The Cowboy Who Saved Christmas

by Jodi Thomas

  And he’d married me.

  What?

  I laughed out loud at the irony of it. At the crazy culmination of everything this day had ever represented. Death, birth, sadness, stress, and heartbreak, now rounded out with unspeakable joy and the love of a lifetime.

  And a daughter I’d never expected, tossing rose petals at our feet.

  Bizarre didn’t even begin to cover it.

  Now, after their Christmas Eve night tradition of opening a gift, and watching Abigail’s squeals of joy and anticipation at waiting for Santa Claus . . . I was the one waiting.

  For Ben.

  “Wait for me in our room, love,” he’d said before heading off to tuck Abigail in and read her a story.

  I hadn’t even been back to my house since leaving for Mr. Green’s office that morning. It was like living in a dream. I didn’t know how daily life was going to roll out going forward, but we would figure it out.

  “Our room,” I’d echoed. “That sounds so . . .”

  “Delightful?” he said under his breath, dropping a kiss on my lips. “Decadent?”

  “Both,” I said. “Shall we wait for Santa as well?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m hoping to get my present early.”

  I laughed softly. “I do believe you already opened one under the tree. Plus gained a person.”

  “Well, see, there was this chat that my daughter and I had today about secret wishes and how they’d be sparkly or something,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “And we were just getting to the crux of that when this woman came over and started yelling at me.”

  I clamped my lips together and then grinned. That felt like a year ago. Now, my ranch was safe, new plans were in the works, I could hire back all the old hands to help Malcolm, and my heart—it was soaring for so many reasons.

  “I see. How did you handle that?”

  “I married her,” he said simply. “So, I’m going off incomplete information, but I’m thinking that the sparkly stuff is still to come tonight,” he said, pulling me to him and kissing me as I giggled. “I want very, very, very much to make love to my wife,” he whispered against my lips. “Sparkles or not.”

  Tingles of lightning-hot heat went straight to all things south.

  Wife.

  God, nothing sounded better. I had been worked up into a frenzy since he’d kissed me into a proposal that morning. Watching him in action today was like an aphrodisiac.

  “You know, technically, we could have made that happen while all the people scattered at your command like you were the voice of Zeus,” I said to his already shaking head.

  “I said wife,” he clarified, glancing around for little ears. Pulling me to him again, he brushed his mouth against my ear. “I’ve loved you on a rock, in a field, and made you come against a tree,” he whispered, sending shivers of desire down my neck. “The next time I touch you, love of my life, I want you in my bed, calling me your husband.”

  Hence . . . now I waited. Staring at his huge four-poster bed.

  Because I couldn’t wait to do just that.

  When he finally strolled in, boots in hand, latching the lock behind him, my breath caught in my chest. Gone was the black jacket he’d worn to say his vows. Gone was the tie. His shirt was open at the neck, pulled a little loose at the waist—probably from tickling Abigail. His shirtsleeves were unbuttoned and rolled up on his forearms.

  More than any of that, it was the expression he wore. A look of pure happiness mixed with a driving carnal need that intensified as his eyes raked my body.

  I was dressed in only a dressing robe that Lila had brought over. A long one, made of fine black silk, that I’d found in Houston years ago. My grandmother bought it for me when I’d eyed it longingly at a boutique, probably thinking she was adding to a soon-to-be-needed boudoir.

  Well, she did. Just much later, and not to whom she expected.

  My hair was down in waves, and the robe was wrapped tightly around me and belted, showing all my curves. It was sinful and decadent, and completely unladylike, and I didn’t care. If I couldn’t show up this way for my husband, what was the point of taking his name?

  “You look—stunning,” he said breathily.

  “You look too far away,” I said, crossing to him.

  I didn’t have a need for etiquette either.

  Ben’s hands went into my hair as our mouths met, moaning as I pressed myself against him.

  “God, I’ve waited so long for you, my love,” he growled against my mouth.

