The Maverick's Holiday Masquerade

“Just until tomorrow.” Ryan set his plate aside and gave her his full attention, arms crossed on the table, gaze on her face.

Shivers ran down her spine. Hadn’t she vowed to find a man who paid attention to her and only her?

Her sister had been so serious as they’d sat on the fence, telling Kristen she shouldn’t dare the universe with her declaration about not falling in love today. If the universe had decided to prove Kristen wrong by setting the perfect man in front of her as a temptation—well, heck, that wasn’t much of a punishment. She’d said she wouldn’t fall in love, but a girl would be crazy not to reconsider after meeting a man like Ryan.

She flipped her hair back over her shoulder to keep it out of the white icing. “What did you mean when I asked you if you were from around here, and you said you could be?”

“It’s a thought I’ve been entertaining. It might be time to get out of the fast lane and settle down, somewhere away from the madding crowds. I like Montana.”

She licked a little frosting off her finger as she listened. Not a lot of cowboys would describe their lives as being in the fast lane.

“I’ve visited a few places in Montana over the past couple of years,” he said, “but right now, Rust Creek Falls looks just about perfect.”

He was looking right at her. Another shiver went down her spine, and she decided the sensation was as delicious as the cake. She was already half in love with Ryan. He was handsome and humorous, with a cowboy’s good manners and rock-hard body, and most of all, he seemed to be interested in everything she had to say. If he was considering a permanent move to Rust Creek Falls, the universe had won the dare. She’d fall in love today and be happy that the universe had known better than she had.

“Are you a Traub?” he asked.

“No, I’m a Dalton.”

“Good. I was starting to think everyone was a Traub except me.”

It could have been her overactive actress’s imagination, but he’d said that line with a touch of wistfulness.

“Don’t feel too left out. There are oodles of Daltons and Crawfords and Stricklands here, too. You don’t have to be a Traub to live in Rust Creek Falls.”

One of the Traubs in question passed near their table, Collin Traub, the mayor, to be exact. He nodded at Ryan, who hesitated just a moment before nodding back.

“You know Collin?” Kristen asked. That was excellent. The more ties Ryan had to this town, the more reasons he had to stay.

“Collin who?”

“The man you just nodded at.”

“No, not really.” He looked away from her toward Collin, then glanced around the other tables, but his gaze didn’t stop on anyone in particular.

He knew no one, then. That could be a lonely feeling. Kristen remembered feeling lost on campus when she’d first arrived at the University of Montana. The modest city of Missoula had seemed like a giant metropolis of heartless strangers.

She didn’t want Ryan to feel that way, not in her town. She slid his discarded plate back in front of him, took his fork and scooped up a chunk from the best part of the slice, the corner between the top and side that had the most frosting. Maybe a little sugar would bring the smile back to his face.

She held the fork up. “Here, eat this. You can’t let homemade cake go to waste.”

He didn’t smile. One brow lifted slightly at her impulsive gesture. She hadn’t thought it through, but if she’d expected him to take the fork from her, she’d been wrong. Instead, with his intense gaze never leaving her face, he leaned forward and ate the bite off the fork as she held it.

It was a move for lovers. There was an intimacy to feeding someone. She could imagine that mouth on her skin, tasting her, taking his time, savoring the moment...

Kristen sat back in the metal chair and lifted the hair off the back of her neck. The heat of the day hadn’t dissipated, although it was getting close to suppertime, but she knew the real reason she was warm, and it had to do with a man who was just a bit older, just a bit more self-possessed, just a bit more devilish, than the men she usually dated. The universe had outdone itself.

She leaned forward once more, determined to match Ryan’s confidence. “Collin seemed to recognize you, even if you don’t know him.”

Ryan nodded once, a crisp acknowledgment of her observation. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think anyone around here would recognize me.”

The proverbial lightbulb went off over Kristen’s head. What kind of cowboy talked about crowds and fast lanes? What kind of cowboy got recognized by people who were strangers to him?

A cowboy who starred in the rodeo, that was who. Collin Traub had once been a rodeo rider, and he recognized Ryan.

