“Well, then, you must be handy to have around,” he said.
She returned the level gaze he gave her just as steadily and said, “I’d like to think so.” After a moment of silence, she went on, “Now, what about the liniment?”
“I’ve got some,” he admitted, “but you don’t need to be bothering with it. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be walking around here tomorrow so stiff you can barely move,” she warned. “Look, Shawn, you got hurt defending me. It’s only fair that I try to help you now.”
“I can manage by myself.”
“Oh, really? How are you going to reach your back?”
He frowned, unable to answer that question.
Abby stood up briskly and asked, “Where is it?”
She was going to keep after it until he gave in, he realized. So he pointed and said, “Drawer in the kitchen.”
“That’s better. Now you’re being sensible.” She started toward the kitchen and added over her shoulder, “Take your shirt off.”
Shawn started to protest, but she was right. She couldn’t rub the liniment on him if he had his shirt on. Actually, she was right more often than not, no matter what the subject was. No getting around it, Abby Demarest was smart and capable and...
And pretty enough to take a man’s breath away, he thought as she came back into the circle of firelight with a small jar in her hand.
“Is this it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “I warn you, it’s not the sweetest smelling stuff in the world.”
“As long as it does the job, that’s all that matters.” She unscrewed the top of the jar and sniffed the liniment, making a face as she did so. Then she said, “Well, it’s not that bad. A little...pungent, that’s all.”
“Pungent’s a good word for it, all right,” Shawn said as he draped his shirt over the back of the rocking chair. He had on a pair of long underwear, so he had to take off the top of it, too. Then he stood there, bare from the waist up, as she approached him with the open jar.
“You’ll need to...um, turn around,” she said with a slight catch in her voice. “That way, I can get to your back.”
“All right.” Shawn turned to face the fire. He heard Abby set the jar aside on a small table, then a second later, he felt her hands touch him high on his back, applying the liniment to his skin and then rubbing and kneading to work it in.
He closed his eyes, and it was all he could do not to groan in pleasure at the feel of what she was doing. The liniment quickly heated up, sending a comforting warmth into his muscles, but even without that, her hands would have felt wonderful on his skin. Like a wave washing up on a beach, pleasure swept through him. Keeping his eyes closed, he lowered his head. She reached higher, massaging the muscles where his shoulders and neck came together. She had to be standing pretty close now, because he could feel the warm, feather-like caress of her breath against his back.
“How does...how does that feel?” she whispered.
“Mighty good,” Shawn replied, and he couldn’t keep the hint of a moan out of his voice. “I reckon this is actually going to help tomorrow.”
“I hope so.” Her hands went back down, the firm touch digging into the already stiff muscles and loosening them. After a couple of minutes, she suggested, “Why don’t you turn around so I can reach the front of your shoulders?”
Shawn turned so she was in front of him. The fireplace was to his left, her right, and the glow from it painted her lovely face. She raised her hands and rested them on his shoulders, but she had barely started massaging them when her heavy-lidded gaze and the slightly parted lips that seemed even redder in the firelight were too much for him.
He put his arms around her, pulled her against him, and brought his mouth down on hers.
****
Well, what did you expect? You stand that close to a half-naked man with your hands all over him, and he’s going to kiss you, you fool!
The voice shouted inside Abby’s head, and all she wanted was for it to shut up and go away.
No, that wasn’t all she wanted. Not by a long shot.
She wanted Shawn Killian to kiss her until Christmas. She thought they could last that long without breathing or eating or sitting down, as long as they had each other to feast on.
The sight of him standing there with the firelight playing over his rugged but somehow handsome face and that broad, muscular, lightly-furred chest had been enough to take her breath away. In that moment, she had been torn between two almost irresistible urges.
To run toward him, to wind up in his arms like this, their lips working hungrily, passionately, against each other.
Or to run away from him, to resist the temptation instead of giving in to it, because that was bound to just make things worse...
And of course, she had wound up in his arms, kissing him like she had never been kissed before and never would be again.
Kissing until Christmas...
Then he pulled back, turned sharply away from her, and said in a harsh, bitter voice, “Damn!”
For a second, the world seemed to spin the wrong way around her. It was that disorienting for her to no longer feel the power of his arms and the solid strength of his body, to no longer taste the heat of his mouth on hers.
Then, she came back unwillingly to reality and said quickly, “I’m sorry, Shawn, I had no right—”
“That’s right, you didn’t,” he broke in without looking at her. “You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?”
The heat inside her cooled as suddenly as if the door to her heart had been opened to let in one of those blue northers he had talked about.
“What I’m trying to do?” she repeated. “Tell me what I’m trying to do, Shawn.”
He flung out a hand and said, “You’re trying to worm your way into my heart the same way you have into Wes’s. Acting so blasted helpful and being so sweet—”
“I wasn’t aware those were bad things,” she said. The words were icy.
“Acting like you’re his mother!”
