Christmas Male (19 page)

"Miles, what are you up to?" Pa's voice echoed in the late night hallway. He leaned against the open doorway and squinted into the necessary room. "Are you checking the windows?"

"Yep. I'm making sure they're closed and locked. Every one of them." He shoved a length of wood into the sill, tight against the window frame. "This will keep the Collins men out for good."

"They're like rats." Pa shook his head, his face wrinkling with the depth of his disapproval. "Locks won't keep men like that out. They run out of liquor and sneak in to steal some of ours. They're determined."

"I don't think liquor was on Chester's mind when he caught Maggie in her bath." Miles blinked against the red hazing his vision as he worked the wooden bar into place against another window frame. It had taken all his willpower not to pummel Chester into oblivion today, but he couldn’t get the drunk's poisonous words out of his head.
They're all just out for what they can get.
Those words stuck with him, boomeranging back into his thoughts in the quiet of the evening, when his mind wasn't busy enough to keep them at bay.

"I've already made the rounds for the night. Every door is locked." Pa sounded protective too. "You care about her, don't you?"

"Maggie?" He asked as offhandedly as he could, hoping he sounded almost disinterested. He casually turned from the window as if his chest didn't cinch tight at the sound of her name, as if his every nerve ending wasn't acutely aware of her downstairs in his house. "Sure, I guess I care. In an altruistic way. A woman alone in this wilderness is not a good thing. We're gentleman. We need to look out for her."

"That's not what I meant." Pa's tone turned kind as he backed out of the room and into the fall of the lamplight tossing a glow down the empty hallway. "It's been a long time since a woman has been able to get past those defenses of yours, the ones you use to push everyone away."

"I don't push anyone away," Miles denied too hot, too fast, and he heard the defensiveness in his own voice. Okay, he thought as he circled around the empty tub and into the hall. Maybe there was a truth here he was trying to ignore. "All right, fine, I don't want any pretty women around me. They do nothing but rip out your heart."

"Son, you're destined to have a good marriage one day." Pa shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, optimism hanging around him like the light as he moved down the hall. "But I've had time to heal since your mother passed all those years ago. Losing her was the hardest thing I've ever gone through, but every day I spent with her was a gift. I married happily. Your grandfather married happily. One day it will be your turn."

"Not if I can help it," he argued, but he no longer felt the same conviction he'd once had, or the bitterness.

"Son, if you find a lady with a lot of good in her, then you trust in it. You don't let those other women who broke your heart ruin your chance with someone trustworthy. Look at how Maggie has changed this place since she got here. We're eating good, our pantry is stocked and you're happier."

"I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work." Miles couldn't believe it. His own father didn't seem one bit ashamed of himself. "I'm not going to marry Maggie, so you and Pops can stop hoping for it right now."

"It does no harm to wish," Pa said in that stubborn, good-natured way of his, adding a smile for better impact. "You just never know when love will change your life. Maybe it's your chance."

"Ridiculous. I hope you haven't been in Pops' liquor supply." Miles resorted to humor because the last thing he wanted to do was open his heart again. Wasn't that why he'd bought so much scotch?

"No, I haven't been drinking, but it's a good idea." Pa looked amused as he stopped at his bedroom door. "Maybe I'll grab a glass and treat myself to a shot or two. On a cold night like this, my old bones are aching. I think I'll spend time in my room, reading by the fire, before I go to bed."

"Good idea." Miles patted his father on the back, appreciating him. He loved his pa—Winston was a good man. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Just make sure Maggie gets time to rest." Pa wrapped his big hand around the doorknob and gave it a turn. "I worry about her. She's been going all day for us, doing this and that. She shouldn't wear herself out, considering she's still on the lookout for a husband. You never know who she might meet on the train or in the town where her sister lives."

Those words hit Miles like a punch. Rage rammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet. He braced one hand against the wall for support, reeling as his father stepped into his bedroom and cheerfully closed the door. Why, his old man had done that on purpose, trying to rile him up, get him jealous. And it had worked.

