Christmas Cowboy: Will of Steel / Winter Roses. Diana Palmer

from an elderly widow just down the road. Theodore loved fresh bread. She was making a batch for tonight, to go with the pound cake.

      She pulled out her bin of flour and got down some yeast from the shelf. It took a long time to make bread from scratch, but it was worth it.

      She hadn’t changed into anything fancy, although she did have on a new pair of blue jeans and a pink checked shirt that buttoned up. She also tucked a pink ribbon into her long blond hair, which she tidied into a bun on top of her head. She wasn’t elegant, or beautiful, but she could at least look like a girl when she tried.

      And he noticed the minute he walked in the door. He cocked his head and stared down at her with amusement.

      “You’re a girl,” he said with mock surprise.

      She glared up at him. “I’m a woman.”

      He pursed his lips. “Not yet.”

      She flushed. She tried for a comeback but she couldn’t fumble one out of her flustered mind.

      “Sorry,” he said gently, and became serious when he noted her reaction to the teasing. “That wasn’t fair. Especially since you went to all the trouble to make me fresh rolls.” He lifted his head and sniffed appreciably.

      “How did you know that?”

      He tapped his nose. “I have a superlative sense of smell. Did I ever tell you about the time I tracked a wanted murderer by the way he smelled?” he added. “He was wearing some gosh-awful cheap cologne. I just followed the scent and walked up to him with my gun out. He’d spent a whole day covering his trail and stumbling over rocks to throw me off the track. He was so shocked when I walked into his camp that he just gave up without a fight.”

      “Did you tell him that his smell gave him away?” she asked, chuckling.

      “No. I didn’t want him to mention it to anybody when he went to jail. No need to give criminals a heads-up about something like that.”

      “Native Americans are great trackers,” she commented.

      He glowered down at her. “Anybody can be a good tracker. It comes from training, not ancestry.”

      “Well, aren’t you touchy,” she exclaimed.

      He averted his eyes. He shrugged. “Banes has been at it again.”

      “You should assign him to school crossings. He hates that,” she advised.

      “No, he doesn’t. His new girlfriend is a widow. She’s got a little boy, and Banes has suddenly become his hero. He’d love to work the school crossing.”

      “Still, you could find some unpleasant duty to assign him. Didn’t he say once that he hates being on traffic detail at ball games?”

      He brightened. “You know, he did say that.”

      “See? An opportunity presents itself.” She frowned. “Why are we looking for ways to punish him this time?”

      “He brought in a new book on the Little Bighorn Battle and showed me where it said Crazy Horse wasn’t in the fighting.”

      She gave him a droll look. “Oh, sure.”

      He grimaced. “Every so often, some writer who never saw a real Native American gets a bunch of hearsay evidence together and writes a book about how he’s the only one who knows the true story of some famous battle. This guy also said that Custer was nuts and had a hand in the post trader scandal where traders were cheating the Sioux and Cheyenne.”

      “Nobody who reads extensively about Custer would believe he had a hand in something so dishonest,” she scoffed. “He went to court and testified against President Ulysses S. Grant’s own brother in that corruption trial, as I recall. Why would he take such a risk if he was personally involved in it?”

      “My thoughts exactly,” he said, “and I told Banes so.”

      “What did Banes say to that?”

      “He quoted the author’s extensive background in military history.”

      She gave him a suspicious look. “Yes? What sort of background?”

      “He’s an expert in the Napoleonic Wars.”

      “Great! What does that have to do with the campaign on the Greasy Grass?” she asked, which referred to the Lakota name for the battle.

      “Not a damned thing,” he muttered. “You can be brilliant in your own field of study, but it’s another thing to do your research from a standing start and come to all the wrong conclusions. Banes said the guy used period newspapers and magazines for part of his research.”

      “The Lakota and Cheyenne, as I recall, didn’t write about current events,” she mused.

      He chuckled. “No, they didn’t have newspaper reporters back then. So it was all from the cavalry’s point of view, or that of politicians. History is the story of mankind written by the victors.”

      “Truly.”

      He smiled. “You’re pretty good on local history.”

      “That’s because I’m related to people who helped make it.”

      “Me, too.” He cocked his head. “I ought to take you down to Hardin and walk the battlefield with you sometime,” he said.

      Her eyes lit up. “I’d love that.”

      “So would I.”

      “There’s a trading post,” she recalled.

      “They have some beautiful things there.”

      “Made by local talent,” she agreed. She sighed. “I get so tired of so-called Native American art made in China. Nothing against the Chinese. I mean, they have aboriginal peoples, too. But if you’re going to sell things that are supposed to be made by tribes in this country, why import them? ”

      “Beats me. Ask somebody better informed.”

      “You’re a police chief,” she pointed out. “There isn’t supposed to be anybody better informed.”

      He grinned. “Thanks.”

      She curtsied.

      He frowned. “Don’t you own a dress?”

      “Sure. It’s in my closet.” She pursed her lips. “I wore it to graduation.”

      “Spare me!”

      “I guess I could buy a new one.”

      “I guess you could. I mean, if we’re courting, it will look funny if you don’t wear a dress.”

      “Why?”

      He blinked. “You going to get married in blue jeans?”

      “For the last time, I am not going to marry you.”

      He took off his wide-brimmed hat and laid it on the hall table. “We can argue about that later. Right now, we need to eat some of that nice, warm, fresh bread before it gets cold and butter won’t melt on it. Shouldn’t we?” he added with a grin.

      She laughed. “I guess we should.”

      Two

      The bread was as delicious as he’d imagined it would be. He closed his eyes, savoring the taste.

      “You could cook, if you’d just try,” she said.

      “Not really. I can’t measure stuff properly.”

      “I could teach you.”

      “Why do I need to learn how, when you do it so well already?” he asked reasonably.

      “You live alone,” she began.

      He raised an eyebrow. “Not for long.”

      “For