A Maverick for the Holidays

by Leanne Banks

  After the meeting ended, Forrest mulled over the possibility. Was it crazy for him to believe he could build a life with Angie? His heart began to pound in his chest. Would she be able to handle his PTSD? He remembered the night they’d shared. She hadn’t seemed terrified. She’d been concerned, but she hadn’t wanted him to leave. She’d wanted him to stay.

  Walking to his truck, he sat down and tried to figure what to do. He had to see Angie and try to explain. He had to see her so he could tell her that he loved her.

  * * *

  Angie put on Christmas music after she arrived home. She also heated the spiced apple cider she’d picked up at the grocery store. If she surrounded herself with the sights, sounds and scents of the season, she hoped she would feel a lot more jolly. She’d been hoping and wishing that Forrest would reconsider and come back to her, but with each passing day, her hope dimmed a little more.

  Deliberately pushing the thought from her mind, she decided to put out a few more Christmas decorations. She pulled out a ceramic Santa candy holder and rummaged in her cabinet to put some treats into Santa’s bag. “Ho, ho, ho,” she said and smiled as she remembered how much she’d enjoyed stealing a few pieces of candy from this same Santa when she was much younger.

  The doorbell rang and she lowered the volume of the Christmas music. Wondering who it was, she walked to the door and was shocked to find Forrest standing on her front porch. She threw opened the door and stared at him. “Hi,” she managed to say through the suddenly tight feeling in her throat.

  “Hi, Angie,” he said, and she noticed he carried a small colorful gift bag. “I hope it’s okay that I didn’t call first. I wanted to bring you an early Christmas gift.”

  “You didn’t have to bring me a gift,” she said.

  “Yes, I did,” Forrest said. “Can I come in?”

  Confused, but thrilled to see him, she stepped aside for him to enter. “Sure. Would you like some spiced cider?”

  “Not really,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  Her stomach jumped with nerves. He seemed so intent and focused. She was afraid of being hurt again. He’d already broken up with her. What else could he do? she reminded herself. “Okay,” she said and led the way to the sofa.

  He sat next to her and gave her the gift bag. “I’d like you to open this.”

  Still confused, but curious, she opened the bag and pulled out a beautiful ceramic ornament of a prince and princess. “It’s lovely. What made you choose this for me?” she asked, even more curious now that she’d seen the gift.

  “There’s a story that goes with this ornament. There was once a beautiful princess and a man who wanted to be her prince. The man looked like a prince on the outside, but on the inside he felt like a frog, or worse, a beast. He was sure that he wasn’t worthy of her and he was afraid that, once the princess saw his true form, her love would tarnish.”

  Angie knew that Forrest was talking about himself and her as his princess. She put her hand on his. “I see you for who you really are, Forrest.”

  He took a deep breath. “Let me finish. The princess told the prince that her love was everlasting, regardless of the prince’s ultimate form. And the prince believed her. And she made him want to believe in fairy tales and happy endings.”

  “And how does the story end?” she asked.

  “The story isn’t over yet,” Forrest said, taking her hands in his. “You and I get to write this ending. But I’ll tell you what I do know. I’m sorry for hurting you. I love you and I never want you to doubt how I feel about you. I have more surgeries to face and I jump at loud sounds sometimes. I don’t have nightmares every night, but I have them every now and then. I’m no bargain right now,” he said. “But I can’t turn away from the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Angie’s eyes welled with tears. She had only dreamed of Forrest confessing his love to her. She almost couldn’t believe her ears. “Forrest, I love you too and I don’t ever want you to doubt that.”

  “It won’t always be easy,” he said.

  “I know that,” she said and lifted her hand to his strong jaw. “But we are so much better together than we are apart. You are my special someone.”

  “For a while, I didn’t believe there was a special someone for me. You’ve changed my mind.”

  “Oh, Forrest,” she said and put her arms around his neck. He pulled her against him in the most wonderful embrace she’d ever experienced. Then he lowered his head and kissed her. The raw emotion in his caress made her cry.

  He pulled back and touched her wet cheek. “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m so happy,” she said. “You’ve made me so happy.”

  “I’m just getting started,” Forrest said.

  She looked down at the ornament. “Let’s hang it on the tree,” she said. “It will be my most precious ornament because it will remind me of your love for me.”

  They both rose and hung the ornament on the front of the tree.

  “Can you stay awhile?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You might have a hard time kicking me out.”

  “There’s no danger of that,” she said.

  “I’ll build a fire,” he said.

  “I’ll get the cider and some cookies,” she said.

  Moments later, they settled in front of the fire and Angie leaned her back against Forrest’s chest. She felt him sigh in contentment and the sound rippled through her. He was such an incredible man. She wanted him to never forget it. She wanted him to know that he could count on her.

  He nuzzled her neck and she felt a rush of sensual awareness. Turning to face him, she met his gaze. “Do you know what I’ve never done?” she asked with a smile.

