Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

For the first time in her life, something had blown up in her face. Even without remembering all of it, she knew he was it for her. And he was looking at her. She was touching him. Danger was encroaching.

Why not go for broke?

She rose to her toes and pressed her mouth to his. He didn’t exactly kiss her back, but he didn’t push her away or dart off. He let her move her mouth softly against his, igniting a memory of the night they’d conceived their child.

He’d told her not to kiss him and that they should just get it over with. So she’d kissed him right then and there in the hotel hallway because he did not get to tell her what to do—drunk or sober.

Except all those months ago he’d kissed her back, with a passion that had surprised her then and now as she remembered it. Could that have really been Dev? Kissing her? Was her memory just some overactive imagination...when she’d never had one of those before?

She couldn’t hold herself up on her tiptoes any longer, so she had to pull away, back to her normal height.

DEV GENTLY PUSHED Sarah back a full step. Then he took his own steps backwards and away from her.

Why had she kissed him? Why had he let her? Everything was messed up and he could not let that continue.

“I’m sure that was pregnancy hormones or something,” he muttered, offering her any excuse to let this go.

But fury leaped into her eyes and her hand balled into a fist. “No, this is pregnancy hormones or something.” And before he realized what she was doing, she landed a jab right in his gut. He bent over with an oof, the air whooshing out of his lungs.

He straightened his shoulders, sucked in a breath and glared at her. “Pack your bag, Sarah.”

“It’s packed, Devin. I have to grab my toiletries.” With that she sailed out of the room like some queen on high, belly and all.

Dev huffed. Women. He grabbed the duffel off the bed and slung it over his shoulder, stuffing the pillow under his arm. It was pregnancy hormones. And fear. Because Sarah had never been so gentle with him. She’d never given him stark honesty about the state he’d been in after his injuries...or the way he’d slowly crawled out of the dark space.

Not that he’d crawled into a light space. He wasn’t an optimistic guy, and he wasn’t as good as his brothers—that much was certain in a million different ways. He didn’t want the families they were building, but he also wanted to, well, live. Take care of the ranch and Grandma. It had taken him a few years of being in a bad place to get there, but he had gotten there.

Would he go back? Just because a truth he’d hidden had come back to bite him in the butt? Would he fight off that feeling just because Sarah had said it would break her heart if he didn’t?

He grumbled to himself all the way down the stairs. Duke was already ready, standing in the kitchen. When Dev entered, he glowered.

Dev sighed. “She’s getting her toiletries.”

Duke huffed. “Good. I have more to say to you. Whatever she thinks, I do have a say in all this. I’m her father and it’s my job to protect her. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, but—”

He’d been thinking he could give Sarah something, no strings attached. He’d been thinking he could feel like some kind of help for once. Of course, he’d never actually felt any of those things, even before this moment, but that’s what he’d been thinking.

“—you will do right by her.”

Dev shook his head. He wasn’t going to explain himself to Duke. Or anyone, for that matter. “Hate me if you want, Duke, but this is between...” Except it wasn’t between anybody. It was up to him. He’d done what Sarah had asked of him, and now they had to keep it a secret at all costs. “I get to decide what’s right, and it clearly isn’t whatever you think is.”

Duke’s brow furrowed and he studied Dev with a sincerity and perception that made Dev shift uncomfortably on his feet.

“You want me to hate you,” Duke said after a while, as if it was some dawning realization.

Dev snorted, perhaps a little too loud. He didn’t want anyone to hate him. He just wanted everyone to understand things were better when he was on the periphery. Didn’t this whole thing with Anth prove that? “I don’t want you to—”

“You do. You want to feel guilty. You want everyone to hate you so you can mope around this ranch feeling sorry for yourself. So you can keep yourself separate and consider it noble. You might have gotten away with that for too long, but time’s up. You’ve got people to protect, and a baby to be a father to—whether that’s Sarah’s plan or not.”

Panic bloomed in his chest, but something bigger than that. Fear. A blinding, terrifying fear. At the word father. At Sarah depending on him to protect her, when he knew he wasn’t any good at that. “It’s not her plan.” His voice was too rusty, but he couldn’t let Duke think any of what he wanted was ever going to come to fruition. “She doesn’t want a partner in this. She—”

“Bull. She wants you as a partner, boy. God knows why.”

Dev thought of that kiss, but refused to accept what Duke was saying. Sarah was...churned up. Maybe she didn’t want to call it hormones, but she wasn’t herself. She’d have the kid and go back to being... Sarah. Real Sarah who didn’t touch him or cut him open with a few words, showing just how well she saw through him. “I can’t... Don’t you see the danger that puts her in?”

“I’ve got five of my daughters married to or living with