Rancher's Christmas Storm--A Western snowbound romance Read online

  She was a pretty creature. No doubt about that.

  The kind of pretty, delicate thing his hands could easily spoil. And he would do well to remember that.

  “For what?”

  “For example, I will know which birds we can cook and eat if it comes down to it.”

  “You know, I think I’m going to go ahead and hope we skip that part. There’s no way the weather’s going to keep up like this.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought it would have kept up overnight,” she said, putting the book down and scrambling to the window, looking outside. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  He didn’t want to say that he hadn’t either. Didn’t want to acknowledge that this was outside of his scope of experience. “It’ll be fine. We are really very okay with our setup.”

  “Yeah. Except for the whole being out of touch with civilization.”

  “We don’t need civilization. We have each other.” He paused for a moment. “And bacon.”

  “The bacon won’t last forever.” Her voice sounded thin and it made his gut tighten.

  They were talking about bacon.

  “No.” And he was a little afraid of what might happen if the two of them kept on in close quarters. But no, there was no reason to be afraid. He was in control of himself. In control of his body. Brief flashes of attraction, and a newfound fascination with her sexual status did not get to dictate what he did next.

  And what he would do, was go chop wood.

  Because that was useful. And it was not sitting here ruminating on things that he shouldn’t.

  “I’m going to go chop some wood. Best make me some bread.”

  “Bread?”

  “Yeah, that’s your women’s work. For the survivaling.”

  That earned him her anger and damned it if didn’t ignite a fire in his blood. He needed to go jump in a snowbank.

  Good thing there were so many handy.

  “Really,” she said.

  “Well, once I’m done chopping wood I’m going to have expended a lot of calories.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll make you something. I can’t promise it’ll be bread. I don’t have... Anything. And I’m not good at that stuff anyway. I know just enough to keep myself fed.”

  “Well, maybe it’s your chance to expand your skills.”

  That hit. And it hit hard. And in spite of himself, he caught himself holding her gaze. Lingering.

  It hit him deeper than it should.

  Made him think of all kinds of skills he could help her expand.

  His hands on her skin. Her body against his. He’d denied it for so long now it was second nature. Wanting what he couldn’t have was his natural state.

  As a boy he’d wanted a father. He hadn’t had one.

  He’d wanted his mother to be well. He’d wanted to not be a caregiver, and he hadn’t gotten that either.

  Wanting Honey was just a piece of all that same longing he’d lived with his whole life.

  No.

  “Wood,” he bit out.

  And then he strode out, like the fire had leaped out of the fireplace and was chasing at his heels.

  Six

  Honey felt prickly and perturbed. As she had, ever since this morning’s explosion with Jericho. She had not meant to tell him about her virginity. But then, he shouldn’t have looked at all of her lingerie.

  Still, the lingerie had not necessitated her confession. She didn’t really know why she’d done it.

  Maybe wanted to see what he’d do...

  That made her breath quicken.

  It was a strange thing, being trapped here with him. It was a lot like being in the den with a lion. And the problem with that was, she kept getting tempted to...feed herself to him.

  The problem was, in close proximity like this it was difficult for her to forget that she was attracted to him. Wildly. But what had started as a fluttery sort of teenage feeling had lately become extremely adult and quite imagination after dark.

  But she...

  The fact was, she wanted him, and Donovan had only ever been a surrogate for that. Because she felt like her attraction to Jericho was emblematic of the fact that she had held on to her virginity for too long. But she had convinced herself that she could rid herself of her issues by just losing it to anybody. And now she was beginning to wonder.

  It was a really distressing thing to have to admit to herself. Especially while she was trapped here with him.

  Especially while it felt a lot like the universe was giving her an opportunity to exorcise the actual demon that was hounding her.

  The problem was that she had a job lined up with a man who certainly thought that she was coming to also have a physical relationship with him. And that, she supposed, was where Jericho’s concern for her well-being in that regard had come from. She could suddenly see how very sticky it all was. Because if she slept with Jericho now...

  Well, she wouldn’t expect them to have a relationship. No. Far from that.

  They could barely be in the same room without bickering. They were a very bad match, actually. It was just that she happened to be very particularly attracted to him. It was just that she couldn’t imagine touching him and then... And then touching someone else.

  Well, he has given no real indication that he wants to touch you, barring his strange and deep fascination with your virginal status.

  It was true. He had not given a real indication that he wanted to touch her. Everything that she was thinking was based firmly in the realm of fantasy. Firmly in her head.

  She started to open up the pantry doors and search around for dry ingredients. She found a cookbook and was successful at finding the ingredients necessary for a quick bread. There was no yeast. And she supposed that was a gift. The Irish soda bread would be quick. And the odds of her screwing it up, even with the woodstove were low.

