Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

  “Oh, yes,” he said, his voice deep with bitterness. “I thought you were playing me for a sucker, Dorie. That you were pretending to be innocent because I was rich and you wanted a wedding ring instead of an affair.”

  The horror she felt showed in her wan face.

  “Yes, I know,” he said when she started to protest. “I only saw what I wanted to see. But the joke was on me. By the time I realized what a hell of a mistake I’d made about you, you were halfway on a bus out of town. I went after you. But I couldn’t manage the right words to stop you. My pride cut my throat. I was never that wrong about anyone before.”

  She averted her gaze. “It was a long time ago. I was just a kid.”

  “Yes. Just a kid. And I mistook you for a woman.” He studied her through narrow lids. “You don’t look much older even now. How did you get that scar?”

  Her fingers went to it. The memories poured over her, hot and hurting. She got to her feet. “I’ll see about the coffee.”

  She heard a rough sound behind her, but apparently it wasn’t something he wanted to put words to. She escaped into the kitchen, found some cookies to put in a bowl and carried the coffee back to the coffee table on a silver tray.

  “Fancy stuff,” he mused.

  She knew that he had equally fancy stuff at his place. She’d never been there, but she’d certainly heard about the Hart heirlooms that the four brothers displayed with such pride. Old Spanish silver, five generations old, dating all the way back to Spain graced their side table. There was crystal as well, and dozens of other heirlooms that would probably never be handed down. None of the Harts, it was rumored, had any ambitions of marrying.

  “This was my grandmother’s,” she said. “It’s all I had of her. She brought this service over from England, they said.”

  “Ours came from Spain.” He waited for her to pour the coffee. He picked up his cup, waving away cream and sugar. He took a sip, nodded and took another. “You make good coffee. Amazing how many people can’t.”

  “I’m sure it’s bad for us. Most things are.”

  He agreed. He put the cup back into the saucer and studied her over its rim. “Are you planning to stay for good?”

  “I guess so,” she faltered. “I’ve had stationery and cards printed, and I’ve already had two offers of work.”

  “I’m bringing you a third—our household accounts. We’ve been sharing them since our mother died. Consequently each of us insists that it’s not our turn to do them, so they don’t get done.”

  “You’d bring them to me?” she asked hesitantly.

  He studied her broodingly. “Why shouldn’t I? Are you afraid to come out to the ranch and do them?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Of course not,” he muttered, glaring at her. He sat forward, watching her uneasy movement. “Eight years, and I still frighten you.”

  She curled up even more. “Don’t be absurd. I’m twenty-six.”

  “You don’t look or act it.”

  “Go ahead,” she invited. “Be as blunt as you like.”

  “Thanks, I will. You’re still a virgin.”

  Coffee went everywhere. She cursed roundly, amusing him, as she searched for napkins to mop up the spill, which was mostly on her.

  “Why are you?” he persisted, baiting her. “Were you waiting for me?”

  She stood up, slamming the coffee cup to the floor. It shattered with a pleasantly loud crash, and she thanked goodness that it was an old one. “You son of a...!”

  He stood up, too, chuckling. “That’s better,” he mused, watching her eyes flash, her face burn with color.

  She kicked at a pottery shard. “Damn you, Corrigan Hart!”

  He moved closer, watching her eyelids flutter. She tried to back up, but she couldn’t go far. Her legs were against the sofa. There was no place to run.

  He paused a step away from her, close enough that she could actually feel the heat of his body through her clothing and his. He looked down into her eyes without speaking for several long seconds.

  “You’re not the child you used to be,” he said, his voice as smooth as velvet. “You can stand up for yourself, even with me. And everything’s going to be all right. You’re home. You’re safe.”

  It was almost as if he knew what she’d been through. His eyes were quiet and full of secrets, but he smiled. His hand reached out and touched her short hair.

  “You still wear it like a boy’s,” he murmured. “But it’s silky. Just the way I remember it.”

  He was much too close. He made her nervous. Her hands went out and pressed into his shirtfront, but instead of moving back, he moved forward. She shivered at the feel of his chest under her hands, even with the shirt covering it.

  “I don’t want a lover,” she said, almost choking on the words.

  “Neither do I,” he replied heavily. “So we’ll be friends. That’s all.”

  She nibbled on her lower lip. He smelled of spice and leather. She used to dream about him when she first left home. Over the years, he’d assumed the image of a protector in her mind. Strange, when he’d once frightened her so much.

  Impulsively she laid her cheek against his chest with a little sigh and closed her eyes.

  He shivered for an instant, before his lean hands pressed her gently to him, in a nonthreatening way. He stared over her head with eyes that blazed, eyes that he was thankful she couldn’t see.

  “We’ve lost years,” he said half under his breath. “But Christmas brings miracles. Maybe we’ll have one of our own.”

  “A miracle?” she mused, smiling. She felt ever so safe in his arms. “What sort?”

  “I don’t know,” he murmured, absently stroking her hair. “We’ll have to wait and see. You aren’t going to sleep, are you?”

