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All eyes were upon her as she texted Nash. I need two trees. One for the house and one for the bunkhouse retreat. Can I buy them from you?
She hit Send.
Thirty seconds later, her phone chimed. No problem, Nash texted back. What size?
Twelve foot for the bunkhouse, and six foot for the ranch house, Callie typed in return.
Again, the reply coming in was nearly instantaneous. I’ll get them to you this morning, Nash wrote, with the symbol for a wink. Last night was great, by the way. Especially before you kicked me out.
Reading it, Callie had to stifle a laugh but could do nothing to contain the telltale heat climbing to her cheeks.
“What?” Maggie asked, drawing nearer.
Callie shook her head and slid her phone into her pocket. “He was talking about the dinner, how much everyone enjoyed it,” she fibbed. “That’s all.”
Maggie lifted a speculative brow.
But before anyone had another chance to say anything, a ruckus broke out in the adjacent family room. “My daddy!” Henry shouted.
“No,” Brian disagreed, climbing onto Hart’s lap and wrapping his arms around Hart’s neck. “He’s mine!”
Henry attempted to push his cousin aside. “No,” Henry shouted back emotionally. “He is your uncle Hart. He’s my daddy!”
Hart wrapped both boys in his arms. “Hey now,” he soothed, holding them both close—to no avail. “I’m here for both of you...”
Brian let out another outraged howl, and Henry followed suit. Her heart breaking, Callie rushed to the rescue.
But Brian did not want to go with her. Or his grandparents. Or his aunt Maggie. So Callie did the only thing she could do, the thing she always did, and she went to get Brian’s picture of Seth.
* * *
NASH COULD HEAR the ruckus inside, the moment he pulled up to the Heart of Texas ranch house in his pickup truck.
Inside, Nash found, it was little better. Callie was in tears. So were both preschoolers. Hart and Maggie were doing their best to separate—and soothe—the two quarreling little boys, but emotions were at an all-time high. Only Callie’s in-laws were calm.
“This is exactly why you’ve got to think about remarrying,” Doris was telling Callie.
Rock agreed. “We loved our son dearly, honey, and we will always miss him, but we know, like it or not, that life goes on. It has for us. And it must for you and our grandson, too.”
Callie shook her head, understanding—if not agreeing. She wiped the moisture from her face and, picture in hand, went to her son. She hunkered down beside him. “Brian, honey, we have to talk.”
The tyke turned to Callie with a heartfelt glare. “No, Mommy,” he said. “No talk. No picture!” He pushed the framed photo in her hand away.
Deciding to do what he could to break the tension, Nash stepped forward and interjected brightly. “Who wants to see how many Christmas trees I have in the back of my pickup truck?” He squinted at the two boys. “I’ll bet you anything you can’t count them.”
Henry straightened. “I can, too!” he said with importance.
Brian scrambled off Hart’s lap and headed for Nash, doing his best to push his cousin out of the way in the process. “I want to see!” Brian declared.
“Well, okay then.” Nash put out a hand to each child. “Let’s go see. You think you fellas are old enough to see into the bed of my pickup truck, if I lift you up?”
“Yes,” Henry and Brian shouted in unison.
Out the door they went. When they reached the tailgate, Nash bent down to take a boy in each arm and lifted them high. Their quarrel forgotten, they leaned over to look into the bed of his truck, where four unwrapped, fresh-cut pines, of varying sizes, lay.
“Wow,” the cousins said in unison.
Nash let them study the trees. “Think we should get them out, to see just how tall they are?”
The boys nodded.
Nash handed off Brian to Callie, and Henry to Hart. “Okay then,” he said with comically exaggerated importance. “Everyone stand back...”
The next few minutes were spent admiring the trees from all angles and selecting which one would go into the bunkhouse retreat and which would go to the ranch house.
By the time they secured each in the stands Callie had already purchased, the boys were filled with wonder.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Callie said, as she walked him back to his truck, while the others all returned to the ranch house.
Nash tipped his head at her. “Happy to be of service,” he drawled.
Callie’s eyes drifted to his mouth. Flushing, she sucked in a breath and returned her gaze to his. “What do I owe you for the trees?”
