A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas. Maisey Yates

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      In the end, he’d been the one to put them up.

      Somehow, he’d been the deciding vote, since he was seen as neutral ground in some ways.

      Funny, he wasn’t sure he considered himself neutral. Just apathetic about pretty much anything that didn’t involve alcohol.

      Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He liked to ride horses. In some ways, he thought that this endeavor at the Get Out of Dodge ranch had saved him. Sitting behind that desk had been a slow path to hell. When he’d been working at the power company still, his only solace really had been drinking.

      He had spent so many years ignoring the way that other men his age lived their lives. Had spent so many years pushing down the kinds of appetites men his age had. Had honed his entire focus onto his wife. Not on the things they didn’t have, but on what they did have.

      Their small, perfect house down in town, within walking distance of all the cute little shops that she loved so much. Cozy dinners in on the nights when she felt like eating. And sometimes, Ensure shakes on the couch with a movie on when she didn’t.

      On those kinds of nights he waited until she went to bed, then heated up a TV dinner after she fell asleep. Not because he was hiding the fact that he was eating. She wouldn’t want him to do that. He just didn’t like to remind her of anything she might be missing.

      He’d stripped his life down to the essentials because he didn’t want to be out living a life that Lindsay couldn’t. There was no one on earth he could talk to about it. And anyway, he spent as much time as possible talking to Lindsay when she had been alive.

      The problem was, after she’d died, after he’d clawed his way out of the initial fog of grief, what he’d found on the other side was that he didn’t exactly know how to live anymore. Not like a normal person. He didn’t have a confidant, didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it.

      And there had been so many things he had mentally put a blockade around. Things he couldn’t do. Things he couldn’t have.

      Hell, staying at his job was a prime example.

      He didn’t love it. Not even a little. But when Lindsay had been alive it had been a necessity. He’d needed that exact amount of money to keep up payments on their house. Had needed that specific kind of job so he had the kind of health insurance required to pay for her extensive treatments.

      When she was gone, he hadn’t needed the job. Not anymore.

      But he’d stayed in it. For years longer than he needed to. Had stayed in the house, too.

      Routine, as much as anything else.

      Sometimes he’d even had those chocolate meal-replacement shakes with a shot of whiskey for dinner because he’d missed them.

      Realizing he was stuck, realizing that he didn’t have to live that way anymore, had been the first realization on the other side of that initial punch of grief.

      That was when he’d started boxing things up. Returning some items to Lindsay’s parents, keeping just two things for himself.

      Her wedding ring set and the country Christmas snowman, carved from wood that she had insisted on setting out every holiday season. He’d hated it. Had given her a hard time about how god-awful it was. Made from knotty wood, with wire arms, and strange, knitted mitten hands. He thought the thing was everything that was wrong with a holiday craft bazaar.

      In the end, of course, it had been one of the things he hadn’t been able to part with.

      It lived in a box up in his closet, but he had it.

      The rings he kept on a chain around his neck, along with his. Hidden under his shirt, but there all the same.

      It had been three years before he’d taken his own ring off his finger. He hadn’t done it for a specific reason. Not really. It was just that at some point he realized he was putting on a wedding ring every morning, and he wasn’t married.

      That was when he’d added it to the chain that had her rings.

      The chain seemed right.

      He wasn’t married. But it was impossible not to carry that marriage with him.

      It had shaped him. Changed him.

      Even if there was no reason for him to live like she was still here.

      Sometime after deciding to put the house up for sale, while he was still working at the power company, his drinking had gotten worse. Mostly, because he didn’t know what else to do with himself. He’d gone from one box to another.

      And it was only Wyatt deciding to make some changes on the ranch that had really pulled him out of that dark, well-worn routine he’d found himself in.

      His older brother had saved his life.

      Damned if he’d ever tell him that, but it was the truth.

      “Is this where you...eat?”

      It took him a moment to realize he’d been standing there in complete silence while McKenna poked around the deck.

      “Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes we eat in the mess hall. Because it’s a little bit more centrally located than the main house. Though, when we have guests, not as much.”

      “Do you have guests right now?”

      He nodded. “Some. So, if we eat inside, we just make sure to avoid mealtimes. Though the appearance of ranch hands adds to the experience, I guess.”

      “I would think a lot of the women would pay extra for you guys to come wandering through.” She smirked, her expression taking on an impish quality he hadn’t seen before.

      He didn’t know quite what to make of that. He supposed she was saying he was good-looking.

      He didn’t know why.

      And he didn’t know how to feel about it, either.

      “I’ll suggest Wyatt and Bennett pencil being living props into their schedule.”

      “Not you?” she asked.

      He shifted, feeling uncomfortable. “I think I might scare them away.”

      She shrugged. “Some women dig the asshole thing.”

      He cleared his throat. “I’ll make a note of that.”

      He pushed open the back door, led her into the dining hall. No one was in the large room. There were rows of vacant tables and benches, all clean and ready for the next meal.

      Two large dispensers of coffee from Sugar Cup were set up on a long, bright blue table that was pushed up against the back wall, along with fixings for cider, hot chocolate and tea. In exchange for sending people on to the coffeehouse, they provided the ranch with coffee. And as far as Grant was concerned, it was a pretty good deal. An employee brought out fresh urns in the morning, and picked them up in the afternoon.

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