Cowboy Who Came For Christmas. Lenora Worth
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your wife?” She’d asked it before she could think it through. “I mean, won’t she be wondering where you are?”
He didn’t turn around, but his hand went still on the teakettle. “She’s gone.”
So much for trying to focus on the positive. So did that mean he was still married and his wife had left? Or did that mean his wife was dead? Sophia refused to ask.
“She left when Gaylen was eight months old,” he finally said. “I’m a divorced single father.”
Sophia’s heart went out to him and his little girl, but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by saying that. “So you’re a single father who chases criminals in the snow.”
“Yep.” He opened a tea bag and dropped it into a big floral mug. “And I need to be done with this and home by Christmas Eve.”
Sophia hoped that would happen. “You think you’ll find him around here?”
“I think so. He’s here for a reason, but he’d have to hunker down tonight or risk freezing to death.”
She decided to feel Adan out and get a few details in the process. “I wonder why he decided to come to Crescent Mountain.”
Adan left that statement out there floating on the air between them along with the scent of chamomile tea. Finally he said, “I wonder that, too.” He brought her the tea, his gaze sweeping over her face. “It sure would make my job easier if you’d just tell me the truth.”
Sophia didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to shout that yes, she knew who Joe Pritchard was but...she thought he was dead. She thought he would never hurt her again. So how could that possibly be him out there?
But she couldn’t find her voice. She couldn’t speak his name. So she sat there and watched Adan while he watched her drink the herbal tea and she hoped against hope that Joe wasn’t on this mountain.
But Adan didn’t pressure her anymore. He pulled out his cell phone and tried to make a call. “No bars,” he finally said, frowning down at his phone. “Guess the storm is messing with the reception.”
“We never have good reception up here,” Sophia told him. “It comes and goes even on good days. If we have important calls to make, we go down into town and sit on a bench or do our business in the Crescent Diner. They have free Wi-Fi there.”
“I see.” He tapped his phone and put it away. “I wanted to check in with my parents and tell Gaylen good-night.”
He sat for a moment, his gaze on his phone. Sophia chanced a glance when he put it on the table and saw a picture of a pretty blond-headed little girl. His daughter?
Before she could ask, Adan picked the phone back up and started tapping away.
“Notes to myself,” he said by way of an explanation. “So I won’t forget the chronological order of things.”
Sophia couldn’t believe her world had shifted within the space of an hour. The Christmas decorations Bettye had helped her make and put on the tree now held a garish shimmer that only reminded her of other Christmases she’d rather not remember. Days and nights that had involved overly decorated rooms and expensive catered dinners. And a facade that crumbled like dry bricks.
Sophia didn’t miss that kind of fake holiday. Nor did she miss the disconnected misery of growing up moving from pillar to post and sometimes living with strangers.
She’d looked forward to a quiet Christmas on the mountain with real people who cared about her. She’d planned on baking all kinds of goodies for her friends over the next week or so before they all celebrated with a Christmas Eve get-together.
But all of that had changed. Now, she had one very good-looking, very serious man questioning and doubting her and one very dangerous, very angry man out there possibly searching for her. Tonight they’d both found her. Would there be a battle between them? She got the impression that Adan Harrison wouldn’t give up until he had Joe Pritchard in custody. But would he give up on questioning her? No doubt on that one, either.
She sank down on an old side chair and grabbed a turquoise-colored chenille throw and held it tight to her chest. She didn’t realize she was shivering until Adan bent in front of her and lifted the blanket from her. With slow, deliberate gestures, he carefully took the throw and tucked it over her lap and around her sweater leggings and old cowboy boots.
Sophia didn’t like men touching her, but this gentle giant did it in a way that made her want to cling to his hand and thank him. His eyes held no malice, no intentions other than to bring her comfort. When was the last time a man had been this kind to her? Especially a man who’d seen the business end of her shotgun?
“There,” he said, his eyes going a gentle burnished brown. Then he turned to a side table. “Here’s your tea.”
She nodded her head, still not used to this kind of reaction from a man. Or her reaction to that man. “Thank you.”
His gaze stumbled over her heated skin. “You don’t look so hot.”
She almost smiled at that. “Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting company tonight.”
He sank back on a stool made out of old floorboards and straightened the embroidered yellow cushion. “And I wasn’t exactly expecting to show up on your porch.”
She forced a smile. “Funny how life works, huh?”
He nodded. “Ready to talk now?”
Sophia looked down at the frayed threads of the secondhand throw. “About what?”
He gave her a long, hard stare. “You’ll have to tell me sooner or later.”
Sophia sipped her tea so quickly she burned her tongue. “Tell you what?”
“Why you reacted so strongly to this poster.”
He held it up, his intentions obvious and deliberate.
Sophia glanced at the drawing then looked away. “I just got scared when I saw it hanging on my door. I mean, someone was out there prowling around and whoever it was came up onto my back porch.”
“I was out there prowling around and you came at me with a shotgun.”
She shrugged, tried to put on a neutral face. “I guess two prowlers in one night sent me over the edge.”
Adan pulled out his phone. “Mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Haven’t you been doing that since you showed up here?”
“Part of my job, especially when I need some answers and I think you can give them to me.”
Sophia didn’t want to give him any information, so she pointed to his phone, thinking he was going to haul her in. “I told you, you might find it hard to get any service out here.”
“It’s okay. I have a password to protect any work-related information so I take notes on my phone’s notepad. But if you’re uncomfortable—”
“No, I just don’t have anything more to say.” She tried to swallow away the dryness tightening her throat. Then she lifted her chin and stared him down. “Even if it means you have to take me to jail, too.”
* * *
ADAN RUBBED A hand down his face. This day had not turned out the way he’d planned. “Okay then. I hope I don’t have any reason to take you to jail. The best thing you can do for yourself is tell the truth, understand?”
“Yes,” she said on a soft note. “I... I’m sorry I held a gun on you. I’m not a criminal.”
He glanced at the ever-present shotgun then pivoted back to her and decided not to tell her how many times he’d heard that comment over the years. “I don’t know about that.”
“I have a right to protect myself,” she said, her hackles