Her First Christmas Cowboy by Maisey Yates
CHAPTER FIVE
SHEHADTHOUGHTabout him all day. While she was helping kids with their math, she had been thinking about Clayton. What he was doing, if he was okay. If he had taken his shirt off. Or used her shower.
Oh dear.
She was feeling overwarm in spite of the chill in the air by the time she left school and got into her car, driving on the dirt roads that connected the various dwellings on the ranch. She drove past the Sullivan sisters’ big farmhouse, the expansive green lawn and the idyllic willow trees.
And she didn’t care because she was still thinking about Clayton.
Her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird by the time she pulled up to her cottage. And then she saw him, and her heart hit her sternum with a bump. She put the car in Park and got out quickly, her immediate fear and anger a total overreaction and she knew it.
And even while she knew it, she couldn’t stop herself.
Because there he was, shirt off, swinging an ax down onto a vertically set hunk of wood.
He looked...
She’d seen his body. Right before he’d stitched himself back together, and she’d been aware of the muscle then. But this was something else entirely. Though she was concerned about the homegrown stitches popping open.
But also distracted by his body. But also horrified he might hurt himself. Or be seen.
“I don’t want you bleeding everywhere again!”
He straightened, breathing hard, and she was mesmerized. By his sweat-slicked skin. By the way his muscles shifted with the motion. His abs, his... Everything.
And she felt in that moment every inch what she was.
An odd bird raised in a strange nest. Who had kept all of her weirdness wrapped around her as insulation when she’d gone into the world, because defying the way she’d been raised only felt good to a point, and beyond that she’d been worried.
Worried her mother might be right. Worried at least that she could become distracted from her focus. Worried she might validate what her mom thought about her by messing up, and she had done everything in her power not to mess up.
But here she was now, with her degree, a house, a job, and by some stroke of luck, a very handsome man chopping wood for her, and she had to ask herself what she was really afraid of.
Getting hurt.
Getting hurt really badly.
All that masculinity, because when have you ever been around that?
Also getting hurt.
Well, that was the truth of it. She’d used her childhood as an excuse to hold people at a distance, and here Clayton was. He’d literally crashed into her house, her life. And she felt close to him even though it had been days, and if she felt this much for him now...
“I’m fine,” he said, indicating the line of stitches still holding his side together.
“You could have hurt yourself.”
“But I didn’t.”
The stitches were indeed straight, and he was stunningly beautiful. And all of it was combining to create a situation, a moment that felt out of her grasp. That felt out of her realm of experience. Everything that he was stood completely outside of her life. And yet... Did it? Because he was the kind of man who had questioned what was in front of him, even though he had never been shown another way. And she had questioned what she had seen around her, as well.
They were fugitives from their families, as much as he was a fugitive from the law. And maybe it was abnormal to feel so much of a connection to a man that she had only just met, but nothing about them was normal. And yet, somehow they seemed to have plenty in common with each other.
“Well, you could’ve been seen.”
“And I would have said that I was doing some work for you around the place.”
“Well... Well. Fine. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
She was repeating herself because her real issues were lost in the actuality of being hot for him, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to hide that. Or if she should. Or could.
“I’m actually more than capable of taking care of myself. I know that you caught me at a pretty low moment, but I promise you, I’m not inept.”
“It isn’t that. I don’t think you’re inept. But I think you might have an overinflated idea of what you can handle.”
“Me? Never. I’m nothing if not entirely realistic about the things I can take on.”
“Which is why you brought... What? A knife to a gunfight with your brother?”
“Well, now, that was my mistake. I expected him to act like a brother. And not an enemy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t say anything about him. I don’t know enough.”
“I made dinner,” he said.
He walked up to her and slung the ax down, the head hitting the ground. Her head only came up to the center of his chest. He was just so large. So strong. She had realized that from the first moment she had seen him, but his strength had been so reduced in that first moment, that she hadn’t fully realized... All of that vitality. Everything he was. That had very nearly been snuffed out, and suddenly it seemed an unspeakable tragedy that it could’ve occurred. That he could have died somewhere out there in the middle of the woods, and she never would’ve met him.
It made her unbearably sad.
“You didn’t have to make dinner.”
“I’m a man who lives alone. I’m more than capable of rustling up grub when I need it.”
“You were also shot three days ago,” she pointed out.
“Yeah. But I’m doing pretty well, all things considered.”
He walked up the porch to the house, and she took a moment to appreciate the way his jeans cupped his backside. And his back. Broad and muscular, tapering down to a narrow waist.
“You’re not all that subtle.”
She jumped, feeling guilty. “What?”
“Nothing.” Then he chuckled. “You’re being a bit of a mother hen.”
And she felt guilty, because she felt caught looking at him. Even if he hadn’t said it.
“I’m not being a mother hen. I don’t even know you,” she said. “If you keel over and die the only inconvenience will be moving the body.”
“Come on now, Tala,” he said. “You don’t mean that.”
There was something about hearing her name on his lips that made her whole body feel shivery. “Yes, Clayton,” she said, his name on her tongue having the same effect, which didn’t seem fair. “I do.”
