One Cowboy, One Christmas. Kathleen Eagle

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СКАЧАТЬ thaw-awww…” He tried and failed to hold his own, took a moment to brace himself against his slimshouldered buttress, and tried again. Through her parka and his jacket, Ann could feel the violent quiver in his left hip. The cause was more than mere cold. “…thaw me out. Damn.”

      “I’m afraid you’ve broken something.”

      “Yeah.” He waved his free arm toward the pottery shards scattered across the porch. “Hadda…kill that…dog. S-sorry.”

      “I’ll put him in Grandma’s room,” Ann told her sister, the doorstop. “No way can we get him up the stairs.”

      Grandma had been dead for fifteen years, but the spare room in the back of the house was still Grandma’s. Sally had the master bedroom on the main floor, and the hired man had his own bunkhouse, so Ann had the second floor all to herself. If nothing else, there was no shortage of sleeping quarters at the Double D Ranch.

      “We should put him in some warm water first.” Sally closed the front door and ducked under Zach’s free arm, where she’d been once before. Briefly. “Or tepid water. Can you handle yourself in the bathtub, Zach?”

      “Handle my…self?”

      “Get your blood circulating again,” Sally chirped. She’d been hurting and tired an hour ago, but cowboys—on TV or, better yet, in person—never failed to put some lift in her voice, which was music to momentarily dispel all Ann’s misgivings about the man. After so many years, why not?

      “Hands f-frozen,” the cowboy muttered. “Can’t handle m-much.”

      “How about your clothes? Can you take your clothes—oops.” Ann grabbed the newel post and redoubled her support. “Steady.”

      “Blackin’ out a little.”

      He was leaning a lot. The hard brim of that big hat clobbered her in the eye. That hat. She remembered trying to find the windows to his soul in the shadows, but from where she had lain, he’d been all succulent lips, chiseled nose and hat brim.

       Aren’t you going to take off your hat?

       That’s up to you.

      Ann grabbed his hat and scored a ringer over the newel post as they started down the hall. She kept her eyes on the road and off the passenger as the threesome bounced off the walls a few times on their way to the bathroom, where Sally used the rubber end of her cane to push the door wide open. She took the lead but stepped aside with a nod toward the toilet. “Sit down. No, wait.” Again the cane extended her reach, and the toilet lid clattered over the seat.

      Their guest gave a dry chuckle. “Up for b-boys, down for girls. I’m a…”

      “Here.” While Sally started running the bathwater, Ann shouldered him into place over the toilet seat. Heave… “Sit right here, Zach.”

      “No, I’m good. Boys can go…” ho “…outside. But don’t tell Ma.” He looked up at Ann and frowned as she unbuttoned his long-on-style, lean-on-insulation jacket. “Ma?”

      Sally grabbed her arm. “You’d better let me handle that, Annie.”

      “I don’t think so. He’s a big hunk of dead weight.” His pathetic excuse for a laugh turned into a feeble groan. Ann closed her eyes and tugged on his belt buckle. “I just hope he’s wearing some kind of underwear.” Not that she was prudish, really.

      Well, maybe a little.

      “Me, too,” he muttered.

      “How’s the water, Sally?” Ann straddled his leg and started working on a boot. “Help me out, Zach. Wiggle your foot a little.”

      “Can’t feel ‘em. Musta lost ‘em.”

      “Just a little,” she coaxed, and felt a little movement, a little slippage. “That’s good.”

      “Aaaaa!”

      “There. Found a foot.”

      “It sure smells like a foot,” Sally said in response to the drop of a ripe black sock.

      “Looks like a bunch of red peppers.” Ann gently curled her hand around five stiff toes. Zach sucked air between his teeth, and she quivered deep in her stomach.

      “I think red is good. You don’t want to see any blueberries,” Sally said, and he groaned again. “Or raisins. Or—”

      “Not hungry.” He slumped, and his forehead rested against Ann’s hip. “Gimme a minute to get…”

      Ann slipped her arm around his back. “Okay, let’s get you in the tub.”

      “You have to get his jeans off, Annie.”

      “Well, we have to get him up.”

      “I…I can…” He floundered and swayed, but with a little help he stood for his undressing.

      Ann drew a deep breath, unbuttoned, unzipped and unseated his jeans. Brief boxers answered the earlier question. They were gray and snug, and he was an innie.

      Hands on her shoulders, he steadied himself and posed a new one. “Am I up?”

      Sally had the nerve to laugh.

      “Lift your leg,” Ann ordered. He did, but he almost lost what little balance he’d achieved. “Not on me!”

      “What kind of a dog—” flailing, he grabbed the side of the tub and stepped free of his jeans “—you take me for?”

      “The kind that’s better thawed.” On hands and knees Ann bumped his leg with her shoulder. “Can you step in the tub, please? Use the rail.”

      She found herself looking up at her sister between a pair of sparsely hairy legs. Sally was leaning heavily on her cane, but her grin was easily worth Ann’s indignity.

      “Rail?”

      “Like you’re getting down in the chute, Zach.” Sally helped him find her safety rail. “Slow and—”

      “Yeowww!”

      “—easy,” Sally warned as he went down like a drunk on a banana peel. His hold on the safety rail was all that kept him from going under.

      Ann was soaked. “Trust me, it isn’t hot.”

      Knees in the air, Zach slid down the back of the tub, up to his chin in rocking and rolling water. Ann reached for his shoulders and held him still. “Just for a few minutes.”

      His sporadic shivers shifted to steady shuddering.

      “You have to rub to get the blood flowing,” Sally instructed from the sidelines. “Unless there’s frostbite. No rubbing frostbite.”

      “How will I know if something’s frostbitten?”

      “You start rubbing, it’ll fall off СКАЧАТЬ