Christmas At Copper Mountain (A Copper Mountain Christmas) (16 page)

He laughed and stroked her hair.
“You’ve been with a lot of rock stars?”

She smiled, enjoying the husky vibration of his laughter and the steady thud of his heart beneath her cheek. She liked it when he laughed, and loved it when he teased her.

And now this intense physical connection...

If she wasn’t careful she’d get completely swept away by the intensity and passion, but she had to remember that the sex—although very good and very hot—wasn’t love.
It was just pleasure. Physical gratification. And the physical couldn’t replace love, friendship, respect.

All she had to do was remember David to know why a relationship couldn’t be based on chemistry and passion.
Chemistry and passion would fade, and then what?

Harley didn’t want to fall in love just for the thrill of it.
She wanted what she’d thought she’d had when she married David. A family. A future.

Brock’s hand slipped from her hair, to trace down her spine, his calloused palm so warm against her bare skin.
“You’re thinking,” he said.

“I am,” she agreed, regrets creeping in.

“Tell me.”

She drew a deep breath, hating how quickly her emotions were changing, hating how all the good feelings were fading, leaving her scared, sad.

It was hard to feel so much, and want so much.

It was hard to care so much when she was leaving in the morning.

“Come on,” he insisted, shifting her onto her back, and rising on his elbow to look down at her. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t want tomorrow to be weird,” she said roughly.

He lifted a strand of hair from her cheek, smoothing it from her face. “Why would it be weird?”

“You know.
Saying goodbye. And then leaving the kids.” Her throat ached. “It’s going to be hard to leave... them.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.
Deep grooves bracketed his lips. “Just them?” he teased, dipping his head to kiss her brow, her nose, her lips.

A tingle shot through her and her tummy flipped at the trio of tender kisses.
“And you.” She struggled to smile. “I kind of like you, tough guy.”

“So stay,” he said, kissing her cheek, her jaw,
her chin. “Why go? Where do you have to go?”

His kisses were making her pulse race, and his words were making her want things but her head balked.
Her head was practical and real. She was practical and real. She’d been swept away by passion once before and she couldn’t afford to get carried away again. “It sounds like a horribly depressing romance novel.
The Housekeeper & The Cowboy
.”

“Perhaps it’d sound better if you called it,
The Housekeeper’s Cowboy
.”

“That’s even worse.”

He kissed the corner of her mouth, and then just beneath her lower lip, making it quiver. “Maybe we just need some adjectives, fancy it up.”

“You have suggestions?” she asked.

He kissed the other corner of her mouth, lightly, so lightly that her breath caught in her throat. “How about...
The Hot Housekeeper’s Lonely Cowboy
.”

“Too pathetic,” she whispered, toes curling with pleasure.
The man could
kiss
.

He nuzzled below her ear, and then kissed his way down her neck.
“Your turn,” he said. “Make it good. Make me want to buy that story.”

She giggled then sighed, as his mouth traced her collarbone making her shiver and need.
She pressed her knees together, closed her eyes, her body tingling everywhere. “
The Hot Housekeeper’s Sexy Cowboy
.”

“Now there’s a story I want to read,” he murmured, moving over her, his big body shifting between her thighs, his erection pressing against her inner thigh.
He kissed down, his lips capturing one pebbled nipple. He sucked and she arched up, her hips rocking against his.

Brock’s fingers twined with hers.
He slid her hands up the mattress, over her head, trapping her.

She liked it.
Liked the tension in her arms, the tension in their bodies, it felt hot and raw.

It’d be so easy to open to him.
To just take him. She wanted to take him, loved the weight of him, and the feel of him. Loved the way they felt together. But couldn’t make love again without protection. “Have another condom?” she whispered.

“More where that one came from… in the bunk house.”

“We don’t need
The Sexy Cowboy’s Pregnant Housekeeper
.”

“Not unless she wanted to be
The Sexy Cowboy’s Hot Wife
,” he answered, shifting so that the tip of his shaft stroked her, making nerves dance.

“Ha.”

“We’d make a beautiful baby.”

She no longer felt like laughing.
Her eyes burned. It hurt to swallow. “That’s not funny.”

He released her hands, cupped her face, kissing her slowly.
“It wasn’t meant to be funny.” His dark head lifted, he gazed down at her, dark eyes somber, expression grave. “I never thought I’d ever marry again. But I can see you here, with us. You fit with us. I think I’d like being married to you.”

