Her Mistletoe Cowboy

by Alissa Callen

  Chapter Two

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  She was only staying for one night.

  It didn’t matter how much Rhett repeated the thought on the walk from the main ranch house to his log cabin, the tension constricting his ribs refused to ease. His self-preservation had already earmarked Ivy’s pretty face and strong spirit as a distraction. A distraction he simply couldn’t have. He had to remain focused on the end game. He had a new ranch to establish and a deathbed promise to honor.

  It also didn’t seem to matter how casual he kept their banter as they collected Ivy’s bag from her car, the closer they walked to his house the more the spark in her eyes dimmed. She was running on empty. He needed to get her and Milly inside, get them warm and fed and ignore the voice that said to load them into his pickup and head to his family ranch where Peta and Kendall would take over.

  After all, it was only one night.

  But as he opened the side door to his cabin he couldn’t let go of the feeling he was opening the door into his life.

  “Thanks,” Ivy said, her tone quiet as she entered the mudroom. He followed, set her bag on the floorboards and removed his boots. She bent to do the same.

  “It’s okay. Leave yours on.” He hung his hat and coat on the hook to his left. “You’ll stay warmer if you take your boots and coat off in front of the fire.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to tramp snow inside.”

  He looked at her city footwear and grinned. “You have as much snow on your boots as Milly would have on her paws.”

  Canine nails clipped across the floorboards as Rusty, his faithful aged Australian Shepherd, left his dog bed in the far kitchen corner to join them. Milly popped her head out of Ivy’s coat and whined. Ivy placed the pup on the floor. The little Jack Russell launched herself at Rusty and engaged him in a doggy wrestle.

  “I’d run now, Rusty, while you can,” Ivy said, laughing. “Once Milly starts playing she doesn’t have an ‘off’ button,”

  Rhett concentrated on the two tussling dogs and not on the smiling woman an arm’s distance away. Ivy’s husky, musical laughter reached a place inside him he didn’t even know was lonely. A place he didn’t want to awaken. The path he’d plotted to achieve his goals was a single-track only.

  He swung away to collect a small stool and moved it close to a sofa chair near the fire. “Here, take a seat and rest your feet on this to warm them while I rustle up some coffees.”

  “I really don’t want to be a bother.” She pushed back the fur-trimmed hood. “I’d rather help than sit.”

  “It’s fine, I’ll get the coffees,” he said, already at the kitchen door and in sudden need of air.

  Wearing her hood, Ivy had been beautiful. Without it, she was pure distraction. Her fawn-brown hair was thick and glossy and longer than he thought. When not wearing her hooded-jacket it would reach halfway down her back.

  He grabbed for the coffeepot. He wasn’t even going to think about her mouth. Even devoid of color, her full lips made a man wonder if they tasted as sweet as they looked.

  He reentered the living room, coffees in hand. He had to focus on being neighborly and not on the fact that over near the fire Ivy shrugged off her jacket. Coffee slopped from a mug and burned his left hand as he side-stepped the playing dogs. He’d been too distracted by the perfection that lay beneath Ivy’s coat to notice where he walked.

  Taking her and Milly to Bluebell Falls Ranch to be fussed over by his sisters had to be the best option. The alternative was to spend the next twelve hours in close proximity with a woman dressed in fitted jeans, knee-high black boots and some sort of tiny white fluffy cardigan that clung to her curves like a second skin. Small pearl buttons drew his gaze exactly where it shouldn’t go, the top button having worked itself free and giving him a glimpse of the smooth skin at her throat. As she bent to drape the jacket over the arm of the chair, her heavy hair slid over her shoulder. Again he caught the scent of vanilla mixed with something sweet. All Ivy needed was a pair of wings and she’d rival any beautiful Christmas tree angel.

  Teeth clenched, he set the steaming coffees on a nearby table. He hadn’t even been around his unexpected houseguest for an hour and he’d become as sidetracked as a hormonal teenage boy.

