A Cowboy Under the Mistletoe

by Jessica Clare

  “You don’t have to make anything up to me,” she protested, lifting her head.

  “Nothing? But I hurt you.”

  She’d hurt him, too, but they were moving past that. She bit her lip and suddenly felt like teasing him. “Kissing, maybe.”

  His mouth tugged up at the corner. “Kissing, you say?”

  “A few kisses for forgiveness,” Sage agreed, hoping he’d realize she was being playful. “And then perhaps other things.”

  “I’m very open to forgiveness,” he murmured. “Very. So are you the one doing the forgiving kisses or me?”

  Did it have to be just one of them? She pretended to consider. “Perhaps I’ll start and you can finish. I think we’re both in need of kisses, I mean, forgiveness.”

  “I like where this is going.” To her surprise, he leaned down, put an arm behind her legs, and then picked her up in his arms, princess style. He smiled down at her and Sage’s heart fluttered.

  God, how she loved this man.

  Her emotions must have shown in her eyes. His smile faded and he gazed down at her. “I love you, Sage. Meeting you was the best thing to ever happen to me.”

  “I love you, too. So much, Jason.”

  He carried her toward the sofa, their normal make-out spot of choice. “If you want to leave Wyoming, I still understand. It’ll be harder to carry on a long-distance relationship, but I’m willing to make it work if you are.”

  Sage stared up at him, dumbfounded. He wanted her even if she left? “Jason, I don’t want to go anywhere if you’re here. I only wanted to leave because I was lonely. With you here, my life is perfect.”

  “I’d ask you to move in with me, but I’m afraid there’s not much room at the Price Ranch,” he admitted. “But if you don’t mind waiting a few months for me to save some money up, I want to be with you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat, and then pure joy coursed through her. “You can stay here with me. Now. Forever.”

  “It won’t make you sad to stay here?”

  “It’ll make me sadder to leave.” She looked around at the house, at its oh-so-familiar furnishings. “My father loved this place with every breath in his body. I want my children to love it just as much.”

  “Our children,” he told her, and her chest filled with love.

  “Ours,” she agreed, her arms going around his neck.

  Jason gave her a crooked smile. “Hope you like dogs. I’m gonna keep Achilles.”

  She gasped with pleasure. “You are?”

  He nodded. “Gonna get him registered as my emotional support animal. It’s not the same as a service dog, but he’s a good boy, and he needs me as much as I need him.” He glanced down at the floor, where Achilles was squirming with puppylike joy. “Even if it wasn’t my idea at first, it’s still a good one.”

  “I’m glad,” Sage told him. “And lucky for you, I love dogs. But not as much as kisses.”

  “Then I’ll just have to make sure to give you lots of kisses,” he murmured, setting her down gently on the sofa. The moment he did, she pushed their bodies forward until she was lying atop him, her arms around his neck.

  She kissed him with all the love in her heart, and neither one of them got up for a very, very long time.

  EPILOGUE

  Two Years Later

  Sage rubbed her aching back and got up from her chair in her office. It was too darn warm for the middle of December, and the heater was going full blast. With a hand to support her heavy, pregnant belly, she waddled out of her office and into the main part of the municipal building.

  “Good morning, Mayor!” her new assistant said brightly. Charlotte was a sweet girl, freshly graduated from Painted Barrel’s schools and eager to take over the library and other municipal duties now that Sage had been elected to replace the mayor. “How’s the baby kicking this morning?”

  “Hard, as usual.” She smiled at Charlotte. “He hears the Christmas music and likes to dance along with it.”

  Charlotte giggled and shook her head as she sorted the mail. “Now I can’t stop picturing a dancing baby in there.”

  That made two of them. Ever since Sage had felt the first flutter of her son in her belly, the child had been rambunctious and active. He did flips, he shifted his weight, he kicked her bladder at three in the morning—you name it, and that baby did it. Not that Sage minded. He was just reminding his mother that he was getting ready to come out. She hoped he’d stay in through the holidays, though. Sage still had the Christmas festival to finish planning and presents to buy, and . . . she shook her head. Even if the baby showed up on Christmas Eve, she’d be thrilled, because it would mean their little family was finally complete.