“I never did that!” Now she really was angry. “I would never do that to him. I adore Wes. I think he’s a wonderful little boy. But I have no intention of trying to replace his mother.”
Shawn shook his head and said, “Well, you could’ve fooled me. And as if that wasn’t enough, this business tonight—”
“You mean me trying to help you so you won’t hurt as much?”
His chest rose and fell as the emotions gripping him made him breathe harder. He said, “You reckon it didn’t hurt to have a woman in my arms again? To kiss her and bring back all those memories?”
“You never kissed me before,” Abby said. “You don’t have any memories of me.”
“So you figured we’d make some. You thought you’d get me to take you to bed, and then I’d have to marry you so you won’t have to go back to wherever it is you come from.”
“You idiot,” she told him through clenched teeth. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He snatched his shirt from the chair back and pulled it on without bothering to don the long underwear first.
“I know I never should’ve tried to do the right thing,” he said. “That never works out. A man’s a fool to try.”
“What are you talking about? Me?” Abby’s voice lashed at him. “Or about all the things in the past you can’t let go of?”
His head jerked toward her.
“The things in my past? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” Abby said, retreating hastily, figuratively if not literally. She needed to put her anger and disappointment aside and think clearly and calmly, the way she always did. “I’m just upset, that’s all.”
“Well, you ought to be. Doing what you did.”
“Yes. Caring about you and your son. What a terrible thing for me to do.” Her voice could have etched glass like a diamond.
“You know what I mean. Trying
to fix it so you can stay here instead of leaving after Christmas.”
“Oh, I’ll be leaving after Christmas,” she assured him. “And it can’t come too soon to suit me!”
With that, she headed for the spare bedroom she’d been using. For a second, she considering getting some blankets and going out to sleep in the barn, just so she wouldn’t have to be under the same roof as Shawn Killian tonight, but her practical side reasserted itself.
Besides, Chester might be out there, and there was no telling what that lunatic goose might do if he thought someone was invading his territory.
Abby glanced at the door of Wes’s room, which remained closed. She was glad, at least, that he hadn’t heard them and come out to see what was going on.
That would have been bad, either way the impulsive kiss ended up.
She went into her room and closed the door quietly behind her instead of slamming it the way she wanted to. That would disturb Wes for sure. Let him sleep, she told herself. Let him go on thinking that everything was all right.
He would find out soon enough that it wasn’t.
Then she sat down on the bed without lighting the lamp and tried very hard not to cry. She was successful...mostly.
Chapter 8
Just as Shawn had predicted, the weather had started to change by the next morning. The fluffy white clouds had been replaced by lower gray ones, and the wind, just light gusts so far, held a distinct chill.
It wasn’t any colder than the tense atmosphere between him and Abby, though.
She was up early to make breakfast. When he came in from milking the cow, with a bucket of steaming milk in one hand, he said, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“No reason not to, is there?” she replied without turning around to look at him.
“I just meant, since you won’t be staying that much longer...”
“I’ll still earn my keep while I’m here,” she said.
It hurt him to say that about her leaving soon, but that was the way it had to be. Better in the long run for all of them, he told himself.
He just wished he was convinced that was true.
When Wes got up, he seemed distracted. Maybe because it was Christmas Eve, Shawn thought. He hoped the boy hadn’t heard him and Abby arguing the night before. And he was glad Wes hadn’t opened the door of his room and seen the two of them kissing. Lord, that would have been awkward!
Again, that was something he wouldn’t have to worry about for much longer. He tried not to dread that leave-taking so much.
Luckily there was plenty of work to do to keep his mind off his feelings. The chores around a ranch never stopped, not for holidays or bad weather or anything else. In fact, with the weather getting worse Shawn had even more to do than usual. He spent the day checking on all his stock, riding all the way to the ridge and then working a broad sweep back. The older and weaker cattle that he thought might be in danger from the weather, he drove ahead of him, prodding them back to the ranch headquarters. They could spend the next few days in the corral, which was shielded from the bite of the north wind by the barn. He had hay in the loft he could toss out to them, too, so they wouldn’t go hungry.
With all that to take care of, he didn’t even come in for lunch, making do with some biscuits he had brought with him and staying in the saddle. Wes was right: Abby’s biscuits really were a lot better than the ones he made.
The overcast thickened and the wind grew stronger. No snow had fallen yet, but as Shawn looked at the gray sky, he knew it was only a matter of time. The clouds just looked like snow. He could almost smell it.
Nightfall would come early today. A thick gloom had already started to settle over the West Texas landscape by the time Shawn rode back in, put away his horse in the barn, and went into the house’s welcome warmth. As he hung his hat and sheepskin jacket on pegs near the door, he looked around and didn’t see Wes.
Abby was sitting by the fireplace darning some socks. Looking at her, he felt a mixture of affection and annoyance. He was grateful for everything she had done to help them, but that time was over now.
“Where’s Wes?” he asked.
