Hitched by Christmas

by Jule McBride

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  He listened to her laughter rise and fade, melting into the muted stirrings of the Wyoming night. Over some grassy hills, he saw shadows moving in the darkness, and close by insects buzzed. When his eyes returned to hers, they locked and held—and he unexpectedly felt the full heat of the night. His voice turned husky. “Murder, huh?” he said again. “What a wicked mind you’ve got, Claire.”

  Her eyes held his. “You have no idea how wicked.”

  She was so pretty that he had to fight to calm the sudden swift beats of his heart. Especially when she simply stepped closer, her hand gliding onto his chest.

  Your mind might be wicked, Claire. But not as wicked as mine right now. “Claire,” he warned gently, noticing how their bare arms touched, so alive with warmth. She needs a fling with a dangerous man, Emma Jane had said.

  Now, as Claire’s imploring blue eyes fixed on his, Luke wondered if Emma Jane hadn’t been right. I’m not dangerous, he’d defended a few hours ago. Oh, I know, Emma Jane had returned. But we’re paying you to act dangerous. Right about now, Luke defintely wanted to.

  Claire’s voice was as soft as the night. “It’s been such a long time since we’ve talked like this, Luke.”

  And with reason. Claire was one woman he never intended to get involved with. Releasing a faintly exasperated sigh, he cupped her chin. He meant to let go, he really did, but instead he rubbed a rough, work-callused thumb across her swollen-looking lips until they parted. Without even thinking, he dropped the thumb inside, and as he probed the slick, silken warmth of her inner cheek, heat shot to his groin.

  The unmistakable desire in her eyes told him she was no longer a young filly. She was fully grown. As he withdrew his thumb, her lips closed over the tip of it in what might have been a kiss. “Luke,” she said, a faint, nervous tremor in her voice. “We’d better go, or else...”

  His eyes bore into hers. “Or else...” He knew exactly what would happen. They both did.

  “We’d better go,” she repeated.

  “Not before I kiss you once,” he found himself whispering. “Just once, Claire.” And then his mouth lowered, crushing down and completely capturing hers, his tongue reaching deep. Her hands rose on his chest while his found her waist, and he lengthened the searing kiss he knew they shouldn’t share. Her body and tongue melted against him, hot as candle wax. Long, slender legs he well remembered pressured his, and her female heat was worrying his groin. Whatever warmth had been in the night was now in his blood, whatever kindness in their talk was now tugging at his heart. With every movement of his mouth on hers, his body turned hotter and heavier with need. Only when his control was threatened and he feared he’d take things to the next level, did he force himself to lean back and survey her in the dark. Her blue eyes had turned violet and so vulnerable that guilt flooded him because he knew he was about to hurt her. His voice was deep, roughened by desire. “Come Christmas, you’re getting married, Claire.”

  Her soft, moist mouth slackened. “Why didn’t you—” She paused. “Why didn’t you want me, Luke? All those years ago...”

  He knew it was difficult for her to ask, but he had no business rehashing the past, especially if his intentions weren’t serious. “I just...” Didn’t. It was a lie, but Luke let the word hang in the air.

  She looked torn between losing her pride and pursuing the matter. “So, tonight you kissed me because of the bachelor auction, huh?” she ventured coolly. “Because you were paid?”

  He caught her wrist before she could step back, and the pulse he felt beating rapidly beneath his fingers further fueled his desire. “You know better than that,” he said, the words gentle despite the emotions that were threatening to run away like wild horses. “I kissed you for the same reason you kissed me, Claire. Because I wanted to. But you’re marrying Clive.”

  “You hardly have to tell me that,” she assured him, looking upset about what they’d just done.

  Luke forced himself to let go of her wrist. “And it makes what just happened between us our kiss goodbye.” Still tasting her mouth, he felt the pull of her lips as surely as the pull of his need for her love, but he turned away and busied himself with the helmets. Helping her with hers, he pulled the strap tight and then he put on his own. Claire didn’t say anything, just watched him mutely with disbelieving, questioning eyes that could have broken his heart if he’d let them.

  And then she slid behind him on the seat again.

