A Ranger For Christmas

“Where did you work before?”

Her question brought him out of his daydreaming and he looked over to see her focus was on the narrow blacktopped road. So far they’d been traveling through open desert hills dotted with spiny bayonet, sage, cacti and agave. To his right, in the far distance, he caught glimpses of blue water.

“At Dead Horse Ranch State Park. It’s near Cottonwood. Are you familiar with the area?”

“A little. Enough to know the landscape is far different up there than it is here. You have trees and forests and creeks. We mostly have thorns, horned lizards and rattlesnakes. Are you sure you can handle it until spring ends?”

He chuckled. “I can handle most anything—for a while.”

“If you live in Cottonwood, you have a long commute,” she commented.

“I live on the Yavapai-Apache reservation west of Camp Verde. Once I get on 17 the drive isn’t all that bad.”

She darted him a glance. “You have family there? On the reservation?”

“Only my grandmother. I live with her.”

“Oh.”

His gaze slipped over her profile to eventually land on the soft, sweet curve of her lips. Did she have a special man that kissed her until she was wrapping her arms around his neck and begging for more?

Trying to shake off that image, he repeated her one-word reply. “Oh. What does that mean? You can’t figure why I’d live on the reservation?”

“No. It means I’m a bit surprised that you live with your grandmother. I figured you’d have a bachelor pad in town.”

Chuckling again, he shook his head. “Me live in a town? Never. And I’d never leave my grandmother. She raised me from a little boy. It’s time for me to take care of her now.”

She shot him an odd look that he couldn’t quite decipher. Maybe she considered it strange, even shiftless, for a man of his age to still be living with his grandmother in the same house he’d grown up in. Some of his friends thought so. They’d often encourage him to move off the reservation so that he’d be closer to his work and all the excitement and entertainment the city had to offer. But none of them understood what he deemed most important in his life.

“Is your grandmother elderly?”

“Nashota is seventy-seven. And thankfully in great health. When I said take care of her—I didn’t mean she was decrepit. I meant financially and to make sure she knows that she’s loved and has a purpose for living. That kind of thing.”

She remained quiet for a long time, and though Sawyer would’ve liked to know what was going on in that pretty head of hers, he didn’t ask. It wasn’t often that he talked to a woman about his grandmother or his personal life. And he wasn’t sure why he’d said anything to Vivian Hollister. But there was something soft and alluring about her that tugged at him. Something that made her very different from the women he normally associated with.

After a moment, she said, “You’re a lucky man, Sawyer. All of my grandparents have passed on. I miss not being able to spend time with them.”

She understood. And he suddenly realized Vivian Hollister was far more than a pretty female in a ranger uniform. The knowledge left him a little uneasy. It wasn’t in his nature or his plan to ever get serious about a woman. And he definitely didn’t want to develop an important attachment to this one.

Hell, why would he be worrying about such a thing? He was an expert at playing the field. He knew how to enjoy a woman without letting his heart take a serious dive. Enjoying some romantic time with Vivian shouldn’t put him in a risky situation. He wouldn’t let it.

“That’s why I want to be around for these last years of her life. Some of my friends call me corny and a few other things. For being so close to my grandmother. But that’s all right. I have a tough hide.”

“I wouldn’t call your devotion corny. I’d call it admirable.”

Admirable. Sawyer couldn’t remember ever being called that by anyone before. Especially a woman. Granted, he was basically a good guy. But he was hardly one to be admired. It wouldn’t be long before Vivian figured that out for herself. Still, for now, he might as well enjoy her approval for as long as it lasted, he thought.

He forced his gaze to move away from her and on to the landscape passing the passenger window. “Is this the route you and Louis usually patrol?”

“This is it. There’s nearly a hundred and fifty camping sites in the park, so the responsibilities for those are divided among the rangers. This is the area Louis and I keep tabs on. Along with several hiking trails.”

“What about the lake itself? I understand there are several water sports going on around here for most of the year.”