He gave a sigh and launched off the wall, heading downstairs. The shadows seemed to cling to him and the house echoed around him as he pounded down the staircase. He
was
jealous and it tore him apart, knowing Maggie intended to leave, that one day she would give another man passionate kisses, that she'd groan in pleasure when another man hauled her into his arms.

Yep, Miles thought, he was one hundred percent jealous. He could no longer deny it. He just had to get through one more night without letting his overwhelming sexual hunger for her get the best of him. That's it. Just one more night and one more morning. He could manage that, right? He'd bury himself in his work and keep his distance from her. Then she'd be gone, and his life could go back to normal.

That's what he wanted. At least that's what he told himself as he paced through the lonely rooms of the house. He just didn't feel as sure of that as he once had.

Well, his plan to work to avoid thinking about her wasn't going all that well, Miles thought, an hour later, sitting at his desk in his den. As the grandfather clock in the hallway began striking the hour (eleven o'clock), he rubbed his eyes, realizing he'd been staring into space again, remembering their kiss.

Except in his fantasies, they hadn't been interrupted in the woods. He'd kept kissing her and she'd kept pressing herself against him, clinging to him, desperate for him, and he'd given it to her. Just backed her against the trunk of a lodgepole pine, lifted her skirts and unbuckled his trousers, took her right there.

Yes, he thought with a groan, rolling his eyes sarcastically. That's the way
not
to think about her.

Clearly he was failing at that.

The clock gave a final bong and fell silent. The fire in the hearth crackled and popped, warming the room, making it cozy as it tossed dancing orange light across the plush carpet. Only a few lamps were lit, so much of the room was shadowed, but the lamp on his desk gave him good light to work by. Normally he worked during the day, closed up in here writing fictional western adventures, but today with Maggie hadn't gone the way he'd planned.

Not that he minded, he realized with a grin. He'd kissed women before, but never had it been like that. The perfect blend of passion, desire and excitement, but something softer too. Something that touched him deep. Pa was right, he conceded, as he dipped his pen into the ink well on his desk. Maggie had a lot of good in her. Maybe too much.

And that was the danger, that was why he was so attracted to her. He bit his bottom lip, full of regret. A man was better off on his own and in complete control of his destiny, without a woman to come along and put up Christmas trees, and bake him chicken and dumplings and make him care when he wasn't ever going to be that vulnerable again—

Stop right there, he thought. Wasn't he going to stop thinking about her? He shrugged, tapped the excess ink off the tip of his pen. This was it, no more thoughts of Maggie, he vowed as he focused on the page in front of him, set his pen to paper and began to write.

Rafe stepped over the outlaw's dead body with his Colt .45 in hand, still raised and ready. Just because the three renegades attempting to rob the stage were dead didn't mean there wasn't more danger. Heart pounding, he watched the door open, and a delicate ankle emerged. Slim, dainty, wholly feminine, encased in a shiny black shoe.

Holy smokes, he thought. It's a woman.

Red skirts rustled in the brutal winter wind, fluttering down into place to hide any view of that womanly leg. A lady eased into sight, young and slender, more captivatingly beautiful than any woman in the whole of Montana Territory. Make that in all the western territories, Rafe thought, holstering his gun.

She was a fresh-faced angel with a riot of golden curls and the blue eyes of an angel. She sashayed toward him, with the kind of innocent, sexual power that made a man dream of tangling his fingers in her hair, pulling her against him and claiming her, body and soul—

"Miles?" Her voice intruded, and for an instant Miles wasn't sure if he was still in the story because Maggie was there, fresh-faced and blue eyed, more beautiful than any woman had the right to be.

And he'd inadvertently made her the heroine of his new novel. He put down his pen. So much for trying to escape from her in his work.

"Is this a bad time?" Maggie asked sweetly, a tray gripped in both hands. "I can see you're busy, but I made cocoa for John and Winston, I just took it up to them and I had some left over. I thought you might like some too."

