“Way I’m feeling, we might run out of hot water,” he warned.
He was keyed up in a way she hadn’t seen before, but she was feeling the same. Like they needed this intimacy, except there was a near desperate quality to it. Maybe it was a release of tension after the confrontation with their exes. Maybe it was the way they’d been downplaying their relationship so they wouldn’t embarrass the kids. Maybe it was the future demanding to be acknowledged. They couldn’t hide from making decisions any longer. Was this a sexy holiday fling? Or, something real and big and lasting?
Whatever it was, it provoked them into bold caresses. She stroked him with a firm hand, teased him with her body and her mouth, inciting him to dig his fingers into her buttocks and say things to her that were raw and hungry. He barely tempered his strength, like he would bend her to his will if she weren’t already surrendering, but she let him feel her own wiry muscles, as she hooked a leg around his waist and took him into her while the shower rained onto them.
“Fuck, Liz, I want to come,” he groaned against her ear, pumping into her, pushing her toward climax.
“Do it. Now. Deep. Oh God,” she gasped, dying as he pulsed with slick heat, pinning her to the shower tiles with the grind of his hips, extending her pulses of pleasure as he shuddered and bucked with his own.
It was irresponsible, she knew, even while he was still hard inside her, but she had no regrets.
“Santa’s gonna put us on his naughty list,” Blake said, gently drawing back. His gaze was sober, but not regretful.
She pouted and he kissed her, quick and hard, then turned off the shower. When they moved into his bedroom only wearing towels, she glanced at the bed.
“I’d like to do that, too,” he said, catching her wistful desire to crawl between the sheets and avoid looking into the future. “But sweetheart, we should talk.”
She knew he was right, but his grave manner made her afraid. Nodding, she dressed in her pjs, while he pulled on sweats and a T-shirt. When they went downstairs, she asked him if he wanted a hot buttered rum.
He looked up from rebuilding the fire that had gone out. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
A few minutes later, they sat down on the couch with the scent of cloves and cinnamon, steaming rum and honey surrounding them. He’d put on the Christmas carols, their boring ones, but really low. The house creaked and the fire snapped.
The way he lifted an arm so she could cuddle into his side was encouraging, but for a long few minutes, they just sat in silence, watching the fire.
“Do you think Crystal will really try to make a run with Ethan?” she asked, opening the discussion to address the worst possible scenario.
“Who knows? She’s capable of just about anything. But he’s fourteen, not four. I told him that if she tries to take him anywhere, he should get himself to the first cop he sees and tell them I’ve got a missing child report filed on him, because I will have. I’ll let him go anywhere he wants with her, but I have to hear it from him that it’s what he wants. She doesn’t get to make his decisions for him.”
“No, but Blake, if I’m in the way, if what we’re doing is going to cause problems for you and Crystal—”
“Sweetheart, we might have just made a baby tonight. If Crystal doesn’t like it, she can suck it.”
“I’m just saying, if you want me to go . . . ”
“Did it feel like I want you going anywhere when we were upstairs? Geez, Liz, I might have locked us in for life.”
She dipped her chin, looking up at him. “Do you really think it could happen from the once? We’ve been pretty careful all the other times. It took a while both times for Dean to get me pregnant.”
“And apparently I didn’t have to be there at all to get Crystal pregnant,” he said snidely. “I could be shooting blanks for all I know, but we both took a chance up there. I did it consciously and I hope you did, too.”
“I did,” she said, voice wobbling along with her stomach. “It was . . . Blake, I think I’m in love with you.”
“Only think?” he asked, brows coming together in consternation.
“No, I know I do. I love you so much and it’s all happened so fast, I don’t know how to make sense of it.”
“I love you, too,” he told her, cupping her cheek and setting a reverent kiss on her lips.
“But?” she prompted, tensing as she heard it in his voice.
“But I don’t know how to convince you that it’s not for your money. I knew this afternoon that I was going to ask you to marry me—”
“Really?” She blinked eyes that filled so fast it hurt. The colored lights from the tree turned into a smear of reds and blues and greens and starry whites.
“Yes, and I wish you hadn’t thrown that figure at me in the truck, because now you’re going to think that’s what prompted me to propose and I don’t even want to use it, even if you say ‘yes’ because—”
“Oh, shut up, Blake,” she urged, shifting so her knees straddled his thighs and she faced him, eyes to eyes, nose to nose. “I’ve been obsessing for five years that I need to get remarried and have a baby before I turn forty. If I have to buy myself a husband, I will.”
He jerked his head back to search her expression. Conflicting emotions chased across his face. A flicker of doubt disappeared almost before it formed, swept away by something knowing and a bit rueful. “And I suppose you were trapping me with that unprotected sex in the shower?”
“Yes,” she agreed with mock-ferocity. “I am trapping you with a baby, so I can give you all my money. Also, I want to get back at Dean. And I faked my orgasm.”