“That’s right. Fishing, boating, scuba diving and swimming. Our duties don’t include visitors on the water. The park has specially trained rangers for that job. So we don’t have to concern ourselves with those folks.” She wheeled the SUV onto a curved blacktopped road that entered a large camping area. “I don’t know about Dead Horse Ranch State Park, but you can see we have lots of snowbirds during the winter months.”

As she drove very slowly through the campgrounds, Sawyer eyed the motor homes and camp trailers parked on the desert hillside. A few mesquite trees and tall saguaros dotted the landscape, along with a variety of cacti and thorny chaparrals. The rugged landscape appealed to Sawyer. Almost as much as the woman sitting beside him.

“Do you have many problems with visitors carving into the saguaros or that sort of thing?”

“Most of the park visitors understand the rules not to disturb the trees or vegetation. But from time to time there are some who decide it’s more fun to vandalize than to enjoy the beauty of nature.”

“Same at Dead Horse Ranch. I might as well tell you that it doesn’t bother me to write those kinds of people a ticket.”

She glanced at him. “It doesn’t bother me, either. Honest mistakes are a different matter. Especially when children make them. But to me, deliberate acts are unpardonable.”

She sounded as though she could be firm when needed and flexible when the situation warranted. Thank goodness she didn’t sound like one of those gung-ho rangers, who considered themselves more as deputy sheriffs rather than park protectors.

He glanced out the window just as they passed a site with an elderly man cooking at a built-in grill. “Kind of cold to be cooking breakfast outside this morning,” Sawyer commented. “I take it the park doesn’t have a fire ban on right now.”

“No. If at all possible, we try to avoid fire bans. Visitors especially enjoy cooking out. And folks from the northern states think this sort of weather is warm.”

He chuckled. “Right. T-shirts in forty-degree weather. We see the same thing at Dead Horse Ranch,” he said, then glanced in her direction. “Do you live close by? Or do you have a long commute to work?”

“I live a few miles out of Wickenburg. So the drive isn’t all that bad.”

He waited with hopes she’d add something more about her personal life. To his disappointment, she remained silent so he asked, “No other rangers from that area to carpool with?”

“No. What about you?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know of. Anyway, I’m independent. I like to come and go on my own.”

She looked at him and smiled and Sawyer decided for the next six months he was going to have a hell of a time trying to keep his mind on his work. There was something totally sexy about the way the corners of her lips tilted upward and her green eyes glimmered like sunlight on the water.

“Me, too,” she said, then her expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe we have more in common than I first thought.”

He tried not to grin, but he couldn’t help it. She made him feel very happy that he was a man. And as of this morning, a very lucky man. “Oh, I expect we’re going to discover we have a lot in common, Vivian.”

The tone of his voice must have given his thoughts away because she suddenly rolled her eyes and focused her attention back to her driving.

She said, “As long as the hanky-panky isn’t one of the things we have in common, then we’ll get along fine.”

He laughed. “Oh, Vivian. You’re so prim and pretty.”

Shaking her head, she said, “And you’re so—ridiculous.”

“Oh, come on. You know you want to laugh with me. And you know you already like me. Don’t you?”

He could see the corners of her lips twitching as she fought to hold back a smile.

“Stop it. Stop it right now,” she ordered in a voice that was more playful than demanding.

“No. You stop, Viv, right now.”

Her head jerked in his direction and she frowned at him in stunned fascination. “What?”

“Back up. To the campsite we just passed on my side. The guy was changing the oil in his truck.”

“That’s not exactly a crime, Sawyer,” she pointed out.

“No. But I want to make sure he doesn’t think he’s going to dispose of all that used oil back at the sanitary station.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” she admitted. “And I should have. We’ve caught people trying to dump all sorts of environmental hazards into the sewer tank. Hopefully this guy plans to haul the oil to the nearest town and dispose of it properly.”

“We’re going to make sure he does.”

Vivian jammed the vehicle in Reverse and slowly backed to the entrance of the campsite.

“I’ll let you deal with this one,” she said smugly, as the two of them climbed out of the SUV. “You’re the one who spotted it.”

“Thanks,” he said drily. “I always like to start my day off being a jerk.”

