by Jillian Hart
“I don’t want your money,” he snapped as he rose to his feet then turned to put away the poultice. “What I want is for you to show some sense next time you venture off alone so late in the day. Where the hell were you going anyway?”
“To Wolf Grove to pick up the…um…supplies I ordered.”
He knew that evasive look having seen it dozens of times on the faces of outlaws. It made him wonder what she was hiding.
“And I cannot predict the weather, you know,” she said defensively. “The calendar didn’t mention blizzard.”
“The point is you should have hired someone to fetch your supplies,” he chastised harshly.
Her back went ramrod stiff and she thrust out her chin. “I am an independent businesswoman and I do not need a man to fetch and heel for me.”
“What’s in that cargo?” he demanded in a tone he usually reserved for interrogating swindlers and thieves.
“None of your business.” She bounded off the bed, favoring her injured leg, looking like five-foot-four inches of feminine defiance. “I thanked you kindly for rescuing me. I offered to pay you and you lectured me for my stupidity. I believe I’ll call it a night,” she muttered then limped off.
Lucas scowled. “You take my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Head held high, her curly blond hair haloing her bewitching face, she pivoted on her good leg to face him. “No, thank you,” she said with exaggerated politeness. “I’m the foolish, unwanted houseguest here. I will sleep on the floor as punishment for my stupidity!”
On that parting remark, she hobbled into the hall. Not to be outdone, she slammed the door behind her.
Lucas thought he heard her say, “Take that, you infuriating man!” from the other side of the bedroom door before she hobbled away.
Chapter Three
Rosa spent the night tossing and turning, wondering why she was so sensitive to everything Lucas said to her, trying to figure out what flaws in her character had tempted her to grab hold of that surly ex-Ranger and revisiting that same, mind-blowing sensual pleasure she had discovered in his embrace.
Generally, she didn’t pay men much mind, just pretended to be oblivious to their attempts to flirt and court her. However, Lucas—the infuriating, prickly man—was another matter entirely.
Clearly, he was anxious to have her gone, for he spent most of the day working outside—avoiding her was a more accurate description.
To spite him, she spent most of the day giving Dog treats and cooing at him until he allowed her to pet him and snuggle up beside him. But goodness, if she couldn’t win over Lucas, she would at least soften up his dog.
Lucas returned at noon to mumble and grumble over the peace-treaty meal she had prepared. Then, without so much as a by-your-leave or a thank-you, he exited and he didn’t invite Dog to go with him.
Well, she decided midafternoon, it was the holiday season and she was going to be kind and charitable to Lucas, even if he treated her as if she had contracted the plague. Furthermore, he wasn’t going to remain out here in the middle of nowhere during the holiday festivities. He refused to accept her money and—the contrary rascal—disregarded her effusive gratitude. Nevertheless, she was going to insist that he attend the social function in Town Square that she was hosting. She intended to badger him relentlessly until he agreed.
He wouldn’t be rid of her as easily as he thought, she mused wickedly. She was going to include him in the holiday celebrations whether he liked it or not.
At five o’clock Lucas swept into the cabin. A cold draft accompanied him, matching the chilly stare he directed at her. Then he said, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
She blinked, feeling as if she had awakened in the middle of a conversation. “Tell you what?”
He whipped out a porcelain doll and shook it in her face. “Who you really are.”
Lucas had used a team of four horses to drag the stranded wagon from the snowdrift. Then, because of Rosalie’s strange behavior when he’d asked about the cargo, he had fished beneath the tarp to see toy trains, a variety of dolls, colorful scarves, gloves, hats and expensive clothing for children.
He’d stood there for five minutes, freezing cold and stunned to the bone. A breath of wind could have blown him over. Rosalie Greer was the mysterious Saint Nicholas who had delivered gifts to the local children the first Christmas that Cahill Crossing came into existence. No one in town knew who their generous benefactor might be. But now Lucas knew.
