CHAPTER SEVEN

The cabin was magnificent. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was big, with exposed rafters and a huge rustic chandelier made from an old wagon wheel and suspended by chains from a large beam. It hung directly over the fat leather couches positioned in front of the massive stone fireplace, where huge chunks of wood glowed orange and the roaring flames spread tentacles of glorious warmth.

In front of the hearth and bordered on three sides by the couches was a big rug that looked Turkish in origin. More rugs decorated the acres of wide honey floorboards in the open-plan living areas, similar to her cottage. Against the far wall to her left sat a cabinet made from dark wood, and next to that was what looked like a fish tank. It was large and only half full of water, but she could see plants and a filter bubbling away, so she presumed something lived in it. A few feet from the tank, an archway opened into what appeared to be a hallway leading to, Suzanne presumed, the bedrooms.

The living space flowed into the kitchen area, which was separated by a long bench topped with black marble. Two large windows, although not floor-to-ceiling like hers, flanked the open kitchen area and looked out over the front porch and the field where Suzanne had first seen Grady’s horses grazing. A smaller window, situated above the sink, had a similar view.

Suzanne placed the bowl and the wine bottle down on the bench. “Wow,” she said as she craned her neck, her eyes taking another tour of the magnificent ceiling before lowering her gaze to his. “This is amazing.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “What did you expect?”

Not this. She hadn’t expected the cabin to be so…polished. Like a woman had designed, decorated, and regularly cleaned the space. She’d expected it to be more…male. More…Wild West saloon.

Minus the hookers.

Aware of his gaze on her, waiting for her to qualify, Suzanne said, “A lair.” Much to her surprise, one side of Grady’s mouth kicked up and, before she could think better of it, she said, “Careful there, Grady, you almost ruined all that grumpiness you’ve got going on.”

Suzanne regretted it immediately as he stiffened and folded his arms again. Way to go, Suzanne. Bring out the ogre just before you ask him to be your fake rancher boyfriend and go all National Lampoon on his home.

“All right, then,” he said, his voice gruff and businesslike. “Let’s hear it.”

She swallowed, nervous again. “Do you mind?” She pointed to the wine. Grady looked like he minded very much, but Suzanne needed some alcoholic fortification for what she was about to ask. “Trust me, we’re both going to need a glass after I get through what I need to say.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I don’t think you’re going to like it.” Suzanne sure as shit didn’t.

“Color me surprised,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm as he crossed to the kitchen, pulled out two glasses from a high cupboard, and poured the rich ruby wine.

Suzanne grabbed hers and took an immediate fortifying gulp.

“Christ,” he said from the other side of the kitchen bench, picking his up but not taking a sip. “Just say it already.”

Placing her glass down, Suzanne tried to find her center through the slow wash of her pulse in her ears and the sudden thickness in her throat.

Right… Just. Say. It.

“I didn’t picture you as a pet fish kinda guy.” Yeah, okay…she totally chickened out. But she just needed a little more time to gather her nerves. It was tougher than she’d thought standing in front of him, asking him to be her fake rancher boyfriend.

“I’m not,” he said, with a dismissive shake of his head as if tough guy ranchers didn’t own fish. “It’s a turtle.”

Suzanne glanced at him. A turtle? Like a turtle was somehow a manlier pet to have than a fish? “You have a pet turtle?” She supposed it suited him—nothing soft and cuddly for Grady. Hell, she was surprised it wasn’t a porcupine.

“Yes.”

She blinked. He said it so matter-of-factly. “O…kay.”

“What kind of pet should I have?”

“I don’t know…a dog? Don’t ranch dudes have dogs?”

“I’ve had dogs. Turtles live longer.”

His lips were tight and his face was closed and forbidding in a way she hadn’t seen before, leaving Suzanne in no doubt she’d just stirred some Old Yeller memory when she was supposed to be getting him on her side. Fabulous. “Does it have a name?” she asked, trying to shift the focus from deceased pets to living ones.

He sighed. “Zoom.”