In ninth grade, Kristen had gone through her rodeo phase. She’d been able to name all the best cutting horses and recite the bloodlines of all the barrel-racing champions, but even then, she’d been more interested in boys than livestock. She’d been able to name the most handsome bull riders as well as the most noble horses. She’d begged her parents to drive her all the way to the Missoula Stampede. Afterward, she’d cut photos of her favorite cowboys out of the color program and taped them to the inside of her locker.

She’d outgrown that infatuation. Cowboy crushes had given way to movie star mania, and she’d left the ranch to taste life on the stage. Now everything seemed to be coming full circle. Here she was, eating wedding cake on the Fourth of July with a rodeo rider. The Cowboy. Her Cowboy.

Bravo, Universe. Bravo.

Since the professional rodeo circuit ran nearly all its events in July and August, she wasn’t surprised Ryan had to leave town tomorrow. It was only surprising he’d been able to stop here today. He’d hoped Rust Creek Falls would give him a break from his everyday life in the fast lane. When people recognized Ryan, he returned all their nods politely, but he hadn’t been striking up conversations or handing out autographs. He didn’t want to play up his life on the professional circuit obviously.

She wasn’t about to ask him about his life on the rodeo circuit, either. Her days as a fourteen-year-old fan were long behind her. Now she was the woman who’d fed a man cake while he’d devoured her with his eyes. That man was the person she wanted to get to know.

She only had today to do it. One day for him to decide if he’d ever come back to Rust Creek Falls—or rather, one day for her to decide if she ought to convince him.

One day that could decide the rest of their lives.

Chapter Three

Kristen missed the feel of having Ryan’s arms around her, but even the most die-hard dancers had to take a break when the band stopped playing.

As the next band set up its equipment, Kristen got to know more about Ryan than the clean smell of his dress shirt and the way their bodies fit together in a slow dance. Sitting together on a corner of the stage, they discussed everything from favorite sports teams to favorite seasons. She loved the Green Bay Packers and Christmas. He preferred the New York Yankees and summer. He was the middle child of three; she was the baby of five—even if she was only separated from number four by a few minutes. His siblings didn’t live in the same state as he did; her entire family lived in the same town.

“In other words,” Kristen said, “we have everything in common.”

“A perfectly logical conclusion.” Ryan kept his expression perfectly serious, too, although she knew he was teasing her.

“It is.” She polished off her punch and set her cup down, prepared to check off her conclusions one by one on her fingers. “We both enjoy watching professional sports. We each have one sister. We each have at least one older brother. We talk to our families all the time.”

That made four. She wiggled her pinky finger, the last one she hadn’t checked off. “And we both love to dance. Like I said, we’ve got everything in common.”

His slow smile was just about the sexiest thing about him, and considering everything about him was sexy, that was saying something. “I have no objection to any of that. But for the sake of accuracy, and to give myself an excuse to keep watching a beautiful woman as she makes an animated argument, I have to point out that our preferred seasons are opposites.”

“That is a fact.” Kristen was never one to back down from a challenge. She lowered her voice. “Having one thing we don’t agree on keeps it...interesting.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth. He was interested, all right.

“Differences can be good. For example, you’re a boy. I’m a girl.” She pointed at his chest, then at hers, his gaze dropping farther, down to where she pressed her finger to her heart. “You’re summer, I’m Christmas.”

Just as their eyes had met over the head of that white horse, his gaze suddenly left her finger and focused right on her. He looked serious for real this time, no joke to it. “I believe if anyone could make Christmas better, it would be you.”

Kristen leaned in a little closer. “If every Fourth of July could be spent with you, I’d start to look forward to summer as soon as the first snow fell.”

He was going to kiss her. Right here, sitting on the edge of the stage in the middle of the town’s celebration, he was going to kiss her, and she felt her heart beating under her own fingertip in anticipation.

But he didn’t. In silence, he looked at her for one second longer, then lifted his cup to her in a salute, and downed his punch.

“Hi, Kristen.”

She looked up to see one of the guys from her high school drama club days standing over her with his guitar.

