The image only got clearer as the snowfall became heavier.
It was a knight. A knight in black leather.
Frowning, she watched as Adrian rode up to her on the back of a white stallion. Her mouth wide open, she looked at him as he reined to a stop by her side.
“Methinks milady damsel doth be in distress.”
She shook her head at his fake medieval English way of speaking. Those deep, dark, chocolate-brown eyes stared at her with a heat that instantly warmed her freezing bones.
“Adrian?” she gasped.
“Sir Adrian,” he corrected with a smile. He reached his hand down to her.
Without thinking, she took it and allowed him to pull her up to sit before him on the medieval-style saddle. He wrapped her up in two blankets as he adjusted her in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in disbelief. “I thought you were with Tiffany.” As she said the name, her rage ignited.
“Tiffany?” he asked with a frown. “Why would you…”
She saw the color darken his cheeks.
“Yes,” she snarled at him. “I saw you two. And you took her room key.”
“Didn’t you see me give it back?”
Sam hesitated. “You gave it back?”
“Yes. A few minutes after she left.”
“You kept it a few minutes?” she snarled. “You skunk. How could you do – ”
He stopped her words with a heated kiss.
“Don’t yell at me, Sam,” he said as he pulled back. “It wasn’t my fault. I was waiting for you when she grabbed me from behind. At first, I thought it was you. Then she swept around me and put a lip-lock on me so fast I didn’t know what to do. In case you haven’t noticed, women don’t usually do things like that to me. She caught me off guard.”
“You looked like you were enjoying it to me.”
“I was too stunned to move. And when she handed me the key, it took a full minute before it dawned on me what it was.”
“A full minute?”
“I know you don’t believe me, but if I wanted Tiffany, then why am I out here on a horse, freezing?”
“I don’t know. Why are you here on a horse, freezing?”
“Because I love you, and I wanted to come to your rescue.”
Sam choked on a sob. “Really?”
He tilted her chin up to look at him. “Don’t ever doubt me, Sam. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to take care of.”
Coming from him, that meant something.
She smiled as he kicked the horse forward toward the setting sun.
And in that moment, Sam knew she had the best Christmas present ever. She had her knight in shining leather.
Epilogue
Christmas day
Adrian let out a tired sigh as he pulled up to his apartment, just after noon. He’d spent most of the morning at work, alone, doing his best not to call and disturb Sam. She was spending the day with her family, while his had fled. Heather had gone to Daytona, and his mother was on a cruise in Alaska with her latest boyfriend.
But then, there was nothing unusual about that. He hadn’t had a family Christmas since he was fifteen.
For the last eleven years, Christmas had meant nothing more than a heated TV dinner eaten in front of bad television shows.
“I hate Christmas,” he muttered as he got out of his car, and went to his apartment.
He opened his door. Then, he froze dead in his tracks.
Someone had put a small Christmas tree in his living room and decorated it.
Frowning, Adrian closed the door and took his coat off, then went to the tree where a medieval-looking note card was tied with a ribbon to a branch.
He flipped it open.
Milord, Knight in Shining Armor, methinks thou hast a present in thy chamber.
He smiled at Sam’s writing. She must have stopped by while he’d been at work. How he wished she’d called him. He’d love to see her today.
Oh, well, she’d be at work tomorrow.
Holding the card to his heart, he went to see what she’d left for him. He opened the door to his bedroom and went stock-still as his jaw fell open.
Sam was lying on his bed dressed in a teddy that made his mouth water, and she had a bow tied around her neck.
“Where have you been?” she asked with a seductive smile as she closed the book she’d been reading and put it on his nightstand.
Adrian couldn’t speak, since his tongue was hanging on the floor.
Her smile widened as she left the bed and moved to stand in front of him. “Carpet got your tongue?” she asked.
He smiled.
Cupping her face in his hands, he stared in awe. “I thought you were going over to your mom’s.”
“I am for dinner. But I wanted to surprise you.”
Adrian pulled her to him and kissed her until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He wanted her in a way he had never wanted anything else.
And that flimsy outfit that barely covered her and left nothing to his imagination, was making him way too hard for comfort.
Growling, he pulled his clothes off in record time, then tossed her over his shoulder and deposited her gently on the bed.
Sam laughed.
Adrian ran his hand down the curve of her thigh, amazed at how much he loved her.
Sam kissed Adrian’s bare shoulder as he reached into his nightstand for a condom.
He turned to her then, but instead of handing the condom to her as he normally did, he kissed her.
She felt something strange in his mouth.
Pulling back, she frowned as he pulled a ring out from between his teeth and handed it to her.
“I was going to give this to you tomorrow at dinner,” he said, looking a bit sheepish. “But since you’re here…”
Completely stunned, Sam couldn’t breathe as she stared at the ring. It was a one-carat, heart-shaped diamond engagement ring in a medieval-style setting that made her heart pound.
Tears welled in her eyes as she blinked in disbelief. “Are you sure about this?”
