Page 13 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
It was the middle of the night, and he was perfectly aware that this was the only time Ramona had been in his house this long and had kept all of her clothes on.
And he knew every single reason that they couldn’t work out, but that had never helped him much. It didn’t help him now.
Because Ramona was, very simply, the most compelling woman he’d ever seen in his life.
He could still remember the first moment he’d seen her because it was burned into his brain. He hadn’t seen her walk into the pizza place that night, but he had certainly seen her when he’d walked through the big, main room on his way toward the patio where a band had been playing. It had been like walking face first into a wall. He couldn’t remember what he’d said. Knox had only managed to focus on her smile.
She was slender and lean, but strong. She liked to run on the trails around town, weather permitting. She liked to hike, too, and walked into town whenever she could rather than driving, though it was about a mile. That was the kind of energy she always had even when she was sitting still, or tending to her patients, or driving him wild in bed.
There was an intensity about Ramona Taylor that called to Knox in ways he couldn’t explain. If he’d had to put together a list of things that comprised his dream woman, it would have been… just Ramona.
She was smart. She was quick, funny, decisive. She had the kind of face that belonged in art museums, or those lockets with pictures inside them. Her eyes were so blue that it was impossible not to compare them to the sky—that wild blue Montana sky that stretched into eternity. Ramona had straight, golden-blond hair that she was always twisting back out of her way, or putting into sleek ponytails, and he liked to get his hands in the thick silk of it, make it messy, and make it his.
Knox had never been a saint, but there was something about the way he and Ramona fit together that he couldn’t let himself think about too closely now. Not with the baby in his arms, because the last thing he needed to do was get too worked up.
The last time she’d left him, she’d been pretty clear that she was done with him.
He’d agreed that was the right decision, and had then downed a bottle of whiskey and sat right here in this chair until he couldn’t sit upright. Not his finest hour.
Not something he intended to share with her, either.
That first night, though, he’d walked her home to Old Man Dade’s place and she’d let him in, then had shared the single bottle of wine she had on the premises. She’d told him very seriously that she absolutely did not sleep with a man on the first day she met him.
So when it was after midnight and technically not the same day, Knox pulled her to him and kissed her like he meant it to last forever. And they’d discovered exactly how well they could come together right there on the floor of that old house he’d thought was haunted when he was a kid.
Now it felt like the house was haunting him every time he drove past.
She was the perfect woman. There was no denying it. But she was very open about the fact that she’d come to Cowboy Point to put down roots. To stay.
And Knox had always known that he was leaving.
If he’d been the good man he’d always wished he was, he wouldn’t have walked her home. He wouldn’t have stopped at her table. He wouldn’t have let the impossible electric charge that sparked so bright between them muddy the waters.
If he had been a better man, he wouldn’t have started any of this.
But if he’d been any kind of virtuous, he wouldn’t know how she tasted. He wouldn’t know how perfectly those long legs of hers could wrap around his hips, or the truly amazing things she could do with her mouth.
And despite everything, Knox thought even now, that would be a crying shame.
Her gaze narrowed as she watched him, and he got the impression that she knew everything he was thinking. Her mouth firmed, which didn’t help the direction of his thoughts, but she walked farther into the big living space.
She did not come over to him in his chair. She went over to the car seat instead and knelt down beside it, frowning.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Looking for some clue as to who this little love really is,” Ramona said. She didn’t look at him while she said it.
The baby was still working on her bottle, so Knox watched, feeling a little upended himself as Ramona examined the discarded, bright pink fleecy items that Knox had taken off the little girl when he’d worried she needed warming.
Ramona folded everything and put the fuzzy pink hat on top. Then she pulled the blankets out of the well of the seat and made a little noise of triumph. She looked over at him as she lifted out what looked like a pack of papers shoved into a Ziploc bag from the bottom of the car seat.
“Look at that,” Ramona said, waving the packet. “Clues.” But she didn’t pry open the plastic bag. She only looked at him. “I’m not sure you want me rifling through your daughter’s private things.”
“You can look at whatever you want,” Knox replied, and he was proud of the way he kept his voice even, even though he knew this couldn’t be his daughter. “I have nothing to hide.”
He could read her expression then, which probably meant she wanted him to, and it was skeptical. Down to the bone skeptical.
And the thing about Ramona, Knox knew, was that this was his fault. All of it. He knew that. He had always prided himself on being direct. Honest no matter what.
