The Courting Cowboy

by Tara Janzen

  The Russells had lit up their two big pine trees all the way to the top, and had a nativity scene set up on bales of hay between the two trees. Even old man Harper, way out on the edge of town, had a couple of lights strung up around his door.

  The block between Second and Third streets was darker. The Martins had gone out of town for Christmas, the second house was empty, and the third—

  Ty felt himself go still all over. The third house was Victoria’s, and there was smoke coming out of the chimney and lights on in the windows. There had been some talk of letting the substitute science teacher have it, but the board had decided to wait until after Christmas before redoing the lease. The last Ty had heard, the substitute was using one of the trailers out behind the school.

  He gave the engine a little more gas and shifted the truck into gear. He’d just drive by, he thought. Check it out. See what was going on.

  He didn’t really think she had come back. That was a fool’s dream.

  He got to the end of the block and started to drive by, then decided to stop. As long as he was there, was the theory he used to convince himself to go ahead on up to the porch. Once there, he felt bound to knock on the door and look through the living room window. If the substitute answered, a young man fresh out of college and damned grateful to have a job, Ty would make his apologies and go on home alone to face another night of trying not to think about Victoria, of trying not to be angry, because that seemed so damned futile.

  No one answered his knock, and he looked through the window again. A lot of luggage was stacked in the middle of the floor, and it all had big W’s on it.

  She was home. He was glad and angry at the same time. He didn’t know what to think until smoke began drifting out of the kitchen. Then he didn’t have to think at all.

  He called her name and pounded on the door before trying the knob and finding it unlocked. He rushed inside, heading for the kitchen.

  Victoria heard the ruckus, and with a start realized she must have forgotten to lock the door. She’d made so many trips in and out. The sound of footsteps crossing her living room had her stumbling out of the bathtub and grabbing for a robe. As far as she knew, there had never been anyone attacked or murdered in Talbot. She would hate to go down in history as the first.

  The thin cotton robe fought her wet skin, allowing her to get only one arm in a sleeve before she heard a man swear in her kitchen and call her name.

  “Victoria!”

  Ty! Her knees weakened, and she clutched the robe to her breasts. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and practically ran right into him.

  “Oh.”

  He grabbed her arms to steady her, and the purest gray eyes she’d ever seen captured her gaze.

  “Oh,” she said again, softer. He was so big, towering over her with his hat shading his face, his legs braced to hold them both. She felt the cold dampness of his glove on her bare arm, while his other hand held a fistful of cotton robe and her elbow.

  Ty looked down at the bared upper curves of her breasts, and his breath lodged in his throat. Straying tendrils of damp auburn hair curled around her face and clung to her ivory skin, making it near impossible for him to find his voice.

  She was more beautiful than he remembered, softer than she’d been in his dreams. He’d thought about her so many times, the way she smiled, her uppity voice, the way she’d loved him in the barn the first time, and all the times after that. He’d been too long without a woman before he’d had her, and after her he’d known no other woman would do. She lit a fire in him with her shy demeanor and big brown eyes, a fire he could feel stirring again in his loins.

  “Your cookies were burning,” he finally said, unconsciously pulling her closer. He needed her heat against him, wanting her touch to ease the ache she’d started in his groin. “I saw the smoke coming out of the kitchen and just let myself in.”

  “Th-thank you!”

  “At first I thought it might have been the flue.” His gaze drifted back down to her breasts, and this time he inhaled deeply. She felt so good, so warm and willing. He pulled her closer until she was fully against him, feeling him. “But it wasn’t. Your fireplace is working fine, drawing well.”

  Victoria felt as scandalous as she ever had, barely out of her bath and in the arms of a fully clothed, fully aroused cowboy. She knew without a doubt what was pressing up against her belly. It was a warmer welcome than she had anticipated, and after the cold chillness of London, it was much appreciated. She smiled. She couldn’t help herself.

  “I missed you too.” She tilted her head back to hold his gaze as color suffused her cheeks.