  Ivy sank into the huge chair, its size making her look almost … fragile. She closed her eyes and turned her face toward the fire’s heat. The bruises he’d noticed earlier beneath her eyes were now dark crescents. Again he had the impression the cold wasn’t the only reason for the weariness that seemed to weigh her down. Her saying she’d had a bad six months must have been an understatement.

  “Here,” he said softly, as he passed her a coffee.

  He wouldn’t be taking her anywhere. She was too exhausted. He might be many things, but he wasn’t a coward. He’d suck up his misgivings about having her stay and look out for her as any good neighbor would. He glanced at her chin that still retained its stubborn tilt even when she relaxed. Well, that was if she’d let him.

  Her lashes swept open. The green flecks in her hazel eyes the only color in her wan face.

  The corners of her mouth curled. “Perfect timing. Without caffeine I don’t think I could get out of this chair.”

  She took a sip of coffee and placed the mug on the small table he positioned beside her. She then leaned forward to remove her boots.

  Rhett moved away to scoop up Milly as she chewed Rusty’s tail. He didn’t need to see Ivy’s small and dainty feet. As it was, his dreams would be filled by angels with long, silken hair, curves in all the right places and a waist he could span with his hands.

  He carried Milly into the kitchen and busied himself giving her and Rusty an early dinner and on heating the ham and split pea soup he had in the freezer.

  When he returned to the living room carrying a laden tray, Ivy had settled on the stool she’d dragged closer to the fire.

  “Whatever is in those mugs smells good,” she said, with a grin.

  “Let’s hope it tastes good.” He sat the tray beside Ivy’s half-drunk coffee on the small table. In his peripheral vision he caught the flicker of firelight over her pink, varnished toenails. He passed her a mug of thick soup. “I’m the first to admit I don’t have time to be a gourmet chef.”

  Her eyes smiled her thanks.

  He collected his own soup mug and sat a safe distance away on the sofa. From in the kitchen doggy growls sounded as Rusty and Milly resumed their wrestling.

  He took a swallow of too-hot soup and sought for something to say. His sudden awkwardness highlighted how long it’d been since he’d been on a date or talked to a woman he hadn’t grown up with. On the rodeo circuit, women hadn’t exactly been interested in his conversational skills.

  “So … where are you from?” It was the best line he could think of.

  But it was enough. The faint crease between her brows cleared.

  “Atlanta. I’m a corporate analyst.” She hesitated. “Well, I was and will be again when I establish my own consultancy business.”

  “From here?”

  “To be honest, I haven’t decided, but I doubt it. I’m not sure there are many corporations needing financial advice in Marietta.”

  He grinned. “We do have a rodeo committee who needs help balancing their budget.”

  She matched his grin. “There you go. There’ll be plenty of work for me.”

  All the reasons as to why he needed to go outside and fix the tin flapping on the barn emptied from his head. The hot soup had added color and shine to her curved lips and the fire’s heat had flushed her cheeks.

  Her smile slipped. “After Christmas I’ll think about the future. Right now I just want my power on and time to … regroup.”

  He nodded. He might know a little more about her, but it was what she didn’t say that spoke volumes. Her life was in turmoil and she’d come to her mountain holiday home a month before Christmas to lick her wounds. She’d removed her gloves, and even though her ring finger was bare, his gut told
him the reason shadows lurked in her eyes had to do with a man.

  *

  Ivy took another swallow of the hearty soup and watched as Rhett quit the living room. She hadn’t realized her gaze had drifted to his very nice denim-clad butt until he turned. She quickly looked at his face.

  “While you finish your soup, I’ll take the dogs out for a run,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  The heat burning in her cheeks had nothing to do with the hot soup or flames beside her. What was she doing checking Rhett out? She was supposed to be heartbroken and sworn off men, remember? She swiveled on the stool to face the fire.

  Of all the years working with James, she’d never appreciated his butt like she just had Rhett’s. She’d never been conscious of his strength or his masculinity. Sure he’d worn designer suits, not faded denim and red plaid, but even beneath his polished veneer there had to have been some physical feature she couldn’t tear her eyes away from?