He ran his hand down her arm. “You’re the only thing in my life I’ve ever been sure about,” he whispered before he took the ring back.
He left the bed and went down on one knee beside it, then took her hand into his.
Tears fell down her cheeks at the sight of Adrian naked on the floor.
“Samantha Jane Parker, will you marry me?”
She launched herself at him and knocked him flat against the floor. “Of course I will.”
He laughed as she straddled his bare stomach.
Adrian placed the ring on her left hand, then he kissed it. “I love you, Sam.”
“I love you, Adrian,” she whispered, knowing in her heart that she had finally found her one, true knight in shining armor. And she was never, ever going to let him go.
SANTA WEARS SPURS
Prologue
Danger. O’Connell felt it on the back of his neck and deep in his bones as he raced his pinto across the dead winter Texas plains toward a town he’d never known existed.
After all this time, he ought to be used to danger. He had lived his life under its constant stalking shadow, and kept it as his faithful companion. Danger was his ally and his enemy.
It defined everything about him. There had only been one time in his life when he had felt safe. But that was a long time ago.
It was biting cold out, not that he felt it much. His thrumming blood kept him warm as he rode through the night.
“You should have been there, Kid. It was like taking candy from a baby,” Pete had laughed. “Hah, now that I think about it, I did take candy from a baby. I just wish I could see their faces when they wake up and find their money gone.”
Then as now, O’Connell hadn’t found the words amusing. He knew Pete could be as cold-blooded as they came – the bullet wound in his arm was testimony to that. But not even he had thought Pete would steal from an orphanage just two days before Chri
stmas.
The man had no soul.
There was a time when O’Connell had been just the same. When hatred had strangled his heart and left him unable to feel for anyone save himself.
And then he’d met her.
His heart lurched, just as it always did when he thought of her. She had shown him another way, another life, and had changed everything about him in the process. She’d given him hope, a future. A reason to live. And life without her had been nothing more than a bitter hell.
In all honesty, he didn’t know how he managed to make it through the endless, miserable days that had turned into years.
Somehow, he just survived. Cold. Empty.
Alone.
God, how he missed her. How he ached for some way to go back and relive just one second of the time he’d shared with her. Just to see her face one more time, feel her breath on his skin.
For a moment, O’Connell let his thoughts drift to the past. And like they always did when he was unguarded, they went to a remembered dream of long dark brown hair and eyes as clear and warm as a summer’s day. Of a woman who had told him she loved him without making a single sound.
Closing his eyes, he saw her bright smile and heard the music of her laughter as she lay naked beneath him while he claimed her for his own. He clenched his teeth at the white-hot desire that coiled through his belly. And for a moment he swore he could still feel her hands against his back as she held him tight and cried out in ecstasy.
Not even five years could dull the memories. Or his craving for her touch. He could taste the salty sweetness of her body, feel her hot and tight around him, and smell the sunshine that had always seemed to be in her hair.
Catherine had touched him in ways no one had before or since.
“I remember you,” he breathed. But most of all he remembered the promise he had made to her. The promise he had broken. And in that moment, he wished Pete’s bullet had gone straight through his useless heart.
Lord above, if there was one last wish he could have, it would be to set things right. He’d sell whatever was left of his blackened soul for a way to go back and change what he’d done to her.
But it wasn’t to be.
He knew that.
There was nothing left for him to do except see the money back to the orphans Pete had stolen it from.
After that, he didn’t know where he’d go. He’d have to find another place where the law and Pete couldn’t find him. If such a place existed.
Briefly, he considered trying to find her. After all, she had been his safe harbor. His greatest strength.
But then, she had also been his greatest weakness.
No, it wouldn’t do to seek her out. Too much depended on him staying away from her. Because one thing his brother, Pete, had taught him years ago – there was no such thing as a second chance.
1
“All I want for Christmas is a man as handsome as the Devil himself. One with a charming smile, at least some semblance of intelligence, and a great, big, bulging – ”
“Rebecca Baker!” Catherine O’Callahan gasped, shocked at her friend’s words.
“Bank account,” Rebecca said as she dropped her hands down from the graphic illustration she had been providing. She picked up the frying pan near Catherine, then placed it on top of the black iron stove. “I was only going to say bank account.”
Trying not to smile lest she encourage her friend’s libidinous conversation, Catherine looked askance at Rebecca as she continued washing dishes.
Rebecca’s olive cheeks colored ever so slightly as she walked back to the sink. “Well, maybe I wasn’t. But as a married woman yourself, you know what I mean. How long am I supposed to go around mourning Clancy anyway? Good grief, it’s been almost four years since he died. And I barely knew him before we married.”
As was her habit, Rebecca gestured dramatically with her hands to illustrate her next words. “My father practically dragged me to the altar to marry a man almost twice my age. I tell you, snuggling up to a man whose hands and feet are colder than icicles in January isn’t my idea of wedded bliss.”
Catherine could well agree with that point.
