A hot, consuming kiss that sucked the breath from her lungs and had her frantically grasping the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel the man beneath. She needed to feel him pressed against her, surrounding her, inside her—
“I told you they didn’t need us,” came a frighteningly familiar voice.
It was followed by a very unfamiliar hoot and a loud, “That’s my boy!”
Her hands stalled midway on button number four. Trace’s hands paused beneath her sweater at the clasp of her bra. Their heads turned toward the two dark figures sitting on the couch.
“Grandpa Jasper?” Winnie asked.
“Ezra?” Trace’s voice echoed after her own.
The lamp flicked on, light flooded the room and two old men grinned back at them from the couch.
“We didn’t mean to interrupt.” Jasper turned as red as Winnie suddenly felt.
“Darned right.” Ezra grinned. “You two lovebirds just get on with what you were doing. We’ll entertain ourselves till you’re finished. I think there’s a Wheel of Fortune rerun…” The TV flipped on and the two men turned their attention to the screen.
Winnie’s gaze swiveled back to Trace. In a heartbeat, they were untangled from each other’s arms, straightening their clothes like two kids caught necking by a parent.
“Uh, Trace was just seeing me home.”
“Yeah, Winnie’s been having some trouble with that lock and so I was giving her a hand.”
Ezra grinned, but didn’t spare them a glance. “Or two.”
Trace frowned. “What are you doing here, Ezra?”
“Can’t a man come on down and spend Christmas with his only living relative—P, you old coot. Ask for a P,” he shouted at the TV.
“You didn’t say anything when I talked to you yesterday.”
“You didn’t ask—naw, not a vowel. It’s too early for vowels.”
“Grandpa Jasper?”
“Yeah, honey?” He clapped his hands together as one of the contestants chose a letter. “That’s the way to go! There’s always a T.”
“Why didn’t you call?” Winnie asked.
“I tried, but you weren’t here—no! Don’t pick the L! Dam it.”
“What about the trail ride?”
“What—aw, heck, don’t go for the Y. There’s never a Y!”
“Earth to Grandpa Jasper.” Winnie walked in front of the TV and pressed the off button.
“What’d you go and do that for?” Ezra demanded.
“Yeah, we were watching that,” Jasper added.
She turned on both men. “What happened to the trail ride?”
“We changed our minds,” Jasper said.
“It’s called prioritizing,” Ezra explained. “A trail ride’s fun, but we’re needed here.”
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s the loneliest time of year and we didn’t want you and Trace to be on your own.”
“Cut the crap, Gramps. You’re here to spy on us,” Trace accused.
“We were just worried,” Jasper cut in. “Winnie says you two are just friends. You say you’re not anything. And yet you were here all last night.”
Winnie’s gaze went to Trace, then back to Jasper. “How do you know about last night?”
“Um, just a hunch. Right, Ezra?”
“Yeah, a big hunch. Anyhow, since you two can’t seem to make up your mind, old Jasper and I thought we’d come down and see for ourselves.” Ezra grinned. “Looks like you made up your mind. So when’s the wedding?”
“There’s no wedding,” Winnie and Trace shouted in unison.
Shock gave way to anger as Winnie turned on Jasper. “And speaking of weddings, would you like to explain why you offered me up to marry Trace and failed to tell me about it?”
“Now, now, dear, I was just trying—”
“Desperate times called for desperate measures,” Ezra cut in. “You two aren’t getting a lick younger, and neither are we. Do you know what it’s like to sit around and listen to a bunch of old folks talk about great-grandchildren when we ain’t got none of our own to boast about?”
“Is that why you’ve been pushing every woman in this county on me for the past six months? Because you want great-grandchildren?”
“Damn straight.”
“But why all of a sudden?”
“Hell, boy, this is the first time you’ve set still long enough to think about anything other than a blasted bull ride. I wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste. ’ourse, I didn’t count on you being so stubborn. That is, until now.”