  “Not quite.” She lifted her head and looked up at him, a little puzzled at the familiarity she felt with him. “I didn’t expect that you’d ever be comfortable to be around.”

  “How so?”

  She shrugged. “I wasn’t afraid.”

  “Why should you be?” he replied. “We’re different people now.”

  “I guess.”

  He brushed a stray hair from her eyebrow with a lean, sure hand. “I want you to know something,” he said quietly. “What happened that night... I wouldn’t have forced you. Things got a little out of hand, and I said some things, a lot of things, that I regret. I guess you realize now that I had a different picture of you than the one that was real. But even so, I wouldn’t have harmed you.”

  “I think I knew that,” she said. “But thank you for telling me.”

  His hand lay alongside her soft cheek and his metallic eyes went dark and sad. “I mourned you,” he said huskily. “Nothing was the same after you’d gone.”

  She lowered her eyes to his throat. “I didn’t have much fun in New York at first, either.”

  “Modeling wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?”

  She hesitated. Then she shook her head. “I did better as a stenographer.”

  “And you’ll do even better as a financial expert, right here,” he told her. He smiled, tilting up her chin. “Are you going to take the job I’ve offered you?”

  “Yes,” she said at once. Her gaze drew slowly over his face. “Are your brothers like you?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  He chuckled, moving slowly away from her to retrieve his cane from the chair. “They’re no worse, at least.”

  “Are they as outspoken as you?”

  “Definitely.” He saw her apprehension. “Think of the positive side. At least you’ll always know exactly where you stand with us.”

  “That must be a plus.”

  “Around here, it is. We’re hard
cases. We don’t make friends easily.”

  “And you don’t marry. I remember.”

  His face went hard. “You have plenty of reason to remember that I said that. But I’m eight years older, and a lot wiser. I don’t have such concrete ideas anymore.”

  “You mean, you’re not still a confirmed bachelor?” She laughed nervously. “They say you’re taken with the gay divorcée, just the same.”

  “How did you hear about her?” he asked curtly.

  His level, challenging gaze made her uneasy. “People talk,” she said.

  “Well, the gay divorcée,” he emphasized, his expression becoming even more remote, “is a special case. And we’re not a couple. Despite what you may have heard. We’re friends.”

  She turned away. “That’s no concern of mine. I’ll do your bookkeeping on those household accounts, and thank you for the work. But I have no interest in your private life.”

  He didn’t return the compliment. He reached for his hat and perched it on his black hair. There were threads of gray at his temples now, and new lines in his dark, lean face.

  “I’m sorry about your accident,” she said abruptly, watching him lean heavily on the cane.

  “I’ll get by,” he said. “My leg is stiff, but I’m not crippled. It hurts right now because I took a toss off a horse, and I need the cane. As a rule, I walk well enough without one.”

  “I remember the way you used to ride,” she recalled. “I thought I’d never seen anything in my life as beautiful as you astride a horse at a fast gallop.”

  His posture went even more rigid. “You never said so.”

  She smiled. “You intimidated me. I was afraid of you. And not only because you wanted me.” She averted her eyes. “I wanted you, too. But I hadn’t been raised to believe in a promiscuous lifestyle. Which,” she added, looking up at his shocked face, “was all you were offering me. You said so.”

  “God help me, I never knew that your father was a minister and your mother a missionary,” he said heavily. “Not until it was far too late to do me any good. I expected that all young women were free with their favors in this age of no-consequences intimacy.”

  “It wouldn’t be of no consequence to me,” she said firmly. “I was never one to go with the crowd. I’m still not.”

  “Yes, I know,” he murmured drily, giving her a long, meaningful glance. “It’s obvious.”

  “And it’s none of your business.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” He tilted his hat over his eyes. “I haven’t changed completely, you know. I still go after the things I want, even if I don’t go as fast as I used to.”

  “I expect you do,” she said. “Does the divorcée know?”

  “Know what? That I’m persistent? Sure she does.”

  “Good for her.”

  “She’s a beauty,” he added, propping on his stick. “Of an age to be sophisticated and good fun.”

  Her heart hurt. “I’m sure you enjoy her company.”

  “I enjoy yours as much,” he replied surprisingly. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Don’t you like cookies?” she asked, noting that he hadn’t touched them.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t care for sweets at all.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugged. “We never had them at home. Our mother wasn’t the homey sort.”

  “What was she like?” she had to ask.

  “She couldn’t cook, hated housework and spouted contempt for any woman who could sew and knit and crochet,” he replied.

  She felt cold. “And your father?”

  “He was a good man, but he couldn’t cope with us alone.” His eyes grew dark. “When she took off and deserted him, part of him died. She’d just come back, out of money and all alone, from her latest lover. They were talking about a reconciliation when the flood took the house where she was living right out from under them.” His face changed, hardened. He leaned heavily on the cane. “Simon and Cag and I were grown by then. We took care of the other two.”

  “No wonder you don’t like women,” she murmured quietly.