  She stared into the flames but the only image of James to fill her mind was the impatience on his city-handsome face when she said she was leaving him.

  “You’ll come back,” was all he said before he answered the cell phone ringing in his suit coat pocket. And all she’d replied was, “No. I won’t. Not to you and not to this company.”

  She dragged her hair off her face. So here she was. Single. Jobless. And ogling a cute cowboy butt. Holing herself up inside the silent house next door couldn’t happen soon enough.

  She finished the last of her soup and placed the mug on the tray. Rhett wouldn’t return for a while. The relief on his face when Rusty had whined at the kitchen door had been priceless. Rhett might do and say all the right things but the grooves beside his mouth suggested he was as uncomfortable as she was about co-existing in his cabin for the night. She guessed from the sparse interior he didn’t entertain often or even spend much time inside himself.

  She glanced around the impersonal living room. Apart from two photographs that sat on the mantle above the stone fireplace there was nothing to suggest it was Rhett who lived there. No thick rugs added color and texture to the floor. No paintings adorned the walls. The bare interior reminded her of the minimalist Atlanta condominium she’d sold. Just like Rhett being busy with his ranch, she’d been too busy with work to turn her condo into a home.

  She stood to take a wooden-framed photograph from off the mantle. Against a bright summer garden backdrop, Rhett stood with his arms around two young women with different shades of honey-blonde hair. From the similarity of their smiles and bone structure they had to be his sisters. She examined the second photo of a pretty smiling woman holding a baby. The age-faded pigments said the photo was of Rhett and his mother. It wasn’t hard to see whom he’d inherited his blue eyes and dark-blond hair from.

  Ivy replaced the framed photo on the mantle. She could only hope the family he loved would have a house full of decorations and Christmas cheer so the festive season wouldn’t pass Rhett by. She was certain he wouldn’t be putting up a tree or hanging any door wreaths. In all the years she’d lived in Atlanta, her condo had never worn a single garland. She smiled. This Christmas she would make up for lost time. Half of her luggage contained Christmas decorations.

  She hadn’t heard any sound to indicate Rhett had returned but she sensed when he stood behind her. She turned, hoping he wouldn’t mind her looking at his photographs. But in his eyes wasn’t irritation. Instead she caught a flash of such profound bleakness it was as though she was staring into a mirror.

  “That’s my family,” he said as he broke eye contact to bend to collect a log from the fireside basket to add to the fire.

  “I thought so. I could pick you all as siblings.”

  No picture of his father sat on the mantle. Was this the reason for the desolation she’d just witnessed?

  Rhett stirred the coals with the fire poker. “Yes, the one on my left is Kendall, my twin, and the taller one on my right, is Peta, the eldest.”

  “That’s cool you have a twin. Are you older or younger?”

  He straightened and returned the poker to the stand beside the fire. “Older by twenty minutes. And I’m not sure Kendall thinks it’s cool being my twin. I haven’t always been the best of brothers.”

  Ivy searched his solemn face. “She looks happy in the photo and she isn’t giving you rabbit ears or standing away from you as if you carried the plague.”

  A brief smile shaped his lips as he stared at the photo. “Kendall is too gentle and caring to even do those little things no matter how mad she might be at me. Now, Peta … well, she has told me off more times than I can remember and once locked me out of the house when I drove her car to town without asking.”

  “They both sound special and from the way they hug you, despite whatever you may have done to them growing up, they have forgiven you.”

  Rhett didn’t immediately answer and when he did speak, his tone was taut. “Unfortunately most of the things I’ve done happened when I was already grown up.”

  “Whatever they were, their smiles say they still love you.”

  “And for that I will be forever thankful.” Rhett swung away indicating the subject of his family was closed. “I’ve got some last chores to do outside so I will show you to your room. You might also like to have a hot shower? Milly is asleep next to Rusty in the kitchen so you don’t need to worry about what mischief she will get up to.”

  “That’s a relief.” She took his cue to move their conversation into safe and neutral territory. “Otherwise I’d be having the shortest shower in history.”