Rosa definitely had her work cut out for her this year, because the two-year-old town had increased from a few hundred to two thousand. Another thousand would likely show up with the completed railroad tracks in a few months.
Lucas had jumped down Miss Secret Santa’s throat the previous night because…because he liked her, and his survival instinct prompted him to push her away before he became too attached to a woman who wasn’t going to be a part of his life.
Besides, a sophisticated woman had no need for a hard-bitten man, soured on life. He never bothered to celebrate Christmas because he wasn’t sure whether white or Indian deities ruled the heavenly roost.
His jumbled thoughts scattered like buckshot when Rosa narrowed her gaze on him then limped over to shake her finger in his face. “If you dare to breathe one word of this to anyone, so help me I’ll—”
He waved her off after she poked her index finger in his chest like the point of a knife. “Who exactly am I going to tell? Dog? If you want to adopt every kid in town for Christmas that’s your business.” He took a step closer, looming over her. “What is my concern is where you acquired the money for all those gifts.” His brows flattened over his eyes. “Are you embezzling from the investors who own your shop to fund your secret charity? Noble though it might be, embezzling is against the law, blondie. I might have resigned as a Ranger but I won’t let you—”
She flapped her arm to silence him then made a stabbing gesture toward the chair, silently demanding that he park himself in it and shut up. He sat down and clammed up.
“First off,” she said as she stood over him. “I want your word of honor, or whatever your Comanche kin call a solemn vow, that you will never tell a living soul who I am.”
“Fine. Comanche promise. I’ll throw myself on my own spear before I expose your carefully guarded secret.” He puffed up and glared at her so she’d know he meant business. “Now…where did you get the money to pay for your cargo?” he demanded slowly and succinctly.
Rosa pulled over a chair from the dining table and took a load off her mending leg. “There are no investors, Lucas. I just let people assume there are. I bought the town lot from the Cahills and I own the shop, free and clear. I paid for it myself.”
He eyed her warily. “You have a pot of gold buried somewhere that no one in town knows about, do you?”
She fiddled with the folds of her gown. “Sort of. My family from Boston is in manufacturing. I’m the only child.”
A dull throb thudded against his skull. Double damn! Not only was Rosa a sophisticated young businesswoman but she was rich. No doubt his meager savings account at the bank was loose change to her. Why couldn’t he have found himself intrigued by someone in his own social class? Oh, no, not the grandson of a Mexican captive and a Comanche war chief. Not the son of a mixed-breed Indian and a white frontiersman who dragged Lucas all over creation after his mother died trying to give birth to another son.
Hell, he had to get Rosa back to town before he did something stupid—like yield to this severe case of flaming lust that he’d tried to cool down by spending most of the day outside, tramping around, doing chores in the snow.
She has to go—pronto—and you have to keep your distance, he lectured himself firmly.
Lucas tried to rise and move away from the tempting beauty but she grabbed the lapels of his shirt with both hands and got right in his face.
“I have no children of my own and I am long past the usual marrying age,” she reminded him. “But my children h
ave become the children of down-on-their-luck parents who need to believe in hope and dreams and a little Christmas magic.
“After I got over being embarrassed and annoyed with you for undressing me and for chastising me for being reckless and foolish, I realized God had sent you to me,” she declared.
Lucas snorted caustically. “I’m not sure the Great Spirit, Indian or white, knows who I am. He sure as hell didn’t send me to you, blondie. He sent Dog.”
Rosa tossed back her head and laughed in amusement. It was the most glorious sound Lucas had ever heard. Double damn, this feisty, independent, spirited woman—a woman full of secrets and surprises—was getting to him. And he couldn’t figure out how to stop it from happening.
“You are a hard case, Lucas, but I have made up my mind—”
“And may the Great Spirit help us all,” he snorted in interruption.
“It is clear that you were sent to help me keep the magic of Christmas Eve alive for the children in Cahill Crossing,” she continued, undaunted.
