A Cowboy for Christmas Read online

  She tasted like heaven.

  He knew she would taste good, but his expectations fell far short of reality. No pastry on this earth tasted so amazing and he couldn’t get enough. His arms tightened around her, smashing her pert soft breasts against his muscled chest.

  She’d made a low noise of encouragement, letting him know that she didn’t mind his forceful technique. In fact, she relaxed her jaw, parted her teeth first. C’mon in, cowboy.

  Here I come, sweetheart. He’d plunged his tongue inside her.

  Her arms twined around his neck.

  Rafferty heard a low buzzing in the back of his head. A ravenous fever mounted inside him. Her eyes were closed and he closed his too, savoring the specialness of this moment.

  He never wanted it to end.

  Many kisses. He’d kissed many women. Many times. Not that he was a player or anything, but he was a young, healthy, red-blooded male. He’d had his fair share of romances, knew a thing or two about kissing.

  But this? He had no words. It was beyond any kiss he’d ever gotten or given.

  That scared him. A lot.

  He hadn’t meant to start anything. She’d just been talking about Jake and how spontaneous he’d been and Rafferty had started feeling jealous because he wasn’t spontaneous, and obviously, Lissy liked spontaneous men, and when she’d taken that step toward him, the floodgates had opened and his brain had sent a single message to his nerve endings.

  Just do it.

  So he’d kissed her.

  Now he had to live with the consequences. He’d gone and done the very thing he’d fought against since meeting her. He had the willpower of a fruit fly.

  Dammit, Jones.

  He’d started this. It was his place to stop it. Rafferty pulled away, broke the kiss.

  Lissette’s eyes were wide. They were both tugging in equal, desperate gasps. “Wow,” she said. “That was—”

  “Nice,” he said quickly before she had a chance to figure out she’d rocked his world.

  “Yes . . . um . . . nice. That was nice.”

  “Bad idea, though.”

  “Totally.”

  “I promise it won’t happen again.”

  She looked distressed. “No, no. Won’t happen again.”

  He got up. “I should go.”

  “Yes.” She dropped her gaze.

  He forced a smile, turned around, and headed out the back door, knowing he could never undo what he’d just done. Worse than that, he didn’t want to undo it.

  He had to leave Jubilee. Now.

  Because, if he stayed, he knew he was going to make love to her. She wanted it as much as he did. He saw it in her eyes. He’d tasted the strength of her desire. Making love to her was so wrong, why then did the idea of it feel so right?

  He fumbled the lock, got the door open to his apartment, and tumbled into the room. He pulled his suitcase out from under the bed. He could not stay here. Too much was at stake. He’d never felt like this about anyone and he didn’t know how to handle it.

  You’re doing it again.

  Yes, he knew that. Which was why he was leaving. He was falling for a woman who wasn’t ready for a relationship. Hell, he wasn’t ready. He hadn’t seen this coming. Hadn’t thought to defend against it.

  “Jake, if you were here right now, you’d punch me out for what I want to do to your wife,” he muttered, rolling up his shirts and stuffing them in the suitcase.

  He didn’t know why he’d stayed this long. Okay, that was a lie. He did know why he’d stayed this long. Lissette. She was the reason he’d stayed and she was the reason he had to go.

  Rafferty sank down on the bed, dropped his hands in his lap. He didn’t want to leave, but how could he stay? If he stayed, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her. He would have to make love to her.

  Go.

  Blowing out his breath, he fell back onto the mattress, stared up at the ceiling. He wiped a hand over his mouth. Lissette. Lissy. He wanted her with an urgent yearning that would not subside.

  Get out of here.

  What about Slate? What about getting money for her? What about helping her with her business? What about meeting Claudia and finding out about his father? What about Kyle?

  What about him? Save your hide. Get lost, cowboy. Climb into that old pickup and head west. Now.

  And he would have gone too if a sudden crackling hadn’t come over the intercom and Lissy’s voice saying, “Rafferty, I need you. Now.”

