Christmastime Cowboy Read online

  Sabrina had to look away from the two of them, because it made her chest feel like it was too full.

  What they shared wasn’t casual intimacy, it was far too intense for that, but it was...assumed. That kind of deep familiarity, where a man could walk right up to a woman and know that his touch would be well received. Sabrina had never had anything like that. Not ever. It made her ache a little bit, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.

  What she hadn’t had—romantically—had been her own choice. Not really at the forefront of her mind, but she had just never gotten involved. A few dates here and there, but not a relationship.

  The bottom line of it all was a fear of rejection, she supposed. The top layer simply being that if she didn’t want someone even half the way she had wanted Liam, what was the point of risking exposure? What was the point of putting herself in potential harm’s way?

  She looked away from Alex and Clara, and immediately regretted it, because her eyes locked with Liam’s. She squeezed her knees together tightly, trying to do something to ease the restlessness between her thighs.

  “Yes,” Sabrina said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  Liam shrugged. “Finn decided we should all go out tonight.”

  “I did,” Finn said, “because we are celebrating.”

  “What are you celebrating?” Olivia asked.

  Sabrina didn’t actually want to know. She just wanted them to go away. But Olivia wasn’t picking up on the tenseness, and now that Clara was being held close by Alex, Clara didn’t care. Because there was no one else in the room besides Alex. Sabrina could tell, based on the other woman’s expression.

  Her heart seized tight. What must that be like? To look at someone like he was the only person in the room. On earth. To have him look at you the same way?

  She cleared her throat and turned her face away. “Yeah.” She gathered herself and looked back at Liam. “What are you celebrating?”

  “The new store,” Liam said. “ And a new generation of Donnellys. Finn is going to have a lot less free time coming up in about seven months.”

  She blinked, then shifted her focus to Liam’s older brother. “Congratulations.”

  Finn grinned. “Thank you. It isn’t only me with news.” He cast a glance at his other brother, who Sabrina didn’t know all that well, but had interacted with a few times prior to his wedding at the winery.

  “Yeah,” Cain said, “Alison is pregnant. Kind of a surprise. But I’m not unhappy with that.” In fact, he looked ecstatic. There was an irrepressible grin on his handsome face, and even though she didn’t know Cain, it was impossible to not feel his excitement radiating from him.

  “Not unhappy? He ran in and told everybody about five minutes after they found out.”

  “Not my first time at the rodeo,” Cain said, looking downright smug. “And, since Violet is going away to school next year...”

  “You don’t even get a minute to have an empty nest,” Alex commented.

  “Alex, you’re always up in my shit,” Cain said. “I wouldn’t have an empty nest either way. I’ve got you knuckleheads around constantly.”

  “You could move,” Finn pointed out.

  “Hell no. Especially not with Alison having a baby. Now we’re going to need you guys on night shift.”

  “How’s that going to work?” Finn asked. “Lane and I are having a baby too.”

  “How about it?” Alex asked, his eyes on Clara. “Should we hop on the bandwagon?”

  “No way,” Clara said, poking him in the chest. “You have to marry me first, Donnelly. And even then, I think you’re also going to have to take me on a honeymoon. And get this current crop of bison out of my hair.”

  Clara and Alex had a bison ranch, where Alex spent most of his time at now, Sabrina knew from talking to her friend.

  “That’s harsh,” Alex said. “I offered to give you my seed.”

  Clara made a hideous face, and Olivia’s cheeks turned bright pink. “Call it that one more time and it’s never getting near me again. To make a baby or not.”

  Alex smirked. “Well, there you have it, the Donnelly clan increases.”

  Liam chuckled. “We never did have a problem with increasing in our family. We were always pretty damned prolific.”

  “True,” Cain said. “But, this will be different because we’ll all stick around to raise our kids.”

  Alex snorted. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “None for me,” Finn said. “I promised I wouldn’t. You know, since Lane can’t drink.”

  “Harsh,” Cain said. “I get to drink.”

  “Just wait,” he said. “Just wait until she has morning sickness. You’re not there yet.”

  Cain laughed. “Don’t lecture me like you’re the old hat at this. I’ve already raised one. This is round two for me, and on that note, I will buy this round.”

  He started ordering drinks from Ace, and Sabrina was thinking that she might need to have a drink or ten to deal with the situation. Because it seemed like, whether she wanted to be or not, she was partying with the Donnellys.

  “Do you want to play darts?” Olivia asked Liam.

  “She’ll win,” Sabrina warned, her chest getting a little bit weird and tight, and she told herself it wasn’t jealousy at all, the thought that he might play with Olivia.

  Olivia had a boyfriend, anyway, and Sabrina had never gotten the impression she had an extremely active sex life with him, so she imagined she didn’t need to worry about anything with Liam.

  And Liam isn’t your boyfriend. So, maybe you shouldn’t worry about if he wants to play darts with Olivia, or “play darts” with her. It’s not your business.

  She squared her shoulders, stretching out her tense muscles.

  “You know, it’s tough to be a dart shark if somebody gives away your secrets,” Olivia pointed out.

