Merry Cowboy Christmas (Lucky Penny Ranch #3)(57)

Dora June fussed right back at him. “Oh, Truman, stop your bellyachin’. We got the whole corner of the living room to store it until I can get it all wrapped and put under the tree. Be thankful the girls wouldn’t let me stop at that RV place and buy a travel trailer. I wanted to, but they laughed and said you’d never leave Dry Creek, not even to camp out on the Brazos. I think we should buy one and go see as much of the whole United States as we can before we die. Maybe even Canada. I always wanted to see Niagara Falls.”

“You wouldn’t leave your goats, so stop talking that nonsense,” he continued to fuss.

“I’ll barbecue every one of those little critters and serve them at the Christmas potluck if you’ll buy me a big old RV and take me to see all the sights in this wonderful country,” she said.

“You’d be whinin’ to come home in less than a week.”

“Damned if I would,” Dora June said.

“You cussed on Sunday.”

“Shows you how serious I am.”

Jud kept the laughter to a chuckle. Truman in a travel trailer would take more than a Christmas miracle. It would take even more angel dust than heaven had on hand.

Fiona hung up her coat.“I’m taking my stuff to one of the spare bedrooms. I’m too tired to wrap presents tonight. Dora June about wore all of us out. And, Truman, she really did want to stop at the RV place when we passed it.”

“She can shop the legs off a two-year-old who’s had candy for dinner and supper,” Truman said gruffly.

Jud heard a little pride in his comment. It was taking a while but Truman was coming around and his bark was a hell of a lot worse than his bite. He might just be willing to burn that Scrooge attitude by Christmas day after all.

“You are about ninety percent bluff, you old goat,” he whispered as he got to his feet and met Fiona halfway up the stairs to help her carry her bags.

“I played dominoes with Truman all afternoon,” he said.

“Really?”

The remnants of whatever enticing perfume added with the cold wind she’d brought in with her stirred Jud’s desire to hold her, to kiss her again, and to go many steps on past that.

“I lost ten dollars in quarters to that sly old fart. He’s got a poker face and I promise you one thing, I will never play cards with him. Where are we going with these?” he asked.

“Into Lizzy’s old room.” She slung open the door and set the bags on the bed before slumping into a chair beside the dresser. “Have a seat and talk to me. I’m exhausted. Can you believe it’s only three weeks until Christmas day?”

He sat down on the end of the bed and picked up one of her feet, unzipped her black boot, removed it, and massaged her foot. “Poor baby,” he drawled.

“God, that’s wonderful.”

“You looked stunning in church this morning,” he said.

She pushed her hair back behind her ears. “But now I’m so tired that I look like the last rose of summer that the little dog pissed on.”

“You do have a way with words.” He put her foot down and picked up the other one.

“I’ll miss this whole thing we have when I leave,” she said.

“And you’ll never come home again?” He dug into the heel of her foot, working out a knot.

“Sure I’ll come home but you’ll find someone else to give foot rubs to. Long distance never works,” she said.

“So we would be in a long-distance relationship?” he asked.

“We’d have to be in a relationship first. And let’s face it, Jud, with me leaving town, I don’t see the sense in starting one. Anytime I came home to visit family, it’d be too weird.”

“What if we go real slow and see where it leads?”

The words made a lot of sense, but the feel of her skin, even that on her foot, sure told him a different story. He wanted to treat whatever chemistry they had between them like a roller coaster. Go very fast! Scream! Wrap up in the afterglow that arrives after sex and cuddle until they were both rested enough get on the roller coaster for a second ride.

“Truman probably did us a favor on Friday night.” She pulled her foot out of his hand and pushed up out of the chair.

He followed her across the landing to her room and put an arm on either side of her, caging her against the door. Her long lashes fluttered shut and fanned out on her cheeks. The tip of her tongue tempted him as she moistened her full lips. He lowered his face and shut his eyes, using his senses to guide him straight to her mouth. The electricity between them was so hot that he could hear sparks crackling all over the landing.

When the kiss ended, Fiona opened those fascinating deep green eyes and gazed past the bottom of his heart into his soul. “I thought we were going to take this slow,” she murmured.

“This is slow, darlin’. Fast would be a walk backward to your bed or maybe I’d pick you up and carry you to mine.”

She tiptoed and brushed a quick kiss across his lips. “I can do slow—for a little while.”





Chapter Fifteen



Truman fussed and fumed but he kept feeding the lights up the ladder to Blake, who then sent them on up to Judd, who snapped them into place around the porch roof. “Craziest damn thing I’ve ever seen,” Truman grumbled. “Put up lights on the sixth day of December and take them down on January second. All this work and energy for less than a month and just think of the electricity they use. Why, I could buy two new goats or a nice bull calf for the price of what the utility bill will cost.”