Holly couldn’t help wondering if the deputy actually thought she was going to need luck or if he’d just said that automatically.
The next moment, Gabe and the possibly cryptic meaning behind his words were stored away and forgotten.
She saw Ray standing outside the cab of the flatbed truck, holding the driver’s-side door open.
“You’re riding with Ray,” Miss Joan told her in the no-nonsense voice she used when she wasn’t about to tolerate the slightest argument or contradiction from anyone about anything. “I told him to drive the flatbed truck. The rest of you have your assigned positions,” she declared, looking over the seven other men she had tapped for the job of securing the town’s annual Christmas tree this year. “Okay, gentlemen—and Holly—let’s roll,” she ordered, getting into her own vehicle and waiting for her stepson to climb into the passenger seat beside her.
As she’d predicted, the small convoy of vehicles was heading toward the mountain in the distance in less than five minutes.
Not one of them would have dreamed of keeping Miss Joan waiting.
* * *
“MISS JOAN IS running this like a military operation,” Ray commented as they were approaching their destination.
“Miss Joan has a tendency to run everything like a military operation,” Holly reminded him.
Ray nodded. “Maybe she was a military brat,” he guessed. It was a possibility.
No one in town knew very much about the woman’s background before she came to Forever, and Miss Joan wasn’t very forthcoming unless she specifically wanted to be—which most of the time, she didn’t.
“I think it’s more likely that she just likes the precision that the military stands for, so she emulates it. That and she likes ordering people around,” Holly added with a grin. “But she’s got a good heart, so I guess it all balances out in the end.”
It was a known fact that if anyone was in trouble, or found themselves with their back against a wall, Miss Joan would quietly come to their aid, asking for nothing in return.
Holly watched as they came closer to the end of their journey. Her sense of excitement growing, she suddenly turned to Ray and asked, “What’s snow like?”
The question caught him entirely off guard. He was sure he hadn’t heard Holly correctly. “What?”
She decided to rephrase her question. Maybe Ray hadn’t experienced snow, either. He certainly had never mentioned anything about snow to her. “Do you know what snow’s like?”
He looked at her as if one of the screws holding her brain in place had come loose. “Of course I do.” And then the implied part of her question suddenly hit him. “You don’t?”
Holly shrugged. She’d made a mistake asking. But this was Ray and they shared all kinds of thoughts with each other. She knew he hadn’t meant to make her feel dumb for asking about snow. She really hoped that he didn’t think she was odd because she’d never held snow in her hand.
“No,” she answered quietly.
Ray thought she was pulling his leg. He was sufficiently far enough behind Miss Joan’s truck not to worry about hitting the vehicle. He looked at his best friend for a second before turning back to diligently watching the road.
He wanted to get this straight.
“You’ve never touched snow?” he asked her incredulously.
“Never mind,” Holly said, waving away her initial question. “Forget I ever said anything.” She shouldn’t have spoken up. Sometimes she was just too honest, too trusting.
“No,” he insisted. “You started this and now you’ve got me curious. I can’t believe you don’t know what snow feels like. It’s snowed on the mountain before,” he pointed out. “I can remember at least a couple of other times when there was a snowfall.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t about to dispute that part of it, but it had never snowed down here, at Forever’s altitude. “But I’ve never gone up to the mountain before.”
He couldn’t believe it. How oblivious had he been to have missed this piece of information? He tried to recall if they’d ever talked about anything having to do with snow before and realized that the subject had never come up.
“Why not?” he asked.
She looked at him and realized that he was serious about getting an answer to his question. “Well, from the time I was eight, I was always busy helping my mother. That’s when my father—”
“Died,” Ray filled in, chagrined. He’d certainly walked into that one with both feet, he thought, annoyed with his lack of tact—and memory. “Yeah, I remember now. I’m sorry.”
She never allowed him to beat himself up. “Nothing to be sorry about,” she told Ray. “After all, I wasn’t the only kid who lost a parent. You lost your mother,” she said quietly, just to prove her point.
“Yeah, and you were there for me for that,” he recalled.
Looking back, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to make it if it hadn’t been for Holly. She’d been the one friend he’d unloaded all his feelings, all his anger on. She was the one friend who had seen him cry while he’d kept a stiff upper lip around everyone else, including his own family. Holly knew him better than anyone else.
“You know,” Ray admitted contritely. “You’ve always been a much better friend to me than I’ve ever been to you.”
“It’s not a contest, Ray. But if you want to be there for me now...” she said as he brought the flatbed to a halt. Miss Joan had already stopped her own vehicle. The plan was to go on foot from here.
“Yeah?” he asked, waiting for Holly to finish.
She was nervous about walking in snow for the first time. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself. “If I start to slip, hold me up so I don’t embarrass myself in front of the others.”
He grinned at her just before he jumped out of the cab. “I’ve got your back, Doll,” he promised.
