Cowboy SEAL Christmas

by Nicole Helm

  “N-no.”

  He cocked his head as if he’d scored some point. “Then what is it?” he asked all innocence and utter bullshit.

  She lifted her chin. Maybe she’d blush or stutter, but she wouldn’t slink away like a coward. “An observation.”

  “You haven’t taken me up on any of my innuendo, Monica. Why would I act on it if you didn’t want me to? Because I’ve routinely asked if you want me to, and your answer is always no. So, until it’s yes…”

  He shrugged, and it was as if the smart, rational part of herself died—or at the very least passed out completely—because she moved forward. As close as they’d been when they’d been dancing, and she tilted her head, so she could meet his dark, glittering gaze, and she said the craziest word she’d likely ever said in her life.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 11

  A simple, one-syllable word, and it cracked through him like an explosive.

  Yes.

  He wanted to taste the S sound on her mouth, wanted to hear that yes a few more hundred times, and he wanted her.

  But her kid was there, and she’d guessed too much with all her obnoxious questions. She’d brought up old ghosts, no matter how half-formed, and there was some awful, dark piece of him that wanted her to hurt the way that he did.

  “You think I’m going to make you a real girl?”

  She didn’t wilt or wither. She held his gaze, and though the color was still high on her cheeks, everything about that expression was a shade too close to patronizing for his peace of mind.

  “I said yes, Gabe. What’s the excuse now? First it was my profession, then it was my consent. So, what’s the next one?”

  He could use the kid. Probably effectively too. Colin might be the soundest sleeper in the world, but what mom wanted her kid to accidentally wake up in the middle of anything, well… But she was making his excuses—even valid ones like Colin—feel cowardly.

  He wouldn’t let her turn him into a coward. He wanted her, and maybe there were a million reasons not to have her, but what did they matter? She was close and challenging and, hell, something like a kiss might even get this whole needling, persistent want out of his system.

  Seemed like a long shot, but sometimes long shots worked out.

  He reached out to take one of those flyaway strands of hair between his fingers, and her breath caught. He forgot all about caution or cowardice or long shots. There was only the silky feel of her hair between his fingers, the reddish tint to her mouth, the way the dark green of her silky dress made her skin look like untouchable marble.

  He was so tired of all the things in his life he wasn’t supposed to touch, to get.

  So he touched. His fingers tracing the line of her neck, up to that stubborn jaw that somehow haunted him even before he’d admitted to himself he could be haunted.

  Her shuddery sigh washed over him like an order. Carry on. Which was a command not to rush, but to continue the job you were doing. Right and thoroughly. He brushed his thumb across her lower lip, lingered there in the corner of her mouth as his body tightened and whispered, More. Now.

  But he knew a little something about delayed gratification, about withstanding the worst kind of bodily torture. He’d withstood the sea, pushing his body to every possible limit. He’d withstand this pleasant torture, the one that promised sweet release.

  He let go of her hair slowly. He curled his fingers around her waist, so he could pull her flush against him. His hand, right there, felt as if it belonged against her waist, his fingers printed with some perfect code that unlocked her, and everything clicked into place.

  Them together.

  “This dress is torture,” he muttered, because it was all smooth silk, like he imagined her skin would be underneath.

  “T-torture. How?” she asked, just enough breathless to make him grin.

  He dragged his fingers from her mouth, down her jaw and neck, until they brushed against the silky strap of her dress. Then he traced the line of the dress, down her chest, to the center drop. Modest, really, but she made a sound, close to a squeak but softer.

  He hadn’t thought anything in his body could get tighter, harder, and yet that sound moved everything a notch closer to a breaking moment. Still he stood there, holding her against him, nothing more than featherlight touches and the feel of her chest moving against his when she took a deep, hitching breath.

  There was some twisted part of him that missed this challenge, this painful, bruising assault of holding yourself in an uncomfortable position for an impossible amount of time.

  So he lowered his head only incrementally, memorizing the way dark and light blue threaded through the irises of her eyes, the tiny mole she had just at the top of her cheekbone, the way her chin nearly formed a sharp point. Until their mouths were only a whisper apart. He wasn’t sure a piece of paper could fit in that tiny, minuscule separation. He reveled in the want and need and anticipation of that separation.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered before closing that last speck of distance herself.

  He might have grinned at that, but her mouth was on his. Soft and insistent, sweet and perfect. She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer, and she became the world. A softer world than he thought existed.

  Her mouth was like the silk under his palms, her taste sweeter than summer honey. Everything centered here, at the slide of her tongue and the heat of her mouth and her arms banded around his neck as if she’d never let go.

  It spiraled through him, desire, need. Hers. His. All mixed into a million things he didn’t usually let himself feel, let alone swamp him. He pulled her bottom lip between his teeth until she moaned against him and…hell. Hell.

  It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t possibly ever be enough, and he wanted to drown in the sweet torture of that knowledge.

  But there was just enough reason somewhere inside him to remember Colin was around here, sleeping or not, and hiking up Monica’s skirt was very off-limits as long as that was the case.