That was easy. “Dinner—tonight.”
Her slender shoulders stiffened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He studied the mutinous expression on her pretty face. “Why not?” he prodded, enjoying the display of temper.
Aqua-blue eyes narrowed. “Because.”
He stepped close enough to inhale the flowery scent of her hair and skin. “We might end up kissing again?”
Scoffing, Callie folded her arms in front of her, tightening the cashmere fabric of her sweater over the rounded softness of her breasts. “That’s not going to happen.”
He moved even closer. “Mmm-hmm,” he said huskily. It took everything he had not to touch her again. Haul her into his arms. And...
“And what if I promise not to kiss you again?” he asked. “At least tonight?”
A pulse throbbed in her throat. “Meaning?”
“I only like to think about things like that short term.”
“Well, I don’t like to think about them at all!”
He’d been able to tell that it had been a while. A long while. “So noted,” he said dryly. Besides it wasn’t a vow which would necessarily be hard to keep if she continued to have as many chaperones as she had inside her home at that moment.
“Seems like your son could use the distraction,” he persuaded.
He had her there...and she knew it.
Callie blew out a gusty sigh. “Fine,” she conceded. “But don’t expect anything other than leftovers.”
Leftovers sounded a heck of a lot better than she knew.
“What time?” he asked, before she could change her mind.
Another breath, so deep it lifted—then lowered—the soft swell of her breasts.
Not that he was noticing, he told himself firmly.
She bit her lip, as she considered. “Seven-thirty?”
Nash shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
And then, before he was tempted to forgo all reason and kiss her again, he turned and walked away.
Chapter Four
Nash was surprised to see only Callie’s SUV parked in front of her ranch house when he arrived Friday evening. And even more surprised to see the way she was outfitted when she opened the door to him.
“Ah,” he couldn’t resist teasing, “you dressed up just for me.”
Callie flushed. Clearly she had meant her attire to send a message that this evening meant nothing to her. And he had to admit, on that score, she had done a fine job.
She was definitely dressed to un-impress—in old jeans and a loose-fitting blue chambray shirt, washed so many times it was soft and thin as silk, socks and moccasins, all her makeup scrubbed off.
Looking around the foyer, he realized that everyone else appeared to be gone. She had massive to-do lists spread out on the coffee table, as well as photos of her late husband and wedding pictures prominently displayed on the mantel.
Which was even more amusing, Nash noted, since none of that had been there earlier in the day.
He shrugged out of his shearling jacket and hung it on the coatrack, then followed her into the kitchen. The scent of sage dressing, turkey and cranberries wafted through the air.
“Brian asleep?”
Callie nodded, clearly disappointed about that, too. “I had hoped he would be up, but he is so overtired, it’s probably for the best.”
“And your in-laws?”
Another tight officious smile. “They’re off to spend the weekend at the holiday craft show in San Antonio.” She gestured for him to have a seat at a table set for two.
She went to the oven and pulled out casserole dishes. Turkey smothered in gravy. Potatoes and stuffing. Some sort of vegetable medley that hadn’t been on the table the evening before. Warm cranberry and apple compote. A loaf of what appeared to be homemade bread. And butter.
When she had everything at the table, she sat down, too. “Rock and Doris have a wholesale Texana souvenir business. Basically they sell or make anything and everything that has to do with the history and culture of Texas. They trade with businesses all over the state, so even though they are based in my hometown, they are on the road a lot.”
Nash heaped food on his plate, then dug in. “I gather they supported your decision to start your own business and move away from Laramie?”
“They did.”
Her food was every bit as good the second time around. “Are your parents as understanding?”
“No,” Callie admitted. “They wanted me to stay closer to home. But I still see them a fair amount, since they’re both doctors, and attend a lot of medical education seminars in San Antonio.”
“How do they feel about the prospect of you getting married again?”
She kept her eyes on his a disconcertingly long time, then lifted her chin. “We haven’t really talked about it.”
“And yet your in-laws want you to take another leap of faith, as soon as possible it would seem.”