Heartened, Holly pushed open the door on her side of the truck and looked down at the pristine blanket of white below her. It looked harmless enough. How bad could it be?
Okay, she thought, here went nothing.
She jumped out. The next second, she felt her boots sinking into the snow, searching for bottom.
The gasp escaped her lips inadvertently.
Chapter Nine
“Ray!”
Every fiber, nerve ending and bone in Ray’s body went on high alert, galvanizing and becoming hard.
Standing on the other side of the flatbed truck’s cab, unable to see Holly, all he had to go on was her voice, and it was half panicky, half bewildered.
Before his imagination had time to go into high gear, envisioning everything from a sinkhole to a lumbering bear or ravenous coyote, Ray had rounded the front of the truck and hurried over to her side.
It wasn’t hard to see what the problem was. Holly couldn’t sustain a foothold.
Grabbing her hand, he kept Holly from sinking into the snow as well as from falling, face-first, into a snowdrift. Aside from keeping her upright, Ray was also doing his level best not to laugh at the surprised, distressed expression on her face.
Holly hadn’t been kidding, he realized. This really was her first experience with snow.
“Takes some getting used to,” he told her.
“No kidding,” she muttered under her breath, annoyed with herself.
“You two coming, or would you rather keep trying to make snow angels?” Miss Joan called over to them as the rest of the crew gathered around her, waiting for instructions. Every group needed a leader who organized things, and Miss Joan was clearly theirs.
“We’re coming,” Holly responded, raising her voice. Taking small steps, she held her arms out for balance, trying to get her “snow legs” so that she could move forward without looking like a flailing baby sparrow trying to fly.
“You’re getting there,” Ray said, encouraging her. He took hold of one of her hands to give her an anchor in hopes of keeping her upright.
“If you say so,” Holly answered, not bothering to suppress her own grin.
She supposed that there were some major advantages to the snow after all. Anything that got Ray to make some sort of physical contact with her was definitely not all bad.
“Stick together,” Miss Joan instructed. The warning was intended for the group, but she was looking specifically at Holly when she issued the order. “I don’t want to have to be the one to ask the sheriff to bring in a search party out here. As long as you make sure you keep a couple of people in sight at all times, you’re not going to get lost,” she said, then ordered, “Okay, buddy up and let’s get busy. Anyone find a tree worth considering, holler for the others. Remember, we need to find this year’s tree pretty fast. The last thing we want is to be out here when it gets dark.”
With Miss Joan’s words ringing in their ears, the men and Holly all fanned out, each pair moving in a slightly different direction than the others.
“They all look so pretty,” Holly noted, looking around at all the majestic specimens that reached out toward the sky before them. “How do we choose just one?” she asked Ray. To her, the very first one they looked at seemed perfect.
“Well, in this particular case, size does matter,” Ray told her, dismissing the tree she was looking at. He estimated that at its highest point, it was barely ten feet tall.
“Okay, then how about that one?” Holly asked, selecting another, far taller tree.
“Better,” he agreed expansively as he approached the one she’d picked.
“And it’s certainly tall enough,” Holly needlessly pointed out.
“Right,” he agreed; however, she’d overlooked something again. “But don’t forget,” he reminded her. “We’ve also got to be able to transport the tree back to town.”
One glance at the gargantuan tree was enough to make him realize that there was no way it was going to be brought back to town by utilizing the flatbed truck, even if the surface of that flatbed was extralong.
“Unless, of course, we find a way to roll it down the mountain,” Ray deadpanned.
“Point taken,” she replied. They began walking again, searching for a new candidate. “I guess finding the right tree is going to be a lot like the story of the three bears.”
Ray stared at her, not having the faintest clue what she was talking about. “Come again?”
“You know,” she prompted. “Not too big, not too small, it has to be just right,” Holly said in the high-pitched, singsong voice she used whenever she read storybooks to her niece.
“Glad you’re getting the hang of this,” Miss Joan congratulated them sarcastically as she joined them momentarily to see how they were doing. “Now see if you can find something that qualifies.”
“Yes’m,” Ray answered for both of them.
He was sorely tempted to salute the older woman but he had a feeling that he’d regret the veiled foray into sarcasm. When it came to utilizing sarcasm, Miss Joan knew no match.
* * *
FINDING JUST THE right tree turned out to be harder than she would have thought, Holly discovered. It was difficult finding a tree amid all the tall ones that was small enough to be transported, yet large enough for the town square. Predominantly, large enough for everyone who wanted to decorate at least a little of the tree. The one thing that Miss Joan insisted on was that the tree be large enough for everyone in Forever to feel as if it was actually theirs.
Finally, after trudging around for the better part of almost two hours, they found a worthy candidate. Joe Lone Wolf, the sheriff’s deputy, was the one who found it in the end, and he called over the others in the group to get their vote.
