A Husband For Christmas. Diana Palmer

you weren’t easy,” she challenged as she slid hesitantly toward him.

      Surprise registered in his eyes, but only for a second. “Well, only with some girls,” he corrected, smiling wickedly. “Come on, hurry up, I’ve got calves to deliver.”

      “Young Dr. McLaren,” she murmured, looking up at him from close range, seeing new lines in his face, fatigue in his dark eyes. There were a few silver hairs over his temples and she touched them with unsteady fingers. “You’re going gray, Cade.”

      “I got those because of you, when you were in your early teens,” he reminded her. “Hanging off saddles trying to do trick riding, falling into the rapids out of a rickety canoe, flying over fences trying to ride Donavan’s broncs...my God, you were a handful!”

      “Well, Melly and I didn’t have a mama,” she reminded him, “and Dad was in poor health from the time we got in grammar school on. If it hadn’t been for you and Calla and the cowboys, I guess Melly and I wouldn’t have made it.”

      “Stop that,” he growled. “And don’t make me out to be an old man. I’m just fourteen years older than you, and I never did feel like a relative.”

      She put her fingers against his warm lips and felt their involuntary pursing with a tingle of satisfaction. “I didn’t mean it that way.” She looked into his dark eyes with a thrill of pure pleasure. “Can I really kiss you?”

      His chest seemed to rise and fall with unusual rapidity; his nostrils flared under heavy breaths. “Do you want to?”

      “I...I want to.” She reached around his neck to pull his dark head down to hers, letting her fingers savor the thick coolness of his hair. Her eyes fell to his hard lips and she noticed that they didn’t part when hers touched them, as if he were keeping himself on a tight rein to prevent the kiss from becoming intimate.

      She liked the warmth of his mouth under hers, and she liked the faint rasp of his cheek where her nose rubbed against it as she pressed harder against his lips. His breath was even harder now but he wasn’t moving a muscle. With a quiet, trusting sigh she eased away from him and looked up.

      His face was rigid, his eyes blazing back at her. “Okay?” she asked uncertainly, needing reassurance.

      A faint smile softened his expression. “Okay.”

      She frowned slightly, studying his set lips. “You kept your mouth closed, though,” she said absently.

      “I don’t think we need to go that far that fast, baby,” he said quietly.

      He moved away from her, his hand going to the ignition to start the truck and let it idle. “It’s like learning to walk. You have to do it one step at a time.”

      “That was a nice step,” she told him with a smile.

      “I thought so myself.” He raised his chin and his eyes were all arrogance. “Are you going to need an engraved invitation every time from now on?”

      “I guess I could sneak up on your blind side,” she confessed with a grin. “Or drag you off into dark corners. Maybe if I watch Melly and Jerry I’ll get some new ideas. She said he pushed her into a hay stall and fell on her.”

      He burst out laughing, and she found that she could laugh, too—a far cry from her first reaction when Melly had confessed it.

      “That sounds like Jerry,” he said after a minute. His eyes searched hers. “It’s what I’d have done, once.”

      The smile faded, and she felt a deep sadness for what might have been if she hadn’t been so crazy to go to New York and break into modeling.

      “In a hay stall?” she teased halfheartedly.

      “Anywhere. As long as it was with you, and I could feel you...all of you...under my body.”

      She turned away from the hunger in his eyes with a tiny little sound, and he hit the steering wheel with his hand and stared blindly out the windshield, cursing under his breath.

      “I’m sorry,” he ground out. “That was a damned stupid thing to say...!”

      “Don’t handle me with kid gloves,” she said, looking back at him. “Melly was right, and so were you. I can’t run away from the memory of the attack, and I can’t run away from life. I’m going to have to learn to deal with...relationships, physical relationships.” Her eyes met his bravely. “Help me.”

      “I’ve already told you that I will.”

      She studied the worn mat on the floorboard. “And don’t get angry when I react...predictably.”

      “Like just now?” he asked, and managed a smile.

      She nodded, smiling back. “Like just now.” Her eyes searched his, looking for reassurance. “It frightens me, still, the...the weight of a man’s body,” she whispered shakily, and only realized much later that she’d confessed that to no one else.

      “In that case,” he said gently, “I’ll have to let you push me down in the hay, won’t I?”

      Tears misted in her eyes. “Oh, Cade...”

      “Will you get out of my truck?” he asked pleasantly, preventing her, probably intentionally, from showing any gratitude. “I think I did mention about a half hour ago that I was in a flaming hurry.”

      “Some hurry,” she scoffed. “If you were really in a hurry,” she added, nodding toward the snow, “you’d walk.”

      “That’s an idea. But I left my snowshoes in the attic. Out! Go let Melly show you how to work the computer. You do realize that somebody’s going to have to do her job while she’s on her honeymoon?”

      “Me? But, Cade, I don’t know anything about computers....”

      “What a great time for you to learn,” he advised. He searched her flushed face, seeing a new purpose in it, a slackening of the fear, and he nodded. “Don’t rush off to New York after the wedding. Stay with me.”

      “I’d like to stay with you,” she said in a soft, gentle tone as she looked into his dark eyes.

      He held her gaze for a long, warm moment before he averted his eyes to the gearshift. “Now I’m going,” he said firmly. “Either you skedaddle or you come with me.”

      “I’d like to come with you,” she said with a sigh, “but I’d just get in the way, wouldn’t I?”

      “Sure,” he said with a flash of white teeth. Then his eyes narrowed. “Do you want to come, really? Because I’m going to let you, and to hell with getting in the way, if you say yes.”

      She took a deep, slow breath, and shrugged. “Better not, I suppose,” she said regretfully. “Melly’s wedding dress...I have to get started.”

      “Okay. How about fabric?”

      “Calla bought it for me. It’s just a matter of deciding what to use,” she told him. “Don’t get sick, okay?”

      He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? Afraid you’d have to nurse me?”

      “I’d stay up all night for weeks if you needed me. Don’t be silly,” she chided, reaching for the door handle.

      “Tell Calla not to keep supper, honey, it’s going to be another long night.”

      She nodded as she held the door ajar. “Want me to bring your supper down to you?”

      He smiled. “On your snowshoes? Better not, it’s damned cold out here. I’ll have a bite later. See you.”

      “See you.”

      She closed the door and watched him drive away with wistful eyes. She already regretted not going with him, but she didn’t wait around to wonder why.

      That night, she and Melly chose the fabric from the yards and yards