The Christmas Challenge Read online

  “Tucker,” he stopped outside the front door, suddenly thinking it might be better if he told her what he’d kept from her in a more open space, not in the small apartment. “My name’s not really Laird Hunter.”

  Damn. That’s not what he meant to say.

  She didn’t even pause, only laced her fingers through his and opened the door. She pulled him inside. Closed the door and helped him out of his coat like he was a child. She hung it on the peg and then shrugged out of her parka and her flannel. He expected questions. Demands. Fear. Anger. Instead she led him to the couch and crouched down at his feet and untied his hiking boots and pulled each one off and carried it to the shoe rack by the front door. She toed off her cowboy boots and then went to the Keurig machine and made coffee for both of them while he tried to think of what he wanted to say.

  She handed him a cup of fragrant coffee, and he could smell a little Bailey’s inside of it. He took a sip and watched her sit on the floor, legs crossed under her as she palmed her coffee and watched him, waiting.

  “It’s Laird Hunter, but Hunter is my middle name. My last name is Anderson. Was Anderson.”

  “Was?” Tucker finally asked, seeming completely unbothered by his confession.

  “I know you wondered why I came to Marietta. It’s a weird thing to do at Christmastime. Show up in a town I’ve never been in with no family ties, no history, but I do have a history here. Sort of.”

  “Are you ready to tell me?”

  That was it, wasn’t it? He was ready to tell her. He trusted her. Or at least he wanted to trust her, to move forward with her.

  He slid down on the floor next to her, legs crossed, their knees touching, facing her.

  “I wanted to tell you the second night we skated,” he confessed. “That scared the hell out of me. How quickly you seemed to be a part of me. I felt like I understood you on a level that wasn’t just social, everyday casual. And I felt that you could read me like that too, and I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. I haven’t connected to too many people. I have through work and traveling but not here.” He touched his chest, feeling stupid.

  What was he going to do now, touch his head like it was a childish body parts song and game? But trust Tucker to get him. She covered his hand with hers, and then turned their hands around so they were palms together.

  “I felt it too, but you were holding something back, not trusting me, and yet you showed me you could be trusted, and I don’t trust that easily, Laird. I’ve been hurt a lot but have spent my life pretending nothing got to me. So.” She scooted even closer. “Tell me.”

  “Six months ago my mom was in a car accident. They discovered she had cancer. Also her kidneys had been horribly damaged. I rushed in thinking I’d donate to her. She was my mother, right? And then maybe she’d be strong enough to survive the cancer treatment so I got tested as a donor and the results came back that not only wasn’t I a good match, we weren’t even related.”

  He still remembered the nurse telling him so casually as if he’d known and that his world hadn’t just been blown apart.

  “And you didn’t know?” Tucker’s eyes were sympathetic. She intertwined her fingers with his and brought his hand to her mouth. Kissed him and then again.

  “No idea. Never an indication. Except later I began to remember all these things, these feelings about how I was so different from her. I never felt like I was a good son, a good fit for her. She was a nurse, always reading, gardening, very quiet and religious. I was always loud and social and active, restless, daring. My energy drove her crazy. She used to pray. I felt like such a misfit, but I thought I must take after my dad only he was never in the picture. She never talked about him. I searched through her room several times as a kid looking for clues to my dad but nothing, and that makes sense now.”

  “Did you confront her?”

  “Yeah. Like a dick. She was so sick and injured and I was so full of self-righteous anger and alienation and… God.” He blew out a breath. “Did not handle that one well. I pressed and pressed and finally she told me she’d adopted me. That my birth mom had been a young teen in a car accident outside Marietta and had given birth on Christmas Eve to twins. We were premature. I was fine, but the other twin was struggling, barely holding on because blood and oxygen flow had been disrupted to that baby, but no one knew how long.

