Chapter 7
Chloe
“I know it sounds weird. But it’s happening.”
I was on the phone with Astrid in Tex’s bathroom, whispering to make sure he couldn’t hear me.
Astrid said, “Wait. So you’re saying you’re on Red Oak Mountain at Sexy Santa’s house.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure it’s the same guy?”
I laughed quietly. “He’s pretty unforgettable. It’s definitely him.”
The worry in her voice carried through. “How do you know he didn’t set the whole thing up? Maybe he booked you and pretended it was his friends.”
“How could he anticipate a snowstorm? The gig was booked a few weeks ago. Plus, he’s not like that.”
I thought about what he was like.
Tex had that grumpy outer shell that he wore. But already even in the short amount of time I’d known him, I could see that he was a caring man. He seemed genuinely concerned about my safety on the roads.
My intuition told me he was a good man.
“Astrid, I know it’s important to be careful. But that’s why I called to tell you where I am. I get a good feeling off him. I’m safe here. Promise.”
I could feel my friend ease even over the phone line. Then she shifted gears completely. “Well, in that case, are you going to fuck him?”
It was impossible to hold back my laugh. When I’d finally recovered myself I said, “If the opportunity presents itself I promise to hop right on his dick.”
“Good girl. That’s the spirit!”
Astrid, despite her own recent breakup, had been trying to get me to date again after Todd. Not that Tex wanted to date me.
But if he did… well, maybe that wouldn’t be a problem after all. I was starting to second guess my decision to write off men completely.
She laughed. “It sounds like you’re going to spend Christmas Eve together.”
It was tomorrow. “Yeah. Which is funny, because I’m stuck dressed like a Christmas elf and the man hates Christmas! Can you imagine what he must be thinking every time he looks at me?”
“I’ve seen your elf getup. He’s probably trying to figure out how to fuck you in that costume. It shows all your curves.”
I looked in the mirror, wondering if she was right. Then noticed that my hair had gone in four different directions since I’d last seen my hairbrush.
I hopped off the phone and tried to do something about it, finger-combing it back into submission.
Then I walked back out to his living room, trying to act casual.
“Everything good with work?” Tex asked, looking up from a project he was tinkering with at his kitchen table.
“Yeah. They said it was fine as long as I get back by Christmas. That’s when the big rush will hit. Everyone eats out on holidays. My bank account on the other hand…”
“I already offered to pay.”
That earned a fast headshake from me. “No, sir. Absolutely not.” I walked over and plopped down in the kitchen chair across from him. “What are you doing?”
“Fixing Sally’s harness for Rod. One of the leather straps gave out.”
“Sally. That’s the horse?”
Tex glanced up at me, his dark eyes assessing me carefully. “Yup.”
“Who’s Rod?”
His eyes never left my face. “He owns the Santa sleigh ride business. He’s my uncle.”
I couldn’t help but notice a flicker of emotion flash in his eyes.
“Do you do the Santa gig all the time? Because if I’m being honest, you were the grumpiest Santa that I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine that’s good for business.”
He sighed. “It’s not. I’m just filling in until Rod gets…”
Tex’s words trailed off, and I held back the urge to pepper him with a hundred questions. But I got the feeling this was the kind of man who warmed up slowly and trusted even slower. So I held my tongue and watched him work.
I’d never been one who had to fill every minute with chatter. So we fell into a comfortable silence. It took him about twenty minutes to finish the task, and we didn’t say a word the entire time.
When he was finally done, he glanced up at me, his eyes catching on mine.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got a batch of rabbit stew I could heat up if you haven’t had dinner.” Then he glanced down at my torso. “Do you have a change of clothes in your car? I can’t imagine that elf costume will be comfortable tonight. Plus, it doesn’t look warm enough.”
“Yes to the stew. Thank you. No to the change of clothes. I just have this costume and my winter coat. I never expected to get stuck in the snowstorm.”
He got up and pulled a pot out of the fridge and put it on the stove. Then glanced back at me again. “I’ve got a sweater that would probably fit you, but I don’t think my pants can accommodate your… hips.”
I flushed with embarrassment. I was definitely a plus-size girl. And Tex was a big guy, but he was big in a rock-hard-muscle kind of way. Not the dad-bod version. I’d never fit in his pants.
“The costume is actually pretty comfortable,” I lied through my teeth. “I’ll be fine. But I might keep my coat over it until we go to bed for extra warmth.”
His eyes flashed up to mine when I said the word bed, a flicker of heat flashing between us.
Tex walked over to an overstuffed coat rack, grabbed a sweater off of it and clomped back over.