The laugh that spilled from her lips was completely involuntary. She’d expected him to say something like Rex or Rambo. Zoom was just too damn…cutesy. Nothing about Grady said cutesy. “You have a pet turtle named Zoom?”

He didn’t bother to reconfirm, just shoved his hands on his hips, his patience clearly at its end. “Quit stalling.”

Suzanne dropped her gaze to the bench—damn it, he had her number. Okay, fine. Sucking in a quick, deep breath, she ripped the Band-Aid straight off. “My parents, who are coming to visit, may be under the impression that you and I are romantically involved and living in sin in this cabin and that you are wild about Christmas, so much so that the place looks like something out of a Hallmark movie with enough tinsel and lights to be seen from space, and there’s mistletoe everywhere because you can’t keep your hands or lips off me.”

Grady stood perfectly still. Suzanne knew this because she snuck a peek at him from among the fluffy strands of her hair that had fallen forward. Then slowly, very slowly, he lowered his glass to the bench. It made a slight muffled tink as it met marble, which clanged as loud as a ringing bell inside her head.

She’d have rather he’d banged it down and splashed wine everywhere than this controlled kind of calm.

“You told them what?”

“I’m sorry, Grady,” she said, daring to meet his gaze now, hoping she’d be able to convince him it’d been a tiny white lie that had escalated out of control. His green eyes sliced into hers like razor blades. “I’d told my mom I wasn’t coming home for Christmas, and then she said fine, we’ll come to you.” She beseeched him with her eyes, trying to impress upon Grady how much that idea sucked. “So I panicked and told a little white lie about me coming to Credence to be with you because I can’t take another minimalist Christmas, Grady, I just can’t, and I thought telling them I was shacked up with a guy who goes the full Griswold wouldn’t just stop them from coming but send them screaming in the other direction…”

Drawing breath, Suzanne picked up her glass and swigged another gulp of wine. She was aware of every beat of her heart reverberating against her pulse points.

“But it didn’t,” Grady supplied, his face like stone—hard and unmoving except for the tick of a nerve at the angle of his jaw.

She nodded. “It didn’t. They’re still coming.”

“So…untell them.”

It was a low, measured, reasonable demand, but Suzanne had dug herself too big a hole now. She’d totally fucked it up, and unfucking it without making herself look like some deranged chick who was so desperate for a man that she was fabricating a relationship was impossible. Self-preservation was a sucky reason to be hiding behind her lie, but she didn’t want her parents to start wondering about the state of her relationships—or her mind, for that matter—when they had enough to be worrying about with their own relationship.

And who knew, maybe being around a newly in love couple would help her parents to find their own magic again? The focus had to be on her parents now, so it was just easier to go through with the farce than walk it back. If he agreed. If he didn’t, she’d have to fess up and wear the consequences, but seriously…how hard could it be?

She glanced at Grady’s forbidding face. Impossible by the looks of it.

“Or…” she said, her voice wobbling, betraying just how much was riding on his agreeing to the fake relationship. “And, just hear me out here…we could pretend that it’s true.”

His jaw did that clenching and unclenching thing again. “And why in the hell would I do that?”

“Because it’s Christmas, and neighbors help each other out, especially at Christmas.”

Grady bugged his eyes disbelievingly. “You want your drive shoveled? I’m your guy. You want a cup of sugar? Sure thing. You want me to play fake kissy-kissy under the mistletoe in front of your folks?” He shook his head. “Hell no.”

But then his gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered hungrily, and the same breath-stealing tension she’d felt in the mudroom tightened her lungs. A wave of heat rolled between them, and the air sizzled as Suzanne’s insides did a slow loop the loop.

“Please, Grady. I’ll give you the paintings at the end if you help me out with this.”

He dragged his gaze off her mouth and raked it over her face, the hunger replaced with twin lasers of doom, hot and piercing. If he was taken aback by her offer, he didn’t show it as his mouth settled into a grim line. “Nope.”