  God only knew what she was thinking. Probably what he was—that it was better to ignore the unaccountable lust between them. On the highway, the night seemed cooler. Luke squinted against the wind, and he felt it blow the fine shafts of hair that hung from under his helmet. He felt other things, too—Claire’s hands on his belly, her small breasts pressed against his back. His heart ached when he felt dampness through his shirt, against his shoulder. It made him want to pull to the side of the road and love her exactly how she’d asked him to all those years ago.

  Instead, he leaned farther over the handlebars, into the wind, and he tried to tell himself that the dampness he felt wasn’t really tears.

  * * *

  “GET,” LUKE GROWLED much later. “Just get on out of here.” Leaning against his motorcycle for leverage, he tossed a stick toward the shadows moving across the empty, unlit parking grounds at the Lost Springs Ranch. Some wild dogs were out there, Luke guessed. Maybe coyotes. They were probably scavaging leftovers from the food booths. Tomorrow the boys from Lost Springs would come out and pick up the stray pop cans and candy wrappers.

  Deciding to ignore the dogs, Luke stared unseeing into the darkness where Claire had vanished. Well, one thing was certain. Luke definitely wasn’t showing up at the Buchanans’ ranch tomorrow to earn the money Tex was giving to Lost Springs. Luke figured Claire would come up with some story about how she’d made use of him. He sighed again. By the time he’d pulled the bike near her Jeep Wrangler, her helmet was already off. She’d dropped it and simply fled.

  Now he felt sick. He was no fool. He understood what was between him and Claire, same as she did. Probably better. It was raw chemistry. It was a man-woman attraction of a sort that would never go away. But why couldn’t Claire ever think it through?

  Luke thought back to years ago, when she’d asked him to make love to her here, in a secluded wooded spot just off the parking grounds. There had been another fund-raiser that day, and along with the Fremonts, some of the wealthiest folks in town had raised college scholarship money for the Lost Springs boys.

  Late that afternoon, after Luke was told he’d be one of the recipients who’d attend UW, Claire had found him out here. She’d said she wanted a goodbye kiss since she was leaving for school in Cheyenne, and he’d obliged, walking into the woods with her, as they had many times. At first, they’d sat side by side on a fallen log, just talking, which was nothing unusual. All summer, she’d been turning up at the feed store on Saturdays, and he’d more than noticed her. In fact, he’d spent most Friday nights reading about western art just to impress her, but he’d never thought she could have real feelings for him, not even after their relationship had become more physical. No, Claire had always hung around with the sons of the big ranchers, guys like Clive Stoddard who’d someday stand to inherit land around Lightning Creek.

  Because of that, Luke half suspected she was toying with him all summer, but he’d wanted her, and that day, while they were kissing in the woods, he’d touched and kissed her breasts, then slid a hand under her dress, inside her panties and between her legs. Even now, he could remember the nerve-racking desire he’d felt as she shivered beneath his touch, climbing toward release. But he’d never expected her to touch him, too, gliding those slender-fingered hands to his crotch, suddenly cupping him and asking him to please make love to her, right then and there. Overwhelming passion had blindsided him. All his
life, he’d felt sure love wasn’t in the cards for him, since no loved child was ever abandoned on a doorstep. Claire’s words had filled him not just with hope, but with paralyzing fear. What did Luke—an abandoned kid from Lost Springs—know about love? What did he have to give her?

  He’d pulled away too swiftly, and in the next heartbeat, Claire had taken his confused vulnerability as rejection and run from the woods, fixing her bra and buttoning her dress as she fled.

  Luke had stood there in the woods a minute, feeling as flustered and immeasurably aroused, trying to figure out what had happened.

  And then he’d come to his senses and chased after her, only to find himself staring at the tailfins of an antique shiny black Cadillac that Tex Buchanan sometimes drove into town. Luke had stopped breathlessly, his side aching from running so hard, the dust he’d stirred rising into his eyes, and he’d contemplated the fact that shiny cars would always come for girls like Claire Buchanan. Maybe it was better, easier, to simply accept the fact that she was a rich rancher’s daughter, and that he was a scholarship boy, a kid from Lost Springs whom they’d been kind enough to help. Sure, she’d been trying to take things to the next step, but that meant pursuing a relationship that would only seriously limit her options in life.

