Donna Alward - The Cowboy's Christmas Gift

For the first time, Carrie wished she was as sexually confident as her friend. She didn’t know how to do this.

“How long is he waiting?” Kailey asked.

Carrie checked her watch. “Another few minutes.” She looked at Kailey. “You’ll be okay?”

“Of course. Don’t worry about me. I’ll probably give Quinn a lift home anyway. Go.”

Before she could change her mind, Carrie got to her feet and chugged back the last of her liquid courage. Then she grabbed her purse, took a big breath and smiled at Kailey. “Wish me luck,” she said, and she saw Kailey’s lips form the words good luck but didn’t hear her over the new song that started up.

Anxiety and excitement threaded through her veins as she wound her way through the bar to the door and stepped outside into the cold air. Maybe he’d gone already...

But there he was, leaning against the fender of his pickup truck, his arms crossed over his chest and his cowboy hat shadowing his eyes.

Then he saw her and he smiled, uncrossing his arms and pushing away from the truck. Carrie’s feet took her one step forward, then another, and another...until she was at the truck and he was holding the door open for her.

Chapter Three

She’d actually come.

Duke hadn’t expected her to. Carrie struck him as the buttoned-down type that maybe got out now and again with her girlfriends to cut loose but wasn’t out on the prowl. She was too sweet. Too reserved. Her friend Kailey was more on the vivacious side and good for a laugh. But it wasn’t Kailey he’d danced with. It wasn’t Kailey who’d captured his attention.

It was Carrie, and her sun-streaked hair, big eyes and sad smile. His response to her had been instant and exciting, and before he could think better of it he’d made his proposition. Once outside, though, the cold air had brought him to his senses. He was ten kinds of fool. She wasn’t some girl hanging around a bar on base, looking for a good time. She was Carrie Coulter. Freckle Face. His employee, for God’s sake. What a dumb idea.

He looked over at her as he turned on the heater and put the truck in Reverse. The way her jaw was tensed, she was as nervous as he was. He’d waited for her because he’d said he would, but he hadn’t truly thought she’d take him up on his offer. He’d never actually made that sort of proposition before, and he’d figured he’d blown it. Watching her come out the doors and into the parking lot had set his heart racing. His confidence had taken quite a beating lately, but maybe he had more going for him than he realized.

Either that or Carrie Coulter was desperate.

He couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought. More desperate than he was? Not likely. What a pair they made. Secretly, he was glad to be out of the bar. The noise had been overwhelming and instead of relaxing, he’d found himself tensing up. Just trying to hear the conversations going on around him took all his focus. Now he was sitting here, away from the crowd, and neither of them was saying anything.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, turning her head to look at him, chafing her hands together.

“Nothing,” he answered, but judging by the look on her face, she didn’t believe him. “I really didn’t think you’d come.”

“I had second thoughts. And third and fourth.”

Intrigued, he checked the road and then glanced back at her again. “But you came anyway.”

“Let’s not analyze it to death,” she suggested, and he chuckled again. Dammit, he enjoyed her. He liked how she shot straight from the hip without trying to impress, liked the way she smiled and really liked the way she smelled when she was snuggled close in his arms—like shampoo and fresh air and some sort of light perfume, all of it magnified by the heat of her body against his.

It was one thing to proposition a woman on the dance floor and another to wait and then spend fifteen minutes in a vehicle, prolonging things to close to half an hour. It gave a person way too much time to think, and so it was that as Duke turned down the side road leading to Carrie’s house, he felt compelled to let her off the hook.

“We don’t have to do this, you know.”

Her head snapped to the left and he felt her gaze burn into the side of his head. “You don’t want to?”

Damn. “It’s not that. It’s just...I don’t want you to feel pressured if you’ve changed your mind.” His fingers tightened on the wheel. Why the heck was he so nervous all of a sudden? Nervous wasn’t generally part of his vocabulary. He normally made a decision and got on with it, no second thoughts, no reservations.

Until two months ago. Until the IED had changed everything. He’d gone from being 100 percent sure of himself to questioning every single decision. He didn’t even know why he felt like such a failure. The explosion hadn’t been his fault. He’d merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She didn’t say anything, so he let out a breath and said, “You’ll have to tell me which mailbox is yours.”

A few hundred yards more and Carrie pointed with her finger. “The next one,” she said quietly, and he slowed, his headlights sweeping a swath of light across her front lawn as he pulled into her driveway. Her truck sat beneath the protection of a carport next to the bungalow, a model only slightly newer than his with rust spots around the license plate.

He pulled to a stop, killed the engine, and silence settled around them in the twilight.

He wasn’t sure how to start. Wasn’t that the darndest thing?

“So, uh...thanks for the drive,” Carrie said, and without looking at him, she put her hand on the door handle and pulled.

Panic shot through his veins and he reached out, grabbing the wrist of her left hand before she could get out of the vehicle. “Don’t go,” he said roughly, wondering how he could have messed things up so completely between the bar and her home and so little that was said. But he had. He’d tried to give her a way out and instead he’d made her feel like he’d reconsidered his offer.

Such as it was.

He didn’t have a lot to offer a woman at the moment, but he could damn well make sure that Carrie ended tonight feeling desirable and wanted. Because she was both.

“Look, I’m a little out of practice,” he confessed quietly. “And probably going about this all wrong.”

“You? Out of practice?” She’d stayed in her seat but she still had her hand on the door. Her face, in the glare of the interior light, looked amused. “Have you looked in the mirror lately, Duke? I bet you have to fight the girls off with a stick.”

“Hardly.” Maybe when he’d been a lot younger. Full of himself and testosterone and with the general hubris that came from being a soldier in his prime. But then he’d met Roxanne, and for the better part of three years they’d maintained a relationship—through two deployments and a base move. He’d been a month into his third deployment when she’d called it quits. Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t an easy life.

There’d been no fighting women off for quite some time.

“Carrie,” he said, his voice quietly commanding. “Shut the door.”

She did. The overhead light turned off, plunging them into darkness once more. Her features were illuminated only by the moonlight that shivered through the windows, and the intimacy he’d been craving came rushing back.

“Come here,” he ordered, and to his surprise she complied, sliding over on the bench seat so she was next to him.

He turned on the seat so he was facing her better, raised his hands to cradle her face. She had her hair up in some fancy kind of braid and the smoothness of it grazed his fingers. Her eyes looked larger now as his mouth hovered only inches from hers and he could hear the quick sound of her breath as she waited. Waited. He closed his eyes, shutting out the voice that listed the reasons why this was a mistake. Then he touched his mouth to hers.