The Trouble with Christmas

by Amy Andrews

  And then the final insult—him not caring about which painting she handed over. It was such a ridiculous thing to be hung up on, but there it was. He’d been so specific the last two times, like he’d committed them to memory, thought about them a lot. His shrug had probably hurt more than having to use the paintings as a bargaining chip in the first place.

  Suzanne shouldn’t care that he didn’t care. But she did. She thought he was…invested in her paintings and for him to be indifferent…that had been gut-wrenching.

  She hadn’t looked when she’d chosen, just stormed into the walk-in closet where she was keeping them and grabbed the closest one. If he didn’t care, then she wasn’t going to, either. But she’d checked after and it had been Atlas.

  The painting that had survived the great cottage flood safe on the high ground of the easel.

  Her gut twisted thinking about the satisfaction that had unfurled through her veins as she’d admired him on that easel back when she’d been in the throes of her creative flush and anything had seemed possible. Each and every one of those five paintings had a memory attached to it; they meant something to her, and now there were just two. Suzanne couldn’t help but wonder how long it was going to take him to get them, too.

  Not long the way they were going.

  It made her not like him very much right now. Even though she knew she was lying in a bed of her own making.

  “Don’t you think, darling?”

  Suzanne suddenly realized her mother had been talking to her and she had no earthly idea what she’d said. “I’m sorry, I was miles away.”

  “I said, it’s so wild and barren and still out here. I hope you get a chance to get some of this on canvas. I know you’re not an original artist, but a month is a long time to go without painting, darling. Don’t forget, it’s just like a muscle—it needs to be exercised, and you can’t get more inspirational than this. I’d hate you to regret wasting an opportunity.”

  Oh, there were going to be plenty of things Suzanne regretted about her time here—but not painting the landscape was not one of them.

  “Yeah,” she said, glancing out her window, as uninspired by the landscape today as she had been two weeks ago when she’d tried to capture it on canvas. “I might wait until the first snowfall.”

  Grady’s intensely curious gaze was hot on her profile, but she ignored it, hoping valiantly that a blanket of white would be the shot in the arm her muse needed to paint what she’d come to Credence to paint. Snow was pretty damn inspiring.

  Maybe not as much as Grady stripped to the waist in the mudroom, but she could at least set up a canvas again and see what happened, right?

  “According to Bob’s hip, it should have snowed last night,” Albie said.

  Simone laughed. “Ray said not, though. He said tomorrow. What do you think, Grady? Do ranchers have hunches about these kind of things?”

  “Plenty do,” he said. “I prefer science. Bureau says light snow tonight, and I’ll back it over Bob Downey’s hip any day.”

  More laughter from Simone. “Well, it’s cold enough to snow, that’s for sure. I’m pleased to be in the vehicle and not out there.” It was toasty warm inside the cab. Way warmer than it would have been in Ethel. “I don’t know how you can bear being out in this all day.”

  “It can get a bit cold from time to time,” he agreed with his typical flair for understatement.

  Saying it was a bit cold out here was like saying it was a bit warm in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Of course, she expected no less. Grady wasn’t someone who moaned and bitched about his lot. He worked a ranch, he’d been in the military, and both those things weren’t conducive to luxury indoor working conditions.

  He was tough. As nails. And why in the hell she’d thought he’d just roll over and play nice after she’d essentially bribed him into being her fake rancher boyfriend, she’d never know. He might have agreed, but there was only so far she could push him, and he didn’t have any compunction pushing back, as he’d proved earlier in his office.

  Something she’d be wise to remember as he switched on his vehicle headlights. The light was fading quickly now as the night drew in. “Time to head home,” he announced.

  “How do you even know the way back?” her father asked as Grady turned the vehicle around. “We’ve been driving all over, and there’s no real road.”

  “Well…” Grady’s voice was dry as the cold, cracked ground under their tires. He turned the wheel and pointed straight ahead. “It’s kinda easy at the moment.”

