The Rancher’s Unexpected Gift Read online

  That was what she thought?

  "Honey..." He really needed to touch her. She was still so wound up, her shoulders hunched, her stance tense.

  He took his hands out of his pockets and held them out, palms upraised.

  She hesitated. He waited.

  And then she unwound her arms from around her middle and tentatively placed her palms in his.

  "I'm not some perfect person," he started. "Sometimes I need help, too. We all do. After my parents died, I fell into a black hole. I couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. It took Mallory and a therapist to pull me out of that gully of grief. I still get stuck in the mud of it sometimes. Like yesterday."

  He squeezed her hands gently. "If I've got money in the bank, and I can help you, then I want to. That's what—" He re-adjusted mid-sentence. "That's what friends do." He'd almost said, that's what people who love each other do.

  She frowned down at their linked hands. "So you give me money and I give you emotional support," she asked skeptically.

  He shook her hands. "I would have given up anything—any amount of cash, my own life—to have my parents back. They were amazing—the love they shared was so strong... That's what I think you and I can have."

  After too many seconds, she looked up at him with uncertainty, hope. And then she closed her eyes. She pulled her hands away and retreated. All the way into the living room, leaving him standing alone in the kitchen.

  Delaney stood in front of the Christmas tree, arms again around her middle, hands clasping her elbows.

  She felt as if she would fly apart at any moment.

  What Cash was offering... She wanted it. So badly.

  To lean on him. Let him bear some of her burdens. Not even the money, though that was nice. The man, standing beside her. Holding her hand when she had a tough meeting with one of Evan's doctors.

  She'd been alone since Jonah's death. Even before that, she hadn't felt she could trust him with her most tender feelings, her fears.

  What Cash was asking her to share was maybe the scariest thing she'd ever done.

  She didn't know if she could.

  She didn't have to turn around to know the moment he walked into the room behind her. Would she always carry this awareness of him?

  He came closer, stood behind her. Not touching.

  He cleared his throat. "Do you want me to leave?"

  She squeezed her eyes closed against the colorful glow of the tree lights.

  "Do you remember when you were a kid?" she whispered in answer. "It was so easy to believe that Christmas could bring miracles. Real ones."

  He was so close she could feel the warmth from his big body. Still, he didn't touch her.

  She opened her eyes, and the colorful lights blurred through the tears that gathered in her eyes. "Last year, Evan had just been diagnosed. All I wanted for Christmas was for my boy to live."

  Cash was quiet. Listening.

  "I don't know if I can believe in Christmas miracles anymore," she admitted in a whisper.

  "Do you want to?"

  She turned and found him there. It was easy to burrow into his arms, easier than she'd thought it would be. She pressed her face into his shoulder. Nodded.

  She wanted to believe. "I'm scared," she whispered into his shirt.

  He held her tightly, one big hand cupping the back of her head. "Then I'll believe enough for the both of us. For now."

  He held her until her quaking stopped. Until her breathing evened out and the tears that had threatened passed.

  He kissed her temple. "We had a good day, didn't we?" His words were murmured into her hair.

  "Yes, but—"

  He waited for her to finish.

  "But Christmas is an anomaly,” she said. “Tomorrow, I'll go back to work. Things will go back to normal."

  And she was afraid he wouldn't like her normal.

  "We'll make it work," he said. "I'm not going back to Austin for a job. Not yet." He kissed her ear this time. "I can cart Evan to some of his appointments. Pick him up from school. Make dinner. Keep hounding you to let me pay some of his medical bills."

  She squeezed her eyes closed against another onset of tears.

  "Why?" she choked out.

  "Because you're it for me."

  He gently nudged her chin up with one hand. She opened her eyes, and a tear fell, dripping down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb.

  "You don't even know me," she whispered.

  "I know enough. My dad believed in love at first sight, because he'd experienced it. Now I have, too."

  Love.

  He'd said the word. The one that seemed impossible. It wasn't possible, was it?

  His hand slid to cup her jaw. "Is there any chance Evan is going to wake up and interrupt us again?"

  His intent was clear. He was going to kiss her. She wanted him to.

  "There's always a chance." It was the reality of life with a child.

