Page 13 of A Tiny House Christmas

“So you get to stay out here under the stars, and because I’m a woman I have to sleep in the tent?”

“You were half frozen when you rode in this morning.” He shook his head once at her stubbornness, grateful she had the spunk to push back, but worrying she was going to freeze herself out of pride. Maybe they should have stayed home. But her in the tiny house and him in the big house—somehow, it didn’t feel right to have that distance between them when she was feeling so down.

Or maybe he was just greedy and wanted as much of her as possible. Because maybe deep down he still feared she’d leave his ranch and marry Thomas after all, and that would be that. Their friendship would wither and die and he’d be stuck loving a woman who was someone else’s wife.

Either way, he wanted every moment with her, even if she kept him up half the night with her snoring on the hard ground.

She plunked down in front of the fire he was building, rooting through the food pack.

“I was only cold because squirrels had nested in the cabin’s chimney.”

“You chose indoors?” he asked, still trying to sort out what her night in the cabin had been like. She’d been strangely silent about it all. Her brother Blake was a sleep-inside kind of guy, but his sister was all about being under the stars. “Why?”

“It was snowing.”

“Snowing?” He looked up at the sky. He’d checked the forecast, but now he worried he’d set them up for a night that was going to be more than they wanted to handle.

“Teeny flakes.” She laughed. “I’m getting soft in my old age.”

She pulled rations from their pack. A can of cranberries, canned turkey, and canned potatoes. Then butter and a loaf of bread. His plan was to make bush pies by squeezing the sandwich between the two cast-iron plates in his bush pie maker and then cooking it over the fire.

Joey let his shoulder and thigh rest against Karlene’s as they sat cross-legged on the ground. “Suit yourself then. Prove your toughness and stay out here and freeze. I’ll take the tent.”

“Or we could both share the tent.”

Her words hung like an invitation. Just within reach. All he had to do was say “Okay.”

He turned to her, his face close to hers, his voice gentle. “You snore.”

“Ha!Youdo.” She reached across herself to poke him in the ribs. He jolted, but didn’t move or retaliate.

His eyes met hers, but she quickly looked away, her focus back on the fire.

“Thanks for the thing with my parents,” she mumbled.

“Yeah.” He’d been angry at the way they’d lit into her and let their own problems be bigger than their need to parent their hurting daughter.

Didn’t anyone else get it? If you loved someone, you backed them because they were important to you. It didn’t matter what had happened and if you thought they should have done better. Karlene had already managed to do the best she could do in that moment. And as a result she’d done something incredibly brave. You didn’t run away from your own wedding for no reason.

They cooked their turkey bush pies, and Karlene was several bites into hers when she asked, “Why do you think Tom hasn’t come to see me?”

He could hear the lump in her throat, the unspoken fear that Thomas didn’t think she was worthy of fighting for.

“Maybe he’s giving you space?” Joey offered.

But he knew that if you truly loved a woman, you’d go to the end of the earth to find her, to talk, to find a way to make it right.

In his books, it was clear that Thomas McNaughton didn’t love Karlene Spragg anywhere near as much as he should.

Maybe Thomashadcome by the ranch to see her and Joey had told him where to go, acting like a beautiful wall between her hurting heart and confused mind.

Karlene shook her head. Joey wouldn’t do that. He’d run gentle interference and protect her, but not stand between her and her fiancé. Even if Joey seemed to secretly believe Thomas was a pretty-boy cowboy. She’d heard him mutter that in his barn once after Thomas had stopped by to pick her up in an expensive pair of cowboy boots and a new Stetson—his ranch manager clothes, as Karlene thought of them. Thomas spentmore time between four walls than out branding, herding and mucking out barns, and she’d once teased him that he wasn’t a real cowboy at all. He’d agreed, stating proudly that he was a rancher.

Joey’s brows lowered as he took a massive bite of his sandwich, cranberry oozing out the backside of it and dropping onto his tin plate.

She set her sandwich to the side and Brody claimed it, finishing it in one big, greedy gulp. “Brody!”

“He’s going to be gassy now,” Joey complained. “He’s sleeping in the tent with you.”

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