True-Blue Cowboy Christmas by Nicole Helm

stairs.
    Thack still didn’t move. He was afraid if he did, everything shuffling for space inside him would pour out into this empty kitchen and drown him.
    â€œI’m…sorry.”
    He startled at the female voice and lifted his head to see Summer still standing in the opening between the kitchen and the hallway. “You are?” he asked, because he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe she was apologizing to him .
    â€œYes, I am.” She took a tentative step back into the kitchen. Toward him. “I didn’t quite know what he had planned, and that was a bit of an ambush. I feel…bad.”
    â€œSo, you won’t do it? You won’t be his assistant or whatever nonsense he’s spouting.”
    She was silent, dropping her eyes and wringing her hands in the edge of the blanket thing she still had wrapped around her shoulders. “Well, truth be told, I kind of need a job. They don’t need me at Shaw house much anymore now that Delia’s there, and my job at Pioneer Spirit is only a few evenings a week. I’ve been looking around, but Mel just had her baby and—”
    â€œYou work at a bar.” Why didn’t anyone else see a problem with that? She was going to be around his seven-year-old, and she worked in a rough bar in a rough town. She might look all fairy queen-ish, but looks were darn deceiving. Damn deceiving. Damn, damn it.
    Her eyes zeroed in on his again, and there was that…thing. Like a catch in his gut, something inside him not settling right. What was that?
    â€œI sing at a bar,” she said resolutely.
    â€œMy daughter is seven. Impressionable. She…”
    â€œLook, you can ask Rose. Rose Rogers, she runs the—”
    â€œShe runs the bar.”
    â€œRight. Your dad mentioned…” She trailed off, clearly pained at the history she didn’t know. “You know her. You can ask her about me. They’re good people.”
    â€œMaybe. Maybe not.” They hadn’t been friends or good people when Michaela had died and he was left picking up the pieces. Why should that be any different now?
    â€œWhat about Mel?” Summer demanded.
    â€œWhat about Mel?” God, he was tired.
    â€œEveryone trusts Mel. Ask her about me. You know she wouldn’t lie.”
    â€œActually I don’t know that, seeing as she’s your sister.” Thack pushed away from the table. He had the breakfast dishes to clean and the morning chores to finish. But instead of leaving, Summer followed him as he gathered dishes and stepped to the sink.
    â€œRight, but she just had a baby. Who she lets me watch, by the way. Surely you could trust someone like Mel, who’s also a parent of a little girl.”
    â€œWho you’re related to.” He flipped on the tap.
    Summer reached across him and slapped it off, the fringe edges of whatever the hell thing she was wearing drifting across his hands, an odd floral scent invading his space. She stared up at him, her dark brown eyes with just a hint of green imploring.
    â€œGive me a chance. Please. You won’t be sorry.”
    His heart was doing an odd thick-beating thing in his chest, but he had to ignore it. He needed to ignore how close she stood, and the way she smelled like nothing in his life had smelled in a long time. Now was not the time for attraction. He was not attracted to her .
    â€œIt’s not enough,” he said, refusing to meet her gaze any longer, having to clear his throat to keep talking. “Not when it comes to my daughter.”
    She didn’t say anything for a few humming seconds, still too close. This was not normal. Strangers didn’t stand quietly this close together, not when all this air around them shouldn’t be this thick or this fragrant.
    Finally, she stepped away, which gave him leave to move and grab the skillet off the stove, but not because he needed space. He was a rock. An island.
    Hard .
    Sweet pickles.