  He didn’t let her go, didn’t try to unwind himself from the tight grip of her arms, but he did edge his mouth away from hers.

  “W-wow,” she breathed against his cheek.

  He grinned, because if he didn’t, she might see the way she’d flipped his world on its very axis. “Did you just say wow?”

  She pulled her arms away from him, stepping out of the circle of his embrace. It was like watching her come back to herself. “No. No. I did not… No.” She shook her head, though she pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

  Sometimes he liked every damn thing about her. “Oh, you said wow.”

  She dropped her hand, smoothing it over her dress, but there was a slight upward curve to her mouth. “I most certainly did not. I was just breathing.”

  “Breathing wow.”

  She glared at him, but that glare was undercut by her failure to scowl. “Fine. Maybe I was.”

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “It was a little wow.”

  “A little.” She scoffed. “Well, maybe for you. Maybe you always go around kissing women like that,” she muttered.

  “I don’t.” Which he hadn’t precisely meant to say. There was something to be said for a little mystery, for a woman to think you weren’t quite as impressed as you were. But he couldn’t force that kind of lie with Monica.

  She blinked once, then looked down at her clasped hands. “Well.” She looked all too pleased, and he wanted to gather her up and tell her a million more things that would put that look on her face and…

  Well, he needed to get his shit together. Clearly.

  She cleared her throat, those hands still clasped, but when she looked up at him, she was all calm, cool Monica. “I just need to make one thing clear.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you’re not interested in therapy—”<
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  It was a sledgehammer to all the warm, soft feelings he should have known better than to have. “Christ, Monica.”

  “But, just so you know, this means even if you changed your mind, I wouldn’t be available for that.”

  He stared down at her, and maybe he shouldn’t be shocked or hurt. Maybe he should have expected that.

  But he hadn’t.

  * * *

  Monica had known he wouldn’t love that, but well, this was complicated, and some things needed to be clear. Just so they could… Well, she wasn’t sure what the next step was after kissing.

  Oh, you know. Except it was hard to imagine more than that kiss when it still had her unsteady on her feet and her lips were practically throbbing from the attention. Years. Nearly a decade since someone had kissed her like that, and back then she’d been too young and dumb to really appreciate it.

  But, oh, all these years later, she could appreciate it. She could damn near cry over how good it felt and how much more she wanted. Not here and now, certainly not with Colin sleeping right in the same room, but maybe this was a step toward…

  Except Gabe was standing there, his expression morphing from confusion, to shock, to fury. And then to that distanced blankness she’d never seen anyone have perfected so well as he did.

  This was not good.

  “You should go,” he said flatly.

  Clearly, she hadn’t said it right. Or maybe she needed to explain more. Yes, just a few more words, and he’d see. “Don’t be irritated with me. That is my role here. It’s not an insult to you or anything. It’s my job. I just had to say that, so it was clear.”

  “Oh, it’s clear,” he said bitterly, turning away from her. “I can carry Colin to your truck.”

  “Gabe.” But he was striding over to Colin’s sleeping form, then easing the boy gently off the bale.

  “Gabe,” she repeated, but he kept moving, and she found she didn’t have any more words. She didn’t understand this. Didn’t understand him.

  As though Colin weighed nothing, Gabe held him with one arm and grabbed his coat from the peg near the door. Then without any gentleness, he tossed hers at her.

  She glared at him as he draped Colin’s coat over his shoulders. Colin yawned sleepily into Gabe’s shoulder and that…hurt somehow. Dug deep and hard in painful places she didn’t want to go.

  “We should talk about this.”

  “You made yourself clear, Monica. So very clear. What’s there to talk about?” With that, he opened the barn door and stepped out into night. She hurried after him, grabbing her purse before she followed him outside. His long strides in the snow made it hard to catch up. She grabbed the hem of her dress and held it up, so it wouldn’t drag through the snow.

  It was freezing, but Gabe walked the distance to her truck as though coatless in Montana in the middle of December was anywhere near sensible or comfortable.

  “Unlock,” he ordered.

  She wanted to be contrary, but it was too cold to. She hit the unlock button on her key chain.

  He opened the door and deposited Colin in the passenger seat. Colin blinked blearily at Gabe and yawned.

  “Night, runt,” he muttered before gently closing the door.

  Monica shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat, letting the dress fall. “You misunderstood something if you’re acting like this,” she said. “I only meant—”

  “I know what you meant, Monica,” he said so damn dismissively. “You meant, Crap, I kissed the poor sap who needs therapy. Better explain to him how—”

  “I don’t think you, any of you, are poor saps. I respect you. All of you. I told you that.”

  “Well, why don’t you tell me that when you’re ready for your actions to back up those words?”

  “Well, why don’t you tell me when you’re ready to have an adult conversation instead of a knee-jerk, worst-case scenario reaction to every damn thing I say?”

  He gave her a little mock salute. “Will do, Doc.”

  Oh, she could just punch him. But it wouldn’t do any damage, so she whirled around and stomped to the driver’s side of her truck. “Fuck you, Gabe.”

