The Cowboy Who Saved Christmas

by Jodi Thomas

  So, after more mortifyingly insulting encounters with benefactors than I ever cared to stomach again, smiling and playing the meek and weak female in need of a big, strong man to save the day, I left. Threw propriety to the wind and begged a waiting carriage man to run me home in the then steady mist. Being that it was so close, and whoever he was waiting for would likely never know—and that I probably looked pathetic—he complied. So, I came home, stripped naked, and climbed into my bed, just like that. Rebellious and improper and everything the ridiculous pompous asses at that party would thumb their noses at.

  I’d started out thinking I could talk it up as a business deal. Appeal to these men’s financial prowess. But none of them were interested in anything a woman had to say that involved more than a few introductory words, an anecdote about my father, and silly laughter at whatever inane thing came out of their mouths. I would have had better luck writing it across my chest, where the majority of the fools’ attention was spent anyway. Had I taught my breasts to speak, I could have sealed the deal.

  Today was a new day, I told myself as I headed out to check on the herd and make note of some needed fence repairs Malcolm had told me about. He’d given me a list, but I needed to see them for myself. See if costs could be curtailed somehow. He wasn’t physically well enough to do them, so with the lack of other hands now, I’d have to hire it done. I cringed at the thought. Fencing was vitally important, but . . . I was running out of funds. Depending on the severity, I might be able to do it myself. I had helped the guys fix a fence or two when I was young, back when I thought it was fun.

  So, I dressed in my daily riding breeches and boots, my favorite lace-trimmed white blouse tucked in, with a duster jacket and my hair in a side braid. The rain was soft, but picking up, and it whipped at my face as Daisy trotted the perimeter of the Lucky B. No corset to hold me together. My hat down low. This was me. This was comfortable and practical, and if no one liked that, they could kiss things I was too polite to say. There were no ranch hands left to maintain appropriateness around, but the jacket was enough cover. I could almost ride completely naked and no one would know. The ranch might be limping right now, but it wasn’t broken completely. Someone with an eye for business—or just the funds for business—could help me get it all back on track. I knew what to do, from the fences to the breeding to the auctions. I’d done it my whole life. I just needed the money.

  I sagged in my saddle as that reality hit me for the fortieth time in the last eight hours.

  That horrible party had been my last shot. I was now down not only a week I hadn’t planned to lose, but also all the hope for potential marriage candidates. That had been nauseating enough, knowing that my family’s legacy would be handed legally to a stranger simply by my marrying him. That it would no longer belong to me. Now, it seemed that even that indignity was beyond my reach.

  Four—well, now, three days.

  Foreclosing with the bank would be my only option.

  Save one.

  And that thought made me want to vomit.

  Especially when I rounded my favorite grove of pecan trees, and saw that option perched atop King, the same big black stallion, dressed like I remembered him in his worn jacket and black hat, and looking every bit as heart-stopping.

  I couldn’t think about that, though, as my blood sped up for different reasons.

  “What the hell?” I muttered, touching my heels to Daisy’s soft sides.

  She picked up her pace on command, but her ears twitched and she whinnied as we approached, as if she remembered King and was happy to see an old friend.

  Great.

  He turned at the sound, a scowl already darkening his face.

  “Excuse me?” I called out as Daisy’s gait slowed. “What are you doing here?”

  “How long has it been this bad?” he asked, gesturing with a sweep of one hand.

  I didn’t have to look. I knew it all too well. The meager herd, if it could even be called that these days. The stables, once so impressive due to constant maintenance, were in serious need of attention and repair since the Galveston storm, one of them listing slightly. The Southeast Texas sun and deep, salty humidity from the nearby Gulf of Mexico was additionally hard on the wood, and we hadn’t been able to keep up. The fence—my chest tightened as my quick glance told me volumes—was worse than I’d hoped. Still, I might be able to pull it off alone.

  I moved a stray lock of wet hair from where it stuck to my face.

  “Better question—again—is what are you doing on my property, Mr. Mason?”

  He and his horse turned to look at the fence in tandem, as if that explained it.

  “That doesn’t give you permission,” I seethed. “I assumed you had better etiquette than the simple ranch hand you pretended to be, although no hand I’ve ever known would breach someone else’s property line.”

  His jaw tightened. Good. Maybe he’d leave and I could get back to the business of breathing at full capacity.

  “I’ll apologize later,” he growled. “What the hell happened over here? And how long has it been this way?”

  “Galveston happened,” I said, stiffening my spine. “No supplies for months on end. Then the disease that damn near wiped out my herd, which no breeder wants to touch and no buyer wants to get anywhere near, regardless of how many years pass. We’re tainted. And what’s that other thing?” I said, exaggerating a tap to my temple. “Oh yes, my father died. So what has you suddenly so interested?”

  “Maybe just finding out that my nearest neighbor has been going under for some time and hasn’t said a word to me,” he said.

  “Didn’t realize that was required,” I said. “And Mr. Green has a big mouth. Maybe I need to find a new accountant.”

  “Well, you might need to after you sell yourself off to the highest bidder,” he said.

  My jaw dropped, air escaping that I couldn’t form into words. I took a deep breath.