“Well, wait until you taste what I made for dinner before you commit to that.”
He pushed the door open and held it for her, and she tried not to breathe in when she walked past him, but she failed. Because what she wanted to do was inhale the scent of him every chance she got.
“You should have a shower,” she said. “And I need to figure out how to get you some clothes.”
He’d been in the same clothes for days, and no wonder he’d taken his shirt off. The one he’d come in was covered in dried blood. And had a bullet hole.
“Yeah, I just need to figure out a way to keep the stitches dry.”
“We can tape some plastic over them.”
“Good idea.”
And she was not going to offer to assist in the showering. She wasn’t brazen enough to do anything like that, but it was kind of a funny fantasy. Tala Nelson, helping a man shower. Being bold enough to offer. To put her hands on his body. On his bare skin all slick with water...
She swallowed hard. “What did you make?” It smelled amazing.
“Shepherd’s pie. Salad on the side. And some soda bread.”
“That’s... Insane. That’s insane. I thought that maybe you did up the Hamburger Helper.”
“No, honey, you don’t have Hamburger Helper. That would’ve required a trip to the store. And as I’m hiding out here, that was out of the question.”
“But you know how to cook... All that.”
“Like I said. I’ve been on my own for a long time, and I’ve learned a thing or two. A man ought to know how to cook for himself.”
“I don’t know that most men feel that way.”
“Spoken from personal experience?”
“Well no. But I... I watch a lot of TV.”
“You sound very proud of that fact.”
“Well, I wasn’t allowed to growing up. So soon as I got out on my own I watched... Years’ worth. More than my share. I’m a pop culture wizard. Granted, now I’ve settled into a few genres that I prefer. Initially I just watched everything. But I love superhero movies, and I love mysteries.”
“Have a seat.”
And she did. He went over to the oven and took the pie out, setting it up on the stove. He cut a slice, and her stomach growled. Then he dished up a salad onto the plate as well, and poured some of what looked like homemade dressing on top. “It looks fantastic.”
“Here’s how I see it,” Clayton said. “Any man who doesn’t learn how to cook himself a meal that he enjoys is waiting around for a woman he thinks ought to do it instead. But I’ve never seen the point in that kind of behavior. In my opinion, if you’re waiting around for a woman, you learn to cook a thing or two in case one of them is her favorite. You can’t wait around for somebody to fill holes in your life. And if you’re like me, well, you expect to spend your life alone anyway. And, I’m not going to spend my life alone and not enjoying the food that I eat. So there you go.”
“I... I get that,” she said. “I decided that I wanted to make my own life. On my own terms. My mother was just so overbearing, the idea of being answerable to anybody else...”
“Right. You mentioned your mother. And sisters?”
She nodded. “I have three sisters. I think they’re all married by now.” Thinking about them made her eyes feel scratchy. “I hope they’re happy. I really do. I hope that there’s happiness to be had in all of those things my mom taught us, but I just couldn’t find it. I wanted different. And I couldn’t stand living a life that mistrusted the world so much. Not when I was so interested in all the things in it. And when I think about it... I’m sure that something happened to her to make her feel that way. I mean, I know my father left her, but I wonder if there was more. But she never talked about it, and I could never ask. I never felt like I could ask. I was never brave enough to ask. I was brave enough to leave. But that’s a whole different thing, isn’t it?”
“There’s not always anything good to be had from confrontation,” he said, fixing his own plate. “Sometimes that just ends in bullet wounds.”
There was a comfort in those words. And he was right. There were things that couldn’t be fixed. Gulfs that were too wide to cross. Forgiveness might be possible, but if you and another person woke up every day, looked out at the same sun in the same sky and came to wholly different conclusions, maybe there was only so far it could go.
“My mother wasn’t going to shoot me,” she said.
“You don’t really know.”
“I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have. But she probably would have yelled. Disowned me. Which I know she did anyway, but I never had to see any of it. It’s awful to have to cut everybody off so entirely though. To protect yourself.”
“It’s too much work,” he said. “Living a life where you have to protect yourself. You ought to live with someone who protects you.”
She looked down at her food. “That’s a very nice sentiment. But I’ve always been my own hero. I wouldn’t say no to Captain America... But he hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Not very American of him.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
He was still shirtless. And she didn’t wish that Captain America was there. She just wanted Clayton. Wasn’t that the darndest thing?
“How old are you?” she asked.
The question just sort of spilled out of her mouth. She wanted to know more about him.
“Thirty-two.”
“Do you have any kids?”
He laughed. Actually laughed. “No.”
“And you don’t want them.”
“No,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t have a place in my life for another person.”
Well, up until this she thought the same about herself. But sitting with him at the kitchen table eating dinner, coming home to a cooked dinner, to chopped wood, to conversation...
It didn’t matter. It didn’t much matter, but she was thankful for this moment that defied her plans all the same. And though he didn’t say it, she had a feeling that he was too. That this moment, with companionship, mattered to him just as much as it did to her.