  “Have you seen Jason?” she asked Charlotte. He always came by in the morning and brought her a fresh cup of coffee. She was in the office by seven every weekday because there was so much to be done, but Jason stayed around the Slanted C Ranch in the morning to tend to the herd. They had two cowboys living in the cabins out behind the barn—old ex-navy friends of Jason’s who were greenhorns—getting their feet wet and learning ranching. The herd was small at less than a hundred cattle, but more than enough for her busy husband and their two greenhorns. She didn’t know if they also suffered from PTSD. She didn’t ask. She just knew they needed jobs and that was enough. Jason split his time between their ranch and helping out at the Price Ranch, where he and Dustin and Eli ran the much larger herd. He didn’t have to work there, but he loved it, so she didn’t complain, even when it kept him out late. He liked being part of the community.

  She knew what that was like.

  “Oh, there’s your husband,” Charlotte said just as Sage started to waddle away again. Sage turned, and sure enough, there was her gorgeous cowboy in the windows as he headed up the walk. She drank in the sight of him greedily, as hungry for him after nearly two years of marriage as she was that first night he kissed her. He wore his cowboy hat easily now, the brim battered with seasons of use. His shirt was a dark blue plaid with a quilted vest over it to keep him warm, and he wore jeans that outlined his lanky frame. And boots. Always boots. At his side, Achilles trotted in his bright red service harness, ever present. Her husband had a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of donuts in the other, and Sage wanted to swoon with how thoughtful he was.

  She’d woken up last night craving fresh donuts, and he’d laughed even as he’d rubbed her swollen feet so she could go back to sleep. He’d remembered her craving this morning, though, and that made him the sexiest man on the planet. “My two favorite men,” she greeted him and Achilles as they entered the office.

  “Brought you some decaf, sweetheart.” He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss of greeting. “How’s my baby?”

  Sage put her hands on her belly. “Tap-dancing as usual.”

  He grinned at her and held up the bag. “I brought my other baby some donuts.”

  “I see that.” She held her hands out and made a grabby motion. “Gimme.”

  Jason handed the bag over, and she took a bite out of a soft, melt-in-your-mouth-fresh donut, her eyes closing with pleasure. God, he was a good man.

  “Hmm,” Jason said, drawing her attention. He glanced around the office and tapped his chin while Charlotte giggled behind the counter. “Something’s missing.”

  “It is?” Sage asked, swallowing her bite. She looked at the festive office—there was a Christmas tree with presents underneath it in one corner, festive bows on every surface possible, and the windows were covered in frosted snowflakes. The office was so cluttered with Christmas decorations that it was practically screaming with holiday cheer. Maybe Sage had overdone it, but this was her first Christmas as mayor of Painted Barrel, and she was going to go all out. “What are we missing?”

  Jason snapped his fingers and pulled something out of his pocket. “This needs to hang over your office door.”

&nbs
p; She looked down at the mistletoe in surprise, then laughed. “Why mistletoe?”

  “Because that was where we kissed for the second time.” He smiled down at her. “And that was where I fell in love with you.”

  What a romantic. Sage sighed happily and pointed at the maintenance closet. “There’s a stepladder in there.”

  Five minutes later, her husband had the mistletoe hung in front of her door, and he pulled her under it. He tugged her into his arms, rubbed a hand down one side of her bulging belly, and grinned at her. “Now you need to avoid everyone that comes in here trying to steal kisses from you. I’m the only man the mayor kisses.”

  She snorted with amusement. “Remember who you’re talking to?”

  “Oh, I remember. Sage Cooper-Clements, prettiest woman in Painted Barrel, my lovely wife, and the mother of my baby.” He pulled her close and gave her a kiss full of promise. “Merry Christmas, my love.”

