A Texas Cowboy's Christmas. Cathy Thacker Gillen

walked into the kitchen. He stepped between them merrily. “Puddles, Mommy?”

      Grinning, Molly looked out the window. The rain that had been landing in torrents was now coming down gently. “You want to go outside?”

      Braden nodded.

      “Then let’s get you suited up.” Molly walked into the mudroom off the garage, then returned with a pair of yellow rain boots, matching slicker and wide-brimmed hat. Braden brimmed with anticipation. “You come, too, Cowboy Chance?”

      “We’ll both watch you from the front porch,” Molly promised. “Unless...” She paused to look at Chance. “You have somewhere else you need to be?”

       Chapter Three

      This was Chance’s opportunity to make a graceful exit.

      To his surprise, he wasn’t in a hurry to leave. In fact, he was sort of lamenting the fact that the time would eventually come. “Actually,” Chance admitted good-naturedly, “I was hoping I’d be able to see what the Christmas stollen looks like when it’s finished.”

      “Yummy!” Braden declared, rubbing his tummy.

      Chance chuckled. The little buckaroo’s enthusiasm was infectious. “You think so?”

      Braden nodded magnanimously. “We share. Mommy. Me. You.”

      Chance turned to Molly. “Is that okay?” he asked casually, wanting to give her the option of throwing him out—if that was what she wanted.

      “You probably should see what you’ve been missing,” she said drily.

      He had an inkling. And he wasn’t just thinking about baked goods.

      “Outside?” Braden asked again, impatiently.

      “Let’s go.” She grabbed a rain jacket for herself, then opened the door. A blast of unexpectedly warm air hit them. No doubt brought in by the front. “I was going to offer you a cup of coffee,” Molly said, looping the jacket over a wicker chair, “but maybe it should be iced tea.”

      “Coffee’s fine.” Chance smiled. “Thanks.”

      Molly watched her son march down the front steps and out into the light rain. They both grinned as Braden lifted his face to the sky and stuck out his tongue to catch a few raindrops. Fondly, Molly shook her head, then turned back to Chance. “Can you keep an eye on Braden for a minute? He knows not to go outside of the picket fence.”

      “No problem.” Chance took the seat she indicated on the front porch. For the next few minutes, he watched Braden investigate everything from the water running out of the gutters to the drops pearling on the leafy green shrubs.

      He’d forgotten what it felt like to look at the world with such unvarnished appreciation.

      Maybe it was time he remembered...

      “Sure you wouldn’t rather be at your mom’s watching football with your brothers?” Molly teased, returning with a tray containing a carafe, two mugs, sugar and cream. She set it on the table between them.

      Chance grinned at her son, who was now hopscotching his way through a series of puddles on the front walk.

      He turned his attention back to Molly. Her cheeks flushed with happiness, her auburn hair slightly mussed, a smudge of flour across one cheek, she had never looked more beautiful. Or content.

      He liked seeing her this way.

      “Oh, there’s no football at my mom’s on Thanksgiving.”

      Her delicate brow pleated. “Seriously?”

      As she neared, he caught the fragrance of her lavender hand soap mingling with the sweet, sexy scent of her hair and skin. Pushing the electric awareness away, Chance sat back in his chair. “She says that’s why DVRs were invented. Social events require socializing properly with each other, not tuning everyone out watching TV.”

      Molly handed him a mug of steaming coffee. She wrinkled her nose at him. “Sounds like Lucille.”

      Chance watched as she settled in the chair beside his. The hem of her knit dress rode up a little. She crossed her legs at the knee and tugged it down discreetly, but not before he had seen enough of her long slender thighs to make his heart race.

      Chance worked to keep his mind on the conversation. “No doubt about it. My mother’s big on etiquette, always has been.”

      Molly waved at her son, who was now marching around the perimeter of the inside of the fence. Braden stopped to lift his arms high and turn his face to the slowly clearing sky overhead. “Still, the menu would probably have been better...”

      Chance couldn’t recall when he had enjoyed a holiday meal more. “I thought we had a fine meal at the cafeteria. Turkey. All the trimmings. Not to mention choice of dessert.”

      She chuckled, holding her mug against the softness of her full lips. “You did have two pieces of pie.”

      He watched her blow lightly on her coffee, then take a dainty sip. Shrugged. “Couldn’t make up my mind.”

      He was certain about one thing, though.

      He wanted to ravish Molly Griffith.

      And would...

      “Look, Mommy!” Braden shouted. “Rainbow!”

      They both turned in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, there was one arcing across the sky.

      “Come here, Mommy! Come see!”

      “Just when I wish I had my camera out,” she murmured with a rueful grin, rising to join her son.

      Not wanting to intrude, Chance stayed behind to make her wish come true.

      * * *

      CHANCE LOCKHART WAS full of surprises, Molly thought minutes later, looking at the series of action photos he had taken on his cell phone while she and Braden had admired the burst of colors streaking across the late afternoon sky.

      “Thank you for capturing that moment,” Molly said softly when they walked back inside a few minutes later to put the stollen in the oven. Chance had not only gotten several nice shots of her and Braden together—something that rarely happened on the spur of the moment since she had no other family member to do the honor—but he’d also managed to capture a close-up of the wonder on her little boy’s face.

      Priceless.

      “I thought you would want to remember it. Not every day you see a rainbow on Thanksgiving.”

      Not every day she spent a holiday with such a sweet, handsome man. Not that this was a date. Even if it had started to feel like a date.

      Molly finished getting Braden out of his rain gear, then showed her little boy the photos Chance had taken on his phone and emailed to her.

      “That’s me,” Braden said gleefully. “And Mommy!” He pushed the phone away. “Can we dec’rate tree?”

      That had been her original plan.

      Chance shrugged his broad shoulders affably. “I’m up for it if you are,” he said.

      “You’re really into Christmas, aren’t you?” She hadn’t met many single guys who were.

      Or were this kind to her son.

      “Hey.” Chance aimed a thumb at the center of his chest. “When the opportunity to be chivalrous presents itself...”

      He was on board, Molly thought. Which just went to show how badly she had misjudged the gorgeous cowboy.

      By the time the oven timer went off half an hour later, they had the lights strung and on. Half a dozen ornaments later, the fruit-and-nut-studded pastry