  Pulling his shirt free from his trousers, I made quick haste with the buttons. I needed it gone. I needed him.

  Yanking it off his body, he pulled away from me for a moment and dropped it on the floor. He grabbed my hand and tugged me to him, and in one quick swoop, swept me off my feet.

  I squealed and wrapped my arms around his neck, laughing.

  “Pretend that’s a threshold,” he said, walking over it and carrying me straight to his bed, looming over me as he laid me down and kissed me, deeply and thoroughly.

  When my robe magically came loose, and he worshipped my body with his kisses, angels sang in my head. When my hands relieved him of his trousers and stroked his heavy length, he cursed and fisted the sheets underneath me.

  “Josie,” he growled as he finally slid inside me, making all my muscles tighten around him.

  “I love you, Mr. Mason,” I said on a gasp.

  “I love you more, Mrs. Mason.”

  I rolled my hips and relished his quick inhale. My lips curved upward.

  “Prove it.”

  For more from Sharla Lovelace, check out the first in her Charmed in Texas series . . .

  A CHARMED LITTLE LIE

  Charmed, Texas, is everything the name implies—quaint, comfortable, and as small-town friendly as they come. And when it comes to romance, there’s no place quite as enchanting . . .

  Lanie Barrett didn’t mean to lie. Spinning a story of a joyous marriage to make a dying woman happy is forgivable, isn’t it? Lanie thinks so, especially since her beloved Aunt Ruby would have been heartbroken to know the truth of her niece’s sadly loveless, short-of-sparkling existence. Trouble is, according to the will, Ruby didn’t quite buy Lanie’s tale. And to inherit the only house Lanie ever really considered a home, she’ll have to bring her “husband” back to Charmed for three whole months—or watch Aunt Ruby’s cozy nest go to her weasel cousin, who will sell it to a condo developer.

  Nick McKane is out of work, out of luck, and the spitting image of the man Lanie described. He needs money for his daughter’s art school tuition, and Lanie needs a convenient spouse. It’s a match made . . . well, not quite in heaven, but for a temporary arrangement, it couldn’t be better. Except the longer Lanie and Nick spend as husband and wife, the more the connection between them begins to seem real. Maybe this modern fairy tale really could come true . . .

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Chapter 1

  “Take caution when unwrapping blessings, my girl. They’re sometimes dipped in poop first.”

  In retrospect, I should have known the day was off. From the wee hours of the morning when I awoke to find Ralph—my neighbor’s ninety-pound Rottweiler—in bed with me and hiking his leg, to waking up the second time on my crappy uncomfortable couch with a hitch in my hip. Then the coffeemaker mishap and realizing I was out of toothpaste. Pretty much all the markers were there. Aunt Ruby would have thumped me in the head and asked me where my Barrett intuition was.

  But I never had her kind of intuition.

  And Aunt Ruby wasn’t around to thump me. Not anymore. Not even long distance.

  “Ow! Shit!” I yelped as my phone rang, making me sling pancake batter across the kitchen as I burned my finger on the griddle.

  I’m coordinated like that.

  Cursing my way to the phone, I hit speaker when I saw the name of said neighbor.

  “Hey, Tilly.”

  “How’s my
sweet boy?” she crooned.

  I glared at Ralph. “He’s got bladder denial,” I said. “Possibly separation anxiety. Mommy issues.”

  “Uh-oh, why?” she asked.

  “He marked three pieces of furniture, and me,” I said, hearing her gasp. “While I was in the bed. With him.”

  I liked my neighbor Tilly. She was from two apartments down, was sweet, kinda goofy, and was always making new desserts she liked to try out on me. So when she suddenly had to bail for some family emergency with her mom and couldn’t take her dog, I decided to take a page from her book and be a giver. Offer to dog-sit Ralph while she was gone for a few days.

  “Oh wow, I’m so sorry, Lanie,” she said.

  “Not a problem,” I lied. I’m not really cut out to be a giver. “We’re bonding.”

  “I actually kind of hoped he’d cheer you up.”