“There is no now,” Winnie said. “What I don’t understand is why the two of us? Why try to get us together?”
“Why not? You’re single, Trace is single. You both need to settle down.”
Winnie turned on Jasper. “You bet on me, and you didn’t even tell me. You let me think you won this house for me, when all along you lost me in some silly game.”
“Now, now, dear. I know it sounds bad, but I had good intentions.” He turned to Ezra. “I told you she wouldn’t like it.”
“I never liked cod liver oil, but it was for my own good,” Ezra grumbled.
“But this is different.”
“Is not.”
“Is too.”
“Stop it,” Winnie cut in. “It’s late. I’m mad. And I think we should call it a night before I kill the both of you.”
“Good idea,” Ezra said. “Jasper’s got the guest room and I’ll just camp out here. You two go on with what you were doing. Far be it from us to stand in the way of true love.”
“We are not in love,” Winnie ground out.
“Damned straight,” Trace added.
“And we don’t need your matchmaking attempts.” She turned to Trace. “Thanks for seeing me home. I’ll get that lock fixed tomorrow.”
“No problem,” he told her. The way his gaze lingered on her lips for a long moment made her heart jump. “You okay?” It was a faint murmur, meant for her ears only and she couldn’t help herself. She smiled.
He smiled.
And then they both glared at the two old men.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Trace told Ezra.
“You can count on it. It’s love.” The old man chuckled as Trace walked out the front door. “I’m telling you.”
“Stuff a sock in it, Ezra,” Jasper snapped.
“What? A man can’t even speak his piece in his own house?”
“We made a deal. It’s not your house anymore. It’s Winnie’s.”
“I can still speak my piece.”
“Can not.”
“Can too.”
The bickering continued as Winnie spent the next half hour retrieving extra blankets and pillows and helping the two old men get settled. Not that she wanted to. She was mad, frustrated and still on fire, and it was both their faults. They’d started all this.
And interrupted it all
But she couldn’t exactly leave them sitting blanketless on her couch. It was cold outside, not to mention four days before Christmas, and they were family, Jasper anyway, and she figured Ezra was guilty by association.
By the time she flipped off the lights and headed for her bedroom, the arguing had faded to an occasional grumble. Thankfully. Her nerves were stretched to the limit. Her body still buzzed from Trace’s touch, her lips tingled from his kiss, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
Love? Hardly. But lust… Now there was the culprit.
She pushed open the bedroom door, closed it behind her and moved toward the closet to slip out of her shoes and unfasten her skirt.
Unspent passion, that’s all it was. Passion sparked by a strong chemistry, Winnie’s deprivation and the fact that Trace had turned out to be much better in bed than she’d anticipated.
He had such a great smile—the right side of his mouth crooked just a little higher than the other. Then there was the way he winked at her when she was setting up the checkerboard or making sandwiches, or coming in a
fter a hard day with the kids.
Okay, so technically the smile and the wink weren’t part of his bedroom activities, but there was that unspoken promise in them.
“You still up for number two?” The deep voice scrambled her thoughts and sent a spurt of panic through her.
She whirled, eight years worth of Safety for Seniors courses kicking in, and smacked the source with her fist.
“Ouch!”
“Trace?” She peered through the darkness and tried to calm her pounding heart. But just when the anxiety subsided, the excitement set in. He was here. Very close, and getting closer, and very naked.
Moonlight sculpted his bare shoulders, his muscles bunched as he rubbed his sore chest. “You pack a mean punch.” A grin split the shadow of his face. “That’s good. Smart. This might be a small town, but a single woman living out in the middle of nowhere has to be careful.”
She eyed him. “Otherwise, molesting invaders might crawl in anytime they feel like it, right?”
His grin widened. “I did the invading part. Let’s see what we can do about the molesting.” He slid his arms around her, pulled her against the hard wall of his chest and her brain went into temporary shutdown as he kissed her. Boy, what the man could do with his hands. And his mouth. And his…
She grinned against his lips. “Is that hair gel in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”
“Darlin’, I’m not wearing any pants.”