“What can I say?” Her silver Christmas star earrings jangled as she tilted her head slightly to one side. “They’re hopelessly romantic. My late husband was the same.”
“And you...?”
“Used to be a romantic fool,” she said. The enticing curves of her breasts pressed against her blouse as she inhaled sharply. “No more.”
Wishing he could give in to his desire, haul her onto his lap and lock lips with her again, Nash recalled his promise not to kiss her again tonight. “So you’re not interested in getting married again?”
The mutinous light was back in her blue eyes. “Nope. Not at all. Been there, done that. See no reason to ever do it again. Or even, really, date.”
Message sent, Nash thought, but not necessarily received.
He grinned, the man in him rising to the womanly challenge in her. He leaned back in his chair, his shoulders flexing against the rungs. “You’re going to live your whole life without sex?”
“I didn’t say that, exactly.”
Now they were getting somewhere! “Then...?”
Her flush deepened, as if she knew how ludicrous she sounded. “Why are you asking me this?”
Lazily, he looked her up and down, amazed at how gorgeous she was, under any circumstances. Aware she was waiting for an answer, he said, “I’m curious.”
She studied him coolly in return. “Okay, if you must know,” she said, clearly not understanding why this was so, “I could see myself having an affair—at least in theory—if I could keep it strictly as a bed-buddy, casual-sex type of thing.”
This was news. “Bed-buddy,” he repeated in shock.
She leveled another long, droll look. “You know. Someone you have sex with when the mood strikes, but don’t have any kind of romantic attachment to.”
Her matter-of-fact assertion sounded even more ludicrous the second time around.
“Or you could ‘hire’ a companion,” he quipped. “Someone like...say, me...who would ‘work for food’ under those circumstances.”
She shook her head at the merriment twinkling in his eyes. Knowing even without him saying so that he was already half-serious. “You’re so funny.”
He chuckled. “So are you.”
Again it took everything he had to resist touching her.
They locked eyes, drawing out the sensually charged moment.
“You don’t believe I could have a casual affair, do you?” Callie challenged. He stood and carried his dishes to the sink. “Not for one second. No.”
She rose, too, her motions as graceful as they were deliberate. “Why not?”
He watched her slide the plates into the dishwasher, then ease the door back into place with more than necessary gusto. “Because you might say you’ve let go of your romantic ideals, but those to-do lists you had out for me to see, of everything you want to do to celebrate Christmas, say otherwise.”
Callie swung toward him, her body nudging his in the process. “Those lists have nothing to do with how I feel. And everything to do with how I want my son to feel.”
He studied the conflicted expression on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“The truth is...I haven’t felt like celebrating Christmas since my husband died. But,” she added the all important caveat, “I have a child who needs to experience all the wonder and hope and joy that the holiday can bring, so I go through the motions. For him.”
“You don’t think he knows that’s what you’re doing?”
Callie released an exasperated breath. “He’s two and a half.”
“So?”
Another silence fell, this one fraught with tension. “So...he can’t even figure out what a daddy is. Yet.” Nash lounged against the counter, legs crossed at the ankle, his hands braced on either side of him. “Except that he knows he wants one and doesn’t have one.”
Her jaw took on the determined tilt he was beginning to know so well. “Brian will get over it.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He is going to have to,” Callie insisted, looking Nash right in the eye, “because I am not going to marry again without love. And I’m not going to marry for purely romantic reasons, either.”
* * *
HER WORDS WERE TRUE. Nevertheless, Callie still wished with all her heart that she hadn’t said them. Hadn’t revealed nearly so much about herself to the man standing opposite her.
Nash looked shocked. “So you won’t marry again, period.”
His low, masculine voice sent a thrill through her. “Nope.” Determined to keep him at arm’s length, she continued, “Once you’ve had the best, anything that follows is bound to be second-rate, and who wants that, right?”
His chuckle was warm and seductive. Gazing down at her, as if she had just given him the opening he needed, he turned to face her, trapping her between the counter and his big hard body. “Not even for companionship and sex?” he taunted softly.
Pretending she couldn’t feel the sizzle of awareness sifting between them, she backed up as much as she could, which turned out to be about half an inch. “Why do you keep bringing the subject back around to sex?”