“Don’t you mean doing your duty?” she asked, as she walked alongside him.

Sawyer looked at her and chuckled. “Sometimes they’re one and the same.”

He’d called her Viv. Such a simple little thing that really meant nothing. And yet, here it was nearly three hours later and Vivian still couldn’t quit thinking about the way his shortened use of her name had made her feel. The way he made her feel. It was crazy.

“Do you always eat like a bird?”

He was sitting a few feet away from her on a sunbaked boulder just off a hiking trail. Less than three yards in front of them was the edge of a rock bluff overlooking a portion of the lake. It was a beautiful view of the water among the desert hills, and they’d chosen the spot to stop for lunch.

For the past fifteen minutes Vivian had watched him wolf down two sandwiches, a bag of chips and a banana. Now he was topping it off with a chocolate cupcake with thick confectioner’s icing. As for her, she’d managed to nibble her way through half of a bologna sandwich, but even eating that much food had been a major chore. Being in Sawyer’s company had caused major butterflies in her stomach. At this rate, she’d be skin and bones before Louis came back to work.

“Normally I have a big appetite. I’m just not hungry for lunch today. Guess I had too much eggs and chorizo for breakfast.”

“You cook breakfast before you leave for work?”

No, Vivian rarely cooked anything. Not because she disliked it, but because Reeva, the longtime house cook for Three Rivers Ranch, always kept delicious dishes on the family table. But Vivian wasn’t quite ready to reveal to Sawyer that she and her daughter lived with her mother and brothers on one of the largest ranches in Arizona. He saw her only as a working woman. And for now that was the way Vivian wanted to keep it.

“I cook whenever the urge hits me.” Which was true enough, she thought.

“Guess your husband enjoys it whenever you do make his favorite meal.”

His remark was more than obvious and the idea that he was interested in her marital status was flattering, along with disturbing.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “I’ve not seen him in more than eleven years.”

Even though he’d slipped on a pair of aviator sunglasses earlier this morning, she could tell he was staring at her. The idea made her want to jump to her feet. Instead, she wrapped up what was left of her sandwich and stuffed it back into her lunch bucket.

“I take it he’s an ex-husband.”

“That’s right,” she said stiffly. “I was married for two years. Long enough to have a daughter.”

He continued to stare at her and Vivian wondered what he was thinking. Most likely that he wasn’t going to waste his time flirting with a single mother in her midthirties. And he’d be thinking right. She wasn’t in the market for a man. Even if her family was often pushing her to find one.

Her family couldn’t understand her aversion to getting back into the dating scene. After nearly twelve years of being single, most of them figured she was over her short, disastrous marriage. Her little brother Holt was the only one who seemed to understand her feelings about risking her heart again. Not because he’d been married before, but because out of all her siblings, she was closest to him and he to her. Holt recognized that it wasn’t men Vivian mistrusted, but rather her own judgment of them.

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes. Hannah. She’s twelve going on thirteen. Although, to hear her tell it, she knows more than a twenty-year-old.”

He grunted with amusement. “Don’t we all at that age?”

She cast him a wry smile. “I suppose. I remember I was around that age when I told my mother I was going to be an astronaut and nothing could stop me.”

“Obviously something stopped you.”

She let out a soft laugh. “I got on an airplane with my two older brothers for a trip to California. Once the plane landed I was so terrified I begged them to rent a car for the return trip. They refused and I hid my eyes during the entire flight back home.”

He grinned. “So you learned you didn’t like leaving the ground.”

“I figured out exploring the desert is much more fun to me.”

“Most women like office jobs. What made you decide to be a park ranger?”

She shook her head. “I’m not the indoor type. And my parents pushed all of us kids to get at least some college education, so I studied for four long years and ended up with a degree in natural resource management and nearly enough hours for a degree in agribusiness. Later on—after I divorced—I was glad that I’d acquired all that knowledge. It was just what I needed to get a job here at Lake Pleasant.”

“Hmm. You’ve got me beat in the education department. I’m still working toward my degree in wildlife ecology. A few more online courses and I should be finished by the end of this coming spring.”

