Page 28 of Cowboy Wolf Christmas

He frowned.

She was so good at all this, being a part of a family, a pack, creating new traditions with him that it made his chest ache. How could she not see it?

Just this morning when she’d gathered the elders and children together after breakfast to help her decorate the tree, he’d stood in the shadows by the fireside, watching her. The ease with which the pups and the elders adored her was one he wished she could witness like he did, from the outside looking in. She may have been different from them, but her packmates loved her for it, for her tenderness, her loving heart, the warmth she brought into every shadow near her presence, and while they may not have always been perfect allies, they clearly adored her, accepted her, autism and all. Hell, they gravitated toward the light she provided. Just like he did.

He watched as she squeezed a small dollop of peppermint buttercream from a piping bag onto the roof of her gingerbread house, taking incredible care not to collapse the roof in.

No, gingerbread house wasn’t correct. More like gingerbread mansion.

She’d built a veritable castle made of warm, spicy cookie which smelled nearly as delicious and delectable as she did.

Gently, she set down the piping bag and picked up a purple gumdrop only to depress it onto the roof with an almost intense level of precision. Silas grunted again, reaching down to adjust himself and grumbling several profanities under his breath. He’d intended to do all this to bring her closer, make it feel as if she wasn’t about to drift away from him, though he knew it was inevitable, and his lower half had gotten the memo. But as he’d watched her that morning, now, he’d never felt further from her than he had then. Never more like an outsider. Someone who didn’t deserve her, this place.

Any of it.

There hadn’t been cookies and gingerbread houses and tree decorating when he’d been a member of the Wild Eight. Not that he’d wanted there to be. Not like he did now.

“I’m not very good at this,” he grumbled again.

“Is there a reason you’re being such a Grinch?” She squeezed the piping bag in her hands a little too hard, causing some of the white icing to coat her fingertips.

“A Grinch?”

Cheyenne shrugged. “Yeah, you know, like that human TV Christmas special. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. He steals Christmas away only to bring it all back and make it better again. I think it was based on a children’s book or something.” She tried to wipe at some of the icing on her fingers with her other hand, but it only smeared further. “But even after his heart grows three-sizes larger, I always figured he wouldn’t have been very pleased about it.”

“I’m not.”

But she was right. His heart had grown. She’d made sure of it. She’d worked her way in, filling up parts he hadn’t known he needed, longed for, until she’d first kissed him.

“I know.” She glanced toward him and made a show of rolling her eyes. “You’ve made that abundantly clear.” She smiled a little.

He glanced around them then, to his crumbling gingerbread mess and the mounds of snow coating the mountainside outside the frosted window. “I hate Christmas,” he admitted.

“You hate Christmas?” Cheyenne looked more offended than every time he’d ever swore, before she giggled at him. “That can’t be true. You did all this.” She waved her piping bag in a circle around them. “Brought us here. What kind of person hates Christmas anyway?”

“One who’s never had a family to share it with,” he mumbled under his breath, uncertain if she’d heard him. “Not for a long time, that is.” He watched as she placed an icing covered finger in her mouth, gently sucking on it. Observing her from a comfortable distance like this had already been getting to him. That cutesy little apron she wore that showed off her curves. The messy bun full of gorgeous red-hair on her head. And now, this . . .

“Fuck, why do you keep doing that?” He sounded grumpy even to his own ears.

Cheyenne blinked at him innocently. “Doing what?”

Her finger was still poised on her lip, where she was bent over her gingerbread house, flashing a generous amount of cleavage. Like some sexy-as-fuck Christmas pinup.

He tilted his chin toward her. “You know—”

She glanced down at her finger and then her apron, confused. “Idon’tknow or I wouldn’t have asked you.”

He grumbled again. Shit. He was being an ass, thinking she’d automatically realize what he was thinking and now he was going to have to explain it. “That,” he nodded to her hand, choosing the least amount of words, the path of least resistant. “You keep licking icing off your finger, and where it gets caught at the sides of your lip.”

Cheyenne’s hand shot to the side of her perfect, plump mouth. “Do you think I need to be more sanitary?” She looked a bit concerned by that idea, like she’d done something wrong.

“No, it’s not that. It’s—” Good God, she was making this difficult. He shook his head. No,he’dmade it difficult by not being clear with her. Direct and forthright like she needed.

She was simply being herself.

He struggled to explain. “After what I said to you last night, I didn’t want to push you into anything, force you into any big decisions, but you doing that is making staying away from you . . . difficult.” He nearly groaned.

Cheyenne’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, you mean inthatway.” A coy smile curled her lips. “I mean, we’re alone. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” She shrugged a little shoulder, batting those wide amber eyes at him.

---