  “What?” he asked, pushing a strand of hair from her face.

  “I’ve never made love in front of a fire,” she said.

  His dark eyes lit with twin flames. “Is that so?”

  She nodded.

  “I can help you take care of that,” he said and pulled her on top of him. He took her mouth in a deep kiss that seemed to go on forever. She just knew she didn’t want him to stop. “You feel so good,” she whispered when he pulled back for air. “Your mouth, your chest, your—” She paused. “Your everything.”

  He smiled at her words. “Your everything feels good to me, too,” he said and slid his hands beneath her sweater. Everywhere he touched her, her skin heated. When he removed her sweater and his shirt, she moaned at the sensation of his hard chest against her breasts. When he pushed aside the rest of their clothes, she wanted him inside her immediately.

  But he seemed determined to take his time with her, teasing and taunting her in the best way possible. Finally, he positioned her on top of him and eased her down onto him. It was the most glorious sensation she’d ever had. He guided her in a rhythm that made her feel a little crazy.

  It didn’t take long before she felt herself going over the edge, and he followed right after. Angie sank onto his chest and struggled to catch her breath. “Being with you was so good the first time, but it’s even better knowing that we love each other.”

  He nodded. “You are a dream come true, Angie. My dream come true,” he said.

  “And you’ll always be my hero,” she said. “Forever.”

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss

  THE MAVERICK’S CHRISTMAS HOMECOMING

  by Teresa Southwick,

  the next installment in

  MONTANA MAVERICKS: BACK IN THE SADDLE!

  On sale December 2012,

  wherever Harlequin books are sold.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of Real Vintage Maverick by Marie Ferrarella!

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  Chapter One

  It happened too quickly for him to even think about it.

  One minute, in a moment of exasperated desperation—because he hadn’t yet bought a gift for Caroline’s birthday—Cody found himself walking into the refurbished antique store that had, up until a few months ago, been called The Tattered Saddle.

  The next minute, he was hurrying across the room and managed—just in time—to catch the young woman who was tumbling off a ladder.

  Before he knew it, his arms were filled with the soft curves of the same young woman.

  She smelled of lavender and vanilla, nudging forth a sliver of a memory he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

  That was the way Cody remembered it when he later looked back on the way his life had taken a dramatic turn toward the better that fateful morning.

  When he’d initially walked by the store’s show window, Cody had automatically looked in. The shop appeared to be in a state of semi-chaos, but it still looked a great deal more promising than when that crazy old coot Jasper Fowler ran it.

  Cody vaguely recalled hearing that the man hadn’t really been interested in making any sort of a go of the shop. The whole place had actually just been a front for a money-laundering enterprise. At any rate, the antique shop had been shut down and boarded up in January, relegated to collecting even more dust than it had displayed when its doors had been open to the public.

  What had caught his eye was the notice Under new ownership in the window and the store’s name—The Tattered Saddle—had been crossed out. But at the moment, there was no new name to take its place. He had wondered if that was an oversight or a ploy to draw curious customers into the shop.

  Well, if it was under new ownership, maybe that meant that there was new old merchandise to choose from. And that, in turn, might enable him to find something for his sister here. As he recalled, Caroline was into old things. Things that other people thought of as junk and wanted to discard, his sister saw potential and promise in.

  At least it was worth a shot, Cody told himself. He had tried the doorknob and found that it gave under his hand. Turning it, he had walked in.

  Glancing around, his eyes were instantly drawn to the tall, willowy figure on the other side of the room. She was wearing a long, denim-colored skirt and her shirt was more or less the same color. The young woman was precariously perched on the top step of a ladder that appeared to be none too steady.

  What actually caught his attention was not that she looked like an accident waiting to happen as she stretched her taut frame out, trying to reach something that was on a higher shelf, but that with her long, straight brown hair hanging loose about her back and shoulders, for just an instant, she reminded him of Renee.

  A feeling of déjà vu seized him and for a moment, his breath caught in his throat.

  Balancing herself on tiptoes, Catherine Clifton, the former Tattered Saddle’s determined new owner, automatically turned around when she heard the little bell over the front door ring. She hadn’t anticipated any customers coming in until the store’s grand reopening. That wasn’t for a couple more days at the very least. Most likely a couple of weeks. And only if she could come up with a new name for the place.

  “We’re not open for business yet,” Catherine called out.

  The next thing out of her mouth was an involuntary shriek because she’d lost her footing on the ladder and both she and the ladder were heading for a collision with the wooden floor.

  The ladder landed with a clatter.

  Catherine, fortunately, did not.

  She was saved from what could have been a very bruising fate by the very person she’d just politely banished from the premises.

  Landing in the cowboy’s strong, capable arms knocked the air out of her and, along with it, anything else she might have said at that moment.

  Which was just as well because she would have hated coming across like some blithering idiot. But right now, not a single coherent thought completed itself in her head. It was filled with just scattered words and a myriad of sensations.

