by Jill Kemerer
“Yay!” The little cowboy fist-pumped the air. “You didn’t kill her.”
Using the cowboy as a counterbalance, she carefully got to her feet. The dress didn’t make it easy.
She blushed. “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you. I did everything I could not to hit you—”
“You didn’t hit me.”
She gazed into his face. He must be well over six feet tall. Underneath the fleece-lined Carhartt jacket, he was a big man with broad shoulders. His sheer handsomeness took her breath.
If there was one thing she knew, it was clothes. But unlike most of her male acquaintances, the clothes didn’t make this man. Rather, it was the other way around.
“Not your fault. I fainted. Thankfully, I didn’t hit my head. I’m fine.”
He smelled good, too. Something woodsy with notes of leather and hay.
So she did what she did when she didn’t know what else to do—she babbled.
“I don’t usually faint, but I haven’t eaten anything today. Actually, I haven’t eaten anything in about forty-eight hours. But I couldn’t, you see. My stomach was simply tied in knots.”
Brow furrowed, the cowboy eyeballed her like he’d never seen her species before. She wasn’t unused to such reactions from men.
The little cowboy tucked his small hand through the crook of her arm. “I wike her, Dad, don’t you?”
Dad? She wilted. Oh.
The cowboy was married. Of course, he’s married, AnnaBeth. Are you an idiot? This hunk of man had to have been lassoed into matrimony long, long ago.
“Sweet potatoes,” she muttered.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
She disentangled herself from his grasp. Off-limits, AnnaBeth. She was delusional to have imagined someone like her unremarkable, big-hipped self could ever find herself rescued by someone tall, blond and available.
AnnaBeth motioned toward her vehicle, which was rapidly disappearing under a mantle of falling snow. “My car broke down. And before that, I got lost.”
Little Cowboy hadn’t let go of her arm, but she didn’t mind. It was nice. He was like a human muff. And so, so cute.
The cowboy’s deep brown eyes sharpened. “Where were you headed?”
“Nowhere. Anywhere. I mean, I hadn’t planned much beyond getting out of town. ‘Head west, young man,’ they used to say. So I guess I decided to take their advice. Except in my case, it would’ve been ‘head west, young woman,’ you see.” Taking a quick breath, she touched her hand to where the gigantic bow had dipped over one eye. “You do see, don’t you?”
It was only after the words left her mouth, she realized how nonsensical she must sound. His gaze held a hint of alarm.
Her stomach tightened. Yet how could she hope to say anything sensible with his handsome self staring at her like that?
Copyright © 2019 by Lisa Carter
ISBN-13: 9781488043260
Her Cowboy Till Christmas
Copyright © 2019 by Ripple Effect Press, LLC
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