.

Picking up a tablet, a pen and an empty wooden tray, she returned to her chair, pulling it slightly farther from his, but she couldn’t move away because the basket and box to put the old documents in stood between them. She placed the wooden tray on the floor beside her chair.

When she opened the first envelope, a faint, musty odor emanated as she withdrew thin, yellowed pages covered in script. She read the letter from a man who wrote about frontier life, the “beeves” he had rounded up, and his plans to take them north to sell.

“Zach, if this is your great-great-grandfather, you should read this letter and see what kind of life he had,” she said impulsively. “It’s fascinating. He writes about a wagon train that came through and camped on his land. Is that this same ranch?”

“Same identical one,” he remarked dryly, amusement in his expression.

“Listen—’their leader was Samuel Worthington,’” she read. “‘Samuel asked if they could stay. He said they had traveled from Virginia and were going west. They had lost four people in their group. The four unfortunates drowned when they crossed a treacherous river after a rain. I gave them flour and beef so they had fresh supplies. Worry ran high about finding water in days to come so I drew Samuel a map of the land I know and showed him where to find water when they left my home. They have great expectations regarding their journey.’”

She lowered the letter to look at Zach. “I think that’s wonderful. Don’t you feel you know a little now about your great-great-grandfather? He was kind and generous with those travelers. I would be so excited if these were letters written by my great-great-grandfather.”

Zach smiled at her as if facing a bubbling child. “Okay. My great-great-grandfather was a nice guy who was good to people passing through. That knowledge really doesn’t bring me closer because he lived years ago. It doesn’t change the course of life. He was a rancher in the old days of the longhorns and he had a tough life. He worked hard and was successful and built on the land to pass that on to the next Delaney son. I don’t need to wade through all his old letters about life on the plains in the early days.”

She tilted her head to study Zach. She was both annoyed by his attitude and at the same time, mesmerized again by his enticing smile. “Do your brothers feel the way you do?”

“We haven’t talked about it. I’ll ask before I shred these. I would guess that Will might want them and Ryan will feel the same as I do.”

She shook her head. “I can’t understand your family. You must not have been close growing up.”

He shrugged and shook his head. “When our mom walked out and divorced Dad, he sent us away to different boarding schools. I suppose he had some reason that seemed logical to him. We’re close in some ways, but we were separated most of the time for a lot of years. It made a difference.”

“That’s truly dreadful.”

He smiled again and her pulse fluttered. “Don’t feel too sorry for us. Our father spent a lot of money on us.”

“Money doesn’t make up for some things.”

“We could argue that one all night,” he said, leaning back and placing his hands behind his head. The T-shirt stretched tautly across his broad shoulders and his muscles flexed. As he stretched out, she could not keep from taking one swift glance down the length of him. Feathers were holding a dance inside her. Everything quivered and lustful thoughts flashed in her mind. She realized silence was growing again and he watched her with a look of interest. Her mind raced for something, trying to think where the conversation had ended.

“Your great-great-grandfather—I wonder if any of you resemble him.”

“You can see for yourself. In the last years of his life, someone painted his portrait. It hangs in the library.” He put down his arms and leaned forward. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”

“You don’t need to walk there now. I assume you’re supposed to be staying off your foot.”

“I can walk around,” he said, getting the crutch. “I go to the doc next week and hope to get off this crutch. I’ll still be in some kind of crazy medical shoe, but at least I may lose the crutch. C’mon. We’ll go look at my old ancestor. I suspect he was a tough old bird. My dad was in his own way. I’m amazed he kept the letters. He didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body until the last couple of years of his life. Or maybe since Caroline’s birth. That little granddaughter changed him.”

“That’s family—little children wrap around your heart.”

He gave her another big smile. “You’re sentimental, Emma.”

“I certainly am,” she replied cheerfully.