Rancher’s Christmas Storm by Maisey Yates

Two

Honey flung a suitcase into the bed of her truck and slapped her hands together. She had every box in her bedroom all packed up. And she was ready to go. She had left a note for her dad.

The boxes would be picked up by a moving company—she was really enjoying the fact that she’d gotten a bit of money from the sale of the winery—and driven up separately.

She would be taking her truck and an overnight bag. Traveling light. And she was ready. Especially after that discussion with Jericho yesterday. Which couldn’t even be called a discussion. He was such a high-handed dick. And she was over it. Honestly, completely and utterly over men acting like they thought they knew what was best for her life. If it was only acting like they knew what was best for my life, it wouldn’t be that bad. But they actually made decisions that impacted her life and didn’t seem to get it when it infuriated her. More than infuriated. She was so... She was just so hurt by the whole thing with the vineyard.

She didn’t know that she would ever really get over it.

Getting ready to leave this place now... She wished that it felt more triumphant. Instead, it felt sad. This place housed the few memories that she had of her mother. And so many happy ones with her father and her brothers. And yes, even Jericho.

They were a close family, and they always had been. But this move by her dad had driven such a wedge between them.

A wedge she hadn’t told anyone about. But she didn’t know how. Didn’t know how to do it without flying off the handle, and after a decade of keeping it all to herself, the idea of letting it all out terrified her.

And her brothers had gone off and got married... It was just that everything was different. She didn’t think it could ever go back to the way it was. No, she knew it couldn’t. So she might as well start over. She might as well.

She put her hands on her hips and looked back at the room that was neatly stacked with boxes and then looked at her truck. There was no point delaying it now. She was on her way.

She walked around to the other side of her truck and started when she saw Jericho standing back next to a tree, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

His black hat was pulled low over his face, his dark eyes glittering. “And where exactly do you think you’re going?”

“Lake Oswego,” she said.

“Oh please,” he said. “You’re going to last about five minutes there. You’re going to die of hipster.”

“I don’t think Lake Oswego is renowned for its hipsterdom.”

He arched a dark brow and it made her stomach feel funny. “You’re really leaving?”

She frowned deeply. “My shit is packed. What do you think?”

“Stay,” he said, the word low and rumbling, and it tugged at her and she hated it. She had to get away from here. From him. She’d wanted a whole bunch of things for years. To be an equal to her brothers, to work this winery as they’d done and be able to have a piece of it someday. For Jericho to look at her with heat in his eyes. She wasn’t going to be able to find new patterns if she didn’t change things. Everything. “Don’t be rash about it.”

She really wanted to punch him for that. He had no idea. This wasn’t rash. It was the culmination of so much stuff. Of realizing that she was going to be treading water in Gold Valley for the rest of her life.

She had no career here. Not like she’d believed.

Her crush—toxic attraction sprinkled with a dash of irritation... Whatever you wanted to call it, it was on him.

“I’m going to go.”

“Look. I asked your brother to come here and handle things while I was away, and I did not blow your cover. So now I want you to be reasonable.”

“Reasonable meaning do exactly what you want me to do?”

He lifted a brow, which she had privately deemed his most arrogant eyebrow some years ago. “Hell yeah.”

She huffed. “Jericho, I don’t owe you the reality that you want. You sure as hell didn’t care about what I wanted when you bought the winery.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t care.”

“It was. You didn’t talk to me about it. Nothing. My entire world felt like it had been pulled out from under my feet.”

“How is it different? You didn’t own the place when your dad ran it. Why is it so different working for me?”

“Because I...” It hurt, this admission. But she was going to have to practice it because she was going to have to tell her dad eventually. Tell him without dissolving. She might as well practice on Jericho. “Because I expected someday that maybe my father would leave this to me. To us. I don’t have any problem with you having a piece of it. You’ve been part of us from... For a long time. But me being cut out of it...that’s what I can’t understand.”

“You got some money.”

