A True Cowboy Christmas

by Caitlin Crews

  Except one.

  She almost knocked over the cheerful holiday decoration she’d put in the center of each and every table in the coffeehouse the day after Halloween. It was a vague sort of Christmas tree made out of sparkly balls that Abby had assembled herself with help from sleek crafting blogs that did them much better. She cursed under her breath and fumbled to keep the centerpiece from tipping over.

  When she looked up again, Gray was buying his coffee from sweet little Amanda Kittredge—who Abby supposed really wasn’t all that little anymore, since she was in her twenties—and it was all too much for Abby to process.

  What was next? Would Gray wander down to the Sensitive Spoon, an organic restaurant that prided itself on its local produce and hipster-farm aesthetic? She didn’t have to ask Gray his opinion on the place, since all the locals liked to complain about the expensive restaurant and the owners who’d relocated to Cold River after a ski vacation in Aspen. Abby knew, deep in her soul, that Gray Everett ate neither massaged kale nor hand-selected vegan cheeses, and would choose the greasy sirloin down at Mary Jo’s every time.

  She would have bet everything she had that he held similar opinions about espresso drinks and the establishments that served them.

  But here he was. Standing in the middle of Cold River Coffee.

  And Abby knew the precise moment he saw her, because she had about as much chill as the average Tasmanian devil, and she was staring right at him.

  He didn’t smile. His hard mouth—that she had now tasted—didn’t curve in the slightest. But his dark eyes gleamed.

  Gray accepted his coffee from Amanda, held it between his hands as if he expected it to explode like a grenade if he wasn’t careful, and took his time crossing the floor to Abby.

  Almost as if he knew that every local in the place was gaping at the sight of him here, the same as Abby, and wanted to give them a show.

  She realized she’d wiped down the same table approximately twenty-seven times already and forced herself to stop. To stand still. Some hair had escaped her ponytail, but she only blew it out of her way as he came to stand before her.

  That dark gleam in his gaze was a lot more potent up close.

  “Abby.”

  “Gray.”

  He let his mouth curve. “I’m sure glad we settled that.”

  Gray being sardonic made her blood feel too hot in her own veins. Too hot in her veins and too slippery everywhere else. Abby cleared her throat, stood straighter, then forced herself to smile. The way she would if she saw anyone else she knew, whether they were frequent customers or not.

  “I’m in shock,” she told him. “I didn’t peg you as a fan of artisanal coffee.”

  Gray slanted a look down at the sixteen-ounce cardboard cup in his hand. “This is art? Are you sure?”

  “That probably depends on what you ordered.”

  “I have no idea. I told the Kittredge girl to give me her favorite drink.” When Abby couldn’t manage to muffle her laugh at that, his dark green gaze slammed into her again. More reproachful this time. “That’s funny?”

  “I don’t know if it’s funny. But it’s probably sweet. Very, very, very sweet. And I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I feel pretty confident that you’re the sort of person who likes his coffee as black as he likes it strong and unfussy.”

  “I’m not ninety-five years old, Abby. I do try new things on occasion.”

  “Do you?” Her tone made it clear she doubted him. “Like what?”

  She wasn’t prepared for the teasing light in his eyes. Or the indisputably male look that made his face … change as he gazed at her. She wasn’t prepared for how tight it made her own chest feel. Or how, lower down, something sharp and soft at once began to hum as if her body was trying to sing, just for him.

  “Like you,” Gray drawled. “Just to pull something out at random.”

  Abby was so flustered—and something else she couldn’t put her finger on, that made her feel like she was quivering, deep inside—that she lost track of the conversation. And the world.

  It wasn’t until that curve in his mouth deepened into a full-on grin that she realized she was standing there.

  Staring at him.

  “Uh … do you want to sit down?” she asked, feeling so awkward and exposed she worried she might actually combust. Or maybe she only wished she would.

  She sank into the seat closest to her, right there at the table that was now the cleanest surface in the valley, fairly certain that if she’d let it drag out for another second, her knees might have given out from under her. Gray was still grinning as he slid into the seat across from her, and she couldn’t really process anything that was happening. Or the fact it was happening right here in full view of far too many people who knew both of them.

  It was much, much worse than yesterday.

  She couldn’t tell if that constriction in her throat was tears or anxiety or embarrassment for her inevitable humiliation, but whatever it was, she had to swallow a few times to keep from succumbing to it.

  Gray. Her. A small two-person table tucked away in the back of the coffeehouse, that tempted her to forget they were out in public.

  Public. The word was too bright inside of her, and she flushed again, aware that just because she couldn’t see past Gray’s wide shoulders didn’t mean everyone else couldn’t see her.

  “You doing all right over there?” Gray asked mildly. “You look like you might keel over.”

  “I’ve never fainted in my life.” Though if anything called for a strategic swoon, it was this madness. Abby made herself smile. Politely. “I’m wondering how many people will call my grandmother in the next five minutes to report that I’m sitting at a table with you.”

  Gray’s shrug was unconcerned. “You can’t worry about what people think. They’re going to go ahead and think it no matter what you do, so you’re better off doing what you want in the first place.”