  And there in the distance was the cabin lit up like a Vegas slot machine. Grady’s mouth had flattened into a thin line, and she heard a swift intake of breath from the back seat, which could have been either or both of her parents. The house blinked and flashed, but Suzanne didn’t care how tacky it might appear, she got a little teary just looking at it.

  It was Christmas, damn it.

  She knew Grady had legitimate reasons to be all bah humbug, but she was annoyed enough about everything that had gone down these past couple of hours—she didn’t need his or her parents’ festive derision. They were just lights for crying out loud.

  “I’m so pleased you decided on the blinking lights, Josh,” she said, forcing a breathy kind of excitement into her voice.

  His knuckles whitened around the steering wheel, and there was a spark of irritation in his gaze as he shot her a phony, overly bright smile. Her gaze automatically zeroed in on the slightly reddened area of his bottom lip where she’d nipped him. It stood out like a beacon to her, but if her parents had noticed it, they hadn’t said.

  “Well, as Uncle Burl says, Suzy, it’s not Christmas until we’re giving the horses seizures.” He laughed, but his eyes did not. “You don’t think it’s too much, do you?”

  “Oh no, absolutely not,” she enthused, shooting laser beams at him from her fake goo-goo eyes. “It’s perfect.”

  He reached across and gave her hand a very firm squeeze. “I’m so thrilled you love it. There’ll never be another Christmas like this.”

  The double message behind his words was clear as he withdrew his hand. And, despite the undercurrent of hostility that had flared between them again, Suzanne couldn’t help but think how sad that was—for both of them.

  …

  Her parents came to the cabin for dinner and left just after seven as the first light drift of snow was falling. Grady promptly disappeared through the archway, too. Suzanne assumed he was doing work in his office, but two hours and four batches of cookies later, she figured he’d gone to bed. A fact that seemed to be confirmed when there’d been no strip of light under the office door as she’d passed by twenty minutes earlier to have a quick shower while the cookies cooled.

  She didn’t usually frost cookies at nine at night. Hell, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had frosted cookies prior to today. But the two movies she and Grady had watched seemed to make a big deal out of Christmas cookies, and the batches she’d made earlier with her parents had been a bit of a hit. Despite her mom’s initial resistance, citing the perils of butter and refined sugar, she’d really gotten into the frosting side of things.

  Her father had not been wrong when he’d said they’d have cookie masterpieces. Simone’s renowned artistic flair was evident even with cheap tubes of frosting.

  And now it was Suzanne’s turn, because it was this or go to bed, and it was way too early for that. She would only lie awake for hours, and that was not a good idea when her head was full of Grady. For the first time in her life, despite the coziness of the fire and the low murmur of traditional Christmas carols from her playlist and the absolute delight of the twinkling tree, she wished she didn’t prefer the night hours. It was hardly conducive to ranch life when everything was about early to bed, early to rise.

  She’d never make it as a rancher’s wife.

  Suzanne’s hand
paused abruptly above the cookie she was frosting. Where in the hell had that come from?

  Sure, over the course of her life, she’d thought about being a wife. Somebody’s wife. She hadn’t thought too much about her mysterious husband, but deep down she’d always assumed he’d be an artist like her or in one of the associated industries. Maybe an agent like her father. Or a gallery owner. Or…someone who worked at Sotheby’s. But never in her life had she ever thought she’d be a rancher’s wife.

  It was…utterly ridiculous.

  She was here for a month. And this relationship was fake. A big, fat fake. She didn’t know the first thing about life out here, and two weeks on a ranch did not make her rancher wife material. Not to mention the fact that Grady didn’t want her here. Hell, he probably had some calendar somewhere he was crossing off the days on with a big red marker.

  Besides, she was a New Yorker. Her life was in New York. Her work was in New York. Her friends and family were in New York.

  But even as she thought that, she knew it wasn’t true. Not really. Sure, she had friends in the city, and her parents and the house she’d grown up in were there also. But her work often took her away from New York and, frankly, she could paint anywhere—she’d just proven that.

