Free Christmas Male by Jillian Hart Page B

and mesmerizing smile and good humor curving her mouth. That kissable mouth. He'd just discovered he had a hard time looking away from it.
    Disappointed in himself, he hung his head and let the storm pummel him. He tried to purge every image of her soft pink lips from his mind. But they lingered, the curve they made when she smiled, the way her pearl-white teeth dug into her lush bottom lip, the way she pursed them together when she thought.
    Sudden, surprising need fisted in his gut, making the decision for him. He'd never wanted to kiss anyone this badly before. There was no way he could go back inside and spend the evening a stone's throw away from her in the parlor. Especially knowing his pa and grandfather would be watching and hoping for his attraction to her.
    No, it was much better to spend the evening out in the barn with the horses. He swung back outside, firmly wrestling the door closed behind him. Funny, he could have sworn he saw a flash of something out of the corner of his eye—maybe a movement, maybe someone out in the storm—but when he glanced again there was only the dark wall of snow and wind gusting along the eaves.
    Who would be out in the middle of the dark evening storm? With a shrug, Miles headed into the yard, following the stretch of the clothesline until he reached the first wooden rails of the paddock. He followed the fencing to the barn, glad that every step he took brought him farther away from Maggie. That woman put an extra beat in his heart and heat in his blood. That could not be good.
    Not good at all.
    * * *
    "I can't think where Miles got off to." John ambled into the front room, where the fire crackled merrily in the big stone hearth. The older man set the book he'd fetched onto the end table next to his overstuffed reading chair. "I looked high and low. First in his room, then in the den and even in the west wing. Didn't find hide nor hair of him."
    "Oh, I wouldn't worry about Miles." Winston looked over the top of his reading spectacles and the top edge of his newspaper, his mouth hiking up wryly. "I expect he's as far away as he could get from our pretty little Maggie here."
    "I don't know why." Maggie closed the novel she'd packed in her satchel. She hadn't taken it as a good sign that Miles had never returned to the kitchen for his tea. She couldn’t help but take that personally. "I'm no threat to him. He isn't my type."
    "And believe me, he works hard not to be any lady's type." Winston chuckled, shaking his head. "That boy. I don't know what I'm going to do with him."
    That boy, Maggie reflected as she ran her fingertips along the title on the book's cover, was a grown man in his thirties, tough, capable and surly. But it was his kindness that attracted her. A kindness that ran deep in him, far deeper than the bitterness.
    "We never should have let him move all this way." John settled into his comfortable reading chair and winked. "I know you're gonna say there's no talking sense to that boy when he's set his mind on something, but still. We've been here since May and nothing has changed."
    "That's the truth, but it hasn't been a year yet. The boy is still hurting." Winston agreed, turning his attention back to his newspaper with a sigh. "Well, maybe Maggie can help us with that too."
    "Oh, no. I see where you are going with this." She flipped her book open again, moving aside the length of old, fraying red ribbon she used as a bookmark. "Don't think because I wanted to marry a man I'd never met before, that I'm desperate enough to marry Miles. Don't even try match-making. Believe me, I'm not that bad off."
    "She's funny," John said to Winston with a chuckle. "I like her. I think she's just what Miles needs."
    "I don't argue there." Winston turned the page with a rustle. "Maggie, maybe if you stayed on long enough, Miles could grow on you."
    "I doubt it." She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Honestly, she tried to picture it. Stern, stoic Miles wandering into