A Little Country Christmas - Carolyn Brown Page 0,61

her heart.

Baby steps, right?

“Okay, Coop,” she finally said. “I trust you.”

Chapter Eight

Dani had decided to forgo the run, unable to tamp down the anticipation of an afternoon with Mayor Cooper. Peyton. Coop.

Who wanted to keep her safe.

“Nobody can harm you if I’m around, mija. I will always keep you safe,” Dani’s father would say. Even when she technically did get harmed falling off the horse, she still felt protected having her dad there. Dani knew she wasn’t unique in being the child of a fractured family. But how could he tell her that he’d always be there—and then leave? Her sister, Julia, had forgiven him, had even called it an opportunity to be near him again when a recruiter snagged her right off her culinary school campus to train as a sous-chef at an up-and-coming restaurant in Miami.

“It’s a chance to reconnect, Dani,” she insisted. “It’s time to get to know him as an adult, you know?”

Dani didn’t know, at least not anything other than that some of the people she loved most in the world thought Meadow Valley wasn’t enough for them when it was for her. That home wasn’t enough. That she wasn’t enough.

Now she was the one so much of her town counted on. She kept them safe. And suddenly Peyton Cooper wanted to lift some of that burden and do the same for her.

She’d run home to change. All he’d seen her wear since they’d started spending time together this week was either her uniform or running gear. She’d had to dig into the recesses of her small closet to find her jeans. As far as warm tops went, she had the choice of either her red-and-green argyle Christmas sweater—which was usually earmarked for Christmas Eve and the lights parade—or a black-and-white flannel she could layer beneath a heather-gray fleece pullover. She went for the flannel and fleece.

She topped off the look with a black knit cap and fleece-lined gloves and then laughed when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door.

If not for her steel-toed work boots—the only shoes she owned other than her running shoes and one pair of dress shoes—she looked like she’d stepped right out of an Eddie Bauer catalog.

“Eddie Bauer is suitable date attire, right? Because this is as fancy as I get,” she said out loud.

This is me, Coop. Hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Soon she was on her bike and heading down the road to the old Cooper home. He was sitting on the porch, his feet resting on the bottom step, when she came to a stop in front of the house. He was on his feet and jogging toward her before she was out of her seat.

“Have I told you how incredibly sexy you look on that bike?” he said as she took off her helmet and locked it to the back of the cycle.

“Yeah, well, wait until you see how awkward I am on the back of a horse,” she said. “You’ll forget all about your little motorcycle fantasy. Not that I’m suggesting you fantasize about me or have fantasized about me or—” She stopped and straightened the cap on her head. “Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. I’ve nudged the needle over to awkward already.”

He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and then dipped his head toward hers.

“Deputy Garcia,” he said softly, his breath warm against her ear. “You couldn’t look awkward if you tried. Sexy as hell on the back of a motorcycle? Sure. But awkward? Not even close.” He patted the seat of her bike.

Dani swallowed. If he didn’t stop saying things like that, they were never going to make it to the stable.

Wait. Wasn’t that what she wanted? She thought for a second about Coop’s warm house, how much warmer it might be under the quilt he’d given her last night, and how much warmer, even, that quilt might be over, say, two people lying next to one another in a bed.

“Let’s go,” he said, then straightened to his full height. “Ace is waiting for us.”

Okay, then. Maybe they weren’t quite on the same page.

They strode around the house to the stable, and Dani finally understood why after six months, the house part of the Cooper property was still under construction.

The stable looked brand-new, the siding painted a pristine white and the roof boasting a weather vane that made it abundantly clear it would be a windy ride. On the concrete at the