True-Blue Cowboy Christmas (28 page)

Then she'd said it again when the crisis with Linda was over, certain and sure, not caring who was in the room to hear.

He thought of all the moments he'd been so careful with. He'd been waiting for the right time all of his life, always thwarted by the world not waiting for him. “I was going to say
vows
. I was going to say I'll put that in my vows.”

“Like…” She paused but her gaze didn't falter. “Wedding vows.”

“Yes.”

“You haven't asked me to marry you.”

“No, I haven't.” He wouldn't do it tonight, but that didn't mean she shouldn't know he would. And soon.

“But you were…going to?”

“I was thinking about it.”

She pressed her lips together, but the grin must have been too strong because she smiled big and wide, a few more tears slipping over her cheeks. “All right,” she said in a choked whisper. “Good to know. When did you start thinking about that?”

He touched a thumb to a tear on her cheek and swept it away. “Every night when you go, there's a hole in my heart. When you're sleeping less than a mile away and it isn't with me. I thought I'd plan it out. The right number of months. The right number of words, but the hole is there, and it only gets wider the more I know you and love you.”

“Thack…”

“And I do love you. I've wasted a lot of moments by trying to plan them out right and control my life. I've kept everyone and everything safe and secreted away, and I've missed things because of it. That attitude hasn't done much more than allow me to survive. I don't want to wait. You've become a part of our family. There's no point in not making that official as soon as possible…unless you don't want to.”

“Do you honestly think there's even a one percent chance I'd say I didn't want to?”

It was his turn to grin. “No, that's why I said it.”

She took a step toward him, placing her hand over his heart as she'd done so many times. Soothing, supportive, romantic. She could put her hand over his heart a million different ways, and this was one he would never forget.

“I love you too. I came here for love and to find my future, although a part of me didn't think I'd ever get it or deserve it. But how you love and take care of Kate showed me otherwise.”

“Sum—”

“No, you made your grand declaration, so you don't get to stop mine. I think you're the strongest, sturdiest…
best
man I know. I'll ever know. However we cobble our lives together, our weaknesses and strengths, our vulnerabilities, I will always come to you instead of running away.”

He couldn't speak beyond the lump in his throat, so he drew her into his arms instead. He held on, because as much as he got something out of holding her, she got something out of being held. Most surprising of all, it worked the other way around as well.

He'd given her his words, his heart, and she'd returned them. There would be days that the fear of losing that, losing the family he'd thought he'd already had and lost, would be powerful. Overwhelming even.

But there would always be this, and so he would always remember.

He wasn't sure how long they held on to each other in the glow of the Christmas tree she'd helped decorate, but eventually they let each other go. Eventually, they put out Santa's gifts and filled Kate's stocking. They ate the cookies, and Summer made sure to leave crumbs on the plate and wrote a special letter from Santa.

And when Thack went to bed, he went to bed with the woman he loved, and that was definitely the best Christmas present he'd ever received.

“You're making me dizzy,” Delia groaned as Summer fluttered around the dining room table, making sure they had enough plates and glasses.

“Then go sit down,” Summer retorted, giving Delia's still-flat belly a little love pat.

Delia glared at her. “I'm only letting you get away with that because it's Christmas.”

Summer beamed at her sister-in-law. “Okay, I think we have enough dishes. Now, hopefully there's enough food.”

“Summer, you made enough for fifty people. Adding six more isn't going to make a dent.”

Mel popped her head into the dining room. “I think the Lanes are here.”

Summer made a little squeak that both Mel and Delia rolled their eyes at, but they also smiled as Summer hurried to the front door. She flung it open and grinned—possibly a little giddily—as Thack and Kate, Mr. Lane and Mrs. Bart, and Kate's grandparents piled out of two cars.

Summer had met Kate's grandparents on their arrival this morning. Though the meeting had been slightly awkward, Stan and Marjorie had been too happy spending time with Kate to dwell on it. And, without too much discussion, they had agreed to come to the Shaws for Christmas dinner.

Summer had escaped at lunchtime to put her dinner plans into place, though Mel and Delia and Delia's legion of sisters had already started things for her.

She ushered everyone inside, taking coats and accepting a hug from Kate, a kiss on the cheek from Thack.

Never in a million years—even last Christmas when she'd been here with the Shaws, and Mel and Dan had been married—had Summer dreamed her life would be
so
full even a year later. Even her most fantastical dreams couldn't match up to this reality.

She made introductions where introductions needed to be made, and soon everyone had found someone to chat with. Summer snuck away to the dining room to make sure everything had been laid out properly.

“You know it's all going to be amazing, right?”

She glanced up at Thack, who had apparently followed her.

“I just wanted to make sure it was…perfect.” She grinned. “But it already is, isn't it?”

Thack nodded. He was wearing a green button-down shirt that made the green of his eyes that much brighter. He was so handsome, and he was hers.
Hers
. This moment truly
was
perfect, no matter what challenges lay ahead of them. “Let's get everyone seated then.” She walked over to him, ready to walk out to the living room, but his hand grasped her arm.

“Wait.” He nodded toward the ceiling. “Mistletoe.”

Summer looked up, but all she saw was the plain white ceiling of the dining room. “What are you talking about? There isn't anything—”

But his mouth closed over hers, and she smiled and leaned into the kiss. A perfect moment she would always, always cherish. When he pulled away, she grinned up at him. “Sneaky, sneaky. You probably don't need to be sneaky to get a kiss from me.”

He grinned right back, that levity she loved seeing in him all over his face. “I'll have to remember that.”

