Karen Smith – The Maverick's Snowbound Christmas (страница 8)

“They’ll have watched the weather reports for here from Missoula. They’ll know what’s happening. I’ve often handled the ranch on my own, and they know everything will be taken care of.”

“Because you’re the dependable one?” Hadley asked.

“Something like that,” he said with a nod. “I’m the oldest, so I’ve probably always had more responsibilities than the others.”

She could easily see that.

“Ready for that cookie now?” he asked with a smile that made him look rakish and charming, even handsome. At first she’d thought his face was too craggy to be handsome, but she’d been wrong. And now with a bit of beard stubble shadowing his jaw, he was downright sexy. Way too sexy.

“A cookie sounds good,” she said, noticing the husky tone in her voice. Eli Dalton made her insides quiver.

The cookie tin was sitting on the desk. Removing the lid, he smiled at her. “There’s only one. Do you want it?”

“We can split it,” she suggested.

He took it from the decorative tin, and she couldn’t help but notice his long fingers and large hands. Those hands had been so gentle on Amber.

As if he’d caught her watching him, he said, “I washed up a bit ago. I let snow melt and added dish detergent.”

“I wasn’t thinking that—” Her voice broke off because she didn’t want to tell him what she had been thinking. That the touch of his hand on her skin would be a pleasurable thing. She was hoping he couldn’t see her blush in the dusky barn.

He didn’t question her further. Rather, he broke the cookie in half and gave her the larger piece. That said something about him, too. Not only that he was a gentleman, but that he might often be self-sacrificing. No. She was reading too much into a simple gesture. No man she had ever known had been self-sacrificing, and certainly not the one she’d gotten entangled with.

“What’s wrong?” Eli asked.

She took a bite of the cookie. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“You were frowning. Not just a simple frown, but a deep one.”

“Just thinking about something in the past I’d rather forget,” she said truthfully, then finished the cookie and the rest of her tea. Her thoughts pushed her away from Eli. “I’m going to check on Amber.”

Once she was on her feet, she didn’t want to seem rude, so she asked, “Are you going to name the colt?”

“I’m going to wait until tomorrow so I can see him better in the light. I like to let the babies name themselves.”

She liked that idea. In fact, she liked a lot about Eli Dalton.

* * *

Eli watched Hadley walk away with the third lantern, wondering what had unsettled her again. He took the empty cookie tin and the dirty pan to the counter. There he poured in the soapy mixture he’d made from the melting snow. That would have to do until morning or whenever someone plowed them out. That’s what it was going to take. He could probably forge a path through to the house, though it would be foolish in a blizzard. If he’d been more prepared, he would have tied a length of rope from the door of the house to the barn as a guide rope. But there was really no reason why he and Hadley couldn’t stay in the barn comfortably until morning. Then they could decide if they wanted to venture to the house.

He wondered if the snow was still coming down. He didn’t want to attempt to open the door and have it get jammed in the snow, letting cold air in. But there was another way he and Hadley could check on the outside world to see what was happening.

When Eli returned to Amber’s stall, Hadley was standing there watching momma and baby.

“This is a sight you can never get tired of,” she said.

He felt that connection again with Hadley because she understood the bonds between mother and baby. “I know,” he agreed. Then he said, “And I know another sight that’s spectacular, too. Come with me to the hayloft.” He picked up the lantern Hadley had carried to the stall.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Seriously?”

“I don’t have a secret lair up there,” he promised her. “I just want to show you something.”

“Famous last words,” she mumbled under her breath, and he had to grin. Just what kind of men had she been associating with?

“We’ll have to feed the horses, and I want to make sure everything’s locked up for the night first,” he explained. “This will be the first step in doing that. Come on.”

“Do I need to bring anything with me?” she asked, trailing after him.

“Nope. Just your sense of wonder.”

When he stopped, turned around and studied her, he could see she had no idea what he meant. But she followed him, and that meant she trusted him...a little.