A moment of panic set in at Grady’s definitive answer. Shit…what now? The last thing she’d expected was for him to walk away. She’d felt sure the paintings gave her rock-solid leverage. But then a truly inspired thought took form in her brain.

It seemed panic was the mother of invention for Suzanne. Or of snap decisions anyway.

“Fine, then, I’ll give them all to Annie to hang in the diner. She’s after some art for her walls. It’s win-win.”

Grady’s pale-green eyes changed from indifferent to frosty in one blink. “You can’t do that.”

Suzanne shrugged. “They’re my paintings. I can give them to whomever I like.”

“They’re. Of. Me.”

Grady enunciated each word with the kind of menace that had probably stopped many a bull in its tracks. But as ticked as he was now and as untouchable as he liked to come across, he had stared at her mouth before. And there had been hunger. That had been real. She’d felt it.

She’d felt it in her breasts and her belly and the backs of her thighs.

“As long as I don’t sell them, I can do whatever the hell I want with them.”

The angle of Grady’s jaw blanched so white, Suzanne worried for a second that it might shatter. “They’re of me,” he repeated, his voice quieter this time but no less commanding.

Suzanne gave a casual shrug. “Maybe people won’t notice.”

“I’ll notice,” he ground out.

“So…help me.” She placed the wineglass down and leaned forward. “Please,” she added huskily, begging him with her eyes, appealing to his better nature.

Surely there was one underneath all that gruffness?

He stared back, his gaze hard, and the three feet of bench between them somehow felt like the Rio freaking Grande.

“Look…Grady. If you think I want this, that it’s some kind of master plan to get myself a husband, you’re full of it. I don’t.” She’d rather kiss up to a rattlesnake. “And I’m sorry I lied to my mother. More sorry than you’ll ever know, but I did that as a favor to you—”

His loud snort interrupted her flow. “Jesus, Suzanne, stop doing me favors.”

“To keep them away from the ranch,” she continued, ignoring his interjection. “To put them off coming. And it backfired, and I really am sorry. But…my parents’ marriage is in trouble, Grady. They’re talking divorce. And my mom…she sounded so lost and devastated, and she isn’t any of those things. Ever. They need a circuit breaker, a change of scenery to get things back on track, so if you won’t do it for the paintings, maybe you can dig deep and do it for two people who just need a little hand in finding their way back to each other. They’re my parents, Joshua, and trust me when I say this: I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t desperate.”

The angle of his jaw worked some more, clenching and unclenching, as he stared at her for a long time, his face unreadable. “For how long?”

A flood of relief swamped Suzanne’s body, but she quelled it quickly. He hadn’t said yes yet. “Two weeks.”

“What?” His brows raised in alarm. “Two weeks?”

“I know…” She held up her hands in a placating manner. “I’m sorry. It’s longer than I expected.”

Her mother had texted twenty minutes after she’d hung up with the flight details, and Suzanne had read it several times over, thinking surely her mom had made a mistake. But no, her mother had confirmed via text they’d decided to have a nice long break.

Two weeks. They were staying for two weeks, leaving a few days after Christmas.

It was fine, though, because Suzanne had a plan. “It’s okay—I have a plan.”

Grady stared at her incredulously. “Because the last one worked out so well?”

“Operation Hokiest Christmas Ever,” Suzanne said, ignoring his sarcasm.

He didn’t say anything this time, just picked up his glass and swallowed half his wine in one hit.

“I’m going to work my ass off these next two weeks getting my parents’ marriage back on track while surrounding them in the tackiest, schmaltziest Christmas crap in the country, so they don’t feel inclined to stay too long after they’ve realized they’re meant to be together.”

To say Grady looked unimpressed by her plan was a gigantic understatement.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she added. “I’ll arrange all the schmaltzy stuff.”

Given her lack of experience in seasonal schmaltz, Suzanne was going to have to do some research on that, but for someone who had craved it for as long as she could remember, it wasn’t going to be any hardship.

