A Cowboy's Christmas Promise (21 page)

“Should we go back upstairs?”

He raised his eyebrows. “If you want to.” His fingers danced dangerously close to her most sensitive spots. “Or we could stay right here.”

“Oh, God,” she sighed as he kissed her neck. “Here's—here's good.”

Thirty seconds later, just as he was pushing the robe off her shoulders, the kitchen door opened, sending a blast of freezing air over them.

However, that chill was nothing compared to the deep freeze that was about to follow.

“Daniel!” The squawk from the doorway made Hayley spring back, whacking her head on the cupboard.

What?! Who?!

“Ow,” she whispered as she tried to see past Daniel while she frantically pulled the robe back on and fumbled for the ties.

He pushed away from the counter like Hayley had bitten him, and turned toward the door, where a silver-haired, designer-clad woman stood with her hand on the doorknob.

“Evelyn?”

Oh, God. The evil mother-in-law.

Cole had wasted no words talking about her last night at dinner, and Hayley gulped and slid her feet to the floor as unobtrusively as possible, trying in vain to put as much space as possible between herself and Daniel. She tried to tighten the belt on his bathrobe, but ended up crossing her arms to hold it closed instead.

Daniel ran a hand through his hair, and Hayley couldn't help but notice him stepping toward the island to hide his lower body. “I thought you weren't coming into town until tomorrow morning.”

“Obviously.” Her voice dripped ice crystals, and she had yet to take her hand off the doorknob. “We had some trouble with the hotel. They didn't have our room ready, so we thought we'd come say hello here instead.”

She spoke like a woman who wasn't holding a custody guillotine over Daniel's head, and Hayley didn't know what to make of it.
Come say hello? Was she kidding?

“I can see, though, that our timing is—inelegant. And I assume the girls are already in bed.” She paused, then skated her ice-blue eyes from Hayley's bare toes to her eyebrows. “I certainly hope so, anyway. We will see you tomorrow, as planned.” With another frosty glance, she pulled the door closed.

Hayley watched over Daniel's shoulder as Evelyn walked stiffly to her car. He shook his head. Hayley braced herself, having no idea what might come next. She'd never imagined even meeting Daniel's mother-in-law, let alone meeting her while she was lip-locked with him in the middle of his kitchen.

Wearing nothing but his robe.

“I'm so sorry.” Daniel cringed, running his fingers through his hair as he watched the car back out of the driveway. “That would be Evelyn. She wasn't supposed to arrive until tomorrow afternoon. Obviously.”

Hayley nodded slowly, somehow unable to uncross her arms, even though she knew she must look like the picture of defensiveness.

“Heck of a way to meet the in-laws. I'm sorry, Daniel. This is bad. This
looked
bad. This is exactly what you don't need right now, given—everything.”

Daniel leaned against the opposite counter, not moving to close the distance between them—and Hayley felt somehow chillier still. On the one hand, she wished he'd pull her right back into his arms, but on the other, she knew the spell had been well and truly broken.

“Wrong. You're exactly what I
do
need, Hayley. Please do not apologize. God”—he sent his fingers through his hair—“do
not
apologize.”

“But with everything else…this didn't look good.” She shook her head. “I'll go. I need to go. Can you call her? Will she come back?”

“No way.” He shook his head. “Please don't even think about it.”

“How can I not?” Hayley suddenly stopped fiddling nervously with the bathrobe ties. “Wait. Why is she here, anyway? How can you have her in your house, with what she's doing?”

“You know that phrase,
keep your friends close—
”

“—but keep your enemies closer?”

“Yeah.” He sighed, looking out the window again. “I have no idea whether it will eventually backfire, but it's the best plan I have right now. She's trying to prove she doesn't have enough time with the girls, and I'm trying to prove she's got all the time she wants.” He put his hands out, palms up. “So here she is.”

“And now she thinks you host random hookups in your kitchen. That's definitely not going to help your case.” Hayley started pacing.

Crap, crap, crap. Now look what she'd done. She should have just stayed in her cabin tonight and let Daniel take his girls home to bed. That would have been a much smarter choice.