  Especially if she wasn’t traveling for commissions and decided it was time to concentrate on her own art for a while.

  Her heart fluttered like wings inside her chest as her muse stirred. Her own art. Grady might want her gone at the end of her rental period, but that didn’t mean she had to leave Credence. What if she got her own place by the lake, like Winona? Set up a studio out there? Finally left home and found out who she was without the constraints of the familiar?

  The thought was both preposterous and exciting at once.

  “I thought I could smell cookies.”

  Suzanne startled and almost dropped the frosting tube, glancing to the side to find Grady paused under the archway. He was in track pants and that soft faded T-shirt, looking like the best kind of Christmas present. His hair was a little messy, as if he’d been shoving his fingers through it, his jaw dark with stubble and his feet bare.

  And the way that T-shirt stretched just right over his shoulders was the most indecent thing she’d ever seen.

  She straightened. “I…thought you were in bed.”

  He shook his head slowly, the working of his jaw visible across the distance. “Nope.” Then his eyes took an inventory of what she was wearing—baggy plaid fleece pajama pants and a thin navy T-shirt with a V-neck and tiny navy buttons that ran all the way down the front to the hem. The buttons pulled a little at her cleavage, and Suzanne thanked God she’d decided to wear a bra beneath her pajama shirt—just in case.

  For a beat or two, she thought he was going to turn around and go back to wherever the hell he’d been hiding. But the moment passed, and he moved toward the kitchen instead, saying, “We need more cookies?”

  No, they had enough cookies to feed all of eastern Colorado, but she had to do something. “I’m making some for Winona. We give each other a fun, gimmicky gift every year so I thought, in the spirit of hokiest Christmas ever, why not?”

  She didn’t mention the cookies were more risqué than hokey. Not the type you could put out for Christmas day, although no doubt Winona would.

  Conscious of Grady’s every move as he stepped into the kitchen area, she took a quick swallow of her wine and went back to the frosting, hoping he’d grab whatever he’d come for and leave again, although he didn’t seem to be in any crashing hurry to do so. He crossed to the cupboard where the glasses lived, then headed for the sink. She heard the faucet turn on and the sound of running water into the glass seemed extraordinarily loud. A beat or two later, the hair on Suzanne’s nape stood to attention as she sensed a heated gaze fixed firmly on her ass.

  Crap, she squeezed her butt cheeks together. Plaid was not a flattering pattern if you had an ass like hers, especially with them being so baggy. Stripes—why didn’t she bring her stripy pajamas?

  “It smells good in here.” His voice was all low and rumbly. “May I have one?”

  Suzanne shut her eyes at his low request, knowing it would be a particular kind of torture watching him eat cookies lounging in his pajamas. With bare feet. Maybe crumbs on his lips.

  He didn’t wait for permission, and the hairs on her neck actually prickled as he sidled up. His arm, his shoulder, his hip were about an inch from hers, and the warmth radiating from his body was like a furnace. She was excruciatingly conscious of him—of his heat and his hardness and the heady aroma of his soap. Hell, she was conscious of his breathing.

  His big hand slid out to snaffle a cookie but paused halfway to the tray. “What the hell?”

  Suzanne was confused for a second, so caught up in her awareness of him that she’d temporarily forgotten what she’d been frosting.

  He stared at the bench top. “Are they…?”

  Her gaze refocused on the dozen cookies in front of her. “Penis cookies?” She cleared her throat of its sudden highness and tried to affect an air of nonchalance, like she shaped dough into phalluses every day. “Yes.”

  He glanced at her. “You’re making cock and ball cookies?”

  Suzanne didn’t return his gaze as her cheeks flushed hot. “Yes. For Winona. Like I said, something gimmicky. You know…because she’s an erotic romance author.”

  “Yeah.” He returned his attention to the cookies. “I get it. I just didn’t realize they made…penis cookie cutters.”