  His tan turned darker high on his cheekbones and the barest smile curved his mouth. “Maybe we ought to do this in bed.”

  “Maybe we ought.”

  Without another word he scooped her into his arms and headed down the hall.

  Making love with him was the final act of coming home. He was tender and sensual, eliciting responses she hadn’t known existed inside herself until he’d first shown her. The strength and warmth of him were a haven she never wanted to leave. She’d always known home was where the heart is—she’d been given no other choice—but now she had so much more. Ty was connected to the land, to Talbot, and by loving him, she gained it all.

  Afterward they baked more cookies and settled themselves in front of the roaring blaze in the fireplace. Outside, the snow was coming down thick and velvety, reflecting the moonlight and the shadows of the trees.

  “How was London?” he asked, leaning forward to grab another cookie off the tray. He was terribly nonchalant, but she heard the underlying questions, and possibly the doubts.

  “Cold and snowy,” she said, burrowing deeper into the blankets they’d brought out from the bed.

  “Kind of like Talbot, then.” He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned.

  “No.” She wrinkled her nose. “London is a little bigger, and there’re a couple more people crowding the streets. Some of the buildings are taller, and there’s a palace or two. Nothing special.”

  “Guess it will all keep until you get back, huh?” His tone was light, but his eyes were solemn and serious beneath the dark slashes of his eyebrows.

  “It better do better than that. I’m not planning on going back.”

  He nodded. “You must have saved Charles’s place in history.”

  “No. I didn’t. He’s going to have to count on Neville to do that for him. I’m not going to be a Willoughby much longer.”

  That got his attention. He turned to face her fully. “What’s your plan?”

  “Well, my maiden name was Cameron, and I’ve decided to use it. Victoria Miranda Elizabeth Cameron. What do you think?”

  “It’s got a nice ring to it, I suppose,” he said, not sounding overly enthused.

  They sat quietly on the couch for a few minutes, each lost in thought, until Victoria couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” she said softly.

  He took a deep breath and turned to look her straight in the eye. “Garrett,” he said. “Your name ought to be Garrett. Victoria Miranda Elizabeth Garrett.”

  As a marriage proposal, it was about the worst he’d ever heard. It was certainly worse than he’d imagined it a hundred times. He’d had so many good ways of asking her. He winced at the awfulness of it and swore quietly under his breath.

  “Garrett?” she repeated. “Victoria Garrett. Wouldn’t that confuse everybody? What with us both having the same name?”

  “Not if we were married,” he said bluntly, not liking his second shot at a proposal any more than his first.

  “Oh, I see.” She smiled a secret smile, teasing him. “Yes, I think that would be best. Keep everything above board and all that.”

  “Then it’s settled?”

  “Quite settled.” Her smile lingered, softening the formality of her words.

  “It’s me, and the ranch, and Corey, the whole package deal,” he said, det
ermined to give her a way out even as he wanted to hold her to him and never let her go.

  “A bargain, I’m sure.”

  “And more kids, at least a couple.” He hoped she felt the same way. He’d love to have children with her.

  “You will have my utmost cooperation in the progeny department.”

  Sounded good to him. A wide grin spread across his face. “You’re going to marry me, Victoria.”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes bright with promise. “I’m going to marry you, Ty Garrett.”

  His grin broadened. “There’s something else you ought to know.” He sat back, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. “I’ve been in love with you since that first night I picked you up and got that button tangled in your hair. I wanted to make love to you right then and there.”

  “I would have fainted dead away, I’m sure.” She kissed him back, letting her tongue taste his lips.

  He responded by plundering her mouth and filling his palm with her breast. When he lifted his head, he said, “I haven’t noticed you getting faint on me lately.”

  “Since then I’ve learned how to handle an American cowboy.” She scooted closer, nestling herself against him.

  “And how’s that?” he asked, taking full advantage of her new position. He kissed her again, slow and sweet.

