Rich Rancher For Christmas

“I’ll bring in some better clothes for you,” he said as he headed out of the room. Because if he had a look at her walking around in that tight skirt and that sheer blouse for the next three or four days...

He was a strong man. But even he wasn’t sure he was that strong. Not if she was going to look all soft and vulnerable as well as sexy.

“Thank you,” she said again in that delicate voice.

No, he wasn’t going to think of her as vulnerable. Or delicate. It was probably just an act designed to get him to open up to her.

He hurried to his parents’ room and dug out some appropriate clothing—long underwear, jeans, shirts and sweaters and socks. His mom was a little shorter and a lot curvier than Natalie Baker, but her things should fit. Better than anything of his, anyway. She’d swim in one of his sweaters.

He knocked on the guest room door and, when no one replied, he cracked it open. Good. The bathroom door was closed and he heard splashing. She was in the shower, then. Standing nude under the hot water, maybe even running the soap over her body, her bare breasts, her...

He hoped she’d locked that damn door. He laid the clothes out on the bed and almost scooped up her things to take them down to the laundry room to dry. But then he caught sight of the lacy bra and matching panties—pale pink, like a confection that she’d worn on her body—and he drew back his hand as if he’d been burned. Okay, so now he was going to not think about her body wearing those things. And he also had to not think about her not wearing those things.

Oh, God. This was a disaster in the making.

He forced his thoughts away from the woman steaming up the shower. He had practical things that he needed to get done. It was obvious she had no idea how to ride out a blizzard, which meant it was up to him to keep them both from freezing to death.

He made sure that every other door on the second floor was shut, then he hurried downstairs, pausing to snag the family photos off the wall. He shoved those into the coat closet. Luckily, he’d laid a fire in the fireplace before he’d gone to town this morning, so all he had to do was light it. Once it was going, he went to the kitchen. He had a roast in a slow cooker, but he turned on the gas oven anyway, just to build up the heat in the house. Once the power went, the wind would sap any warmth from this room in a matter of minutes. And if he just left it on, he wouldn’t have to worry about lighting it with a match later.

He scrubbed a couple of potatoes and put them in the oven and then, after a moment of internal debate, dug an apple pie out of the freezer and put it in the oven, too.

Every fall, his mom went into a frenzy of cooking and baking. CJ had long ago figured out that it was her way of coping with the guilt of leaving her only son alone during the holidays. He had an entire deep freeze full of casseroles and cobblers and meals in bags that all he had to do was heat up in the oven or the slow cooker. Pretty much the only thing she didn’t leave him was pizza and beer, which was why he’d headed to the store this morning after sending his hired hands home for the storm and cutting his chores short. If he was going to be snowed in for Christmas, he wanted a couple of pizzas to round out the menu.

Then he did another sweep of the downstairs. He pulled more photos from the wall and the mantel over the fireplace. These he carried back to the office—that had a door he could lock. If he could, he’d put the entire house in that room and bolt the door shut.

The parlor was where most of the photo albums were—it had a door, but not a lock. Well, he’d just have to keep her out of it. Much as he didn’t like it, he would have to stick to Natalie Baker like glue.

Finally, with dinner underway and as much of his life hidden as he could hide, he headed back up the stairs. Just as he reached the top, she opened her door and stepped out into the hall.

CJ’s breath caught in his throat. Gone was the too-polished, too-perfect celebrity. And in her place...

She’d pulled her hair into a low tail at the side. Her face was free of makeup, but somehow she looked even prettier. Softer, definitely.

That softness was dangerous. So was any question he was asking himself right now about whether or not she’d put the lacy pink panties back on.

So he did his best to focus on anything but that. “Better?” he asked in a gruff voice, but he didn’t need to ask because he could tell. The color had come back into her cheeks—a natural blush instead of an artfully applied one. Her hair was fair—more blond than it looked on-screen. Without the heavy layer of eye makeup, her eyes seemed wider, more crystal blue.

Bad. This was bad.

“Yes, thank you.” Even her voice sounded different now. True, she was no longer shivering with cold, but when she was on television, talking to the camera and interviewing stars, her voice had a certain cadence to it, low and husky. That was gone now.

CJ realized with a start that he might be looking at the real Natalie Baker. And he couldn’t do that. If he started thinking of her as a real person instead of a talking head, then he might get lost in those blue eyes.

Luckily, the storm saved him from himself. With a pop, all the lights went out. Natalie didn’t scream, but he heard her gasp in alarm.

“It’s all right,” he said, coming the rest of the way to get her. The hall was darker than normal because he’d shut the doors. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” He reached out to touch her—just to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. But when he did so, she latched onto his forearm with a tight, fearful grip.

He sucked in air and fought the sudden urge to wrap his arms around her and keep her safe. Dammit, she was getting to him.

