Holidays on the Ranch (Burnt Boot, Texas #1)(110)

“At least she was honest,” Sage said.

“Yes, she was.”

It was nearly time for chores and the storm had gotten even worse. Sage finished what she was working on and cleaned her brushes. She went to the kitchen and put a pan of milk on a burner to heat for hot chocolate, took down the cocoa and sugar and marshmallows, and then reached for two mugs.

She lit two oil lamps, carried one to the end table beside the sofa, and put the other one in the middle of the kitchen table. That brought precious little light into the room, but it beat trying to do anything in the darkness. After supper she’d scrounge around in the pantry for candles or more lamps so they could have one in each bedroom and the bathroom.

And matches! She’d need to put them beside the lamps so they could reach them without fumbling around and knocking off the lamp. Grand would be really mad if they wasted expensive lamp oil.

Creed looked up from his book when she set the mug of hot chocolate on the table beside him and said, “Thank you. That looks good.”

“I thought we’d need a warm pick-me-up before we went out to feed. I’ll gather the eggs and feed the hogs if you’ll milk the cow. I hate milking and I’m so slow the milk will freeze in the bucket before I ever get the job done,” she said.

“It’s not in the contract that you have to help with chores,” he said.

“You helped cook. I’ll help with the outside work.”

“I don’t turn down willing help.”

Willing or otherwise, she would help him because it was fair. It wasn’t fair at all that she had an almost instant attraction to the very man she had been determined not to like at all.

Want more Carolyn Brown?

Order Christmas at Home





About the Author


Carolyn Brown is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, and Holidays on the Ranch is her seventieth published book. She credits her eclectic family for her humor and writing ideas. Her books include the Lucky trilogy: Lucky in Love, One Lucky Cowboy, and Getting Lucky; the Honky Tonk series: I Love This Bar, Hell Yeah, Honky Tonk Christmas, and My Give a Damn’s Busted; the Spikes & Spurs series: Love Drunk Cowboy, Red’s Hot Cowboy, Darn Good Cowboy Christmas, One Hot Cowboy Wedding, Mistletoe Cowboy, Just a Cowboy and His Baby, and Cowboy Seeks Bride; and her bestselling Cowboys & Brides series: Billion Dollar Cowboy, The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby, The Cowboy’s Mail Order Bride, and How to Marry a Cowboy. Carolyn has launched into women’s fiction with The Blue-Ribbon Jalape?o Society Jubilee and The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off. Now she’s having fun with her new Burnt Boot series, beginning with Holidays on the Ranch. She was born in Texas but grew up in southern Oklahoma, where she and her husband, Charles, a retired English teacher, make their home. They have three grown children and enough grandchildren to keep them young.