“You almost had me with getting back at Dean, but faking your orgasm? Liar. I see I’m going to have my hands full.”
“You have your hands full,” she pointed out with a wiggle of her butt in the palms that cupped her cheeks. “Blake, I love this place and want to make it my home. If you want to refuse my money and lose this ranch and we use my money to start over somewhere else, well, we could do that, too. But, it seems to me like you’ll be taking the long road to what you really want.”
He regarded her for a grave minute.
“I know men have pride and it would hurt yours, but everyone knows why you’re in such dire straits and I don’t think they’d look down on you if you let your wife help you keep your home.”
“It would mean that you and Petra would have a stake in this place.”
“Oh, be careful with that,” she said, the memory of property division still a harsh one in her mind. “I mean if something happened to us—”
“No, I know what you mean and we’ve already covered that with Ethan. If he doesn’t survive me, his share comes back to me and Meg. It doesn’t go to Crystal. We’d do the same thing with Pet. I could live with that, if you wanted to invest in this place and help run it. You know, by keeping house and cooking,” he teased, lifting her hips to urge her to lean in and kiss him.
“Right, about that,” she said with a little press of her hands on his shoulders, holding off from sealing the deal. “One more tiny condition.”
He grew wary. “Like what?”
“Hear me out. And by hear me out, I mean my mother and sister and I will put together a proper business plan and you have to give it serious consideration. Not just reject us out of hand, but give us a genuine opportunity to convince you that the spa could pay—”
He began shaking his head.
“No, listen. You have to let us give you a solid proposal. We would invest and if we lost money, that would be our problem, not yours.”
“No one in this town has the kind of money you want to charge,” he protested.
“I know, but our existing clients do. If we had a very exclusive location for a weekend spa getaway, offered door to door travel service to bring them here, maybe developed a couple’s retreat, where the husband can go fishing, while the wife comes here for a full day of pampering . . . I’ve checked out one of the hotels in town and there’s that nice B and B on
the river . . . It would be different from what we’ve always done, but not too different. Plus, it would bring money into the community overall, not just this ranch, Blake. I haven’t worked out all the details, but I will. And you will look it over as a serious rental agreement that will require strangers on your property, but otherwise is not your responsibility in any way. Obviously, I’d manage it and take bookings around what works for us. You only have to agree to consider it, not to do it.”
“And if I refuse after I read the business proposal, that’s the last word on the subject,” he warned.
“If you say no, then I find another location in town for something similar, but I’d rather do it here and give you the income. Cash hoarder,” she added with a sheepish shrug and a point at her chest.
“You’re that serious? You’d leave the ranch to go into work every day . . . ”
At her nod, he made a face, indicating he didn’t like that idea.
“If I had to,” she said, not letting her smug smile show, but it was audible in her voice as she said, “If you decide you don’t want me here.”
“I want you here, Liz.” His hands slid to her waist and behind her back, tilting her forward. “I want you here for the rest of our lives.”
She slid her arms around his neck and fell into their kiss. Agreeing. Smiling, as he tilted her onto her back on the sofa cushions and rolled onto her.
“Sure we won’t be interrupted this time?”
“Shh, listen,” he murmured, canting his head.
She did, hearing the opening strains of I’ll Be Home for Christmas starting.
“Welcome home, Liz,” he said, kissing her tenderly.
She hugged him tightly, eyes stinging, heart soaring. “Best Christmas ever.”
Chapter Ten
‡
Two years and three days later . . .
“What time is Auntie Meg going to be here?” Ethan asked.
“Not for a while. She said we can start without her,” Blake said.
Ethan gave a little fist pump and plucked the stockings off their nails on the mantel, reading as he went. “Dad, Petra, Mama Liz, Me and . . . What’s this one say? Lulu,” he said, pointing at the Lucy scrolled across the cuff.
“No, stay here with me. I’m going to help you open it,” Petra said, catching her little sister back into the hole made by her crossed legs, as she sat on the floor by the tree. “Look. What’s this?” she said, distracting the toddler with what was inside the sock.
Liz handed Blake his coffee shot with a tablespoon of Baileys, something Meg had made them that first year. That Christmas morning had outshone any in Liz’s lifetime, marred only by the late afternoon delivery of the kids for their Christmas dinner with the Flowers, but such was life. She would always prefer to have the kids with her and would always have to share them.
Petra and Ethan, anyway. Lucy was all theirs.
She cuddled into Blake, smiling at their daughter, who soaked up her older sibling’s attention like Montana soaked up snow in the spring. Last year, Lucy hadn’t noticed that the teens had gone to their other parents’, but next year she might, which made this one, when they could all be together, extra-special.
Ethan unwrapped some earbuds he’d wanted and said, “Thanks Santa.”
Blake pulled out the sunglasses Liz had bought him. They weren’t expensive, but they were just like the pair he had, yet constantly misplaced. “Getting tired of me asking where they are?” he asked.