  Abby eyed the cowboy sitting there across from her as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be here and for the two of them to be sitting around chitchatting. She ignored the fact that her heart refused to settle down, that it kept tapping out a wild rhythm in her chest, only making it worse. Because he couldn’t see that part.

  “That’s a great philosophy. In my experience, however, it’s only a very specific sort of person who can live that way.”

  “A person who knows who they are,” Gray said, as if they were agreeing. “And doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about anyone else.”

  “I would have said, a person who happens to be a man. And who therefore doesn’t have to think about anyone else.”

  She felt her ears singe as she said that, and her stomach sank. Because that was exactly the sort of comment that she was sure had helped her stay resolutely single at the age of thirty.

  That and the fact she’d always been in love with her unrequited crush.

  But mostly, she’d discovered that men her age weren’t exactly enamored of a woman who didn’t work very hard to guard her tongue around them.

  Gray didn’t say anything. He also didn’t storm away. He picked up his coffee, took a long pull, and then winced. “Sweet Lord.”

  Abby nodded. “Literally.”

  “What is that?”

  “I couldn’t say exactly.” Abby waved a hand. “Amanda cycles through a few different versions of her sugar bombs. Is it chocolaty or vanilla-y?”

  “I don’t know. I might be having a heart attack. My teeth hurt.”

  “The good news is, when they stop hurting, you’ll feel like you have rocket thrusters attached to your feet.”

  “That’s a good thing?”

  Abby figured that was a rhetorical question. Or maybe she simply became too entranced watching the way Gray lifted his coffee cup and put it to his mouth again. It was his hands. Or maybe it was his mouth. Or maybe it was that she didn’t know how to handle the fact that the mouth he was putting on that coffee cup, right there a f
oot away from her, was the same mouth he’d put on her the day before.

  She definitely didn’t know what to do with the wash of heat that swamped her at the memory, so she focused on him instead. Hard.

  “Not that I don’t think the whole town shouldn’t enjoy the coffeehouse whenever they want, but you never do. So why are you here?”

  Gray grimaced at his cup and set it down. Then he settled that stern green gaze of his on her as if he expected this might take some time. He didn’t lean back, lounging in his chair the way men did sometimes, taking up as much space as they could. He sat forward, his hands loose around the cup in front of him and his shoulders blocking out everything else.

  “I thought this was what you wanted,” he said, in that gravelly voice she couldn’t help but feel everywhere.

  “The song is ‘I’d like to buy the world a Coke,’ not a cup of coffee, though I guess I can see how that’s confusing. They both have caffeine.”

  She was babbling. That was what his voice did to her.

  “Isn’t sitting around having coffee in a place like this supposed to be a date?” Gray asked, apparently unfazed by the babbling.

  Abby didn’t say that she wouldn’t know, having never been on a date in her life. She didn’t say that she’d spent some fifteen years working in this very same coffeehouse and had therefore witnessed any number of dates play out before her. She also didn’t ask him what kind of awful dates he’d been on in his past, that he couldn’t seem to figure out if this was one or not.

  She concentrated on the practicalities. “Everyone will think it is, the longer you sit here with me. As you never sit anywhere with anyone. Are you prepared for that?”

  Again, that quirk in the corner of his mouth that really wasn’t fair.

  “I asked you to marry me, Abby. I’m not the one who’s unprepared.”

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe at all. Because there was a part of her that was sure she’d imagined it all. What he’d asked her. The fact he kissed her. All of it.

  Because she actually had imagined all of these things a thousand times before.

  “But no,” she heard herself say, as if she’d been possessed by a creature far more talkative and relaxed than she felt. “This isn’t a date.”

  “You, me. Coffee.” Gray shrugged. “Feels like a date to me.”

  “I’m actually working. You didn’t ask me if I wanted to have coffee with you, you showed up at my place of business, ordered yourself coffee, and are now sitting here. That’s not a date. Just like it wouldn’t be a date if I drove out to one of the fences you were mending without telling you I was coming. And then was … just there.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Gray’s drawl was low. And heated her up in ways that should probably be illegal in a public place. “I suppose it would depend what you did once you got there.”

  Abby wondered why Noah was making so much noise clattering his pots and pans together all of a sudden. It took her a dizzy little minute to realize Noah wasn’t making any noise at all in the kitchen. It was happening in her head. It was the ringing in her ears.

  It was the fact that Gray Everett was flirting with her, and it made her want to cry, because she was so woefully unequipped to handle such a thing.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered.

  It was all too much. So much that she couldn’t even be embarrassed she sounded like that. Broken. Confused. Deep in over her head.

  “Hey.” Gray reached across the table and hooked his fingers around her wrist, and just like that, the world stopped. There was no coffeehouse, no acoustic music from above. No people other than the two of them. Abby looked up from the hard wonder of his hand on her to find him studying her, concern and something darker and more intent on his face. “I’m not playing games with you, Abby. I wouldn’t do that. I meant what I said yesterday.”