  “Merry Christmas,” she whispered back. He didn’t even have to joke about her kissing other men—she’d never wanted anyone but him, and she never would.

  Jason was everything.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next Wyoming Cowboy romance

  THE COWBOY MEETS HIS MATCH

  Coming soon from Jove!

  Sometimes it was hard to live in a town like Painted Barrel. While the community was small and intimate and supportive, it was also impossible to have secrets. Worse than that, everyone seemed to think they knew what was best for you, even if you didn’t agree.

  Which meant Becca heard a lot of well-meaning advice daily, no matter how many times she tried to escape it.

  “You really should get out there and start dating again,” Mrs. Williams told her for the seventh time in the last hour. “A pretty thing like you? You don’t want all your good years going to waste. If you want to start a family, you need to move fast.”

  And wasn’t that just depressing? Becca did her best to smile as she plucked foils off Mrs. Williams’s head, as if the woman’s kind words weren’t stabbing her in the heart. “I’m not sure I’m ready to date. I’ll know when I meet the right person.”

  Her customer tsked. “Like I said, don’t wait too long. You don’t want to be the oldest mother at the PTA meetings.” She nodded into the mirror at her reflection as if this was the worst thing in the world to happen. “It’s very difficult for the children.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Becca murmured as she pulled off the last of the foils. “Let’s rinse now, shall we?”

  The good thing about rinsing was that because the water was going, it meant Becca didn’t have to talk—or listen to Mrs. Williams talk. Thank goodness for that rinse, because she needed a few minutes to compose herself. Becca had always thought that two years would be enough time to mend her broken heart. Two years surely should have been enough time to get over the man who left her on the eve of their wedding. It should have been enough time to get over the bitterness that swallowed her up every time she paid the credit card bills that she still had from the wedding that never happened.

  Instead, it all seemed to just irritate her more and more.

  It didn’t help that everyone in Painted Barrel still asked about The Wedding That Wasn’t. Of course they did. Becca being left at the altar (well, practically) was the biggest scandal that Painted Barrel had in all of the town’s uninspiring history. She’d always been popular around town. She was moderately cute, tried her best to be friendly to everyone, ran her own local business, and for ten years, she’d dated the ex-captain of the local football team: handsome, blond Greg Wallace.

  Oh, Greg.

  Greg was not good at making decisions about what he wanted in life. It had taken her ten years to figure out that particular tidbit of information, but now that she had, it explained so much. It explained why Greg never finished college, or why he’d never held down a job for longer than a year or two. It explained why he’d gone back and forth on their relationship, first wanting to see other people, then wanting Becca back, then getting engaged, calling it off, getting engaged again, and then deciding a few days before the wedding that he’d changed his mind and was in love with another woman.

  She’d been a damned idiot for far too long.

  Becca scrubbed at Mrs. Williams’s hair, then shampooed it, asking about the woman’s grandchildren without listening to the answer. Her thoughts were still on Greg. Why had she wasted so much time with him? Was she truly that stupid?

  But no, she supposed it wasn’t stupidity as much as it was a soft heart, a fear of being alone, and the fact that Greg was a terrible decision maker but a great apologizer. He’d been so sweet every time he’d come crawling back that she’d felt like the world’s worst person if she said no. So she said yes . . . and yes, and yes . . .

  And now look where she was. Becca Loftis still had her salon in Painted Barrel, but she was turning 30, utterly single, and now she was being warned that her womb was aging with every day that passed.

  For someone who had always said she didn’t want to turn into her mother, she sure was doing a terrible job of breaking that pattern. Heck, according to Mrs. Williamson, she was failing children she hadn’t even had yet and—

  “Too hot,” the woman under the water cried out. “Too hot, Becca!”

  “Sorry,” Becca said quickly, turning the water cooler and trying not to feel too ashamed. Even now, Greg was ruining her life, wasn’t he? “You were saying it was Jimmy’s sixth birthday last week?” She was relieved when Mrs. Williamson settled back down in the salon chair and began to talk once more.

