When he beckoned to Hadley, she stepped closer, finally realizing what he wanted her to see. Under the moon glow, the landscape was pristine, white as far as the eye could see. Fir trees rose up in the distance against a blue-black sky.
“What a view!” Hadley said with awe in her voice. “This is what Christmas dreams are made of.”
“Or a cowboy’s winter dream,” Eli said softly. “The snow causes problems, that’s for sure. It’s going to take us a while to dig out. We’ll even have to get the corral clear so we can exercise the horses. But I wouldn’t give up moments like this to live anywhere else.”
One moment they were standing in the straw looking out over the snow-covered landscape, and the next they were gazing at each other. Understanding seemed to pass between them once more, and something even more potent. Hadley’s face was tilted up to his. He’d set the lantern on the floor a couple of feet away so it wouldn’t ruin their view of the outside. He couldn’t see much, but he could see the sparkle in her eyes, the look on her face that said maybe, just maybe, she was thinking the same thing he was—that a kiss right now could be something special. He wanted to reach for her, pull her close. But if he did and she didn’t want that, or if he did and she suddenly got scared, they still had the rest of the night to spend together. He wanted her to trust him, and a kiss right now could end that possibility before it even started.
A cold gust of wind suddenly blew their way, and Hadley shivered. That was a signal.
He couldn’t refrain from touching her, though, so he gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. I don’t want you to get colder than you are. We can go back to the tack room and warm up. I just thought you needed a little entertainment tonight.”
“That view is better than a movie,” she assured him, turning toward the ladder.
After he secured the doors to the hayloft, he said, “Maybe I should go down the ladder first. I can make sure you don’t fall.”
“I can get around on my own quite well,” she protested a bit defensively.
“All right,” he said. “Go on. I’ll follow you.”
She gave him a look that was cautious, no doubt because he’d given in so easily. He watched as she tried to figure out how to maneuver herself over that top rung of the ladder from the hayloft. Finally, she got down on her knees and eased onto the first rung backward.
“Maybe I should have let you go first,” she muttered.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” he said amiably.
In the light of the lantern, he could see her glare. Ignoring it, he held the ladder steady until she was halfway down. Then he maneuvered onto it and climbed down after her.
When he’d reached the barn floor, too, she said, “You mentioned we have to feed the horses. Any special feed for Amber?”
“It’s made up in the bin next to the large one. It’s a special mix that should suit her well for the next couple of weeks.”
Apparently Hadley was going to help him. She easily found the bin, scooped the feed into a bucket and took it to Amber while he fed the other horses. When he passed the birthing stall, he told her, “I’ll lay out blankets in the tack room. Hopefully that will be enough cushioning so we can sleep. Are you okay with that?”
“We can be thankful for the heater,” she said, not expressing what she thought about the blankets.
Following the trend of her thoughts, he added, “And we can be thankful that we have friends and family out there who will see that we get dug out as soon as possible.”
“And if we aren’t dug out tomorrow?” Hadley asked in a low voice.
“If we’re not dug out by noon, I’ll get to the house somehow and figure out how to get you there, too.”
But Hadley didn’t look reassured by his words, just worried. “What if the snow starts again?”
“It has to stop sometime.” He could see her eye roll from the light of the lantern he carried. He asked seriously, “Wouldn’t you rather think about the best rather than the worst?”
“I would, but that doesn’t mean the best is going to happen.”
There was something about Hadley that told him she’d been through a crisis that had colored her view of men and maybe even the world. The question was—would she let him get to know her well enough to find out her secret?
Chapter Four
Hadley knew it made sense that she and Eli would bunk down together in the tack room/office where the heater was located. But the situation was still awkward. She’d be sleeping in here practically side to side with Eli! He’d gathered all the saddle blankets he could find, and now she helped him spread two of them across the floor. He’d found a sleeping bag tucked on a shelf. He’d unrolled that, opened it and laid it over the blankets.
Looking around the tack room instead of looking at him—because he drew her gaze to him much too often—she said, “This room looks a lot newer than the rest of the barn.”
“This was an old barn, so we added on the tack room/office, and that other small room for tools. It works well. We don’t have to worry about the heater causing condensation in the rest of the barn.”
“And it keeps the moisture from your tack.”
“Exactly.” He went to the shelves again and produced an orthopedic pillow. “Dad uses this when his back’s bothering him. You can have it for under your head.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll use my vest.”
“Should I keep my coat on?”
“We’d be better off under a blanket letting our body heat combine. You can use your coat as an extra covering or under you for more padding.”
Letting their body heats combine?
“Eli—” she protested almost breathlessly.
“Look. I know this isn’t the ideal situation. But we’re both going to have our clothes on. It’s not as if this is a romantic overnight escapade.”
No, it wasn’t. But as she studied Eli, she knew it could be. Oh, not tonight. They’d both set boundaries. But he was a hunk and she was a red-blooded woman, though that red blood had turned cool over the past few years. Yes, she’d told everybody she was too busy to date, but it was so much more than that.