“I did. But it’s not the same as getting this land. I can go earn money anywhere. Which is what I’m going to do.”

“And you’re going to sleep with this guy?”

That spiked a wave of fury in her blood. He had her vineyard. He had her desire. He didn’t deserve to be spared her honesty. “Yep. Lots of times.”

“Honey...”

Her eyes collided with his, and there was something about the look on his face that made a reckless heat careen through her blood. Because while she was talking about sleeping with Donovan, she couldn’t actively picture it. Yes, she’d seen photographs of him, but they couldn’t compare to Jericho standing in front of her in the angry, hard, hot flesh.

His mouth firmed into a grim line.

“What?”

“It’s a bad idea,” he said, his voice hard.

“So what?” she asked. “Has every one of your ideas been good?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, no.”

“Why do I have to make good decisions all the time? I want to make a bad decision. I want to try something. I don’t think it’s up to you to decide whether or not I get to do something crazy. So, I’m off.”

“Dammit, Honey.”

“Damn you, Jericho.” She walked past him, and then he grabbed her by the arm, whirling her to face him. She felt like all the breath had been sucked out of her body as she stared into his thunderous face.

She took stock of him. Of his beautiful features. His dark brown eyes and skin, the black stubble that covered his square jaw. And she felt like he was taking up all the space. In addition to having taken this winery from her, he had stolen her ability to breathe. Her ability to think. And right now it just enraged her.

“Let go of me.”

She wouldn’t allow him to steal this from her too. He had been her most secret, most shameful fantasy for far too long, and she was on her way to make something new, to get something new. She was going to have what she wanted. And she did want Donovan. Or at least, she really wanted to want Donovan. And that was going to have to be enough, because she couldn’t have Jericho.

Ever.

He was now the emblem of everything ruinous.

And she had called her brothers out for being dumbasses more than once, too many times to ever let herself be a dumbass over a man.

You don’t think that you’re being dumb about Donovan?

No. She wasn’t. Because the simple truth was... He was handsome, and maybe having a fling with him would be fun. But it wouldn’t devastate her. There was no way that it could. Because the ranch wasn’t the family winery.

And he wasn’t a man that was so close to her brothers he was practically family.

And he didn’t... He didn’t make her itch under her skin.

He didn’t get to places that she couldn’t reach.

So there was no risk involved. Jericho represented too much risk. Every risk. Every risk she couldn’t take.

So yes, she could run away to Lake Oswego. She could hook up with a guy who may or may not be permanent. But she could never... She could never.

She jerked away from him and climbed up into the cab of her truck, defiant. Then she slammed the heavy door and unrolled her window. “I’m leaving.”

“Yeah, you’re doing a real convincing job of it too.”

“I’ll run your ass over if you get in my way.”

“Honey...”

“Look, Merry Christmas and whatever. And good luck with your family. I don’t hate you.” Her throat suddenly got tight. “I just can’t be here.”

She started the engine, and before she could think better of it, she put the truck in Drive and punched the gas. And then she was leaving. Driving away from the little house she had called her own for years. From the winery that had always been her home. From the man who had given her butterflies in her stomach since before she knew what it meant.

This was better. Because she couldn’t stay here. Held back, held in place, not anymore. Everyone else had moved on. And she would have to watch Jericho bring an endless succession of women to the winery for sex for the rest of her life. And never resolve the feelings that she had... Never move on. She hated how much this was about that. How much it was about him.

So she drove away, and she challenged herself not to look back. She was not going to look back.

And pretty soon the road became less familiar, winding and lined with trees. And as she went up in elevation, what had started as a light dusting of the snow turned into big banks of it piled up on the sides of the road.

Luckily, it wasn’t cold enough right now to turn anything to ice.

