Читать книгу Snowed in with the Cowboy - Maisey Yates - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

“WHAT DO YOU want for Christmas, Chloe?”

Chloe Nolan looked over at her stepbrother’s wife, who was busily loading food into the back of their SUV, and mentally scrolled through any number of possible—yet impossible—responses.

She was not going to say: for Tanner to realize that I am a woman and not a child, and for him to realize that I am his stepsister, and not his biological sister, and it actually wouldn’t be weird at all if the two of us were to maybe get together even if only for some physical action.

Also off the table was: to lose my virginity.

Probably equally as inappropriate as: a night of hot sex.

Something. Anything to deal with her Tanner feelings once and for all.

“I like candles,” she said finally.

Candles were innocuous. They were a great thing to ask for when you had everything you wanted in the whole world—a place to live on a beautiful ranch, a thriving business as a riding instructor—except the stepbrother you found unreasonably hot.

A scented candle could never a bad thing, she supposed.

“That’s impersonal,” Savannah said, closing the back of the SUV and looking down at her phone, obviously checking items off of a to-do list. “I don’t want to get you something impersonal. If I wanted to do that I would’ve gotten you shower gel and a loofah.”

“That’s a very practical gift,” Chloe pointed out.

“I don’t want practical!” Savannah said. “Practical is what you get yourself when you go into town. Gifts are not meant to be practical.”

Chloe didn’t tell her step-sister-in-law that gifts were also not meant to be mental chores for the people who were supposed to be receiving them. Savannah was far too nice for Chloe to say that. “Well, I don’t really know what I want.”

And what she wanted was off-limits anyway.

“All right, then I’ll have to surprise you. We are going to do a little shopping before we head up to the cabin. Are you going to ride with us?”

Chloe knew that us meant Jackson, Savannah and their toddler, Lily.

And as much as Chloe loved her niece, she was going to have to pass on sharing a car with the noisy creature.

“I’m going to head up later. Plus, I want to have my own car.”

“That’s probably a good idea. But I did hear that the weather is going to take a little bit of a turn.”

“They always say that,” Chloe said, waving a hand. “Endless forecasts of snowpocalypse this and that and the other, and you know it never happens. Much to the chagrin of people who would like to be skiing right about now. At best we’ll get some anemic frost. Maybe some hail.”

Savanna laughed. “True. In Colorado, when they promise snow, we listen. But I can see why you’re a little more lackadaisical about it here. Having spent a whole winter here last year I was disappointed bitterly in what you considered a white Christmas.”

“The grass was white,” Chloe pointed out.

“The song does not go, ‘Please have frost and mistletoe.’”

“Fair enough. But I bet there will be some snow up at the cabin we’re staying at. It’s at a higher elevation.”

“Here’s hoping. I’m sure Ava and Grace will be hoping for snow,” Savannah said, talking about their brand-new nieces. The youngest Reid brother, Calder, had recently married a single mom, and her two daughters—both teenagers—and their mom were the center of his world. “Though I so hope it stays contained to the mountain and not the roads.”

“It will be fine,” Chloe said.

Their part of Oregon was so rarely buried underneath snow that Chloe wasn’t worried about it at all. It was a little bit of a drive from Gold Valley up to Granite Pass, but she figured that it would be fine. She might have to chain up when she got to the mountain road that she knew would carry them to the cabin that they’d rented for their big family Christmas, but that was no big deal.

The cabin rental was a plan thrown together by Jackson, Calder and their wives to do something special. Particularly for Calder, his new wife and stepchildren. It was their first Christmas as a family, and he really wanted to do something extra for the girls. Chloe wasn’t opposed. Especially since her mother was coming in from out of state for a visit. It would all be very nice.

A very nice Christmas of watching her stepbrothers happy and paired off. And watching the one that she’d had inappropriate feelings for since she was a child be resolutely single, and resolutely off-limits.

Which, in fairness, was nothing new. It honestly shouldn’t upset her. She should be used to it. She literally lived in the house with Tanner. They were in each other’s pockets all the time. Changing a venue shouldn’t bother her. And she shouldn’t be ruminating like she was.