“Do you need a power bar before we bunk down?” he asked.
“No, but we should check mom and foal at intervals.”
“The heater’s on a timer, and it will go on and off. That always wakes me. I’ll make sure I check them.”
“I can take my turn.”
“No need if you’re sleeping. But if you’re awake, you’re welcome to.”
Eli had left a lantern switched on and placed it on the desk. Taking his jacket from the peg behind the door, he put it on, then carried the other lantern out into the barn to make one last check. She was sure he wasn’t checking only momma and baby, but the other horses, too. The wind had picked up again. It buffeted the tack room addition as if it was trying to push it into the main part of the barn. But she knew the construction was solid. Anything the men in this family did would be solid.
While Eli was gone, she wandered around the tack room, running her hand over the leather saddles, realizing what good condition everything was in. Even the stirrups were clean. This family obviously knew how to run a ranch and keep it in good shape. Maybe she was just trying to distract herself because she didn’t want to lie down on that floor and wait for Eli. That was too reminiscent of—
She put the thoughts out of her head.
When Eli returned to the tack room, his jacket looked wet. Melting snow shone on it by the light of his lantern.
“Did you try to go outside?” She looked down at his boots, and they were wet, too.
“Try is the operative word. About half of me got out the door. There’s just no point even attempting it. The blowing snow is icy.”
“Do yo
u have snowshoes?” she asked, nervous because she couldn’t imagine how they would ever make their way to the house if they had to.
“I have a pair, but they’re up at the house. We have a snowmobile, too. Sometimes we need it to get out to the cattle. We’ll have to take it all into consideration by noon tomorrow if no one’s here to plow us out.”
To distract herself from being snowbound with Eli, Hadley peered into the box where momma cat was sleeping, her baby tucked in beside her. She noted, “They don’t seem the least bit perturbed about all this.”
“You have to remember that they don’t always know where their next meal’s going to come from, at least momma cat doesn’t. She takes food when she can find it. She takes comfort when she can find it.”
Hadley thought about that. “I guess you’re right. Cats live from moment to moment. Maybe we’d be better off if we did the same.”
“We’re trying to do that tonight,” he suggested, looking at their makeshift bed. “Are you ready to call it a night? I have to wipe down my jacket, but go ahead and get settled. I’ll be there in a minute.”
By getting settled, she supposed he meant taking off her hat, jacket and boots. The jacket was first. She decided to lay it long ways under her to provide more comfort. The fleece would go only so far, but she’d take what she could get. She’d worn double socks inside her boots, so her feet shouldn’t get too cold. Besides dressing for the cold, she really hadn’t thought about what she was wearing when she’d driven out here today. So her jeans and a long-sleeved sweater in multiple shades of blue weren’t exactly her best garments. But what did that matter anyway? She was going to be rolled up in blankets on the floor.
As Eli dried off his coat, he asked, “Any nighttime routines?”
“What? Like covering my face with a blue mask so nobody would recognize me, yet it would make me glow in the morning?”
He was quiet a few moments and she didn’t know why, but apparently he’d been thinking over what he was going to say. “I can’t imagine you’d need a blue mask to glow in the morning.”
She was speechless. She was rarely speechless. “That’s an awfully nice thing to say.”
“It’s not just nice, it’s true. You have that kind of face. When that foal was born, you glowed like the sunrise. That’s the way I picture you in the mornings.”
To get the subject away from her and his words that made her almost breathless, she sat down on the floor on the bedroll they’d made and asked, “What’s it like, living with extra guys in the house?”
“When a fire burned down Uncle Phil’s house, he and his five sons weren’t just looking for a new house, they were looking for a fresh start. They came here to regroup.”
“So your uncle has five boys?”
“Yep. Zach, Garrett, Shawn, Booker and Cole. They sure filled up our house again. I mean our family house,” he added. “I’m just glad I got my place done so I’m out of the mix.”
“You don’t enjoy being with them?”
“They’re all good guys, and yes, I like them. We can talk about ranching all day and all night. But I have more experience, and I guess I just look at life differently than they do. Take my brother Derek for instance. He’s at one extreme. He wants to have fun every weekend, nights, too, if he’s not too tired. Me, on the other hand, I look at the work—that comes first. I make sure I have that done, all of it, before stepping out. Zach, Garrett, Shawn, Booker and Cole are somewhere in between. But sometimes when I’m with them, I just feel a lot older, like I don’t belong there.”
“They make you feel that way?”
“Oh, no. They never would.”
Eli set the lantern on the floor beside the bedroll and then lowered himself beside her. She hadn’t covered up yet, but now she did. Yes, she had all her clothes on, but the blanket gave her another layer of protection.
In the next few moments, they settled themselves side by side with at least six inches between them. Silence wound about them like a web that was almost claustrophobic as they lay there. Hadley broke it by asking, “So do you think your uncle wants to buy a ranch around here?”