“In my defense,” he raised his palms, a sad smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I don't make a habit of this.”

“Doesn't matter. She'll think you do, won't she? Or at least she'll pretend to?” Hayley kept pacing the small space. “Daniel, she saw me sitting on your counter with my legs wrapped around you while you kissed the ever-living stuffing out of me. There's no way that's going to play well.”

He nodded slowly, but didn't speak.

“How can you be so calm about this? The woman's trying to ruin your life!”

Daniel sighed. “You know what? For two years I've tiptoed around Evelyn. I've done that two-hour flight from Montana to Denver every month—
every
freaking month…and for what? Now she's going to try for custody?”

He shook his head. “I'm not at all calm about this, but right now I really don't want to be thinking about Evelyn. I want to be thinking about
you.
She's going to do what she's going to do, and in her mind, she
has
to. I get that. I get that she's consumed with pain and rage that I'm the one who lived, and her daughter didn't. And part of this is her attempt to make me pay. I get that, even if she doesn't.”

He stepped toward Hayley, and she backed up in response, but ran into the counter.

“But I refuse to let her take over my life. I have been waiting for four months to have you back here again, and right now, the only thing I want to think about is kissing you again.”

“No.” Damn her voice, doing that shaky thing again. “We shouldn't.”

“I don't agree.”

Neither do I, dammit!

“I'm sorry, Daniel.” Hayley crossed her arms. “I really didn't mean to come out here and do…this. There's too much at stake here for us to fool around and mess it up. I'll—I'll keep my distance for the rest of vacation, and maybe Evelyn will forget what she saw—or at least assume it was meaningless.”

He nodded slowly. “We could do that.”

“Oh.”
Why did it feel like her stomach had just swallowed her esophagus at his simple sentence?
“Okay. It's the right thing to do.”

“Just one question.” His eyes bored into hers.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

“
Was
it meaningless to you?”

She wanted to say yes, wanted to nod her head, wanted to swing her ponytail and walk out his door like none of it had mattered—but as his eyes melted her insides once again, she felt herself shaking her head miserably.

“I didn't think so.” He stepped back toward her and gathered her in his arms, tucking her against his chest and resting his chin on her head. “You're all bluster, Scampini.”

She sighed, thoughts buzzing through her brain. They shouldn't be hugging, shouldn't be touching, even—and yet all she wanted right now was for this delicious man to wrap her up in his arms and hold her forever.

Forever?

No. That was not a word Hayley Scampini used, and she was way too old and tarnished to start now.

She drew back so she could look up at him, and when she did, he cradled her jaw in his hands, sending all of her self-preservation instincts to the wind. He took a breath, and when he spoke, his voice was soft, serious.

“I need to tell you something, and I think it needs to be said now, before you walk out that door, because I know you are practically
itching
to make your getaway right now.”

“Okay?”

He stroked his thumbs along her jaw. “I don't do casual, Hayls. Even before Katie, I never did, and I never will. It's just not how I'm put together. I don't go around kissing practical strangers at a wedding. I don't haul just anyone onto my kitchen counter and—kiss the stuffing out of her. I certainly,
certainly,
don't make love to a woman
or
invite her to my home to hang with my girls if it doesn't mean something.”

“Okay,” she whispered, unable to form other words. Especially since those other words might enlighten him as to just how opposite their paths thus far had been.

He raised his eyebrows. “Okay? That's all you've got?”

“You're lucky you got
that.
My brain has officially disconnected itself from my mouth.”

“Good.” He smiled, gathering her even closer. “Then your brain won't notice that I'm going to kiss you again.”

The next afternoon, Daniel was sitting on the floor of the living room engaged in a high-spirited game of Sorry with the girls when there was a knock at the door.

“I'll get it.” Gracie leaped up, then squeaked. “It's Hayley!”

Daniel's mood lifted instantly, and he actually smiled and shook his head when he realized it. She'd left at the crack of dawn so the girls wouldn't wake up and discover her there, and now she was back.