  But as she followed him up the stairs, he asked over his shoulder, “Do you have any sisters or brothers?”

  She hesitated. She’d just met Rhett and even her old work colleagues weren’t privy to the fact she was an orphan. In the cut-throat corporate world people didn’t care about personal details or what her story might be. Especially the man who supposedly loved her.

  But Rhett cared. He cared about his grey-muzzled dog that had a warm bed in the kitchen corner. He cared about a stranger and her hyperactive puppy that had nowhere to stay. And he cared that whatever he may have done, he’d hurt his family.

  She spoke before she lost her nerve. “I’m an orphan. My parents and younger sister died in a road crash when I was six. My paternal grandparents raised me.”

  Rhett stopped on the landing and turned. Compassion softened his mouth and intensified the blue of his eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded and stopped two steps below him, fighting the burn of forbidden tears. It shouldn’t affect her so much this stranger meant what he said. The strain of poor sleep and the exhausting drive had to be taking its toll. “It was a long time ago now.”

  “Maybe, but the holes in our life still remain empty.”

  The rasp in his words confirmed her suspicions he’d lost someone close. Father? Mother?

  “They do, but other people we love help us build bridges so that one day we may stand on them and gaze into the holes and only see light and happiness. That’s what my grandparents did.”

  She pressed her lips together, this time the person desperate to change the subject. Thanks to James cozying up to the new intern at the New York conference she had no one to help her build the bridge she needed to come to terms with the loss of her beloved grandparents. She bit her lip to stop a tsunami of emotions from drowning her.

  “Ivy?” Rhett asked quietly as he reached out a hand, only to shove his fist into his jeans pocket.

  His gesture forced her self-control to employ its emergency chute.

  Somehow she knew if this cowboy comforted her, the gentleness of his touch would be her undoing. Ever since her grandmother, and then her grandfather, had slipped away last summer she’d kept herself together. Even when she’d returned James’ ring and cleared out the corner office she’d worked so hard to obtain, she’d stayed composed. When she had her meltdown, and she would, she wanted to be alone and within the walls of her
own ranch house.

  She angled her chin. “Thanks, I’m fine. Now which way is the shower?”

  Chapter Three

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  Rhett woke to the wet swipe of Milly’s tongue on his cheek, the smell of French toast and an ache the size of Copper Mountain in his knee. He sat, secured Milly in the crook of his arm and gazed around the living room.

  He’d heard Milly crying at dawn and left his bed to lie on the sofa with the pup in front of the fire in case she was cold. He just hadn’t accomplished the putting her back into her temporary kitchen bed part.

  Still holding the tiny Jack Russell, he stood and tested his knee with his full weight. It was going to give him hell today. From the room next door he could hear the soft murmur of Ivy’s voice and the thump of Rusty’s tail on the floorboards.

  Instead of heading to the kitchen, Rhett remained still. There was a reason why he’d heard Milly whine. Thoughts of Ivy had kept him awake. He couldn’t erase the image of unshed tears turning her hazel eyes green when she’d stood on the stairs. He’d gone to comfort her and then remembered he barely knew her. What he did know was, while she looked like she might blow away in a high-country wind, her spirit was as tough as any seam of local granite. Despite being cold, tired and the intensity of the emotions battering her, she’d pulled herself together.

  She was a woman who would stand shoulder to shoulder with a man. A woman who’d not bolt like a flighty steer when the going got tough. And such a realization scared him. Beautiful and strong, she was a woman to spend a lifetime with. She was also a woman with the power to derail everything he set out to achieve.

  After his mother’s first heart attack, he’d gone off the rails. He’d drunk too much, hung out with the Taylor boys and gotten into trouble. Embarrassed heat filled his face. He’d even fancied himself smitten with his childhood cowgirl friend, Payton. Instead of dealing with the fear he’d lose his mother, he’d made poor choices and hurt the people he loved. So now he had to dust himself off and prove he wasn’t the immature and irresponsible cowboy he’d once been. And to do so, he couldn’t make any more poor choices, especially when it came to women.