Page 45 of Snowed In with the Rancher

Like he knew what she was doing and where her thoughts were wandering, he glanced at her with a smug smile. “How’d you like your meat?”

Inside me.

Was that the correct answer?

“Uh … medium rare, please,” she said, licking her lips.

He nodded.

“So uh … do you have any family around that you are avoiding on Christmas?” Her chuckle was forced, but he seemed open to conversation, and a thousand and one questions hammered at the door in her brain, but she still needed to tread lightly with this stranger. She didn’t want him to shut down.

He grunted and drizzled olive oil all over a sheet pan of broccoli florets. “Dad’s dead, mom is at her sister’s in Missouri. Older siblings, like Hannah’s dad, Otis, is in Utah with his new wife and her kids and my older sister, Mary, the oldest of all of us, is where she goes every year for Christmas …”

“Which is?”

His expression turned sour. “She and a bunch of women from her church go down to impoverished places in Mexico and bring food and toys and stuff to the kids.”

“That sounds incredible. Why did you make a face like you just bit into a lemon then?”

“Because she’s not doing it for the right reasons. She posts about it all on social media and the way she depicts the people she’s helping is wrong. She’s exploitative about it, calls their houses ‘shanties’ and the kids ‘grubby little gremlins.’ Her posts are like, ‘Look at this filthy little thing. His smile lit up my heart when I washed his face and gave him a teddy bear’.”

Bile coated the back of Triss’s tongue.

Asher’s face was stony. “There is no altruism about what she’s doing. It’s all for show and for people to praise her for her good deeds. For her to get into a better level in heaven or some shit.”

He had a giant brick of parmesan cheese and began to generously grate it over top of the broccoli florets.

“That sounds horrible,” Triss finally said, having to have another sip of her wine to get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth. “At least people are getting food and toys and stuff …”

“Yeah, but at the cost of their dignity as my sister’s social media fodder. If I were to do that shit, I wouldn’t tell a soul I did it. I wouldn’t post about it—not that I have social media because fuck that shit—and I sure as shit wouldn’t use them to make myself look better. Nate’s on all that insta-snap-tik-book shit, so he tells me she does it. I can’t be bothered with any of it.” He pressed buttons on the oven so it would preheat, then glanced at her. “Sorry, I get a little hot under the collar when I talk about my sister and her charity work. She doesn’t do anything out of the goodness of her heart—not a damn thing and it makes me sick.”

“Yeah, she sounds like a bit of a monster, to be honest. I take it you’re not close?”

“No. She lived mostly with her mother when Nate and I were born. We only saw her on weekends, and she was eighteen, too when I was born. So … but that didn’t stop her from trying to mom Nate and I and from day-one. We were not having it though. She actually criticized my mom and how she parented, when Mary didn’t have any kids of her own. She does now, and they don’t even talk to her.”

“So people see her for who she truly is then?”

“Enough that she isn’t close with anybody from our side of the family. Is on her third husband and I’m not even sure he likes her.”

“Well, who would?”

Asher snorted in agreement. “She tried to use Nate and I and the fact that we’re veterans. Tried to spin an angle where she was helping us reacclimate to life in the states. Took pictures of herself bringing us food and carrying welcome home banners and shit.”

“NO!”

He nodded. “Yeah. Bitch didn’t even come to Colorado when we got home. She pretended she did and posted all this shit from her place in Utah. So proud of my brothers. Hashtag mybrothersareheros.”

A cringy shiver shook Triss’s body. “Dear God.”

“So, to answer your question, my mom who lives here in Denver, is spending Christmas in Missouri, my Dad is dead, sister can go fuck herself and Otis and I are not particularly close, although I’m close with Hannah and her two brothers, Will and Sam.”

“Will and Sam are great. Their kids are so stinkin’ cute, too.” She sipped her wine. “Does your dad have any siblings? Do you have any aunts or uncles?”

He shook his head. “He was a twin, but his brother, Felix, died when they were eighteen. Overdose. Then my dad died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. So now it’s just Nate, me, Otis, and Altruism Mary.”

Triss snorted. “Ba Humbug?”

That made him smile. “No. I just don’t see the point of decorations if there is nobody here to appreciate them. It just makes work. I don’t spend enough time in the house to appreciate it. If I had kids and a family it’d be different.” He turned to face her, leaning his hip against the counter and showing her all that big sexy chest, arm muscles and thick neck. Hot damn, he was fine. “What about you, Ms. Triss, what’s your family story and why aren’t you spending the holiday with your sisters and parents?”

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