The Cowboy Who Saved Christmas - Jodi Thomas Page 0,62

how good he’d felt pressed against me, his hands on my body. My hands on his.

How that one singular moment when our mouths met was the happiest and most complete I’d felt in years. Like I’d found my home.

I sat up in bed quickly on that thought. My home?

My home was right here. I shut my eyes tight against the burn. “At least for today,” I whispered to the walls.

There was a soft knock at my door, and Lila peeked her head in.

“ ‘Happy Birthday,’ ” she sang in a whisper, smiling. Pushing the door open, she walked in with a bed tray.

“Lila,” I said, standing. “You didn’t—”

“Hush, and sit back down,” she said, clucking her tongue. “It won’t kill you to get a little special treatment today. Sit down and enjoy it.”

The tray was set beautifully with a golden-brown croissant, two little tin cups of her amazing canned jellies, two crispy sausage patties, and a small jar of fresh honey.

“Thank you, Lila,” I said, catching her around the waist and hugging her before she could get away.

The older woman wasn’t one for overt affection, but I felt her soften after a tiny pause, and her arms came around my shoulders as she laid her cheek against my head. I’d had no mother, and she’d had no children, so we’d always kind of filled those spots for each other without saying it out loud.

What would happen to her if I let the bank foreclose? Of course she would come with me wherever I went. Wouldn’t she? And we’d do what? I had the tiniest little bit of a personal purse stashed away for emergencies that I hadn’t touched since my father died, but it was truly minimal. I, myself, would only last maybe a year if I was frugal, but that didn’t take into account finding a new place to live or giving Lila a wage.

But an honest job wasn’t out there for me. A woman. With cattle ranching skills, no less. I could sew a little, thanks to Lila. She took on sewing projects in her spare time and was glorious at it. She would be able to find steady work as a seamstress, no doubt, but no one would pay me for my meager ability.

“You’ll be okay, Josie,” she said against my hair, as if reading my mind. “You may have to wear a dress every day if you’re going to be my assistant, but you’ll survive that.”

I barked out a laugh and gazed up at her.

“You’d hire me and all my thumbs?”

“In a heartbeat,” she said with a wink that I didn’t quite believe. “You’d get better, doing it regularly. Before you know it, you’ll be measuring, pinning, and threading in your sleep.”

That sounded horrid.

A long pause passed between us.

“I know life would be easier if I went with—any of the other options,” I said. “Things could carry on as normal.”

“But it wouldn’t be normal for you, my girl,” she said, stroking my hair.

I let go of a long breath. “Martin gives me the willies,” I said as Lila chuckled, then moved away to pick up a handkerchief from the back of my chair. “He’s always leering at my chest, and now the oil thing . . .”

“Mr. Mason’s words are weighing on you.”

The sound of his name sent warm tingles down my spine.

“Everything is weighing on me,” I said, gazing down at the beautiful breakfast in front of me for which I had no appetite. “Could I live with the leering and the uncertainty if it meant the ranch was secure for my employees? That I could actually hire them back?”

“With no cattle?”

I sighed. “Would he really do that?” At her shrug, I averted my eyes. “But I wouldn’t have to worry about other things.”

“Things that have very little to do with business, I suspect,” she said, a knowing tone in her voice.

I met her gaze, shaking my head. “There was a moment,” I whispered.

She chuckled. “Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” she said. “Any fool within five miles knew about that moment. It was radiating from both of you, neither of you looking at each other.”

I covered my face with my hands.

“I’m such an idiot, Lila. I can’t let that happen again.”

“No, you can’t.”

I heard the reproach, but it was much less than I expected. I waited for the lamenting of impropriety, but she just opened my wardrobe.

“That’s all?” I asked.

She shook her head, her back still to me. “You don’t need me to tell