Her Four Cowboys

“Yeah, whenever that’s going to happen,” I said, with a shrug.

“Is that not something that you want?” she asked, blinking at me curiously. “A family?” She paused. “You know, it’s weird, but I don’t think we ever talked about this.”

“I don’t think we ever did either,” I said, folding one of my legs underneath me. “I mean, I do think that it’s something I’d like. It’s always something I’ve known I wanted, but someday.” I blinked over at her. “What about you? Do you want kids?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I think so,” she said, and I couldn’t help feeling a sudden burst of hatred for whichever lucky bastard would be lucky enough to make her his for life if it wasn’t me. “Or at least I think about it in general terms, you know? But there’s still so much that I need to do before I’m going to feel ready to take that step.” She paused, frowning. “Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I completely understand, because that’s the same way I feel about it.”

She smiled at me, and I felt that heat that flooded through my belly whenever she looked at me like that. “I think we should probably get back to the party.”

I nodded, getting up from the bed and walking out into the hall, holding the door for her to walk out ahead of me. We headed down the hall toward the living room once more, and as she walked, she missed the little frothy bundle that hung above us from under the arch that sat randomly in the middle of the hallway. “Luce,” I said quietly with my hand on her shoulder. “Look up.”

She did, her mouth parting at the sight. “Mistletoe?” she said, shaking her head with a little grin on her face. “Your mom is so old-fashioned.”

“Well, it’s bad luck not to kiss underneath the mistletoe,” I said, raising my eyebrow at her.

She rolled her eyes but smiled wider as she tilted her head up to me. I leaned down, closing my eyes as I pressed my lips to hers in a soft peck. I didn’t allow it to go further than that, but I still lingered there, relishing the feeling of her skin on mine in this way.

I didn’t move away from her immediately, though, and neither did she. I didn’t know what to do, but I was afraid to move for fear that I would screw this up.

I couldn’t have predicted the way that her hand would slide up to cup the back of my neck, pulling me harder against her as she opened her mouth to me, and I suddenly felt the contact ripple down my back like an electric current that had been sent running over my skin. I was tempted to pull her into my arms and back her against the wall so that I could run my hands over every inch of her. She sighed against me, and the sound electrified me even more as I drank in her taste of hot, spiced whiskey, and lavender, and something else that was so very… Lucy.

A burst of laughter emerged from the kitchen, and I pulled away from her reluctantly, loosening my hands from where they clung to her. As I backed away from her, I kept my eyes fixed on her, hoping that she felt as much as I did.

She reached up, smiling faintly, as she wiped a thumb across my lips to erase the traces of her lipstick there.

“There,” she said. “That’s perfect.”

13

LUCY

I woke up feeling as though several tendrils of emotion had begun to crawl over my skin, and I blinked in the light that began to sneak in under my drapes.

I stretched my arms over my head and wrapped them around the pillow as I curled in on myself, doing my best to shut down the feelings that had begun to spark in me the night before. I remembered Adam approaching me in the hallway and leaning down to kiss me, reaching his hand into the hair that hung down my back as he held me close to his body, plunging his tongue into my mouth as if he would devour me whole.

“It’s Christmas morning!” came the happy, slightly shrill voice as my bedroom door was thrown open, and I groaned just a little bit, pulling the sheet over my head.

“Come on, Lucy-Goose! Time for you to wake up and come greet the day!”

I had no warning as the sheet was suddenly tugged back from its position over my head, and I turned over, raising my hands to cover my face. “Mom, you are entirely too happy right now.”

“There’s no such thing!” she said as she jumped into the bed with me and wrapped her arms around me. “How can there be any such thing when I finally have my baby back, and I get to spoil her for however long you’ll let me?”