  What? “Cheer me up?”

  “You’ve been so—I don’t know—forlorn?” she asked. “Since your aunt died, it’s like you lost your energy source.”

  Damn, that was freakishly observant of her. Maybe she got the Barrett intuition. She nailed it in one sentence. Aunt Ruby was my energy source. Even from the next state over, the woman that raised me kept me buzzing with her unstoppable magical spirit. When her eyes went, the other senses jumped to the fight. When her life went, it was like someone turned out the lights. All the way to Louisiana.

  I was truly alone and on my own. Realizing that at thirty-three was sobering. Realizing Aunt Ruby now knew I’d lied about everything was mortifying. Maybe that’s why she was staying otherwise occupied out there in the afterlife.

  Then again, lying was maybe too strong a word. Was there another word? Maybe a whole turn of phrase would be better. Something like coloring the story to make an old woman happy.

  Yeah.

  Coloring with crayons that turned into shovels.

  No one knew the extent of the ridiculous hole I had dug myself into. The one that involved my hometown of Charmed, Texas, believing I was married and successful, living with my husband in sunny California and absorbing the good life. Why California? Because it sounded more exciting than Louisiana. And a fantasy-worthy advertising job I submitted an online re-sumé for a year ago was located there. That’s about all the sane thought that went into that.

  The tale was spun at first for Aunt Ruby when she got sick, diabetes taking her down quickly, with her eyesight being the first victim. I regaled her on my short visits home with funny stories from my quickie wedding in Vegas (I did go to Vegas with a guy I was sort of seeing), my successful career in advertising (I hadn’t made it past promotional copy), and my hot, doting, super gorgeous husband named Michael who traveled a lot for work and therefore was never with me. You’d think I’d need pictures for that part, right? Even for a mostly blind woman? Yeah. I did.

  I showed her pictures of a smoking hot, dark and dangerous-looking guy I flirted with one night at Caesar’s Palace while my boyfriend was flirting with a waitress. A guy who, incidentally, was named—Michael.

  I know.

  I rot.

  But it made her happy to know I was happy and taken care of, when all that mattered in her entire wacky world was that I find love and be taken care of. That I not end up alone, with my ovaries withering in a dusty desert. Did I know that she would then relay all that information on to every mouthpiece in Charmed? Bragging about how well her Lanie had done? How I’d lived up to the Most-Likely-to-Set-the-World-on-Fire vote I’d received senior year. Including the visuals I’d sent her of me and Michael-the-Smoking-Hottie.

  My phone beeped in my ear, announcing another call, from an unknown number. Unknown to the phone, maybe, but as of late I’d come to recognize it.

  “Hey, Till,” I said, finger hovering over the button. “The lawyer is calling. I should probably see if there’s any news on the will.”

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll call you in a few days and see how my Ralph is doing.”

  So, not coming back in a few days.

  “Sounds good,” I said, clicking over. “Hey, Carmen.”

  “Hey yourself,” she said, her voice friendly but smooth and full of that lawyer professionalism they must inject them with in law school. She warmed it up for an old best friend, but it wasn’t the same tone that used to prank call boys in junior high or howl at the top of her lungs as we sped drunk down Dreary Road senior year.

  This Carmen Frost was polished. I saw that at the funeral. Still Carmen, but edited and Photoshopped. Even when I met her for drinks afterward and we drove over to the house to reminisce.

  This Carmen felt different from the childhood best buddy that had slept in many a blanket fort in our living room. Strung of course with Christmas lights in July and blessed with incense from Aunt Ruby. That Carmen was the only person I truly let into my odd little family circle. She never made fun of Aunt Ruby or perpetuated the gossip. Coming from a single mom household where her mother had to work late often, she enjoyed the warm weirdness at our house. It wasn’t uncommon for her to join us to spontaneously have dinner in the backyard under the stars or dress up in homemade togas (sheets) to celebrate Julius Caesar’s birthday.