“One pair in the truck, one in the barn. If you still can’t keep track, I’m putting one in my purse.”
It was the kind of small extravagance she’d learned he could live with. Replacing his old furniture with the newer stuff she already owned had been okay, but he hadn’t wanted her to spend a bunch of money on brand new. Most of her things fit really well in this house, anyway. She’d painted when they first moved in, and had moved the faded snapshots to the wall of the loft, so she could put out current snapshots of their blended family down here. A new area rug and an update on the window treatments had been a little wedding gift to herself.
As for the actual wedding, they’d held it in the toboggan bowl in June, when the hills had been covered in wild flowers. She’d been quite pregnant by then, having conceived in the shower as they’d both anticipated. When she’d gone into labor, the kids had heard about it through the town grapevine and left class to wait at the hospital, until Blake emerged from the delivery room with the news they had a little sister.
Blake pulled the receipt from his stocking and gave it a little crumple, then set it on the coffee table.
“Wait—” Liz said, reaching for it.
“Right. Lucy will eat it. I keep forgetting she can reach now. Bud, throw that in the fire, would you?” Blake said, leaning forward to hand it to Ethan.
“Wait!” Liz insisted, holding out her hand for Ethan to give it back. “I put it in there on purpose. You were supposed to look at it.”
“Oh,” Blake smirked sheepishly. “Thought you just forgot it in there, or something. But what’s it for? Something expensive? Is this a confession?” He uncrumpled the strip of paper with the local drugstore’s logo on the top and her scribbled words, You did it again, sport.
The receipt clearly stated the brand name of the pregnancy test.
“Seriously,” he asked, rueful, pleased grin growing. “You bought this in town? Where everyone could see what you were buying?”
“Give ’em something to talk about, right? Cashier was that friend of Nola’s.”
“What is it?” Petra asked.
Blake passed it across, then scooped Liz close, kissing her soundly.
“You’re pregnant? Mom that’s so great! Lucy! You get a baby brother or sister too!”
Ethan fist-bumped his Dad, then smoothed out the paper, setting it on the bough of the tree high enough his baby sister wouldn’t reach it. The whole tree was pretty naked around the bottom branches.
“Well, that trumps my gift,” Blake grumbled good-naturedly, but urged her to fish around in her stocking for the wrapped box around the fun little nail polish and tights that Petra had slipped in there along with candies and treats the men had bought.
It was a pretty fancy wrap job. Professional. Like jewelry, Liz thought, fingers going nerveless as she worked to open the little box.
It was! The diamond ring glittered like a Christmas star. “Blake!” she gasped, looking from the ring to him and back, unable to compute how this had happened. She didn’t want to ask how, but she had to ask, “Why?”
“You don’t have an engagement ring,” he said with a hint of the dented pride he’d worn that first year they’d been together, as they’d liquidated so many of her assets and leveled out his finances. This last year, the ranch’s returns had been ‘not terrible,’ in his words, and she had as much confidence as any rancher could have that in five years they’d be fairly comfortable.
“It’s beautiful and I will wear it,” she told him, because as dumbfounded as she was, there was no way she would reject something that had to be a huge sacrifice for him. “But you really didn’t need to. I like your mom’s wedding ring and being married to you is everything I’ve ever wanted or needed. This is pure spoiling.”
“Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any kind of mad money and it’s thanks to you that I do. And what else was I going to do with that rent money for the spa building? It didn’t feel right to put it into the ranch. I’ve been cashing every check and taking the money straight over to the jewelers,” he said. “I’ve had this on layaway since the day after I proposed.”
“Blake.” She wanted to laugh and call him a squirrel for cash, same as her, but she was too touched. Hormones, she thought. Or the season, which made her emotional now, because it was her very favorite time of year, when she became sentimental and easily moved to tears.
Except, really, it was him. He made her fall in love with him all over again, every single day.
Throwing hersel
f into his arms, she hugged him tight. “Best Christmas ever.”
The End
The Montana Born Christmas Series
If you enjoyed Blame the Mistletoe, you’ll love the other Montana Born Christmas stories!
Mistletoe Wedding by Melissa McClone
Pre-order it now!
Her Mistletoe Cowboy by Alissa Callen
Pre-order it now!
Cowboy, It’s Cold Outside by Katherine Garbera
Pre-order it now!
About the Author
After twenty-five years of writing and submitting, Dani Collins won the 2013 Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best First In Series from Romantic Times Book Reviews. Known mostly for her emotional, passionate Harlequin Presents, she has also published a hilarious romantic comedy, an epic medieval fantasy romance, and a pair of extremely erotic erotic romances. Dani writes anything, so long as it’s romance.
Keep up with Dani on these links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads and Join Dani’s Newsletter to be notified when a new book comes out.
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Blame the Mistletoe (Montana Born Christmas Book 1) Page 11