Gracie dragged Hayley through the kitchen into the living room, and Daniel stood up to greet her. Under a bright green down vest, she had on a deep purple sweater that made her hair even more vivid than usual. The almost-shy look she gave him pulled at his heart, but he remembered her blue-green eyes looking anything
but
shy just hours ago.

His hands itched to pull her close, drink in the vanilla scent of her neck, let her hair tangle between his fingers, but the girls were watching, so he had to settle for just saying hi.

“Looks like you've escaped the ranch. Is that because they're trying to make you cook again?”

She shook her head. “Crafts. Ma's decorating for the New Year's Eve party already.” She set two sparkly bags on the floor and sat down on the couch, automatically gathering both girls onto her lap as she talked. “You'd think she'd know better than to hand me scissors and white paper and say
make snowflakes,
but apparently not.”

“We know how to make snowflakes!” Bryn piped up.

Hayley squeezed her. “See? I figured that! And that's why I brought the paper and scissors
here.
I hoped maybe you two could teach me how to do it.”

The girls jumped down and headed for the bags, but Hayley put out a gentle hand to stop them. “Actually, the snowflake stuff is in the car because I wasn't sure what your daddy had planned for today.” She peered over their shoulders. “And I can see there is a
mad
game of Sorry going on here.”

“It's okay,” Gracie assured her. “We were almost done, and Bryn was winning. She always wins.”

Daniel smiled as she pronounced it so matter-of-factly. “So let me get this straight.” He raised his eyebrows at Hayley, who tried to look innocent under his gaze. “You're using my girls to do your craft duties.”

“No! I'm asking them to teach me. It's different.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Totally is. And I brought presents!”

“Bribes?”

She laughed. “Presents.” She reached for the glittery bags, and handed a pink one to Bryn and a purple one to Gracie. “I was downtown this morning and couldn't resist. I hope it's okay.”

Daniel braced himself as the girls started sifting through the tissue paper.
Please let her not have pulled an Evelyn and bought them presents they'd never use.
She'd definitely see through them as they struggled to pretend they liked them.

He needn't have worried. The squeals that filled the room for the next two minutes were testament to the fact that, clearly, Hayley had a knack for gifts.

“It's boots!” Gracie crowed as she pulled colorful rubber boots out of her bag. “With horses on them!”

“Mine have kitties!” Bryn squealed as she struggled to put them on. “Oh, Hayley! They're awesome!”

Daniel laughed as the girls got the boots on and proceeded to dance around the living room, admiring them. They were completely adorable, and completely perfect for his girls
and
their life. Huh. Imagine that.

He longed to hug her in thanks, but with the girls right there, he settled for a wink. “You scored, Scampini.”

She shrugged, but he could tell she was thrilled with the girls' response.

“I saw them, and then I pictured them on Bryn and Gracie, and then the boots were in the bags. I couldn't help it.” She reached into her pocket and handed a sales slip his way. “But here's a gift receipt if you decide they're not right.”

He waved the slip away and pointed at the girls. “They're perfect. You knew they were.”

She nodded, smiling widely. “I actually did.”

Daniel watched her as she watched the girls hopping around, and he could see something in her eyes that made his breath catch in his throat. Obviously she was happy that they liked the boots. But it was more than that, different from that. In her eyes, in her posture, he saw a sort of peace he hadn't seen there before, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of it—except that he liked it.

He liked it a lot.

“So, girls.” Hayley motioned them over to her, and they gladly leaped her way. “Since you now have these gorgeous boots, I was wondering if you might like to come to Whisper Creek tomorrow and go for a trail ride with me.”

“On horses?” Bryn's eyes went wide.

“On horses. Cole and Decker said we could take a ride if we want to. If it's okay with your daddy, what do you think?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” The girls turned to Daniel and grabbed at his hands, pleading. “Can we go, Daddy? Can we?”

Suddenly he noticed Hayley putting her hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. I just totally blew—oh, God. I'm sorry. I should have talked to you first.”

“Before you promise the girls an epic horseback adventure in new sparkly boots? Yeah, that's one of those times when it's good to ask first.” He shook his head, smiling.