Christmas In Mustang Creek. Linda Lael Miller

      “Charlie...” Jax’s voice was soft, and she wanted to scream, because she was trying so hard to distance herself. She was, wasn’t she? Despite that dumb remark about the condom. But it wasn’t working at all. “I really have missed you,” he said.

      Now he wasn’t playing fair.

      Charlotte wouldn’t, couldn’t, look at him. “Am I the reason you’re here in Mustang Creek?” The question tumbled right out of her mouth, going straight from her subconscious mind to the tip of her tongue and neatly bypassing her normally competent brain. “I mean, I know you had a job offer, but...” She fumbled to extricate herself.

      Must have been the exhaustion, she reflected, frantic to find an explanation for herself.

      “Could be,” he said.

      Then he sighed, and she heard his mattress give way as he got into his own bed.

      And that was it. Two seconds later he began to snore gently.

      She, on the other hand, was wide-awake.

      Momentarily, she considered homicide. A pillow over his face might do the trick.

      It was certainly tempting.

      * * *

      Jax woke, blinking, confused at first, having slept like the proverbial rock, but then it all came back to him.

      The long drive.

      The blizzard.

      And Charlotte, sharing his hotel room but not his bed.

      Right.

      The storm must have eased up a little; the wind was no longer buffeting the window like a whole tribe of banshees trying to get inside. Intricate patterns of frost, stars and whorls covered the glass.

      Water ran in the nearby bathroom, and he pictured billows of steam rolling out when the door opened.

      Charlotte was in the shower. It felt good to lie there and imagine her gloriously naked, and so close by. He had an excellent memory, and she had the kind of body that did it for him: slender, nicely proportioned breasts, not big but not small, either, long legs that looked sexy when she wore a business skirt, but in his opinion would look even better bared by some cutoff shorts and tanned by the Wyoming sun.

      He was definitely a leg man.

      He enjoyed the fantasy he had going. A while later the shower was turned off and then, subsequently, the hair dryer. She appeared, wearing a pair of jeans and a light blue sweater, still barefoot, her dark hair shining and brushing her shoulders. She’d never worn much makeup; she didn’t need it, in his opinion. Other than a touch of lip gloss and maybe some mascara to accentuate those green eyes, she personified the small-town girl she’d tried so hard to leave behind.

      “Good morning.” He said it cheerfully because he was feeling pretty cheerful, especially when her gaze dropped briefly to his bare chest before she realized it and looked him in the eyes.

      “Uh, yeah, good morning.”

      “How much snow did we get?” He was just making conversation, not actually expecting her to know, since she probably hadn’t been up long enough to check the weather.

      She surprised him, though. “About a foot, I think, but it’s hard to tell with the window iced over.” She rummaged through her suitcase, produced some socks and sat down on her rumpled bed to put them on. “My rental car is sporty—I’m not sure it has studded snow tires.” A reflective pause. “I hope they have the streets cleared.”

      Jax felt the need to keep things on an even keel. “I have a breakfast meeting next door at eight. If you want to join us, I can take you anywhere you want to go afterward. My truck can handle it.”

      She hesitated, visibly preoccupied. There were tiny candy canes on her socks. Another gift from her aunt? He guessed that was the case, since the sophisticated woman he’d known in New York would not wear candy canes. He preferred the small-town candy-cane girl; he’d always known she was there.

      Charlotte said, “I might call you if I have problems but I need to go home and make sure everything’s fine so that when I see Aunt Geneva, I can tell her Can-Can and Mutley are okay. That’s the first thing she’ll want to know.”

      “Dog and cat?” It was an educated guess, based on previous conversations.

      She nodded, and actually ripped loose with a tiny smile. “A friend of my aunt’s is taking care of them. My aunt might be too...vague to have animals. Her doctors seem to think so anyway. The whole idea breaks my heart. She loves those critters so much. They’re wonderful company, and she’d be lonely without them. I can’t stand the thought.”

      He might have fallen more in love with her right then, if that was possible. “So you came back for Christmas,” he said carefully.

      She meant to stay in Mustang Creek for good, but he didn’t want to let on that he knew, didn’t want to confess that he’d been paying attention to her social media posts. He’d watched to see if she was dating anyone else while he was back in Idaho, and there’d been no hint of anything serious, not even one picture or perky post. There’d been images of her and friends here and there, but either she was just more private than most of his friends, or she hadn’t really dated.

      He figured it was the latter, and that gave him hope.

      “I’m not going back to New York,” she told him flatly, pulling on a pair of short boots. She stood and shook back her hair. “Aunt Geneva needs me, so this is where I’ll be.”

      “What a coincidence,” he said. That word again. “This is where I’ll be, too.”

      “Coincidence, huh?” Charlotte seemed skeptical and a little intrigued. “I guess we’ll just have to agree that this town is big enough for both of us.” It was difficult to look innocent if you were wearing only a pair of boxers while the woman of your dreams stood in the same room. He adjusted the sheet. “I knew Nate in college. Now that he’s gone into partnership with Tate Calder in the horse-breeding business, he needs an associate for the practice. So, yes, maybe it’s a coincidence—that my friend from vet school happens to live in your hometown. I remembered how you’d described the place, and when he suggested I might want to join his practice, I jumped at the chance.”

      Her reply made Jax wonder if she’d heard his explanation at all. “We’ll both be in Mustang Creek,” she said. She sounded resigned, but he couldn’t quite interpret her expression.

      “We sure will. Maybe we can go out for dinner sometime. You can buy.”

      “Dream on, cowboy.” Charlotte fished out a small knitted cap from her suitcase and slipped it on.

      Her aunt had crocheted it, he figured. It looked homemade, and she looked delectable.

      The woman he’d known in New York, always wearing designer outfits and pricey shoes, the woman he’d called Charlie, probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in that hat, not in the city anyway.

      Cute was the only word he could come up with, and it made him laugh. Charlie, the original uptown girl—cute? What a concept. “We spent the night together, so maybe you do owe me dinner. Just sayin’.”

      She pointed at her bed, but he could swear there was a gleam in her eye. “I slept here, and you slept there. Which means we didn’t ‘spend the night together,’ not in the strictest sense of the term, anyhow.”

      “You’re right,” he said, with a twinkle.

      “Jax, could you stop messing with my head for a second, please?”

      He did his best cowboy imitation. “I’ll try, but, darlin’, you make it difficult.”

      Some nuance in his tone or manner must have gotten to her, because she blushed. Despite all the big-city polish, Charlotte was still a small-town girl. She said hurriedly, “I need to go. I haven’t met this