She was on her way. She was on her way. She had quite a few miles of the middle of nowhere before she hit the interstate, and so she plugged her new phone in and cranked some country music, singing along with Luke Bryan, but pretty soon the lyrics of the song made her too sad. And she couldn’t even say why, because it was a party tune about someone being excited to hear her song playing on the radio. Maybe it was because it reminded her of warm nights at the winery and sitting around with her family. Sitting with Jericho. Making s’mores and dancing up on the tailgate.

But the problem was, somewhere deep in her soul, that it always felt a little bit electric because he was there. And she just couldn’t...

Why are you really mad?

She didn’t want to think about that. She did not want to think about why she was really upset. Why she really needed to leave. Because him buying the vineyard had shown her something. That he really didn’t think about her. And that she thought about him far too much. Way more than a woman should think about a man who had never showed any interest in her at all.

The road wound along the river, and she took in the beautiful scene. The rapids rolling over big smooth rocks, pine trees lining the banks and even a bald eagle giving her a patriotic show as he went fishing in the water.

And you’re moving to the city.

It was not the city. It was the outskirts of the city, and she would be at an equine facility. Really, it was completely up her alley. It was great. It was going to be fine.

Better than fine. Better than fine.

She was really full of affirmations today.

Sadly, she did not feel all that affirmed.

Suddenly, her truck sputtered slightly and gave a jolt. She startled, looking around as if there would be answers for what the hell was going on out there in nature.

It sputtered again, and she pulled over to the side of the road, letting it idle as she started breathing hard.

It would be fine. It was fine.

She put it in Drive and started to maneuver back out onto the road, and it made a horrible grinding sound and then stopped.

Well. Shit.

She grabbed her phone to call her brothers and saw that she didn’t have any bars.

What the hell? Had she driven back into 1996?

She got out of the truck and looked around. It was freezing. The wind whipped up, the sky going gray.

It felt ominous.

She couldn’t walk back to Gold Valley. She had driven more than an hour, and it would take her all day. On the route that she had driven, there was no town back or forward for at least fifteen miles.

This was...terrible.

Horrible.

No one knew where she’d gone, that she’d left, that she was coming...

Only Jericho knew and he wasn’t expecting her to get in touch anytime soon. Donavan didn’t even know to be expecting her.

Someone would happen down the road, she was certain of that.

She was not going to panic. There was no point panicking. She just had to deal. She had protein bars in the glove box. She reached over and opened it, grabbed one and opened it immediately, suddenly feeling ravenous. Because, of course, the prospect of being stuck here did not agree with her at all.

Someone would come by. It wasn’t like she was in the middle of nowhere.

She tore open the bar and shoved the food into her mouth.

She was fine. It was fine. Forty-five minutes into sitting there, she felt much less fine. Especially when the first light snowflake tumbled from the sky.

Great. She was going to freeze to death on the side of the road. A frozen pathetic virgin, whose last thought wouldn’t be the man she was going to have sex with, but her older brothers’ best friend, whom she had left behind.

She laid her head back against the seat and groaned.

And instantly, her mind conjured up summer. Summer, and Jericho half naked at the ocean. Wearing nothing but a pair of swim shorts, low on his hips. She could still remember the way that line cut right there, lowering her IQ by several points. His washboard abs, his chest, with just the right amount of dark hair.

And his skin... She wanted to lick it. And she had never licked another person in her life, but she was absolutely confident she wanted to lick him.

And punch him. In fairly equal measure most of the time. And what the hell was that?

She pounded her head against the back of the seat now.

“And here you are, just beginning to be responsible and take control of yourself. Here is your reward.”

Freezing in her truck.

She heard a truck engine before she saw one. She turned sharply, opening the driver’s-side door and stumbling out of the cab of the truck quickly. She didn’t even bother to put her coat and mittens on.

She just started to wave.

She was a motorist, and she was in distress. And she was going to make sure this person knew that she was distressed.

She hopped up and down, feeling ridiculous, but her desperation outweighed the ridiculousness by a fair amount.

It was a red truck, sort of a rusty red. And it did not take her long to realize...

No.

Of course.