“No. Absolutely not,” he said uncompromisingly.
She acted as if she hadn’t heard him and just kept on talking. “There are dozens of new children in town. I have spent the past two months discreetly locating their homes. With your help we can distribute the gifts before dawn and no one will be the wiser.”
“No. I’m staying out here where I belong,” he said resolutely. “I’ve done my duty to society and that’s that.”
It was glaringly apparent to Rosa that she would have to drag Lucas—kicking, screaming and swearing—into society and she’d have to twist his arm a dozen different ways to enlist his help. And she would, too, she told herself determinedly. Even if he only felt pity for her after she confided her past to him, surely he would agree to help her. With that in mind, Rosa inhaled a deep breath and prepared herself to share the story she had never told another living soul.
“I had to leave home shortly after I turned eighteen because my widowed mother married a highly decorated naval commander. We moved from our mansion in Boston to Maryland. My new stepbrother decided the best way to guarantee control of the Greer-McKnight fortune was to force me into a potential scandal and shame me into marriage.”
Rosa blinked, stunned, when she noticed Lucas’s expression had turned so hard it could have been chiseled in granite. He was so intense, so utterly still, that she could only imagine what ruthless outlaws faced when he swooped in like the dark angel of doom to confront them.
For sure and certain, she always wanted to be on his side if a fight broke out. He was not a man to challenge—if you valued your life.
“Go on,” he demanded in a voice that reminded her of Dog’s vicious growl.
Rosa swallowed hard and inhaled a fortifying breath. “Here is yet another secret I have shared with no one else,” she began. “My stepbrother—”
“What’s the bastard’s name?” he interrupted sharply.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does to me.”
She smiled ruefully. Once a Texas Ranger always a Texas Ranger, she thought to herself. “Ah, where were you when I wanted to have the conniving scoundrel shot and stabbed a few times?”
“Chasing banditos and translating at powwows between Rangers, Comanches and Mexicans,” he replied. “I don’t have those other obligations now. What’s his name?”
She shook her head and curlicue strands tumbled around her face in disarray. She reflexively flinched then told herself to relax when he reached over to comb the spring-loaded curls away from her cheek. She had her stepbrother to thank for her defensive reaction. However, she was discovering that, as vicious as Lucas could look when he was angry, he wouldn’t hurt her.
He was an intriguing paradox of tenderness and overpowering strength. Furthermore, he was her guarding angel and she had nothing to fear from him.
When his fingertip gently caressed her cheek and jaw a surge of heat and pleasure that Rosa hadn’t realized she was capable of feeling radiated through her. Her breath stalled in her chest as she stared helplessly into those obsidian eyes framed with long thick lashes.
He’s the one, said a voice somewhere deep down inside her. You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Fate brought him to you for all the right reasons.
She doubted Lucas would ever share the indescribable feelings and tingling sensations blossoming inside her, but she was certain he was the man she could have loved for all time—had she not been well past the usual marrying age and he had not been so cynical of society.
She wrapped her hand around his and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. She wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the impulsive gesture. Him or her. She rarely displayed affection to a man, for fear he would take more than she intended to give.
She rushed on before Lucas asked her what that sentimental gesture meant. “Jubal, my stepbrother, asked me to join him upstairs during the party to introduce my mother to my stepfather’s friends and military associates. Like a naive fool, I had no idea what he was about until he closed the bedroom door and pounced.”
Lucas growled something she didn’t ask him to repeat.
“I didn’t care for the pretentious bastard from the moment I met him, but he earned my hatred and disgust in nothing flat. He tore the expensive gown I had designed for my mother’s introduction into Maryland society.”
Lucas snarled again, looking like a ferocious predator. Ah, how she wished he could have been there to deal with Jubal when she’d had to fight to prevent losing more than her temper.