  Enough about Greg. She had customers to take care of, unlike him.

  * * *

  • • •

  Becca was sweeping up underneath the chair after her last appointment of the day when the door to the salon chimed. She looked up, and inwardly felt a little stab of emotion when Sage Cooper-Clements waddled in. The new mayor was the nicest woman, and once upon a time, Becca had thought she was the loveliest, most giving person, sweet and shy and eternally single.

  Then Greg had decided he’d wanted Sage instead of Becca.

  Then Sage had turned around and married some tall cowboy and immediately gotten pregnant.

  Now Sage was the mayor of Painted Barrel and the new “darling” of the small town. Everyone loved her. Everyone touched her belly when she walked in, and asked about her new husband. They asked about her family’s ranch. They gave her advice and doted on her.

  And Becca didn’t hate her. Not really. It wasn’t Sage’s fault that Greg had bailed on Becca because he’d thought he was in love with Sage.

  It was just that . . . it was hard not to be envious of someone who suddenly had everything you’d always wanted. Not the mayor thing, of course, but a loving husband and a baby? God, Becca had wanted so badly to be in her shoes.

  She gave Sage a wistful smile. “Hey, Sage. How can I help you?”

  Sage beamed at her and lumbered forward, all pregnancy belly and long, loose dress. She thrust a flier toward Becca. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re having a Small Business Summit next month to promote local tradesmen. All the shops in Painted Barrel and the neighboring towns can rent booths in the gym and we’re going to make a big festival of it. There’ll be food and drinks, and everyone can sell goods from their booths. I wanted to invite you personally since you’re on Main Street and one of this town’s mainstays.”

  The pregnant mayor smiled at her, and Becca did her best to take the flyer with a modicum of enthusiasm. It was just as Sage said, a festival featuring small businesses. “I’m not sure if I can do a hair cutting booth,” she admitted. At Sage’s crestfallen look, she hastily amended, “But I’m sure I’ll think of something! Maybe quickie manicures?”

  “Wonderful! Just fill out the form on the back and turn it in at city hall and I’ll make sure we save you a booth, okay?” Sage gl
anced around the hair salon awkwardly, her hand on her belly. She looked uncomfortable, and Becca kept smiling, even though it felt frozen on her face. They’d been friends before The Wedding That Wasn’t, and now it was a little tricky finding the right footing once more.

  They smiled at each other for a moment longer, and silence fell.

  Please don’t say anything about Greg, Becca thought. Please don’t—

  “I’m really sorry about how things turned out, Becca,” Sage said softly. She bit her lip, her hand running up and down the large bulge of baby belly under her dress. “You know I had no idea that he was going to do that.”

  Becca somehow found it in her to keep smiling. “Don’t apologize, Sage. It was all him, okay? No one should have to make excuses for Greg.” That big, walking human turd Greg. “He’s a grown man.”

  “Yeah, but I feel responsible—”

  “You’re not.” She cut the other woman off, just wanting the conversation to end. Couldn’t Sage see that this was the last thing that Becca wanted to talk about? With anyone? Certainly not with the happy, glowing pregnant woman that Greg thought he was in love with? “Please. Let’s just not bring it up ever again, okay?”

  “Okay, so, uh, I’m going to go,” Sage said, thumbing a gesture at the door.

  Becca held up the flyer. “I’ll make sure to get this filled out, I promise.”

  “Great. Awesome.” Sage turned toward the door, waving. “I’ll talk to you later!”

  “Bye.” She stayed in place, clutching the broom handle in one hand, the flyer in the other, until Sage headed out of the salon and down the sidewalk of quaint Main Street. Once the other woman disappeared, Becca returned to calmly sweeping . . .

  For all of a minute. Her hands were shaking and she gave up, setting the broom down and then walking to her small office at the back of the salon, where she kept her bookkeeping items and the tiny refrigerator with her lunch. She shut the door behind her, thumped down on a stool, and took a long, steeling breath.