A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas. Maisey Yates

she hadn’t been glued to his human interest piece he didn’t sign on for that had played out on Good Morning America sixteen years ago, or the repeat of it eight years ago after Lindsay passed.

      But it was possible she’d talked to Jamie or Bea, or hell, anyone. It wasn’t like it was a state secret he was a widower.

      He didn’t want her to know. But she must.

      That he was somehow better than other people was what everybody thought of him when they knew. That he was this great, sainted man who had married his high school sweetheart in spite of the fact that she was dying. That was what every news outlet had always said. Like Lindsay was a burden. And he was something special. When the fact of the matter was the only reason he mattered at all was because she had believed in him. Because she had come into his life and taught him to be something more than a raging, angry bully that was headed on a one-way ticket straight to prison or hell, possibly both.

      And now he was... He didn’t even know what he was.

      Just an idiot stuck in limbo who had no idea how to get out. He’d moved enough, just enough, over the past few years to convince himself he was making progress but it was a damned lie he’d told himself. As much of a lie as this idea that he was good.

      And somehow this woman, this woman who made his thoughts into something entirely separate from saintly, had bought into the same lie about him.

       Good. A saint.

      Before he could think it through, he found himself walking toward her. The distance between them closing with each step he took.

      He wasn’t good. He wasn’t good at all, he had just spent a hell of a long time on a leash. And yeah, he had chosen it. He had put it on gladly. But it wasn’t there now.

      No one was here to be disappointed in him. To see him acting like an ass.

      McKenna’s eyes caught his and she took a step back, then another, until she was pressed against the barn wall. And he should feel guilty. Because she looked uncertain. Because her dark eyes were wide, and her mouth was now slack, held open slightly, and she was looking at him like he might take a bite out of her throat.

      The idea sent a kick of lust through his body. Yes, he did want to take a bite out of her.

      He was consumed with the idea. It was all he could think about. He pressed his hand against the barn wall up by the side of her head, and leaned in. And then McKenna did something completely unexpected. She pressed her palm flat against his chest, right over where his heartbeat was raging, and met his eyes.

      There was a challenge there, one that he wasn’t sure he could ignore. Because he was past the point of reason. He was past the point of himself. Of everything.

      He felt more like the boy he’d been back in high school than he had for sixteen years. Feral. Angry. About absolutely everything.