She and Tanner didn’t spend all their time together or anything. They didn’t act like a family living together. They only ate dinners at the dining room table when the rest of the Reids came over. Otherwise, Chloe usually ate in her room before Tanner came in from working the ranch. He would microwave something for himself and eat in front of the TV.

Then she would often come out to graze for a while, and they’d exchange some words about the day, standing with the kitchen island between them.

They watched one TV show together, because they both liked it. Chloe always sat on the chair. Tanner always took the couch.

There were unspoken barriers between them, and both of them seemed to easily keep those in place. There wasn’t any tension between them. Not really.

But there were fences.

It was Christmas. That was the problem. It made everything feel just a little bit bittersweet.

The sparkle of magic felt just out of her reach.

Like it was always for someone else, and never for her.

Christmas had always felt like that to her growing up. At least, until they had come to live on the ranch, when her mother had married Tanner’s father. Here, she had actually found a sense of magic. Something that went beyond the vague disappointments her meager childhood had provided.

But then, that was part of the problem.

Her crush on Tanner was all about security, at the end of the day. Security and wanting what you couldn’t have.

They had moved on to the ranch, she had met him—the oldest, tallest and most handsome of all of her stepfather’s sons—and it had been love at first sight.

He had also been utterly and completely out of bounds when she had been twelve. Just like he was now.

She had never pined after anyone else. Not ever.

She imagined that much like making outlandish Christmas gifts when she was a little girl, before her mother had married Jim Reid, knowing she wouldn’t even receive one small thing, it was a way of protecting herself.

If you went bold, and you went crazy, and laughable, then you knew that you were never going to get your way at all.

She’d heard it said that you should shoot for the moon, so that even if you missed you landed among the stars.

As far as Chloe was concerned, it was better to fantasize about the moon, knowing there was no way in the world you could jump that high, than try to jump over a small fence and land on your face. Or something. It was maybe a clumsy metaphor. But it made enough sense to her.

“I just need to make sure the horses are squared away. I know that Jacob Dalton is going to do a decent job taking care of them, but I want everything in order.”

“They’re horses,” Savannah said, laughing. “Not children.”

“Well, they’re all I have,” she pointed out.

Savannah cringed. “I didn’t mean to say it like that or make it seem like I thought they didn’t matter.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Chloe said, gently.

Savannah was so sweet, and such a wonderful addition to Jackson’s life. When he had unexpectedly found out he was a father, and had ended up raising his infant daughter on his own, he’d hired Savannah as a live-in nanny, and the two of them had fallen in love. As far as Chloe was concerned it was something out of a fairy tale. The kind she would have said didn’t exist if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

“Well, we’ll see you up there then. Calder, Lauren and the girls are already on the road. He didn’t have any confidence in their ability to get there quickly. Apparently there will be a lot of stopping. Shopping, views and bathrooms.”

Chloe laughed. “I’ll see you there.”

Jackson came out of the house then, cradling his daughter, Lily, in his arms. He shifted the little girl and waved. Lily copied him, waving a chubby hand until he set her in the car and began to buckle her into her car seat.

Chloe stood and watched as they drove off of the ranch property and headed down the highway.

She took a deep breath, trying to do something to ease the strange heaviness that she felt in her chest. She didn’t know why her more melancholy Christmas feelings were surfacing. Well, she wasn’t sure why particularly this year more than any other year. Unless she was really so small and petty that it was about everyone being paired off in a way that she wasn’t.

She hoped she wasn’t that small and petty. She really did.

She took a fortifying breath and turned, heading toward the barn, where the horses were. The horses were her pride and joy, the ultimate gift that her stepfather had given to her. A love of horses, and a knowledge of how to handle them. Something she never would have had if Jim Reid had never come into her life.

He had been imperfect, and she knew that. He was gruff, and it was difficult for him to show emotion. But she had always felt like he showed it with what he had. By giving out responsibility on the ranch that he loved, and entrusting his children, his sons and his stepdaughter, with the care of it.