Arm in arm, they went back to the living room and guided everyone to their seats around the large, heirloom table. The room was packed to the gills with people, but that somehow made it all the more perfect.

How often Summer had spent lonely holidays with only her mother, or only strangers, or even occasionally all by herself. This was certainly her Christmas miracle.

“I'd like to make a toast.” Dad's voice rumbled through the room, garnering curious looks from his children and their spouses.

Though Summer had been moved by Dad's words and gifts, both to her and to Mel and Caleb, she hadn't expected him to engage quite so much. She could see the strain of it in the lines around his mouth, in the bags under his eyes.

But he was doing it anyway, and that made her heart fill more—if that was even possible.

Dad lifted his glass. “To family,” he said simply.

It was all that needed to be said. Because here they all were, surrounded by family. Shaws, Sharpes, Rogers, and Lanes. Three generations of strong-willed, flawed,
loved
people.

“To family,” Summer repeated with everyone else. She clinked her glass with everyone she could reach, and underneath the table she linked hands with Thack.

She looked around at the smiling faces, her siblings and their spouses, her niece dozing in Mel's lap, Kate all but bouncing in her seat next to the grandparents she so deserved to get to know. Mrs. Bart and Mr. Lane smiling happily at each other.

Family. Love. Hope.
Happiness.

A Christmas miracle, indeed.

Nicole Helm writes down-to-earth contemporary romance specializing in people who don't live close enough to neighbors for them to be a problem. When she's not writing or taking care of her two rambunctious boys, she spends her time dreaming about someday owning a barn. Visit her at
www.nicolehelm.wordpress.com
.

Rebel Cowboy

Book 1 in the Big Sky Cowboys Series

by Nicole Helm

Under a big sky

For hotshot NHL star Dan Sharpe, hockey isn't just his job—it's his everything. But when claims of cheating get him bounced from the ice, he finds himself feeling lost. Everyone thinks he's crazy for taking on his grandfather's ramshackle Montana ranch, but, hey, he's Dan Sharpe: How hard can it be?

As it turns out? Plenty hard.

Mel Shaw has been fighting tooth and nail to keep her family from falling apart. The last thing she needs is a distraction, but taking a job as some city slicker's consultant may be her only chance to save the land she loves. She never expected someone like Dan to come roaring into her life, and it doesn't take long for Mel to realize this hockey star turned cowboy has the power to upend her carefully ordered world—and heart—for good.

“Full of emotion, a little heat, and some great banter.”
—Long and Short Reviews
on
Flight Risk

For more Nicole Helm, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com

Outlaw Cowboy

Big Sky Cowboys

by Nicole Helm

BIG SKY TROUBLE

Ever since his father's accident, Caleb Shaw vowed he'd mend his wild ways, and he means to keep his word. He's a changed man. A better man. And he knows he should want absolutely nothing to do with his crazy old life…or the maddening temptation that is Delia Rogers.

Delia's been stealing her sisters away from their violent father ever since she was old enough to fight back. But now, with the police on her trail and all her bridges burned, there's nowhere left to run but back into the arms of the one man she knows she shouldn't need. Caleb has always been too good for her, no matter how bad he claimed to be. Yet when close quarters turn into something more, Delia and Caleb are forced to decide what really matters: mending their reputations or healing their wary hearts…

Praise for
Rebel Cowboy
:

“Plenty of sexual tension and scintillating love scenes… A true page-turner.” —
Publishers Weekly

“A beautifully crafted romance.” —
USA Today Happy Ever After

For more Nicole Helm, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com

Reckless in Texas

Texas Rodeo

by Kari Lynn Dell

Texas Homecoming

Violet Jacobs is fearless. At least, that's what the cowboys trusting her to snatch them from under the hooves of bucking bulls think. Outside the ring, she's got plenty of worries rattling her bones: her young son, her mess of a love life, and lately, her family's struggling rodeo. When she takes business into her own hands and hires on a hotshot bullfighter, she expects to start a ruckus, but she never expected Joe Cassidy. Rough-and-tumble, cocky and charming, Joe's everything a superstar should be—and it doesn't take a genius to figure out he's way out of Violet's league.

Joe came to Texas to escape a life spiraling out of control. He never planned on sticking around, and he certainly never expected to call this dry and dusty backwater
home
. But Violet is everything he never realized he was missing, and the deeper he's pulled into her beautiful mess of a family, the more he realizes this fierce rodeo girl may be offering him the one thing he could never find on his own…

Praise for Kari Lynn Dell:

“An extraordinarily gifted writer.” —Karen Templeton, three-time RITA award-winning author

For more Kari Lynn Dell, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com

How to Wrangle a Cowboy

Cowboys of Decker Ranch

by Joanne Kennedy

A city girl whose love for her inherited ranch won't pay off a mountain of debt…

A rugged ranch foreman raising his little boy all by himself…

Amid the exhilarating scent of hay and sagebrush under the wide-open sky, these two tenderhearted, stubbornly idealistic people face conditions they can't control. Going toe-to-toe against each other won't get the job done. At the end of the day, Lindsey Ward and Shane Lockhart can only make the right choices if they make them together…

Praise for
Joanne Kennedy
:

“When it comes to capturing the appeal and feel of the west, nobody does it better.” —
Booklist

“Absolutely perfect.” —
Fresh Fiction
for
Cowboy Fever

“Kennedy's characters are sexy, smart, troubled, flawed—real. If you are a fan of Western romances, Joanne Kennedy should be at the top of your list of favorites.” —
Fresh Fiction

For more Joanne Kennedy, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com

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