Victoria Pade - The Cowboy's Gift-Wrapped Bride

“I seem to qualify as a puzzle all right.”

He smiled, and when he did, the left side of his mouth went higher than the right, giving it an appealing tilt. “Is that a yes?”

She didn’t have to think about it. Although maybe she should have when she realized that the thought of remaining anywhere near Matt McDermot went a long way toward making her feel better.

She didn’t think about it, though. She just said, “That would be really nice. Thank you. And thank you for everything else, too. I think you saved me from freezing to death.”

“It all worked out,” he said, seeming slightly uncomfortable with her gratitude and with taking the credit he was due.

For a moment their eyes locked and Jenn felt a kind of connection to him that she couldn’t fathom. A nice kind of connection that helped stave off the fear that kept threatening a return.

But Matt McDermot only lingered over that glance for a moment before he drew himself up to what looked to be his full six feet two or three inches of height and said, “Let’s get going, then. Elk Creek’s plow has just made a swipe at the roads so we should be able to reach the ranch if we leave before too much more snow accumulates.”

And with that Jenn seemed to become Matt McDermot’s charge.

Something that felt more right and more comforting than anything had since she’d opened her eyes.

She just hoped that she could trust her instincts more than she could trust her memory.

Too much snow had already fallen for the plow to get down to bare pavement on the roads. Instead it had left them densely snowpacked with new drifts piling up to replace the old.

But inside Matt McDermot’s truck the heater was on and the view through the windows was of pristine white flakes swirling in a mesmerizing dance.

And even though Jenn tried to stay awake, she just couldn’t.

So one minute she was staring out at the golden swath the headlights cut through the snow and the next thing she knew Matt McDermot’s deep molasses voice was saying, “Jenn? Wake up. We’re here.”

She apparently hadn’t been asleep long enough to have forgotten who he was or the fact that they were going to the McDermot ranch where she’d been offered refuge because when she awoke it wasn’t to any kind of startled confusion about where she was or whom she was with. Instead she slipped out of sleep to the irresistible lure of that rich voice that seemed to roll over her in a sweet, beckoning refrain. And Jenn’s first thought was that she should probably feel less comfortable and at ease with this man whom she had just met.

She didn’t, though.

When she did open her eyes this time it was to the view from the passenger side window. And what she saw was a big ranch-style house with a covered porch that wrapped around twin wings stretching out on either side of the main entrance. All the porch railings and pillars were wound with evergreen boughs and tiny white lights, and more tiny white lights dripped from all the eaves, turning the snow that blanketed the place into glimmering crystal.

It was a warm, welcoming sight.

“When Buzz Martindale owned this ranch the house was only a small two-bedroom farmhouse,” Jenn said, the words spilling out as if from a speech she somehow knew by rote. “But after he turned the place over to his grandchildren—and you all became wildly successful with a new breed of hardy cattle—the original house was turned into not much more than the entryway to the addition that made the place one of the nicest homes in Elk Creek.”

“Maybe in your real life you do a nightclub act as a psychic,” Matt said with a slight, stunned laugh. “Are you having visions of this stuff or what?”

Jenn shrugged. “I don’t know. The information is just there. Nothing else is, but these thoughts keep popping into my head from out of nowhere.”

“Does the place seem familiar? Maybe you were here before for some reason?”

“Sorry,” she said as if another negative answer would disappoint him.

“Well, you’re right about it, anyway,” he confirmed, being a good sport.

“Buzz moved away with his wife for a while—if I’m not mistaken—and that was when he gave the ranch up to his grandchildren.”

Matt nodded. “My grandmother was sick and they moved to Denver to be nearer the hospital where she was being treated.”

“And after she died he stayed on in Denver,” Jenn continued, “until he broke his leg and couldn’t care for himself anymore.”

“He broke his knee. His right knee.”

“And he’s been back here ever since. Doing well.”

“Amazing,” Matt said, more to himself than to her.

“And weird,” Jenn added, wondering at herself as much as he obviously was.

She’d been looking at the house the whole time but now she turned her head to find Matt studying her through the darkness that was only broken by the Christmas lights on the house.

His expression made it evident he was curious but he didn’t appear to be suspicious. Although she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had been. It suddenly occurred to her that if she kept it up she might cause him to be.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say these things out loud,” she said, thinking the minute the words were spoken that maybe she shouldn’t have said that, either.

“I figure you shouldn’t stifle whatever comes into your mind. You never know when one thing might spark memory of another or give us an idea of what’s going on with you and why you’re here.”

She was grateful for that. Not because it seemed important that she be able to go on with these bouts of trivia but because he didn’t think she was some kind of lunatic or con artist pulling a scam—what he could well have thought if he were another sort of person.

But as it was, those dark green eyes of his merely scanned her face as if she were a riddle he was trying to figure out and a clue might be there for him to read.

And as the intensity of that gaze washed over her, Jenn felt a tingling response sluice along her nerve endings. A response she didn’t understand any more than she understood what was going on with her memory.

But the one thing she did know was that this was no time to be basking in a man’s glance. Or voice. Or company.

“Shouldn’t we go in?” she asked then in an attempt to escape the close confines of the truck cab and the enticing scent of a citrusy, clean-smelling aftershave that was only making it more difficult for her to think straight.

“Sure,” Matt agreed.

He turned off the truck’s engine and got out without a moment’s hesitation, coming to the passenger side from around the rear to open her door.

When he had, he offered her a hand to help her down, and before she’d considered whether or not it was wise to take it, Jenn did.

But that physical contact didn’t help her already jumbled thoughts because the moment her hand connected with his much larger, callused one, more of that odd tingling sensation began, shooting all the way up her arm this time.

The reaction didn’t make any more sense to her now than it had when she’d experienced it as a result of nothing more than his gaze. The only conclusion she could come to to explain it was that something purely elemental, something perfectly primitive, was afoot.

But why now and not when he’d placed a steadying hand to her shoulder at his brother’s office when she’d tried to sit up and felt faint?

In the office there hadn’t been bare skin against bare skin the way there was now…?.

Jenn was tempted to indulge in the feeling, to let her hand stay nestled within his, to go on letting the heat of that naked flesh seep into every pore.

But the temptation—along with the pleasure that was skittering all through her—was also very alarming. After all, this man was a stranger to her and certainly the circumstances they were currently in—or at least the circumstances she was currently in—were not conducive to any kind of attraction between them.