“You can still go about your…ranching,” she hastened to assure. Whatever the hell that involved. “We won’t interfere with that, and I’ll do all the heavy lifting with my parents, I promise. I’ll keep them busy and run interference so they’re not hassling you. Plus, when you come home from…the range every day, there’ll be a hot meal”—she gestured to the pasta—“waiting for you.”

“Home from the range?”

“Yeah, you know. Where the deer and the antelope play?”

He gaped at her, then muttered “Christ on a cracker” under his breath.

“All you have to do is smile,” Suzanne said, ignoring his mutterings, eyeing him speculatively. “You do know how to smile, right?”

He met the question with a grim kind of blankness before lifting his lips into a smile that looked more menacing than festive. Freaking hell. They were doomed.

“Okay, well…” She nodded. “We can work on that.” She smiled, trying to pass the criticism off as a joke, but his face remained implacable. “If you wouldn’t mind faking some Christmas cheer, too, that’d help.”

“And share my house. And stare at you with goo-goo eyes. And pretend I can’t keep my hands off you.”

Suzanne swallowed, getting a little weak down below at the thought of goo-goo eyes and those big hands of his. On her. “Right.”

“I don’t like lying.” His voice was steely with disapproval.

“Yeah, well, you can get in line.”

“You know no good will come of this, right?”

Suzanne nodded. Yeah, she was sure karma would bite her hard on the ass at some point for this deception.

He regarded her for a long moment. “Can you define what your expectations are around me not being able to keep my hands off you?”

Waves of hot prickles marched up her arms at his causal inquiry into the level of intimacy to be expected. Suzanne felt like she was seeing the soldier now—preparing, strategizing. She, on the other hand, was more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda person. “You know…” Suzanne cleared her throat. “Putting your arm around me, holding my hand, hugging. That kind of thing.”

“Kissing?”

Suzanne blinked at his frankness. Discussing their deception like this in such a clinical way made her feel worse. “Well…there will be mistletoe.”

His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth again like it had earlier. “So just under the mistletoe, then?”

“Not necessarily.” Jesus, if he had to plan out ahead of time the moments he was going to kiss her, then this didn’t bode well. “Just…wherever it feels natural.” He gave her a look that left her in no doubt that kissing her wouldn’t feel remotely natural.

He sure knew how to make a woman feel attractive.

“I don’t know… Just follow my lead, I guess.”

His jaw did that ticking thing again. “I like to lead.”

Suzanne almost laughed out loud but caught it before it erupted from her mouth. “No shit.”

“Twice a day—max.”

She blinked at the clinical thrust of the words. Like he was negotiating the price of cattle or a discount on a new truck. “Sure, you want to set up some times in advance? Say eighteen hundred hours and twenty-two hundred?”

If he detected her sarcasm, it was impossible to tell. This man was the living end.

“Grady…I’m not sure we should be so prescriptive. I think we should aim for more spontaneity, depending on the situation.”

“Twice a day,” he repeated.

She stuck out her chin. If this was a negotiation, then two could play at that game. She was used to haggling her commission price. “Five.”

“Three. And nothing in town. Only here on the ranch. This relationship stays on the ranch.”

Wow. He really did not want to kiss her. “You care what people in town will think?” She’d have thought Grady cared diddly what anyone thought.

“Nope. But I’ve got to live here after you leave, and my private life is nobody’s business.”

Suzanne supposed there was some logic in that. Grady didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who enjoyed public sympathy.

He folded his arms as if it was his final offer. “Take it or leave it.”

“On the mouth.”

Her parents were supposed to think she and Grady were an item—three chaste pecks on the cheek weren’t going to cut it. He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

“Fine,” she acquiesced. “I’ll take it.”

“Fine.”

“So…that’s a yes? You’ll help me with Operation Hokiest Christmas Ever?”

“It is. But I want a painting now. As a down payment.”

Suzanne blinked. What the? “You think I’m going to renege on the deal?” Giving him those paintings was a necessary evil, a means to an end that would probably kill her, but she’d never go back on her word. She just hoped she wasn’t giving him a piece of her muse, too.

“Consider it a sign of good faith.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s your sign of good faith? For all I know, you’ll be lousy at faking it.”