She’d found her purpose on this ranch. Her calling.

Sure, it wasn’t the most lucrative career, giving riding lessons—mostly to children—but it was rewarding, and the ranch was set up in such a way that it was possible for all of the siblings to live there if they wanted to.

Of course, Calder had moved into his wife’s house, their brood of children too large for the cabin he once lived in.

And really, Chloe was supposed to be moving into his old place on the property so that she didn’t have to be in the main house with Tanner, who had that place simply because he was the oldest. But she just... Hadn’t. She had stayed, because while coexisting with Tanner wasn’t comfortable per se it was also...

She just liked to be near him. And as pathetic as that was, it was also undeniable.

She went over the detailed list of instructions that she was leaving behind for Jacob. She had already walked him around the place and given him a good look at the facility, but she had also made sure to leave as much direction behind as possible.

He would be taking care of the horses, but also the cattle that lived on the ranch. It was a rare and strange thing for the entire family to leave the property. In fact, they had never done it. Not in all the time that Chloe had lived there. It was a big thing. A marker of the changes that had occurred recently. And she wondered if perhaps that was partly why she was feeling a little bit strange.

Like things were moving faster than usual. Like it was all getting away from her, with everyone moving forward, and her standing still.

Tanner hasn’t changed...

Maybe not.

She sighed heavily. She needed some time to clear her head. She ignored the gathering clouds in the sky and decided to get her horse out of her stall. All of these strange emotions were nothing that a ride through the countryside wouldn’t fix.

She would do that and then she would head up and be as festive as anyone could possibly ask her to be.

And hopefully no one would realize that she was grappling with any kind of weird emotion.

Least of all the stepbrother who was causing them.

* * *

WHEN TANNER SAW that Chloe’s car was still parked in front of the ranch house he swore. He was hoping that Chloe would have already taken off. Hours ago, preferably, because if his much younger stepsister had, then none of this would be his problem. But he had just gotten a call from his brother Calder, who was already at the cabin a couple of hours away, and he’d informed him that the roads were ice covered. There was no way that Chloe was going to get up there in her little car.

And that meant that she had to ride with Tanner.

Of course, he lived with her, it wasn’t like he wasn’t exposed to her all the time. But that didn’t seem to help with the inappropriate attraction to her he’d been dealing with since she was about eighteen, and way too young for him to be looking at her that way.

He didn’t know when it had started, not exactly. It wasn’t as if he’d been struck with lightning one moment, but somehow she had gone from being something not quite a sister, but certainly not eligible, to being...a woman.

No. A lightning strike would have been easier.

He’d have been able to go back to the scene of that crime and do something about it. He’d have been able to get to the damn root of it all and tear it out, if it had been that simple.

It hadn’t been a moment. It had been a subtle build. Something about the way the light would catch her short, curly dark hair sometimes. Or a mischievous grin she would give him.

The way that her laugh rolled through his body and landed with that kind of exhilarating feel that he got when he rode horses and a strong breeze came through and took his breath away.

He’d done his best to ignore it. He really had. And then, one day she had bent over and he had looked. He had seen the way that her jeans cupped her perfectly rounded ass, and he hadn’t ever been able to lie to himself again about what those breathless moments between them were.

For years it had been like this, and over the past few months it had been even worse. A damned torturous slog. Like the buildup of a dam about full to bursting.

Being in an enclosed truck cab with her for the next couple of hours did not sound good. It sounded like it might put a crack in the dam, and that was something he couldn’t afford.

The last thing he needed to do was breathe the same air that Chloe was breathing, before he had gotten his libido under control. That was the real issue with why it had been getting so bad lately, he was sure.

He had not had any sex recently. It was tough. He was busy running the ranch, and he wasn’t particularly open to the idea of a long-term relationship. Hookups were what he thrived on, but with his brothers happily settled into marriage, arranging times when he could go out and fool around and they would hold down the fort for him had gotten fewer and farther between. That was the issue. Not so much Chloe herself, but the fact that he hadn’t been near enough to a willing woman in longer than he could remember.