“No doubt about it, it’s a beautiful specimen,” Holly told him appreciatively, shading her eyes as she looked up the length of the tree. “It’s tall and full,” she noted, glancing toward Miss Joan to see what she thought of it. “Just like you specified.”
Never one to become effusive even when faced with absolute perfection, Miss Joan nodded casually. “I guess it’ll have to do. Okay, boys,” she declared, turning toward several of the men she’d recruited who had come up on previous expeditions, “you know what to do. Now get busy and do it!”
“What can I do?” Holly asked, stepping forward.
“Once they chop that baby down, I’ll need all of you to load the tree onto the flatbed. As for right now,” Miss Joan continued, looking at the waitress, “you can get out of the way—unless you want to risk getting hit by a stray branch.”
Ray pulled her back as Cash and a couple of the others returned with the battery-powered saws they’d brought up with them.
“Just watch,” he told Holly.
Holly frowned. She’d never liked standing on the sidelines while others did the work, and she wasn’t very good at it.
“I feel like a bump on a log,” she complained bitterly to Ray.
“Well, you don’t look like one,” he said with a laugh, tossing her a crumb. “And besides, if you don’t do what Miss Joan tells you to, you know she’s going to chew you out.”
Holly signed. She knew he was right.
The area around the tree that had been picked out came alive with activity as the men set up their workspace. Holly did as she was told and moved back, out of the way. Since more and more seemed to be going on with chips of wood flying every which way, Holly continued to move farther and farther back.
When she suddenly missed her footing, a small cry escaped her lips and she started to fall backward. Hearing her, Ray came to her rescue.
Or tried to.
This time, though, rather than him stopping her, she caused him to lose his balance and when she did fall backward, she took him with her.
Despite tensing his body, Ray wound up falling on top of her.
The wind was knocked out of both of them. So much so that for a split second, all either one of them could do was lay there, two bodies pressed up against each other, their faces less than an inch apart.
But rather than grow colder, lying on the snow the way they were—especially Holly—they grew warmer.
Decidedly warmer.
So much so that Holly was fairly certain that she was sinking deep into the snow, the newly created hole forming thanks to the rise in her body temperature.
“Are you all right?” Ray asked her, still somewhat stunned—and still making no effort to get up.
Holly stared up into his eyes. “Never better,” she heard herself whisper. She was surprised that her words were even marginally audible, competing the way they were with the sound of her heart slamming wildly against her ribcage.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, concerned.
Her eyes on his, Holly slowly moved her head from side to side. All of her felt as if it was on fire.
Was this what it was like, she couldn’t help wondering. What it was like to want someone, really want someone?
She had never been intimate with anyone; there never seemed to be a point. She had never cared about anyone enough to get to that incredibly special, incredibly private place inhabited by only two people at a time. Her heart had been lost to Ray at a very young age and she had never even made an effort to reclaim it.
Now she knew why.
Because she would have missed out on this, on the way adrenaline was rushing through her body because they were so wondrously close to one another.
And it felt sinfully intimate.
Ray knew he should get up now, before anyone looked over in their direction and saw this. Before Miss Joan strode over and made one of her wry, cryptic remarks, asking how this helped the process of securing the town’s Christmas tree.
Right now, this was still an accident, a result of improper shifting of bodies. If it continued, well, then it was something more, not the least of which would be his taking advantage of the situation.
But the rest of his body was not responding to what his mind was telling it to do. Rather than jumping to his feet, he continued lying over Holly, not to protect her but to savor and absorb the heat of her body seeping into his despite the layers of clothing that were between them. It was almost as if the intense body heat he was feeling was melting away everything that lay in its path.
The next moment, rather than get up, rather than offering her his hand, Ray caught himself framing her face and bringing his mouth down on hers.
If it was possible to experience a Fourth of July moment in the beginning of December, then that was what this felt like.
The taste of her sweet mouth had rockets exploding in the air all around him. The fireworks only made him deepen the kiss, only made him want her more.
Want her?
What was wrong with him?
This was Holly he was reacting to, Holly he found himself wanting with every fiber of his being. Holly, who had been like another sister to him, Holly, who he had gone skinny-dipping with a hundred years ago when they were both kids.
And yet, this wasn’t Holly at all, at least not that Holly. This was someone who stirred him on a level that not a single other woman ever had yet.
And it scared him.
Scared him, but not enough to flee, not even enough to immediately pull his mouth away.
At least, not until he heard Miss Joan say, “You find a new way to apply CPR, boy? Or did the two of you forget the right way to make snow angels? If that’s the problem, you’re supposed to be next to each other, not on top of each other,” she reminded Miguel’s youngest son.
Ray immediately jumped to his feet, extending his hand to Holly.
Embarrassed, fighting to keep the color of her complexion down to a subdued pink rather than a blazing red, Holly took the offered hand, wrapped her fingers around it and quickly gained her feet.
The Cowboy's Christmas Surprise Page 9