Just about the time Louis would be returning, she thought. By then she’d either be very glad to see Sawyer go, or very sorry. At the moment it was too early to predict how she’d be feeling about telling him goodbye.

“I’m sure you’ll be excited to get that behind you. Are you planning to stay at Dead Horse Ranch after you get your degree?”

He nodded. “Next year a management job will be opening up. I’ll need my degree to have a shot at it.”

“And you want to work at a park that doesn’t take you far away from your grandmother,” she stated.

He crumpled the empty cupcake wrapper and stuffed it into a sack with the rest of his lunch trash. “That’s right. Lake Pleasant is really farther away from the reservation than I’d like to be. But this job is only for a few months and Nashota, that’s my grandmother, insisted I take it. See, she has a mystical nature and something told her that my time here will bring me good fortune.”

“You believe in that sort of thing?”

A crooked grin slanted his lips. “I believe in Grandmother. Because I sure as heck can’t argue with her. She has a stubborn streak.”

He made talking to him oh, so easy. And that was dangerous, she thought. If she wasn’t careful, she’d soon be telling him things about herself that were better kept locked away.

She turned her gaze away from him and tried to focus on a giant agave plant growing off to her right. “I don’t know what kind of good fortune you might find around here,” she said, “but it doesn’t hurt to dream.”

He asked, “Do you ever think about asking to be transferred to a different park?”

The question brought her gaze back to him. “Not ever. I’ve never lived away from my family. It would take something very special for me to ever move away.”

In spite of the sunglasses covering his eyes, she could tell his gaze was thoughtfully searching her face. Which surprised Vivian somewhat. So far, Sawyer seemed to be a lighthearted jokester, who appeared to consider flirting nothing more than a fun game.

“You have family living in Wickenburg?”

Thankfully he hadn’t yet connected the Hollister name to Three Rivers Ranch. And for today, at least, Vivian was glad he didn’t know she was an heiress to a cattle empire.

“Yes. A mother, four brothers, two of whom are older than me, and a younger sister. My sister is currently living away, though.”

“You didn’t mention a father. What about him? Or is that question too personal?”

She very nearly laughed. He’d talked about her lips being kissable. Could he get any more personal than that?

“No. It’s not too personal,” she told him. “I didn’t mention Dad because he’s been dead for several years. A horse accident.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

She sighed. Officially, Joel’s death had been ruled an accident, but as far as the family was concerned, there was too much mystery surrounding the incident to pass it off as an accident. But she’d only met Sawyer a few hours ago. She didn’t know him well enough to share the few facts they had about her father’s death with the man.

“Yes. I still miss him terribly.” Her voice strained to speak around the lump in her throat. “What about you? Do you have siblings?”

“No brothers. No sisters. It’s only me and Nashota. My dad died when I was eight years old—a construction accident. After that happened, my mother moved away with another man. I’ve never seen or heard from her since.”

Looking at this strong and striking man, it was very difficult to imagine him growing up without a father and a mother who’d basically chosen to desert him. Given that sort of childhood, it was commendable that he’d turned into a responsible man.

“That’s tough.”

He shrugged. “Life is often tough. More for some than for others. I happen to think I was lucky. I had Grandmother to grab me by the seat of the pants and keep me on a straight path. Some of my childhood friends didn’t have as much. I wouldn’t want to tell you how they’ve ended up.”

This morning his playful flirting had made her uncomfortable, yet surprisingly this genuine side of him disturbed her even more. The idea of him wanting, hurting and needing in the most basic human ways touched her more than he could ever guess.

“Yes. Lucky you.” She rose from her seat of slab rock. “We’d probably better be going. We still have one more hiking trail to cover before we hit another set of campgrounds.”

While she gathered up her partially eaten lunch, Sawyer left his seat and walked over to the edge of the bluff.

“This is an incredible view,” he said. “From this distance the saguaros look like green needles stuck in a sand pile.”

She looked over to see the strong north wind was hitting him in the face and molding his uniform against his muscled body. The sight of his imposing figure etched against the blue sky and desert valley caused her breath to hang in her throat.