“My band’s on for the next hour. Make sure you clap even if we suck, okay?”

“You’ll be great.” Kristen stood along with Ryan, and yielded the stage with a wave of her hand. “It’s all yours. Break a leg.”

The dance floor began filling up again. She spotted Kayla dancing with someone else Kristen hadn’t seen in a while, one of their brothers’ friends who’d been a few years ahead of them in high school.

High school. Again. She was twenty-five. She didn’t want her life to revolve around high school. Hadn’t she evolved since then?

Yes, of course she had. She was just overthinking everything.

There was something in the air today. The town seemed different somehow. Maybe because a police officer she didn’t recognize had walked past her, heading toward the fountain and the sounds of a fight, although public brawls were rare in Rust Creek Falls. Maybe because a high-stakes poker game had kicked off at the Ace in the Hole bar, and lots of rowdier folk were drifting that way. Members of the wedding party were sneaking off, too, headed for the park exit, where the groom’s truck was now parked in preparation for the getaway.

A getaway. It sounded appealing on one level, but she’d already been there, done that. She’d gotten a college degree, even lived in New York City one summer, and then returned to Rust Creek Falls by choice. She wasn’t stuck here; she was happy here. People visited and ended up staying permanently, which was proof enough that the town was great. If the Cowboy settled down here, maybe she’d feel more settled herself.

“Where do you want to go?” Ryan asked.

Kristen almost laughed at the timing. “Is that a trick question? Do you mean where do I want to go in life or just in the next five minutes?”

“They say the journey of a lifetime starts with a single step.” A smile teased the corners of his mouth. “I’ve always thought that put a lot of pressure on choosing where to step.”

“Let’s be daring and step this way, then.” She stood shoulder to shoulder with him and deliberately raised her knee high, then took a giant step in the direction of the fence where she’d sat with her sister, waiting for true love to arrive.

Those moments with her sister seemed prophetic now. Her emotions seemed wild and free today, swinging from a kind of drunken silliness to intensely important. Through it all, she’d had Ryan’s arm around her on the dance floor, Ryan sitting across from her at the table, Ryan walking beside her now, matching her stride for stride after that first silly step.

“I think the bride and groom are going to make a break for it,” Kristen said. “We can wave goodbye from the fence.” The fireworks wouldn’t begin until after ten since the sun set so late in July, but Kristen had noticed the newest Traub couple saying goodbye to their bridesmaids and groomsmen.

“I guess they’re not too worried about seeing fireworks tonight,” she said. “Maybe they’ll watch them from the balcony of Maverick Manor. That’s where they’re staying. They’ll fly out tomorrow on their honeymoon.”

“I’m sure they’ll see fireworks tonight.” Ryan kept his serious poker face in place as they reached the fence.

She did a little Groucho Marx imitation, wagging her eyebrows and pretending she held a cigar. “Fireworks? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Ryan gave her a boost to sit on the top rail. His laughter was as warm and masculine as the brief touch of his hands on her waist. He stayed on the ground, leaning against the fence, and crossed his ankles as he settled in for the wait.

Kristen enjoyed the novel position of being able to look down on him. All that rich, dark hair, just waiting for her to mess up—and if she sat at just the right angle, she could see a bit of his chest below the unbuttoned V at his throat. He had no farmer’s tan, just more yummy bronzed skin...

He looked up at her, catching her staring.

She was so busted, but she didn’t bite her lip or blush or look away. She’d learned a long time ago to brazen out embarrassing situations.

“You were sitting right here when I first saw you,” he said.

If he’d seen her sitting on the fence, then he’d seen her before the carriage had arrived. She hadn’t spotted him first, after all.

Why didn’t you approach me right away? That was too bold even for her. She tried a different question. “What did you think about the girl on the fence?”

“That you were happy. You were laughing with your sister. I envied you.”

“For having a sister?” She shook her head and answered her own question. “No, you have a sister of your own. You envied us for laughing. Are you not happy?”

“Is that a trick question? Do you mean for the next five minutes, or do you mean my life in general?”

She smiled at his light words, but her curiosity grew. “Let’s start with at the moment.”

