The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle

by RaeAnne Thayne

  At his entrance, she looked up from stirring something in a bowl. “Oh. Hello.”

  He forced a smile, not at all sure why his chest suddenly ached. “I knew you were good. I didn’t realize your food would be the hit of the day so far.”

  “It was okay, then?” she asked, then winced. “Forget I said that. I swore to myself I wouldn’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged and turned back to the mixing bowl. “I’m quite certain you’ll tell me if the meals I prepare don’t meet your lofty expectations.”

  “Do I come across as such an ogre, then?”

  He meant it as an off-handed comment and didn’t really expect a response but she frowned, appearing to give the matter serious consideration. “Not an ogre. Not at all. Just a man who demands perfection. Or as close to it as we mortals can provide.”

  “In that case, my expectations were far exceeded. Brunch was absolute perfection. Far better, I’m sure, than Michael Sawyer would have provided.”

  Her smile took his breath away and made that ache return to his chest. “Thank you, Carson. I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”

  “I wasn’t the only one. Frederick and his wife both commented on how delicious the food was.”

  She smiled again. “I can’t tell you what a huge relief that is to hear. Now maybe I can relax a little for dinner.”

  He suddenly wanted fiercely to kiss away those nerves. The impulse shocked the hell out of him and he moved away a little, using the excuse of going to the refrigerator for a bottle of water.

  “Did you have the chance to use the steam oven?” he asked. He knew he ought to leave now but he couldn’t quite bring himself to walk out of the warm, fragrant kitchen.

  “I did. It was incredible. I steamed the mini Christmas puddings in it. I’ve never had them turn out so well.”

  She glowed with excitement as she talked about cooking. He had never known anyone to get so thrilled about Christmas pudding and he had to admit, he found her fascinating. Refreshing.

  “I’m glad it worked out.”

  “I’m going to bake the bread for tonight in it. I can’t wait to see how it works. It’s supposed to leave the crust hard but the inside perfectly soft.”

  “You’re making the bread?” It was a completely foreign concept to him.

  “Of course. You didn’t expect me to serve plain old Wonder to your guests, did you? They’re European!”

  He couldn’t help himself, he laughed out loud. For just an instant, her gaze shifted down to his mouth and suddenly the air changed. Those currents started zinging between them again and a blush crept up her cheeks.

  He wondered what she was thinking about that turned her skin that lovely rose. And why was she staring at his mouth?

  He wanted to kiss her. The impulse took him completely by surprise. He wanted to take Jenna Wheeler in his arms and kiss her right here in this kitchen smelling of cinnamon and spice and everything nice.

  He told himself he couldn’t do it. She wasn’t interested in a kiss—or anything else—and she would probably slap him if he tried.

  But maybe not.

  He probably could have just backed out of the kitchen and left her to her steam-oven bread baking. But just at that moment, she stirred the contents of the bowl she was holding just a little too hard and the whole thing started to slip out of her hands. He was close enough to lunge after it and for a moment, they both stood together holding the bowl between them.

  He could feel the heat of her, the suppressed energy, and again her gaze flicked to his mouth. He knew he should back away but she was so soft and curvy against him and her mouth was right there and his sudden fierce hunger to taste that soft mouth was more than he could control.

  Chapter Eight

  She had forgotten what an intense physical experience a kiss could be. Though he touched her with only his mouth, her entire body seemed to sizzle to life, as if all that made her female had been lying dormant since her husband’s death.

  Every sense seemed heightened, superacute. She could hear the blood pulsing through her veins, the ragged sound of his breathing, could feel his heat seeping into her muscles. He smelled divine, a sensuous mix of laundry soap and a subtle aftershave with notes of bergamot and something woodsy and masculine.

  As wonderful as he smelled, he tasted even better, of coffee and cinnamon and something elusive she couldn’t identify.

  It was an addictive mix, sultry and seductive, and she felt ridiculously like a banana flambé, as if everything inside her was being caramelized and sweetened by his touch.

  The most alluring part was that when she was in his arms she didn’t feel like a young widow or like somebody’s mother. She was only Jenna, a woman who had dreams and hopes and desires of her own.

  As he lingered at her mouth, licking at the corner, tasting and teasing, she lost all sense of time and whatever tiny ounce of common sense she might have possessed before he walked into the kitchen.

  Oh, it had been far too long. She had forgotten the way a man’s touch could make her head spin and her insides flip around with wild joy. She had forgotten the churn of her blood and the yearning heat that stirred up out of nowhere like a dust devil on a July afternoon.

  Somehow she was no longer holding the mixing bowl, though she wasn’t sure if he had set it on the counter or if she had. Whoever had done it, with her hands free now she couldn’t resist wrapping her arms around the strong, tanned column of his neck. She wanted to burrow against him, to absorb his strength inside her.

  As the kiss continued, other sensations gradually pushed their way to the forefront of her consciousness. The slow, resolute tick of the big clock above the fireplace, the hard marble countertop pressing into the small of her back, the quiet whoosh of the dishwasher.