  Returning for the funeral and walking into that house for the first time without Aunt Ruby in it broke me. It was full of her. She was in every cushion. Every bookcase. Every oddball knickknack. Her scent was in the curtains that had been recently washed and ironed, as if she’d known the end was near and had someone come clean the house. Couldn’t leave it untidy on her exit to heaven for people to talk.

  We sat in Aunt Ruby’s living room and cried a little and told a few nostalgic stories, trying to bring back the old banter, but it was as if Carmen had forgotten how to relax. She was wound up on a spool of bungee rope and someone had tied the ends down. Tight and unable to yield.

  Still, we had history. At one time, she was family. Which is why Aunt Ruby hired her to handle her will and estate.

  A word that seemed so silly on my tongue, as I would have never associated estate with my aunt or her property. But that was the word Carmen used again and again when we talked. Her estate involved the house and some money (she didn’t elaborate), but it had to be probated and there were complications due to medical bills that had to be paid first.

  Which made sense. It had taken almost two months, and I had almost written off hearing anything. Not that I was holding my breath on the money part. I was pretty sure whatever dollars there were would be used up with the medical bills, and that just left the house. I figured that would probably be left to me. I was really her only family after my mom died young. Well, except for some cousins that I barely knew from her brother she rarely talked to, but I couldn’t imagine them keeping up with her enough to even know that she died.

  I didn’t know what on earth I’d do with the house. It was old and creaky and probably full of problems—one being it was in Charmed and I was not. But it was home. And it had character and memories and laughter soaked into the walls. Aunt Ruby was there. I felt it. If that was intuition, then okay. I felt it there. But only there.

  So I’d probably keep it as a place to get away, and spend the next several months going back and forth on the weekends like I had right after she passed, cleaning out the fridge and things that were crucial. Mentally, I ticked off a list of the work that was about to begin. That was okay. Aunt Ruby was worth it.

  “How’s it going over there?” I asked.

  “Good, good,” Carmen said. “How’s California?”

  Oh yeah.

  “Fine,” I said. “You know. Sunshine and pretty people. All that.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. Where did I get this shit?

  “Sounds wonderful,” she said. “It’s been raining and muggy here for three days.”

  “Yeah,” I said, just to say something.

  “So the will has been probated,” Carmen said. “Everything’s ready to be read. I wanted to see when you’d be able to make it back to Charmed
for that?”

  “Oh,” I said, slightly surprised. “I have to come in person?”

  “For the reading, yes,” she said. “You have to sign some paperwork and so do the other parties.”

  “Other parties?”

  “Yes—well, normally I don’t disclose that but you’re you, so . . .” she said on a chuckle. “The Clarks?” she said, her tone ending in question.

  “As in my cousins?” Really?

  “I was surprised too,” she said. “I don’t remember ever even hearing about them.”

  “Because I maybe saw them three times in my whole life,” I said. “They live in Denning. Or they did. I don’t think you ever met them.”

  “Hmm, okay.” Her tone sounded like she was checking off a list. “And you’ll need to bring some things with you.”

  “Things?”

  “Two, actually,” Carmen said, laughing. “Just like your aunt to make a will reading quirky. But they are easy. Just your marriage certificate—”

  “My what?”

  Carmen chuckled again, and I was feeling a little something in my throat too. Probably not of the same variety.

  “I know,” she said. “Goofy request, but I see some doozies all the time. Had a client once insist that his dog be present at the reading of the will. He left him almost everything. Knowing Aunt Ruby, there is some cosmic reason.”

  Uh-huh. She was messing with me.

  I swallowed hard, my mind reeling and already trying to figure out how I could fake a marriage certificate.

  “And the second thing?” I managed to push past the lump in my throat.

  “Easy peasy,” she said. “Your husband, of course.”

  Christmas Road

  SCARLETT DUNN

  Special Thanks

  Much respect and appreciation goes to John Scognamiglio—always professional, always generous with his time, and responds to emails faster than anyone.