Christmas Cowboy: Will of Steel / Winter Roses. Diana Palmer

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      “I thought you were leaving.” She didn’t quite trust that smile.

      “I guess I am. About six?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’ll see you then.” He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Should I wear my tuxedo?”

      “It’s just steak.”

      “No dancing afterward?” he asked, disappointed.

      “Not unless you want to build a bonfire outside and dance around it.” She frowned. “I think I know one or two steps from the women’s dances.”

      He glared at her. “Ballroom dancing isn’t done around campfires.”

      “You can do ballroom dances?” she asked, impressed.

      “Of course I can.”

      “Waltz, polka …?”

      “Tango,” he said stiffly.

      Her eyes twinkled. “Tango? Really?”

      “Really. One of my friends in the service learned it down in Argentina. He taught me.”

      “What an image that brings to mind—” she began, tongue-in-cheek.

      “He didn’t teach me by dancing with me!” he shot back. “He danced with a girl.”

      “Well, I should hope so,” she agreed.

      “I’m leaving.”

      “You already said.”

      “This time, I mean it.” He walked out.

      “Six!” she called after him.

      He threw up a hand. He didn’t look back.

      Jillian closed the door and leaned back against it. She was a little apprehensive, but after all, she had to marry somebody. She knew Theodore Graves better than she knew any other men. And, despite their quarreling, they got along fairly well.

      The alternative was to let some corporation build a holiday resort here in Hollister, and it would be a disaster for local ranching. Resorts brought in all sorts of amusement, plus hotels and gas stations and businesses. It would be a boon for the economy, but Hollister would lose its rural, small-town appeal. It wasn’t something Jillian would enjoy and she was certain that other people would feel the same. She loved the forests with their tall lodgepole pines, and the shallow, diamond-bright trout streams where she loved to fish when she had free time. Occasionally Theodore would bring over his spinning reel and join her. Then they’d work side by side, scaling and filleting fish and frying them, along with hush puppies, in a vat of hot oil. Her mouth watered, just thinking about it.

      She wandered into the kitchen. She’d learned to cook from one of her uncle’s rare girlfriends. It had delighted her. She might be a tomboy, but she had a natural affinity for flour and she could make bread from scratch. It amazed her how few people could. The feel of the dough, soft and smooth, was a gift to her fingertips when she kneaded and punched and worked it. The smell of fresh bread in the kitchen was a delight for the senses. She always had fresh homemade butter to go on it, which she purchased from an elderly widow just down the road. Theodore loved fresh bread. She was making a batch for tonight, to go with the pound cake.

      She pulled out her bin of flour and got down some yeast from the shelf. It took a long time to make bread from scratch, but it was worth it.

      She hadn’t changed into anything fancy, although she did have on a new pair of blue jeans and a pink checked shirt that buttoned up. She also tucked a pink ribbon into her long blond hair, which she tidied into a bun on top of her head. She wasn’t elegant, or beautiful, but she could at least look like a girl when she tried.

      And he noticed the minute he walked in the door. He cocked his head and stared down at her with amusement.

      “You’re a girl,” he said with mock surprise.

      She glared up at him. “I’m a woman.”

      He pursed his lips. “Not yet.”

      She flushed. She tried for a comeback but she couldn’t fumble one out of her flustered mind.

      “Sorry,” he said gently, and became serious when he noted her reaction to the teasing. “That wasn’t fair. Especially since you went to all the trouble to make me fresh rolls.” He lifted his head and sniffed appreciably.

      “How did you know that?”

      He tapped his nose. “I have a superlative sense of smell. Did I ever tell you about the time I tracked a wanted murderer by the way he smelled?” he added. “He was wearing some gosh-awful cheap cologne. I just followed the scent and walked up to him with my gun out. He’d spent a whole day covering his trail and stumbling over rocks to throw me off the track. He was so shocked when I walked into his camp that he just gave up without a fight.”

      “Did you tell him that his smell gave him away?” she asked, chuckling.

      “No. I didn’t want him to mention it to anybody when he went to jail. No need to give criminals a heads-up about something like that.”

      “Native Americans are great trackers,” she commented.

      He glowered down at her. “Anybody can be a good tracker. It comes from training, not ancestry.”

      “Well, aren’t you touchy,” she exclaimed.

      He averted his eyes. He shrugged. “Banes has been at it again.”

      “You should assign him to school crossings. He hates that,” she advised.

      “No, he doesn’t. His new girlfriend is a widow. She’s got a little boy, and Banes has suddenly become his hero. He’d love to work the school crossing.”

      “Still, you could find some unpleasant duty to assign him. Didn’t he say once that he hates being on traffic detail at ball games?”

      He brightened. “You know, he did say that.”

      “See? An opportunity presents itself.” She frowned. “Why are we looking for ways to punish him this time?”

      “He brought in a new book on the Little Bighorn Battle and showed me where it said Crazy Horse wasn’t in the fighting.”

      She gave him a droll look. “Oh, sure.”

      He grimaced. “Every so often, some writer who never saw a real Native American gets a bunch of hearsay evidence together and writes a book about how he’s the only one who knows the true story of some famous battle. This guy also said that Custer was nuts and had a hand in the post trader scandal where traders were cheating the Sioux and Cheyenne.”

      “Nobody who reads extensively about Custer would believe he had a hand in something so dishonest,” she scoffed. “He went to court and testified against President Ulysses S. Grant’s own brother in that corruption trial, СКАЧАТЬ