  Hot sensations.

  Everything had faded into the background and Catherine was instantly and acutely aware of the man whose arms she’d landed in. The broad-shouldered, green-eyed, sandy-haired cowboy held her as if she weighed no more than a small child. The muscles on his bare arms didn’t even appear to be straining.

  A tingling sensation danced through Catherine’s entire body, which was stubbornly heating up despite all of her attempts to bank the sensation—and her reaction to the man—down.

  Her valiant efforts to the contrary, for just a moment, it felt as if time had stood still, freezing this moment as it simultaneously bathed her in a heretofore never experienced, all but debilitating, feeling of desire. For two cents proper, using the excuse that this rugged-looking cowboy had saved her, she would have kissed him. With feeling.

  Catherine could absolutely visualize herself kissing him.

  The fact that he was a complete stranger was neither here nor there as far as she was concerned. Desire, she discovered at that moment, didn’t have to make sense. It could thrive very well without even so much as a lick of sense to it.

  And for no particular reason at all, it occurred to her that this man looked like the real deal. A cowboy. A real vintage cowboy.

  Was he? Or had she managed to bump her head without knowing it and was just hallucinating?

  Their eyes met and held for a timeless instance. Only the pounding of Catherine’s heart finally managed to sufficiently rouse her.

  “Thank you,” she finally whispered.

  Doing his best to focus and gather his exceedingly scattered wits about him, Cody heard himself asking, “For what?”

  Catherine let out a long, shaky breath before answering. “For catching me.”

  “Oh.” Of course that was what she meant. What did he think she meant? Cody nodded his head. “Yeah. Right.”

  The words emerged one at a time, each containing a sealed thought. Thoughts he couldn’t begin to convey, or even understand.

  Cody cleared his throat, then realized that he was still holding the woman in his arms. He should have already released her.

  Feeling awkward—he hadn’t spontaneously reacted to a woman in this manner since his wife had died—he set her down. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be,” she told him. “I’m not.” I’m not sorry at all. “If you hadn’t caught me just then, I might have broken something—either some of the merchandise or, worse, one of my bones.”

  The fact that if he hadn’t come in just now, her attention wouldn’t have been thrown off and she very well could have remained perched on the ladder was a point Catherine had no desire to bring up. Thinking of him as her hero was far more pleasant.

  Rather than comment, the tall cowboy merely nodded his head in acknowledgment. At the same time, he began to back away.

  “Didn’t mean to trespass,” he murmured by way of an apology. He reached behind him for the doorknob, ready to make his getaway.

  “You’re not trespassing,” Catherine was quick to protest. She didn’t have the heart to chase out someone who could actually buy something in the store. “It’s just that I haven’t exactly gotten the store ready for customers yet. But you can stay if you like.”

  If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that her tone was almost urging him to stay. And she had shifted her body so that she was now standing between him and the front door.

  Cody glanced around the store, still mulling over her initial protest. “Looks okay to me,” he told her. “Actually, it looks a mite better than it us
ed to look when that old guy owned it.”

  Catherine was eager to bring out the shop’s better features and play them up so that she could attract actual customers rather than just the pitying or dismissive glances that the store had been garnering before she’d bought it. After the former owner had kidnapped Rose Traub, the people in Thunder Canyon had deliberately shunned the store. And from what she’d heard, before then the clientele was almost as ancient as some of the antiques that were housed here. She wanted to change that as well. She wanted all age-groups to have a reason to drop by and browse.

  Fowler wasn’t in the picture anymore, having been sent to prison, and the shop was something that she wanted to take on as a project, something that belonged to her exclusively. After a lifetime of being the go-to person, the main caregiver in a family of eight and always putting everyone else’s needs ahead her own, it occurred to Catherine that time—and life—was slipping by her. She needed to make her own way before she woke up one morning to discover that she was no longer young, no longer able to grab her slice of the pie that life had to offer.

  Since this sexy-looking cowboy seemed familiar with the way the store had been before she’d taken over, Catherine made a natural assumption and asked, “Did you come in here often when Mr. Fowler owned it?”

  “No,” he told her honestly. Antiques had never held any interest for him. And they still didn’t, except that he knew his sister liked them. “But I walked by the store whenever I was in town and I’d look in.”

  Mild curiosity was responsible for that. He might not look it, but Cody had made a point of always taking in all of his surroundings. It kept him from being caught off guard—the way he had when Renee had become ill.

  “Oh,” Catherine murmured. All right, the place had held no real attraction for him, at least it hadn’t before. But he’d walked in this morning. Something had obviously changed. “Well, what made you come in today?”

  She glanced over her shoulder to see if there was anything unusual out on display that might have caught the cowboy’s eye. But nothing stood out for her.

  Cody wasn’t sure what this gregarious woman was fishing for, but he could only tell her the truth. “I’m looking for a present for my sister. Her birthday’s coming up and I need to get something into the mail soon if it’s going to get there in time.”