“Sorry,” she said, loosening her grip—but not letting him go. “I guess I’m a little jumpy. I’m not normally this poorly prepared.”

CJ didn’t think he could believe she’d gotten stranded by accident. But whether or not her presence here had been planned didn’t change things, at least not for the next few days.

Suddenly, he was aware that they were standing in a mostly dark hallway, touching. He withdrew his hand. “We should grab the pillows and things.”

She jerked her head up in surprise. “What?”

“I’ve got a fire going downstairs in the living room. Once the snow stops, I’ll go outside and get the generator started, but until then we should stay in front of the fire.” He didn’t tell her that he had a fireplace in his room and that there was another one in his parents’ room. This wasn’t his first blizzard.

He wasn’t letting her sleep in his parents’ bed—or his. Absolutely no sharing of beds.

He felt her exhale, the warmth of her breath around him. Almost without being aware of it, he started to lean toward her. “Is that so you can keep an eye on me?”

There wasn’t any point in lying. Besides, lying did not come naturally to him. Perhaps Hardwick Beaumont had been good at it, but Patrick Wesley was honest to a fault. The only thing he had ever lied about was CJ’s mother and CJ. In fact, CJ was sure that Pat had told the lie so many times about marrying Bell on leave and having CJ arrive before he’d been honorably discharged that both his parents believed it, heart and soul.

CJ wanted to believe it, too—because Pat was his father. CJ resented the fact that the ghost of Hardwick Beaumont hung over him—always had, always would.

And he resented this woman for bringing Hardwick Beaumont’s ghost with her. Yes, the anger felt good. He was going to hold on to that anger for as long as he could. She might be prettier in real life, and that softness about her might call to him, but he was furious at her and that was that.

He walked back into the guest room and stripped the blankets and pillows off the bed. “Here,” he said, shoving them at her. Then he went to his own room and did the same. There. Now they didn’t have a reason to come back upstairs for the next several days.

Wordlessly, he led the way back downstairs to the living room. The fire had taken and the room was bathed in a warm, crackling glow.

He dropped his bedding on the couch and went to work rearranging the room. The coffee table went to the far side under the windows, where it would be darkest and coldest. He pulled the couch forward so it faced the fire and then dragged the recliners over so they boxed in the heat on each side. He laid a blanket over the coffee table so that drafts wouldn’t come in underneath it. And then he made a pallet on the floor. “You can take the couch.”

Her eyes widened and CJ knew she understood him perfectly. He would sleep on the floor, directly in front of her, to keep her from sneaking off in the night and snooping.

She hesitated. “You’ve done this before.”

He wasn’t sure how he was going to talk to her without revealing things. Well, the trick was to reveal as little as possible. “I have. This is not my first blizzard. But I’m gathering that it’s your first time.” The moment the words left his mouth, he winced. That was an unfortunate double entendre.

But, gracefully, she ignored his poor choice of words. She fluffed her pillows and shot him a sheepish grin. “I suppose that was obvious. It’s different in Denver.” She folded her blankets, making a sort of sleeping bag on top of the couch. Then she straightened, her hands on her hips. He got the feeling she was judging her work—and finding it lacking. “I didn’t plan this,” she said softly. “I’m not... I’m not always a good person. But I want you to know that I didn’t come out here with the intent of making you rescue me.” She didn’t look at him as she said this. Instead, she kept her head down.

If that were the truth—and that was a big if—he wondered how much the admission cost her. “Might as well make the best of it. I prefer not to spend the next few days being miserable. It’s the Christmas season—good will toward all men and women.”

She glanced at him, but quickly dropped her eyes again. Her mouth curved down in a way that CJ recognized—it was the kind of smile his mother made when she was trying not to cry.

He didn’t want Natalie Baker to cry. She hadn’t cried when she’d been half-frozen. Why would she do so now? Finally, after several painful seconds, she whispered, “Peace on earth?”

That was the truce. “Can’t promise you a silent night, though—that wind’s not going to stop.” Her smile was more real this time and somehow it made him feel better. What was wrong with him? It was enough that he had saved her from freezing to death. It was not his responsibility to make her happy. End of discussion.

However, that didn’t stop him from adding “Dinner should be ready. We can fill our plates and sit in front of the fire.”

She followed him into the kitchen. The house had always had a gas stove and this was exactly the reason why. CJ got a burner lit and put the kettle on.

“We have some instant coffee and a lot of tea.” He left out the part about how his mom vastly preferred tea to anything else. Those were the kinds of details he had to keep to himself. He went on, “There’s a roast in the slow cooker and potatoes and apple pie in the oven.” He lifted the lid and the smell of pot roast filled the air.

“Oh, my God—that smells heavenly,” Natalie said. She stepped up next to him and inhaled the fragrant steam.