A Husband For Christmas: Snow Kisses / Lionhearted

“I’m sorry,” he ground out. “That was a damned stupid thing to say...!”

“Don’t handle me with kid gloves,” she said, looking back at him. “Melly was right, and so were you. I can’t run away from the memory of the attack, and I can’t run away from life. I’m going to have to learn to deal with...relationships, physical relationships.” Her eyes met his bravely. “Help me.”

“I’ve already told you that I will.”

She studied the worn mat on the floorboard. “And don’t get angry when I react...predictably.”

“Like just now?” he asked, and managed a smile.

She nodded, smiling back. “Like just now.” Her eyes searched his, looking for reassurance. “It frightens me, still, the...the weight of a man’s body,” she whispered shakily, and only realized much later that she’d confessed that to no one else.

“In that case,” he said gently, “I’ll have to let you push me down in the hay, won’t I?”

Tears misted in her eyes. “Oh, Cade...”

“Will you get out of my truck?” he asked pleasantly, preventing her, probably intentionally, from showing any gratitude. “I think I did mention about a half hour ago that I was in a flaming hurry.”

“Some hurry,” she scoffed. “If you were really in a hurry,” she added, nodding toward the snow, “you’d walk.”

“That’s an idea. But I left my snowshoes in the attic. Out! Go let Melly show you how to work the computer. You do realize that somebody’s going to have to do her job while she’s on her honeymoon?”

“Me? But, Cade, I don’t know anything about computers....”

“What a great time for you to learn,” he advised. He searched her flushed face, seeing a new purpose in it, a slackening of the fear, and he nodded. “Don’t rush off to New York after the wedding. Stay with me.”

“I’d like to stay with you,” she said in a soft, gentle tone as she looked into his dark eyes.

He held her gaze for a long, warm moment before he averted his eyes to the gearshift. “Now I’m going,” he said firmly. “Either you skedaddle or you come with me.”

“I’d like to come with you,” she said with a sigh, “but I’d just get in the way, wouldn’t I?”

“Sure,” he said with a flash of white teeth. Then his eyes narrowed. “Do you want to come, really? Because I’m going to let you, and to hell with getting in the way, if you say yes.”

She took a deep, slow breath, and shrugged. “Better not, I suppose,” she said regretfully. “Melly’s wedding dress...I have to get started.”

“Okay. How about fabric?”

“Calla bought it for me. It’s just a matter of deciding what to use,” she told him. “Don’t get sick, okay?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? Afraid you’d have to nurse me?”

“I’d stay up all night for weeks if you needed me. Don’t be silly,” she chided, reaching for the door handle.

“Tell Calla not to keep supper, honey, it’s going to be another long night.”

She nodded as she held the door ajar. “Want me to bring your supper down to you?”

He smiled. “On your snowshoes? Better not, it’s damned cold out here. I’ll have a bite later. See you.”

“See you.”

She closed the door and watched him drive away with wistful eyes. She already regretted not going with him, but she didn’t wait around to wonder why.

That night, she and Melly chose the fabric from the yards and yards of it that Calla had tucked away in the cedar chest.

“Isn’t it strange that I’m getting married first?” Melly asked as they studied the pattern. “I always thought it would be you.”

“Me and who?” Abby laughed.

“Cade, of course.”

Abby caught her breath. “He never felt that way.”

“Oh, you poor blind thing,” Melly said softly. “He used to watch you like a man watching a rainbow. Sometimes his hands would tremble when he was helping you onto a horse or opening a door for you, and you never even noticed, did you?”

Abby’s pale brown eyes widened helplessly. “Cade?”

“Cade.” Melly sat back in her chair and sighed. “He was head over heels about you when you left here. He roared around for two weeks after you were gone, making the men nervous, driving the rest of us up walls. He’d sit by the fire at night and just stare straight ahead. I’ve never seen a man grieve like that over a woman. And you didn’t even know.”

Abby’s eyes closed in pain. If she’d known that, career or no career, she would have come running back to Montana on her bare feet if she’d had to. “I didn’t have any idea. If I’d known that, I never would have left here. Never!” she burst out.

Melly caught her breath at the passion that flared up in her sister’s eyes. “You loved him?”

“Deathlessly.” Her eyes closed, then opened again, misty with tears. “I’ll die loving him.”

“Abby!”

She took a steadying breath and slumped. “Four years. Four long years, and a nightmare at the end of it. And if I’d stayed here... Why didn’t he tell me?”

“I suppose he thought he was doing the best thing for you,” Melly said gently. “You were so excited about a career in modeling.”

“I thought at the time that it would be better to moon over Cade at a distance instead of going to seed while I waited in vain for him to notice me again,” Abby said miserably.

“Again?”

Darn Melly’s quick mind. “Just never you mind. Let’s go over this pattern.”

“He still cares about you,” Melly murmured.

“In a different way, though.”

“That could change,” came the soft reply, “if you want it to.”

“If only Cade didn’t have such a soft spot for stray things,” Abby said, her eyes wistful. “I never know what he really feels—I never have. He was sorry for me when I was a kid and, in a way, he still is. I don’t want a man who pities me, Melly.”

“How do you know that Cade does? You’re a lovely woman.”

“A woman with a very big problem,” Abby reminded her, “and Cade goes out of his way to help people, you know that. We go back a long way and he’s fond of me. How can I be sure that what he feels isn’t just compassion, Melly?”

“Give it time and find out.”

“That,” she said with a sigh, “is sage advice. By the way, you’re going to have to teach me how to do your job, because he’s already maneuvered me into replacing you while you’re on your honeymoon.”

“Oh, he has, has he?” Melly pursed her lips and her eyes laughed. “That isn’t something he’d do if he really felt sorry for you!” she assured her sister.

“Now cut that out! Here, tell me if you like the dress better with a long train or a short one....”

And for the rest of the night, they concentrated on the wedding gown.

8

In the days that followed, Abby learned more about the logistics of roundup on Painted Ridge than she wanted to. The whole ranch suddenly revolved around preparations for it. There were supplies to get in, men to hire and add to the weekly payroll. And at the head of it all was Cade, mapping out strategy, tossing out orders as he organized everything from the butane for the torches they used to heat the branding irons to ear tags. At the same time, he was involved with roundup on the other two ranches he had interests in, and in between were cattle auctions, board meetings and a rushed trip to New York to discuss his corporation’s plans to buy a feedlot in Oklahoma.

Abby couldn’t help thinking how sexy Cade looked in his pale gray suit with matching boots and Stetson when he came downstairs with his suitcase in his hand.

“Well, I guess I’m ready,” he grumbled, heading toward the front door. Hank was waiting impatiently outside in the truck.

“You really need something snazzier than a pickup truck to ride to the airport in,” Abby remarked with a smile. “You look very sophisticated.”

He glanced at her, his eyes clearly approving her jeans and pale T-shirt. “I’d rather be wearing what you’ve got on.”

“You’d sure look funny in it,” she murmured wickedly.

He chuckled softly. “I guess I would. Oh, damn, I hate these dress-up things, and I hate to ride around the country on airplanes with other people at the controls.”

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