Lenora Worth - Cowboy Who Came For Christmas

A man could sure hide out in those snow-capped hills. But a man could also freeze to death out there tonight, too.

“Nice place,” he finally said. He ambled toward the round oak table with the mosaic tile top, his pulse tapping at the sore spot on the back of his head. “You live here alone?”

“Who wants to know?” the older woman standing in the kitchen asked, her eyes going into double question marks.

Adan gave Sophia another direct glance. “I’m one of the good guys, so tell her to let up on being so ornery and suspicious. Or I will reconsider how I’m gonna handle being attacked and held hostage.”

“We are not holding you hostage,” Sophia said, motioning to him to sit down. She gave her partner in crime a warning glare. “We overreacted, but we have to be careful. This mountain is off the beaten path, and it’s isolated.”

“And don’t I know that.” He sat down and sniffed the beef-and-vegetable soup cooling in a chipped blue bowl. “How ’bout we start over while we eat.” He waited for the ladies to sit down.

Bettye giggled and pushed at her gray hair and then pointed a finger toward Adan. “A gentleman.”

She sat down with a prim and proper air. Sophia placed biscuits on the table and found her seat. Adan followed suit, his stomach growling in joy. It had been a long day and he’d skipped a meal or two.

He grinned, then grimaced because it hurt to grin. “I’m Adan Harrison. I live in Austin and I’m a Texas Ranger.”

“They grow them Rangers everywhere down in Texas, don’t they?” Bettye asked, her expression full of wrinkles and curiosity. She grabbed a flaky biscuit then shoved the straw basket toward Adan. “Tough lot, all of you.”

“We are a proud lot,” Adan admitted. How strange to be sitting here having dinner with the two women who’d tried to do him in. But he wasn’t so dumb that he couldn’t twist things around on them. “And we pride ourselves on getting the job done. So I’ll make a deal with you two lovely ladies. I won’t press charges against either of you. But you need to do something in return for me.”

“And what’s that?” Sophia asked, her blue eyes widening as she set the biscuit basket next to her plate. She put down her spoon and waited as if she were afraid to take her next breath. Guilty? Or scared? Or both?

“You need to tell me if you were harboring a wanted felon. And if you were and you let him escape, you need to come clean. Or I won’t be able to help you later.”

* * *

SOPHIA’S APPETITE WENT as cold as a lone snowflake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Did he think she’d hide a criminal here? Did he know something about her already? What if he’d come here looking for her? He couldn’t possibly know what had brought her to this mountain over four years ago. Or what she’d done after she’d arrived here.

“Me neither,” Bettye said. “I don’t know anything about anybody.”

She passed the biscuits again, her actions twitchy and nervous. Sophia gave her friend another warning stare.

Bettye took the hint and asked the Ranger, “Want some homemade mayhaw jelly with that biscuit?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Adan kept his eyes on Sophia, making it hard for her to breathe, let alone eat. “So I know your name—or at least your first name—Sophia. Want to give me your whole name?”

“Not particularly,” she replied, her bravado a false front. “I don’t like strangers.”

“Again, I get that,” he said in that wry Texas tone that seemed to be his way of getting people to talk. “I can find out, you know. Run your plates—”

“She ain’t got a car,” Bettye said. Then she put her hand over her mouth. Grabbing her spoon, she took a big gulp of soup. “Mmm. So good.”

Adan gave Sophia another too-close stare. “Did you let him take your vehicle?”

Sophia was caught in a vise. She couldn’t tell this man her worst fears because if she did, she’d have to tell him the rest of the story and she wasn’t ready for that. Not even Bettye knew the whole story. No one ever would.

“I don’t know what you’re implying—”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m stating the facts,” he said, his tone getting dangerously low and growling. “If you two let a known felon escape with your vehicle, then that makes you both accessories. Do you want to take the fall for a man who’d as soon kill you than look at you?”

“I don’t want to take the fall for a man like that,” Bettye said, her eyes glued to Sophia in shock. “I don’t know anything about a felon who’s that dangerous.”

Sophia wanted to shout to her friend to stop talking but Bettye wasn’t the most tactful person on earth. Now seventy, Bettye had been through her own horror story, and past events had left her a little dazed and confused.

The Ranger zoomed in on Bettye’s declaration. “Well, do you know any criminals? Maybe one who pretended to be the victim and talked y’all into harboring him for a while?”

Bettye glanced over at Sophia, and Adan’s sharp gaze moved between them like a roaming flashlight. “I don’t think I know anybody like that, but—”

“We haven’t been hiding anyone in this cabin,” Sophia interjected, trying to salvage the situation. She could not be hauled off this mountain. This was the one place she felt safe and secure. Or at least she had until he’d shown up.

She stared him down, but it was nearly impossible to intimidate a man who was six feet tall and solid muscle. A man she and Bettye had huffed and puffed and dragged up onto her porch and inside her house.

He didn’t break the staring match but his eyes, so golden brown and burning, seemed to soften and shift. “Look, I understand you were scared when I got here, but I can help you. If you’re in trouble, tell me the truth and I’ll do what I can.”

She jumped up and put her forgotten soup in the sink. “I’m fine. Or at least I was until you arrived here. How’d you even get up the mountain anyway, and why were you on foot?”

“I’m on foot,” he said on a slow, let-me-explain-so-you’ll-understand note, “because my truck slid on some black ice and rammed into a snowdrift and got stuck and I wanted to find either some help to get it out or a shelter to provide me with some warmth until morning.”

“That does make a lot of sense,” Bettye said in a pragmatic tone. “I mean, it ain’t a fit night out there for anybody.”

“Of course it makes sense,” he said, his voice rising with each word. “You have my badge and my gun, so why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

“The truth? You want the truth?” Sophia took in a breath and willed her next lie to sparkle into sounding real. “The truth is that I was visiting my friend here in her cabin. We were making Christmas cookies and didn’t realize how bad the weather had turned. I was on my way home and looking forward to getting all settled in with my soup and a good book and I heard a rustling on my porch. So I got my shotgun and I came around the back way to see who was out there.”

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“No.” Frustration coursed through her like a mountain spring. “I was expecting some peace and quiet and a nice long sleep while the storm passed outside.”

“She likes her private time,” Bettye explained. “Took me a while to understand that.”

“I think she does at that,” Adan said. Then he shoved a spoonful of soup into his mouth and chewed the beef, his eyes still on Sophia. “But tonight, she won’t get any, because I can’t leave here in that storm. And I won’t leave y’all, since this man could show up here or return back here. If that happens, y’all will have more than me to worry about.”