  With her gaze firmly fixed on the cookies, she said, “Well, I’m sure you can get penis paraphernalia online, but that obviously wasn’t much help to me now. And I guess you can probably get all kind of penis-related cooking items in sex shops and the like, but I didn’t think Credence had one of those.”

  Suzanne cringed internally as she ran off at the mouth again, the words spewing unchecked from her lips. “So I just kind of improvised. I wouldn’t be much of an artist if I couldn’t do a bit of freehand, would I? And I figured how hard can a penis be, right?”

  Oh dear god. Shut up, Suzanne. For the love of god, shut up!

  “Anyway,” she rushed on (for reasons known only to the universe), “they’re just for fun, and I’m going to put them in some little clear bags and tie a red bow around them—the bags that is, not the penises—or is that peni for plural? I never know!” Suzanne shut her eyes. Oh Jesus, please make it stop. “And I’m going to do a fancy label because nothing says Christmas like a bag of dicks, right?”

  Suzanne didn’t know how many times she’d said the word “penis” just now, but she did know saying it less in front of Grady while they stared at a dozen of them would have been a better strategy.

  Mercifully, he took her question as rhetorical and left it alone. “They’re quite…big.”

  “Well, yeah…small dicks aren’t as funny.”

  He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then shut it, and there was a beat or two of silence before he tried again. “They’re also quite…” He pointed at the one nearest him. “Embellished.”

  “Oh yes…well.” The cookie in question was sporting a cock ring. “I mean, they’re supposed to be fun, so…”

  Apart from the cock ring, she’d also frosted two cookies with bow ties, one dressed as Santa, one wearing a leather-studded jockstrap and two more where the testicles had been decorated as Christmas baubles. She’d just finished piping words onto one when Grady had appeared, and that was the one he pointed to next.

  “Lick me?”

  The timber of his voice changed. It was deeper, rougher, and sparks of heat turned on like switches all along her pelvic floor. “A character in”—she stopped and cleared her throat—“one of Winona’s books has a lick-me tattoo on his…”

  Jesus, do not say penis one more time. Suzanne let the sentence drift off.

  �
�I see.”

  He didn’t sound like he see’d at all. He sounded bemused and disbelieving and maybe even slightly intrigued. “And what’s your next decorative move?”

  “I was just going to do a couple with blue balls.”

  “Blue balls aren’t very funny, either.”

  Suzanne could hear the wince in his voice loud and clear. She didn’t know if he was talking from experience or implying the current state of his testicles. Both thoughts led down unhelpful paths—like ways in which she could help him out of that predicament.

  “You can take one if you like. I have more than enough, and they taste delicious if I do say so myself.”

  “Thanks, but—” He held up his hands. “No thanks.”

  She noticed his slight recoil and rolled her eyes at his macho bullshit. “It’s a cookie.”

  He chuckled. “I know.”

  Suzanne’s breath caught as his smile warmed his face and the vibrations from his low laughter enveloped her. “What?” She raised an eyebrow. “You think eating a cookie dick is going to make you gay?”

  He laughed again. “Nope.”

  None of the men—straight or gay—she knew in New York would think twice about eating a cookie shaped like a penis. They’d probably make crude, witty jokes that made her laugh as they munched.

  “I’m just more of a female genitalia cookie kinda guy. You make any of them?”

  “No. But pussy cookies would have been a good idea.” One she might have thought of had Grady not been on her mind so much. “Winona’s all about equal genitalia opportunity.”

  He grinned and gave a little fist pump. “Viva la vulva.”

  Suzanne blinked. Then she laughed. Viva la vulva? The man was full of surprises. It should have sounded ridiculous, something so feminist coming from a guy who pretty much represented one of the country’s last bastions of masculinity, but it didn’t. Her pulse tripped and she felt a little light-headed. How could she be so damn angry with this guy 50 percent of the time yet still want to climb all over him?