A Cowboy Under the Mistletoe

by Jessica Clare

  The door to the office opened, and Sage turned, ready to point out that the celebration wasn’t going to begin for another hour, when she realized it wasn’t partygoers, or Hannah and Clyde, but Jason. He stared up at the ceiling in surprise, pushing aside the glittery paper snowflakes that she’d spent all afternoon hanging. She’d done a good job with the office, she thought. Puffs of thick craft cotton made the tile look like clouds, and she’d hung the snowflakes. With large sheets of bulletin board paper, she’d managed to wrangle together a paper mural of Santa’s workshop, and the furniture she hadn’t been able to move to the back office was wrapped to look like giant presents.

  “This place looks different,” Jason commented as she rushed out to meet him.

  “Does it look okay? Festive enough?”

  His gaze moved to her and then stopped. Jason stared at her pigtails and glittered cheeks, then began to smile and kept eyeing her even as his gaze traveled downward. “It looks great. Nice costume.”

  “It’s a little loud.”

  “It makes your legs look like they go on for miles. Greg’s gonna have a heart attack.” He grinned at her, but she noticed he was sneaking extra looks at her legs himself, and she could feel her cheeks heating in response. Okay, that was flattering.

  “Thanks for coming, but you really didn’t have to do this, Jason. I’m afraid you’re going to be bored.”

  “Me? Not at all.” He moved to her side as she bustled to the back table, stuffing the last of the stockings. “I like spending time with you.”

  “Well, the most exciting thing that will happen tonight is when I inevitably take Mayor Bill’s keys away from him because he’s hitting the eggnog too hard.” She smiled at Jason over her shoulder. “The rest is just good, clean family fun but nothing exciting.”

  “I’m fine with boring and not exciting.” He smiled and glanced at the table and the spread of half-stuffed stockings she had laid out. “Show me what I can do to help.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I know I don’t, but I’m happy to. Now, let me help you, Sage, or I’m gonna find some mistletoe and drag you under it just to distract you.”

  She blushed bright red.

  * * *

  • • •

  As things swung into gear, Jason stayed close to Sage’s side. She’d warned him that this would be a very busy night, but he’d had no idea. Every time he’d been in Painted Barrel, the sleepy little town seemed practically deserted except for the few sparsely populated businesses. Tonight, though, everyone in Wyoming seemed to have descended upon the tiny town. The streets were packed with people, men with children on their shoulders, women in Santa hats, and everyone was looking to have a good time. The food booths had lines of customers, the kiddie rides and petting zoo were a huge success, and everywhere he looked, he saw smiling faces.

  This was a happy place, this town, and Sage did her best to make it that way for everyone. He knew she was the mastermind behind this big celebration. As the evening progressed, he watched as person after person went up to her for assistance. This person needed change for their booth, that person needed raffle tickets, this vendor needed a nutritional information card for a parent with allergic children. Sage handled all of it with grace and skill, as if she’d managed such things all her life. Perhaps she had—even the mayor deferred to her when she suggested something, and sure enough, she snagged the man’s keys about an hour into the party.

  The mayor only giggled like a schoolboy and handed them over to her with a smile.

  It was clear that Sage might not think she was anything special to these people, but she was the one that made this town run. His respect for her grew by the minute. She was never ruffled by anything, not crying babies who wailed the moment they were put on Santa’s lap, not fussy parents or the occasional rude partygoer, not anything. She just handled it all and managed to look adorable in her elf costume the entire time.

  That elf costume . . . He’d never been so turned on at the thought of Christmas.

  Jason was doing his best to be helpful. He was handling the raffle ticket turn-ins so it would be one less thing Sage had to manage by herself. As he did, he couldn’t help but stare at her long legs in that too-short dress. They were taut and well muscled, and they seemed to go on for miles. Sage was on the tall side, but tonight her elf boots had heels, and they made her look staggeringly leggy. The pigtails were pretty damn sexy, too.

  Really, all of it was turning his crank, but the thing he loved most of all was the sheer joy and happiness that radiated out of her.

  Well, that and the short hem of her dress.

  Jason couldn’t stop thinking about that brief kiss at the dinner. He wanted to kiss her again, but this time for real. This time, he wanted to pause over her lips and taste her, really and truly taste her. He wanted to slick his tongue against hers and hear the soft little moans tear from her throat. He wanted to see if she’d blush when he kissed her, or if she’d fling her arms around his neck and demand more.

  And all of the kisses he was thinking about? They weren’t kisses between friends, or the kinds of kisses that you shared when you were in a fake relationship.

  He was thinking about real, deep, sultry kisses. Kisses that would make her toes curl and his balls ache. Kisses that would leave her dazed and clinging to him. Oh yeah, he was definitely thinking about kissing her again.

  She’d missed the hint he’d dropped earlier, though. He’d made a mistletoe reference just to see how she’d react, and Sage had immediately turned bright red and made herself very busy. She was hard to read. He wasn’t sure if she was so shy because she wasn’t used to flirting or because she wasn’t interested and he was making things awkward for them.