  Instantly, he sprang into action. Not knowing what she wanted or needed, but by damn, he was on it. He scrambled down the stairs and crossed the backyard, almost running to get to her.

  He pushed open the French doors without even knocking. “Lissy, what is it?”

  Lissette was standing over the kitchen sink, clutching her left hand around her wrist, staunching the flow of blood dripping down her fingers. On the marble slab island sat a glistening sharp butcher knife and a half-cut butter yellow spaghetti squash. She turned incredibly calm eyes on him.

  “What happened?” He snatched up a cup towel from the counter and rushed toward her.

  “Minor kitchen mishap,” she said mildly. “But I’m going to need stitches. Can you drive me to the emergency room?”

  After Lissette’s hand had been sewn and bandaged (it took eleven stitches to close the deep gash from the top of her thumb all the way down to her wrist) the doctor released her with the admonition to take it easy for a few days. No cooking.

  The knife had slipped while she’d been chopping up the tough-skinned spaghetti squash for a new recipe she’d dubbed Tumbleweed Bread. In retrospect, she should have cooked the squash whole and sliced it up afterward.

  Heck, in retrospect you should have had your mind on what you were doing instead of on Rafferty’s kiss.

  Feeling a little light-headed from the blood loss and drama, she made her way to the ER waiting room where Rafferty sat with Kyle on his knee, playing giddy-up horsey. Kyle was grinning and clinging to Rafferty’s kneecap as Rafferty bounced him up and down.

  When he spied her, Rafferty immediately got to his feet, swinging Kyle up and into his arms with the smooth movements so practiced it looked as if he’d been a dad all his life. Concern clouded his brown eyes as his gaze took in her bandaged hand.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she admitted. “Except I shudder to think about the hospital bill.”

  “I’ve already taken care of it,” he said.

  For a moment, she thought about protesting. She didn’t want to be dependent on him, but it simply took too much energy to argue, and right now, her thumb was starting to throb again as the local anesthetic wore off. All she wanted to do was go home and take a long nap. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, I will. I—”

  “Lissy,” he said in a kind but commanding tone. “It’s taken care of and that’s the end of it. You don’t owe me. If anything, I owe you.”

  “How’s that?” she asked as he escorted her from the hospital.

  “You opened your home and heart to me without any prejudice or hesitation. You accepted me for who I am. Do you know what a rare quality that is?”

  He depressed the door locks on her truck’s remote control key chain and opened the passenger side door. He held out his hand to help her climb inside. “Lean on me,” he welcomed.

  What temptation, to lean on him.

  Instead, she boosted herself into the seat, even though she had to use her injured hand to do it. She turned her head so he wouldn’t see her wince.

  Was she being stubborn? Stupid? The deal was that she simply couldn’t grow accustomed to having him around. He’d be leaving soon enough, she might as well get used to it. Still, he had gotten her out of a jam. It made her realize how completely vulnerable she really was, a single mom living alone with a deaf child.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here,” she said, feeling sheepishly grateful, once he�
��d gotten Kyle buckled into his car seat and joined her in the cab of the pickup.

  “You would have called 911. I didn’t do anything special.”

  “Thank you for being here.”

  He shrugged, looked uncomfortable with her gratitude.

  She’d needed him and he’d been there in a crisis. He was a man you could count on, but she didn’t want to count on him. All she wanted was to be strong enough to take care of herself and her son. Was that so much to ask?

  Slanting her head, she glanced over at him. He was so good-looking. He stared straight ahead, concentrating on the road. Her mind drifted back to the kiss. How he’d made her feel. It had been such a long time since she’d felt wanted, cherished, sexy. Jake’s affairs had made her insecure about her femininity. Rafferty’s attention restored it.

  When they got to the house, Rafferty insisted on carrying a sleeping Kyle inside to his bed and she didn’t argue.

  “Now,” he said, turning to her as she shut Kyle’s door after them, leaving it open just a crack. “You need to take a nap as well.”

