Baby, It's Christmas & Hold Me, Cowboy

by Susan Mallery

  She let her fingertips drift down lower. Then she leaned in, pressing a kiss to his neck, as he was so fond of doing to her. As she was so fond of him doing.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice rumbling inside him.

  “Honestly, if you have to ask, I’m not doing a very good job of it.”

  “Aren’t you exhausted?”

  “The way I see it, I have five days left with you. I could go five days without sleep if I needed to.”

  He reached up, grabbing hold of her wrist and turning, then pulling her down onto the floor, onto his lap. “Is that a challenge? Because I’m more than up to meeting that.”

  “If you want to take it as one, I suppose that’s up to you.”

  She put her hands on his face, sliding her thumbs alongside the grooves next to his mouth. He wasn’t that old. In his early to midthirties, she guessed. But he wore some serious cares on that handsome face of his, etched into his skin. She wondered what they were. It was easy to assume it was the death of his parents, and perhaps that was part of it. But there was more.

  She’d had the impression earlier today that she’d only ever glimpsed a small part of him. That there were deep pieces of himself that he kept concealed from the world. And she had a feeling this was one of them. That he was a man who presented himself as simple, who lived in these simple surroundings, hard and spare, while he contained multitudes of feeling and complexity.

  She also had a feeling he would rather die than admit that.

  “All right,” he said, “if you insist.”

  He leaned in, kissing her. It was slower and more luxurious than any of the kisses they had shared back in the studio. A little bit less frantic. A little bit less desperate. Less driven toward its ultimate conclusion, much more about the journey.

  She found herself being disrobed again, for the second time that day, and she really couldn’t complain. Especially not when Sam joined her in a state of undress.

  She pressed her hand against his chest, tracing the strongly delineated muscles, her eyes following the movement.

  “I’m going to miss this,” she said, not quite sure what possessed her to speak the words out loud. Because they went so much deeper than just appreciation for his body. So much deeper than just missing his beautiful chest or his perfect abs.

  She wished that they didn’t, but they did. She wished she were a little more confused by the things she did and said with him, like she had been earlier today. But somehow, between her pouring her heart out to him at the ranch today and making love with him in the studio, a few things had become a lot clearer.

  His lips twitched, like he was considering making light of the statement. Saying something to defuse the tension between them. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her tight, pressing her palms flat against him so that she could feel his heart beating. Then he kissed her. Long, powerful. A claiming, a complete and total invasion of her soul.

  She didn’t even care.

  Or maybe, more accurately, she did care. She cared all the way down, and what she couldn’t bother with anymore was all the pretending that she didn’t. That she cared about nothing and no one, that she existed on the Isle of Maddy. Where she was wholly self-sufficient.

  She was pretty sure, in this moment, that she might need him. That she might need him in ways she hadn’t needed another person in a very long time, if ever. When she had met David, she had been a teenager. She hadn’t had any baggage; she hadn’t run into any kind of resistance in the world. She was young, and she didn’t know what giving her heart away might cost.

  She knew now. She knew so much more. She had been hurt; she had been broken. And when she allowed herself to see that she needed someone, she could see too just how badly it could go.

  When they parted, they were both breathing hard, and his dark eyes were watchful on hers. She felt like she could see further than she normally could. Past all of that strength that he wore with ease, down to the parts of him that were scarred, that had been wounded.

  That were vulnerable.

  Even Sam McCormack was vulnerable. What a revelation. Perhaps if he was, everyone was.

  He lifted his hand, brushing up against her cheek, down to her chin, and then he pushed her hair back off her face, slowly letting his fingers sift through the strands. And he watched them slide through his fingers, just as she had watched her own hand as she’d touched his chest. She wondered what he was thinking. If he was thinking what she’d been. If he was attached to her in spite of himself.

  Part of her hoped so. Part of her hoped not.

  He leaned down, kissing her on the shoulder, the seemingly nonsexual contact affecting her intensely. Making her skin feel like it was on fire, making her heart feel like it might burst right out of her chest.

  She found herself being propelled backward, but it felt like slow motion, as he lowered her down onto the floor. Onto the carpet there in front of the fireplace.

  She had the thought that this was definitely a perfect component for a winter affair. But then the thought made her sad. Because she wanted so much more than a winter affair with him. So much more than this desperate grab in front of the fire, knowing that they had only five days left with each other.

  But then he was kissing her and she couldn’t think anymore. She couldn’t regret. She could only kiss him back.

  His hands skimmed over her curves, her breasts, her waist, her hips, all the way down to her thighs, where he squeezed her tight, held on to her as though she were his lifeline. As though he were trying to memorize every curve, every dip and swell.

  She closed her eyes, gave herself over to it, to the sensation of being known by Sam. The thought filled her, made her chest feel like it was expanding. He knew her. He really knew her. And he was still here. Still with her. He didn’t judge her; he didn’t find her disgusting.

  He didn’t treat her like she was breakable. He could still bend her over a horse statue in his studio, then be like this with her in front of the fire. Tender. Sweet.