The bane of her existence. The object of her desire.

That damn pain in the ass.

He turned his blinker on, and she took a step back, and then he pulled right into the outcropping where she had parked her truck.

“What the hell?”

She looked into Jericho’s stormy face.

“Well,” she said. “I am having some car trouble. And I have no cell service.”

“Shit,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“I told you that I was leaving. I’m heading up north to go to this...Big Dalton family shindig. They rented some complex up in the mountains.”

“Oh really?”

“In Washington.”

“In Washington?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you drop me off?”

“Drop you off?”

“We’re repeating again. And yes,” she said. “In Lake Oswego. That would be perfect. I could have a tow truck bring my truck up there. But then I don’t have to delay anything.”

She really badly needed to get there. She needed to see Donovan in person. She needed to get this all taken care of. She just really needed it.

“You want me to drive you up to your fancy equine facility booty call?”

“How many times have I watched you pick up squealing, giggling bridesmaids at bachelorette parties?”

It was a fair question. Because she had watched him. A lot. In fact, she had something of a running tally in her head. And she didn’t like it. It made her want to vomit her guts out every time.

She hated the idea of a woman touching him. She hated it.

Some woman running her hands over those abs. The ones that she wanted to lick.

The ones that she hated herself for wanting to lick.

Because there was just no point to it. He was Creed and Jackson’s best friend. He was basically a surrogate son to her father, and try as she might, she genuinely could not see Jericho as a brother. She just couldn’t.

And he wasn’t... He was never going to marry her.

She didn’t want to marry him anyway. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to get married. She didn’t know what she wanted. She had been certain that it was the winery, but now that wasn’t going to happen and she had to reevaluate things. Wanting to lick somebody’s abs did not equate to wanting to marry them.

But they couldn’t just... They couldn’t do anything. Not given the proximity of their lives. Not given just how enmeshed they were.

But that did not mean that she liked knowing that he was off fucking some other girl.

“It will be a few,” he said.

“How many times have you watched me pick up a guy?”

She could practically hear him grinding his teeth together. “I haven’t.”

Her cheeks were hot, but she was determined to be bold in this. Her brothers had never been discreet about their sex lives, and Jericho certainly hadn’t been. Why should she? “Drive me to my booty call,” she said.

It was poetic in a way.

She would use Jericho as a vehicle to get rid of her virginity. Not... Just in the way that he was going to actually drive the vehicle that would lead her up to the guy that was going to take her virginity. And that would be perfect.

“Your brothers...”

“Can hardly expect that I don’t have a sex life,” she said, lying, since she clearly did not have a sex life, but she hoped that Jericho didn’t know that.

“They probably aren’t going to want to know about you having a sex life with some guy who’s going to be signing your paychecks.”

“Right. Like you’ve never had an ill-advised love affair.”

He huffed a laugh. “I wouldn’t call anything that I’ve ever had ‘a love affair.’”

“We can stand around debating the semantics of where you had your dick, Jericho, or we can get out of the cold. I would like to get out of the cold. Can you give me a damned ride or not?”

She was incredibly proud of herself for not falling apart completely for saying the word dick in his presence, especially not when she meant his actual dick, which made her feel sweaty and hot and more than a little bit excited. She wasn’t going to think about his dick. No. She was not.

She really needed to take care of her virginity.

Not in the way she had been taking care of it, which had been like a preservation project. This was eradication.

“Yeah, I’ll give you a ride.”

“Brilliant,” she said. She took a photo of exactly where the truck was and the mile marker it was by, grabbed her suitcase and hefted it out of the bed, slinging it over into Jericho’s.

Then she climbed up into the passenger side.

Thankfully, the truck was warm. And she buckled up, snuggling into the much more comfortable seats.

“Your truck’s fancy ass,” she said.

“I’m rich as fuck,” he said.

She raised her brows. “Must be nice.”

“Didn’t you get a bit of money from the sale?”