  There was only one way to find out, but Jason wasn’t certain he wanted to push things to that level. If he did and she wasn’t interested, he’d lose her friendship. Right now, that friendship was the only thing keeping him sane. Her little texts and funny pictures she sent throughout the day helped ground him and prevented him from getting too locked up in his own thoughts. Instead of focusing on the potential hiding places or theoretical snipers, he was focused on listening for his phone’s next buzz with an incoming text, and what he’d send to her in reply. So far Eli and Dustin had him working on miscellaneous chores around the barn while they did the field work, and that meant he had a lot of time to text. And at night, on the nights that they weren’t together? They both texted all night long, and they’d even FaceTimed each other when their fingers got tired of all the typing.

  He liked her, a lot. She was smart, she was funny, and she was kind. She was a happy person—so happy. He loved that about her. He’d never met someone so full of joy. It didn’t matter to her that she had a boring job for a small, nondescript town. She wanted to make everyone’s experience the best it could possibly be and went out of her way to ensure that people, no matter how big or small, left her presence smiling.

  And Jason wanted to return that favor. He wanted to make Sage smile. He wanted to see her beam with pleasure at him—no, better than that, he wanted to see that shy, sweet smile that told him she was shocked and pleased, as if she never thought she deserved whatever small kindness he bestowed on her.

  Sage was a girl that deserved showy displays of affection. She should have had a boyfriend that lavished attention on her, got her flowers every time she turned around, and made her realize what a wonderful person she was, how pretty she was. How sweet.

  But no one had. She thought no one ever noticed her.

  Hell, Jason couldn’t stop noticing her.

  So when he saw someone walk past with a small bouquet of red and white flowers, he decided Sage needed some of those, too. He excused himself and let Mrs. Claus—Hannah, the town’s innkeeper—run the raffle booth for a few minutes while he headed outside and went down the vendor row again. There were a few people selling cra
fts, others selling food, and at the very end of the line of stalls, he saw someone with Christmas plants. His eyes landed on a huge bouquet of white roses surrounding a trio of poinsettia and wrapped in sparkly silver paper.

  Five minutes later, his wallet was a hundred dollars lighter, but the bouquet was his.

  He headed back to the municipal office—aka Santa’s Workshop—and just outside, he saw Greg and his fiancée, Becca. Becca was chatting excitedly to two other women as Greg stared into one of the frosted windows, and as he did, Jason knew his gaze was locked on Sage. And as Sage bent down to greet one of the children and revealed a lot more leg and cleavage than she probably realized, Jason cleared his throat. “Greg, right?”

  Like he didn’t know who the creep was.

  Greg whipped around and gave Jason a skeptical look. His gaze flicked to Jason’s face, then the large bouquet in his arms. The sour expression on the man’s face grew even sourer. “Sage’s new little friend, right?”

  “Her boyfriend, yes,” he corrected, and smiled widely at the bride-to-be, who deserved better than the chump at her side. “I was just getting my girl a little present. You enjoying the celebration?”

  “It’s so great this year,” Becca gushed, clinging to Greg’s arm and beaming up at Jason. “Tell Sage she did an amazing job.”

  “She did, and I will,” Jason said proudly. He was glad that others were realizing just how much thought—and work—Sage put into other people’s happiness. “You guys coming inside? I’m sure she’d love to say hi.”

  Greg nodded, and at the same time, Becca shook her head. “Oh no, the dancing’s about to start in the square. I want to be there so Greg and I can practice for the big day.” She bounced happily.

  Greg looked less happy.

  Dancing, huh? Jason wondered if Sage liked to dance. It would definitely be a way to stick it in Greg’s face again—something that Jason had to admit he was getting far too much pleasure out of. “Maybe we’ll see you over there.”

  Becca gave him a happy wave and then dragged her morose fiancé away. Jason couldn’t help but notice that Greg managed to get in one last look at Sage, and he hoped the man choked on Sage’s happiness. To think that he’d had Sage sitting right under his nose, her heart in her eyes, and he completely ignored her until someone else paid attention to her. He hoped Greg was miserable for the rest of his life . . . but at the same time, he felt bad for Becca, who seemed like a nice, if excitable, woman.

  It wasn’t his problem, though, he reminded himself, and he stepped back inside the crowded office. The heat hit him full blast in the face, and he shook the snowflakes out of his short hair. People were shoulder to shoulder in here, and as he looked around for Sage, he saw her in the back comforting a crying child as she hastily stuffed goodies into her hat. They’d run out of stockings a half hour ago; apparently, they hadn’t purchased enough, and Sage looked like she was compensating by taking off her own hat and cramming it full of as many treats as she could.

  He lurked off to the side, watching as she soothed the crying child and the embarrassed parents and then talked to them for a few minutes. When they left with a wave—and a happy child now sucking on a Ring Pop—Jason approached.

  “Merry early Christmas,” he told her, holding the flowers out. “You’ve made this celebration a huge success for everyone, and someone should be thanking you.”

  Her jaw dropped and she looked at him in surprise. “Oh, Jason. You didn’t have to thank me with flowers! I’m just doing my job.” She beamed at him and took the bouquet slowly, the paper crinkling as she held it against her chest. “But that’s awfully sweet of you.”

