Christmas at Henderson's Ranch

by M. L. Buchman

  When Snowflake came over to snort in his hair across the fence, Chelsea flapped a hand at the horse’s nose.

  “Busy here,” she mumbled at the big gray.

  Damn straight! was all Doug could think. All that soft and gentle warmth of last night had been replaced by the lively redhead who’d teased with him since the moment of her arrival. She didn’t play coy or tease now; she delivered a kiss with her entire body. It left him shuddering with need when she abruptly released him and, as if his world hadn’t just been spun around and dropped on its head, strode into the stall with one of the saddlebags that he’d dropped when she’d jumped him.

  Unable to trust his voice, he focused on saddling them up. No need to rope Lucy or the foal. Lucy, he knew would follow them, and the foal would follow his mom.

  Placing his hands around Chelsea’s waist to help her up into the saddle was almost his undoing. With her arms raised to the reins and pommel, her jacket slid up and her waist was slender and warm in the circle of his hands.

  Her smile was mischievous as he climbed up on his own mount.

  “What?”

  “I just wanted you to know, that kiss wasn’t a thanks for how wonderfully you took care of me last night.”

  “Then what was it?”

  She turned Snowflake and with a skilled nudge, sent her down the trail at an easy walk. “That,” she called back over her shoulder, the only sound in the still morning other than the clopping of the horses’ hooves. “That was just a preview. Like coming attractions at the movies.”

  Any ability to speak that Doug thought he’d regained was washed away. If that was a preview, he couldn’t wait for the main feature. But the ranch was a long way off.

  He looked back at Lucy and her foal who’d fallen in behind. “How fast can you walk?”

  The horse declined to answer, instead settling into a slow shuffle.

  15

  “So, the lost is found,” Mark greeted her cheerfully as Chelsea entered the ranch house kitchen.

  “Seems so.” It had taken seven hours to walk Lucy back. A long cold ride, but under a broken sky rather than a freezing rain. It was now mid-afternoon and the sky was once again darkening beneath an overcast. At least she’d be cozy and safe for the next storm.

  “Tessa’s down for her nap, so you can just relax. Where’s Doug?”

  “He’s out at the isolation barn. He wants to keep the three horses and foal away from the herd until he’s sure that they’re not contagious.”

  “Good man.”

  “The best.” Chelsea knew she’d never met a better one.

  Mark looked at her curiously, and then headed for the door. “I’ll just go and check on him.”

  “Do you know anything about horses?” She didn’t know where the tease had come from. Women didn’t tease men like Mark Henderson. But Doug had told her how Mark loved to fish, and almost always used an ATV rather than a horse to get there, so she couldn’t resist.

  He just winked at her and was gone.

  Chelsea took a quiet minute to heat some leftover beef vegetable soup before sitting with it at the big kitchen table. It could seat a dozen without crowding. The kitchen was on the border between a generous farm kitchen and a small commercial one. It was cozy but also designed to feed a hungry hoard. She could imagine dinner parties here filled with laughter and good food.

  “What would it be like to live here?” she asked the quiet kitchen. “How happy would it be?”

  “Quite happy.”

  Chelsea startled and almost lost her soupspoon to the floor. For a startled second she thought the kitchen had answered her.

  Then she spotted Emily Beale sitting quietly in a deep chair by the kitchen fireplace, a book in her lap. She rose smoothly and came to sit just around the corner of the table from Chelsea.

  “The first time I came here, I was in absolute terror.”

  “You, in terror. Like I’m going to believe that.”

  Emily’s smile was always a surprise and it was this time as well. “Seriously. I was engaged to my co-commander of an elite U.S. Army helicopter team—seriously bad from a regulation point of view—and about to meet his parents, one of whom had served twenty years as a Navy SEAL. I’d never gone fishing, never seen a horse up close, and never been to Montana.”

  Chelsea toyed with her soup. “This place is so amazing though; that must have helped.”

  “It did. Though not as much as realizing that Mark knew as little about horses as I did.” Now Emily’s smile turned rather wicked. “Mac and Ama bought the ranch after Mark had gone to West Point.”

  “So?” Chelsea tried to picture Mark not perfect at something and wasn’t coming up with a good image.

  “Let’s just say that he ended up head over heels in the river and I didn’t.”

  Chelsea held up a hand in salute, but was shocked when Emily actually high-fived it. “Women rule,” Chelsea added weakly.

  “We do,” Emily agreed and offered her a smile of companionship that felt as crazy as everything else that had happened in the last two days.

  “I’ve been very happy here,” Emily continued though more as if she was speaking to herself. “It’s a good place, as good as any I’ve ever been.”

  “I’ll miss the ranch when we go.”

  Emily nodded, but was studying Chelsea carefully.

  “What?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “Nope.” Chelsea grabbed onto her bravery. “You don’t get to do that.”

