A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas

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He needed to expend all the pent-up...

He couldn’t even pretend he didn’t know what it was.

Sexual frustration.

McKenna was... She was a hell of a lot of things he wished she weren’t. A hell of a lot of things he wished didn’t appeal to him. Because he had to deal with this, he knew that. He had to deal with himself, and where he was at, but he just...

He wanted to skip ahead.

He had spent eight years of marriage wanting to slow the years down. To hang on to what he and Lindsay had. He had spent the eight years since bogged down and walking his way out of a fog. And now he wanted to fast-forward through the part where he figured out what to do next, and just be there.

But no one—human, divine or other—had ever seemed to care what Grant wanted out of life and time.

Seeing as there was no way to solve that, for now, he would just paint the barn.

The sun was starting to rise, and his joints ached. He hadn’t slept. Not at all. Instead, he had been replaying that moment down by the waterfall.

He’d given thanks throughout the whole ride that she was behind him, and not in front. That even though he could sense her presence, he couldn’t see her. She’d been scared of the horse at first, but then gradually a look of awe had settled over her face and he’d had to look away.

He couldn’t see her for the whole ride, and she’d been silent for most of it. Uncharacteristic for McKenna, as far as he could tell.

He’d wanted...he didn’t know. To show her more. To show her something good. Because it was clear her life had been tough, and damn if he didn’t relate to that. So he’d decided to take her to the falls, and then he’d been even dumber and decided they should stop.

And when she’d started to dismount...

She’d slipped and there hadn’t been any thought in his mind other than taking hold of her and making sure she didn’t fall.

And all he could think was that he had promised she wouldn’t get hurt. So immediately he had grabbed on to her.

And that had been a mistake. A damned fool mistake.

She had been soft. So alive. He hadn’t touched a woman in so damned long... He hadn’t touched a woman where there was a possibility of something happening in a hell of a lot longer.

He had been a caregiver for years. But care was not what he wanted to give McKenna.

He couldn’t compare touching her with touching Lindsay, not remotely. He didn’t want to, anyway. Comparison was the last thing he was after here.

His marriage was sacred.

And maybe that was part of the problem. He had made certain promises to his wife, and he knew that death had done them part, and that was it. But the problem was...

They’d had all the sickness, none of the health. They had never gotten to half the things in those vows. He’d known there was a chance—a good chance—it might be that way. He had known they wouldn’t be together till they were old and gray. But he’d hoped...he’d hoped they’d have some healthy times in there. A few years.

They never had. It had been hit after hit. Illness, barely a recovery, infection, reoccurrence, repeat. It hadn’t been fair. Not to her. Not to them.

But he’d forsaken all others. Even though he hadn’t been able to have her.

Part of him didn’t know what to do with the fact all that could be over.

That really, truly, he could have followed that desire he’d felt for McKenna down there by the water.

She was complicated, though. Prickly and wounded and living on the same property. Entwined in his life, in his family. He had no desire to be entwined ever again.

It couldn’t be her. It could be someone. Hell, it needed to be. Soon.

He needed to get out of town. That was the only answer.

He went back into the barn to find the other bucket of paint, and then he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned around, and saw a disgruntled-looking McKenna standing in the doorway.

“You started without me.”

“I didn’t even say that was your responsibility for the day. In fact, you should go find Wyatt and see what he wants you to do.”

“I thought you were my...my Yoda. My guide.”

“Well, maybe you should find another guide.”

“What’s your problem?” she asked. “You were weird yesterday at the end of the ride, and you’re being weird now.”

“I’m not being weird.”

“Yes, you are. And I was going to let it go. I wasn’t going to say anything. But you’re being grumpy with me this morning.”

He dropped his paint roller onto the ground, not caring if it got dirty. “McKenna,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what you think this is, but let me clarify a few things for you. You work here. You work for me, you work for my brother. We are not friends. When we do work we’re not hanging out. Me taking you on that trail ride yesterday? I wasn’t being friendly.”

“No,” she said. “You weren’t being friendly at all. You just offered to take me on a completely extracurricular activity that you totally didn’t have to take me on.”

“What I did was not extraordinary. Don’t start thinking there’s anything more to this than just basic human decency.”

McKenna rolled her eyes, tossing her glossy brown hair back, angling her chin up toward him. That pouty mouth was schooled into a rounded shape that told him she was about to launch into a whole thing. As little time as he’d known her, he knew that much.

“Why are you so married to this idea that you’re grumpy?” The word married hit him like a bullet, but she carried on. “That you’re an asshole? Let me tell you something, Grant. I have known a lot of assholes. Like, alot. You’re not one of them. You’re difficult, I’ll give you that. But you’re good. Just... Straight up good.” She waved her hand. “Hell, from my point of view you’re practically a saint.”

He didn’t hear the rest of what she said, because it was those last two things that hit hard and stuck. That rattled around inside of him, collecting speed, turning into a molten ball of flame that settled into his gut. Good. A saint.

For the first time he wondered if she knew who he was. If she knew more about him than she was letting on. It had been stupid of him to not consider that before now.

She was young, which was one reason he’d assumed that she hadn’t been glued to his human interest piece he didn’t sign on for that had played out on Good Morning America sixteen years ago, or the repeat of it eight years ago after Lindsay passed.

But it was possible she’d talked to Jamie or Bea, or hell, anyone. It wasn’t like it was a state secret he was a widower.

He didn’t want her to know. But she must.

That he was somehow better than other people was what everybody thought of him when they knew. That he was this great, sainted man who had married his high school sweetheart in spite of the fact that she was dying. That was what every news outlet had always said. Like Lindsay was a burden. And he was something special. When the fact of the matter was the only reason he mattered at all was because she had believed in him. Because she had come into his life and taught him to be something more than a raging, angry bully that was headed on a one-way ticket straight to prison or hell, possibly both.

And now he was... He didn’t even know what he was.

Just an idiot stuck in limbo who had no idea how to get out. He’d moved enough, just enough, over the past few years to convince himself he was making progress but it was a damned lie he’d told himself. As much of a lie as this idea that he was good.

And somehow this woman, this woman who made his thoughts into something entirely separate from saintly, had bought into the same lie about him.

Good. A saint.

Before he could think it through, he found himself walking toward her. The distance between them closing with each step he took.

He wasn’t good. He wasn’t good at all, he had just spent a hell of a long time on a leash. And yeah, he had chosen it. He had put it on gladly. But it wasn’t there now.

No one was here to be disappointed in him. To see him acting like an ass.

McKenna’s eyes caught his and she took a step back, then another, until she was pressed against the barn wall. And he should feel guilty. Because she looked uncertain. Because her dark eyes were wide, and her mouth was now slack, held open slightly, and she was looking at him like he might take a bite out of her throat.

The idea sent a kick of lust through his body. Yes, he did want to take a bite out of her.

He was consumed with the idea. It was all he could think about. He pressed his hand against the barn wall up by the side of her head, and leaned in. And then McKenna did something completely unexpected. She pressed her palm flat against his chest, right over where his heartbeat was raging, and met his eyes.

There was a challenge there, one that he wasn’t sure he could ignore. Because he was past the point of reason. He was past the point of himself. Of everything.

He felt more like the boy he’d been back in high school than he had for sixteen years. Feral. Angry. About absolutely everything.