Free A Cowboy Under My Christmas Tree by Janet Dailey Page B

are.”
    “Did you get them at the place around the corner?”
    “Yes, as a matter of fact.”
    “Are you staying near there? I never did ask. But you seem to have remembered my address.”
    He looked a little sheepish and pretty much dodged the question. “Two blocks south. I was staying with some friends, but I just got the keys to my sublet. I’m moving in today.”
    “I see,” she said casually. She wondered why he wasn’t more direct, but it really wasn’t any of her business. “Well, thanks for the flowers. But how did you know I’d be here?”
    “I didn’t. Just thought I’d try. I had the flower shop lady stick the stems in foam so they wouldn’t wilt. I was planning to stop by later if you didn’t answer. Anyway, I rang every bell for the fifth floor. ”
    Nicole sort of remembered telling him that she lived on the top floor of a walk-up. Her bad mood was ebbing away. She decided to give him a break. It was even possible that she had a good bottle of wine somewhere. Left by some forgettable date.
    There was no real reason to continue the cool-chick routine. Sam was nice. “Did anyone buzz back?”
    “Just you.”
    He looked at her holding the flowers, his dark eyes warm with— stop it, she told herself.
    “And now my neighbors hate you,” she pointed out.
    “I don’t doubt it.” He didn’t seem to care. New York must be rubbing off on him.
    “Well, have a seat while I find a vase.” She motioned toward the love seat in front of the window. “And let’s hear the explanation for your day off,” she said over her shoulder.
    Sam launched into it. “Greg said the visual marketing director is snowbound in the Chicago airport. That’s where the company headquarters are—they own malls all over the U.S. Apparently no one is allowed to make a move until she arrives. So here I am.”
    Nicole unwrapped the paper from the flowers and let them rest in the sink. “That’s how corporate design works.”
    “Thought so.” He ventured a few steps farther into the one room in which she did all her living. “Freelancers probably have a lot more fun.”
    “Depends on what level you’re at,” she responded, sticking to business.
    “How so?”
    “A lot of corporate designers are freelance, but they work online. Once you have a name, it doesn’t even matter where you live. Unlike me, they don’t have to drag a portfolio around to little stores like Now.”
    “You’ll get there.”
    “Yes. But I’ll never get rich. Though I’m not sure I want to be. I’d settle for enough to live on, plus ten percent for emergencies. And a bigger place than this.”
    He heard her opening cabinet doors. “What do you consider an emergency?”
    “At the moment, not being able to find a corkscrew when you find a bottle of wine is an emergency. I guess I have nothing to complain about, do I?”
    “I’d help you look, but I don’t know where anything is,” Sam said.
    Help her look? In a kitchen no bigger than a shoebox? No. Noooooo. She yanked open a cluttered drawer and saw it on top. “Found it. Would you like a glass of wine?”
    “Sure.” He took the opportunity to look around. Her place was bigger than his sublet but basically still one room.
    Two high, old-fashioned windows framed a view of the building right across the street. It was almost identical to hers, with an ornamental cornice that seemed too heavy for it, squeezed in between others built around the same time, more than a hundred years ago, judging by the Victorian style.
    Sam moved closer to the window. When he looked straight down, he could see the front steps of Nicole’s building. The vertical perspective emphasized the narrowness of the front room.
    There weren’t any side windows, but there was a lot of natural light this time of day. And none at all otherwise, by his guess.
    He couldn’t shake the feeling of being boxed in. Give him a nice plain house on the ground any day. With windows all around, a view of open land and rugged