  “I meant what I said too,” she said in a fierce whisper. “You can’t run around marrying people on a whim. Look at your parents. You could look at mine, but I don’t even know who my father is. Why would I want to repeat any of that?”

  “We won’t repeat it.”

  “You don’t know that.” Her voice was still low, that odd whisper she was sure revealed entirely too much, but in the heat of this particular moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. “How could you possibly know that?”

  His hand was still wrapped around her wrist, and that didn’t help. She could feel the warmth of him. The fascinating calluses that made his fingers rough. That easy strength he carried so carelessly. She could feel everything, and it was killing her.

  This might actually kill her.

  “I sure hope I’m not my father,” Gray said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think you’re much like your mother. Why would the two of us together be anything like either of them?”

  “The truly funny thing about my mother is that every single terrible thing she does make perfect sense to her.” She knew she should pull away from him. She ordered herself to do it. And didn’t. “People can rationalize anything away. And do, given the opportunity.”

  “Abby.” His gaze was so steady it was almost as if it propped her up where she sat. As if he were his own brick wall, and he was inviting her to lean against him if she needed. His voice changed, impatience laced through that rich drawl she heard in her dreams, but the steadiness never wavered. “I wanted you before I came over yesterday. By the time I left, I was absolutely certain that you’re the right wife for me. All you have to do is say yes.”

  “I…”

  “Give me your phone.”

  That wasn’t what she was expecting. “What?”

  “Your phone.”

  He let go of her wrist, which felt like the sort of thing she ought to spend a year or so grieving beneath a black shroud. Then he curled two fingers at her, demanding she obey him.

  Abby didn’t really know what it said about her that she didn’t argue. Or stall. Or question his lofty hand gesture. She reached right down into the pocket of the apron she wore and pulled out her phone, then set it down on the table in front of him.

  “You should lock this,” he told her as he picked it up and swiped at the screen.

  “Why should I lock it? I have nothing to hide.”

  “It’s about security, not secrets.”

  “Please. I was raised by a woman who hasn’t locked her doors in eighty-three years. Grandma doesn’t believe in locks. She thinks they’re for sad, crowded city folks who don’t know any better.”

  Gray lifted his gaze to hers, then returned it to the typing he was doing.

  Abby had mooned after this man her whole life, and she’d never known that he could hold entire conversations without speaking. She might have found that fascinating—and likely would, when she had time consider it in the privacy of her bedroom in the farmhouse where she could also scream into her pillow if she wanted to make a quiet, personal scene—if she hadn’t been in the middle of it.

  And if that gaze hadn’t seared her straight through.

  “Here you go.” He handed the phone back to her, and she took it. Because of course she took it. She really ought to mount a resistance, yet she couldn’t seem to do anything except stare at him in what she wanted to call affront—but was a lot more like wonder. Sheer wonder. “I programmed in my number and called it.”

  “Um. Thanks?”

  “You can call me tonight. Tell me what you decide.”

  That didn’t sound like a request, really. He’d said you can but it was clear he meant you will, and Abby should have mustered up some outrage about that.

  Instead, she swallowed. Hard. “I don’t know that I’m going to have a decision tonight.”

  He treated her to that half smile of his again, and the look in his dark gaze made her fairly certain she would never be able to stand or walk or breathe in oxygen again.

  “Then you can just call.”

  “Because you’re the kind of person who really likes to settle i
n on the phone and have a nice, long chat about nothing.”

  “Tonight, Abby.” Gray pushed his almost entirely untouched coffee across the table toward her with a gentleness that she very badly wanted to mean things. “Just call me tonight.”

  He reached over, touched one of his fingers to her lips because he apparently wanted to ruin her completely, and then he left her there.

  With his number, her heart thundering to the point she was afraid she might need medical attention, and the remains of his coffee.

  Abby watched the doors swing shut behind him. And the way every head in the place swung back around toward her, faces bright with the kind of speculation she’d never caused in all her life.

  She didn’t know whether to laugh it off, scowl, or cry. So she did the next best thing and chugged the rest of his coffee.

  Because if Abby couldn’t figure out what she should do—and she really, really couldn’t, the same way she couldn’t actually breathe well at the moment—a sugar high seemed like an excellent back-up plan.

  6

  “I thought we were friends,” Hope Mortimer said theatrically when Abby pushed through the doors of Capricorn Books later that day, after her shift at Cold River Coffee was up, and she’d finally stopped sitting in the back office staring at Gray’s number in her phone.

  Like an overwrought teenage girl. Like the very overwrought teenage girl she’d been herself, if she remembered those years correctly.

  As with everything else involving Gray and the past twenty-four hours, Abby didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or both. It had taken a ridiculous amount of effort to shove her phone in her pocket and leave the coffeehouse. It was taking even more effort not to pull the phone out again—right here, right now—and make sure Gray’s number was still in there.

  Because it was the only thing that proved any of this was really happening.

  “Of course, we’re friends,” Abby replied, shutting the door with its happily tinkling bell behind her and inhaling the musty, comfortable smell of books that never failed to make her feel at home. Even if one of her best friends was still glaring at her.