A Christmas Cowboy - Suzannah Davis

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her mouth trembled when he touched her. The chemistry was still there, despite everything.

      Not that he wanted to fan the ashes of a dead love affair into life again. He’d learned the hard way what he could count on, what he couldn’t. Still, in Mac’s book, Marisa owed him. A period of enforced isolation with an old lover hadn’t been in his game plan when he’d discovered her involvement in the Morris story, but he was human enough to take advantage of the present situation. He would enjoy seeing that she finally paid—at least in some small measure—for the way she’d betrayed him so long ago.

      His smile returned at the prospect. He unfastened his jeans, then slid out of them and draped them over a chair back. They began to steam almost immediately. Clad in long-sleeved thermal undershirt and long johns, he rested both hands on the mantel, letting the waves of heat soak into him. The frantic detective work and two-day drive in stinking weather, not to mention that mile hike uphill in a snowstorm, were catching up with him, and the warmth was making him drowsy.

      “Here, this is the only thing I could—” Behind him, Marisa’s words broke off with a small gasp of outrage.

      Mac straightened, stretched and gave her a lazy glance over his shoulder. “Get a grip, princess. You’ve seen me in my skivvies before.”

      “Not an experience I wanted to repeat,” she snapped. Face flaming, she dropped blankets, a rolled-up pair of wool socks and a paper plate holding a ham sandwich into a pile beside the chairs he’d chosen. “But I suppose your behaving with the least bit of common decency is too much to expect.”

      “Hey, I was wet. You want me to sleep in damp clothes and catch my death?”

      “It’s a thought.” Without looking at him, she kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the sofa beside her son, arranging the blankets over them both.

      Mac wrapped himself in a fluffy comforter and sat in the chair to pull on the dry socks. He made his tone conversational. “You know, the most sensible thing would be for us to cuddle together to conserve body heat.”

      “In your dreams, Mahoney.” Her voice was muffled by the piles of blankets, but the agitation in her tone was plain. “Shut up so we can sleep.”

      Reaching for the sandwich, Mac propped his long legs in the seat of the matching chair. Yeah, in my dreams, he thought. If she only knew.

      Halfway through the sandwich, he paused long enough to examine it more closely. Ham, cheese, mustard, no mayo. He hated mayonnaise. She’d remembered....

      The next mouthful went down hard. She remembered. As much as he did? With as much pain? They’d had so much. At least he’d thought they had. Did she regret at all that she’d left him without a word?

      Mac set aside the unfinished sandwich, huddling down in the chair and pulling the comforter up around his ears. Dancing orange shadows illuminated the room and the rounded forms of the woman and child on the big sofa. Although the cadence of her breathing was even, he knew she wasn’t asleep.

      “Marisa?” His voice was low, barely audible above the howling of the unrelenting storm outside.

      “Hmm?”

      “Where did it go wrong?”

      There was a long silence, so long that Mac decided she wasn’t going to answer him.

      Finally, she replied. “Does it matter?”

      Mac had no answer that he could voice, but it did matter. God help him. It did.

      Two

      Marisa awoke smiling, her dreams melting into gossamer images of beaches and a green-eyed man and the sensation of sunshine warming her skin. She stretched, indulging in the perfect euphoric moment. In the next instant, sleep slipped completely away, and she sat up with a gasp.

      Nicky! The space on the sofa beside her was empty. Blood surging, Marisa threw back the blankets and rolled to her feet in a panic.

      Above the crackle of the steadily burning fire, high-pitched childish chatter drifted from the direction of the kitchen. She stumbled toward the rear of the lodge, stopping short at the cased opening into the cozy dining area and country kitchen.

      “My mommy can do that better.”

      “Yeah, kid? Well, your mommy’s still snoozing like Goldilocks, so I guess it’s up to me. See if this suits you.”

      Marisa quit breathing. Mac Mahoney stood with his back to her—his bare, beautifully muscled back—pushing a glass of orange juice across the counter to Nicky. Her mouth went dry. Mac’s shoulders were as broad as ever, the well-defined muscles covered by bronzed skin. Her fingers tingled with the urge to explore the velvety texture.

      The dim natural light filtering into the kitchen revealed spoons, pitchers and puddles of sticky orange concentrate littering the dividing bar. Outside, the wind continued to howl and the sky, still a sullen lead color, filled the air with flurries of gray snow, but the lodge was noticeably warmer, thanks to Mac. Yet the image of him stoking the fire during the night while she slept unsettled her. So did the realization that a pair of snug jeans on the right man could be utterly devastating to the female libido.

      “Don’t like ‘The Three Bears.’” Nicky perched on a tall stool, slurping juice from a tumbler. “Too sissy.”

      Mac poured bottled water into a battered percolator and rummaged in the cabinets for coffee. “You never heard the real story then.”

      “What story?”

      “Not the one they tell babies.” Mac frowned over the measuring scoop and read the side of the red coffee can again. “The one about how the bear family gobbled up Goldilocks for breakfast instead of porridge. Fricasseed blonde.”

      “Really? Cool.”

      “The twit got what she deserved for breaking and entering, so let that be a lesson to you, kid. There aren’t any free lunches in this world.”

      “Mommy makes my lunches. And she puts four scoops of that stuff in the coffeepot. Are you sure you’re not a cowboy?”

      Marisa couldn’t resist a smile at that. Mac surreptitiously unscooped a couple of spoonfuls of coffee grounds out of the strainer basket with his fingers, then turned on the gas burner of the bottled-propane stove. Marisa couldn’t help noticing how his thick, mahogany-colored hair grew long at his nape. He’d always been too impatient for regular haircuts.

      “Sorry,” he said to the boy. “I wouldn’t know the north end of a horse from the south.”

      “That’s what I was afraid of.” Nicky sighed, then his blue eyes brightened. “Are you the new daddy I asked Santa to bring?”

      “Nicky!” Marisa nearly swallowed her tongue in chagrin. Face flaming, she stepped into the kitchen to quiet her all-too-outspoken offspring. Mac turned toward her, and she drew up sharply with a horrified gasp. “Oh, my God.”

      A painful-looking blue-and-purple streak ran from the top of Mac’s muscled shoulder to his collarbone—her doing. That blow with the poker had done more damage than she’d realized. Remorse flooded her.

      “Mac, I’m so sorry!” Without thinking, she lifted her hand, hovered hesitantly over the livid bruise for a moment, then gently stroked the area of abused flesh as if to draw out the pain.

      The instant she touched him, Mac shuddered. Swift as a striking snake, he captured her wrist, holding her in midstroke, her fingers barely brushing his skin. His lips compressed, and something emerald and potent and wild flared behind his eyes in a look so heated Marisa felt dazed and dizzy.

      “Don’t do that again—unless you’re prepared for the consequences.” His voice was rough, his lean jaw shadowed by dark stubble. He looked like a pirate, ruthlessly masculine and intent on plunder.

      Marisa blinked, unnerved and confused.

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