Free A Texas Christmas by Jodi Thomas, Linda Broday, Phyliss Miranda Page A

she was torturing him. If she stayed the whole week he’d be building a door, not to offer her privacy, but to bolt him out.
    She must have put on coffee because he could smell it. Maybe she wouldn’t notice if he walked through the kitchen, got a cup, and poured himself coffee. He could even glance at her and apologize saying he’d forgotten she was bathing. That sounded like what married people might do.
    Hell, he almost said aloud. She’d never believe him. Knowing Maggie, the coffeepot would probably dent his skull on his way out. She wanted his kisses, she’d made that plain, but when he’d asked her if she wanted more she’d said only a little, as if she always rationed out pleasure. He could almost see her sitting in her tiny apartment above her store eating one biscuit from a decorative tin each night. Two or three would be too many. She could only have a little.
    He leaned back in his chair and tried to think of anything else except Maggie nude in his kitchen.
    “I’m finished.” She startled him a few minutes later.
    Sam opened his eyes. She was wearing some kind of fancy robe the color of a summer blue sky. It had tiny white pearl buttons running all the way down the front. He’d seen them in stores and guessed they cost more than a saddle. Her hair was tied up in a funny knot on top of her head.
    “If you don’t mind, I thought I’d dry my hair here by the fire.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    She handed him a cup of coffee, then pulled a comb from her pocket and set to work on her hair.
    “Mind if I watch?” he asked, knowing he’d fail miserably at pretending to read with her right in front of him.
    He thought he saw her cheeks blush, but she shook her head slightly.
    The house was silent except for the crackling of the fire. All the world outside his home could have vanished and Sam wouldn’t have cared. He’d never thought watching a woman comb her hair would bring him such pleasure. The tangled mess slowly became silk.
    “You look content,” he said.
    She smiled. “I am, but there is something I’d like to do.”
    “Me too,” he answered, thinking his idea probably wasn’t anywhere close to hers.
    “I’d like to have a little Christmas here with you and Webster. I could make cookies and a fine dinner. Maybe we could have a small tree and decorate it with ribbons. It would be almost like a real Christmas.”
    “Sounds like a good idea. I’ll shovel out enough to get to the barn. There are a few evergreens growing along the fence line of the corral.”
    She stood, her hair flowing round her like a beautiful cape. “It’ll be great fun.” She moved beside his chair. “You’re the best almost husband in the world.”
    When she leaned to kiss him, he pulled her into his arms. After a light kiss, he whispered against her ear. “I don’t want to startle you, Maggie, but I’d like to touch you if you have no objection.”
    She laughed. “You are touching me, Sam.”
    Moving his hand over the silk covering her breast, he whispered, “I’d like to touch you here.”
    She stilled for a moment.
    He feared he’d stepped too far in this game they played. Touching a woman there seemed a very private place. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her, but how could he explain that the closer they grew, the closer he wanted to be?
    He bumped the back of his head against the rocker and swore. “Slap me if you want to, Maggie. I deserve it.”
    When she raised her hands to her throat, he knew he’d frightened her.
    “Or maybe just shoot me. My brain hasn’t worked right since I put my arm around you for the ride here.” Even now he couldn’t forget how his arm lightly brushed just under her breasts all the way home. He had a feeling he could pour hot lye-soapy water in one ear and let it drain out the other and it still wouldn’t wash his mind clear of her.
    An apology was on his lips when she began unbuttoning her robe. “We’ve only a short time before Webster wakes.”
    The