“Oh.” He held her tighter, pressed closer, a little here and a lot there and… “Oh.”
11
“YOU AREN’T MAD at me, are you?” Jasper asked the next morning when Winnie walked into the kitchen in search of her morning Diet Coke and found him and Ezra eating breakfast.
“Yes.” She popped the tab and downed half the can. Caffeine rushed to her brain, giving her much-needed energy after a sleepless night.
Her body ached. Her eyelids drooped. She smiled and finished off the can.
Jasper stabbed at his eggs. “I’m sorry, sugar.”
“No, he’s not,” Ezra chimed in from the opposite side of the table before he shoveled in a forkful of ham.
Wait a second. Eggs. Ham. Toast. Coffee. Biscuits.
“Where did all this food come from?”
“A welcome home present from Essie. She dropped it by this morning.”
Essie Calico? How did she know…
The thought faded as Jasper handed her a plate. “Here, sugar. Eat up. And forget what he says. I am sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Am too.”
“Are not.”
The smell of eggs and ham and fresh biscuits stole through her nostrils and made her stomach grumble. She stared longingly at the tempting breakfast before gathering her courage and setting the plate aside.
“I only want you to be happy,” Jasper told her.
“Meaning I can’t be happy without a man.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s exactly what you mean. Listen to me, Gramps. I wasted eight years waiting for a happily ever after. I’m not doing that again. I’m having my happily ever after right now, on my own. I don’t want to settle down. I want to live for the moment.” Which was exactly what she was doing. Enjoying the moment, minus the succulent food, of course, but then a girl couldn’t have everything.
She had Trace, and that was plenty.
For the moment.
No marriage. No babies. No future. No disappointment.
“I like being single,” she went on, “and I’m happy being on my own. Joyful Ecstatic.”
Okay, so maybe ecstatic was pushing it a bit, but she was definitely joyful.
Especially after last night.
The thought slid into her mind and she pushed it right back out. Last night was last night, and while she’d made up her mind to enjoy the heat between them, she wasn’t about to get caught up in more, in him. It was just sex. It didn’t mean anything, except some much-needed experience for Winnie. End of story.
Ezra snorted. “Lookee here, if the good Lord bad meant fer man and woman to be by themselves, he never woulda made ’em fit so good together.”
And how. A vivid image raced through her mind. Trace over her, around her, inside her… Her cheeks burned. Ezra chuckled and Jasper growled.
“Now you stop that sort of talk right now. This is my granddaughter here.”
“And it was your granddaughter sucking face with my grandson last night.”
“I didn’t suck anything last night,” Winnie blurted. Two gazes swiveled toward her. “I mean, I couldn’t have, even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t. You both saw Trace leave. I headed straight to bed and the second my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. Fast asleep. Dead to the world. No sucking, period.”
Ezra gave her a knowing look. “I was talkin’ about when you two first come in the door.”
“Oh.” Great, Winnie. Confess every sordid detail. “That, um, wasn’t what it looked like. I—I had something caught in my eye and Trace was helping me get it out.”
“From the looks of things, he was performing a very tricky tonsillectomy, honey.”
“I told you to cut out that kind of talk. That’s my baby—”
“—who happens to be a grown woman,” Ezra cut in. “And my Trace is a grown man, and this here’s the natural progression of things.”
“For the record, nothing is progressing, except me. I’m progressing out the door. I’ll be back around five. You two try not to kill each other before I come back.”
“I ain’t makin’ no promises,” Ezra stated.
“Have a nice day, honey.” Jasper’s voice followed her to the door where she paused to grab her umbrella and take a cautious peek outside.
Bea stood on the porch, her toolbox beside her. “The coast is clear,” she told Winnie. “He’s up in those trees over yonder, plotting revenge ’cause I shooed him away with my cattle prod.”
“You didn’t zap him?”