“Yeah,” she said, idly adjusting the heater knob on the truck.

“So, why don’t you buy yourself a new truck?”

“Well, I don’t really want a new truck. I mean I don’t really need one. I mean, I don’t really know what I want. It’ll take some trying to figure it out.”

“Right. Hence the taking the new job with the guy that you’re...”

“I like him,” she said.

“Great,” he said. “Happy for you.”

“You don’t seem happy for me.”

“Did you want me to throw you a party? A ‘Honey is going to get laid’ party?”

“That’s all you’re thinking in terms of. Maybe I really like him.”

“Sorry. But you don’t seem like you do.”

“You don’t...” She sputtered. “You don’t get to decide what I sound like.”

They drove down the road, fat flakes building as they hit the windshield.

“Is this four-wheel drive?” she asked.

He shot her a sideways look. It clearly said: What do you think?

She continued, “I do like him.”

“You have shown a lot more emotion over generally being pissed off with me than you have over being with him. Being horny for somebody is not the same as being into them. Like into them completely.”

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m not horny for him. I am not a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“If you’re not horny, what’s the point?”

“I oppose the terminology,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to split hairs about your sex language?”

“I would rather not get into sex language with you. How about that?”

“Suit yourself.”

She cleared her throat. “It doesn’t bother you to use it with me?”

“Hell no. I say it to anybody. I’d say it to your brothers.”

“So I am...the same as my brothers to you.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Bullshit,” she practically screamed, but she was losing her mind here. He was not one of her brothers. He was being a possessive, demanding jerk, and he wasn’t even one of her brothers. But worse, he was a man she wanted to be possessive of for all the wrong reasons. Still wrong. Still not what she wanted. Never what she wanted.

“You would not want Jackson or Creed to go sleep with somebody that they were working with. Hell, Jackson was working with Cricket when he started to have sex with her. She’s my age. Also, Creed was working in opposition to Wren when he had unprotected sex with her in a wine cellar. He got her pregnant. They’re ridiculous. They are so irresponsible with sex that even I know all about their sex lives, and I really shouldn’t. I am their sister, and I oppose that I know so much about it. But because they’ve been such idiots, the entire town is aware of it. So the fact that you’re trying to warn me off sleeping with somebody just because I’m going to work at his ranch proves definitively that you don’t actually think of me the way that you do Jackson and Creed.”

He looked at her for a moment, lifting a brow. “Who said I didn’t tell them they were being dumbasses?”

“Did you?” she pressed.

“Not in so many words, no, but I didn’t really want to get punched in the face.”

She turned, balled her hand into a fist and slugged his shoulder. He was so muscular his flesh didn’t even budge. It was like punching a granite wall.

“You tool,” she said, shaking her hand.

“Honestly, language. And you were upset about horny.”

“And fuck you,” she said.

“All right, I don’t think of you as your brothers,” he said. The windshield wipers on his truck were moving faster now. Working overtime. Trying to keep up with the snowfall.

“You wouldn’t want me to anyway.”

“You don’t get to say what I want,” she said.

“You’re awfully spiky,” he said.

“I have a right to be spiky,” she returned. “You’re being patronizing.”

“I’m not intending to be patronizing. But the fact of the matter is, you are younger than us. And I worry a little bit about you.”

That last comment made her feel like she was on uneven ground. But her fury still lingered, even while his concern wound its way around her heart. “You worry about me so much that you took my livelihood out from under me without a second thought.”

“I didn’t the hell know you wanted the winery, Honey, and I’m not invested in you not having it. We should’ve talked about this before you went off half-cocked.”

“I’m about to go get a whole cock, thank you very much.”

“I’m sorry, but horny was offensive?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek, feeling red and embarrassed and mad. She was just so... It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

“This weather is getting intense,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.

But something about the way he said that made her think that he wasn’t really thinking of the weather.

They ended up not talking for a while, and she fiddled with the radio until she eventually gave up and just plugged her phone into his cable, firing up her country playlist. But he didn’t complain.