  He ushered her up the steps to her bedroom, but hesitated at the threshold. “Anything I can get for you? Some aspirin? A glass of water?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “They gave me a mild painkiller at the hospital.” She was acutely aware of the fact that he was in her bedroom. The big king-sized bed stretched out like an invitation.

  How crazy was it that she wanted him? Fantasized that he’d strip off both their clothes and join her in the bed. It was just a fantasy. They couldn’t progress beyond that kiss for so many reasons, but that didn’t change the fact that goose bumps fled up her back at the thought of his naked body pressed against hers.

  She stared at his lips, wished he’d kiss her again. Neither of them moved.

  “Sleep well,” Rafferty said finally, and then turned and bounded down the stairs.

  Leaving Lissette feeling hot, achy, and more confused than ever.

  It was time to tell Claudia about Rafferty.

  Between her aching hand and her guilty conscience, she hadn’t managed to snatch more than a few hours of sleep the previous night. Rafferty was staying at her place. He’d met her friends. She couldn’t keep hiding him from her mother-in-law. Claudia was going to be hurt, but the longer Lissette put off telling her about him, the worse it would be.

  On Monday morning, while Rafferty had taken Slate over to Joe’s ranch to cut cattle, she had called Claudia and asked her to meet her at the little park in Lissette’s neighborhood at nine o’clock. She’d picked the park because it was neutral territory and Kyle loved playing there, but she’d been so on edge, she’d arrived early.

  She’d paced for a while, practicing how she would break the news about Rafferty. She sat down on a playground swing, wrapped her fingers around the chain, the thick wad of the bandage on the pad of her thumb providing a barrier over the stitches.

  Lissette couldn’t remember the last time she’d swung on a playground swing. When she was a kid living in an upscale Dallas suburb, there’d been a neighborhood park not far from their house with tall, A-frame metal swing sets.

  The seats of the swings were long and wide and made of smooth polished wood, just perfect for risk-taking girls who dared to stand up on the seats in a valiant attempt to swing high enough to flip over the top of the pole. She had never been risk-taking, daring, or valiant.

  Her mind wandered to last week’s merry-go-round of consultations with doctors and therapists and deaf educators, all orchestrated by her parents. She’d accepted their help because it was for Kyle, but a nugget of resentment lodged in her stomach. They didn’t think she was capable of taking care of her own child.

  Her brain buzzed on information overload, her mind fraught with choices and decisions about Kyle’s future. There were all kinds of things to consider about educating her son. Things she’d never imagined.

  Everyone seemed to have an opinion on what she should do—from the experts, to her parents, to her friends, to Claudia, to Guillermo. Whatever she decided, they all assured her it was urgent that she make a decision and make it soon.

  It normally took her a long time to make up her mind. She liked to explore, consider all possibilities, weigh the pros and cons before jumping into something. The few times she had been rushed into a decision—marrying Jake for one—she’d ended up unhappy with the results. But she knew she irritated people who moved faster. Those closed-ended types who seemed to rule the world. Make a decision. Move on. Next!

  Bundled in a hooded sweatshirt, Kyle was silently rolling a toy truck through the sandbox.

  When she was small and let loose in a park, Lissette would run from one piece of playground equipment to the other, never able to make up her mind which one to play on first. She’d hop on a swing, then hop off to join one of her sisters on the slide, think better of it halfway up the ladder and skip over to ride a spring horse.

  “Make up your mind,” her mother would holler at her, “and start having fun, Lissy.”

  But when she’d dig into the sand pit, the jungle gym enticed and she’d end up like a hummingbird, flitting from flower to flower, never settling in, and never filling up. She admired that Kyle knew what he wanted, made a choice, and stuck with it.

  She inhaled deeply. It was the kind of morning Claudia called the dog days of autumn—those languid days just before the holidays began, when the air tasted dusty and the fields lay fallow following fall harvest, a time of stifling, stagnant waiting.