  “How dare you judge me,” I breathed, the cold rain seeping through my clothes. “From your castle on high with a million lamps, a fire in every hearth, a massive table heaped with food you can afford to waste, staff at your beck and call.”

  “I’m not judging you.”

  “How far would you go to protect what’s yours?” I asked. “To protect Abigail’s legacy?”

  “This isn’t about my daughter.”

  “No, this is about my property,” I said. “That you’ve come over here yelling at me about, so clearly there are no boundaries.”

  I slid off Daisy and walked to the nearest section of rotten fencing, picking up the largest piece. I heard him blow out a frustrated breath, followed by the sound of leather and his boots hitting the ground.

  “I don’t need your help,” I said, my back still to him as I weighed one side of a post in my hands.

  “Then have your hands come fix this,” he said. “Why have they let it slide like this?”

  “Because I had to let them go,” I retorted, dropping up the post and whirling around to face him. “They likely all came to work for you.”

  He stopped short, looking shocked. Maybe a little humbled. Ranch owners didn’t usually know all the minute details. They had managers for that. I used to have managers for that.

  “Who’s working the herd every day?” he asked.

  “Malcolm,” I said. “And me.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me,” I said, indignant as I shrugged out of the restrictive jacket and draped it over the fence. I turned to pick up the post again and look down the line. “I’m perfectly capable of it. And with it so small now, it’s really nothing.” I set the post back down and nodded. “I’ll go into town later and get supplies. I can probably fix this tomorrow.”

  “You?” he said again.

  I turned back around, fixing him with a look as I shielded my eyes from the rain. “We’ve established that.”

  “You’re going to fix the fence.” He said it as a statement.

  I dropped my ha
nd and crossed my arms, suddenly a little too aware of my state of dress, or lack of it. Especially wet. And white.

  “I’m a rancher’s daughter,” I said. “I’ve done every job on this land at least once, and fixing broken things is a daily chore.”

  He wiped a hand over his face.

  “You can’t go on like this, Josie. You need help to run a ranch.”

  I snorted. “Really, now? Come up with that all by yourself?”

  “So that’s why you were interviewing for husbands last night?”

  I shook my head. “Are you—do you mean to keep insulting me, or is it just your natural charm?”

  “I’m sorry, but do you realize the dangerous position in which you put yourself last night? Not all men are gentlemen, Josie.”

  “Do you realize I don’t have a choice?” I spat, stepping up to him just as the rain went a little more horizontal. It didn’t matter anymore. There came a point when you couldn’t get any wetter. “And I suppose you’re calling yourself a gentleman?”

  “I try to be,” he said, rain dripping off his hat as his gaze burned down into mine. “Every day. I try to be some sort of standard my daughter can use to measure a good man by.”

  Words stuck in my throat at the sincerity that emanated from him with that sentence.

  “Well, here’s a tip: Don’t be a cad.”

  His jaw ticked, and being close enough to see that wasn’t a good idea. I backed up a step and turned back to survey the damage. Think, Josie. If Malcolm and I went into town together, we could probably get enough precut railings to take care of this. He was getting too old to do the physical work. I could do that; I just needed help manhandling the timbers.

  “Get the horses out of this,” he said behind me, already leading both under a nearby tree.

  “Feel free to leave,” I said. “You aren’t needed—”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  I whirled around. “No, you won’t. I just need to get the materials, and I will do this myself. It’s not your problem, Mr. Mason.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes, and that’s what I wanted: to make him mad enough to leave. I couldn’t keep up this back-and-forth bantering and seeing good in him. I didn’t want to see good in him.

  “Well, because it borders on my property and your three cows might wander over, it does become my problem,” he bit back. “I’ll have my men over here in an hour.”

  I curled my nails into my palms, relishing the burn.

  “It’s more than three,” I muttered. “Did you miss the part about not being an insulting cad?”

  “Yes, well, sometimes I fall short,” he growled, loosely tying both horses to low branches. Walking back to me, he grabbed my arm and pulled me under the tree before I could register that my feet were moving. “You’re soaked. Get out of the damn rain.”

  I yanked my arm free, glaring up at him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “You—” He blew out a breath and ran a hand over his face again. “God, you are so infuriating.” He stepped closer and I backed up the same distance. “You should have said something. To someone. Anyone. Let people help you.”

  “I don’t have people, Benjamin,” I said, hating the hurt that worked its way into my voice at the admission. “I have Lila and Malcolm. That’s it. I had my father, and—” I swallowed hard. “And I had you. Both of you are gone now.”

  I watched that land on him like a punch to the gut.

  “I know what I did was horrid, Josie,” he said, his voice low, his words slow and measured, as if I might fly off and away at the wrong one. “I can’t say that any of my reactions that night five years ago were smart. I was floored.”

  I scoffed. “You were floored?”

  “Yes,” he said emphatically. “I was spinning out. Uncle Travis dying in front of me. Winifred appearing out of—nowhere. Pregnant.” He shook his head, looking off past me somewhere in the distance. “I thought I’d left that chapter of my life far behind me. Like in another state.”