It transitioned from Luke Bryan to Mickey Guyton, and she tried to focus on the song lyrics and not on the fact that the cab of the truck suddenly felt too small.

But about fifteen minutes into their determined silence, making commentary on the weather wasn’t just to deal with awkwardness. It actually really merited a comment.

“This is crazy,” she said.

The snow was beginning to truly pile up on the side of the road and starting to actually cover the road in earnest.

“It’s fine,” he said.

“I’m glad that you have so much confidence in your truck. That seems just like a man.”

“No, it’s spoken like a woman whose truck gave out a few miles back in good weather. I have a decent vehicle. It’s going to be fine.”

But the snow escalated until they couldn’t see in front of them. Jericho slowed his truck to a crawl, maneuvering over the road as best he could.

“Shit,” he said. “I might have to pull off. I can’t see a damn thing.” Just then, a big truck hauling logs came by in the oncoming lane. They didn’t see it until it was right on top of them. It breezed by them so close, hugging the yellow line and making Honey jump.

She put her hand on his forearm, breathing hard.

“Good Lord,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going to have to pull off till it eases up. Assuming I can find a spot. See a spot.”

“Where the hell are we?”

“Somewhere between Gold Valley and Lake Oswego,” he said.

She thought she should probably laugh at that comment, because obviously... But her heart was still beating too quickly.

He took his phone out, and she could see that he didn’t have any bars. She didn’t hold out any hope that it meant she would either. He pulled off slowly, and she could feel the truck slide, then sink.

“Oh...” she said. “We’re not going to be able to get back out.”

“We’ll be able to get back out.”

Not today.

Not soon.

He didn’t say that but she knew it. So did he.

The snow didn’t ease.

They sat there, the engine idling, the heater doing its best to keep them from freezing.

“I thought I was going to die in my truck all alone. But it turns out I’m going to die in your truck sitting next to you. I have to tell you, it is not an infinitely more cheering prospect.”

“We’re not going to die,” he said.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t know that on any given day. But I don’t figure as a matter of course that I’m going to die, and I don’t really figure it now.”

“But again,” she said. “You don’t know.”

“For the love of God, Honey.”

He didn’t say anything after that. He was just breathing in irritation.

Hard and heavy, and she became very aware of her own breathing. Of her heart beating. She turned to look at him, suddenly afraid.

“What are we going to do?”

“Not panic,” he said.

“This is how people die,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is. But I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You understand?”

His brown eyes were sincere, and that was so unusual that it twisted up her insides. Plus she was afraid.

And for some reason, it was stirring deep truths and longings inside her. Making her feel shaken.

She suddenly felt very aware of how close they were. Of the heat coming off his body. Especially as things outside began to cool.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said. He moved his hand across the empty space on the truck seat and placed it over hers. “I swear.”

She shivered, looking away. “Okay.”

“It’s going to be all right.”

“I believe you,” she said.

She jerked her hand away, feeling suddenly beset by his touch.

It didn’t mean anything to him. He was comforting her like he would a child. But it made her too hot. Even in all this cold. They both knew that no one was going to happen by. Because everybody was getting off the road. There was not going to be any help coming for them unless it was somebody specifically looking for people who were stuck.

And neither of them were relishing the prospect of sleeping outside, she was sure.

“I’m going to get out and take a look around.”

“No,” she said, leaping forward, grabbing onto his hand. “People do that and they don’t come back.”

“I’m going to come back.”

“They always think they will.”

“I will not get away from the view of the truck. I promise you.”

“Promise,” she said. “You know... You know that happened to that man... The family got stuck and he walked away and...”

“I know,” he said. “But I’m not going to lose sight of the truck. I just need to see if there’s anyone else around here. Or if there’s a house even.”

“This is the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s the middle of we don’t know where. That’s a fact. So I’m just going to see.”

And then Jericho opened up his truck door and stepped out into the snow.