  Luke had turned and walked back down the road.

  Now, just like then, Luke knew he was doing the right thing. Gazing up at the moon and the stars, feeling the sultry heat of the night buffet against him, he uttered a soft “damn,” then he glanced toward the tree line, where the wild dogs prowled. In a strange way, he felt just like one of those dogs. Rootless and running in the shadows, never in the center of things but always on the outskirts. Once more, he remembered Claire’s painting of Lost Springs, how lonely that boy had looked as he tried to touch the sky.

  The image was humbling. That day in the woods, Claire had seemed just as unattainable as tonight’s moon, love as unreachable as the stars. Now Luke figured that’s what happened once a baby was left on a doorstep. He grew into a man who avoided love. How could it be otherwise? Luke had a fierce love of the land, but no piece of ground to call his own, and he had Indian blood, but he didn’t even know the name of his tribe. How could a man love a woman when he didn’t even know what kind of blood ran in his veins?

  Claire didn’t understand it yet, but she deserved things Luke could never give her—everything she was going to get come Christmas. Money, land and status. One day, maybe she’d even thank him.

  Clive Stoddard was a respected rancher. Soon he’d come into his mighty impressive birthright, since his pa, Evander, was ailing. In addition to being an heir to the Lazy Four, Clive was one of the best cowboys around, too. Because Luke had no doubt Clive would merge his family’s ranch with the adjacent Buchanan lands, Luke figured it was only a matter of time until Claire Buchanan Stoddard looked around and saw the bounty before her. Somewhere down the pike, she’d take in the cattle grazing in the grasslands, happily write her children’s names in a family Bible that belonged to a man who had a history, and she’d appreciate her husband’s wherewithal to build their joint fortunes.

  By Christmas, Claire would figure out that things were better this way. She’d be glad Luke hadn’t loved her back.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CLAIRE GLANCED NERVOUSLY around the shopping mall in Casper. It had been months since she’d seen Luke, and now as her gaze settled on Santa, she was doubting the wisdom of coming here looking for him. Her eyes drifted from where the fur ball of Santa’s pointed cap rested against his broad chest, and then down the velvet suit to his knee-high black boots, but she still couldn’t put her finger on why the man seemed so familiar.

  Rereading the sign announcing that Santa was about to take his scheduled lunch break, she skated her fingers over a red velvet queue rope. Beside her, an old codger dressed as an elf was shooing kids past a photographer and toward a white platform decorated with ice-capped papier-mâché mountains and pathways leading to

  Santa’s throne. After each kid was done talking to Santa, a second elf handed out a photo, which was laminated and attached to a key ring.

  “About time,” Claire suddenly whispered when a twangy voice flowed through the loudspeakers, over the piped-in chorus of “The Little Drummer Boy.” “Luke Lydell,” said the voice, “could you please meet your party near the North Pole?”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have paged him, Claire thought. Just hearing his name made her want to turn tail and head back home to the Stop Awhile, but she desperately needed a seasoned ex-cop now, didn’t she? She simply didn’t have a choice, did she?

  “Darn right, I don’t,” Claire murmured. Right before he’d vanished, Clive had all but called off their wedding, and now Claire needed Luke to help her find him. Oh, Luke acted humble about it, but he reviewed cases for law enforcement agencies, and everybody in Lightning Creek knew that in addition to herding cattle, he’d helped solve murders in both Newcastle and Yellowstone.

  “A reg’lar saddled-up detective,” Ely Brown out at the Stop Awhile had called him. “Git it? Like an armchair detective, Claire, but differ’nt.”

  “I get it, Ely,” Claire had assured him.

  Not that Claire intended to share all the particulars of Clive’s disappearance with Luke, she thought, her face coloring. She’d sooner die than let Luke know that Clive might be rejecting her. At the thought, everything inside her suddenly turned watery and her knees weakened with distress. She knew it was pure foolishness, but Claire couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something wrong with her...something that made men leave.