He didn’t answer her immediately, looking away to gaze calmly at the horizon and the first streaks of the sunset appearing over the mountain peaks.

She thunked her heels on the railing, stopped herself and smoothed her skirt over her knees. She’d rather be smoothing his dark hair.

“I met a wonderful woman today,” he said, “and she’s tolerating my company without complaint. I’m happy.”

“Good answer, but that was a mighty long pause.” She wanted to see his face, so she climbed down and leaned against the fence beside him, watching his profile as he watched the horizon. “I thought ‘Are you happy?’ would be an easy yes or no.”

“I don’t usually think in terms of being happy. It sounds frivolous.”

She slipped her hand in his. It felt familiar, for they’d been holding hands in the traditional ballroom holds that went with the waltz and the two-step, but it also felt significant. There was no excuse of a dance this time. He rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand, as if they often held hands while they talked.

“It’s not frivolous, though,” he said. “Happiness is serious. It’s the driving force behind our lives. ‘The pursuit of happiness’ is a legal right. We all have the right to try to find it.”

“To try.” She echoed the words he’d emphasized. “Have you been successful in your attempt?”

He raised their joined hands and placed a light kiss on her knuckle.

“Today, yes.”

She made him happy.

She sucked in a little breath at the compliment. But he’d said today, as if happiness were a rare occurrence.

“Isn’t your life usually happy?”

“I’m working on it,” he said with all the confidence of a man who was certain he’d solve a problem soon.

That kind of confidence must be nice to have. “How do you work on happiness?”

“My job isn’t as fulfilling as it once was. I need to reevaluate. Refocus.”

Kristen could imagine that even if he was born for the rodeo, it could easily be more stressful than happy. Rodeo careers were physically punishing and therefore short. He looked to be about thirty. He’d said he was considering a change of pace, getting out of the fast lane, but maybe he was being forced to by circumstances.

“It’s more than my career, though. I find myself envying my brother and sister.” He paused, and Kristen suspected that he was giving these thoughts voice for the first time. “Within a year of each other, they got married. My sister had a baby just a few months ago, and my brother is expecting his first.”

“So now they’re happy?”

“I wouldn’t have said they were unhappy people before. They had great careers and a family they could rely on, but I can see that they have more now. Even though they weren’t missing anything, they found something else, anyway, and now they are really living. Or more accurately, I should say they found someone else. Not a thing, a person.”

A little distance away, the bride laughingly yelped as she and Braden were pelted with birdseed as they ran toward the opening in the fence. The groom’s black truck was parked on the street beyond.

Ryan didn’t move as the whole wedding party came closer. “I’m starting to believe it’s not how much fame and fortune you have, but whether or not you have someone by your side.”

As Braden and his bride ran past them, Kristen waved and shouted “good luck,” but they already seemed incredibly lucky to her. She and her sister had started the afternoon by wishing they had what the newlyweds had. It hadn’t occurred to Kristen that she ought to do something about it besides hope and wait. Ryan was right about pursuing happiness. It was sobering to realize that she’d been so passive about her life.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said quietly, and she realized he was studying her closely. “Here we are at a happy occasion, and I’m being too maudlin and reflective. Montana has that effect on me.”

“Montana makes you sad?”

“Montana makes me think. I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow. I feel more at peace here than anywhere else.”

Then he’d be coming back.

She felt her buoyant mood returning. The truth was, no matter how much she admired Ryan’s determination, hoping and wishing had worked for Kristen. Who was she to double-guess how the universe worked?

The groom opened the passenger door of his truck and began helping his bride gather up her full skirts so she could climb in. He knew which door to open for her because his friends had very helpfully used white shoe polish on the window to write the words Bride Goes Here with an arrow.

Kristen gave Ryan a gentle nudge with her shoulder. “The truck isn’t as romantic as the carriage, but infinitely more practical. It wouldn’t be too romantic to ride off into the sunset and then spend the first hours of your wedding night unhitching a team and stabling the horses, would it?”

“I would never argue with a cowgirl. If you say unhitching horses would delay the fireworks, then I trust you.”