  “My birth mom was hemorrhaging. No one knew if she’d live. No one knew if the other baby would live. My fraternal twin was Life Flighted out to a bigger hospital. There was no father. The girl’s father showed up and, as her guardian, signed the paperwork for the babies to be adopted. My mom was an OR nurse. She was older and had never married, but had always wanted a baby. She wanted to be considered, and the girl’s father agreed, but he wanted my mom to raise me out of Marietta. She’d lived and worked in Oregon before so she made plans to move by early January.”

  “So you are local born,” Tucker leaned forward, laying her head on his shoulder, and wrapping her other hand around his back where she stroked him.

  Laird had expected all the old anger and hurt and helplessness to bubble up as he confessed his birth history. Instead he felt empty, but cleansed. And Tucker’s touch soothed him.

  “I don’t even know her name,” he said. “My adoptive mom never even looked at her chart. Initially she was a Jane Doe because she was unconscious and bleeding out and had no ID. Then later she said she didn’t want to know. Didn’t ask the girl’s father. A lawyer handled everything. She didn’t even bother to find out if the other baby lived or if it was a girl or boy.”

  Tucker continued to stroke him, and she sighed, her breath warm on his face.

  “So you want answers.”

  This was the part where he was supposed to say yes. To be imbued with a sense of purpose.

  “I thought I did,” Laird said. “I came here for answers, but I met you, and I started asking totally different questions.”

  Her green eyes shone in the dim lighting of the room. He liked how she could listen. How she could think and not pepper him with dozens of questions like his adoptive mother always had.

  “I don’t know if meeting her would fill the hole I feel. If meeting my twin would make all this inside of me settle. I do know that meeting you that first night was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “I’ve never been anyone’s best thing,” she said softly.

  Then gracefully she stood up, her hand also tugging him with her. She put their mugs on the table and led him to the bedroom.

  “Tucker,” he said.

  “I just want to hold you,” she said softly, her voice a bit shy. “And I want you to hold me. Can we do that, Laird? Just lay together, no agenda? I’ve never had that.”

  Neither had he, and he hoped this would be one of many firsts in his life with Tucker.

  She pulled off her jeans, and he saw she had black boyshorts on. He shed his jeans but kept on his boxers and T-shirt. Tucker kept her tank on, and she climbed into bed, still holding his hand. He lay down next to her, wishing for once in his life that he wasn’t so visual, so sexual, so physical, that his body wasn’t immediately jacked up just at the thought of being close to Tucker, just at the sight of her long, slender, and toned legs.

  Tucker sighed and turned into him, draping on leg over his. Her head was on his chest. His arm wrapped around her. He’d thought he’d be too keyed up to sleep, but he found himself relaxing. He was still hard as hell but happy.

  “I will help you to find your family, Laird, if they can be found.” Her voice was soft and low and sleepy, seductive in the night and she wasn’t even trying. “My sister means everything to me, and I let her go so many years ago, but trying to get back to base with her, be close again, is worth it. Hard but worth it. And I want that for you.”

  He brought a lock of her fiery red hair to his mouth.

  “Maybe family isn’t just about blood and genes, Tucker,” he said long after her breathing had slowed, and her body had relaxed c
ompletely into his, and for the first time, he was beginning to believe that.

  *

  From long habit, Tucker woke before dawn. She felt completely rested. Warm. Happy. Content in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time, and if she were being honest, she shouldn’t be feeling anything but guilty and sad. She’d let her sister down. Not just by leaving Tanner to deal with their injured father who had become addicted to his pain medication, alcohol, and then maybe gambling, but before when Tanner had had her accident. She had felt so guilty and desolate, that she’d turned to having fun with boys and with friends, competing on Tanner’s horse and feeling more confident and focused because she’d felt like she was racing for both of them.

  No use lying around moping. She’d come here to help and, while cuddling with Laird made her happy, she had not slunk back to the ranch to be happy but instead to be useful and mindful. She wanted to help and to reconnect with Tanner. And horses did not get fed on their own.

