Page 49 of Snowed In with the Rancher

Yes, she kept telling herself this was just a short-lived snowy fling, but her heart kept telling her otherwise. Her heart, which had picked itself up and Kintsugied itself back together rather quickly after Lorne, was telling her that Asher was more than just a fling and that what they had going on was real and worth exploring.

He passed her the joint and she took another hit, letting the smoke make the worry in her brain blurry and soften all those sharp, jagged questions that kept poking her and distracting her. She shouldn’t be fretting about any of that now. She just needed to live in the moment. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy Asher.

“What’s say we head to bed and Santa can come down my chimney,” she said, reaching over and snuffing out the finished joint in the ashtray. Then she grabbed the lowball of bourbon and finished that, too.

Asher’s chuckle was pure sex. “I don’t necessarily know what that means, but I can take a guess. I like the way you think, Mrs. Claus.” Then he scooped her up, making her squeal and proceed to yell, ‘Ho-ho-ho’, all the way up to bedroom where he tossed her to the bed and made her come down the chimney several times that night.

Chapter Sixteen

It was December twenty-seventh and Asher was avoiding asking Triss when she planned to leave because to be brutally honest, he just wasn’t ready to let her go. So he avoided asking if she’d checked out flights, or if she’d noticed if the plow had gone down the road. Because he didn’t care.

If he could keep her until the new year—and after—he gladly would.

She wasn’t a burden or an inconvenience, in fact, she was a breath of fresh air, a capable set of extra hands and a damn good woman to have curled up in his arms at night.

But every time she would go back to “her room” to get her tablet, he would brace himself for the revelation that she’d booked her flights and would be leaving the next day. He’d been doing this since Christmas when she went to speak to her sister. And then on the twenty-sixth when she spoke to her other sister and her parents.

However, each time, he breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t booked a flight and would be staying with him another night.

How could he tell her that this was more than just a fling when their worlds were so different, their lives were on opposite sides of the country, and his head so fucked up? She didn’t deserve to take on his mess of a brain and all the triggers that came with it.

She had a life in Connecticut, a thriving career and he was sure by this time next year she’d have a new boyfriend and big sparkly rock on her finger.

Any man that got to spend even a moment with Triss would be stupid not to snap her up and pop the question. She was brilliant, beautiful, and ballsy. A winning combination in his book.

A sexy groan from the other side of the bed had him glancing over at the naked woman stirring beside him.

He’d been awake for about twenty minutes, staring despondently up at the ceiling. He thought about ducking under the covers and waking her up the way he had on Christmas and yesterday, his cock certainly wanted him to, but he didn’t.

His brain wasn’t there.

His brain was on Triss and the fact that at some point, she would leave.

She would leave him.

And that made his chest hurt more than he could ever admit.

How did a woman get so under his skin so damn fast? And so damn deep?

It didn’t make any sense.

Her warm, soft hand slid across his chest and she curled into his side. “’Morning, cowboy,” she said sleepily, not bothering to open her eyes.

“Rancher.” He had his arms behind his head, but he released one and wrapped it around her, stroking her hipbone with his thumb. “And morning.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Not long.”

She moaned again and snuggled in deeper. “I could stay in here, warm and cozy, forever,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his chest. “You’re like a big, muscly furnace.”

He smiled. Yeah, he could stay right where they were forever, too.

“But Fumble will rebel and pick the lock on all the stalls and before we know it, we’ll look up from our little nest and there will be a barn full of animals staring at us from the bedroom window.”

He chuckled. “I would not put it past Fumble to do something like that. But he’d probably take it a step further and break into the house and lead all the animals up the stairs to stare at us in bed.”

“Oh, if Macklin saw you in bed with me, he’d probably have a conniption.” She giggled.

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