Page 20 of Cowboy's Christmas Wife

She nodded. “Yeah, in about twenty minutes or so,” she said. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up?”

Daryl chuckled. “You read my mind, Laura Jo,” he said and crossed the kitchen to kiss her cheek before he disappeared up the hallway. She watched his back as he went, eyes skimming over how his shirt was stretched over his shoulders in the most delicious way.

“Man, you’ve got it bad, huh?”

Laura jumped. “What?” She looked back at Kyle, who was grinning at her like he’d just witnessed something funny. “What do you mean?”

“My brother,” Kyle said. “You’re falling in love with him.”

She felt her cheeks flush. “I am not,” she insisted quietly. “You know why we’re doing this. You know the marriage isn’t real. Your brother is a dear friend, but—”

Kyle snorted. “I have never seen two people who want to jump each other as badly as you two do,” he said. “So why don’t you?”

Her blush worsened; she probably looked like a tomato. “We shouldn’t talk about this,” she said.

“We’re both adults,” he said. “I’ve had sex, and since you have a child who looks a lot like you sitting there, I’m going to assume so have you—”

The timer for the oven went off. “I’m not going to talk to you about having sex with your brother,” she hissed and hustled to rescue the chicken from the oven and check on the potatoes. Both were finished, so she set the chicken up to rest beneath some tented aluminum foil and dropped the corn into the boiling water on the stove. When she turned around, Kyle was still staring at her. “What?”

“Can you just admit that you have feelings for my brother?” he asked.

Laura listened for a moment: the shower was still going. She sighed. “Yes, I have feelings for Daryl,” she said softly, “but that doesn’t change anything.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone,” she said.

Kyle tsked. “You do know that you’re married, right?”

“Oh, hush!” She threw a pot trivet at him. “You know that’ll come to an end eventually.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said a little bitterly. “I know.”

Laura knew that Kyle wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her money being used to pay off their mortgage, but he didn’t argue with Daryl or her about it. He knew that there was no other way to get the money to keep the ranch out of the bank’s hands; they had run out of options. She tried not to bring it up in front of him because it so quickly made him uncomfortable.

She was pulling dishes out of the cabinets when Daryl came back to the kitchen. His hair was wet from the shower, and he was dressed in some jeans and a simple t-shirt. Her mouth went dry looking at him.There’s no way he looks that good, she thought disbelievingly. She blinked a few times, but nothing changed. When she glanced at Kyle, he was smirking at her like he could read every thought in her head.

She put food on all of the plates while Daryl got everyone drinks, and they all sat around the table together. They’d eaten like this nearly every night since she’d moved in, especially after she’s taken over most of the cooking. Sitting here, with them, made her relax in a way she never had before. In her grandfather’s house, and then in Clark’s, meals together were the exception rather than the rule, and she’d started to forget that it could be any other way. She hadn’t had this family feeling for so long, maybe not since her parents. When Lily was born, she got a bit of that back, but they hadn’t gotten to family dinners just yet because she was too little.

“What were you working on?” she asked Daryl, needing to get out of her head a little bit.

Daryl smiled. “A hat for one of the ranch hands,” he said. “His wife wanted something custom made for him.”

Kyle looked impressed. “You can make hats?”

“I’mtryingto make a hat.” Daryl stared at his brother. “I may actually need you to help me at some point.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t have a good measure for the ranch hand’s head because it’s going to be a surprise, but I think you’re roughly the same size.”

Kyle stared at him, eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” he said, “but you can measure me tomorrow.”

Daryl grunted something that sounded like athank you. He looked at Laura, met her eyes, and a smile bloomed on his face. “I also worked on your saddle for a bit,” he said. “The stitching is coming along.”

“Can I see it?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think you’ll have to wait until it’s done.”

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