Lone Star Christmas. Cathy Gillen Thacker

returned the smile and stepped forward to shake hands. “I’m Nash Echols, Callie’s neighbor. My men and I joined Callie and her sister’s family for Thanksgiving dinner.”

      Callie waited until the handshaking was concluded, then intervened, “Well, I know you’re anxious to see your grandson,” she told her in-laws, “so you-all go on ahead. I’ll be up at the ranch house as soon as I get things squared away here.”

      After she ushered them toward the door, they left.

      Nash didn’t utter a single word until Callie turned back around and met his questioning glance. “Widow, hmm?”

      Pursing her lips, she angled a thumb at her sternum. “Hey, it’s not my duty to correct any wrong assumptions on your part. Or anyone else’s for that matter.”

      “So this is a common ploy? Pretending you’re still married?” To do what? Drag on the grief? Keep from doing what everyone had to do eventually, which was move on...?

      Callie’s jaw set stubbornly as she lifted her gaze to his. “I am still married. In my heart. And always will be.”

      The way she had inadvertently checked him out when he walked in, and apparently liked what she saw, said otherwise. She was still a woman, and still very much alive in every respect, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

      Not about to let her get away with deliberately misleading him, he lifted a brow. “Bull.”

      She blinked. “Excuse me?”

      He stepped closer, purposefully invading her personal space. “You wear those rings, and let people assume you’re married, to keep guys from hitting on you.”

      Callie drew a deep breath and stepped back. Her blue eyes took on a cynical light. “So what if I do? In my situation you probably would, too.”

      “I don’t go around misrepresenting myself.”

      “Oh, really?” she scoffed. “Because I’m pretty sure you wanted my in-laws to think you were an upstanding Texas gentleman just now.”

      “I am an upstanding Texas gentleman.” Even if he had spent the past ten years in the Pacific Northwest.

      “Really?” She pushed the words through gritted teeth. “Because I’m pretty sure a real Texas gentleman would not have brought up the fact that I’m a widow when it is clearly a subject I do not wish to discuss.”

      He answered her insult with a shrug, but did not disengage their locked gazes. “Fine with me,” he said, just as carelessly. “I can do a search on Google on anything I want to know, anyway.”

      Briefly, Callie’s shoulders slumped, but then she pulled herself together. Planted her hands on her slender hips. Stared at him long and hard. “Why are you so darn difficult, anyway?”

      Did she really expect him to answer that? Well, turnabout was fair play, and he had a question of his own.

      Why was she so damned pretty?

      He’d thought she looked good the other day, when she confronted him in the woods, and again when she had showed up at his place, bearing dinner and a sweet demeanor meant to turn him pliable.

      Which it had.

      But it was nothing compared to the way she looked this evening, in a trim black wool skirt, tights and pleated ivory blouse. The fact she was wearing comfortable leather flats, instead of her usual heeled boots, made the seven-inch height difference between them all the more apparent.

      Aware she was still waiting for some explanation as to why he took her deliberate deception so personally, he replied, “I don’t like being lied to.”

      And he didn’t like people who hung on to their grief in ways that hurt everyone else around them, either.

      Callie stepped closer and leveled a withering glare on his face. “I wasn’t lying.” He challenged her with a raised brow.

      Averting her pretty blue gaze, she mumbled, “I just didn’t tell you everything you wanted to know.”

      Which, in turn, made him wonder. “And that is...?” he prodded casually.

      She whirled away from him in a drift of perfume. “Probably that my husband died a little over three years ago in a car accident. I’d just been married a few months. I was pregnant at the time.”

      Nash felt for her. Losing a loved one was always hard. Especially so unexpectedly.

      “And then what?” The edge was still in his voice, for a different reason now.

      She walked back into the kitchen and, rolling up her sleeves, began loading dishes into the large stainless-steel dishwasher. “My family—my parents mostly—convinced me that I needed to leave Dallas and move back to Laramie, Texas, where I grew up, and be near them.”

      He took a stack, as well, and began loading dishes, too.

      “And that’s where I was,” Callie continued, with a matter-of-factness that did nothing to disguise the aching loneliness in her eyes. “Until a year and a half ago when I moved here. First as marketing director with the Double Knot Ranch, and then as owner of my own ranch and business. See? Nothing all that exciting about that. ”

      Finished with the plates, she began working on glasses, while he began loading the silverware.

      Frustrated by her sudden silence, Nash drawled, “Which brings us to yet another problem.”

      Callie looked up, the pulse working in her slender throat. She rinsed her hands beneath the faucet. “Really. And what might that be?”

      Nash stepped in beside her to do the same. “You’re young. You’re single. You’re gorgeous.” He leaned close enough to draw in a whiff of her hair, which was as enticing as the rest of her. “There damn sure should be something exciting going on in your life.”

      Callie straightened slowly.

      “Let me guess.” She reached for a paper towel to dry her hands. “You’re just the man to give it to me.”

      Nash shut off the water, and once again did the same.

      “Well,” he said lazily, wadding up the towel and tossing it into the trash. “Since you asked so nicely.” He smiled broadly. “I just might be.”

Chapter Three

      Callie stared up at Nash in dismay. “You wouldn’t dare.”

      His gaze roved her face, lingering on her lips, before returning ever so slowly to her eyes. He flashed her a sexy grin, chiding, “Another thing you should never do...”

      Callie caught her breath, aware she had never been around such an impossible, arrogant man. Never mind in such close quarters! “What?”

      He wrapped one hand around the nape of her neck, the other flattened on her spine. Then his slate-gray eyes shuttered to half-mast as his head slowly dipped toward her. “Challenge me.”

      Callie shivered as his lips ghosted lightly across hers. “I’m not...” But already her eyes were closing, too. Already, she was losing herself in the feel of his hard, strong body pressed against her, the brisk wintry smell of him, the implacable masculine taste of his mouth and the resolute possession of his lips.

      She thought she’d been kissed before.

      She hadn’t been.

      Not like this.

      Like he wanted to savor every iota of her heart and soul.

      Yearning swept through her, fierce and undeniable. It had been so long since she had been kissed, touched, held. So long since anyone had wanted her like this. Her whole body radiated heat and he responded by kissing her even more deeply. Unable to help herself, unable to resist the probing pressure of his lips, she