  “Well,” she answered breathlessly, warming to his touch and the reality that he was hers for a lifetime. “First you fall in love. The rest comes easy after that.”

  Ty chuckled and buried his face in the soft, tantalizing curve of her neck. His tongue darted out to taste the fresh sweetness of her skin. “It’s going to be a long, snow-packed winter this year, honey.”

  “Good,” she murmured, imagining warm nights in front of their fireplace and hot nights in bed, crisp days spent helping him and Corey doing chores, and cold mornings when they all shared coffee and cocoa to get warm.

  “It’s going to be a good life, Victoria.” His voice was warm and solid, his promise as strong as the man.

  “Yes, it is, Ty. Yes, it is.”

  * * * * * * * * *

  Read on for excerpts from Shameless and Thieves in the Night, more great romances from Tara Janzen.

  Shameless

  One

  The brick wall was hot against Colton Haines’s back, seared by a Wyoming summer sun and burning through his shirt. It was support, though, hard and reliable, a place to get what he couldn’t find elsewhere.

  A mist of fine dust kicked up at the end of the alley and sheeted by him in its journey east, blown by a ceaseless wind. He swiped at a tear with the back of his hand, hating the weakness in himself even more than he hated the tears’ cause. The dampness mixed with the sandy grit on his knuckles, making a patch of salty mud he wiped off on his jeans.

  He couldn’t stand in the alley, leaning against the back wall of Atlas Drugs, and cry. He couldn’t. He’d driven the ten miles into town to get to her.

  Sarah.

  His chest constricted on a sudden breath, and he squeezed his eyes shut to hold back another tear. She had never betrayed him, not from the very beginning, not like his mother, who’d just betrayed everything.

  He needed Sarah’s loyalty like a lifeline. In return she deserved a man, not a twenty-year-old boy crying because his mother was—He didn’t know what to call it, not even in the privacy of his own mind. “Taking a caller” was the best he could do, and even that hurt. He couldn’t think about it, no more than he could stand there and cry about it.

  He pushed off the wall, propelled by his anger, and walked over to use the water spigot. As he crouched next to the running stream of cool water, his glance raked the endless expanse of prairie surrounding the town of Rock Creek. A herd of pronghorns grazed less than a hundred yards away from the main street, proof of the town’s lack of worth. His mouth tightened. Rock Creek didn’t even have enough civilization to hold back a herd of skittish wild animals.

  And he’d thought it was the neatest damn place on earth. He made a short sound of disgust and rose to his feet.

  Cleaner, with no revealing tracks staining his cheeks, he used his wet hands to slick his hair back under his cowboy hat. He settled the brim low on his forehead and with a quick motion rubbed the dirt off his boot tops on the backs of his jeans. He didn’t want to look even one tenth of one percent as torn-up as he felt. What he wanted was Sarah and the way she believed in him.

  Sarah thought he was strong, and next to her he was. It was one of the many pleasures of kissing her and holding her, how he had to temper his strength so as not to scare her, or ever hurt her. Her love and trust gave him the desire to be good, to be the best.

  Sarah.

  He squared his shoulders and looked out on the sea of sun-cured grass floating to the horizon, broken by coulees and occasional scrub. There was nothing for him in Rock Creek. He’d known it that day so many years ago when he and his mom had washed up in this backwater, nowhere place on a flood of grief, both broken from the loss of her husband, his father. He shouldn’t have forgotten. He shouldn’t have invested so much of himself in the two-bit town, so many of his dreams.

  There was nothing in Rock Creek, he silently repeated, never had been, nothing except Sarah. He turned his back on the prairie and headed for the main street, the cool interior of Atlas Drugs, and the soothing comfort of the girl he loved.

  * * *

  Sarah knew the instant Colt stepped into the store. The bell over the door didn’t jingle any differently for him, but the air changed. The weatherman could talk all he wanted about increases in atmospheric pressure; Sarah felt it every time Colton Haines walked into a room.

