A Thunder Canyon Christmas Read Free Page A

lipstick.”
    â€œIt looks real pretty.”
    â€œUm, thanks.” Maybe going outside with him wasn’t such a great idea. Actually, she was beginning to think walking through The Hitching Post doors tonight ranked right up there with her worst decisions ever. Second only to her ridiculous lapse in judgment in ever agreeing to date that cheating louse Jeremy Kaiser in college.
    Jake cornered her just to the edge of the row of coats. “Bet that lipstick tastes as good as it looks,” he said in what he probably thought was a sexy growl. Instead, he sounded vaguely like a cat whose tail just had a close encounter with a sliding door.
    He leaned in closer and she edged backward until her hands scraped the dingy wood paneling.
    He dipped his head but she managed to shift her face away at the last minute. “Um, I think I changed my mind about going outside. Too cold. Let’s go dance.”
    â€œI reckon we can do a pretty good tango right here,” he murmured.
    He tried again and she planted her palms on the chambray of his Western-cut dress shirt. “No, I really want to go dance,” she said and realized her voice sounded overloud in the still-empty hallway.
    Where was everybody? Didn’t anybody in the whole place need to use the bathroom, for Pete’s sake?
    They struggled a little there in the hallway and she started to feel the first little pinch of fear when she realized she wasn’t making a lick of headway against those cowboy-tough muscles.
    â€œCome on, darlin’. A little kiss won’t hurt nobody.”
    â€œI don’t think so. I don’t know you.”
    His face hardened and she wondered why she ever thought he looked a little like Viggo. More like Ichabod Crane. “You sure knew me well enough to be all snuggly over at the bar,” he snarled.
    â€œHey,” she exclaimed when his hand slid behind her to hold her in place. She pushed at the pearl buttons on his shirt. “Let go.”
    â€œCome on. Just a kiss. That’s all.”
    â€œNo!” She wriggled and squirmed but was faced with the grim realization that her 110-pound, five-foot-four frame was no match for somebody who wrangled tons of Angus cattle for a living. “Let me go!”
    â€œLooks to me like the lady’s not interested, Halloran.”
    The familiar steely voice managed to pierce both her sudden attack of nerves and her muzzy head.
    She swallowed a curse. Matt. Her miserable night just needed this. Her face blazed and she knew she must be more red than a shiny glass Christmas ornament. Ofevery single person out in the crowded bar, why did he have to be the next one who happened into the hallway to come to her rescue?

Chapter Two
    M att stood a few feet away from them in the otherwise empty hallway, an almost bored look on his rugged features.
    Jake Halloran had muscles, but he was no match for Matt, who helped run his family’s construction business. He loomed over the other man, big and dark and dangerous.
    â€œThis ain’t none of your concern, Cates,” the wrangler currently trying to wrangle her snarled. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, so just walk on by.”
    â€œI don’t think so.” Matt stepped forward, looking tough and dangerous and heartstoppingly gorgeous. Elise slammed her eyes shut.
    â€œHey, Elise.”
    She opened them to find him watching her, a slightsmile playing around his mouth. She certainly wouldn’t be wriggling and squirming like a lassoed calf if that mouth had been the one coming at her.
    â€œHi,” she whispered. She was never drinking again. Never drinking and certainly never talking to strange men in bars again.
    â€œLet’s let the lady decide, why don’t we?” Matt said calmly. “Elise, you want me to walk on by and leave the both of you to whatever was going on here that you didn’t particularly appear to be enjoying a minute