He remained close. Still not touching her, he shrugged. “Not sure.” His gaze traced the shape of her lips before returning evocatively to her eyes. “Just seems to be on my mind whenever I’m around you.”
Hers, too. She flattened her hand across his chest. “Well, stop thinking about it.” Her attempt to shove him aside failed.
He remained as unmovable as a two-ton boulder. Dipping his head, he kissed the back of her forearm. “Easier said than done.”
Her entire body leaped into flame. And he hadn’t so much as actually touched her yet. She lifted her hand away from the hard musculature of his broad chest and the slow, steady beat of his heart. “Listen to me, Nash Echols, I am not the woman for you.”
He flashed another thoughtful half smile, then lowered his head and slanted it across hers. “Actually, Callie,” he said, pausing to deliver a gentle, persuasive kiss, “you might be just what I need.” Hands still braced on the counter on either side of her, he kissed her again, even more provocatively this time. “And I might be just what you need,” Nash persisted, trailing kisses over the nape of her neck, across her collarbone. “Since you’re in the market for sex-with-no-strings-attached...”
Callie’s eyes shuttered closed, but she forced them open. Forced herself to look him in the eye. “I never actually said that.” Although she had been thinking it, at least whenever he was around.
His chuckle remained confident. “Speaking hypothetically is one step away from actually doing something. You know that.”
Fine. So maybe the idea of going without making love again—ever—was not only depressing, it was a tad unrealistic, too, given the signals her body had been transmitting the past few days.
But not about to give him the satisfaction of being right, she squared her shoulders. “I didn’t say I wanted the sex to be with you.”
He looked down at her old, loose chambray shirt—seeming to visually strip her naked, to see what was beneath. “Not verbally. Physically,” he looked again, as if he could tell her nipples had peaked, “you seem to be hinting at just that.”
She moaned as his hands slid under her blouse, moved upward to cup her breasts. “I knew you were trouble the first day we met.”
He bent to kiss her again. Slowly, tantalizingly. “But it’s the kind of trouble you want to be in. Would be in, if you weren’t so set on living the life of a nun.”
One button was undone, then the next, and the next. “And it’s a damn shame to see you so alone.”
She willed herself to move, but found her legs would not cooperate. Nor would her knees. She swayed back against the counter, holding on to the edge on either side of her. “Why?”
The side of his hand moved across her collarbone, lower still, to the valley between her slowly rising and falling breasts. “Because you’re young and vital and beautiful.” His fingers grazed across her skin. “And, judging from your display of temper the other day, have way too much passion locked away inside.”
Passion that welled up, unchecked, whenever she saw him. Passion that—like now—made her helpless to fight the desire roiling inside her. She moved her hands up to his shoulders, intending to push him away and failing. “You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered, looking deep into his dark silver eyes. “Not really.”
He reached around behind her, unfastening her bra, caressing and claiming her beneath the sheer lace cloth. “I know,” he rasped, “that widow or not, you miss being kissed. Touched. Loved.”
“I do. Not—” Her words were smothered by the feel of his lips on hers.
She meant to resist him, she really did, but the heat and pressure of his mouth sent a thrill spiraling through her. For too long she’d been treated with kid gloves by everyone around her. For too long, she’d felt only half alive. Yet now, with his hands on her skin, his mouth on hers, that was no longer true. She was more alive than she had been in her entire life.
“See?” he whispered, stepping back. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
She exhaled slowly, wishing there were some way to discretely refasten her bra. As embarrassment and anger surged within her, she scowled at him and turned away. “I should have known you wouldn’t be a gentleman for long.”
He stepped behind her, fastened her up again. Then, coming around to face her, reached for the buttons on her blouse, declaring proudly, “I thought my kiss was very...gentlemanly.”
She shoved his hand away and put her shirt together herself. “Erotic, yes.” She looked down to make sure the buttons were in the right holes.
He chuckled. “I can go with that.”
Finally, Callie was dressed again, but her breasts were still tingling. Lower still, a wildfire of need raged.