  “She had your ring on her finger, Benjamin,” I said, reminding him. “That’s not leaving things behind.”

  “A ring I let her keep to ease the breakup—I thought,” he said. “She loved fancy things. I told you then that she wasn’t for me.” He stepped forward again, and I backed up, feeling the bark of the tree against my back. My breathing increased, and I cursed in my head. Not out of fear. Out of another response that I had no business having. “That never changed, Josie, not then and not later, but once she was carrying my child, I had no choice. Everything I wanted . . .” His eyes seared me, the gold flecks in them burning like little fires. “It had to wait,” he finished softly.

  I closed my eyes. “You’re a good father, Benjamin.”

  “Please stop calling me those things,” he said, the hoarseness in his voice and the proximity making my eyes flutter back open. My stomach flipped at the rawness in his. “I’m Ben to you.”

  I shook my head, or it felt like I did. Maybe I didn’t move at all. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing.

  “That was another lifetime.”

  “Josie.”

  “And you know damn well that it wasn’t just about Winifred,” I said hurriedly, my voice pitched oddly. Anything to break the gravity, the draw, the heavy pull that was sucking us down into that place where we used to get lost together. He was right there. Almost touching me as the wind ripped around us. I was on a precipice, about to fall. “That was just the icing on a very sour cake.”

  “Because I didn’t tell you—”

  “Because you lied,” I said. “There’s no pretty way to color that. And nothing has been pretty since.”

  His brow furrowed. “Let me help you.”

  I laughed, and his eyes dropped to my mouth, making every one of my nerve endings stand at attention and all things south begin to tingle. Stay focused.

  “So selling myself to you is better than all the others?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Now who is insulting who?”

  “And yet—”

  “I didn’t offer to buy you, Josie,” he said, so close I could feel the breath from his words. His chest met mine, and my body instantly arced to meet him, betraying me with the need for a man’s touch. It had been so long. “I’m saying let me help you.”

  “I don’t need you,” I whispered, lying. Blatantly, flagrantly lying.

  “Oh, I know,” he said, removing my hat and dropping it to the ground. “You’ve made that clear.”

  I was tumbling down into an all-consuming fire as his mouth got closer, his eyes unblinking as they demanded I not look away.

  “So, then—”

  “Maybe I need you,” he said against my lips.

  Chapter 9

  1904

  Ben

  Her soft moan as I cradled her face and took her mouth just about sent me over the edge before it had even begun. I’d been hard as steel since the moment she came riding up in all her angry glory, her breasts bouncing unencumbered and barely covered by that joke of a jacket. The rain soaking her thin clothes to her body, her nipples hard and erect against the fabric, all while she dressed me down like a little general, ire flushing her wet skin.

  Jesus, I’d tried to walk away from her, even make her angrier with crazy, ridiculous insults so she’d get on her horse and ride back in the direction in which she came, but she just kept plowing forward. Weakening my resolve. And once I got close enough to feel her heat and her energy, there was no going back. I had to touch her, to taste her, or I’d go mad.

  My intention of something soft and searching to cross that boundary went flying away with the wind the second our lips met. Her sweet taste sent my mind reeling through the past and pushing all logic aside. I dove deep, needing more. Her fingers curled into my jacket, tugging me closer before moving up to knock off my hat and scrape through my hair as she pulled me deeper into her kiss.

  I felt leaves and grass and God knows what else pelting us as the rain and wind whipped around t
he tree we were one with. I didn’t care. I’d waited five long years to have Josie Bancroft in my arms again this way, and nothing had ever felt more right. I lifted her as she arched into me, and the wild woman I remembered responded, wrapping her legs around my waist, burying my hardness in her soft heat as I pinned her against the tree.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned, breaking the kiss as I grinded against her, growling against her mouth. Her hips bucked then, her legs tightening around me, and I was gone.

  “Josie,” I breathed against her skin, my mouth traveling down her neck, licking the rain from her skin like a man starved.

  One hand cupped her ass, holding her tightly against me, as the other moved up to fill it with her breast. My thumb squeezed a hard nipple, and she cried out, pulling down my face. God, she still knew what she wanted, and I was dizzy with the need to give it to her. Taking that nipple into my mouth, I sucked her through her blouse, both hands kneading her perfect breasts as she gripped my head and moved against my hard length, her body shaking violently as her orgasm chased her.

  Primal noises escaped her throat as she rode the waves down from the fastest and sexiest orgasm I’d ever seen. Especially fully clothed.

  When her eyes drifted open and reality dawned, I knew I’d be visiting my own hand later on. The embarrassment and mortification were all over her face. Before I could say anything to soothe her, however, a crack of lightning split the sky and both horses reared, spurring us into action.

  “Daisy!”

  I set her down and grabbed my horse’s lead as she grasped hers, and we bolted from the trees, slinging our bodies onto the animals’ backs and heading for the horse stable near the main house, ducking our heads low against the bitter bite of the icy rain.

  She was shivering when we made it inside, and I instantly grabbed a blanket from a stack by the door and wrapped it around her. Scoffing, Josie pulled it off herself and draped it over her horse, grabbing another one to rub her down with.