She didn’t even know how to respond to that.
She couldn’t wrap her head around any of it. Stay here. Marry him. Be a surrogate mom to his kids.

She’d have a family.
It’d be his family.

And that was the problem.

It’d be
his
family. She’d be the surrogate. The fill-in. He could replace her, too. She couldn’t bear being replaced, not again.

“It’s too soon,” she said.
“Too fast. You don’t even know me. A month from now you might feel differently—”

“I won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.
I’m not reckless. I don’t make promises and break them. If I make a promise, I keep it. And if I promise to love you and cherish you all the days of my life, I will.”

Just like he still loved Amy...

And perhaps that should have scared her, that he still loved Amy, but it didn’t. It reassured her. He had loved his wife. He had been faithful to her memory all these years. His steadfast love gave Harley hope that Brock could be faithful to her.

She closed her eyes, held her breath.
It’d be so easy to capitulate. To just give in to the miracle of it all.

Christmas wishes, Christmas dreams...

But what would happen after the holidays were over and it was a new year? How would this work...?

Maxine.

The ranch.

The twins.

The twins
.

She exhaled in a small painful puff of air.
“Mack and Molly.”

“Yes?”

“They’ve never had to share you with anyone before. They could grow to resent me.”

“They won’t.”

“They could.”

He kissed her again.
“Then we deal with it.”

“You make it all sound too easy.”

“Because I think it is easy, after everything we’ve both been through.”

She reached up to touch his cheek.
His skin was so warm and his beard rasped her fingertips. Lightly she scraped her nails across his rough jaw. “My family will say I’ve lost my mind.”

“And mine will say the same thing, until they meet you, and then they’ll know what I know.”

“And what is that?”

“That you being here wasn’t an accident.
You were meant to be here. You were sent to be here.”

Her chest burned, hot and tender.
“Who knew you were so good with words?”

“Not selling you.
I’m telling you what I know, what I believe. God brought you here to Marietta for a reason. He knew we needed you, and He knew you needed us, and He put his angels to work and produced a Christmas miracle.”

“Stop,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

“Never. Not if it means letting you go. Can’t lose you, Harley. I’ve waited too long for you. Have prayed too long for you.” The corner of his mouth lifted, but there were shadows in his dark eyes, and a hint of his old grief. “Don’t break my heart now, baby. Not when I have hope again.”

Hope.

Hope.

The hot tears blinded her, falling fast, too fast.
She’d lived so long without hope. She’d looked so long with pain. “I can’t fall in love with you all and then be sent away.”

He dipped his head, kissing her cheeks where they were wet.
“Won’t ever send you away. We are yours. You are home.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

She couldn’t say yes.

She didn’t say yes.

It had all sounded so perfect, but that’s what scared her.
It was too perfect to be true.

The great sex, the laughter, the beautiful words in Brock’s
cozy moonlit bedroom.

It was a Christmas Hallmark movie and God knows, she didn’t watch those.
They were so sweet and hopeful they just made her sad.

So she told him no, telling him as kindly as she could, that as wonderful as his offer sounded, she couldn’t accept.
It was all happening too fast. But if it was meant to be, they’d find each other later, and try again when the timing was better.

He’d listened in silence.
“Better timing? What does that mean?”

“It means...”
her voice faded. Her stomach hurt, so full of short sharp pains that it felt as if she’d been eating barbed wire. “It means... I’ve known you not quite two weeks, and your kids just six days, and we can’t risk hurting them, or each other, by being impulsive, no matter how romantic it seems.”

He’d said nothing for a long time and then he rolled away and sat up on the edge of the bed, his big muscular back to her, his powerful legs on the floor.
“Yeah, Mr. Romantic, that’s me.” And then he’d rose and walked to his bathroom, closed the door and took a long shower.

Harley had returned to her bed on the third floor, her room frigid,
her sheets icy cold.

She’d cried into her pillow.

Cried because she’d hurt him and cried because she’d hurt herself. It was brutal telling him no, brutal telling her heart no. But she had to keep focused on facts and the big picture.

They hadn’t known each other long.

He had two children who were so vulnerable right now. His children didn’t need drama. They’d been through so much. They should be protected. Surrounded by stability, security.

She was doing the right thing, saying no.
Her head was sure of it.

But that didn’t stop her from crying.

In the morning she was up at five.
It was dark outside. It’d be dark for at least another hour and a half.