He regarded her for long moments before picking up his wine, downing the other half, and striding around to her side of the bench. Suzanne’s breath quickened as he got closer and closer, his sweats hiding none of the power of those quads, his gaze on her mouth utterly intent. She backed up a couple of steps as he closed the gap between them, her heart beating a wild tango.

Suzanne placed a hand on his chest as he stepped into her space. She meant to hold him back—she honestly did—but that T-shirt really was as soft as it looked, and the same hungry gleam she’d seen in his eyes earlier basked her in heat. An answering heat unfurled inside her as she curled her fist in his shirt.

“Grady?” she whispered, her pulse loud in her ears.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, as if unsure where to put his hands, and she knew, with sudden clarity, he was going to kiss her. And she panicked.

“That’s not necces—”

The swift lowering of his mouth cut her off, and her eyes rounded as she looked at him, disconcerted to find him watching her, too. His lips were stiff and mostly closed and completely immobile, like he was out of practice. Or really sucked at it. And Suzanne held herself still and awkward in his arms and waited for it to be over.

But then, bit by bit, the timber of the kiss changed. His lips softened, his body relaxed, and he breathed out a little roughly; then his eyes fluttered closed and a strangled kind of groan came from somewhere deep inside his throat. The kind of groan that made her think maybe he didn’t suck after all.

It was the groan that was Suzanne’s undoing.

It opened up her senses, tapping into the taste and the smell and the touch of him. Wood smoke and red wine and the buzz of electricity just beneath her skin morphed her response from awkward to tentative, and she closed her eyes as his hands slid to her hips, pulling her up onto her toes, hitching her closer, and hers slid around his neck.

Their chests bumped together, their hips bumped together, and suddenly his mouth was all the right kinds of hard and soft, deep and wet, and when his tongue dipped inside her mouth and stroked along hers, it was Suzanne’s turn to make some nonsensical noise in the back of her throat, somewhere between a moan and a whimper.

The kiss escalated. Grady’s hands tightened on her hips as she shoved her fingers into the hair at his nape, the damp silky strands a sensual delight. He bent her back a little as he deepened the kiss, his mouth harder and wetter, demanding more. Suzanne gave it, returning fire, giving more, reveling in the hard press of him—his chest, his arms, his thighs.

Then, as suddenly as he’d swooped, he was gone, breaking away, stepping back, leaving them staring at each other, their chests heaving, the rough pants of their breathing loud in the charged space between them. His mouth was wet and swollen. She’d never seen Cowboy Surly look so damn undone.

God alone knew what she must look like.

“Well?” he demanded, his voice a low burr. “Will that do?”

Suzanne blinked as his tongue swiped at the moisture on his bottom lip. Will that do? She doubted she’d ever been kissed that well in her life. Sure, she’d had some great kisses, but this one? This one was like the Van freaking Gogh of kisses. Pulling herself back from the wackiness of that thought, she tried to get back on track. What had they been talking about? Oh yes, that’s right, faking it.

If that was Grady faking it, she’d like to be the lucky woman who got the real deal.

She stared at him, her thoughts still in disarray, her pulse still booming so loud in her ears, she couldn’t even hear herself think. Her brain was scrambled, her ovaries were cooked, and thank god for the bench or she’d have slid boneless to the floor.

Still too stupefied for conversation or any kind of deep analysis, Suzanne simply said, “Which one do you want?”

“The cherub.”

Suzanne frowned at his quick-fire response. She expected him to not care or tell her to just grab the one that was closest, but he’d been very sure about his choice. “What’s wrong with the cherub?”

“You painted my head on a baby. With wings.”

“Okay.” Whatever. It didn’t really matter, she supposed as her brain started to power up again and the endgame came back into sight. “Fine. I’ll bring it over in the morning. I’ll be in and out of here the next couple of days decorating.”

He winced. “When you say decorating, what do you mean exactly?”

“I pretty much made my mother believe your cabin is where they film all Hallmark movies.”

