and an oversize sweatshirt that hung off one delicious shoulder, and pulled her hair into a clip. The coffee brewed, and Caleb pulled out everything in the box. The decorations were on the table and Amy moved back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, putting decorations on the tree and eating chocolate chips from the bag as she did.
She was adorable. He couldn’t stop staring at her, even when he was supposed to be (secretly) looking up cookie recipes on his phone. Because he’d arrived with a bunch of ingredients and realized he’d left Uncle Ennis’s old cookbook back at the ranch.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she came to get a refill of her coffee and caught him peering at his phone.
He quickly hid it. “Nothing.”
She arched a brow and waved her fingers at him, indicating he should show her.
“I might be looking at a recipe,” he confessed after a moment. “I’m not experienced with this kind of thing. I can dress a deer, but make a cookie? Not so much.”
“Dress a deer?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Like . . . in a sweater?”
Caleb stared. “Like . . . kill it and skin it and cut the meat up?”
“Oh.” Her face turned bright red. “Well, that makes a lot more sense.”
His nostrils flared. He was not going to bark with laughter in her face. He was not. “You thought . . .”
“That you were dressing them in little sweaters like people do their dogs, yeah.” She gave him a sheepish look. “I did mention I’m from the city, right?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious.”
She laughed again, the sound silly and light, and it made him smile. “Speaking of animals in sweaters, do you think Donner needs one?”
“Why?”
She shrugged, pulling a jar of peanut butter from his supplies and digging a spoon into it. She immediately sat down on the floor and offered it to the dog, pulling the old collie into her lap as it licked the spoon. “I don’t know. People are always dressing their pets in sweaters online. I don’t want Donner to feel left out.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that. Just feed him and give him attention and let him stay inside at night, and I imagine he’ll be in love with you in no time.” If he wasn’t already. Amy was easy to love.
“You’re the expert,” she said cheerily.
“I am . . . at dogs, at least. Maybe not with cookies.” He tapped on his phone’s screen again. “You have any lard?”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t even know what that is.”
He thought for a moment. “Maybe we should just make pancakes instead. I know how to make those.”
“I like pancakes,” she said hopefully, smiling at him.
After that, it got a little easier to hang out. They ate stacks of pancakes and did the dishes by hand, talking about nothing in particular. After that was done, they went to the living room and he watched as she finished decorating the tree, then put Humping Claus and his wife underneath it. “Seems a shame to separate them,” Amy told him with a mischievous look.
“Looks like he’s giving her the gift that keeps on giving.”
Amy broke into peals of laughter with that, collapsing next to him on the love seat. “Now I’m imagining Santa’s stamina, and that’s something I never wanted to think about, ever,” she wheezed.
“Is this not the time to make a joke about North Poles?” He managed to say it with a straight face, to his credit.
She laughed so hard that she wiped tears from her eyes. Still chuckling, Amy looked over at him and sighed, and then the moment changed from silliness to . . . something a lot more charged. “What are we, Caleb?”
That old, familiar nervousness shot through his throat, locking his vocal cords. “What.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “What do you want us to be?”
She bit her lip and leaned in closer. “I’d like to try dating, I think.” Her gaze fell to his mouth. “I really liked kissing you.”
Hell, he’d liked kissing her, too. “We can do that.” He pulled her close and she automatically tilted her head back, welcoming his kiss. Caleb’s lips were barely on hers when her phone buzzed with an incoming text. She grinned at him and broke off the kiss. “Someone’s timing is terrible.” Amy reached for the phone in her pocket and put it on the end table . . . then paused.
She just