“You’re just humoring me now.” He was doing that serious-joking thing again, implying she knew more about horses than he did.

“I’d bet the ranch that you live on a ranch. You must know horses.”

The black truck drove off, the cluster of empty cans that were tied to its tailpipe clattering loudly behind it. Ryan gave their joined hands a tug and started leading her along the fence, away from the send-off crowd who were now milling about.

“I do live on a ranch, but what made you guess that? Do I smell like I mucked the stables this morning? I’m not saying I did, but is there hay in my hair? Or do I just snicker like a horse when I laugh?”

He stopped walking once they reached a cluster of spruce trees. She moved a little closer into his personal space.

He didn’t back up an inch. This close, in order for him to look down at her, his eyes got that heavy-lidded look. Bedroom eyes.

“Those aren’t the clues that you live on a ranch.”

“The boots, then?” She felt a little nervous, a little excited. Ryan had been willing to follow her playful lead all day, but the way he looked at her now left no doubt that he was a man who knew where the game was leading—and who’d know exactly what to do when they got there.

“You must be a cowgirl because you have incredible stamina,” he murmured, “on the dance floor.”

A shiver threatened to run down her spine.

“You practically glow with health. Your hair, your skin. You. Every single inch of you.” They were so very close, bodies nearly touching in the quiet twilight, the sounds of the band and the crowd far in the background.

She wanted to kiss him. She could go up on tiptoe and taste his lips as she’d been dying to do forever, but she wanted him to initiate it. Good girls didn’t steal the first kiss. How such an old-fashioned notion had been ingrained in her brain was beyond her, but there it was. She kept holding his hand, wanting so much more.

An evening breeze carried the crisp air from the distant mountains into the park, stirring the evergreen sent of the spruce trees, blowing a few strands of her loose hair over her cheeks. Ryan brushed them back, those bedroom eyes making the touch of his hand on her hair as sensual a feeling as she’d ever experienced.

As Ryan tamed her hair, she stayed still, wishing, wishing. His body was so much larger than hers, his muscles moving under the polished cotton of his shirt with the gentle motion of his hand.

Kiss me.

He let the last lock of her hair go, and his fingers brushed the bare skin of her shoulders, then higher, a smooth, light run up the length of her neck, a barely there brush of fingertips on her jaw.

Kiss me, kiss me.

The gentle touch of his fingertips was replaced by the sure warmth of his palm as he cupped her face in his hand. Her eyes closed.

Kiss me.

“Kristen Dalton.” When he spoke her name, she felt the whisper of his breath on her lips. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Right here, waiting for you to find some happiness.”

He kissed her, and, oh, it was a glorious feeling of soft lips and restraint, a tender you-may-kiss-the-bride moment. He ended it too soon, and she opened her eyes. Behind him, the sunset had come into its full colors over the snow-capped mountains that had defined the horizon her entire life.

Had she expected the kiss to make him happy? He wasn’t smiling. His gaze was direct, his face so serious it was almost a frown.

Before she could say something, anything at all, he let go of her hand to hold her face between both of his palms. Words fled. He pulled her to him for a kiss that rocked her world. Rougher, more greedy. Possessive, more passionate.

Her fingers slid into the hair at the nape of his neck as he pulled her into him more tightly than any dance had allowed. She felt the hard planes of his body, and everything soft in her wanted to give in and melt in the safety of his arms.

She kissed him until his arms felt more sexy than safe. She kissed him until the only reason she was standing was that he held her up.

If he could have laid her down, if they hadn’t been hiding in plain sight in a corner of the town park, she would have gone willingly. It would be madness, but finally, she understood the crazy things couples did. Love at first sight, undeniable desire, life-changing decisions made in a split second—it all made perfect sense.

He ended the kiss when she would not have, could not have. As they held tightly to each other, she could feel every breath that filled his chest. She panted softly herself, as if she’d run a mile. Run a mile, and won the race. The endorphin rush, the thrill of knowing that this had happened, that she’d found the one man with whom she connected more strongly than she’d known was possible, was almost frightening.