  Lissette pushed with her blue-jeaned legs, kicking out, and then tucking her legs back to send the swing moving forward faster.

  Higher and higher she flew, her stomach rolling up and tumbling down with the back-and-forth motion. She glanced down from her lofty perch. The playground stretched out before her like a baking sheet lined with cookies, uniform rows between the sandbox, the jungle climber, the slide, teeter-totters, spring horses, the space whirl.

  She kicked higher and higher, soaring toward the sky laden with moody gray clouds. A few minutes later she was whizzing so fast she could barely see Kyle in the sandbox below her. How things had gotten so complicated so fast?

  For most of her life, she’d depended on others to give her direction, tell her which way to go. She’d made a talent of ignoring her own instincts, burying her needs. The only time she’d ever rebelled was when she’d dropped out of college to go to culinary school. How had she managed to gather up the courage for that insurrection? Why did she now feel so stymied? So unable to chose a path and walk down it?

  Because this was about Kyle’s future, whatever choice she made now would affect him for the rest of his life.

  If Jake were here, he’d listen to his gut, and then pick the path he thought was right and never look back, and Lissette would have gone along for the ride.

  But Jake was not here. He could not make this choice for her. It was time to claim her power, and accept the consequences that went along with it.

  Tired of her own mental machinations, she glanced at her watch. It was just after nine. A moment later, her mother-in-law’s silver Acura pulled into the playground parking space. She got out.

  Lissette quit kicking her legs, allowing the swing to slow. By the time Claudia had picked her way across the lawn, she had come to a complete stop, her feet firmly planted in the sand.

  “I was very happy to hear from you,” Claudia said, anxiously biting her lip. “I kept waiting for you to call to tell me how things went last week with Kyle’s appointments.”

  It took Lissette a minute to realize that her mother-in-law believed she was shutting her out, and in a way, perhaps she was. Nothing personal against Claudia, but when she was around it was difficult for Lissette to find her own strength. It’s why Lissette hadn’t called her. That and the fact her mind was filled with Rafferty and guilt.

  “Oh! What happened to your hand?”

  Lissette wasn’t ready to get into the details, so she just kept her explanation short and t
o the point. “Cut it. Had to get stitches.”

  “Goodness,” Claudia flattened her palm against her chest. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “He loves the sandbox.” Lissette nodded at her son, who’d filled both hands with sand and was slowly letting the grains trickle through his fingers. “It’s the first place he goes.”

  “Do you need help with the emergency room bill? I know you have that horribly high deductible. What are you going to do about those medical bills?” Claudia fretted.

  “I’ve got it under control.”

  “If you need money, I can help. I’ve talked to Karen about letting me go full-time. She seemed amenable.” Claudia worked part-time in medical billing for a group of OB/GYNs. She surprised Lissette by sinking down on the swing next to her. Idly, she kicked her legs, setting the swing in motion.

  Lissette launched her own swing again.

  They swung in opposition. Lissette going forward as Claudia rolled back.

  “I remember when Jake was his age.” Claudia nodded at Kyle.

  The chains on the swings creaked in unison. Lissette said nothing.

  “I would have done anything for him,” Claudia said, “done anything to protect him.” Her face turned fierce, her voice hardened. “I could have killed anyone who threatened Jake with my bare hands if need be.”

  As a mother, Lissette completely understood where Claudia was coming from. Hurt my kid, and I’m coming after you. But the ruthlessness in Claudia’s voice was startling.

  “I can’t strangle hearing loss,” Lissette mumbled.

  Claudia’s swing slowed. She spurred hers faster. They passed each other by, Lissette headed up, her mother-in-law sliding back.

  “You need to fight this. Fight back.”

  “Like you fought to keep Jake from reenlisting?” The second the words were out of her mouth, Lissette regretted them.

  Claudia looked stricken. “Are you blaming me for Jake’s death?”

  The question settled into the dark quilt of clouds hanging low over the horizon. Her mother-in-law voiced the question that Lissette had been asking herself for months.