  Because she was a woman who wanted both things. And he seemed to know it.

  He also seemed to be a man who might need both too.

  Or maybe everybody did. But you didn’t see it until you were with the person you wanted to be both of those things with.

  “Hang on just a second,” he said, suddenly, breaking into her sensual reverie. She had lost track of time. Lost track of everything except the feel of his hands on her skin.

  He moved away from her, the loss of his body leaving her cold. But he returned a moment later, settling himself in between her thighs. “Condom,” he said by way of explanation.

  At least one of them had been thinking. She certainly hadn’t been.

  He joined their bodies together, entering her slowly, the sensation of fullness, of being joined to him, suddenly so profound that she wanted to weep with it. It always felt good. From the first time with him it had felt good. But this was different.

  It was like whatever veil had been between them, whatever stack of issues had existed, had been driving them, was suddenly dropped. And there was nothing between them. When he looked at her, poised over her, deep inside her, she felt like he could see all the way down.

  When he moved, she moved with him, meeting him thrust for thrust, pushing them both to the brink. And when she came, he came along with her, his rough gasp of pleasure in her ears ramping up her own release.

  In the aftermath, skin to skin, she couldn’t deny anymore what all these feelings were. She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know.

  She’d signed herself up for a twelve-day fling with a man she didn’t even like, and only one week in she had gone and fallen in love with Sam McCormack.

  * * *

  “Sam.” Maddy’s voice broke into his sensual haze. He was lying on
his back in front of the fireplace, feeling drained and like he had just had some kind of out-of-body experience. Except he had been firmly in his body and feeling everything, everything and then some.

  “What?” he asked, his voice rusty.

  “Why do you make farm animals?”

  “What the hell kind of question is that?” he asked.

  “A valid one,” she said, moving nearer to him, putting her hand on his chest, tracing shapes there. “I mean, not that they aren’t good.”

  “The horse seemed good enough for you a couple hours ago.”

  “It’s good,” she said, her tone irritated, because she obviously thought he was misunderstanding her on purpose.

  Which she wasn’t wrong about.

  “Okay, but you don’t think I should be making farm animals.”

  “No, I think it’s fine that you make farm animals. I just think it’s not actually you.”

  He shifted underneath her, trying to decide whether or not he should say anything. Or if he should sidestep the question. If it were anyone else, he would laugh. Play it off. Pretend like there was no answer. That there was nothing deeper in him than simply re-creating what he literally saw out in the fields in front of him.

  And a lot of people would have bought that. His own brother probably would have, or at the very least, he wouldn’t have pushed. But this was Maddy. Maddy, who had come apart in his arms in more than one way over the past week. Maddy, who perhaps saw deeper inside him than anyone else ever had.

  Why not tell her? Why not? Because he could sense her getting closer to him. Could sense it like an invisible cord winding itself around the two of them, no matter that he was going to have to cut it in the end. Maybe it would be best to do it now.

  “If I don’t make what I see, I’ll have to make what I feel,” he said. “Nobody wants that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the art has to sell,” he said, his voice flat. Although, that was somewhat disingenuous. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he could sell darker pieces. In fact, he was sure that he could. “I don’t do it for myself. I do it for Chase. I was perfectly content to keep it some kind of weird hobby that I messed around with after hours. Chase was the one who thought that I needed to pursue it full-time. Chase was the one who thought it was the way to save our business. And it started out doing kind of custom artistry for big houses. Gates and the detail work on stairs and decks and things. But then I started making bigger pieces and we started selling them. I say we because without Chase they would just sit in the shop.”

  “So you’re just making what sells. That’s the beginning and end of the story.” Her blue eyes were too sharp, too insightful and far too close to the firelight for him to try to play at any games.

  “I make what I want to let people see.”

  “What happened, Sam? And don’t tell me nothing. You’re talking to somebody who clung to one event in the past for as long as humanly possible. Who let it dictate her entire life. You’re talking to the queen of residual issues here. Don’t try to pretend that you don’t have any. I know what it looks like.” She took a deep breath. “I know what it looks like when somebody uses anger, spite and a whole bunch of unfriendliness to keep the world at a safe distance. I know, because I’ve spent the past ten years doing it. Nobody gets too close to the girl who says unpredictable things. The one who might come out and tell you that your dress does make you look fat and then turn around and say something crude about male anatomy. It’s how you give yourself power in social situations. Act like you don’t care about the rules that everyone else is a slave to.” She laughed. “And why not? I already broke the rules. That’s me. It’s been me for a long time. And it isn’t because I didn’t know better. It’s because I absolutely knew better. You’re smart, Sam. The way that you walk around, the way you present yourself, even here, it’s calculated.”

  Sam didn’t think anyone had ever accused him of being calculated before. But it was true. Truer than most things that had been leveled at him. That he was grumpy, that he was antisocial. He was those things. But for a very specific reason.

  And of course Madison would know. Of course she would see.