Making sure the loft ladder was steady, he asked, “Do you want me to go up first, or do you want to climb first?”

“You go first,” she said. “You know where you’re going.”

Easily he climbed the ladder to the hayloft, still holding the lantern. He was used to doing it. Once there, he waited for her.

She climbed up more slowly, careful each booted foot was steady as she took the next rung. As she reached the top of the ladder, he held out his hand. She hesitated only a moment, took it and held on until her feet were firmly planted in the hayloft and the straw there. Holding her hand like that, he felt more than a little warmth zing up his arm. But when she was balanced, she quickly let go.

She looked around, and he could tell she was trying to compute what he wanted to show her. Bales of hay and a few farm implements sparsely dotted the hayloft. He went to the doors. They were made like shutters, two halves coming together to form the door closing. Now he unlatched the left side and let it swing open. Then he did the same thing on the right. The snow had stopped for now, but the wind still blew. The sight beyond the barn was worth the frigid rush of air.

When he beckoned to Hadley, she stepped closer, finally realizing what he wanted her to see. Under the moon glow, the landscape was pristine, white as far as the eye could see. Fir trees rose up in the distance against a blue-black sky.

“What a view!” Hadley said with awe in her voice. “This is what Christmas dreams are made of.”

“Or a cowboy’s winter dream,” Eli said softly. “The snow causes problems, that’s for sure. It’s going to take us a while to dig out. We’ll even have to get the corral clear so we can exercise the horses. But I wouldn’t give up moments like this to live anywhere else.”

One moment they were standing in the straw looking out over the snow-covered landscape, and the next they were gazing at each other. Understanding seemed to pass between them once more, and something even more potent. Hadley’s face was tilted up to his. He’d set the lantern on the floor a couple of feet away so it wouldn’t ruin their view of the outside. He couldn’t see much, but he could see the sparkle in her eyes, the look on her face that said maybe, just maybe, she was thinking the same thing he was—that a kiss right now could be something special. He wanted to reach for her, pull her close. But if he did and she didn’t want that, or if he did and she suddenly got scared, they still had the rest of the night to spend together. He wanted her to trust him, and a kiss right now could end that possibility before it even started.

A cold gust of wind suddenly blew their way, and Hadley shivered. That was a signal.

He couldn’t refrain from touching her, though, so he gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. I don’t want you to get colder than you are. We can go back to the tack room and warm up. I just thought you needed a little entertainment tonight.”

“That view is better than a movie,” she assured him, turning toward the ladder.

After he secured the doors to the hayloft, he said, “Maybe I should go down the ladder first. I can make sure you don’t fall.”

“I can get around on my own quite well,” she protested a bit defensively.

“All right,” he said. “Go on. I’ll follow you.”

She gave him a look that was cautious, no doubt because he’d given in so easily. He watched as she tried to figure out how to maneuver herself over that top rung of the ladder from the hayloft. Finally, she got down on her knees and eased onto the first rung backward.

“Maybe I should have let you go first,” she muttered.

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” he said amiably.

In the light of the lantern, he could see her glare. Ignoring it, he held the ladder steady until she was halfway down. Then he maneuvered onto it and climbed down after her.

When he’d reached the barn floor, too, she said, “You mentioned we have to feed the horses. Any special feed for Amber?”

“It’s made up in the bin next to the large one. It’s a special mix that should suit her well for the next couple of weeks.”

Apparently Hadley was going to help him. She easily found the bin, scooped the feed into a bucket and took it to Amber while he fed the other horses. When he passed the birthing stall, he told her, “I’ll lay out blankets in the tack room. Hopefully that will be enough cushioning so we can sleep. Are you okay with that?”

“We can be thankful for the heater,” she said, not expressing what she thought about the blankets.

Following the trend of her thoughts, he added, “And we can be thankful that we have friends and family out there who will see that we get dug out as soon as possible.”