  “I didn’t get them because you did a good job,” he told her. Was she just willfully misunderstanding, he wondered, or was she truly that clueless about how he felt? Maybe he wasn’t showing his own emotions very well. He decided to be a little bolder. “I got them for you because I thought you deserved flowers from your boyfriend.”

  Sage’s face immediately colored as red as the glittery dots on her cheeks. She buried her face in the flowers and then gave him another shy smile. “You’re too sweet,” was all she said, and he could tell from the way her expression immediately eased that she thought this was just more of their pretending. He was obviously going to have to keep pressing her to make her realize that sometime in the last week, his feelings had changed.

  He hoped hers had, too.

  “I saw Greg outside,” Jason said carefully, just to see how she reacted.

  She made a face, and his heart swelled. “I knew he’d be here. I hope he’s giving Becca a lot of attention.”

  “He was staring at you through the window. I saw him and he gave me a dirty look.”

  Sage just sighed. She didn’t look pleased that her old crush was stewing with jealousy. “I feel so bad for Becca. He’s got cold feet, but it’s going to hurt her feelings if she finds that out.”

  “It’s more than just that. He’s realizing he settled for her when he could have had you.”

  She laughed and shook her head. Her chuckles died when she realized he wasn’t laughing with her—that he was serious. “Jason, you make it sound like I’m some prize—”

  “You make it sound like you’re not.”

  The look she gave him was helpless, as if she wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “He could have had me at any point in the last ten years. The fact that he’s even thinking about me now is nothing more than cold feet. Trust me, I know Greg.”

  Sage was an adult, but for all that, sometimes she was incredibly naive. Maybe that was the part that irked him—not her innocence, but that she wasn’t lying. Greg really could have just snapped his fingers and Sage would have been thrilled at any ounce of attention he’d thrown her way. That ate at Jason. She deserved so much better than some douchebag’s scraps. She deserved to be loved for the amazing, beautiful, sexy, kind, generous person that she was.

  Jason wanted to be the man she looked to for that attention, but she was completely clueless about it. So he tried again. He nodded toward the windows. “There’s dancing about to start in the square. You want to go?”

  Her eyes widened and she looked around at the crowded room and then shook her head. “No, I should really stay close in case anyone needs anything. I’m the one running the event, after all.”

  He couldn’t be mad at that; she’d told him before that she was working the event. But he still wanted to dance with her, if nothing else because he’d be able to pull her in his arms and hold her close. “If things quiet down, maybe we can slip away.”

  She chuckled and batted at his arm. “Wow, you’re determined to rub Greg’s nose in it, aren’t you?”

  Yeah, that actually wasn’t it at all. But he just gave her a vague smile and returned to the raffle desk.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later, music started up outside, the strains of “Jingle Bell Rock” sliding through the air. It was like the office had an exodus—people cleared out, heading for the square, and then it was just him and Sage, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

  The man playing Santa got to his feet and adjusted the pillow tucked under his belt. “You want to go dance, Mrs. Claus?”

  The older woman tittered and took his hand, and then it was just Sage and Jason alone in the office.

  He got to his feet, and she smiled at him, curious. “You know, Sage, we can dance here.”

  Her brows furrowed. “We’ll look silly to anyone that peeks through the windows.”

  “So? I don’t care. Let them see Sage Cooper dancing with her weird boyfriend.”

  She shook her head at him. “You’re not weird.”

  “Weird or not . . .” He extended his hand to her and stood in the middle of the floor.

  Her cheeks were pink, and for a moment, Jason thought she would decline. But she moved to his side, put her hand in his, and then “White Christmas�
� began to play. Perfect, a slow song. He pulled her against him, their linked hands raised in the air as his other hand went to her waist. It was a slow dance, but he held her formally a few inches away from him as they spun around the room. He could tell she was uncomfortable, as if she didn’t belong in his arms.

  Which was craziness.

  So he closed the distance between them and changed the angle. “I don’t think that’s how a guy should dance with the girl he’s crazy about,” Jason murmured, and his other hand slid to her waist. He pulled her closer and leaned in, murmuring in her ear, “Put your arms around my neck.”

  Sage did, and the scent of her hair tickled his nose. She was the perfect height, and as he held her close, he swayed to the music. She was a little more relaxed now, but she wouldn’t look up at him. “You feel good in my arms,” he told her to try to break the ice. After all, it was just the two of them in the room. What did she have to be shy about?

  She looked around and then glanced up at him, her cheeks bright red. “Jason, we don’t have to keep pretending. There’s no one else here right now.”

  He was tired of pretending, all right—tired of pretending that he didn’t want to kiss her. He spotted the cluster of mistletoe hung over the door and gently steered her toward that, dancing underneath.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Kissing my ‘fake’ girlfriend,” Jason told her and then touched a fingertip to her chin and lifted her mouth to his.

  He could hear her gasp, but it was swallowed as his mouth covered hers. And then they were kissing. This wasn’t just a brush of lips quickly over the other. It was a real kiss.

  At least, it was on his part. She was still stiff against him no matter how much he tried to coax her mouth to open. After a moment, he lifted his head.