  Slipping from a too-warm parka, she tugged the braid from beneath her collar and glanced toward the doors. Outside, high winds were blowing snow from drifts, making white clouds of mist roll across the parking lot like tumbleweed in a ghost town. She’d just about frozen stiff out there; the flannel-lined denim shirt she’d pulled on over her jeans and turtleneck should have kept her warm enough, but while the Jeep was great for hauling art supplies, it wasn’t exactly the best insulated vehicle on the road and air had seeped through the cracks.

  “Where are you, Luke,” she whispered, her hands still worrying the rope. Earlier today, while she’d been working in her attic studio at the ranch, the idea of soliciting Luke’s help had come to her in a flash of inspiration, and she’d charged off half-cocked. She just wished they’d spoken since the bachelor auction last summer, but he’d never shown up at the ranch to work for the money Tex donated to Lost Springs, and Claire hadn’t run into him in town. Not that she’d been looking. She’d been an engaged woman, after all. Now, of course, she wasn’t so sure about her status.

  As she kept watching the crowd, she could only hope Luke had forgotten how she’d flung herself at him after the auction. It wasn’t a big deal, anyway. They’d just kissed, and everybody knew kisses came twelve to a dozen.

  “Luke Lydell,” the voice came again. “Your party’s waiting at the North Pole.”

  His party. As if she and Luke were about to have their own private hootenanny. Claire glanced toward Hills Department store, then down the brightly lit corridor leading toward a Christmas tree and food court. Still no Luke. Suddenly getting the strangest feeling that someone was watching her, she darted her eyes to Santa, but he was occupied lifting a little girl onto his lap.

  Glancing away, Claire took in the window displays—the red bows on the spurs and saddles in a tack shop, and the fancy hand-tooled Tony Llama boots brimming with stocking stuffers, then she searched the crowd once more, gazing into the tired but happy faces of ranch folks, some of whom had probably driven hours to do last-minute shopping. After a moment, her eyes settled on a cowboy. Seemingly immune to the harsh winter weather, he wore only a plaid flannel shirt and denim vest, and his work-stained gloves were still stuffed into the back pocket of his Levi’s.

  “Pa!” squealed his daughter, a grade-school girl in pi
nk bib overalls who flew past Claire, pigtails flying. “Do we git to see Santa now? Can we git my picher lam’nated and give Mama a key ring for Chris’mis?”

  The man’s leathery face cracked into a smile. His daughter was obviously the apple of his eye, and his dark, watchful eyes that had seen too much of the world suddenly sparkled like black diamonds. “Yes, indeed, darlin’.”

  As the girl ran toward the long line of kids waiting for Santa, Claire felt a wave of emotion. She’d never forget the long, harsh winters she’d spent on the Stop Awhile when she was a little girl, nor the pent-up excitement brought on by bouts of cabin fever, nor how, every Christmas, Tex and Mama had brought her and her sisters to this mall to see Santa. Back then, Claire couldn’t imagine any city in the world bigger than Casper, Wyoming, and the mall, with its sparkling lights, decorations and toys had been pure magic.

  She squinted. She could swear Santa had been watching her again, but now he was attending to the boy climbing onto his knees. The boy was wearing a red-checkered shirt, black slacks and a western-style hat, and the toy holster slung around his waist came complete with two six-shooters. Claire frowned. Given his age and white-blond hair, the boy reminded her of Brady Spencer at the Lost Springs ranch. Because Brady started school this year, he was coming to a better understanding about why he was at Lost Springs, and he’d become fixated on finding the folks who’d abandoned him. Claire had been doing everything she could to help him. So had Luke, judging by how much Brady talked about him. Now the boy with Santa began talking excitedly, and Claire slipped the camera she always carried from her parka pocket.

  “Mr. Lydell” came the third and final page as she began taking snapshots, “your party is waiting near the North Pole.”

  Luke would wait until two days before Christmas to do his shopping, Claire thought, feeling a sudden rush of pique, and wondering where he was. The guys in the Cross Creek bunkhouse had sworn he was here. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it was entirely Luke’s fault that her own shopping had been finished by August. After seeing him last summer, she’d flung herself into countless activities—Christmas shopping and planning her wedding among them. She’d helped open a hotline for abused women in Casper, too, then she had taken two weeks off from her counseling jobs to drive across the state, taking photographs.