Chapter 10
Evan
Lizzie was a revelation to me. She cheered my world up.
I could feel it brightening as she spoke about the music she’d written with none other than the Holly Collette and how she wanted to put together a rodeo tour to give the songs back to Holly’s fans and introduce Holly’s music to younger generations.
Her idea would also raise money for other women to fight against douchebags in their jobs who treated them like shit to get ahead.
It was a great idea.
“But I can’t go back to the rodeo, Lizzie,” I said after she’d finished telling me her idea and how she wanted me to help her. “And I can’t leave my home.” I pointed to the perfect tree in front of me. Five and a half feet tall, full, and glistening with white snow. “How ’bout this one?”
“No. That one’s too short.”
I shook my head. She’d shot down the last four trees I’d suggested. They were all perfect.
“The last one was too tall. What exactly are you lookin’ for?” I asked as I pulled my camera from my saddle bag. The light today was phenomenal, and it made Lizzie glow like a real-life angel. I needed to preserve the way she looked up here on my mountain—like literal sunshine.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” she said, grinning, her cheeks pink as could be, chapped from the cold.
Her lips were rosy, too, and damn if that didn’t make the need to kiss them again nearly goddamn unbearable.
“Why can’t you go back to the rodeo?” she asked as we forged ahead to the next tree.
I knew bringing her would make an hour’s job last half the day.
But what else did I have to do besides fall even more in love with her so it would hurt a thousand times worse when she went away again.
“Just can’t,” I replied as I spotted the perfect composition: Lizzie with tall firs and bald Aspens behind her, the snow surrounding her flashing brilliant in the sun, and the rugged peak of Mount Meek cradling her in the frame. “Hold still.”
She spied my camera, then flashed me a shy smile. “Why?”
I snapped the shot, then let the camera hang around my neck from its strap.
“When we met at Manny’s six years ago, I had just left the circuit.
I was kind of a big deal. National ropin’ champ.
But somethin’ happened and I… I just couldn’t go back.
It was the end of my career. Nothin’ can change it. ”
“I’m not asking you to jump on the back of a bull. I only meant for you to help me get in contact with some rodeo people. Couldn’t you do that?”
“No.” Yeah, right. I bet Len Osterhouse was just itching to get a call from me. He probably wouldn’t let me anywhere near his arena. People would talk. My brother’s name would come up, and then so would mine, and ticket sales would probably tank.
“Okay but— Wait! Van. There it is.”
When I turned to see what she was so excited about, she pointed at a humungous tree fifty yards away. It looked kind of bent and wonky.
“It’s bigger than the one you said was ‘too big’.”
She had Christmas stars in her eyes. “It’s perfect. It’s the essence of my inner being.”
I snorted at that. What the hell?
“It’s not perfect, but it’s tall and proud,” she answered. “Will it fit in the cabin?”
“C’mon,” I said, waving her along. The closer we got to the tree, the bigger it grew, but the sooner I could get her back to the cabin, the sooner I could warm her up. I figured I could think up a few inventive ways to rev up her core temp. “I think so, if I cut a little off the bottom.”
“Wait,” she said again, and she grabbed my hand from behind. “Will we be tearing down some poor animal’s house if we chop it down?”
“Possibly.” I stepped up to the tree, reached through the branches, and gripped the trunk. I shook it and then jumped away, yelping.
She cringed in abject horror and tripped over her snowshoes trying to get to me. “What! Did you get bitten? What was it?”
I laughed at the dread on her face. “Just kiddin’.
No, I don’t see any nests in the tree, but you’ll probably be displacin’ a few bugs.
” Her face turned ashen as she practically fell into my arms, and I wrapped them around her and dipped her a little, like we were dancing.
“Don’t worry. We’ll shake it out before we bring it inside.
And if there are any left in there, the more the merrier for the holidays, right? ”
I kissed her, but she froze. “What kind of bugs are we talking about? Because I do not do spiders.”
I laughed and released her but kept hold of her hand. “You’re in the mountains now, girl. There are spiders everywhere.” I tugged her closer again, and our cold noses touched. “Don’t you worry ’bout a thing, darlin’. I’ll protect you. Me and my big ol’ can of Raid.”
She smiled, and the gleam in her eyes lit up the forest like the Fourth of July. Screw Christmas. “You better.”