  “Do what?” Emily pretended all innocence.

  Chelsea aimed her soupspoon at Emily, “Have that clear a thought and then not share it.”

  Emily considered for a long moment and then nodded at how that might be a reasonable demand. “Just remember.”

  “What?”

  “You asked.”

  Chelsea swallowed hard. Why didn’t she think she was going to like what came next? She nodded for Emily to go ahead anyway.

  “It isn’t the ranch that you’ll be missing.”

  Her soupspoon slipped from nerveless fingers and landed in her bowl with a splash.

  “Thought so,” Emily remarked drily.

  “Couldn’t you at least have made it a question?”

  Emily shook her head. “Why would I, when it isn’t one.”

  “But we haven’t even—”

  “Doesn’t matter. When it’s the right one, the particulars don’t matter. Trust me, I know.”

  “The right what? But—” Chelsea managed weakly wondering why she was trying to argue. She’d never met a man like Doug Daniels, a man who simply shone with the love inside him. He had such a passion for the land and the horses.

  During the long, cold ride back from the fishing cabin, she and Doug had warmed the time with stories. He’d told her about his experiences overseas, so different from her own tramp abroad. In all of her travels, she’d never found anyone so easy to be with.

  And the way he’d knelt before her in the cabin, naked and beautiful and so worried about offending as he treated her abraded legs with stinky liniment.

  The way he’d held her last night. There couldn’t be another man anywhere who wouldn’t have taken advantage of the situation. But not Doug with his soldier’s honor.

  “I—”

  But Emily was no longer there to explain things to. In the big kitchen was only the warm crackling of the fire, Chelsea, and a bowl of soup.

  16

  Doug was slumped on his couch. The grumbling in his stomach complained about missing dinner up at the main house; too frustrated to whip up something in his own kitchen. He hadn’t been able to go because of what else he’d find there. What he was wanting so badly.

  The knock on his front door had him racing to answer it. “Is Lucy…o…kay?” The only knock he’d been expecting had been Lo
gan’s if Lucy had a relapse. His nervous system was not ready for the vivid redhead standing on his front porch.

  “Hi!” Her smile was big and again mischievous.

  He had the feeling that he was suddenly in deep trouble.

  “Do I get invited in? If not, I’m taking Emily’s special homemade pizza back with me. She said that it’s one of your favorites.”

  That’s when he focused on the large covered tray Chelsea was carrying. Emily was an amazing cook, had won the hearts of Mac, himself, and every one of the ranch hands with a beef stew on her first visit to the ranch. But it was her from-scratch pizza that blew Doug away.

  “Uh—” He looked back up at Chelsea. “I’d like to invite you in, but I don’t think that’s the best idea. Because if I do—” If he did, he couldn’t be accountable for keeping his hands off her a second time. Last night he’d liked the brave and competent woman, and lusted after the redheaded knockout. On the long ride back, he’d also come to admire her deeply. She’d made some hard choices on her path, who hadn’t. But hers had always come straight from the heart.

  “—If you do invite me in,” Chelsea picked up for him as she eased him slowly backward with the leading edge of a tray of pizza, “we just might enjoy ourselves beyond all imagining.”

  “Something like that,” he managed.

  “Good. I’m counting on it.” She kicked off her boots, and carried the tray through his living room and into the kitchen as if she’d always lived here. “You were raised in a barn. Close the door; it’s cold out there.”

  Helpless to argue, he did as she suggested and followed her into the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry,” she set the tray on top of the cold stove.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “The pizza and the tiny ranch house tour are going to have to come later. I can’t wait any longer.” She shed her gloves and jacket and dropped them to the floor. Then she walked straight into his arms.

  17

  They had cold pizza while sitting among their clothes on the kitchen floor. Doug reheated some after they’d made prolonged use of the living room sofa; long enough to have to restock the fire. They finished the last of the meal on their way upstairs when she went hunting for the bedroom; a search that was gloriously rewarded.

  “Did we miss anywhere?” Chelsea lay sprawled over him, sore in so many wonderful ways. She’d never done anything like this. Never had so much fun having sex either. Doug’s blend of powerful yet gentle, of roughly needy and deeply giving had enthralled and sated her like no one before.

  “Uh, big bathroom, second bedroom, home office.”

  “Oh.” They’d probably kill each other if they tried for all of them tonight.

  “Back porch lit by June moonlight,” he mumbled on. “There’s a set of waterfalls with a hot spring about a three-hour hike above the fishing cabin that shouldn’t scare off a woman who had hiked in the Himalayas. The open prairie on a warm May afternoon where you’d outshine the sun. I’ll show you—”

  She put her fingers over his mouth to stop him and he kissed the fingertips.

  “I like your imagination,” she propped herself up on his chest and looked down into his dark eyes. “So the sex is good.”

  “Incredible,” he agreed.