“Great.” His wince deepened. “Just how schmaltzy is it going to be?”

Suzanne didn’t happen to think there was anything wrong with some cheesy seasonal exuberance—it was Christmas, for crying out loud. “The full schmaltz. We make it extra schmaltzy here with hardly anything at the cottage. The more we Christmas it up here, the more likely they are to want to spend time away from it. In the cottage. Where there’s only one bed.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

“Do you have a spare key so I can get in and out?”

She couldn’t quite believe they were casually talking about the logistics of her parental marriage intervention like that kiss hadn’t occurred. She could still taste him, still smell the wood smoke caught in his hair, still feel the wild skip in her pulse, and yet she was talking tree trimming and keys.

Was he as poleaxed as her behind that inscrutable expression? Was his body still thrumming with the out-of-control mix of heat and happy hormones despite the return of his surly facade?

He glanced at her hand. “You’re not in New York, Dorothy. We’re in bumfuck Egypt. Nobody locks their doors.”

“Oh…right…” She glanced at her wine, at the pasta, at the turtle tank, at the door. Anywhere but Grady and his thoroughly kissed mouth. “I guess I’ll be going.” He didn’t say anything, just stood there, his gaze intense. Putting on her big-girl panties, she lifted her gaze to meet his, forcing herself to smile and act normal. “Thanks again. For doing this.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

…

“Okay…let me get this straight,” Winona said, her warm breath misting into the cold air inside Ethel because the van’s heating was on the fritz. She was bundled up in her winter coat, scarf, gloves, and hat, as was Suzanne. “We’re going to Denver to buy up the tackiest, most over-the-top Christmas stuff possible and then decorating Grady’s place with it so your parents, whose marriage is on the rocks and are arriving the day after tomorrow, think you’re in a relationship with a cowboy from Credence.”

“In a nutshell.”

“And I thought I had an active imagination.” Winona shook her head. “I couldn’t make this shit up.”

“It’s bad, right?” Suzanne glanced briefly across to her friend. “I’m going to hell.”

“In the grand scheme of things that get you into hell, lying to your parents and bribing Grady are probably low down on the scale.”

“Right?” Her friend’s statement was buoying. “I mean, I’m not selling cigarettes to kids in the third world or jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug by five thousand percent overnight.”

“Exactly.”

Which didn’t actually make Suzanne feel better. Lying and bribery were still shitty things to do.

“Stop at the next gas station; I’ll get us coffee so we don’t turn into Popsicles.”

It was a lousy day for Ethel’s ancient heating system to become recalcitrant. Suzanne knew she should just buy a new van—she could afford it—but Ethel had been with her from the beginning, from her very first commission. And paint stains and the reek of thinners really ruined that new-car magic.

Still, heat would be nice.

They stopped twice along the way before Suzanne pulled Ethel into the parking lot of a Christmas shop on the outskirts of Denver she’d found when Googling last night, because there wasn’t enough tinsel and garland in Credence for Suzanne’s needs. Hell, there wasn’t enough in all of eastern Colorado. She’d made a comprehensive list of all the things she’d needed to turn the house into Santa’s grotto, and she ticked through them mentally now.

It was that or think about the kiss—again.

So the guy could kiss. That should hardly be surprising, given how competently he did everything else in his life. Except competently wasn’t the right word. Competently was thoroughly inadequate. Masterfully was much better. For a kiss that had started out like Grady hadn’t ever graduated from the kissing-your-forearm school of tutoring, he had owned her by the time he’d pulled away.

She’d been left in no doubt that he could pull off their fake relationship. She just needed to remind herself that it was fake. An act. It would be easy to forget if subjected to too many kisses of that caliber.

“Holy cow!” Winona’s astonished exclamation pulled Suzanne out of the seductive web of last night’s kiss. “I have no words,” she said as they both stared at the twenty-foot-tall inflatable Santa Claus tied down to the roof of the shop. In his hands he held a sign that said, Happy Birthday, Jesus.

If anyone was going to hell, it was the makers of that abomination.