A Very Maverick Christmas. Rachel Lee

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ as if he’d just made a huge leap. Of course, if anyone saw him having coffee with Julie Smith, the teasing was going to go through the roof.

      Oh, well. He was used to it. Being the last Traub bachelor in town had not only increased the teasing, but had taught him that he seemed to be under some kind of local microscope, too. All the women who had come into town in a veritable wave looking for husbands had added to the local curiosity about a guy who seemed impervious to all those wiles.

      He could just imagine what some folk suspected, although he didn’t really care. When the right woman came along, well... It was as his mother had once said, “Dating is a series of no, no, no until you finally get to yes.” Well, he’d had a few nos, enough to realize that dating could be a huge investment. Better to be picky before you really got started.

      He pulled four plain Western shirts off the rack, glad that he hadn’t given in to a whim to go to Kalispell for a few hours. All he’d wanted were work shirts, and now he was going to have coffee with Julie Smith. His curiosity quickened again. At the very least he wanted to know why such a beautiful young woman seemed to hang back in some very noticeable ways.

      Sort of like him, he thought humorously. Maybe she had some bad romances in her past.

      “Stocking up again,” said Nina as she checked him out. “You’re hard on shirts, Braden Traub. Dallas takes better care than you do.”

      “Blame it on the barbed wire.”

      Nina rolled her eyes. Once his shirts were in a paper bag, he saw Julie approaching with a cart that contained two red throw pillows, the electric-blue blanket she’d been admiring, and some packaged chicken breasts, frozen vegetables and a couple of potatoes.

      Bachelor fare, he thought as he stood back and waited. And given how cold it was outside, sunshine notwithstanding, if she put everything in her trunk, it would probably freeze before she got home.

      Assuming he could keep her from bolting before she’d spent ten minutes with him.

      God, she was pretty. Each time he looked at her, he felt it anew. And it wasn’t just those big blue eyes, blond hair or figure. It was an aura of, well, innocence. She reminded him of a lamb exploring the world for the first time, trying bravely and then showing huge timidity at something startlingly new. But she had to be somewhere in her early twenties, and that didn’t seem to fit with the whole innocence thing. More innocent than he was, certainly, but not a child.

      He hoped he’d find out something about her. If he could quiet his curiosity, maybe he wouldn’t feel so drawn to her, and he could safely escape another entanglement doomed for failure.

      He offered to help with her bags, although he was sure she could have carried them herself. Manners had been ingrained at an early age. A kind of old-fashioned chivalry, judging by much of what he saw of the world today. He had no doubt, however, that Nina would report back to Dallas, and he’d take another round of ribbing. Sometimes this town could be too small.

      She blushed, but let him take a couple of the bags and carry them to her car. Then she lowered the boom he’d half expected.

      “I should get this food home and into a refrigerator.”

      Braden didn’t often give anyone a hard time, but some stubbornness reared in him. “It’s freezing out here. You put the chicken and frozen vegetables in your trunk, and it’ll stay colder than it would in your fridge while we have coffee. Not the potatoes, though. Don’t want them to freeze.”

      In the bright morning sunlight, with the air as clear as fresh-washed glass, she looked even prettier. He saw emotions chase across her face, and she bit her lip.

      “It’s just coffee,” he said gently.

      “Just coffee,” she repeated. Then, at long last, “Okay.”

      “Let’s go to Daisy’s donut shop on North Broomtail,” he prodded gently. “You can bring your own car and run as soon as you need to.”

      Her face darkened in a way that told him he’d said exactly the wrong thing, but then, making an effort, she smoothed it over. “Sure. I’ll see you there.”

      Wondering if she’d even show up, he went over to his mud-splashed truck, climbed in and left it to her to follow. He wasn’t going to force himself on any woman, even for a chance to talk.

      * * *

      After Braden drove off, Julie dithered in her car for a few minutes, letting it warm up. Well, that was her excuse anyway. Braden appealed to her, undeniably. She felt a jolt of sexual awareness every time she saw him. But was that enough to take this kind of risk?

      What did she have to talk to him about? Her few months here in Rust Creek? His family, whom she did not really know? Maybe she could ask enough questions to keep him talking. But what if he asked questions?

      She sat like a terrified rabbit for maybe five minutes until she realized the heat was blasting in her face, and if Braden was waiting for her, she was being rude. He’d helped her load her car. He must be wondering why she hadn’t followed right away. That’s what any normal woman would have done, wasn’t it?

      She put the car in gear and headed for the donut shop. There’d be other people there, limiting their topics of conversation, she assured herself. Besides, as she’d been arguing to herself this morning, being a hermit was unlikely to get her any closer to the answers she wanted.

      Stupid, she thought, to so desperately want to know about her past yet be equally frightened of finding out. Normal reaction, the psychologist had said, but how could anyone really know what was normal for someone who’d lost all memory of her past until she woke in a hospital unable to even remember her name? Her kind of retrograde amnesia was extremely rare, so rare that at first the doctors hadn’t seemed to believe her.

      Some memory loss happened. Total memory loss was in a class of its own, evidently.

      It didn’t take long to reach the donut shop. Braden’s truck was there, and she glimpsed him through the window. He waved when he saw her pulling in. The gesture warmed her a bit, and took the edge off her nerves. At least her knees didn’t feel like rubber as she climbed out and walked toward the door. She’d get through this, the way she had gotten through everything so far.

      She had certainly gotten through a lot. Her memory of the last four years, short though it was, reminded her that she was made of sterner stuff than she sometimes thought. Maybe she should congratulate herself on getting this far, instead of fearing the next twenty minutes.

      But his remark about her being able to run as soon as she wanted returned to her, and she wondered if she was giving everyone the impression that she wanted to bolt. Well, sometimes she did. Sometimes she seriously wanted to bolt from this whole situation. But where could she go? This was one of those things she would take with her wherever she went. No escape.

      To her surprise, Braden opened the door for her. She hadn’t expected that, just walking into a coffee shop. His smile was welcoming, his voice kind as he teased, “I thought I’d lost you.”

      His eyes were warm, just like his smile, and she felt some inner tension let go. “I just warmed up the car a bit. The guy I bought it from said I shouldn’t make a habit of running with a cold engine.”

      “Good advice, usually. You can see how well I pay attention to it.”

      He СКАЧАТЬ