  She turned and their eyes met briefly over the postcard rack at the front of the store. She checked where her Uncle Tobias was helping Doris Childress at the pharmacy and hoped the preacher’s wife would keep him busy. She knew her uncle felt bound and beholden to report on her to her father—it was that or catch hell—and lately the comings and goings of Colt had been the priority news on any given day of the week.

  Colt stayed up by the tourist goods, where the display of T-shirts hanging from fishing line strung across the aisle offered the most privacy. Not many tourists stopped in Rock Creek, but when they did they could get an official Rock Creek T-shirt at Atlas Drugs.

  Over the top of a shelf filled with shot glasses and knickknacks, she saw the wide blue and black stripes of his favorite shirt stretched across his broad but youthful shoulders, a young man’s shoulders used to carrying the burden of a grown man’s responsibilities. He was like that all over—lean and hard with muscle, promising to fill out. For Sarah, everything about Colt was a promise of things to come, of their future.

  Sometimes when he looked at her, she saw the deepening of their friendship over the years of a long and good marriage; and sometimes, especially when he’d been kissing her, she saw the heat banked up in him, ready to explode, tethered only by the same love that had lit the fire. It always amazed her, the way he wanted her, and the strength it took not to take her.

  As she rounded the edge of a display unit and drew closer to him, she noted the dust on his black cowboy hat and his clothes. His jeans fit him like a soft, well-worn glove, faded indigo hugging narrow hips and strong flanks, and breaking across the tops of remarkably dust-free boots. A smile teased her mouth. She knew the trick. He’d taught her.

  “Colt?” she asked softly, not whispering exactly, but not wanting her uncle to hear them. The less her father knew, the better, for all parties concerned.

  Colt turned when she spoke, and he felt a small portion of his hurt melt away under the soft gray light of her eyes. There wasn’t anyone like Sarah. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in town, or the most popular, but he’d had to win her. Once, in grade school, he’d teased her about her straight, dishwater hair until she’d cried, then he’d pulled her braid.

  He was still putting his hands on her hair, but only to hold her closer, to feel the silky fine silver and gold strands slip through h
is fingers. The most he ever did to her braid was unweave it so the summer-blond veil of hair fell over her shoulders. He’d lost count of the number of nights he’d spent dreaming about watching her hair slide over her breasts. It took a lot of imagination. He’d never seen her breasts.

  He’d known she was in the aisle, approaching him, but he’d waited to face her, wanting one last chance at pulling himself together just in case something showed. He thought he’d done a pretty good job, until he looked at her.

  “Colt?” Her voice went from welcoming to concerned.

  He forced a smile and wondered what part of him was giving him away.

  “Hi. Can you get out of here?” His voice was gruff, but it didn’t shake.

  She hesitated for a second, then said, “Sure. Just give me a minute. Do you want a soda?”

  He shrugged. “My truck is in the alley.”

  “I’ll be right out.”

  She brought more than sodas when she came. Her hands were full of cookie and cracker boxes, a few candy bars, and a whole six-pack of cold cola. She also brought two sandwiches she must have made up in the kitchen in the back. He wondered what her uncle had thought of that.

  “You’re not letting me eat you out of another paycheck, are you?” He tried to grin again. He could afford a smile now that he had her on his turf. He hadn’t felt welcome in the drugstore, because he wasn’t welcome anymore. Tobias and he had gotten along real well up until a few weeks ago, when for reasons Colt hadn’t understood until today, Sarah’s father had told everybody that Colt wasn’t supposed to see Sarah any longer, for any reason. Neither he nor Sarah, though, had considered for a minute that they’d give each other up. They’d just gotten careful.

  “I’m hungry too,” she said, shoving the food across the seat before crawling up into his pickup truck.

  Her booted feet had barely left the ground when he scooted over and wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her across the seat and onto his lap.

  “Colton Haines! What do you think you’re doing?” She slanted him a provoked glance and reached over to pick up the boxes being crushed by her legs. “You’re smashing the creme cookies.”