“’Course not I just waved it in the air and zapped the rain gutter.”
Winnie surveyed the half-built contraption Bea was putting together. “What are we trying today?”
“Top-of-the-line, redwood zap trap. It’s lined with this sticky stuff. The bird flies in, sticks for a second. It’ll spook him and he’ll flap his wings which creates this friction, which makes his feet tingle. One hundred percent safe and guaranteed to get rid of the most pesky bird.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
“It has to work. I’ve been through the entire catalogue. It’s this, or I pull out the real big guns.”
“What’s that?”
“A real big gun.” Bea sighed. “That’s about the only thing I haven’t tried. But hey, I hear blackbirds make really good stew.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Me, too. This little guy’s stubborn, but I’ve been at this so long he’s starting to look like family.”
Winnie eyed the tree, then the trap. “I know what you mean.” Not that she was getting all sentimental over a bird. She was rough and tough, bold. “You sure it won’t hurt him?”
“Guaranteed.” Bea paused mid-hammer to swipe a couple of smears of lipstick across her lips without benefit of a mirror.
“How do you do that?”
“It’s all in the wrist.” A few more swipes and she rubbed her lips together before depositing the tube back into her jumpsuit pocket. “When you’ve been doing it so long, it’s second nature.”
“I need a mirror, a big one, complete with floodlights if I even hope to stay in the lines.”
“You keep trying and you’ll get it.”
“I’ll be old and gray by then.” And alone, she thought, her earlier words to Grandpa Jasper coming back to haunt her.
So what? Alone was good. Alone was safe. Alone was… alone.
And fine by her.
“How’s it going at Ann’s?” Bea asked.
“Little Tiffany bit me yest
erday.”
“And you let her?”
“It happened so quickly. One minute I’m fine, the next I’m seriously contemplating a rabies shot. I put her in time out and told her mother, but nothing seems to work. Not that it matters. A few more weeks of this and I’m on to something better.” Even if something better amounted to mixing shakes at the Dairy Queen.
“Meanwhile, next time she does something, just give her the evil eye.” Bea demonstrated an intimidating stare. “Works every time with my own kids.”
“You have kids?”
“Three.”
“Three? And you still look like that?” Her gaze roamed over Bea’s perfect figure, before fixing on her face, flawless skin, perfect makeup and hair. A Grade A vixen.
“Don’t get me wrong, kids can take it out of you, but if you just let them know who’s boss, they can be real rewarding. Try the evil eye next time.” She demonstrated again.
“That really works?”
“That or you could hire a hit man.”
“You have any hit men around here?”
“Nope, but Essie Calico does have a Texas-sized fly swatter. She took out a tarantula last summer with one swipe. I’m sure little Tiffany wouldn’t be much more trouble.”
“I’ll stick to the eye.”
“Works for me.”
IT WORKED FOR WINNIE.
One minute she was this close to crying, her hip throbbing, little Tiffany smirking, and the next, she was doing her own version of the evil eye, complete with a threatening growl.
Little Tiffany’s gaze widened. Then she morphed from a she-devil into a quiet, calm angel. No hitting. No biting. No crying.
And so Winnie finished the day with no killing, no maiming, and no more bruises. Of course, the kids still stepped on her toes. Snack time resulted in the usual mess of graham crackers in her hair. She got glue on her skirt and Jeffrey Summers used her best Chanel lipstick to draw the nose on his clown. Her afternoon headache arrived on schedule. Even so, something had changed.
Winnie Becker liked kids.
Not that she was giving up her vixenhood to start hoping for a happily ever after. Liking kids and having them were two very different things. Just because Jeffrey gave her the picture as a present and asked her to marry him, and Susie Scruggs told her she was prettier than “Miz ’Merica,” and little Tiffany actually hugged her at the end of the day, was no reason to start wanting something she’d already written off her agenda.
Fruitcakes and Other Leftovers & Christmas, Texas Style Page 28