  He had no retort to that, but then again, he was already halfway back to the barn and might not have even heard her. She thought of yelling it after him, but from a look into the truck, where the dome light was on from her opening the driver’s side door, she could see Colin’s concerned expression.

  Crap.

  Fixing a bland expression on her face, she slid into the driver’s seat. She started the car, urging the heater to fire up, urging her boiling temper to calm.

  Great, amazing, soul-flipping kiss followed by irritating, purposeful misunderstanding argument. It was so very Gabe Cortez, all in all, why should she be surprised?

  “Mom?”

  “What?”

  Colin was silent for a while. “You said the f-word.”

  “Yes, I did.” She let out a sigh and glanced over at Colin. It was not the gleeful pointing out of swearing he usually did when she slipped up. He was concerned. Worried. And he was looking back in the direction of Revival.

  She pushed the truck into drive and started down the hill. It was only a short drive home to their cabin over on Shaw property, so she didn’t have time to really think things through. But she had to reassure Colin that nothing he’d witnessed was going to alter his life.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness Gabe and me fight,” she said sincerely, because she was. She hated that she’d let anger and hurt and who knew what all take over when Colin was within witnessing distance. “We both let our tempers get the better of us. I’m sure we’ll work things out so we’re friendly again.” She wasn’t that sure, but she’d at least pretend for Colin’s sake, and Gabe probably would too. “Nothing Gabe and I argue about will change your relationship with him. I will always find a way to be friends with him for you.”

  Because as much as she wanted to throttle him, he was a good man, and Colin had developed an attachment. She wouldn’t end that for Colin no matter what she felt.

  Maybe Gabe was right. Maybe they had the same exact problem. Her actions didn’t back up her words, and neither did his.

  She wasn’t particularly proud of that, and if she analyzed it closely, which she’d been avoiding doing for something like months, she realized far too late what that was.

  Not a mask, not a boundary, but a deflection. A protection. He’d kissed her, and she’d felt utterly powerless, so she’d used her position to get some of that power back. She’d used it to protect herself and the weakness she’d felt in allowing it to happen.

  That was wrong. Utterly wrong. But how did you right a thing you hadn’t even been aware you’d been doing? And for how long?

  Colin yawned, leaning his head against the door. “I like Gabe,” he murmured sleepily. “I wish he was around us more.”

  Monica stared hard at the road, ignoring the tears stinging her eyes. “I like Gabe, too,” she replied.

  But she didn’t know how to navigate him, and she didn’t know how to let herself go enough to let there be no navigation.

  Chapter 12

  Gabe did his regular chores the following morning, and for the first time since winter had struck hard and vicious, he was glad for the icy bite. The relentless, stinging discomfort of it all. It felt right. So did swinging the little pickax and breaking the ice of the water tanks.

  He’d decided to shovel out around the tanks too. It wasn’t expressly necessary, but he needed the hard kind of physical labor involved in chipping away at inches of trodden snow and ice.

  When Jack appeared sometime around lunch looking happy as a damn clam, Gabe realized the morning of hard labor hadn’t done a whole lot to work him out of his mood.

  He parked the UTV in the stables and glared at Jack’s approaching form.

 
“Where’ve you been?”

  Jack frowned and stepped into the stables with him. “Doctor’s appointment. I told you that yesterday. Rose and I found out the sex of the baby this morning.”

  A bunch of words he didn’t want to think too deeply on. “Oh. Right. Well, I chopped the ice, fed all these guys. Probably going to need to hay the north pasture, then I might take on the roof patching here.”

  When Jack didn’t say anything, Gabe glanced over at him.

  “Not curious about the baby?” Jack said in a what the hell tone that had Gabe wincing.

  “Ah, right, yeah. Baby. So, what’s it going to be?”

  Jack dug something out of his coat pocket. One of those black-and-white ultrasound things people were supposed to ooh and aah over. Mom had shoved three in his face, and Gabe hadn’t known what to do back then when he’d been a lonely, isolated teen. He really didn’t know what to do about them now.

  “A girl,” Jack said, foisting the picture at him. “We’re having a girl.”

  Gabe took the proffered picture, though it looked mostly like blobs with a little arrow at something that was supposed to be proof of a girl.

  A little baby girl. Jack and Rose’s baby girl. Blob or not, those words certainly made it all so real. Too real. Time marching on. People moving on. Building things and lives, and here he was doing what exactly?

  Hiding from all that. What else was there to do? Face it? How did you face that kind of promise? That kind of possibility?

  He handed Jack the picture and grinned. “Let me be the first to suggest the name Gabriella.” He went to grab the pitchfork he’d need to loosen up the hay.

  “We talked about it.”

  Gabe nearly dropped the pitchfork as he whirled to face Jack, because Jack was not joking. That voice was all serious, and Jack just wasn’t that good of an actor.

  “Gabriella Alexandra Armstrong has a nice enough ring. Rose can’t name her after any of her sisters because it’d only be confusing or someone would get jealous, so she said. She suggested this.”