She drew a deep, bolstering breath, determined to put him in his place. “But let’s be clear here. A gentleman wouldn’t have kissed me at all. Especially after promising me that he wouldn’t!”
Mischief danced in Nash’s eyes. “You’re right. It is all a little too soon. This being our third date, after all.”
“Third!” Callie sputtered. Now she knew why she had never dated a bad boy before. They were definitely too much trouble.
“The first was the night you brought me dinner. The second, Thanksgiving.”
“There were twenty-six people here, if you count my in-laws!”
“I admit it was kind of a group thing. Till after...” He waggled his brows suggestively. “Then, it was just you and me. And then of course, there’s tonight. I really enjoyed tonight.”
The hell of it was, so had she. From the moment he had stepped through her front door, she had felt incredibly excited and alive. But that was neither here nor there. “You may annoy the heck out of me.”
He grinned.
“But this isn’t seventh grade.”
“You’re right.” He rubbed the flat of his hand beneath the underside of his smoothly shaven jaw. “I never went to second base in seventh grade...and I suspect you didn’t, either.”
Ignoring that last comment, she plunged ahead. “Furthermore, I don’t get involved with sexy upstarts. Never have. Never will.”
His expression sobered, all but his eyes, which were still gleaming merrily. “Good to know.”
Feeling like a schoolmarm in front of an unruly class, Callie lifted a lecturing hand. “From this point forward, there is not going to be anything going on between us—except cooperation of a business nature.”
Nash went back to the table to claim the serving dishes. “Speaking of which...did Frank and Fiona Sanders tell you that they have invited me and my crew to join the Old-Fashioned Christmas Celebration at Sanders Mountain on December twenty-first?”
* * *
CALLIE STARED AT him in shock. “The Sanders did what?”
“Asked me to participate. They said you are organizing it.”
Telling herself she had not just stumbled into a lion’s den of temptation, Callie kept her eyes locked with his. “Although I no longer work full-time at the Double Knot, I still advise them part-time and help out with all the marketing.”
“Is this an annual event?” he asked.
Glad to be moving back to a conversation that was strictly business, she got the last of the serving dishes and slid them into the dishwasher. “It’s the first, although we’re expecting it to become a beloved yearly tradition.”
Nash stepped back, giving her room to work. “How did it come about?”
Callie added soap to the dishwasher and turned it on. “They don’t book a lot of outdoor weddings for Nature’s Cathedral in December and January—the weather is too cold for most. So I suggested that Frank and Fiona use the lag time to put on an old-fashioned Christmas Celebration for their clients, suppliers and referral partners and their families, both as a way of saying thank you and to drum up future business.”
She switched off the light and he followed her into the hall. “For you, as well?”
Callie nodded. “We could do the same for your Christmas tree business.”
“As well as the xeriscape plants and trees I am hoping to sell to local garden centers.”
She paused next to the coatrack in the foyer. “In the meantime, you could do what I am going to do, and raffle off free trees and/or evergreen wreaths to whatever number of lucky guests you decide upon.”
“How many people are you hoping to host?”
“Five hundred or so. Although invitations are going out for close to one thousand guests.”
He smiled. “Impressive.”
She reached for his hat and coat, and handed them to him. “We’re setting up the party barn at the Double Knot as a Santa’s Village. Hart is going to play Santa. We’ll also have photographers, train rides up the mountain and a choir and a brass quintet at Nature’s Cathedral to get people in the holiday mood.”
“Sounds great.”
She arched a brow. “So you’re in?”
“Absolutely.”
“It means you’ll have to help the day of the event, as well as the week or so leading up to it,” she warned. “Sure you’re up to that?”
“No problem. As soon as I fill the orders for the Christmas trees I already have, my schedule will free up considerably.”
They looked at each other.
Callie knew if he stayed they would only end up kissing again. She made a show of stifling a yawn.
He grinned, as if knowing however tired she might be, sleep was going to be a long time coming. Especially if she started thinking about the way he had kissed her, and touched her, again...
Which, she told herself firmly, she would not.
His grin widened all the more. “I can take a hint.” He shrugged on his coat and ambled toward the front door. “If you need anything before Monday...” he said over his shoulder.