  What on earth was she doing here? She hadn’t touched a man in two years and here she was tangling tongues with Carson McRaven, of all people.

  Yes, he was gorgeous and any woman would probably be thrilled to find herself in Jenna’s comfortable-soled sneakers right about now.

  On a physical level, she couldn’t deny she was fiercely attracted to him. But could she have picked a worse male on the planet to grab on to for her jump back into the whole man-woman scene?

  Carson was coolly arrogant, used to getting his own way at any cost. Worse than that, he disliked children. Especially her children.

  She had to stop this somehow. She summoned all her strength and wrenched her mouth from his. With the countertop at her back, she had no way to escape so she slid her hands from around his neck and she used them instead to push at his chest, frantic suddenly for air and breathing space.

  He froze for a heartbeat or two and then he stepped back, to her vast relief. They stared at each other and every sound in the kitchen seemed magnified. Her breathing seemed to come in ragged gulps and she had no idea how to react.

  What must he think of her? She had responded to him like some sex-starved widow, desperate for a man’s touch.

  She found it small consolation that he looked thunderstruck, as if his lovely, elegant kitchen were suddenly teeming with bobcats.

  She fumbled for words and came up empty. She had no experience in this sort of situation and didn’t know the first thing to say to him. He let out a long breath and then raked a hand through his hair.

  “Well. That was certainly…unexpected,” he finally said.

  Heat soaked her cheeks and she wanted to sink through his custom Italian tile floor. “Wasn’t it?” she murmured, in as cool a voice as she could muster. She hurried to the sink and washed her hands, then picked up the mixing bowl and resumed stirring the ingredients for the flourless chocolate cake, grateful for any excuse not to have to look at him.

  Still, she was intensely aware of him watching her out of those vibrant blue eyes. After a moment, he stepped closer and it was all she could do not to back up a pace.

  “I should probably tell you I don’t usually do that sort of thing.”
<
br />   She absolutely refused to allow her hands to shake, though it was taking every ounce of her concentration. “Kiss women?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ll admit, I’m not the most experienced rose in the garden but I find that a little hard to believe, judging by your proficiency at it.”

  He gave a surprised-sounding laugh but quickly sobered. “I meant I’m not in the habit of accosting employees.”

  She drew in a sharp breath at the stark reminder of the differences between them and all the reasons she should never have let him touch her. She felt foolish and remarkably naive—quite a feat for a woman who had been married for ten years and had four children.

  “You didn’t accost me. It was a simple kiss.”

  “Right.”

  If she found any solace in this entire situation, it was that Carson appeared as baffled and uneasy as she was by their heated embrace.

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “Let’s just forget it did, all right?”

  He looked as if he wanted to argue but before he could form the words, her cell phone chirped out its cheery “Jingle Bells” ring tone. She fumbled in her pocket and for one humiliating moment, she couldn’t pull it free, but she was finally able to grasp it and open it to talk.

  She had barely said hello before Kip started babbling something about how his aunt had given him a new nutcracker for his collection only Hayden stole it and wouldn’t give it back, claiming he was going to throw it in the woodstove.

  “Make him stop, Mama! Make him stop!”

  She sighed. On the one hand, she was grateful for the distraction from Carson. On the other, she truly hated mothering by phone.

  “Calm down, honey. He’s not going to throw anything into the woodstove. He’s just teasing you because you get so upset.”

  “He’s not. He said he was serious.”

  “Where’s your aunt Terri?”

  “In the garage talking to Uncle Paul. He’s under the truck changing the oil. I got to help hand him a wrench.”

  “Good job. Let me talk to Hayden, okay?”

  While she waited, she caught a glimpse of Carson still leaning against the counter watching her, his expression distant and unreadable.

  A moment later, she heard Kip yelling down the hall, “Hayden, Mom wants to talk to you. You better give me back my nutcracker right now or you are in big trouble.”

  By the time she sorted through the situation and lectured Hayden on not teasing his younger siblings, Carson had left the kitchen.

  She hadn’t seen him go but she told herself she was relieved. The last thing she needed when she was so stressed about this job was for Carson to stand over her, making her forget her own name, not to mention whether she had added the turmeric to the soup.

  She needed to concentrate on the meal she was preparing for dinner, not on the man who kissed her senseless.

  Why had he kissed her?

  That was the question that echoed through the kitchen the rest of the afternoon and haunted her long after she watched through the kitchen window as Carson and his guests left the ranch on horseback and headed up the trail toward the mountains through a light, powdery snowfall.

  She knew why she had responded to him. What sane woman wouldn’t? But she wasn’t the kind of woman who inspired men like him to passionate embraces. She was a widow with four children, for heaven’s sake, not some tight-bodied twenty-three-year-old socialite.

  What did it matter? she finally asked herself. It was a fluke that would never be repeated. Somehow she was going to have to focus on the job at hand and not on that stunning, heart-stopping kiss.

  She had only a few more meals to cook for him and his guests and then she would retreat to her family and leave Carson McRaven to rattle around alone here in his huge, gorgeous house.

