Hers for the Holidays Read Free Page B

wasn’t their own car being broken into. The cowboys got out of the way as she did a quick U-turn in the center of the road, nearly running over the foot of the guy who had threatened her. He swore loudly after her as she raced away.
    As she caught her breath and reassured herself that she was safe, she glanced to the side, and nearly hit the brakes as she caught a glimpse of a face she thought she recognized.
    Ely?
    His hood up, face shadowed, the man who sat in the dark cab of a truck looked like him, but...that wasn’t possible.
    She watched as the truck lit up in her rearview and pulled away in the opposite direction, making her shake her head as she slowed down and got hold of herself. Great, now she was imagining things.
    Her slamming heartbeat finally calmed as she drove, and she shook off the remnants of panic from the confrontation. She was fine. She had handled things herself, as she always did. If Lydia knew anything, it was how to take care of herself. She’d been doing it ever since she left home.
    A momentary spark of worry had her checking her rearview for headlights, worried the cowboys might take after her—those guys wouldn’t enjoy being bested by a girl—but nothing was there. Most likely, they would go home, pass out and hope their wives or girlfriends didn’t get word of their bad behavior. There was nothing to worry about, she reassured herself.
    Snowflakes picked up more density on the windshield, and she didn’t really relax until she made it back to the ranch. Smitty and Kyle were in the bunkhouses, if she needed them, anyway.
    Ely’s face flashed again in her mind as she parked the car in the garage and sat there for a moment, thinking. The guy in the truck couldn’t possibly have been him, though she had felt the same keen sense of awareness she had felt the first moment she had ever seen him, in a hospital emergency room. She’d been there with Tessa, when Jonas’s vision had returned. She and Ely had gone for a cup of coffee. After that, they went to her place.
    It was only one night, but she’d replayed it in her head about a thousand times, much to her annoyance.
    Lydia had made sure he knew the rules—she didn’t do relationships. At the time, he’d just ended something bad with another woman, but he was cute and she took him home. That was all there was to it. Lydia preferred not to get too wrapped up in details—they made everything messy and complicated. Sex was fun, and she liked to keep it that way.
    But she hadn’t ever felt a connection—physical and otherwise—with anyone like she had with Ely. It had rattled her hard enough to send her running in the other direction, and fast. He had, too.
    As it turned out, though, he had probably regretted their night together more than she imagined. That had hurt a bit. She had remained friends with a couple of the guys she’d slept with, and Ely’s clear desire to have nothing to do with her after their night together had been, well, hurtful. It was like he was ashamed of being with her, which she supposed he might have been. She knew that she wasn’t his usual type; he was more into classy, professional, coiffed chicks.
    Yes, she had looked up his ex on the internet. Sadly. Suffice it to say they didn’t run in the same circles at all.
    She shook it off. Being here was making her moody. Dealing with losing her mother, her past, and all the complications of her inheritance were bad enough, and the holidays always messed with people’s heads. It was why she normally left and went to a beach somewhere over Christmas and ignored it all.
    But the nagging feeling that something was lacking in her life wouldn’t quite go away. Being in Tessa’s wedding, and seeing how happy she and Jonas were, didn’t help matters any. It made Lydia think maybe she could find the same kind of real connection with someone, something that would last.
    Crazy. She’d always enjoyed her freedom and her work had become her life. She’d never