Well, he could remember. It was just that it didn’t do anything for him. He had tried. He had tried in the dead of night to imagine his last partner, a woman named Alex who worked at the tattoo parlor down in Tolowa.

She had a lot of ink, and piercings in interesting places.

She was so different from Chloe. And as much as it pained him to admit it, that had been the primary attraction to most women he’d been with over the past few years.

Not Chloe.

Alex fit that bill, and nicely. And he’d had a good time with her when they’d been together. But now?

The memory did absolutely nothing for him. For some reason, imagining her thick eyeliner and pouty lips didn’t fire his blood at all. No, it was fresh-faced Chloe that kept imprinting herself on his mind. And he didn’t like it at all.

A man’s life had cornerstones. And his had a few. This ranch. His brothers.

Chloe.

Chloe had been the key to him deciding that the ranch mattered. Seeing it through her eyes had been a revelation, and it had stirred something in him he hadn’t imagined was there. Teaching her to ride, and how to perform chores around the property, had breathed new life into all of it.

Chloe wasn’t a sister to him, but she was something. Something definitive.

Something essential.

He’d never wanted to risk that. Ever. An attraction to her had seemed like the worst thing possible, though he’d figure out how to tamp it down.

He could never risk disrupting a cornerstone. Not just in his life, but in his family’s. All it would take was a crack, and all that he was, all they were, could come tumbling down.

Because Tanner couldn’t keep it in his pants.

And no, that wasn’t going to happen.

As if she had been conjured up from his imagination, Chloe came riding toward the barn, her hair flying behind her in the wind, her lithe, strong body guiding her horse exactly where she wanted her to go.

She pulled to a stop when she saw him, a slight frown on her lips.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“So are you.”

She frowned. “Yeah, I wanted to get in one last ride and make sure that all the instructions for Jacob Dalton were in place.”

“Well, now it’s too late for you to drive yourself. Calder called. The road is not going to be passable in your little two-wheel drive, so if you have anything packed up in that Civic of yours you better throw it in the back of my pickup truck.”

* * *

“OH I JUST... I thought it would be more convenient if I had a car...”

“Hey, no argument from me on convenience,” he said. “But it’s not going to be very convenient if you get stuck in a ditch.”

“I have chains,” she said.

“Calder said that wouldn’t cut it.”

“Right,” she said.

“It’ll be fine. It’ll be fun. We’ll sing,” he said, because if he couldn’t feel normal he’d try to trick himself into thinking it was normal.

She shot him a look. “We will not sing.”

He followed her into the barn while she untacked her horse.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t sing. Actually, you’re pretty terrible at it.”

“You’re no Miranda Lambert.”

“Lucky for you,” she said. “I might get a little crazy and light something of yours on fire.”

He chuckled, ignoring the way that her hair moved when she brushed it back off her face. Ignoring the tightening low in his gut that accompanied it.

“I guess I’ll get ready then.”

She moved, and he caught her scent, and then she stopped dead, her luminous brown eyes connecting with his. It was like a band of tension had stretched tight between them, drawing them together.

“You better do that,” he said, taking a step back, breaking the tension. Because, oh, hell no. He did not need this. Not now. Not ever.

Most of all, Chloe didn’t need him lusting after her.

He couldn’t offer her anything. He had watched his own father go through marriage after marriage, making a hash of it.

The only real reason his marriage to Chloe’s mother had lasted was her sheer grit and stubbornness.

And...

Chloe’s mother was about the best thing that had ever happened to his family. He couldn’t imagine taking a risk like that. Detonating a bomb in the middle of what they had.

No.

Just about every way of getting laid was a hell of a lot cheaper. He was not going to go there.

No matter how beautiful his stepsister was, he was never going to touch her. No matter that he’d spent seven years wanting her.

If he had to spend the next seven wanting her, he’d do just that. But he wasn’t going to have her.

And that was his final word on that to himself.