  “Well, I need Liam to hang on to his money. I’m in the middle of a business venture with him, and I don’t need you taking all of his capital.”

  Olivia smiled. “Fair enough.”

  Sabrina turned to Liam. “Congratulations. On the uncle thing.” Because she wasn’t a totally petty cow, and she did have some manners.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Nothing has motivated me more to get moving on building my own place on the family property. I mean, I’m happy for them, don’t get me wrong. But a crying baby in the house doesn’t really sound like fun to me. I like to hold them for a minute, then give them back.”

  Sabrina ignored the twinge in her stomach. “Same.”

  If she had been told just a few months ago that she would be standing in a bar talking about babies with Liam Donnelly she would have told the bearer of the news that they were nuts. But here she was. Trying to pretend that when the people around her announced pregnancies it didn’t make her ache in strange and terrible ways. Trying to laugh as he reiterated that kids and family weren’t for him. Trying to sort through the mess of feelings that she had for him. The past, the present and the even more distant past, when she had burned for him.

  “I’ll get us a table,” Cain said, after ordering the drinks, and Sabrina really wanted to tell him that was okay, but it was too late. He was already pushing furniture together and gathering up chairs.

  Sabrina sighed heavily. Leaving Olivia would be mean. Her boyfriend, Bennett, wasn’t coming for another half hour and taking off and abandoning her with just the Donnelly brothers and Clara, who was now firmly glued to Alex, seemed like the wrong thing to do.

  It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she viewed Liam a bit like she did a giant spider that she wanted to run from and stare at in equal measure. Fascination and fear winding its way through her.

  Except, unlike a giant spider, Liam Donnelly did not disgust her physically in any way.

&n
bsp; Would that he did.

  She took a seat, and Liam just went ahead and took the one right next to her. Then Cain started to pass out drinks. Liam took two from him, handing one to Sabrina, their fingertips brushing.

  Heat burst in her stomach like a flame doused in kerosene and she did her best to get a handle on her breathing.

  Whatever was happening between them, everyone around them was oblivious to it. It was between the two of them. Or maybe it was all in her head.

  Maybe she was the only one who felt it.

  But then she looked up, meeting his green eyes, flashing back to the kiss from earlier today, and she knew that wasn’t true.

  She looked away.

  She kept silent, mostly letting conversation swirl around them, discussions about babies, nurseries and the new shop washing over her. Her head was buzzing, and she felt strange and weightless. Like she was watching this happen to someone else. Which all seemed a little less weird than the reality that she was currently sitting with Liam and his brothers like they were old friends, and not like he was her old, oversize baggage.

  When she looked up and saw Bennett Dodge walk through the door of the bar, she let out a near audible sigh of relief.

  There was a woman trailing behind him, though, one who looked nothing like pretty, petite Olivia at all.

  She had reddish-brown hair that was tied back in a braid draped over her shoulder. She was only about three inches shorter than the very tall Bennett and was wearing blue jeans with a hole in the knee and a plaid work shirt. Sabrina doubted Olivia owned anything with a hole in it, even if it was meant to be fashionable. And she had a feeling that this was not a fashion statement.

  “Who’s that?” Sabrina leaned over toward Olivia.

  “Oh, that’s Bennett’s friend, Kaylee. She’s nice, but I don’t really have a lot in common with her.”

  Sabrina wondered how she would feel if her boyfriend had a close friend who was a girl, but she supposed it wasn’t really any of her business. And she also supposed she wasn’t really able to gauge that, since she had never had an actual boyfriend.

  “You all hang out?”

  “Sure.” Olivia shrugged, clearly unperturbed by the presence of the other woman. “Like, at Gold Valley Saloon sometimes. They own a veterinary clinic together, so we’ll go out when they’re done with work. They’re super into animal stuff. I mean, they’d have to be. Vaccines, deliveries, surgeries. Not really my thing,” Olivia said, stirring her drink with a manicured hand.

  Bennett and Kaylee crossed the room, joining them at the table. Bennett was more than a little bit handsome, tall and broad chested with dark hair that looked like he’d just run his hands through it. His clothes were dirty, like he was coming in off a hard day of work at the ranch. Sabrina could definitely see why Olivia liked him.

  “Hey, princess,” he said, leaning down and giving Olivia a kiss on the cheek. “How was your day?”

  Olivia blushed prettily. “Good.”

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “Can we stay for a little bit?” Olivia asked.

  Sabrina frowned, and so did Bennett’s companion.

  “Sure, for a bit.”

  With much chair scuffling and handshaking, Bennett and Kaylee soon took seats at the table with them.

  Sabrina supposed that she could leave now. At least Olivia had people there. But then she would be very obviously extricating herself and she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that either.

  Or you could just admit that you want to stay near Liam, because as much as he bothers you, he makes you feel things that you haven’t felt in so long you can’t walk away.

  Okay, maybe she could admit that. But she didn’t particularly want to.

  “Anybody want to play darts?” Kaylee asked, grinning in a warm, broad way that was irresistibly likable. Sabrina took against her fresh-faced, universal appeal.

  “Are you a dart shark too?” Liam asked her, leaning in, returning the smile.

