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

“He’s already approached contractors for bids to build his housing project.” He bit the words off as he was biting the bread.

      “Oh.”

      Jet-black eyes pierced hers. “I told him about the clause in the will.”

      “What did he say?”

      “That he’d heard you wouldn’t marry me.”

      She grimaced.

      “He was strutting around town like a tom turkey,” he added. He finished the bread and sipped coffee. His eyes closed as he savored it. “You make great coffee, Jake!” he exclaimed. “Most people wave the coffee over water. You could stand up a spoon in this.”

      “I like it strong, too,” she agreed. She studied his hard, lean face. “I guess you live on it when you have cases that keep you out all night tracking. There have been two or three of those this month alone.”

      He nodded. “Our winter festival brings in people from all over the country. Some of them see the mining company’s bankroll as a prime target.”

      “Not to mention the skeet-and-trap-shooting regional championships,” she said. “I’ve heard that thieves actually follow the shooters around and get license plate numbers of cars whose owners have the expensive guns.”

      “They’re targets, all right.”

      “Why would somebody pay five figures for a gun?” she wondered out loud.

      He laughed. “You don’t shoot in competition, so it’s no use trying to explain it to you.”

      “You compete,” she pointed out. “You don’t have a gun that expensive and you’re a triple-A shooter.”

      He shrugged. “It isn’t that I wouldn’t like to have one. But unless I take up bank robbing, I’m not likely to be able to afford one, either. The best I can do is borrow one for the big competitions.”

      Her eyes popped. “You know somebody who’ll loan you a fifty-thousand-dollar shotgun?”

      He laughed. “Well, actually, yes, I do. He’s police chief of a small town down in Texas. He used to do shotgun competitions when he was younger, and he still has the hardware.”

      “And he loans you the gun.”

      “He isn’t attached to it, like some owners are. Although, you’d never get him to loan his sniper kit,” he chuckled.

      “Excuse me?”

      He leaned toward her. “He was a covert assassin in his shady past.”

      “Really?” She was excited by the news.

      He frowned. “What do women find so fascinating about men who shoot people?”

      She blinked. “It’s not that.”

      “Then what is it?”

      She hesitated, trying to put it into words. “Men who have been in battles have tested themselves in a way most people never have to,” she began slowly. “They learn their own natures. They … I can’t exactly express it… .”

      “They learn what they’re made of, right where they live and breathe,” he commented. “Under fire, you’re always afraid. But you harness the fear and use it, attack when you’d rather run. You learn the meaning of courage. It isn’t the absence of fear. It’s fear management, at its best. You do your duty.”

      “Nicely said, Chief Graves,” she said admiringly, and grinned.

      “Well, I know a thing or two about being shot at,” he reminded her. “I was in the first wave in the second incursion in the Middle East. Then I became a police officer and then a police chief.”

      “You met the other police chief at one of those conventions, I’ll bet,” she commented.

      “Actually I met him at the FBI academy during a training session on hostage negotiation,” he corrected. “He was teaching it.”

      “My goodness. He can negotiate?”

      “He did most of his negotiations with a gun before he was a Texas Ranger,” he laughed.

      “He was a Ranger, too?”

      “Yes. And a cyber-crime expert for a Texas D.A., and a merc, and half a dozen other interesting things. He can also dance. He won a tango contest in Argentina, and that’s saying something. Tango and Argentina go together like coffee and cream.”

      She propped her chin in her hands. “A man who can do the tango. It boggles the mind. I’ve only ever seen a couple of men do it in movies.” She smiled. “Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman was my favorite.”

      He grinned. “Not the ‘governator’ in True Lies?“

      She glared at him. “I’m sure he was doing his best.”

      He shook his head. “I watched Rudolph Valentino do it in an old silent film,” he sighed. “Real style.”

      “It’s a beautiful dance.”

      He gave her a long look. “There’s a new Latin dance club in Billings.”

      “What?” she exclaimed with pure surprise.

      “No kidding. A guy from New York moved out here to retire. He’d been in ballroom competition most of his life and he got bored. So he organized a dance band and opened up a dance club. People come up from Wyoming and across from the Dakotas just to hear the band and do the dances.” He toyed with his coffee cup. “Suppose you and I go up there and try it out? I can teach you the tango.”

      Her heart skipped. It was the first time, despite all the banter, that he’d ever suggested taking her on a date.

      He scowled when she hesitated.

      “I’d love to,” she blurted out.

      His face relaxed. He smiled again. “Okay. Saturday?”

      She nodded. Her heart was racing. She felt breathless.

      She was so young, he thought, looking at her. He hesitated.

      “They don’t have grammar school on Saturdays,” she quipped, “so I won’t need an excuse from the principal to skip class.”

      He burst out laughing. “Is that how I looked? Sorry.”

      “I’m almost twenty-one,” she pointed out. “I know that seems young to you, but I’ve had a lot of responsibility. Uncle John could be a handful, and I was the only person taking care of him for most of my life.”

      “That’s true. Responsibility matures people pretty quick.”

      “You’d know,” she said softly, because he’d taken wonderful care of his grandmother and then the uncle who’d owned half this ranch.

      He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s a choice about looking after people you love.”

      “Neither do I.”

      He gave her an appraising look. “You going to the club in blue jeans and a shirt?” he asked. “Because if you are, I plan to wear my uniform.”

      She raised both eyebrows.

      “Or have you forgotten what happened the last time I wore my uniform to a social event?” he added.

      She glowered at him.

      “Is it my fault if people think of me as a target the minute they realize what I do for a living?” he asked.

      “You didn’t have to anoint him with punch.”

      “Sure I did. He was so hot under the collar about a speeding ticket my officer gave him that he needed instant cooling off.”

      She laughed. “Your patrolman is still telling that story.”

      “With