A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas. Maisey Yates
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but there were plenty of people who didn’t have advantages in life who probably did better than she did.
But people like this... Who could openly admit they didn’t actually care, but offered help, anyway...
There were no people like this. She had no idea what kind of anomaly she was staring down right now.
“Do you want food?” he asked, sounding irritated and impatient now.
“Yes,” she said, scrambling to a standing position. She looked at her blanket, and her backpack.
“Grab those,” he said.
Right. Because of course he was willing to bait her out of the cabin with food, but it wasn’t like he was going to let her stay here. She felt pressure behind her eyes, but she knew she wouldn’t cry. She had quit doing that a long time ago. There was no point.
“Okay,” she said, taking hold of the blanket and her bag and holding them both close.
The man took a step forward, holding out his hand, and that was when her lantern caught his face.
He was...
He was beautiful.
His dark hair was a little bit shaggy, and he had a light beard that might be intentional, or might just be because he hadn’t shaved for a few days. His nose was straight, his lips firm looking, set into a flat line. His shoulders were broad, and so was his chest, his waist lean, the tight T-shirt suggesting that he was also...well, fully and completely built.
She hadn’t made any assumptions about his looks when he had first come in, mostly because he had shocked her, waking her from a dead sleep. And then... He had sounded a bit like a curmudgeon, so she had assumed that he was an older man. But now she thought he couldn’t be much older than thirty.
“Let me take those,” he said, taking the bag and blanket from her.
She started to protest, but he had taken them before she could get the words out. It made her feel naked. He had her things. Everything she owned in the entire world. Except the lantern. She bent down and picked it up, clutching it to her chest. She would hold that.
He didn’t offer to take it from her. He turned, without a word, and walked out of the cabin, clearly just expecting her to follow.
There was an offer of food, so of course she was.
She scrambled after him. It was still dark outside, and it was cold. She had a jacket, but it was in her bag, and currently Mr. Tall, Dark and Cranky was holding it. So she figured the best thing to do would be to follow along.
The place he led her to was a small cabin, but he didn’t go to the front door; instead, he went to an old truck. “We’re going to drive to my brother’s house. It’s on the property. But I don’t really want to walk.”
She didn’t, either. In fact, she had a feeling that he didn’t mind one way or another, but had sensed that maybe she didn’t. Knew that she was cold.
Right. He doesn’t care. Don’t go applying warm and fuzzy motives to him.
She climbed cautiously into his truck, closing the door behind her. “A gentle reminder,” she said when he started the engine. “I do have a knife.”
“Yeah,” he responded, starting the engine and putting the truck in Reverse. “Me, too.”
“Why do you have a knife?”
“For all I knew you had a gun.”
She sputtered. “If I had a gun and you had a knife it wouldn’t help you.”
“It’s just a good thing it didn’t get to that.”
“Well. See that it doesn’t.”
“I know,” he said, his tone dry. “You’ll cut me.”
They didn’t speak for the short drive down the bumpy, pothole-filled dirt road. McKenna folded her hands in her lap and stared down at her fingers. There was dirt under her nails.
You’re homeless. It’s been days since you’ve had a shower.
It was amazing how you could push all of those things to the side, but the minute you had to interact with another person—a beautiful person—it all came rushing back.
“Where are we going?” Suddenly, she was full of panic.
“To my brother’s house,” he repeated. He had said that already.
“And he’s going to be there?”
“Yes,” he responded.
“Oh,” she said, looking back out the window.
So, someone else was going to see her like this. She didn’t really care. Her entire life had been a series of inglorious situations. It was just that this was the worst.
She’d done a pretty good job of letting shame roll off for most of her life. She’d been the poor kid. Had never had cool clothes. Had never been able to have friends over. Had been shuffled around homes, some good, some bad. She’d built up some tough armor over the years.
But this was a new low, and apparently...apparently shame still existed inside of her.
They pulled up to the house and her heart sank into her stomach. She hadn’t fully realized where she was. She had hitchhiked to the edge of town, and she had fully intended on camping out in the woods. She had happened upon a collection of cabins on the edge of the woods, and then had circled around, and found a dilapidated, abandoned one deeper in. She had realized she was camping out in a place people stayed in for money, but she hadn’t realized people also lived there.
Or that it was quite so fancy.
Her companion got out of the truck and headed toward the broad front steps that led to the porch. She just sat there. She took a breath, and opened the door. There was no point being timid. No point feeling like crap. She knew what she was.
And that was: more than her current situation.
It didn’t matter what these people thought of her.
It mattered if they turned out to be psychotic killers, though. But she really did have a pocket knife.
And okay, she knew that wasn’t the deadliest of weapons. But she had sat outside a self-defense class one time and had heard the woman talking about how the element of surprise was generally on your side when you were a woman. It was about the only thing on your side, so you had to use it. They didn’t expect you to fight back.
McKenna Tate had been fighting back for her entire life. She wouldn’t stop now.
And she supposed that right there was the point of that hope inside her chest she often resented. It had brought her this far. Made her feel determined. It was what kept shame and hopelessness from taking over.
As long as she never let it get out of hand, it was what kept her going.
She walked slowly up the front steps and stood next to the man. She came up to the top of his shoulder. Just barely. He was so tall. And yeah, now that she was a little bit more awake, and it was a little bit lighter out, she could see... Definitely as beautiful as she had first thought. If not more so.
She turned her face back to the door in front of her.
Her new friend knocked, and they waited.
The man that answered the door was nearly as tall as the man at her side, and just as good-looking. Though in a different way. He had that easy manner about him, a charm that the other man did not have.
She didn’t trust charm.
“Hi,” she said. “I was told there would be breakfast.”
The new man looked at the other man, and then back at her. “Wyatt Dodge,” he said, sticking out his hand.
“McKenna