  And suddenly, Sabrina was very, very bothered by the whole situation. “I’m not as good as Olivia,” Kaylee said.

  “Okay. I’ll play.”

  “Me too,” Olivia said.

  That prompted Bennett to stand and nod, clearly all on board for the dart business.

  “Me too,” Sabrina added, the words slipping out before she could think them through. She was both terrible at darts and theoretically did not want to be anywhere near Liam, so she had no idea what the hell she had been thinking.

  Before she was fully cognizant of what she had consented to, Sabrina was up and headed over to the dartboard with Kaylee, Bennett, Olivia and Liam.

  Liam passed a handful of darts around, and they laid out a light wager of drinks for the winner. Kaylee went first, the taller woman taking her position and throwing a few darts effortlessly, hitting one bull’s-eye, and some high-ticket rings with the others.

  Sabrina felt swollen with inadequacy.

  Especially when Olivia stepped up and hit the bull’s-eye three times.

  “It’s really not fair,” Sabrina commented.

  “It’s not,” Bennett said with a grin. “I can’t beat her. Nobody can.”

  “Too bad there are no real-life equivalencies to this,” Olivia said.

  “You could be a sniper,” Liam said. “Or, just a professional dart player.”

  “Yes. I’m sure both of those things would go over really well with my father,” Olivia commented.

  Bennett chuckled, then lazily cocked his arm back and threw his first dart. Sabrina felt slightly mollified when it landed on the outer edge of the board. At least she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t great at darts. Except, then his second two didn’t suck. And it was apparently her turn.

  She cocked her arm back and let the dart fly, and it hit the wall, bounced off and landed on the floor.

  “You need help?” Liam approached her, moving next to her, his green eyes intent on hers.

  She sniffed. “No.”

  She went to retrieve her sad, fallen dart from the floor. And Liam just looked at her. She practically twitched. “I don’t need help.”

  She moved back to her place at the line, and Liam moved up behind her, then wrapped his hand around her wrist and lifted it up. “Do you want me to show you how to throw the dart?”

  She sucked in a breath, holding her stomach tight, her entire body tense. “I don’t need your help for that,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she insisted.

  He didn’t release his hold on her; instead, he shifted his thumb to a different position on her wrist, and she had a horrible feeling that he was taking her pulse. That he could feel just how rapidly her heart was beating.

  His hands were rough, calloused from all the work, and all she could think in that moment, stupidly, was that if she had left, it might have been Kaylee who managed to finagle a tutorial out of him.

  Except she doesn’t suck at darts.

  No, Kaylee did not suck at darts, and apparently sucking at darts was something of an asset if you wanted a man to touch you.

  Except she wasn’t supposed to want Liam to touch her. But then, if she didn’t want him to touch her, if she wanted to keep distance between them, then she should have left in the first place.

  He put one hand on her hip, straightening her so that she was square to the dartboard. “That was your first problem,” he said. “Your second problem being that you’re throwing across your body at an angle. So when you let go, it’s flying at an angle. And the tip can’t get in.”

  Her head felt light and fuzzy, and her face felt warm. It took all of her strength not to simply lean back into his touch. Liam Donnelly possessed some kind of black magic over her body. He had cast a spell on her when she had been seventeen year
s old, and it had never lifted.

  The real question now was whether or not there was any point in fighting it.

  With his guidance, she let the dart fly, and this time, she actually landed on the outer ring and it stuck.

  “Wow,” she said. “That was...not terrible.”

  “Not even a little bit terrible,” he said, smiling.

  Liam Donnelly was smiling at her. A real smile.

  She tilted her hips slightly to the left and took her position again. And she realized, when he placed his hand back on her hip, when he squared her up to the board again, that she had done that on purpose.

  She despised herself a little for that. For that silly move, where the woman pretended to be less competent than she was to get a little bit of male attention.

  But frankly, it was a move that had been underutilized in her life thus far, so she felt somewhat entitled to it.

  “My turn,” he said, his breath on her neck when he spoke the words. She shivered, then moved away from the dartboard, casting furtive glances at Olivia to see if the other woman had noticed her and Liam.

  Olivia seemed blissfully unaware, happily hanging on to Bennett’s arm.

  Kaylee, on the other hand, did not seem unaware. Either of the tension between Liam and Sabrina, or of every minute action taking place between Bennett and Olivia.

  It was subtle. But there was something in the way that she looked at them. The way her eyes would move over Bennett, and then to where Oliva’s hands gripped his arm. Before darting away, quickly. Very quickly.

  Sabrina felt a sympathetic pang. If she was reading the situation correctly, she was a platonic bunny as far as Bennett was concerned, and as far as Olivia was concerned absolutely no threat. She possessed none of the sweet, feminine charms Olivia had, and had probably been a fixture in Bennett’s life for years.

  And clearly thought of Bennett as a fixture not at all.

  Sabrina felt a lot more kinship to the other woman now. Attraction was such an unwieldy bitch.

  There was ample evidence of that all over the place tonight. She realized that she hadn’t really paid attention to Liam’s throws. Because she had been so lost in her general ruminations, her eyes fixed on his forearms, and not where the dart had flown.