After I handed her my camera, I got to work cutting down the tree with the handy folding saw I’d stuffed into the saddle bag. It didn’t take too long, but the whole time, Lizzie stood over me, watching and fanning herself with her hand.
“Somethin’ about this makin’ you sweat for some reason?” I asked, looking at her over my shoulder and dying to know her answer. “Funny, I thought I was the one doin’ all the work.”
She smirked. “You can’t possibly know how hot it is, you cutting down that tree. The only thing that could make it better is if you were shirtless.”
Oh really?
I stopped sawing midway through a pass, hoping the blade wouldn’t get stuck, and stood. When I began to unzip my coat, Lizzie gasped.
“Are you nuts? It’s like negative five degrees out here!”
“It’s about thirty degrees, and yes, I may be a little nuts.”
I smirked and whipped both my henley and my thermal undershirt off, letting them hang from the back waistband of my snow pants, but I left on my hat.
My nipples hardened so fast, they ached, but I flexed my pecs and then my biceps for her, watching how her eyes darkened a little and her lids drooped just a tad, then I crouched down and continued where I’d left off.
She tried to talk me back into my clothing, but no way was I giving up the opportunity to make her sweat.
She ooh’d and ahh’d and swooned a little, jokingly, but I didn’t miss the way her legs couldn’t stay still, how she kept rubbing her thighs together, or how she held her breath when I was done and stood to lift the butt of the trunk off the ground.
I made sure to use all my muscles for that.
What good were they if they couldn’t knock a pretty lady off kilter a bit?
And if my body could knock little Lizzie Whitley or Eli Winter off kilter, well then, my job was done and dusted.
I donned all my clothes and my coat for the walk home, and Lizzie helped pull the tree through the snow for a stretch. She only fell on her ass twice, and both times I captured the joy on her face with my Nikon, and the way her laughter made her eyes shine.
Anyone would’ve thought a woman like her would get mad or call a helicopter to come pick her up and haul her away, but she laughed like a little girl. The second time, when she tripped over her feet and landed smack on her ass, she pulled me down, too, and forced me to make snow angels with her.
She had a ball making snowballs for Fowl to catch.
He was in heaven. He loved the attention, the way she cooed at him and threw him treats she’d stuffed her pocket full of back at my place.
Pep had been pretty impressed with her too.
He stomped and chuffed as he nosed through her hair and tried to lick her face while she pulled carrots from her other pocket to feed him.
All I could do was laugh. I understood. I wanted to bury my face in the stuff, too, she smelled so good.
Pep carried us the rest of the way home, pulling the tree behind him.
While we rode and she sat behind me, mesmerized by the now clear blue sky, I thought about how Lizzie wasn’t at all what the public thought she was.
But then, I’d known that all along. She was just my Lizzie, with a fancier name to go by when she had to.
There was nothing fancy about her now when she huffed a breath and plopped down onto her grandparents’ couch after we tied Pep up to the porch railing and dragged the tree into the living room. She was graceless and adorable.
Planting my hands on my hips when the tree hit the floor, I said, “How ’bout you make yourself useful and go fetch those boxes of decorations?”
“Oh, puttin’ me to work, are ya?” she said, batting her eyelashes up at me.
“You bet your tight little ass I am. Hop to it.”
She grinned, tossed her coat on the back of the couch, and then hopped up and ran for the back bedroom, but she threw me a sexy smile over her shoulder as she went.
I shook my head and laughed. These last twenty-four hours were the best I could remember in the whole of my life. But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t last.
Could it?
* * *
We’d only just started decorating, but already, ours was the best Christmas tree I’d ever seen.
I’d set up the tree in a stand she found with the boxes of vintage cracked-glass ornaments and some homemade ones she and her brother had made for their grandparents when they were kids, and then we’d untangled and tested four sets of lights that had also been packed into the boxes.
They still worked, so we wrapped the tree with them, and while she lifted a small gold ball ornament to the perfect spot, Lizzie tried again to get me talking.
“Why can’t you leave here?”
“Don’t want to.”
“Not even with me?”
I hesitated. Of course I wanted to go with her. I’d do almost anything for her, which was a revelation all of its own. But I knew if I left, I’d lose Ty. I’d lost him once already. I wasn’t sure I’d survive losing him a second time, even if it was just his ghost and my good memories.
“My brother is… here.”
“You have another brother?” she asked so earnestly.
How could I tell her the truth?