Page 24

I slap my hand over his mouth.

“You're going to wake your aunt."

He laughs against my palm, which is doing absolutely nothing to reduce the noise coming from both of us.

His other hand comes between us and finds me with two fingers. He doesn’t slow down when I clamp onto his wrist. I have to put my own face into his shoulder to keep from waking a sleeping woman thirty feet away.

I come like that, folded around him with my teeth clamped on his damp skin. He goes right after me with both arms locked around my back and half my name in his mouth.

Neither of us moves for a while. His breathing slows against my neck while the Christmas lights blink over his shoulder.

We end up flat on our backs under the wool blanket with our feet toward the tree. The terrazzo is cold at the edges where the quilts run out. I keep finding it with my heel and pulling my foot back.

"This turned out to be a very good Christmas," I tell the ceiling.

"I agree. I wasn't looking forward to this Christmas much. Meeting you helped."

I could ask what he means, but I don't. Hildie is asleep down the hall, and I already know enough.

"Best one I've had in years, and I'm counting the year I got a car."

He turns his head. "You got a car for Christmas?"

"I got a Corolla with ninety thousand miles on it and a Santa hat taped to the antenna. I cried in the driveway." I find his hand under the blanket and take it. "This is better."

"Low bar."

"I disagree. Belinda was a damn good car."

He laughs under his breath and looks back at the tree.

"I fly out tomorrow."

"That's right. Back to the ranch?"

"Yeah. Things are about to get busy."

I drag my heel back onto the quilt when it finds the cold terrazzo again. "Same time next year?"

He turns his head toward me. "You're booking that far out?"

"I like to plan ahead."

"I can probably pencil you in."

I grin. "I've always wanted a standing Christmas affair with a cowboy."

"That has a nice ring to it." He goes quiet for a second.

"You could say that with a little more enthusiasm, you know."

"Christmas affair," he says, flat as a fence post. "Sounds like a bad Hallmark movie."

I laugh so hard I have to shove my face into the pillow. When I come back up, he reaches over and hooks one finger under the cord at my throat, turning the tooth back around to the front where it belongs. Then he leaves his hand there on my collarbone.

"Merry Christmas, Mackie."

"Merry Christmas, cowboy." I close my eyes. "Set an alarm. I'm not explaining to your aunt why I'm asleep on her floor."