  He gave her a long, level look and then dropped his gaze. She missed the calculation in his tone when he added, “Marriage is old-fashioned, anyway. I have a dog, a good horse and a houseful of modern appliances. I even have a housekeeper who can cook. A wife would be redundant.”

  “Well, I never,” she exclaimed, breathless.

  “I know,” he replied, and there was suddenly a wicked glint in his eyes. “You can’t blame that on me,” he added. “God knows, I did my best to bring you into the age of enlightenment.”

  While she was absorbing that dry remark, he tipped his hat, turned and walked out the door.

  She darted onto the porch after him. “When?” she called after him. “You didn’t say when you wanted me to start.”

  “I’ll phone you.” He didn’t look back. He got into his truck laboriously and drove away without even a wave of his hand.

  At least she had the promise of a job, she told herself. She shouldn’t read hidden messages into what he said. But the past he’d shared with her, about his mother, left her chilled. How could a woman have five sons and leave them?

  And what was the secret about the fifth brother, Simon, the one nobody had ever seen? She wondered if he’d done something unspeakable, or if he was in trouble with the law. There had to be a reason why the brothers never spoke of him much. Perhaps she’d find out one day.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS THE next day before she realized she hadn’t thanked Corrigan for the flowers he’d brought. She sent a note out to the ranch on Monday, and got one back that read, simply, “You’re welcome.” So much for olive branches, if one had been needed.

  She found plenty to keep her busy in the days that followed. It seemed that all her father’s friends and the people she’d gone to school with wanted her to come home. Everyone seemed to know a potential client. It wasn’t long before she was up to her ears in work.

  The biggest surprise came Thursday morning when she heard the sound of many heavy footsteps and looked up from her desk to find three huge, intimidating men standing on her porch just beyond the glass-fronted door. They’d come in that big double-cabbed pickup that Corrigan usually drove, and she wondered if these were his brothers.

  She went to open the door and felt like a midget when they came tromping inside her house, their spurs jingling pleasantly on boots that looked as if they’d been kept in a swamp.

  “We’re the Harts,” one of them said. “Corrigan’s brothers.”

  As she’d guessed. She studied them curiously. Corrigan was tall, but these men were giants. Two were dark-haired like Corrigan, and one had blond-streaked brown hair. All were dark-eyed, unlike him. None of them would have made any lists of handsome bachelors. They were rugged-looking, lean and tanned, and they made her nervous. The Hart boys made most people nervous. The only other local family that had come close to their reputations for fiery tempers were the Tremayne boys, who were all married and just a little tamer now. The Harts were relative newcomers in Jacobsville, having only been around eight years or so. But they kept to themselves and seemed to have ties to San Antonio that were hard to break. What little socializing they did was all done there, in the city. They didn’t mix much in Jacobsville.

  Not only were they too rugged for words, but they also had the most unusual first names Dorie could remember hearing. They introduced themselves abruptly, without even being asked first.

  Reynard was the youngest. They called him Rey. He had deep-set black eyes and a thin mouth and, gossip said, the worst temper of the four.

  The second youngest was Leopold. He was broader than the other three, although not fat, and the tallest. He never seemed to shave. He had blond-streaked brown hair and br
own eyes, and a mischievous streak that the others apparently lacked.

  Callaghan was the eldest, two years older than Corrigan. He had black eyes like a cobra. He didn’t blink. He was taller than all his brothers, with the exception of Leopold, and he did most of the bronc-breaking at the ranch. He looked Spanish, more than the others, and he had the bearing and arrogance of royalty, as if he belonged in another century. They said he had the old-fashioned attitudes of the past, as well.

  He gave the broader of the three a push toward Dorie. He glared over his shoulder, but took off his hat and forced a smile as he stood in front of Dorie.

  “You must be Dorothy Wayne,” Leopold said with a grin. “You work for us.”

  “Y...yes, I guess I do,” she stammered. She felt surrounded. She moved back behind the desk and just stared at them, feeling nervous and inadequate.

  “Will you two stop glaring?” Leopold shot at his taciturn brothers. “You’re scaring her!”

  They seemed to make an effort to relax, although it didn’t quite work out.

  “Never mind,” Leopold muttered. He clutched his hat in his hand. “We’d like you to come out to the ranch,” he said. “The household accounts are about to do us in. We can’t keep Corrigan still long enough to get him to bring them to you.”

  “He came over Saturday,” she said.

  “Yeah, we heard,” Leo mused. “Roses, wasn’t it?”

  The other two almost smiled.

  “Roses,” she agreed. Her gray eyes were wide and they darted from one giant to another.

  “He forgot to bring you the books. The office is in a hel...heck of a mess,” Leo continued. “We can’t make heads nor tails of it. Corrigan scribbles, and we’ve volunteered him to do it mostly, but we can’t read his writing. He escaped to a herd sale in Montana, so we’re stuck.” He shrugged and managed to look helpless. “We can’t see if we’ve got enough money in the account to buy groceries.” He looked hungry. He sighed loudly. “We’d sure appreciate it if you could come out, maybe in the morning, about nine? If that’s not too early.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m up and making breakfast by six.”