  One corner of his lip quirked. "I'll risk it."

  This time when his lips brushed hers, all thought fled. Everything except the heat of his mouth, the taste of him, the feel of his hand at her waist.

  She didn't want to be anywhere else.

  She was going to take the risk, too.

  When he'd made her appropriately breathless, he moved back to brush a kiss on her cheek. "I'm falling in love with you," he whispered.

  Her soul took flight, and powerful emotion spiraled through her. So sweet that she had to close her eyes against it.

  He kissed her jaw. "I'll keep saying it until you believe, too."

  "Okay," she agreed in a whisper.

  And it was enough, because he kissed her again.

  * * *

  Find out what happens with Cash and Delaney on Christmas Eve one year later… get the bonus story Christmas Ever After.

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  Find out what's happened with each of the Snowbound couples one year later. Someone is having a baby… will there be a Christmas Eve wedding…? And much more.

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  Two Books in One

  Once Upon a Cowboy

  A princess on-the-run finds sanctuary where she least expects it…

  After nearly dying in an assassination attempt, Princess Alessandra of Glorvaird escapes to a place no one would ever think to look for her: small town Texas and a ranch staffed by a herd of wooly, uncouth cowboys. One cowboy in particular gets under her skin, until she sees his softer side. She knows this interlude can’t last forever, but that doesn’t stop her from wishing it might…

  Former Navy SEAL Gideon Hale might’ve rescued the princess from freezing to death, but the soldier doesn’t trust easily—or at all—especially when his gut tells him Alessandra is keeping secrets. But as Alessandra begins to fit into his life, he discovers another side to the princess—one that he can’t help but like.

  When Alessandra’s enemies close in, Gideon must fight to save the woman who has become so much more than a princess…

  Cowboy Charming

  If the boot fits…

  There’s nothing glamorous about Ethan Townsend’s life. At twenty-five, he’s given up his college education and pretty much everything else to run the family dairy farm in north Texas and provide for his two spoiled stepbrothers. When he meets a real-life princess, he can’t help but be attracted to her beauty—even though he knows she’s way out of his league.

  Princess Mia of Glorvaird is visiting the States to help manage her sister’s upcoming engagement ball. Bonus: she can escape the media blitz over her last—very public—breakup back home. When she meets hard-working Ethan, she realizes she’s been looking for love in all the wrong pl
aces.

  Even though attraction sparks, how can Ethan expect to build a real relationship with a princess? Especially when his stepbrothers sabotage him at every turn?

  Click to buy now.

  Also by Lacy Williams

  Snowbound in Sawyer Creek series (contemporary romance)

  Soldier Under the Mistletoe

  The Nanny’s Christmas Wish

  The Rancher’s Unexpected Gift

  Wild Wyoming Heart series (historical romance)

  Marrying Miss Marshal

  Counterfeit Cowboy

  Cowboy Pride

  Courted by a Cowboy

  Triple H Brides series (contemporary romance)

  Kissing Kelsey

  Courting Carrie

  Stealing Sarah

  Keeping Kayla

  Melting Megan

  Cowboy Fairytales series (contemporary romance)

  Once Upon a Cowboy

  Cowboy Charming

  The Toad Prince

  The Beastly Princess

  The Lost Princess

  Heart of Oklahoma series (contemporary romance)

  Kissed by a Cowboy

  Love Letters from Cowboy

  Mistletoe Cowboy

  Cowgirl for Keeps

  Jingle Bell Cowgirl

  Heart of a Cowgirl

  3 Days with a Cowboy

  Prodigal Cowgirl

  Wyoming Legacy series (historical romance)

  The Homesteader’s Sweetheart

  Roping the Wrangler

  Return of the Cowboy Doctor

  The Wrangler’s Inconvenient Wife

  A Cowboy for Christmas

  Her Convenient Cowboy

  Her Cowboy Deputy

  Not in a Series

  How to Lose a Guy in 10 Dates

  Santa Next Door

  The Butterfly Bride

  Secondhand Cowboy

  Wagon Train Sweetheart (historical romance)

  Copyright © 2018 by Lacy Williams

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.