Maisey Yates - A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas

Except that his life had been so damned bleak he’d thought, Why the hell not?

She’d been so nice to him. Unfailingly. And that hungry, desperate part of him had fallen for her hard and fast.

You don’t have to be this way, you know. I know you’re a good guy, Grant. You’re just angry. I can understand that. I feel angry, too, sometimes.

He swallowed hard, the memory washing over him, blotting out the scene around him.

It was one of his favorite places in Gold Valley. A little out-of-the-way place just off a dirt road that wound up the mountains, right by a small creek. It was where he went when everything at school and home felt like too much.

The sunlight filtered through the trees, making Lindsay’s hair look like it was spun from gold. Like there was a halo over her head.

He’d never felt the way he did for her about anyone. Like he wanted to protect her. Keep her safe forever.

Before Lindsay, he’d only ever wanted to destroy things.

He hadn’t touched her. She was sweet. Too sweet for a guy like him.

“You get angry?” He looked at beautiful Lindsay, with her bright eyes and hopeful expression. He couldn’t imagine her being angry.

She nodded slowly. “Yes. Don’t you know I wasn’t in school last year?”

He shook his head. “No. Weren’t you guys out of town or—”

“I had cancer, Grant. I could get it again.” Her blue eyes locked with his. “That’s always a possibility. I need you to know that. I know it. It scares me. It makes me angry.”

He didn’t know what possessed him, all he knew was that he wasn’t able to make another choice. He gripped her chin and closed the distance between them, kissing her on the lips.

He blinked, finding himself back in the present. He’d been so careful with her. Because she was sweet and delicate. Because she thought he was good. Sometimes he regretted just how careful he’d been. When the cancer came back, her prognosis wasn’t good. They’d gotten married as quickly as possible. Always thinking it would go away. Always hoping. Even though, deep down, he’d known.

They’d both known. Her life wasn’t going to be long; there was no way it could be, barring a miracle. But he’d imagined that they could have something. Maybe not the kind of marriage everyone else had, but something like it.

They’d never had normal. But they’d had something pretty damned precious. In the end, being with Lindsay had changed him profoundly.

Without her... The path he had been on only ended a couple of ways. Dead young or in jail. She had saved him. And whatever he had or didn’t have now, whatever he hadn’t done...

He couldn’t regret the choices he’d made.

So, if his sixteen-year-old nephew was getting play, he had to ask himself at what point he was going to start figuring out how to live some kind of normal life.

He’d tried. Once.

He’d driven to a neighboring town and gone to a bar. He hadn’t even gotten past saying hi. The damned woman had recognized him. He was that famous guy who’d married his terminally ill high school sweetheart even knowing their life together would be short. She’d given him the saddest eyes he’d ever seen, and he’d been sure he could have gotten pity sex.

That was when he realized he didn’t want pity sex.

That had been two years ago. Two years since he’d last tried to go out and get some and had stopped himself on some kind of principle. Right about now, he was starting to think that maybe he would take pity sex.

A hot kick to his gut told him that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot.

He didn’t just want any sex. That was the thing. If he did, there were a bunch of ways to get it.

He was a man who didn’t want an emotional connection, at all, yet was unable to stomach the idea of an anonymous hookup.

He’d had enough emotional connections to last him from here to forever. He’d had an emotional connection with a woman for eight years. He didn’t want to do it again. Not ever. He valued it, over any other experience, over any other relationship, he’d ever had. He didn’t have the energy to do it again.

Lindsay had made him a better man, and he was never going to go back on that. He wouldn’t do that to her memory. Yeah, he’d given her those eight years, but she’d given them to him, too. He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But she saw him as somebody worthwhile, and he had needed that, more than air.

Maybe that was part of why the shallow hookup thing didn’t work for him.

He almost laughed. Actually, he could see Lindsay telling him to go for it.

You’re too serious, Grant. Go have some fun.

He gritted his teeth and took another drink of whiskey. Thankfully, after that, the rest of the crew arrived, and pushed his thoughts out of that maudlin territory.

Lindy and Bea were talking about Lindy’s brother, Dane, and his recovery from a recent accident he’d suffered on the rodeo circuit. “When he’s up and around, hopefully we can get him a job on the ranch,” Lindy said.

Bea’s forehead creased. “How long do you think that will be? He was... Not so great when I saw him the other day.”

“Yeah,” Lindy said. “He’s not so great.”

Well, Grant could relate to that. Though maybe that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been trampled by a bull. He was just... Constantly trying to figure out what the hell his life was supposed to look like.

That, he related to. The fact that your life could change completely, look nothing like you wanted it to, and you could do nothing but go on living.

Grant figured that the chances of Dane getting back to riding were slim to none. Also, knowing his brother Wyatt like he did, he knew that bull riders didn’t take kindly to the idea that they might be human, or fallible in any way.

“So what’s the deal with the new girl?” Jamie asked. “The new hire?”

“You said there was nothing different happening at the ranch,” Bennett said, looking at Grant pointedly.

“We don’t talk about every new ranch hand we bring on board.”

“This sounds like something other than a random ranch hand,” Bennett commented.

“It’s a woman,” Jamie said. “She’s young.”

“She’s twenty-six,” Grant said. All heads swiveled toward him. “She told me,” he added, knowing he sounded a little defensive. “Anyway, Jamie, she’s older than you.”

“You seem to be an expert on the subject,” Kaylee said.

“I’m not an expert,” Grant said. “But I found her this morning sleeping in one of the abandoned cabins on the property. She was homeless.”

“What?” Jamie asked.

Bea was looking at him with wide eyes. “She was homeless? She didn’t say anything about that when I talked to her today.”

Leave it to Bea to have struck up a conversation with McKenna. Bea was a collector of strays, though mostly they were of the furry variety. It didn’t surprise him that she had a soft heart when it came to people, too.

“Yeah, well, I doubt it comes up in polite conversation,” Grant said.

“She didn’t... Well, she didn’t look homeless,” Bea said. “Not that there’s... I mean... That sounded mean.”

“Don’t worry about it, Bea,” Lindy said, putting her hand over Bea’s. “I know what you meant.”

“I found her this morning,” Grant said. “And today she was put in my charge. So, I spent time showing her around the ranch, and helping her figure out the job.”

“I invited her to come out tonight,” Wyatt said. “She didn’t want to.”

“Possibly because she didn’t have money to pay for drinks,” Lindy said gently.