  Carson deliberately stayed out of the kitchen the rest of the day, though it was a challenge. With the strength of his fascination for Jenna, he might not have been able to do it if he hadn’t spent most of the afternoon out of the house with the Hertzogs—or at least with Frederick and Dierk and the children. Antonia and Elle planned to stay at the house relaxing in the hot tub while Carson and the rest of his guests went riding.

  He led them on horses up into the snow-covered mountains above the house, on a trail groomed by one of his men on the ranch’s snowcat to make the going a little easier for the horses.

  Mother Nature cooperated and provided a gorgeous afternoon, with only a light, feather-soft snowfall that made the entire scene look like something out of a watercolor painting.

  He showed them the elk herd that wintered in one of the high pastures and the sixty-foot waterfall that was just beginning to ice over for the season.

  Several hours later, they returned to the house tired and hungry just as twilight was settling over the valley and the lights of Jenna’s house were beginning to sparkle in the snow.

  The Christmas tree he and her boys had cut gleamed a welcome for them in the window and he was suddenly enormously grateful they had nagged him into it. Raven’s Nest looked warm and inviting, exactly as he had always dreamed.

  “Something certainly smells delicious,” Frederick exclaimed as they walked into Raven’s Nest after taking care of the horses.

  Carson’s stomach rumbled at the mingled scents emanating from the kitchen, of meats roasting and yeasty bread and something sweet and chocolaty.

  “I am starving,” Gregor said.

  “We must clean up before we eat,” his father said, his voice firm. “We all smell like the horses.”

  After thanking him for the ride and the tour of the ranch, the four of them headed up the stairs toward their guest quarters. Long after their voices faded, Carson stood in the hallway, fighting his inclination to follow those delectable smells to the even more delectable woman who had created them.

  He didn’t understand his fascination with her or the inexorable bonds that seemed to tug him toward her, even when he had been away from her for several hours. He only knew he needed to do everything in his power to fight his way free of them.

  Despite her astonishingly heated response to his kiss, Jenna Wheeler was not the sort of woman who engaged in casual affairs and he wasn’t interested in anything else.

  No doubt she had cursed him all afternoon for kissing her. He had made a huge mistake, on many levels. On the most basic, she was an employee, at least temporarily. He had an ironclad rule never to fraternize with the many people who worked for him. He didn’t like blurring the lines, complicating relationships. And his relationship with Jenna was nothing if not complicated.

  More important, she was his neighbor and would be for a long time, especially since he had promised her he wouldn’t have his people continue in their efforts to buy her house and land.

  He would have dealings with her for years to come. Kissing her again, pursuing this desire that sizzled between them, would only make things awkward for both of them.

  He had a sudden wish that things could go back to the way they had been several days ago, when he had found her boys tightrope walking on his fence. Something momentous had changed in that instant and he didn’t like it. Not one damn bit.

  With a sigh, he forced himself to walk up the stairs to shower and change for dinner. She would only be here a few more hours and then she would be going home for the night to her house and her noisy boys and the chaos of her life.

  He only had to make it through dinner.

  The task proved tougher than he had hoped. Jenna served the meal herself, dressed simply in black slacks and a white shirt. The clothes were different than the jeans she had worn earlier and he wondered if she had brought the change with her or if she had gone back to her house while he had been out riding.

  He was painfully aware of her as she brought out course after course of divine food. A field-green salad with a unique spicy pecan vinaigrette, some kind of mushroom soup he thought he could eat every day for the rest of his life and be perfectly content, and
the main course, a choice of either wild rainbow trout in a walnut crust or a savory filet mignon that melted in his mouth.

  She didn’t meet his gaze once throughout the meal, not even when she served dessert, which was either flourless chocolate cake or a pumpkin-swirled cheesecake.

  “Mrs. Wheeler, you have a true gift with food,” Antonia Hertzog said as Jenna set an elegantly garnished slice of cheesecake in front of her.

  “Thank you,” she murmured with a smile. She looked lovely and warm and he couldn’t seem to look away from her.

  He held his breath as she moved around the table to him and set a serving of the chocolate cake he had requested.

  Her breasts barely brushed his shoulder as she set the plate down and he tensed every muscle, his mind unable to focus on anything but the memory of her softness against him when he had kissed her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. Does anyone need anything else?”

  He could come up with plenty of things but he decided it probably would be wise to keep his mind off of them.

  “Do you have any Nutella?” Amalia whispered.

  Jenna smiled at the girl, who had barely spoken to Carson though he had spent the entire afternoon with her. “I’m not completely sure, but I think I might have seen some in the kitchen. I’ll go look for you.”

  She returned a moment later and set the jar down near Amalia, who gifted her with a brilliant smile. “Thank you.” Her words were so low, Carson could barely hear them.

  “No problem. Anytime you need more, it will be on the second shelf in the pantry, near the peanut butter.”

  “Thank you,” the girl said again. Jenna smiled at her again and Carson had a ferocious wish that she would do the same to him sometime.

  She turned to leave the room but he finally spoke, compelled in some ridiculous way to keep her a little closer, if only for a moment.