Hers for the Holidays. Samantha Hunter

pressed the buttons several times, the lights and horn suddenly started blaring in annoying rhythm, filling the street with sound. As the cowboy pulled back in surprise, survival adrenaline kicked in. Lydia brought her foot up, stomping the foot of the one closest to her and then kneed him in the family jewels, sending him howling to the snowy surface as she got inside of her car and locked the doors.

      Gunning the engine, she noticed a few people emerging from the restaurant and a local drugstore to see what was happening, probably making sure it wasn’t their own car being broken into. The cowboys got out of the way as she did a quick U-turn in the center of the road, nearly running over the foot of the guy who had threatened her. He swore loudly after her as she raced away.

      As she caught her breath and reassured herself that she was safe, she glanced to the side, and nearly hit the brakes as she caught a glimpse of a face she thought she recognized.

      Ely?

      His hood up, face shadowed, the man who sat in the dark cab of a truck looked like him, but...that wasn’t possible.

      She watched as the truck lit up in her rearview and pulled away in the opposite direction, making her shake her head as she slowed down and got hold of herself. Great, now she was imagining things.

      Her slamming heartbeat finally calmed as she drove, and she shook off the remnants of panic from the confrontation. She was fine. She had handled things herself, as she always did. If Lydia knew anything, it was how to take care of herself. She’d been doing it ever since she left home.

      A momentary spark of worry had her checking her rearview for headlights, worried the cowboys might take after her—those guys wouldn’t enjoy being bested by a girl—but nothing was there. Most likely, they would go home, pass out and hope their wives or girlfriends didn’t get word of their bad behavior. There was nothing to worry about, she reassured herself.

      Snowflakes picked up more density on the windshield, and she didn’t really relax until she made it back to the ranch. Smitty and Kyle were in the bunkhouses, if she needed them, anyway.

      Ely’s face flashed again in her mind as she parked the car in the garage and sat there for a moment, thinking. The guy in the truck couldn’t possibly have been him, though she had felt the same keen sense of awareness she had felt the first moment she had ever seen him, in a hospital emergency room. She’d been there with Tessa, when Jonas’s vision had returned. She and Ely had gone for a cup of coffee. After that, they went to her place.

      It was only one night, but she’d replayed it in her head about a thousand times, much to her annoyance.

      Lydia had made sure he knew the rules—she didn’t do relationships. At the time, he’d just ended something bad with another woman, but he was cute and she took him home. That was all there was to it. Lydia preferred not to get too wrapped up in details—they made everything messy and complicated. Sex was fun, and she liked to keep it that way.

      But she hadn’t ever felt a connection—physical and otherwise—with anyone like she had with Ely. It had rattled her hard enough to send her running in the other direction, and fast. He had, too.

      As it turned out, though, he had probably regretted their night together more than she imagined. That had hurt a bit. She had remained friends with a couple of the guys she’d slept with, and Ely’s clear desire to have nothing to do with her after their night together had been, well, hurtful. It was like he was ashamed of being with her, which she supposed he might have been. She knew that she wasn’t his usual type; he was more into classy, professional, coiffed chicks.

      Yes, she had looked up his ex on the internet. Sadly. Suffice it to say they didn’t run in the same circles at all.

      She shook it off. Being here was making her moody. Dealing with losing her mother, her past, and all the complications of her inheritance were bad enough, and the holidays always messed with people’s heads. It was why she normally left and went to a beach somewhere over Christmas and ignored it all.

      But the nagging feeling that something was lacking in her life wouldn’t quite go away. Being in Tessa’s wedding, and seeing how happy she and Jonas were, didn’t help matters any. It made Lydia think maybe she could find the same kind of real connection with someone, something that would last.

      Crazy. She’d always enjoyed her freedom and her work had become her life. She’d never wanted anything else. She was happy as she was. If it wasn’t broken, don’t fix it. She had more than she ever imagined having, and needed to be content with that.

      But even if she did ever find something permanent, it wouldn’t be with Ely Berringer, so she had to get him out of her head.

      Easier said than done, apparently.

      2

      ELY LEFT HIS TRUCK about a hundred feet back on the road that led to Lydia’s ranch and walked the rest of the way toward the house so as not to be spotted. He’d followed her to make sure no one else did—namely, the guys who had cornered her by her car. He’d intended to step in, but she’d taken care of things pretty well on her own.

      Lydia was one tough cookie, no doubt about it, he thought with a spark of admiration. Even so, Ely wanted to pound the guy who had tried to mess with her. He settled for calling in an anonymous tip to the local authorities before he drove away.

      As she’d passed him on the road, he’d made the mistake of looking toward her car. For a split second, their eyes met—she’d seen him. He thought his goose was cooked, but she’d continued to drive and was clearly too panicked to have registered that it was him. His hood had been up, face obscured by the snow and the dark.

      But it had been a close call.

      He made his way to the edge of the trees in time to watch her pull her car into the detached garage. What was she doing? She sat for a while before she got out and walked around to the door of the huge ranch house. His hoodie wasn’t exactly the right gear for this kind of surveillance, but he hadn’t expected to be out in the woods that evening when he’d headed down for supper. He put it out of his mind, ignored the cold. Not important. He’d make sure she was safely tucked in, then he’d go back.

      The area was very remote, rural. The next ranch was at least five miles away. An animal sound—a horse—came from one of the barns, breaking the temporary silence, and Ely shook his head.

      None of it seemed like the Lydia he knew.

      Then again, no one seemed to know her. Not really. Least of all him.

      Unlike the cheerfulness of the town, the ranch was cold and dark except for some lights in a few of the outbuildings away from the house. No Christmas lights or such hung here. That was okay—it made it easier for him to move around undetected.

      After she went inside, he watched the lights in the windows as she turned them on, moving through the house. The next thing he knew, he saw her slim form behind the shimmer of curtains upstairs.

      Undressing.

      He followed the movement of her silhouetted form as she lifted her sweater up over her head, her back forming a graceful arch as her arms rose, crossed and dispensed of the garment.

      When she bent to shuck her jeans, he swallowed hard, taking in her profile, the slope of her breasts, the smooth plane of her stomach, curve of her hip. He told himself to look away, though he couldn’t seem to do it.

      For a second, he wondered which Lydia was real. The leather-clad, tattooed temptress or the soft shadow of the woman hidden behind the curtains?

      Was what had happened between them that night just another act, or had any of that been real? Ely shook his head hard, as if to break the spell. When he looked again, she’d moved away from the window. What was he doing here? Sometimes, there was a thin line between surveillance and Peeping Tom. Time to head out.

      First, he walked back to the house, up to the porch. He didn’t have to worry about leaving a path. His footsteps were sure to be buried beneath several feet of snow by morning.

      Walking