Christmas Kisses with My Cowboy - Diana Palmer Page 0,77

looked to him for an explanation.

Yeah, angel. It really is that powerful.

And she really was that nervous. Oh, her eyes didn’t stray far from his, down to his lips and back up, making the rounds every couple seconds, but he could feel the uncertainty rolling off her. She tightened her grip on his fingers and their arms swayed just enough to make him school-boy crazy.

Oh yeah, she was trouble. And he was neck-deep in it.

“What else have you observed?” she asked. “About me?”

“You look at obstacles like challenges, you like to be capable, you’re actually better at electrical stuff than me. And . . .” He glanced at the scene from Santa’s workshop—if Santa employed stuffed penguins—that sat on her windowsill and chuckled. “You have a bigger Christmas problem than drive-by decorating of public trees. It looks like a Christmas bomb exploded in here, but I didn’t see a tree by the fireplace.”

Or stockings. Or presents.

“Pax and I get up early on Christmas Eve and go get a tree, then spend the whole day decorating, wrapping presents, stringing popcorn.”

“That sounds fun.”

A fond smile washed over her face. “Yeah. It’s kind of our tradition now. The first Christmas it was just the two of us and we were broke. I was paying tuition for a school I wasn’t attending and was dealing with the cost of moving.” She waved a dismissive hand as though the details of sacrificing her future for her brother were insignificant. “I’d only started waiting tables and payday was the fifteenth. I didn’t want to buy a tree when I couldn’t afford to put anything under it. No kid wants to stare at an empty tree. So we waited until Christmas Eve, and somehow it all ended up working out. When the next year rolled around, I asked Pax if he wanted to get a tree, and he said he wanted to wait until Christmas Eve. So now it’s our thing.”

She stopped talking. “What?”

“You’re a pretty amazing sister,” he said, loving the shy expression that stole over her face.

“You already said that once.” Her voice was husky, and sexy.

“I guess I did. How about, you love baking.”

“How do you know?” She feigned shock, and he laughed.

“My stellar observation skills,” he joked But it was more than just the army of bears. In her kitchen she moved fluidly, calmly, as if all her worry and second-guessing and what-ifs melted away and Faith could be Faith. “They also tell me that you have a stubborn streak deeper than the Grand Canyon, especially when it comes to your independence.” He looked at her over his shoulder and caught her checking out his backside. “Even more so when it comes to me.”

“Because your I’m a Big Bad Ranger act annoys me.”

“This Big Bad Ranger does something to you, angel.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “But I think you’re confusing your verbs.”

She tossed a raw dough bear at his head and he caught it, then popped it into his mouth. “You also have great aim. Softball?”

She floured her hands and the cookie cutter. “Skee-Ball at the arcade on Coney Island. Grand champ two summers straight.”

“You lived in Coney Island?”

“I lived a bunch of places. Why?”

“Lord help me, you are more suspicious than Matlock when he’s on a case,” he said.

“Not suspicious, cautious,” she said.

“Cautious isn’t a bad thing.”

She rolled her eyes, but it didn’t counteract the way she’d been blushing the entire time he was talking. “How about the crazy lady part? I can’t believe that you’d even want to help me tonight, especially after the way I came at you at the diner.”

“Angel, you can come at me however you want, and I’d still show up on your doorstep with flowers in hand,” he said as if he were the kind of guy to bring flowers. But for her, he might give it a shot. “You were protecting your brother. I can’t fault you for that.”

Noah peeked in the fridge, found what he was looking for. On his way back to the table, he passed by her and whispered, “Besides, you’re cute as all get-out when you’re crazy.”

“Who told you he’s my brother?” Her voice was uncertain.

Noah blinked. “What?”

She gave him a small shove back, which was cute considering he was twice her size and could bench her with one arm tied behind his back. But the hurt-filled expression gutted him.

“Uh, you said, ‘You and your brother,’ when talking about getting a Christmas tree.” He quickly thought back, trying to