  “I’ve never been comfortable sharing my life,” Sam said. “I suppose that comes from having a father who was less than thrilled to have a son who was interested in art. In fact, I think my father considered it a moral failing of his. To have a son who wanted to use materials to create frivolous things. Things that had no use. To have a son who was more interested in that than honest labor. I learned to keep things to myself a long time ago. Which all sounds a whole lot like a sad, cliché story. Except it’s not. It worked. I would have made a relationship with my dad work. But he died. So then it didn’t matter anymore. But still, I just never... I never wanted to keep people up on what was happening with my life. I was kind of trained that way.”

  Hell, a lot of guys were that way, anyway. A lot of men didn’t want to talk about what was happening in their day-to-day existence. Though most of them wouldn’t have gone to the lengths that Sam did to keep everything separate.

  “Most especially when Chase and I were neck-deep in trying to keep the business afloat, I didn’t like him seeing that I was working on anything else. Anything at all.” Sam took a deep breath. “That included any kind of relationships I might have. I didn’t have a lot. But you know Chase never had a problem with people in town knowing that he was spreading it around. He never had a problem sleeping with the women here.”

  “No, he did not,” Maddy said. “Never with me, to be clear.”

  “Considering I’m your first in a decade, I wasn’t exactly that worried about it.”

  “Just making sure.”

  “I didn’t like that. I didn’t want my life to be part of this real-time small-town TV program. I preferred to find women out of town. When I was making deliveries, going to bigger ranches down the coast, that was when I would...”

  “When you would find yourself a buckle bunny for the evening?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Except I met a woman I liked a lot. She was the daughter of one of the big ranchers down near Coos County. And I tried to keep things business oriented. We were actually doing business with her family. But I... I saw her out at a bar one night, and even though I knew she was too young, too nice of a girl for a guy like me... I slept with her. And a few times after. I was pretty obsessed with her, actually.”

  He was downplaying it. But what was the point of doing anything else? Of admitting that for just a little while he’d thought he’d found something. Someone who wanted him. All of him. Someone who knew him.

  The possibility of a future. Like the first hint of spring in the air after a long winter.

  Maddy moved closer to him, looking up at him, and he decided to take a moment to enjoy that for a second. Because after this, she would probably never want to touch him again.

  “Without warning, she cut me off. Completely. Didn’t want to see me anymore. And since she was a few hours down the highway, that really meant not seeing her. I’d had to make an effort to work her into my life. Cutting her out of it was actually a lot easier.”

  “Sure,” Maddy said, obviously not convinced.

  “I got a phone call one night. Late. From the hospital. They told me to come down because Elizabeth was asking for me. They said it wasn’t good.”

  “Oh, Sam,” Maddy said, her tone tinged with sympathy.

  He brush right past that. Continued on. “I white-knuckled it down there. Went as fast as I could. I didn’t tell anyone I was going. When I got there, they wouldn’t let me in. Because I wasn’t family.”

  “But she wanted them to call you.”

  “It didn’t matter.” It was difficult for him to talk about that day. In fact, he never had. He could see it all playing out in his mind as he spoke the words
. Could see the image of her father walking out of the double doors, looking harried, older than Sam had ever seen him look during any of their business dealings.

  “I never got to see her,” Sam said. “She died a few minutes after I got there.”

  “Sam, I’m so sorry...”

  “No, don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t a story about me being angry because I lost a woman that I loved. I didn’t love her. That’s the worst part.” He swallowed hard, trying to diffuse the pressure in his throat crushing down, making it hard to breathe. “I mean, maybe I could have. But that’s not the same. You know who loved her? Her family. Her family loved her. I have never seen a man look so destroyed as I did that day. Looking at her father, who clearly wondered why in hell I was sitting down there in the emergency room. Why I had been called to come down. He didn’t have to wonder long. Not when they told him exactly how his daughter died.” Sam took a deep breath. “Elizabeth died of internal bleeding. Complications from an ectopic pregnancy.”

  Maddy’s face paled, her lips looking waxen. “Did you...? You didn’t know she was pregnant.”

  “No. Neither did anyone in her family. But I know it was mine. I know it was mine, and she didn’t want me to know. And that was probably why she didn’t tell me, why she broke things off with me. Nobody knew because she was ashamed. Because it was my baby. Because it was a man that she knew she couldn’t have a future with. Nobody knew, so when she felt tired and lay down for a nap because she was bleeding and feeling discomfort, no one was there.”

  Silence settled around them, the house creaking beneath the weight of it.

  “Did you ever find out why...why she called you then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wanted me there to blame me. Maybe she just needed me. I’ll never know. She was gone before I ever got to see her.”

  “That must have been...” Maddy let that sentence trail off. “That’s horrible.”

  “It’s nothing but horrible. It’s everything horrible. I know why she got pregnant, Maddy. It’s because... I was so careless with her. I had sex with her once without a condom. And I thought that it would be fine. Hell, I figured if something did happen, I’d be willing to marry her. All of that happened because I didn’t think. Because I lost control. I don’t deserve...”