  She took one last inhale of Laird’s delicious warm, masculine scent. A bit of orange and cinnamon and musk, like patchouli. She could breathe him in forever. And the desire to touch him, wake him with a kiss, slide over his body and feel all the hard planes of it, and especially the hardest part pressing so insistently against her thigh. She wanted to take him in her mouth and taste him when he was still sleeping. The idea was so erotic that for a moment she thought she wouldn’t have the willpower to not act on her desires.

  She climbed out of bed using her best stealth moves that had worked many, many times. Quick shower and she dressed in the bathroom, and then she made Laird a cup of coffee as well as one for herself.

  “Spoiling me,” he smiled up at her. “You’re already dressed?” He sounded dismayed.

  “You’re lucky. It was that or ravish you.”

  “Door number two, please,” he said.

  She stood up when he reached for her. “I’m going to go get started with the horses,” she said. “Catch up with you later?”

  “Sure.” He sat up, and Tucker took another step back from all that temptation. “Tucker, be honest. Are we okay? Did I freak you out with my—”

  “No,” she sat back down on the bed. “No of course not. Just being a Girl Scout to your Eagle Scout, you over achiever. And for the record, I was never a Girl Scout.”

  “Too busy blazing your own path,” he touched her face lightly.

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” she said wryly.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t totally honest with you right away when you were so giving of yourself.”

  “That’s a polite way of saying I am a victim of my own too much information, or ‘wide open’ as my sister used to say,” Tucker smiled and stood back up. “Why should you have told me everything, Laird? You didn’t know me. And it’s not like I’m totally surprised that you had a secret. We all have them and no one puts forty candles in forty jars on a frozen lake randomly. Even the number forty. I’m not a churchgoing girl anymore, but even I know that’s Biblical symbolism.”

  He kissed her hair. He loved the way her mind worked. Loved her strength. Loved her honesty. Loved her.

  He loved her? How was that possible? The thought should have scared the hell out of him. Instead it felt right unlike anything else that had happened these past six months.

  “Tucker,” he caught her hand as she turned to go. “I’m falling in love with you.”

  She paled and dropped his hand like he’d burned her. “Oh, Laird, you can’t,” she whispered. “You just can’t. I’m not…I’m not… You just can’t fall in love with me.”

  She rushed out of the apartment, and he could hear the light click clack of her boots as she hurried down the stairs.

  Chapter Twelve

  He was an idiot. He knew he should have kept his mouth shut. Life had a tendency to go better that way, but wasn’t that the whole point? Opening himself up for hurt or joy? He’d kept himself apart emotionally for most of his relationships, including Nina. He wanted to be a better man, and a better man took emotional risks as well as physical ones.

  He admired Tucker’s honesty. Didn’t he owe her the same? Although the outcome was brutal. He’d been unable to stay in the apartment and watch her work with the horses. Seeing her strength and tenderness as she cleaned out the stalls and loved on the animals just reminded him of all the things he admired about her. And he felt like a lazy ass and a voyeur. Even watching her push a wheelbarrow full of manure was hot as her jeans cupped her rounded ass so beautifully.

  Sunday was his day off, but screw it. He had to do something.

  He hurried down the stairs and headed to the main house. People had to eat, and he had to get out of his head. Twenty minutes later he had the batter for vanilla-flavored waffles mixed, bacon sizzling, and had made whipped cream with cinnamon and orange zest. He poured the first batch right when Tucker poked her head in the kitchen.

  “Ah, hi,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Cooking breakfast.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “Yup.” He began to turn the bacon.

  Tucker pressed her lips together. Then she pulled out her phone and sent a couple of texts. Then she washed her hands and began to pull some fruit out of the refrigerator and start cutting it up for a salad.

  Within minutes several ranch hands hurried in, grabbing plates and calling out thanks. Tucker brought out the bacon, fruit salad, and then a stack of waffles.

  Luke and Colt both drove up in their pickups and entered the house, with what Laird was starting to think of as the cowboy swagger.

  “You’re both at it early,” Laird called out. “Want some breakfast?”