“When he forced me down on the bed—” The awful ordeal came back in full force. Fortunately, holding on to Lucas with both hands and getting the humiliating secret off her chest was welcome therapy. “I managed to grab the bronze statue on the nightstand and I clobbered him with it,” she hurried on. “I dazed him enough to escape onto the gallery. A moment later, one of his libertine cohorts burst inside. His timing was so precise that I knew Jubal had staged the incident to coerce me into cooperating with his grand plan.”
Rosa half collapsed in her chair, relieved to have told the tormenting tale. She had considered telling her only cousin and dearest friend, Adrianna McKnight, but she hadn’t found the nerve to do it.
This was the time, the place and this was the perfect confidant, she realized.
“Since Mother was happy again, I insisted that I wanted to follow my dreams of designing and selling clothing. I chose St. Louis to work as an assistant. Then I opened my first shop a year later. I managed to attract a great many clients who recommended me to their friends and my business boomed. But the bustling city, with its shallow high society and self-important aristocrats, reminded me of my past so I moved to Texas to make a new start in a new town.”
“So you let everyone in Cahill Crossing assume you were a struggling boutique owner with rent and investor dividends to pay, like most of them are,” Lucas remarked. “A shopkeeper of modest means by day and a secretive Saint Nicholas every Christmas Eve.”
She nodded and smiled at Lucas. Another crack appeared in the stone vault that had sealed off his heart for over a decade.
“I plan to retain that image to fend off unwanted suitors like Jubal who would love to get their greedy fists on my fortune… Will you help me, Lucas?”
“No.”
Her lovely face fell. “Why not?”
Lucas stiffened his resolve. “Because I am not what you need. Not for Christmas or any other time of the year.”
He could tell his blunt comment had hurt and disappointed her, but double damn! He couldn’t get involved in her world. He was where he belonged—skirting the edge of civilization—because he didn’t really fit in anywhere.
She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Lucas Burnett, you are a stubborn ass.”
“I’ve been called worse, blondie.” And he had, too. Hundreds of times.
“Fine then. Be mule-headed, but I’m still holding you to your vow of silence.” She lurched around then
said, “I’m going back to town now. I have a wagonload of secret cargo to stack in my storeroom after dark.”
He arched a skeptical brow then stared pointedly at her leg. “On a bum leg? Doubt it.”
She halted then glanced over her shoulder. Her chin elevated a notch and she looked down her aristocratic nose at him. Ah yes, here was the regal heiress who had fled high society to live in anonymity in Nowhere, Texas. He grinned—as he had done so many times since he’d made her acquaintance. He wondered if his face was going to crack wide-open, especially in these frigid temperatures.
“As I said earlier, Lucas, you will be well compensated for your time and trouble of rescuing me. Come by tomorrow and I will pay you.”
With that, she donned her stylish-but-flimsy-jacket then limped toward the door. To his amazement, Dog rose from his favorite place beside the hearth to follow her.
Traitor, thought Lucas, glaring at his once devoted pet.
When she hobbled onto the stoop, Dog halted in the open doorway and looked back at him as if to say, “Are you coming or not?”
Lucas blew out a resigned sigh, surged to his feet and stalked over to grab his coat. Then he followed the hobbling blonde and the gimpy dog out the door.
Three days after Lucas had grudgingly accompanied Rosa to town to help her unload her cargo in the storeroom, she found herself grinning while she cut out the fabric for the gown she was designing for the mayor’s wife. For all of Lucas’s gruff resistance, he had softened up enough to help her—a little.
“Do you have all your plans organized for the party you are hosting on Town Square tomorrow night?” Melanie Ford, her assistant, asked, while she worked the foot-operated treadle of the sewing machine.
Rosa nodded to her invaluable seamstress. Melanie was a large-boned, heavy-set woman of thirty-five who was so skilled and efficient that she could make Rosa’s creative designs come to life in record time. “I’ve asked the owners of Steven’s Restaurant and Huber’s Bakery to supply food and coffee for the festivities. The general store and dry goods managers are providing tables and chairs for our holiday gathering on the square.”