Page 48 of Snowed In with the Rancher

She giggled. Oh boy, the wine was really hitting her.

“I do,” she said with a smile she knew was goofy and wine-induced. “And I hope, that if I do have them, I’ll be more sympathetic and attentive if they have dyslexia like me. It was tough growing up the middle of five girls. I definitely didn’t get the extra help learning how to read that I needed. A lot of that fell to Pasha.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that. That must have been tough.”

“It was. It’s part of what led me to become a speech path, though. I wanted to help kids, people with learning difficulties. And I do, and my life is richer for it. What about you, do you want kids?”

His shoulder lifted under her arm. “I figured it would be in the cards eventually. Not against the idea. I’m getting kind of old, so, who knows if it’ll actually happen.”

“Spoken like a true man who has no idea what he wants.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess …” He glanced at the clock over the mantle. “I need to check the spuds and broc, then probably think about getting the meat on.” Holding her hips, he pressed his mouth to hers in a quick but solid kiss that woke up the butterflies in her belly, then like she weighed nothing at all, moved her onto the couch so he could get up.

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked, sipping her wine.

“You can keep your sweet ass on the couch and look pretty,” he said, tossing a panty-melting grin over his shoulder at her as he donned an oven mitt with chickens on it and opened the oven.

She took another sip of her wine. “Oh, that I can do.”

He served her up the most delicious steak of her life. If she hadn’t been so full and quite tipsy from the wine, Triss was certain she would have licked off the juice and remnants of the rub from her plate.

They did the dishes together, then he brought one glass and a bottle of “good bourbon” out to the hot tub with them where they snuggled up naked in the deep lounge section of the tub and stared up at the starry sky.

“Not a bad Christmas,” she murmured, accepting the joint from him, putting it between her lips, and filling up her lungs.

She held her breath for a moment, then released the smoke up into the sky, watching it disappear in the ether.

“Yeah?” he grunted. He took the joint from her. “Beats a tree, stockings and turkey with the family?”

“One hundred percent.”

Even though they’d had a bit of a rough afternoon, their morning and evening were hands down probably the best Christmas she could remember having in her adult life. At least the most laid back and stress-free she’d had in her life for sure.

He kissed her shoulder.

She leaned her head back against his chest and closed her eyes. “Tell me a story from your childhood. A good one, a memory you reflect fondly on and often. Maybe one of you and your uncle and you and Nate on his ranch.”

He was quiet for a moment, but she could tell by the way his chest moved that he was taking a hit off the joint. “One time, Nate and I were staying with our Uncle Tom—he’s our mom’s brother—and Nate thought it would be a cool idea to stand on the back of two goats, like they were water skis and make the goats walk and eventually run.”

“Dear God, I hope you talked him out of it, or at least got a video.”

He snorted a laugh. “I didn’t and I did. He stupidly used rope, which he tied around the goats’ bellies and then made me tie over his feet so they were secure. More rope went around their horns so that he had something to hold on to. Then he told me to open the barn door. I did as I was told and my brother ripped his pants, tore his groin muscle, and cried harder and longer than I ever saw him—or another person—to this day.”

Even though she was only hearing the story, the thought of that happening had Triss crossing her legs where she sat and grimacing from empathized pain. “And what did your uncle have to say about things?”

“He said that what happened to Nate was punishment enough, and if there was a God, he’d have taken care of that idiot ever procreating right then and there.”

Triss giggled. “Oh man, I bet you two got up to a lot of mischief as boys.”

“More than I can even remember. I have scars that I couldn’t even begin to tell you where they came from, but I know they came from doing something stupid and dangerous. Like the time Nate convinced me to piss on an electric fence. No scars, but the memory is vivid.”

“Oh my God. But you also probably have a lot of great memories, right?”

“Yeah …” His tone was nostalgic and she didn’t have to see him to know he was smiling, she could hear it in his voice.

Would he look back on their time together fondly? Or would she end up being a “scar” on his memories that he didn’t remember getting?

As attentive as he could be, she still struggled to read the guy and where his head was with everything, particularly what they were.

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