  She was thankful now that her father had made her learn basic survival skills. And that he had made sure she knew how to keep a fire going.

  And she just had to wonder...if what Jericho said was true. If what was happening with the winery didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she was a girl, or the fact that her father doubted her competence. But everything to do with the fact that he was simply done. That it had become an albatross to him, and he had nothing left to prove.

  She knew that the reason that he’d started the winery in the first place had been to get at James Maxfield, her sister-in-law’s father, who had stolen the love of her father’s life away from him many years ago.

  Her father’s obsession with proving that he was good enough had driven a wedge between her parents; at least, that was something that her father had been talking about lately. His own shortcomings. The ways that he hadn’t managed to be the husband that he wanted to be because he was so lost in what could’ve been. The way that he had never really appreciated what he’d had.

  He had the woman he’d always loved now, but she knew that getting there hadn’t been the easiest of journeys.

  So maybe that was it. Maybe he just couldn’t separate his own feelings from the equation.

  She mixed together all the dough, which in her opinion formed kind of an unattractive lump, and put it in a cast-iron skillet, which she then slipped into the oven.

  She had no idea how to gauge the heat or the doneness in a wood fire oven, so she kept a continual eye on it. But much to her gratification, the smell that filled the kitchen was lovely.

  By the time lunch rolled around she had a beautiful-looking round of bread that she was ready to slather in butter.

  But Jericho hadn’t returned.

  She felt the prickle of worry.

  The snow was still coming down pretty hard outside, and while she didn’t think he could’ve gotten lost, she didn’t really know.

  N
either of them knew this area, and the visibility was poor. She had no idea where the wood was that he was supposed to go chop. And he might’ve injured himself. It was icy outside. Him walking in the ice with an ax was a whole different thing to concern herself with.

  And it just didn’t matter how fine everything seemed. She knew that better than most.

  Good people were taken away for no reason. All the time.

  No one was safe. Nothing was truly protected from harm.

  With a bit of panic building in her breast, she grabbed her coat and slipped out the front door.

  The silence was eerie. All noise insulated by the dense cover of snow all around. It was still falling, and every so often she would hear a tree groan beneath the weight of it.

  That was another thing to worry about. Falling trees and limbs. The snow here was so wet that it fell heavy and thick on the branches. And could easily create a disaster. Downed power lines and trees, mudslides...

  She sucked in a sharp breath and regretted it, when the cold touched the back of her throat and made her cough.

  It was so cold.

  Snow like this was such a rarity that she really wasn’t used to it. They got a light dusting now and again down in Gold Valley, but anything thicker and heavier typically fell up in the mountains, where she did not live. So it was just all very unusual.

  She would like to enjoy the novelty a little bit, but it was essentially impossible, given that the novelty was pretty well stripped away by the reality of the situation.

  She paused for a moment and heard a loud crack. One that she hoped was the sound of Jericho chopping wood, and not the sound of a tree limb giving way.

  She scrambled that direction, slipping and sliding in the slushy snow that went past her knees.

  Her boots were insufficient, and snow went over the edges, down into her feet.

  She shivered. But she kept on going.

  She heard the crack again and was reasonably certain that it had to be Jericho. But she pressed on anyway.

  She came up over a snowy ridge and saw him, swinging the ax and bringing it down unerringly on the log piece, splitting it in two.

  Then he dropped the ax, and picked up the stack of wood that he had produced, lifting it easily and beginning to walk up the hill. He stopped when he saw her.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I came looking for you.”

  “It’s freezing,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. It’s why I was worried about you. I’m fine.” Except for the snow in her boots.

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I am.” But her teeth began to chatter.

  “March yourself back to the house.”

  “I was worried about you,” she said. He walked up the hill, and she waited for him to reach her. He was laden with wood.

  “I can take some of that.”

  “No, you can’t. Go on.”

  “I could,” she insisted.

  “Your feet are about to fall off. Don’t tell me those boots are waterproof.”

  “Fine. They’re not. But my feet are not going to fall off.”

  “Go.”

  “There are fires and everything back at the house,” she protested. “I’ll be fine.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” he said. “I understand that we landed ourselves in a really cushy situation, but this is the kind of weather that kills people, Honey, and you were worried about that when we were stuck by the side of the road, but I feel like you’re not as worried about as you should be now.”

  “Oh no, that’s not fair. Because I went out looking for you because I was afraid that something happened to you. Because I know that this is the kind of weather that kills people.”

  “And if you found me, what were you going to do? Were you going to carry me back to the cabin?”

  She looked up, all the way up, so she could meet his gaze. “Yeah. I think I could have.”

  “You think that you could’ve carried me back. Through the snow.”