“Try this on,” he rumbled. “It’ll be more comfortable.”
It was a wool zip-up sweater, and it felt divine.
Tex kept his cabin toasty warm, but the feel of the soft wool made me even warmer. The scent of the man clung to the fabric. It wafted up to my nose, mixed with wood smoke and the faint smell of horses. I breathed in deep and zipped it up.
“That’ll work?”
“Perfectly. I’ve never been around horses before. It seems cool.”
“My uncle’s always had them.”
“Rod?”
“Yeah. I grew up with horses. Learned to ride when I was six years old.”
“And you grew up here on Red Oak Mountain?”
“Yup. Born and raised. Wouldn’t leave it for any other place.”
My heart clenched in on itself. “That must be nice.”
“What?” he asked as he deposited a warm bowl of stew in front of me.
“Feeling like you have a home-base. My life has been… full of travel.” That was the nice way of saying that my childhood had lacked a certain level of stability. We’d moved frequently. Not just from one apartment to another in the same town, but between states.
My mom had done right by us, but she’d been a travel nurse. Which meant we’d traveled the nation pretty extensively. My shortest stint in one school had been three months. Talk about whiplash.
Tex studied me closely while I ate the stew. “Is that what you like? No roots? Lots of adventure?”
I laughed. “That’s the opposite of my life. Well, I mean, I want it to be the opposite of my life.”
I’d fallen into the same trap as my mom, moving to chase better circumstances. But I’d never found the right place to call home.
I looked around his cabin. My place would be something like this. Homey, unpretentious, connected to nature. There’d be good people and clean air.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, I guess I grew up without much of a home base. We moved a lot for my mom’s work. As an adult, I’ve found myself moving more than I ever thought I would. But I think it’s because I haven’t found my spot in the world yet.”
He shook his head and looked away, as though I’d confirmed something. Then grunted, “The grass is always greener.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Well, why’d you move to Fernwood?”
My cheeks warmed. “It was for a… relationship. But that didn’t work out.”
He took my empty stew bowl away and washed it in the sink. “So you moved to Fernwood for a man? Didn’t you vet him first?”
“Of course I did. But you can’t control relationships. They either bloom or implode. Ours… ended. And it’s for the best.”
“What was wrong with him?” Mr. Santa Grump sure was asking a lot of questions.
“Nothing was wrong with him. But I grew to realize we weren’t the right fit.”
“Why not?”
The intensity of his questions took me by surprise. I met his eyes with a fiery strength in mine. “Because I found out he was a controlling asshole. He wanted a living, breathing doll, not a partner for life. Fuck that. I’d rather be alone and broke than live like that.”
He took a deep breath. “Oh. Sorry that happened to you.” Then he got up and rummaged around in an antique wooden cupboard for a minute, before futzing around at the stove again.
Over his shoulder he said, “I dated a control-freak once. Didn’t last long. You know she wanted to change the color of my underwear? What she wanted was a male model pretending to live a rustic lifestyle who would look good on her Instagram pages. Not a man who actually lives like this.”
Looking around again, I said, “It seems ideal to me.”
“Does it?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Not many women are satisfied with a one-bedroom cabin.”
“It can’t be much different than a studio apartment. That’s what I currently have. Month-to-month. Talk about not feeling attached to a place.”
Tex came back to the table with two hot mugs. “Well, I’m attached to this patch of land. It was my daddy’s, and his daddy’s before him. My uncle grew up here, too, before building his own place on the mountain. There are a lot of memories in these walls.”
“I can’t do coffee this late. I’ll never sleep. Thanks, though.”
“It’s not coffee. It’s hot cocoa,” he rumbled, as he slid one of the mugs towards me.
My lips parted. Had Tex just made me hot chocolate? He might actually be my dream man. I took a sip and groaned. “This is sooo good!”
“My friend Kat has a goat herd. Every now and then she sells me some goat’s milk when she has extra. And the chocolate is German. It makes a difference.”
“This is like dessert!”
“Yeah. It’s easy to make. Fresh, whole milk and a bar of chocolate—only half a bar if I’m making it just for me. A pinch of salt and sugar. The trick is, you have to use whole milk. Two percent won’t work the same.”
“You might be my dream man,” I groaned after I took another sip. “Oh! I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
He grinned at me. Tex had a lopsided smile that made him look softer and less stern. He almost looked goofy. It was my favorite look on a man.
And despite being wicked hot, he didn’t seem to play the same games that some guys did. I got the feeling that Tex was genuine, through and through. What you see is what you get. And ladies, I’ve got to tell you, I liked what I saw.