"Sure, what the hell? I like hot chocolate." Especially with a big dollop of scotch. He braced himself, but every step she took across the room made the hair on his arms stand up and tingle. It made his vow to fight his feelings harder to stick to.

"I heated them both water bottles to take to bed too," she was saying, seemingly unaware of his discomfort. "The night is so cold already, and when John told me about his rheumatism, I knew just what he needed. I made a lemon and herb chest rub for Winston, because I'm worried about him coming down with that cold he's fighting."

"That's nice of you, Maggie." It really was. His ribs ached as he leaned back in his chair. He wasn't sure if he could take much more of her niceness without it blasting apart the last of his defenses against her. "Thanks for thinking of them. They mean a lot to me."

"To me, too." She slipped the tray on the edge of his desk, her words layered with emotion, genuine and real. There was nothing false about this woman, nothing superficial. "Well, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go back to whatever you were doing."

"I'm actually gainfully employed, believe it or not." He couldn't take his eyes off her. The lamplight caressed the curve of her face and the Cupid's bow of her upper lip, drawing his attention there. He knew what her kiss tasted like, how it felt. His gut tightened with a hard blow of need and he wanted to reach out and haul her into his lap.

Good thing he was smart enough to reach for the scotch bottle.

"Funny, I would have pegged you for a drinker instead." She arched a slim eyebrow at him, her sexy mouth crinkling into a half-smile as she watched him pour a healthy steam of liquor into one of the two mugs on the tray.

Wait a minute.
Two
mugs?

"I thought I'd join you," she explained, scooting her cup toward him. "And how about a little bit of that scotch? I've never tried any before and honestly, that's what this adventure of mine is about. Trying new things."

"I thought it was to get married?" he asked dryly, wrestling down that jab of jealousy powerful enough to break bone.

"Well, yes, but that's something new too." She folded her slim frame into the nearby overstuffed chair on the far side of his desk, just out of full reach of the lamplight. "Although I'm feeling much better about myself lately. I owe that all to you."

"Me?" He poured a small dollop of scotch into her cup before setting the bottle aside. "What did I do?"

Although he knew. The heat, the chemistry, sizzled between them hotter than the fire in the grate. Sweat broke out on his forehead and turned his palms clammy.

"You kissed me. I never thanked you for that." She wrapped her hands around the mug and relaxed back against the cushion, lost in the shadows.

Needing to see her, hungry to see her, he rose from his chair, hooking the handle of his mug with his forefinger, pacing around the desk toward her. "Thank me? You should be mad at me. I took advantage of you."

"I took advantage of you." The shadows in the corners of her mouth nudged upward mysteriously. The dark pools of her eyes studied him over the rim of her cup. "That was my first kiss. At twenty-two. I went for a long time, over many years, certain that was never going to happen. That no one would want to kiss me."

"That's crazy, because I clearly did." He settled into the chair next to hers. His defenses weren't softening, he told himself, but it was a lie. He took a sip of liquored hot chocolate. Excellent. Really hit the spot. "There are just a lot of dumb men in this world, Maggie. Believe me. You're amazing. If any man doesn't want you, then there's something wrong with him."

"See, that kind of thing right there is making me really like you." She took another sip, let the heat of the scotch burn her tongue and warm her all the way down to her stomach. "You're very nice to me. I'm not fooled by your gruffness."

"Damn, that usually works." He gave a soft laugh, vibrating in the dark. The leather chair rustled as he shifted, leaning forward, closer to her. "I like you. I like the way you treat my family."

"I really care about them," she admitted. It was only the truth.

"I know you do." His voice rumbled tenderly, conveying a depth of caring she'd never heard in a man's voice before—certainly not one interested in her. He set down his cup on the edge of the desk and moved in, his knees bumping hers and sending an electric shock through her.

Her breath caught. "I like you too, Miles."

"Which is why we have such a big problem." His knee didn't move away. He was shadow, his face unreadable, nothing but form and a hint of movement as he leaned in even closer and he captured her mouth with his. His kiss was a simple brush of heat, a tantalizing tease and when he broke off, they were both breathing hard.