  “Won’t say no,” Luke said poking his head in the kitchen. “Thought you were off on Sunday. What’s Tanner thinking?”

  “My idea. Bored and hungry,” Laird said.

  Colt snatched a couple of pieces of bacon off the plate as Tucker walked past him to the table. Laird tried and failed to not stare as she left the room. He felt like she’d taken all the warmth with her. He hated the distance between them now.

  “Hey now,” Tucker said, trying to dodge away from Colt’s hand as he reached for more bacon. “Wash your hands, especially if you’ve been handling animals.”

  “Lumber.”

  “Lumber, why?”

  “We’re modifying and rebuilding a couple of barns on Colt’s property,” Luke said. “Tanner still has twenty bulls that are hers that compete, as well as four she’s breeding and ten or fifteen pregnant cows that we are going to want to move in a couple of weeks.”

  Colt grabbed two more pieces of bacon while Tucker pretended she was going to smack him with her oven mitt.

  “Yeah, T, that’s going to scare him.” Luke laughed and grabbed two pieces of bacon off her plate.

  It was such a normal moment of teasing between family, and Laird could tell Tucker was really enjoying it. Her smile was huge. She glowed.

  “My lazy sister still in bed?”

  “No,” Luke said. “She’s trying to get the last two cows pregnant.”

  “That’s some trick.” Laird carried the bacon in to the ranch hands. “I’ll put more on for you.”

  “That would be great. Also can you save some food for Tanner and her crew? They should be done within an hour.”

  “Right now?” Tucker demanded. “They’re jacking off the bulls now! I want to see this.” Tucker grabbed a waffle. “You want to watch, Laird?” Tucker asked. “I’ve helped with stallions but not with the bulls.”

  “No thanks. Knock yourself out,” Laird said.

  He knew his skill set, and ejaculating bulls was not in his tool box.

  *

  The sweat dripped down his back like he was under a waterfall. Who the hell would have thought a not yet finished pole barn could become such an inferno in December? In Montana! Laird had long ago ditched his coat, his flannel shirt and his long sleeve Tee. All that was left was his thin black T-shirt. He was in good shape, no, not b
ragging, prime shape but seven hours of construction and some heavy lifting with Luke, Colt and some of the ranch hands from the Triple T was starting to test even his stamina.

  Colt, straddling a beam, high up, hadn’t stopped work once except to drink some water and grab an energy bar and an apple that Parker had handed him. He was down to his worn Carhartts, steel-toed boots and work gloves. Shrugging, Laird tugged off his shirt to wipe his face.

  “Check you out,” Luke called out. “I’m surrounded by biker dudes all tatted up. Don’t you know this is cowboy country?”

  Laird laughed. He’d gotten the tattoo years ago when a friend whom he had mentored had died in Utah in a rock climbing accident. He swallowed the familiar wave of pain that hit every time he thought of Neil Tyler. So cheerful and eager to climb. And then their friend, Zen lost focus on the climb so it had all gone to hell. He’d been hurt and angry and Zen had not owned the moral responsibility. Laird had sketched the tattoo design himself, the cliff face with an abstract tree struggling out the top made out of the words of a Rumi poem. Probably did look like some poseur move to someone like Luke.

  “Ladies love it,” he shot back.

  “You dream. Well, maybe a certain barrel rider. I’ll give you that,” Luke said.

  Laird didn’t bite. Even if he didn’t fully understand his feelings, and were in a position to have a relationship with Tucker, he wasn’t going to spill info. He still couldn’t believe he’d confessed to loving her. What a dick move. She was focused on reconnecting with her sister. She was losing her family home.

  Cringe worthy. Selfish. Stupid. He’d never confessed to loving a woman. No wonder he wasn’t marriage or father material. He was so lost in his self-flagellating criticism that he nearly missed Luke’s next comment.

  “Bit of a pansy tat compared to Colt’s. He went way, way out. And my brother Kane went crazy too. Must have been awful drunk to endure that.”