True-Blue Cowboy Christmas by Nicole Helm Page A

Christ.
    â€œYour father is the one who hired me,” she said primly.
    â€œHe’s free to do whatever the hell he wants. I’m free to make sure Kate is nowhere near you when you’re around.” He dropped the skillet into the sink. “And that is that.”
    It was his final word, and he was going to stick to it. No matter what.

Chapter 6
    Summer hiked back to her caravan, her whole day out of whack. Her entire body felt out of whack and humming with something.
    Irritation probably. Yeah, it had to be irritation. Because it just…simmered along her skin like a rash.
    She puffed out a breath, unlocking her caravan and collecting her yoga mat. Caleb had built her a little platform for her birthday so she could do yoga outside even if the snow was on the ground. He’d told her she was nuts, but he’d built it of his own accord. Every morning when she shoveled the snow off the platform and set up her makeshift yoga mat, she remembered his sweet gesture, and she smiled.
    Because she had a brother who would do things like that, and what a gift that was. Even with the Thacks of the world trying to mess with her joy.
    She went through her daily routine, failing to find any kind of center, which made her even more irritated.
    At this point, she usually laced up her running shoes, Rose’s birthday gift to her. Her entire life here was made up of stitched-together thrift finds and the gifts of her family and friends. She had never been happier, even in the days Mom had been particularly flush and they’d had a nice place to live.
    It hadn’t been worth the cost—a sunny smile followed by a cold threat.
    Summer shook her head. She was messed up today, all dark thoughts and jumbled feelings. Running might help pound them away, but music soothed the soul. Besides, running in the snow wasn’t exactly comforting. Practicing her set would be a better way of working through her irritability.
    She climbed into her caravan and set up everything so that she could enjoy the warmth of inside but still look outside her door and see mountains and trees. That was better—she needed to focus on something away from Shaw, and definitely away from the Lane place. Just her, the mountains, and music.
    She went through the softer folky songs that she preferred and Rose frowned upon before shifting into the country and the raucous songs that got the late-night crowd buying beer after beer. She played those more because Rose wanted her to than because she enjoyed them.
    This morning? She let the anger and frustration course through her, riding on the howls of the cold, whipping wind and the threatening skies.
    She finished the loudest, most full-of-swearing song she knew, and as she strummed her last chord, someone started clapping.
    â€œThat was quite a show.”
    Summer let out a screech of surprise, tripping over her little stool and dropping her guitar so it clattered onto the floor. “Shit, Delia, you scared me.”
    â€œShit? Awfully early for you to be saying shit . You must be having a bad day.”
    Summer moved her stool and guitar so Delia could enter the caravan. “Just…off-kilter.” She looked down at her sister-and-law and frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
    â€œWho said something is wrong with me?”
    But Delia had her fingers twisted together and her whole bearing was slumped, when usually she went everywhere with a kind of shoulders-back, screw-the-world stance. She climbed into the caravan with a reticence that wasn’t at all usual for her.
    Summer was still in awe of Delia. The woman had been through so much and never lost her strength or sense of fight. Summer had spent a lot of time in the past few months trying to emulate some of that.
    â€œTell me what’s wrong,” she said, trying for authoritative. When Delia took a seat on the little bench connected to the caravan wall and rested her chin on her hands as though she was