“In his room. He’s been in there most of the day. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was working on something.”
“What?”
Abby shook her head and said, “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
Shawn was about to go to the door of his son’s room and call to Wes, but he didn’t have to. Wes must have heard them talking, because the door opened and he came out holding a piece of what looked like butcher paper.
“I’m glad you’re back, Pa,” he said with a big smile on his face. “I’ve got somethin’ to show you. You, too, Abby.”
He went over to the table and spread out the paper, holding it down on both sides where it wanted to curl up. He looked back over his shoulder at Shawn and Abby.
“Come on,” he urged them. “I got this butcher paper from Mr. Carter at the store yesterday and worked all day on it.”
Abby set aside the socks and stood up. Shawn said, “What have you got there, son?” He walked over to the table and stood on Wes’s left while Abby came up on his right.
Shawn’s breath caught in his throat. Wes had taken a piece of charcoal from the fireplace and used it to make a drawing. Clearly, his artistic talent wasn’t limited to carving. In shades of black and white and gray, he had sketched in a room—this room, Shawn realized—and placed in it a Christmas tree hung with decorations.
Facing the tree and looking up at it were three people: a man, a woman, and a boy standing between them. They were all close together, close enough that the man’s arm was around the woman’s shoulders while her right hand rested on the boy’s left shoulder. The intimacy between them was unmistakable. They were a family.
Shawn, Wes...and with that dark hair, the woman had to be Abby.
“I hope every Christmas will be like this from now on,” Wes said, the words husky with emotion.
“Oh,” Abby said, her own voice small and trembling. “Oh, Wes...”
“That’s...that’s a mighty good drawing, son,” Shawn said. He had to force himself to speak, and he hardened his tone as he went on. “But I’m afraid that’s not the way it’s going to be. It’ll never be that way.”
Wes’s head twisted up toward him.
“Why not?” the boy asked. “Why can’t it be like this?”
The anguish creeping into his son’s voice made Shawn’s chest tighten. He didn’t want to hurt Wes, but the boy needed to know the truth.
“Abby’s got to go back east after Christmas. You know that.”
“No, she doesn’t!” Wes cried. “She can stay here with us. She’d like that, I know she’d like that, and you would, too, I bet! Please, Pa—”
Shawn shook his head slowly.
Abby said, “Shawn...”
“No. We all knew how it was going to be, right from the start. Nothing’s changed.”
Nothing except his heart.
But a man had to pay attention to his head, not his heart. He hadn’t sent for a mail-order bride, and he didn’t want a wife. There was no place for one here. Abby would realize that if she knew everything that had happened.
He wasn’t going to tell her and drag her into his mess, so she would just have to accept how things were.
“It’s not fair!” Wes shouted, angry now, even though tears were running down his cheeks. “You won’t let anybody be happy, Pa!”
He let go of the edges of the charcoal drawing. The paper rolled up with a flapping sound. Wes whirled around and ran toward the front door.
“Wes!” Shawn called after him. “You come back here!”
Wes threw the door open and disappeared through it into the rapidly fading light. Abby hurried after him and cried, “Wes! You can’t go out there without a jacket!”
Shawn sighed and said, “Let him go. He’s just going to run out to the barn and sulk for a little while. He won’t freeze in that
amount of time, especially with the horses and the cows giving off as much heat as they do.”
“How do you know that?” Abby challenged.
“Because he’s done it before when he was mad. When we first came out here to the ranch, hardly a week went by when he didn’t hole up in the barn until he got over being mad. You’ll see. It’ll be suppertime soon, and he’ll come back in.”
“I hope you’re right.” Abby looked over at the table where the rolled-up drawing lay. “It’s really very good.”
“Yeah, it is. Too bad it can’t ever come true.”
“Why can’t it?” she asked.
“I’ve got my reasons.”
She drew in a deep breath, then said, “You’d better hope they’re good ones, Shawn. Because you don’t know what you’re turning your back on.”
He knew, all right.
Lord help him, he knew, he thought as the memory of that kiss, the taste of her mouth and the feel of her in his arms, filled his brain and washed through his body. He knew and wished he didn’t, because then it would have been so much easier to push her away, to send her back where she’d come from.
“And you’d better be right about Wes.”
He closed the door and said, “Don’t worry. I’m right.”
Chapter 9
He wasn’t.
Abby started getting some supper ready, but as upset as she was, it wasn’t going to be anything fancy, just leftover biscuits and some fried salt pork. Even as she worked on the meal, she knew that time was passing, and Shawn was aware of that, too, judging by the way he paced back and forth with a worried look on his face.
Finally he said, “That boy should’ve come back inside by now. I’ll go out to the barn and get him.”
“No, let me,” Abby said as she turned away from the stove.
“He’s my son.”
“I know that. But it’s you that he’s upset with, too.”
Abby hoped the coolness of her voice would remind him that she wasn’t all that happy with him right now, either.
A Mail-Order Christmas Bride Page 5