She walked over to where he stood, then took a cautious step closer to the ledge in order to peer down at the view directly below.

“I never get tired of it,” she admitted. “There are a few Native American ruins not far from here. We’ll hike by those before we finish our route.”

A hard gust of wind suddenly whipped across the ledge and caused Vivian to sway on her feet. Sawyer swiftly caught her by the arm and pulled her back to his side.

“Careful,” he warned. “I wouldn’t want you to topple over the edge.”

With his hand on her arm and his sturdy body shielding her from the wind, she felt very warm and protected. And for one reckless moment, she wondered how it would feel to slip her arms around his lean waist, to rise up on the tips of her toes and press her mouth to his. Would his lips taste as good as she imagined?

Shaken by the direction of her runaway thoughts, she tried to make light of the moment. “That would be awful,” she agreed. “Mort would have to find you another partner.”

“Yeah, and she might not be as cute as you.”

With a little laugh of disbelief, she stepped away from his side. “Cute? I haven’t been called that since I was in high school. I’m beginning to think you’re nineteen instead of twenty-nine.”

He pulled a playful frown at her. “You prefer your men to be old and somber?”

“I prefer them to keep their minds on their jobs,” she said staunchly. “And you are not my man.”

His laugh was more like a sexy promise.

“Not yet.”

Chapter Three

Later that night in the big family room on Three Rivers Ranch, the Hollisters were enjoying drinks before dinner when Hannah plopped down on the couch next to Vivian.

Eyeing the beseeching grin on her daughter’s pretty face, Vivian said, “Okay, I know that look. What are you wanting? To add something to your Christmas list?”

Hannah wrinkled her pert little nose. “Oh, Mom, I’ve only asked for two things.”

“Only two? A horse and a saddle. You already have both.”

“Yes, but a girl can’t have too many horses or saddles,” her daughter pointed out, then gave her long blond braid a flip over one shoulder. “Anyway, I don’t want anything else on my Christmas list. I wanted to ask if you’d take Nick and me down to Red Bluff this weekend.”

Frowning, Vivian placed her drink on a nearby table, then turned her full attention to Hannah. “Red Bluff? Whatever for?”

Hannah rolled her eyes in droll fashion. “We’ve not been down there to see Aunt Camille in ages. And it’s so warm and pretty there. We want to go riding down the canyon.”

Red Bluff Ranch was another property of the Hollister family. At thirty-five thousand acres, it was only a fraction of the size of Three Rivers, but it was equally important. Located at the bottom of the state, near Dragoon, the climate remained much milder than Three Rivers. Each autumn her oldest brother, Blake, who managed the family ranch, shipped several hundred head of cow/calf pairs to Red Bluff for winter grazing.

“It’s a long drive to Red Bluff and I don’t want to haul two horses that far just for a weekend trip.”

Scooting closer, Hannah grabbed her mother’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “But you wouldn’t have to haul the horses. Matt says Daisy and Dahlia are down there. We can ride them.”

The two paint mares were sisters and perfectly suitable for her daughter and nephew to ride. Which meant she had one less excuse to avoid making the trip. “I’m not sure Camille would want our company.”

“Yes, she would. She told me that she gets lonely down there by herself.”

“If she gets that lonely she’d come home and live with her family,” Vivian muttered, then sighed as she noticed the disapproving look on her daughter’s face. “Okay, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Hannah shook her head. “It wasn’t nice, Mom. You just don’t like it because Aunt Camille wants to live down there instead of up here with all of us. That’s her choice.”

That much was true, Vivian thought. She missed her younger sister. She also thought Camille was making a mistake by running and hiding from her personal problems. But she wasn’t going to discuss those matters. Hannah already knew too much about everyone and everything.

“You’re right and I’m sorry,” Vivian said. “So about this trip that you and Nick have conjured up, what do his parents think about it?”

Before the girl could answer, Nick, who was one year younger than Hannah, suddenly appeared in front of the couch, and from the excited grin on his face, Vivian already had her answer.

“Mom and Dad say it’s okay with them if we go to Red Bluff. Are we going, Aunt Viv?”