“He already has an eye on a place similar to the Stockton family property—Sunshine Farm—and he’s looking into it. He and his sons like Rust Creek Falls. They like the way it made a comeback after the flood. It could have just disintegrated into nothing like some small towns do. But the people here really rallied, and volunteers came from everywhere to help. That’s how Brooks Smith met Jazzy. She was one of those volunteers. They make a great couple. When you see them together, you just know they belong together.”
“I agree with that. Their passion is their work,” Hadley mused. “They have that in common.”
Eli agreed. “What more could they ask for?”
“I think Jazzy wants a family,” Hadley suggested.
“That will come.”
Would it, Hadley wondered? The older a woman got, the harder it could be to get pregnant. That’s what her sisters had been ribbing her about, and she knew there was some truth in it.
Thinking about that, she was hopeful she’d fall asleep, but during the first couple of hours of lying on the blanket bedside Eli, Hadley didn’t sleep. She was aware of his breathing, his every movement. She tossed and turned, careful not to let her hand brush Eli’s, not to let her arm nudge his. She stayed on her side and her side only. But in spite of the blankets and the sleeping bag, the floor was hard. In spite of the heater in the room, the air was still chilled. To her dismay, she began to shiver.
Eli must have heard her teeth chattering because he turned around to face her. “Are you cold?”
“Yes. And I’m thinking about tomorrow and how we’re going to get out of here, and about the mare out there and the foal, and the other horses.”
“And world peace, and if your family’s worrying?” She heard his soft laughter.
“My mind doesn’t want to turn off.”
“I think it would if you got warm. Come here.”
She could tell he’d held out his arm to her.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “Combined body heat will warm you up.”
She didn’t know if she was being stupid to try it. But she was cold. And if she was going to get any sleep tonight, she had to warm up. She moved into the crook of Eli’s arm, and he wrapped it around her.
“Better?”
Oh, yes, it was better. Too much better. Being this close to him sounded alarm bells in her mind because she was attracted to him. Taking a deep breath, she managed, “I am warmer.”
“Good. Then don’t move. Let’s talk about something that isn’t in your head or on your to-do list.”
“Like?” she asked, wondering where he was going with this.
“Like...tell me your favorite building in the whole world.”
It was an odd question, but she went along with it. “That depends on what it’s used for, or whether we’re looking at it just for architecture.”
“All in all.”
“Probably the Louvre in France. What’s yours?”
“The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. As a boy I wanted a piece of my own moon rock.”
She laughed. “Did you go on camping trips, look up at the sky and learn the constellations?”
“Sure did. Whenever Mom could, she bought us books on our favorite subjects. One of mine was astronomy. Kristen liked the classics, plays mostly. They made her into the actress she is. What did you read about most as a kid?”
“Do you know the author Zane Grey?” Hadley asked.
“Of course I do. He lived in Arizona for a while, and wrote about Oak Creek Canyon.”
“Exactly,” she said. “One of the most beautiful places on the planet.”
And so it went. Hadley soon realized Eli wasn’t like most cowboys, or even like
his dad. Charles Dalton was a man of few words. Eli could easily paint pictures with his words, especially of his antics with his brothers and sisters when they were young. That made her laugh. Before she knew it, she was comfortably snuggled into his shoulder and falling asleep.
* * *
When Eli awakened, he felt totally disconcerted. He was practically hugging Hadley, and her cheek was against his chest. They’d both been up several times during the night, checking on Amber and the foal. When one moved, the other knew it, so they hadn’t taken turns, they’d just gotten up together. It had been intimate in an odd way, but not as intimate as the way they were tucked together now.
The last time they’d checked on the horses, it had been 4:00 a.m. Gazing up at the frosted window, he realized it was morning.
He reached for his phone that he’d laid beside their blankets. It was almost 9:00 a.m., much later than he’d ever slept.
Hadley stirred. As he studied her, he realized she was much more vulnerable asleep than awake. Awake, she always seemed to have her guard in place. He wondered whether it was just around him, and knew he had to resist the urge to find out.
However, when her eyes flew open and she looked up at him, her brown eyes stunning, her pretty face so tempting in the morning light, he couldn’t help but lean closer to her.
“We overslept,” he murmured. “It’s almost nine.”
The momma cat and kitten were curled up and sleeping, snug against Hadley’s hip. She couldn’t move and didn’t seem to want to. “We have to feed the horses,” she said, but she still gazed up at him.
“We do,” he agreed. He didn’t move either. It was as if they were being drawn together by a magnetic force, one stronger than he’d ever felt before. He could see in her eyes that she felt it, too. Their body heat had kept them warm throughout the night. Now he felt as if a furnace had been turned on high in the room.
“Hadley...” he said, and leaned in even closer so she’d realize his intent.
She gave a little sigh, lifted her chin a notch and waited. If she’d given any indication she didn’t want him to kiss her, he would have thrown off the blanket and rushed into the barn. But her lips parted slightly, and he decided real time and the real world didn’t mean much right now. They were closeted in their own world where the only thing that mattered was their attraction to each other.
The Maverick's Snowbound Christmas Page 5