My Kind of Christmas (The Christmas Tree Ranch #1)(18)

“Could you use some help?”

“From you?” His eyebrows shot up.

“I may not be as strong as you,” she said, taking a dainty forkful of pie. “But I can help balance the heavy things and carry in the light things, like drawers. It could save you some time.”

He frowned, studying the way her windblown hair curled around her face and how the loosely buttoned collar of her denim shirt revealed the barest shadow of cleavage. Why would she offer to help him with a heavy job that didn’t strike him as women’s work? He already knew the answer to that question. But that didn’t mean he was going to turn her down.

“Sure, thanks,” he said. “I’ll need to pick up some sheets and blankets at Shop Mart on the way.”

“No need. I’ve got a box of spare bedding I was planning to donate. My house isn’t far. We can stop by and pick it up when I take you back to your truck.”

“Thanks.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you’ve got time for this?”

“It’s Saturday. I was just going to run an errand or two and hang around the house. I’d rather make myself useful. Thanks for the coffee and pie, by the way. It’s not very often I get treated by a man.”

“I find that hard to believe, Mayor Maggie,” he said. “I can imagine men lining up around the block just to buy you coffee.”

She laughed. “Then you don’t know Branding Iron—or me. My age qualifies me as an old maid around here.”

That was what Abner had called her. He’d said she was too bossy for most men. If that was true, Travis thought, it didn’t say much for the male population of Branding Iron. Maggie Delaney was a goddess.

They left Buckaroo’s, and Maggie drove to her house—a cozy-looking brick bungalow with a deep, covered front porch. It reminded Travis of the house he’d grown up in after his mother remarried.

Hank had a smaller house. Travis had driven by it once. That one time was enough for him.

“Do you need help with the box?” he asked her as she pulled into the driveway and stopped.

“It’s not heavy. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She climbed out of the car, darted into the house, and appeared minutes later with a hefty-looking cardboard box, which she slid onto the backseat. He should have insisted on helping her, Travis thought. But something told him Maggie wasn’t accustomed to being helped.

She drove him back to the Shop Mart and let him off at his truck. “I’ll see you at your place,” she said.

“It still smells like skunk out there,” he warned.

“I grew up in Branding Iron. I can deal with that.” She gave him a cheerful wave as she drove away.

When Travis arrived home, he saw that she’d made it there ahead of him and propped the gate open for the truck. Maggie was on the front porch, with Bucket at her side. Travis pulled in, parked by the house, and got out of the truck to close the gate.

By now the sky was dark with clouds. Wind whistled through the ancient cottonwoods that lined the road. A storm front was moving in. Would it be chilly enough to bring the season’s first snowfall?

Travis mounted the porch where she was waiting. “Hang around with that dog and you’ll have to bury your clothes when you get home,” he said.

She grinned. “Too late for that now. We’re already pals. Come on, let’s get that truck emptied before the weather hits.”

“Right.” As mayor, Maggie was clearly accustomed to calling the shots, Travis observed. No wonder some men found her off-putting. But he, for one, enjoyed a woman with backbone. He tossed her the leather work gloves he kept in the truck. “Put these on,” he said.

She hesitated. “They’ll be too big.”

“Put them on—unless you’d rather get splinters.”

She slipped the gloves on her hands. “All right, let’s get to work,” she said.

With Bucket trailing them back and forth, they hauled the pieces into the house. Maggie carried the bureau drawers and the nightstand in by herself. But it took both of them to lug and balance the rug and the ends of the wooden bed frame and wrestle the full-size mattress and box spring through the door and down the hall.

Travis had to admit Maggie was a lot of help. She was strong for a woman, and she didn’t stand around waiting to be told what to do. It took them maybe fifteen minutes to get everything out of the truck and in the house, and another fifteen minutes to put everything together in the bedroom. When the mattress finally lay over the box spring on the bed, she fell backward across it with a little whoosh and lay there, laughing. “Now that was work!” she said.

As he looked down at her, with her cheeks flushed and her hair falling in glorious tangles, it was all Travis could do to keep from flinging himself down beside her and taking her in his arms. Not a good idea, he told himself. Either Maggie would slap his face, or she wouldn’t, which could mean serious trouble for them both.

For a few more seconds, he feasted his eyes on the sight of her. Then after announcing that he was going to get the box from her car, he turned and strode outside. Safe on the porch, he took a breath.

Was the woman aware of her effect on him? He would bet good money she was. Maggie hadn’t gotten to be mayor by being a shrinking violet. She was an expert at getting what she wanted.

He knew what she was up to—playing up to him, helping him with Conner’s room, flirting with him in her maddeningly subtle way. But it wasn’t going to work. He wanted nothing to do with the Christmas parade, especially if she expected him to play Santa.