  “You love what you do?”

  “I do,” he agreed just as equably.

  “And you’ve spent two days and two nights fantasizing about having me beside you forever.”

  “Yep.”

  She waited for it. Perhaps it was unfair. Giving a man his favorite food then making love to him multiple times; his defenses were pretty much gone.

  But there was no shock of recognition at what she’d just said. No startled disclaimer that he wasn’t dumb enough to extrapolate two days into a lifetime.

  “Whoa there!” It was supposed to have been a tease.

  “As the lady once said,” he grinned up at her. “Hello! Not a horse.”

  “Hold on.”

  “The way I figure it,” she could feel his chest rippling against hers as he spoke, “it’s actually been two days and three nights. I think we’re closer to sunrise than sunset. So, we’ve already made it twenty-five percent longer than what you said.”

  “Douglas,” she warned him.

  “Just Doug. Nobody calls me Douglas, not even Mom.”

  “Douglas!”

  “Yes, Chelsea?”

  “Does it make any sense?”

  “Nope. Not a bit,” and his voice remained merry.

  “Aren’t you even a little surprised?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?” Chelsea’s own thoughts were in such turmoil, they might as well be a wheeling herd of horses.

  “Got over it in the barn while taking care of Lucy.”

  “A horse told you that we’d be spending our lives together? Even from horseboy, I’m not buying that one.” Spending our lives together and still no flinch on his part. She checked in with herself. Even stranger, there wasn’t a flinch on her part either.

  “No, from Mark.”

  “Mark?” was all she managed.

  “Yep! I was out making sure Lucy and the other horses were all settled in, when he came out to the barn.”

  “What did he say?” Chelsea was pretty sure she didn’t want to know. She went to roll off Doug’s chest, but he trapped her in place with a hand resting lightly on her hip. Just enough to tell her she was retreating, not enough that she couldn’t get away. Fine! She could take it if he could, and rolled back into place.

  “He said that you were one of the nicest young women he’d ever met and I’d never find any better. That part I agreed with readily enough,” Doug nodded emphatically as if marking such an outrageous statement as simple truth. “And if I was too stupid to see that you were already in love with me, he’d be glad to pound some sense into me.”

  She let his “love” statement go by for the moment.

  “Do you think they set us up?” She wasn’t sure if she’d be angry or not, but wanted to know.

  “My question too. Mark said no. Emily’s not much sneakier than he is, so I’m guessing the answer there is also no. I suspect that we did this to ourselves.”

  “We…what?” But it was lame and she knew it. Emily had said the same thing, or why else was Chelsea here in bed with Doug?

  This time when she pushed away, he let her go.

  Chelsea wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and moved to look out the window. The yard rolled away into the darkness. Faint lights marked the barns, a lone porch light up at the main ranch house.

  Could she be happy here? Working horses, sharing this gorgeous land with visitors? In a heartbeat.

  With this man?

  Doug slipped up behind her and wrapped his arms across her shoulders.

  How was she supposed to know something like that so quickly?

  Even if she already did?

  Emily had said she recognized that he was the right one for her. As if she knew what love looked like. Well, if any woman did, it would be Emily Beale.

  Chelsea leaned back against Doug—and the rightness was there. It ran so deep that she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  “So I was thinking,” he whispered in her ear.

  She hummed with pleasure, couldn’t help herself.

  “How about we just try each other on for size? You and me.”

  “And the horses.”

  She could more feel his laugh than hear it.

  “And the horses. We’ll agree to make no decisions at all until the snow melts.”

  “But there isn’t any snow,” she waved a hand toward the window.

  He didn’t speak, instead he pointed. In the faint lights, she could see the first flakes spinning down out of the sky.

  “A white Christmas,” she
managed on a tight breath.

  He wrapped his arms around her a little more tightly.

  Doug was right, they needed time to decide if what was between them was real or not.

  But she knew. Her wandering days were done.

  A white Christmas together.

  Chelsea turned in Doug’s arms and kissed him. She knew right down to her heart that this was only the first of so many to come.

  About the Author

  M. L. Buchman has over 40 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the Year,” nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of 2014” by RT Book Reviews, and twice Booklist “Top 10 of the Year” placing two of his titles on their “The 101 Best Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

  In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

  He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at: www.mlbuchman.com.

  Christmas at Steel Beach

  -a Night Stalkers romance-(excerpt)

  U.S. Navy Chief Steward Gail Miller held on for dear life as the small boat raced across the warm seas off West Africa.

  The six Marines driving the high-speed small unit riverine boat appeared to think that scaring the daylights out of her was a good sport. It was like a Zodiac rubber dinghy’s big brother. It was a dozen meters long with large machine guns mounted fore and aft. The massive twin diesels sent it jumping off every wave, even though the rollers in the Gulf of Guinea were less than a meter high today.