Small Town Christmas Read online

  “Here,” he said as he handed her one of the blankets.

  She took it slowly, her eyes wide and confused. He couldn’t blame her. After Marcy had left the bar, he’d felt pretty dazed and confused himself. But surprisingly, it hadn’t taken that long for things to fall into place. It seemed his hesitant heart just needed a little nudge.

  Whistling, Ethan headed to the back of the barn to look for Lowell’s space heater. He was on his second round of “Jingle Bells” when he finally located the heater behind an old bike and some farming tools. He quickly found an outlet and plugged it in, and then stretched out the extension cord as he walked back toward the front stalls.

  Sam had wrapped a blanket around her and was hanging his wet shirt on the railing, right next to her sweatshirt, jeans, the white bra, and a teeny-tiny pair of flowered panties.

  Ethan’s whistling stopped mid “dashing through the snow” as his gaze flickered over her body. The blanket was tucked up under her arms and covered her from breastbone to calves. Still, all it would take was one yank to have her as nekked as the day she was born.

  “Are you going to turn that on?”

  The question brought his eyes back up to her pretty blue ones, and he thanked God for the cold, wet denim that kept embarrassment at bay. As it was, his voice still broke like a fourteen-year-old boy’s when he spoke. “Y-yes, ma’am.”

  To hide his blush, he stepped into the only empty stall. It turned out to be not as empty as he thought. Sherman was stretched out in a pile of fresh hay. His gaze followed Ethan as he set the heater in one corner and clicked it on.

  Sam peeked into the stall. “Why are you putting it in there?”

  “It will conserve heat if we stay in a more confined space,” he said as he walked back out and grabbed the rest of the blankets.

  She clutched the blanket and looked around. “You don’t think we’ll have to spend the night here, do you? I mean, surely someone will come looking for us once the storm dies down.”

  “Probably.” He tried not to look at her as he shooed Sherman over and spread the blanket out on the hay. “But just in case, we should be prepared.”

  Sherman snorted, and Ethan glanced over at the pig to find those beady eyes pinned on him with something that could only be described as condemnation. Ethan tried to ignore the look and continue making the bed, but it wasn’t easy. Especially when Ethan was lying through his teeth. Not lying exactly, more like failing to mention the fact that in the corner behind that tall stack of baled hay was a door. A door that Sam would have no problem walking through if she knew it was there. And Ethan wasn’t ready to let her go. At least, not yet. Not until he got some answers.

  And a few more kisses.

  Unfortunately, when Sam stepped into the stall, she didn’t look like she was in that big of a hurry to get back to the kissing portion of things.

  “I’m not sleeping with you, Ethan Miller.” Her arms were folded tightly over her chest.

  Just the thought of sleeping with Sam had Ethan’s face flaming. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was thinking that we would do more talking than… uhh… sleeping. But first I need to get out of these wet jeans. They’re starting to itch worse than a bad case of fleas.”

  Her big blue eyes wandered down to the fly of his jeans. And figuring even wet denim wasn’t going to keep him from embarrassing himself, he hurried out of the stall. It didn’t take him long to get his jeans off and spread them out on the rail with the rest of their clothing. He left his boxers on and tucked a blanket around his waist, then went about shutting off all the lights. By the time he returned, Sam was sitting on the blanket he’d spread on the hay with Sherman’s head in her lap, the orange coils of the space heater reflecting off her dark hair.

  “It’s almost like he can talk to you with his eyes,” she said as she scratched between the pig’s ears.

  “He likes you,” Ethan said as he took a seat across from her. He hesitated only a moment before adding, “You’ll make a good vet, Dr. Samantha Henderson.”

  Her gaze lifted to his. “Not better than you.”

  “I’m not a vet.”

  “Tell that to half the people in Haskins County.” Her serious look filled his heart with pride. She glanced down at Sherman. “He is a pet, right?”

  Ethan smiled. “You think I’m fattening him up for slaughter? You should know that I’ve never much cared for pork.”

  “Or beef, mutton, or venison.”

  “Shhh.” He held a finger to his mouth. “Don’t tell anyone. Josephine will have my hide if she ever found out I didn’t like her chicken fried steak.” He squinted at her. “How did you get out of eating it this morning?”

  “I hid most of it in my napkin.”

  He laughed. “I bet we’re the only two vegetarians in the entire state of Texas.”

  “No doubt.” She smiled. It was a smile he hadn’t seen enough of since she’d been back, and he basked in the glow like a cat in the sun.

  “We know each other pretty well, don’t we?” he said.

  She looked down and ran her hand over Sherman’s back. “I thought I knew you, but the Ethan I remember never hung out at Bootlegger’s—or tried to kiss me.”

  “My mistake.”

  Her gaze snapped back over to him, but he continued before he lost his nerve. “Do you have a crush on me, Samantha Louise?”

  Her mouth dropped open, right before her eyes scrunched up. “Marcy.”

  He felt like jumping up and punching the air like a ten-year old. Instead he kept it together. “So you do have a crush on me.”

  “Did.”

  The word deflated him like an overfilled balloon. “So you don’t now?”

  “Kids have crushes, Ethan. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a woman.”

  His gaze drifted down to the blanket that had inched low enough to reveal two soft swells of perfection. “Believe me, I’ve figured that one out.” He lifted his eyes. “So how does the woman feel about me?”

  Even in the dim light, he could tell that her face turned as red as an August tomato. “I-I… well, I think I…”

  He smiled. “I’m the one who stammers, Sam. Don’t you start.” He scooted closer until their knees touched, and took her hand. It was much smaller and softer than his with smooth close-clipped nails. And he couldn’t help lifting it and brushing his lips over the tiny blue veins that pulsed in her wrist. “How about if we take it slower, sort of like we did when you were learning to ride? Do you like me?”

  “Of course I like you, Ethan.”

  The quick reply had him grinning like a fool. “What do you like about me?”

  She stared down at their clasped hands for what seemed like forever before answering. “I like that you don’t take anything for granted. Not the sun, or the rain, or a friendship. I like the way you treat animals and people, with love and understanding. And I like that you rarely lose your temper. Even when I couldn’t do something, you never got mad and started screaming. You just showed me again until I got it right.” Her gaze lifted. Her deep blue eyes uncertain. “Do you like me?”

  Like wasn’t really the word, but he also didn’t want to scare her off.

  “Yes,” he said as he caressed her palm with his thumb. “I like you, Sam Henderson. I like that you never made me feel stupid because I do things slower than most folks. And I liked that no matter what I was doing—mucking out a stall or weeding a garden—you joined right in and helped me. And I like the way you treat animals. And the way you don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. But mostly, I liked the way you looked in your drill team uniform.”

  She sat up, dislodging Sherman’s head. “My what?”

  He waved his hand at her body. “That tiny little skirt and white top that you wore when you were on the drill team.”

  “When I was seventeen, Ethan Miller?” A smile eased over her face. “Why, you pervert.”

  “I was, you know. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t ge