  “Women lift cars and stuff when their children are in trouble. I’m pretty sure that I could drag you if I had the kind of adrenaline that... Well, I’m sure it’s less adrenaline than a woman needing to lift the car off her child. But I bet it’s an appropriate amount to move you.”

  “You’re infuriating.”

  “How am I infuriating?”

  “Because you keep overestimating yourself. You keep acting like you know the way of the world when you damn well don’t. You don’t know the state of anything, Honey. You just don’t. You don’t know as much as you think you do, you don’t...”

  “I’m fine. I made bread.”

  “No. You’re acting like a child. Because why? Because you’re mad that I have the winery?”

  “Because I am furious,” she said. “Because I’m furious that you have the winery, and that I had been fixated on your ass for at least ten years. It is ridiculous, and I’m over it. How can I... How can I want you when you are such a jerk, and I don’t even like you.”

  He looked like she had picked up a ball of that wet snow and hit him in the face with it.

  And she realized that she’d said it. She had actually said it. And it was more awful and horrible than the revelation of her virginity ever could have been.

  “Oh...”

  “What do you mean you want me?”

  “It’s just that...” She stopped.

  “Don’t stop,” he said. “Your feet are wet. Explain yourself.”

  She felt she was being frog-marched through the snow, and she had gone and embarrassed herself so deeply that she was sweaty along with freezing. Which was just a terrible combination. And it couldn’t get any worse.

  So some small part of her felt compelled to try to make it worse.

  “I’ll explain myself... It’s just... I wanted to sleep with somebody else to get away from you. And to get away from the way that you make me feel. And to get away from...everything.”

  They arrived back at the house and he opened the door, propelling her inside. “Go take your clothes off.”

  “What?” It came out as a squeak.

  “You heard me.”

  “I...I said that I... I didn’t say that I wanted to...”

  “We’ll deal with that later. Right now you need to get warm. There’s a sauna outside. Get those boots off, strip yourself down and put on the robe in the bathroom. I’ll start the sauna.”

  “Oh... But don’t you want to...”

  “What I want is for your feet to not fall off,” he said. “That’s what I want. The rest of all this running off at the mouth you’re doing we’ll deal with later. But right now, you keeping your feet is the important thing.”

  Shivering, she shut herself in the bathroom and looked at the shower. She knew that it theoretically had hot water. She could just refuse to do what he said and get in the shower. But instead, she found herself stripping down and putting on the thick robe that was hung there. There were a pair of boots that looked soft and fuzzy, and the label over the top said sauna slippers.

  She slipped her feet into them. They were lined with wool, and appeared to have a treated, waterproof exterior.

  When she exited the bathroom, Jericho was nowhere to be seen, and it was probably all for the best, because she was naked beneath the robe and it made her feel uncomfortable, even though she was naked beneath all of her clothes, if she thought too deeply about it.

  She picked up the paper that had all the directions for the house and saw that it stated there was a map on the back. She flipped it over and saw a hand-drawn guide to how to get to the sauna.

  She shuffled out into the snow, thankfully not into any parts that were as deep as where she’d been a little earlier. So her feet stayed dry.

  She saw smoke coming out of the top and was
curious. She did not know how an off-grid sauna worked.

  She opened up the door and Jericho was inside, his jacket cast to the side, his shirtsleeves rolled up as he fed wood chips into the fire. Then he took a ladle and poured water over the hot rocks at the top of the stove, steam coming off them in waves.

  “This is how you do it,” he said, pouring more water over it.

  It was already toasty inside.

  “And you need it.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  She had closed the door behind her, because leaving it open seemed... Well, it seemed counter to the point of getting the sauna warm. But now she realized that she had gone and enclosed herself in a very tight space with the very man she was feeling completely self-conscious about.

  And also that she was wearing only a robe.

  “If you’re in here for longer than twenty minutes, I’m going to come looking for you.”

  “Right.”

  Wherein she would be naked.

  She shifted uncomfortably, heat building between her legs. Why was it like this? Why was it so...

  It wasn’t inevitable. She wanted it to be. And that was the problem. She was so hung up on him that she was pushing in a direction that she probably shouldn’t go.

  But all this... All this blurting she was doing, she didn’t actually think that it was organic. She was obviously pushing the conversation. Holding herself back from saying the thing that she actually wanted, but saying everything but.

  The fact of the matter was, what she really wanted was for him to be her first. What she really wanted was for him to be the one to introduce her to...to sex.

  Because for all that he infuriated her, he was the only man that she had practically ever really wanted. He was the only man that she could really imagine herself being with. And imagine it she had. Repeatedly. In vivid detail.

  Her chest felt tight, and her whole body flushed.

  And then suddenly, she realized. She was going to do it. She was going to do it, become it, because she had already embarrassed herself. She had already told him that she was a virgin. She had already told him that she wanted him. She was just going to do this.