Katherine Garbera - One Hot Christmas

He stood and collected his dishes. “I’ll bet you got your brothers in all kinds of trouble when you were a kid.”

“Yes, but they never regretted it. I had great ideas. Even if we were punished...well, mostly they were punished because they got blamed...they still had fun.”

Ben laughed. “I’d love to hear their side of that someday.”

“You should! You totally should come to Prescott for a visit. It’s a cute little town. You’d like it.”

“We’ll see.” Whoops. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but suddenly she was inviting him to Prescott so he could meet her brothers.

He wondered how they’d react to a guy who had no intention of starting a family, ever. That wouldn’t work for Miss Molly. Her brothers would probably escort him right out the door. If they thought for one minute he’d misled their baby sister, he might be run out of town on a rail.

But that was a moot point, because he wouldn’t be going to Prescott. If he had any sense, he wouldn’t have told her where the saddle was, but she had a way of making him say things he shouldn’t. Now he had to take her there, because if he didn’t, she’d go by herself. He wasn’t about to let her do that.

They climbed the stairs together and separated at the top to go to their respective rooms and suit up. He wound a wool scarf around his neck before pulling on his sheepskin coat. He left it open so he wouldn’t roast, made sure his fleece-lined leather gloves were in the pockets and settled his Stetson on his head.

What he needed was a lined hat with earflaps, but he hadn’t brought one on this trip. He hadn’t expected to be going outside in subzero weather. But then, he hadn’t counted on a little bit of a thing winding him around her pinky finger, either. At the last minute, he pocketed his phone so he could use its flashlight feature. Jack might not think much of that convenience, but Ben used his all the time.

As he walked out of his room, Molly appeared wearing a puffy, bright-red jacket, a red knit hair band that covered her ears, a red knit cap and rubber boots. She looked adorable.

They met at the top of the stairs once again, and he realized she held mittens in her hand, not gloves. Who wore mittens anymore? She did, apparently.

She waved them at him. “A gift from one of my sisters-in-law,” she said in a low voice. “She’s just learning to knit. This is their first and maybe their only outing, but I wanted to tell her I used them in Wyoming and this trip to the tractor barn won’t require me to do anything complicated with my fingers.”

Her low-pitched comment, probably designed to keep from waking the household, shouldn’t make him think of sex, but it did. He pictured the interesting things she could do with her fingers if they were free to roam over his naked body. Presently they were about as far from naked as they could get without being zipped into a hazmat suit.

Something was different about her, other than all the stuff she’d put on to guard against the cold, but at first he couldn’t figure out what it was. Then he did. He kept his voice down, too. “Where are your glasses?”

“I popped in my contacts. My glasses would just fog up the minute I stepped outside and started breathing.”

“So why don’t you wear contacts all the time? Do they bother you?”

“Not really. I just...like my glasses. I know that sounds silly, but I started wearing them when I was a kid, and they’re me in a way that contacts aren’t. It’s a cliché, but I feel smarter with them on. Now, see, you’re smiling because you think that’s ridiculous.”

“No, I’m smiling because I like you.”

“You do? How do you mean that, exactly?”

He laughed softly. “I keep forgetting that you have to analyze everything.”

“That’s true, but I just realized I’m getting very hot in this coat, so forget about that question for now. We can talk about it after we come back from the tractor barn and take off all these clothes.”

“Depending on how much you plan to take off, we should definitely talk about it.”

She blushed. “I didn’t mean it like that. ”

“Too bad.” Chuckling, he started down the stairs. She was the wrong woman for him. The absolute worst choice he could make. But when she stood there looking so cute and talking about taking off her clothes, he couldn’t seem to remember that.

He paused in front of the door to button his coat and put on his gloves. Then he turned up his collar.

She pulled a knitted red scarf out of her pocket. “My sister-in-law knitted this before she tackled the mittens.” Molly wrapped it around her neck and then around her nose and mouth so only her eyes showed.

When that was all he could see, he became aware of what a beautiful green they were, and how her long lashes framed them. She might love her glasses, and in a way he preferred that look on her, too. But without her glasses, he could more easily picture her stretched out in his bed, gazing up at him. He’d be wise not to dwell on that or he’d really overheat standing in the entryway.

Last, she put on her mittens, which were too big. “Don’t fit very well.” Her voice was muffled by the scarf as she moved her hands and the mittens turned into flippers.

He bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t laugh. Then, moving cautiously, he opened the front door.

She gasped as frigid air engulfed them.

“We don’t have to go.”

She shook her head and stepped out onto the porch.

He followed her out, closed the door and took the action any man in this situation would. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her close as they navigated down the steps. Close was a relative term in this case. Holding on to her was like holding onto a blow-up Christmas yard decoration. He kept losing his grip because she was so squashy and slippery.

It might have been the coldest walk he’d ever taken in his life. Without any pavement or large buildings giving off heat, the air bit through his coat as if he’d walked out bare-chested. His nipples tightened in response to the icy temperature until they actually hurt.

But she’d been right about the snowfall. The flakes were lazy and slow. That could change at any time, though, so he planned to make this a very quick trip.

The shoveled path led to the horse barn, then branched off to the tractor barn. It was narrow, but by hugging her against him, he was able to steer them along it without either of them stepping into the crusted drifts on each side.

The horse barn was heated, as he’d discovered this afternoon. He considered making a stop there to warm up and decided she wouldn’t go for that. She didn’t strike him as a woman who took very many detours in life.

Besides, the sooner they got to the tractor barn and looked at the saddle, the sooner they could get back to the cozy ranch house. He thought he’d become used to Wyoming winters, but he’d never been outside in a landscape like this, where security lights and a pale moon reflected off untrampled snow. Beyond the soft glow coming from the house and the barn, the surroundings were completely dark.

No sound greeted him, either, not even the hoot of an owl. He knew this was wolf country, but they were silent, too. The frozen world was completely still, without even a breeze. For that he was grateful. They didn’t need a wind-chill factor right now.

The tractor barn was secured by the same method as the horse barn—a wooden bar that slid across when a person wanted to open the double doors, and slid back when they wanted to keep them closed. Ben had to let go of Molly while he pushed the bar aside, and he could swear he heard her teeth chattering, even with the scarf covering her mouth.

He hoped, after braving the cold, she’d like his saddle and feel good about having seen it. Tramping out here tonight was a lot of trouble, particularly if the saddle turned out to be anticlimactic.