Rebecca sighed dreamily as she idly put the plates on the shelf above her head. “What I’d like to have is a gorgeous, warm man I could be cow-tied to forever. A man who could enter the room and make me all hot, and cold, and all jittery.” She looked at Catherine and smiled. “Know what I mean?”
Blushing, Catherine grew quiet as she rinsed a large black pot. She knew exactly what Rebecca meant. She’d lain awake many a night as memories washed over her of a pewter-eyed demon who had promised her everything, including the moon above.
A man who had made her body so hot there had been times when she was certain she’d perish in flames.
But unlike her friend, she wasn’t a widow. For all she knew, her husband could come waltzing up to the front door at any time and knock on it.
As if that would ever happen, Catherine chided herself.
When would she give up her useless, unwavering hope of seeing him again? Why couldn’t she just put him out her mind?
What was it about him that made her yearn for him after all this time?
Of course, she knew the answer to that question – everything about him. He’d been so wonderful and kind, considerate and giving. Up until the day he left her without so much as a by-your-leave.
She must be insane to still yearn for him.
And after five years, he might be dead. Heaven knew, a lot had happened to her since he’d run off. She’d moved to a new town, started her own restaurant and boardinghouse, and created a respectable life for her and her four-year-old daughter, Diana.
Last summer, after the yellow fever epidemic, she and Rebecca had taken in five of the town of Redwood’s orphans.
A lot had happened.
Rebecca sidled up to her and took the pot from her hands to dry it. “So, tell me, if not a gorgeous St. Nick to come knocking on the door, what do you want for Christmas?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Catherine said as she reached to wash a pan. “I guess if I had my druthers, I’d like for our money to be returned. It bothers me that someone would steal from the children right before Christmas.”
Rebecca agreed. “I know how much you wanted to spend it on them. It’s such a shame. I can’t imagine what kind of monster could so something so terrible.”
Neither did she.
They didn’t speak for a few minutes. Only the sound of sloshing water and clanging dishes broke the silence as they worked.
All of a sudden, the hair on the back of Catherine’s neck stood up. Turning her head, she saw Rebecca staring at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Is that really all you want for Christmas?”
Catherine handed her another pan to dry. “Why, yes. I’m quite happy with everything else.”
Rebecca arched a questioning brow.
“I am,” Catherine insisted.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Rebecca said, putting the pan away. “Can you truly tell me that you haven’t once given thought to having a handsome man come sweep you off your feet?”
Catherine laughed halfheartedly. “I already had that happen, and I must say I found the experience less than desirable.”
Rebecca shook her head. “You know, I came to work here almost four years ago and never in that time have I heard you speak of your husband. That is who you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
Catherine nodded, refusing to meet Rebecca’s inquisitive brown-eyed stare as she moved to pump more water into the sink. “There isn’t much to tell.”
Rebecca nudged her away from the pump and took up the motion. “Come on, Catherine. All the children are in bed for the night. Why not open up a little?”
Catherine buried her hands back in the suds and sighed. “What do you want me to tell you? Plain preacher’s daughter fell in love with the gorgeous stranger who came to work for her fa
ther’s ranch? He married her a month after they first met, took her off to Nevada, and left her the first chance he got.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Rebecca paused. Her brown eyes darkened in anger. “I’ll never understand a man who could do something so cold-blooded or mean.”
“Me either,” she whispered under her breath.
“I don’t see how you stand it.”
Catherine shrugged. “I got used to it. Five years gave me time to lay aside my hatred. Besides, I have Diana to think about. I’m the only parent she has and I decided on the day she was born that I would never mention his name or dwell on what he did to us.”
“Well, I respect you for that. Me, I wouldn’t have rested until I found the polecat and skinned him alive.”
Catherine relished the image of her husband’s tawny skin being flayed from him as he screamed for mercy. Now that Rebecca mentioned it, she did rather enjoy the thought of him being skinned. It would certainly serve him right. “You know, I do want something after all.”
“And that is?”
Catherine scrubbed her pot with renewed vigor, wishing it were her husband’s head she held beneath the water. “I wish I could lay eyes on him one last time to tell him what a no-good, lousy, rabid dog he was for leaving me.”
“That’s my girl.” Rebecca laughed as she patted Catherine on the back. Then, she leaned forward and said in a low tone, “But the real question is, was he any good where and when it counted?”
“Rebecca!” Catherine gasped, trying her best not to think about just how good he had been there.
Though why Rebecca’s words continued to shock her after all these years of knowing her, she couldn’t imagine. Rebecca had never had an ounce of shame in her.
But then, it was her outspokenness Catherine liked most of all. She always knew where she stood with Rebecca. Her friend never held anything back. And after having lived with her husband and his secrets, she found Rebecca’s candor a true blessing.
Suddenly a knock sounded on the door.
Catherine wrung the suds off her hands, then wiped her hands dry on her apron. “Why don’t you go on to bed?” she said, rolling her sleeves back down her forearms and buttoning them against her wrists. “I’ll get the door. I’m sure it’s just someone needing a room.”
Dark Bites (Dark-Hunter World) Page 55
