A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas. Maisey Yates

to trade lodging for it, caught him off guard.

      “Hell, no,” he said, the denial vehement and easy.

      She lifted her hands. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive. But you know, women on their own have to look out for these things. Most situations that seem too good to be true are. And most of the situations I’ve been in that were too good to be true fell apart because... Some guy expected a form of payment I wasn’t that interested in.”

      “That’s not going to happen here,” he said.

      She took a deep breath, clasping her hands together and looking around. “Okay. So, when do I need to start work?”

      “You said you’ve worked in housekeeping at a hotel?”

      “Yeah. I’ve done that a ton of times. Hotels, motels. You name it. I’ve cleaned it.”

      “Okay, make the rounds on the cabins today. The supplies are in the mess hall, where we just came from. You can start in a few hours. Get some rest.”

      She nodded. “I don’t... I don’t really have much in the way of—”

      “Toiletries should be in the bathroom. You can use the washer and dryer in Wyatt and Lindy’s place.”

      He hadn’t verified that with his brother and sister-in-law, but he figured if they were going to start giving homes to strays he could give their washer and dryer.

      “So.” She looked at him. “Is he your younger brother?”

      “Who?”

      “Wyatt.”

      “No. I’m his younger brother.”

      She made a musing sound. “You seem older than him.”

      He had to laugh at that. He probably did. “No.”

      “You have other brothers?”

      “One,” he said. “And kind of a surrogate brother. And a younger sister. She’s around. If you need anything, and you see the girl with dark hair, that’s Jamie. She’ll be happy to help out.”

      “Thanks,” she said.

      “You’re welcome. I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”

      She nodded. “Okay.”

      He lifted his hand, brushing his fingertips against the brim of his hat, and their eyes caught and held. She was pretty. He wasn’t sure if he’d realized that yet. Well, he noticed she was pretty in that way he tended to find women pretty. They were female—he liked that, and he generally liked looking at them.

      But McKenna Tate was something more. With her large brown eyes and delicate, pointed chin. Her dark hair was tangled, but still glossy, hanging around her face in a wild mane. And her mouth...

      Pale pink with a deep curve at the center of the top lip, the lower one round and full.

      He felt...hungry.

      Dammit all. That wasn’t new. Not really. But he wasn’t used to that hunger hitting hard and specific, with a woman standing right in front of him.

      General craving he was used to. It was part of him. Part of his life. Wanting sex and not having it was printed on his DNA.

      This was specific. Sharp and focused.

      He didn’t want a mouth.

      He wanted that mouth.

      Those lips.

      Hell. No.

      He forced himself to turn away. It was that or do something stupid he couldn’t take back. Dammit, he wasn’t one for guilt or pity but the woman had asked him outright if she was going to end up owing him anything and now he was staring at her lips like a sex-starved beast.

      Because he was.

      He walked out the front door without saying anything, taking in a deep breath of the cold early-morning air. Hoping it would do something to jolt him. To get rid of the deep, dark need that was coursing through his veins, ten times more potent than any alcohol.

      He had work to do, and he was going to focus on that.

      And he wasn’t going to give one more thought to McKenna Tate’s mouth.

       CHAPTER THREE

      MCKENNA EMERGED FROM the cabin a few hours later feeling strangely numb. Like she might be wandering through an alternate dimension and wasn’t quite connected to her body. The cabin was so cute and neat, and she had felt weird putting her old, threadbare clothes away in the solid wood chest of drawers. Like they might dissolve the pretty cedar.

      She wished that she had something warmer than what she was wearing, but her spare few items were what they were. And only what she could fit into a backpack.

      A free promo phone she got on a pay-as-you-go plan, pajamas, two pairs of pants, two shirts, one pair of boots, some scattered and nearly used-up toiletries.

      There were no warmer clothes in her possession at all. So she went ahead and braved the chilly afternoon, which didn’t seem like it was going to thaw at all, judging by the textured gray of the sky.

      She followed Grant’s instructions and found the cleaning materials, then went to the first cabin and knocked. No one answered so she used the code he had provided for her to get inside. It was laid out similarly to her cabin, and she found cleaning it was a lot more fun than cleaning usually was. Mostly because she was used to cleaning whatever terrible apartment she lived in, or gross hotel rooms that were never going to lose the general film of seedy filth no matter how much elbow grease McKenna applied.

      She moved through the row of cabins quickly and easily, feeling strangely accomplished by the end.

      She was also hungry again. It had been hours since breakfast, and she had been running on empty, anyway. Of course, breakfast had been better than anything she’d had in a couple of months, so she would have thought it might sustain her. But no. It had just reminded her what it was like to have a full stomach. And now she wanted one again.

      She wandered outside, wondering if it would be all right for her to go to the mess hall. Grant had mentioned that the ranch hands ate there during off-hours, and she wondered if two o’clock constituted off-hours.

      She decided she was going to chance it, because she was really hungry.

      She opened the door cautiously, peeking around before stepping inside.

      The coffee station was still set up, and she decided that whatever there was to eat she was going to have caffeine with it.

      There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so she went to the kitchen and helped herself to a bowl of soup, taking it out to the tables and sitting next to the window, bathing herself in the anemic light that was trying to get through the cloud cover. She felt warm. Warm and...safe.

      She hadn’t really been aware of feeling like she was in danger, but that was partly because there had been nothing for her to do but soldier through. But now, now that she had a little bit of respite from the truly horrendous situation she’d found herself in, she could fully acknowledge how awful it had been.

      She blinked, her eyes stinging slightly. She wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t do that. At least, not without a reason. Tears could be useful. They could soften your look, make people feel sorry for you.

      Tears, on a personal level, were pointless.

      Her thoughts drifted back to her tour guide. Grant Dodge.

      Just thinking his name made her stomach tighten a little bit. And that was stupid. He was handsome. But she’d quit caring about how handsome a man was quite a while ago. Handsome didn’t mean anything.

      The door to the mess hall opened and McKenna jumped, every