Dreaming Of A Western Christmas: His Christmas Belle / The Cowboy of Christmas Past / Snowbound with the Cowboy. Lynna Banning

mean,” he said dryly, keeping his eyes on her face, “that your reputation as a respectable virgin would be compromised.”

      “Yes, exactly. That is what happened to your sister, was it not?”

      “Not exactly. This scoundrel, Jack something, took advantage of Marcy. He promised to marry her, then he never showed up for the wedding. She wrote me about it, said she was devastated.”

      “Poor girl,” Suzannah murmured. “Poor, foolish girl.”

      “Yeah,” he muttered.

      “Brand, why are we talking about all this? I know my fiancé is an honorable man. Furthermore, I know exactly what I am doing.”

      “Like hell you do.” He stood up suddenly and paced around the camp with his hands jammed in his back pockets. Finally he stopped in front of her.

      “Suzannah, I think you have to know a man, really know him, before you decide to spend your life with him. I think you have to like that man, and I think you have to like that man’s kisses...and I think you have to feel like you want more than that.”

      She jumped to her feet and confronted him, hands on her hips. “Well! I do not care one whit what you think, Brandon Wyler. So let that be an end to it.”

      Brand stood eye to eye with her. She was good and mad now, but he didn’t care. He wished someone had talked some sense into Marcy; to his dying day he’d regret that he hadn’t been there to do that. Maybe she wouldn’t have paid any attention, kinda like Suzannah was doing now, digging in her heels and refusing to listen. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let it alone.

       And maybe it’s more than that.

      He pivoted on one heel and gazed out across the hills, now glowing purple as the sun sank in the west. He couldn’t figure out how this overprotected slip of a woman from a South he never wanted to see again could raise his hackles so fast. She was stubborn and argumentative and so damn convinced she was right it set his teeth on edge.

      Ah, hell, why should he care?

      He didn’t, really. Or at least he told himself he didn’t. But he sure couldn’t ignore what had happened to him when he’d kissed her. Something inside his chest swelled up until it hurt, and the next thing he knew he felt as though he was flying.

      “Time to turn in,” he barked. Without glancing at her, he unrolled his blanket, positioned his saddle at his head and shucked his boots. She marched around camp for a good quarter of an hour, then spread her bedroll about as far away from him as she could get.

      Better that way, he acknowledged. He didn’t want to see her curled up in a ball with just the top of her blond head peeking out, or hear those little sighs she made in her sleep, or smell the violet scent of her hair.

      Long after the fire burned down to a handful of faint orange coals, he lay awake calculating not how many days it would take them to reach Fort Klamath, but how many hours.

      And every one, one too many.

       Chapter Twelve

      Shortly after dawn Suzannah felt something hard poke her derriere. She ignored it, and a moment later it poked again.

      “Wake up,” Brand ordered.

      She groaned and snuggled deeper under her blanket.

      Something metallic clanked beside her and she inhaled the pungent smell of frying meat. Opening one eyelid, she saw a tin plate loaded with slices of steaming-hot jerky and two fat, fluffy biscuits. Beside it sat a brimming mug of hot coffee.

      She propped up on one elbow and leaned over to sniff the meat.

      “It’s fried,” Brand explained from the other side of the fire. “Maybe not as good as bacon, but we don’t have any bacon.”

      She reached for a slice, gobbled it along with one of the biscuits and washed it all down with a swallow of coffee. Despite all his maddening male know-it-all faults, she had to admit Brand made excellent coffee, now that she’d come to like it.

      “Get up,” he ordered. “Got to get goin’ before the sun’s up.”

      Had she ever known a more annoying man? He was all nag-nag-nag and push-push-push, and she was heartily sick of it.

      “Let me alone,” she protested.

      “Can’t. You want to get to Fort Klamath, and I want to—”

      He broke off, but she knew what he’d been about to say. He wanted to be rid of her. The feeling was most certainly mutual.

      “Suzannah...”

      “Oh, very well,” she said. “Do stop badgering me, Brand. You’re worse than Mama at her most officious moments.”

      His dark eyebrows went up. “Your momma bossed you around?”

      “Well, she tried to. I don’t guess I ‘bossed’ very well.”

      His laugh surprised her. Brand might be an overbearing bully, but at least he had a nice laugh—rich and rumbly.

      She dragged herself upright, stuffed her feet into her boots and noticed that her blisters no longer hurt. Then she slipped three more slices of fried jerky past her lips and devoured another biscuit. Besides coffee, Brand made very fine biscuits.

      She supposed that, being an army wife, she must learn to cook, but somehow the prospect was daunting. She hadn’t thought to pack one of Hattie’s receipt books, but frying slices of jerky couldn’t be too difficult, could it?

      Brand appeared to be in a real fizz to be on their way. He packed up both bedrolls, fed the horses and hovered at her elbow while she finished the last of her biscuits. Before she swallowed the remains of her coffee, he tramped off to the creek to wash the tin plates, then packed them into his saddlebag.

      She had to scramble to fit in her necessary morning stop and splash cold water on her face before Brand herded her over to the mare.

      “Want a boost up?” he asked.

      “No, I do not. Why are you in such an all-fired hurry this morning?”

      “No reason.” He wouldn’t look at her, so she knew he was lying. Something was wrong. Her heart skipped some beats.

      She pulled herself up into her saddle and shot him a look. “We are not being followed, are we?”