A Cowboy's Christmas Wedding

“Okay, fine.”

He put the truck in gear, trying not to spin the tires as they set off down the drive.

“What’s on your list of things to do?”

He could sense her staring at him. He refused to look at her because if he did, he might start thinking those crazy thoughts again, the ones that made his body do things it shouldn’t be doing.

You’re hard up, buddy.

Maybe he was. That had to be the reason he clenched the steering wheel so hard. Why he refused to look at her. Why he tried not to even breathe deeply. It sure as hell had nothing to do with wanting to go to bed with the woman. She’d be the last woman on earth he’d want to do that with, for myriad reasons. They were polar opposites in personality. He liked things nice and quiet, had worked hard to carve out a routine life that revolved around his ranch and catering to guests. She was used to living life in the limelight. And next year she was making a bid for the National Finals Rodeo on her barrel-racing horse....

Nope. Never in a million years would he be interested in a woman like Saedra Robbins.

“Speaking of the wedding, why don’t you have any Christmas decorations up?”

He almost slammed on the brakes. They were at the end of his driveway.

“Did you not have the time because of the NFR?”

He gripped the steering wheel even harder, probably leaving dents, his knuckles screaming in protest.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Fine.” He had to force the word past his lips.

“You look sort of...ill.”

Deep breath. “We don’t decorate the house.”

Cabe turned left, out of his driveway, but he could still feel her staring at him, still tell by the way she shifted in her seat that the words surprised her.

“Why not?”

He scanned the road left and right, the waning sunlight causing him to have to lower the brim of his hat so he could see better. “We just don’t.”

But he knew the moment he said the words that they’d only leave her more curious. He wasn’t exactly holding true to his vow to appear more friendly, now, was he?

“Is it a religious thing?”

“No.”

“Okay, good, because if it’s just a timing thing, I can help. Now would be a really good time to do it, too, you know, before things get too crazy with the wedding.”

“No.”

“No to doing it now? Or no to decorating entirely?”

“I don’t want the house decorated.”

Silence. He could sense her surprise. Off in the distance he noticed storm clouds, and Cabe mentally cursed under his breath. In all the hullabaloo surrounding her arrival he hadn’t bothered to check the weather forecast. If it was going to snow, that meant he needed to prepare, but by the time he returned from town, it’d be pitch-black outside.

She still hadn’t spoken and he knew he’d probably been too harsh. But, damn it, she needed to get it through her head that Christmas was not a good time of year. Not since...

He swallowed.

Kimberly.

“Your wife and brother died around this time of year, didn’t they?”

It felt like he’d been sucker punched. As if she’d probed an old wound that sent spasms of pain through his insides. Physical pain.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He stared straight ahead still, but he spotted movement, nearly gasped when he felt her hand on his thigh a moment later.

“Cabe, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean... I wasn’t trying to...”

What? Be nosy? No. She wasn’t trying to be that. He knew that, but he still wanted to lash out at her, had to take deep breaths to keep from saying something he knew he might regret later.

“If it helps, I know what you’re going through.”

Oh, yeah? Had she lost a wife and a brother on the same day? Had she lost the mother of her only child? Her best friend?

“Dustin died just before the NFR and so, for me, Thanksgiving is hell.”

Dustin. Trent’s best friend. And hers, too, from the sound of it.

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

She released his thigh. He closed his eyes against the pain, but it wasn’t just emotional pain. Something else had filled him, something that had to do with the way her hand felt against his leg, something that made him so instantly upset, he found himself gunning the engine.

“Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

He headed toward town, glancing back at her in time to see her nod.

But deep down inside, in a place Cabe had forgotten existed, a place that reminded him that he was a man who’d been without a woman for far too long, Cabe wanted to cry. Admitting that he was human, that he found Saedra attractive, was the worst thing of all.

He betrayed his wife with every damn thought.

Chapter Three

They couldn’t get to town soon enough.

The man could reduce her comfort level to that of sitting on lava rocks.

Let’s just get this over with, shall we?

Maybe she should give him tit for tat. Maybe she should spoon him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe she should make him feel as uncomfortable as he made her feel.