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

Brand unsheathed his rifle. “I’m going hunting. Try to get a rabbit or a grouse. Keep riding and stay on the trail.”

She said nothing, and he loped away into the trees. An hour later he caught up to her, a fat rabbit hanging off his saddle horn.

“I did not hear a gunshot,” she remarked.

“Used a snare. A shot might be heard.”

He picked a campsite sheltered by larch trees where the creek they’d been following widened. Suzannah dismounted, stretched her aching back muscles and studied the stream. She was hot and tired and sticky with perspiration.

“I’m going to take a bath.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Why not? I cannot stop thinking about how good that cool water would feel, and I could wash my hair and rinse out my shirt and—”

“No.”

“Brand, be reasonable. No one is following us—you said so yourself.”

He tramped up and down beside the stream and finally turned to face her. “I want you where I can see you.”

“That,” she replied, “would be highly improper.”

“Maybe so, but it’s also highly safe. Take it or leave it.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Setting up camp. Tending the horses. Dressing out that rabbit for supper. I don’t want you too far out of sight.”

She considered his words, then fixed her gaze on him and considered the man who spoke them. He wasn’t exactly honorable; after all, he’d kissed her twice without asking permission. But he was honest, and she trusted him.

“Very well,” she agreed at last. She dug a bar of soap wrapped in tinfoil out of her saddlebag and unfolded a clean shirt. Green this time. She was sick of the red plaid and it was beginning to get dirty again. And anyway, if she washed it out and put it back on wet, he would look at her in that same hot way he’d done before. She surmised, somewhat shocked, that a wet shirt plastered to her skin must reveal her nipples.

She found a spot where the creek bank gradually shelved off into the water and was screened by a leafy bush. She turned to see where Brand was.

She could just see the top of his head as he moved around camp, and he was not looking at her. She unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged it off, then realized she had no towel. Well, she would simply have to air-dry.

Submerging her body in the rippling water felt heavenly, even if it was ice-cold! She lolled and rubbed the soap over her skin and lolled some more before she rinsed off the bubbles. Then she unwound her braid and washed her hair. She soused the red plaid shirt up and down in the creek, tossed it over a bush, and waved her arms in the air to dry her skin.

A delicious, stomach-rumbling smell drifted from the camp. Meat! Thank heavens, supper would be not jerky but rabbit. She moved her arms faster.

* * *

Working slowly with only one hand, Brand spitted the cut-up rabbit pieces, arranged them over the coals and stood up. A flash of something pale caught his attention and he narrowed his eyes. Jehoshaphat, it was Suzannah. Naked. Her arms outstretched, her face tipped up toward the disappearing sun. Her back was to him.

His mouth went dry. She was so beautiful it made his throat ache. She was one hundred percent female perfection from the flare of her hips to her knobby spine to her slim shoulders. All perfection. Her hair was loose and maybe damp the way it clung to her neck and upper back in little straggly curls.

Turn away, Wyler. Turn around.

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t turn around.

When he opened them she was buttoning up a green shirt and shaking the wet hair out of her eyes. He groaned out loud. Five days to go. Five days of trying not to look at her, smell her. Touch her. Four days of riding side by side during the day and sleeping next to her all night.

And he was plumb out of whiskey.

When she returned to camp he made a decision. “Watch the rabbit, will you? I’m goin’ for a swim.”

“It’s too shallow to swim,” she said at his back.

He didn’t answer, just walked straight into the cold water and lay down in the creek. Even the icy water didn’t cool him off.

He stood up, took off his clothes and lay back down.

“Do you want my bar of soap?” she called.

“No.”

“It’s scented with lavender.”

“Keep it. And stay away from the creek.”

When he finally dragged himself back to camp, his boots were squishy and the wet garments he’d wrestled back on dripped water wherever he stood. With a silent curse he dug out a clean shirt and headed back to the creek, washed out his dirty shirt and socks and his drawers, and tossed them over the bush next to Suzannah’s red shirt. By the time he returned to camp his nerves were steadier.

Suzannah gave the spitted rabbit another quarter turn and set the coffeepot close to the fire. She’d watched Brand make coffee, and now she knew how to finish off the brew by dumping in a cup of cold water before pouring it. For some reason knowing how to do this buoyed her spirits. Every army wife must know such things, she supposed. Now she was one step closer to being just that, an army wife.

Brand tramped back into camp, his dark hair looking damp and unruly and his jeans soaking wet.

“Did you bathe?”

“Not exactly,” he said dryly.

She gazed up at him. “Well, what, exactly?”

That made him laugh. The sound sent a shiver up the back of her neck. She liked this man. Even if he lacked the manners to ask permission before kissing her, she liked him.

John had asked permission, but, well, it wasn’t the same. Oh, bother! Properly raised women were not supposed to enjoy such intimacies.

But you enjoyed it with Brand, Suzannah. Admit it. You enjoyed it so much it frightened you. You even wanted more.

Hush up! She could not allow herself to think such wayward thoughts. Instead she busied herself rummaging in his saddlebag for the tin plates and the spoon they shared for supper.

Brand squatted next to her at the fire pit and poked a finger at the rabbit. “It’s done. You hungry?”

He needn’t have asked. She wolfed down two nicely browned pieces and when she looked longingly at a third, he chuckled. “For someone as slim as, um, slim as you are, you sure have a good appetite.”

“Riding all day makes me hungry, I guess.”

“Got berries for dessert,” he remarked.