The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

crowed.

      “Don’t touch him!”

      “Believe me, I’m not going to.”

      In a flash, she had set down the lamp, crossed the room, pried her baby’s fist loose of his jacket and scooped him up into her arms.

      This close he could smell them both. Her scent was subtle. Some flower. Lilac? No. Lavendar. It was mingled with baby powder. He wasn’t sure how he recognized either of those scents, not common to his world, but he did, and it felt as if they were enveloping him.

      She took a step back, eyeing him warily.

      “You’re in the wrong place,” he said. “This really is my house. I’m cold and I’m wet and I’m dead tired, so let’s get this sorted out so you can move on and I can go to bed.”

      Apparently the fact that he wanted to get rid of her rather than steal either her baby or her virtue reassured her in some way.

      She pondered him. “If this is really your house, what’s in the top drawer in the kitchen?”

      “Knives and spoons and forks.”

      “That’s in the top drawer of every kitchen!”

      “You asked the question,” he reminded her.

      “Okay, second drawer.”

      He closed his eyes. “I’m losing patience,” he warned her, but then gave in. The sooner he got that scared look off her face, the sooner she would realize her error and get on her way.

      “Tea towels, once white, now the color of weak tea. One red oven glove with a hole burned right through it. Next drawer—potato masher, soup ladle, rolling pin, hammer for beating the tough out of rough cuts of beef.”

      Her eyes widened. “Oh, God,” she whispered.

      “How long have you been here that you know what’s in my drawers?”

      Her eyes shifted guiltily and made him wonder exactly what other drawers she had been investigating.

      He swore softly. “Have you made it as far as my bedroom?”

      “Oh, God,” she said again.

      The fear drained out of her, leaving her looking pale and shaky. She actually wobbled on her feet.

      “Don’t faint,” he said. “I don’t want to have to catch the kid.”

      “Oh,” she said sharply, drawing herself up, annoyed, “I am not going to faint. What kind of weak ninny do you take me for?”

      “Weak ninny? How about the kind that reads Jane Eyre? How about the kind who is lost in the country, setting up housekeeping in someone else’s house?” he said smoothly.

      The truth was he liked her annoyance better than the pale, shaky look. He decided it would be good, from a tactical standpoint, to encourage annoyance.

      “You don’t look like you would know the first thing about Jane Eyre,” she said.

      “That’s right. Things are primitive out here in the sticks. We don’t read and can barely write. When we do, we use a tablet and a chisel.”

      “I’m sorry,” she said, blinking hard. “Now I’ve insulted you. I’ve moved in to the wrong house and I’ve insulted you. But I’m not going to faint. I promise. I’m not the fainting kind.”

      “Reassuring,” he said drily. “And just for the record, I’m not easily insulted. It would take a lot more than the insinuation that I’m not up on my literary classics.”

      She sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “This isn’t the McFinley residence, is it?”

      Her face was crumpling, all the wariness and defiance seeping out of it. It was worse than pale and shaky.

      He had the most ridiculous notion of wanting to comfort her, to move closer to her, pat her on the shoulder, tell her it would be all right.

      But of course, he had no way of knowing if it would be all right, and he already knew if you moved too fast around a nervous colt, that little tiny bit of trust you had earned went out the window a whole lot faster than it had come in.

      “But you know the McFinleys?” she asked, the desperation deepening in her voice. “I’m housesitting for them. For six months. They’ve left for Australia. They had to leave a few days before I could get away….”

      He shook his head. He had the horrible feeling she was within a hairsbreadth of crying. Nervous colts were one thing. Crying women were a totally different thing. Totally.

      The baby had sensed the change in his mother’s tone. His happy babbling had ceased. He was eyeing his mother, his face scrunched up alarmingly, waiting for his cue.

      One false move, Ty warned himself, and they would both be crying.

      Ty checked the calendar in his mind. It was six days before Christmas. Why did a woman take her baby and find a new place to live six days before Christmas?

      Running.

      From what, or from whom, he told himself firmly, fell strictly into the none-of-his-business category.

      “Mona and Ron?” Her voice faded as she correctly read his expression.

      He was silent.

      “You’ve never heard of them,” she deduced. She sucked in another deep breath, assessing him.

      Ty watched, trying not to let amusement tug at his mouth, as she apparently decided he was not an ax murderer, and made the decision to be brave.

      She moved the baby onto her hip and wiped her hand—she’d been scared enough to sweat?—on slacks that weren’t made for riding horses. Like the shirt, the slacks emphasized the surprising lushness of such a slight figure.

      All the defiance, all the I’ll-lay-my-life-down-for-my-baby drained out of her. She looked wildly embarrassed at having been found making herself at home in someone else’s house. Still, blushing, she tried for dignity as she extended her hand.

      “I’m Amy Mitchell.”

      The blush made her look pretty. And vulnerable. He didn’t want to take her hand, because despite her effort to be brave she still looked a breath away from crying, and the baby was still watching her intently, waiting.

      “Mrs. Mitchell,” he said, even though she wore no wedding band. He took her hand.

      Ty knew instantly why he had resisted taking it. Amy Mitchell’s hand in his felt tiny, soft beyond soft. The touch of her hand, his closeness to her, made him aware of his bleak world in ways that made him uncomfortable.

      Her eyes were not brown, as he had initially thought from across the room, but a kaleidoscope of greens and golds, shot through with rich, dark hints of coffee color.

      Now that she didn’t feel she had her back against the wall, with a home invader coming at her, her eyes were soft and worried. Her honey-in-a-jar hair was scattered about her face in a wild disarray of curls that made him want to right it, to feel its texture beneath his fingertips.

      Ty Halliday’s world was a hard place. There was no softness in it, and no room for softness, either. There was no room in his world for the tears that shone, unshed, behind the astounding loveliness of her eyes; there was no room in his world for the bright, hopeful lights of the Christmas tree.

      The baby, eyes shifting from him to his mother and back again, suddenly relaxed. “Papa,” he cooed, and leaned away from his mommy, reaching for Ty.

      Ty took a defensive step backward.

      There was no room in his world for such innocence or trust. All these things were as foreign to Ty as an exotic, unvisited land.

      He realized he was still holding Amy Mitchell’s hand. She realized it, too, and with a deepening blush, slipped it from his.