Page 42 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
Even with all their clothes on. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her, because he couldn’t imagine a scenario where he wouldn’t want her, but it wasn’t driving him just now. This was simply… a hug. Leaning into each other. Peace and comfort and a different sort of warmth that seemed to come from the inside of him.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever hugged anyone like this, unless maybe it was Belinda, long ago. But his older brothers had teased him for wanting to be cuddled, so he’d decided he didn’t like it anymore when he was in kindergarten.
Now he was wondering why he’d listened to those idiots.
Knox held her close, and it felt like all of his boundaries and rules and alarms were just… melting away. He put his chin on the top of her head. He breathed her in.
He thought that he was going to have to find a way to make this go on forever.
Ramona melted into him. She let out a sigh, and then she smiled at him a little dreamily. “I love you,” she said.
And he froze. It was involuntary. He heard the words and he reacted.
He went stiff, head to toe, like that alarm he’d been so surprised not to hear was ringing at last. But then it didn’t matter what was happening inside of him, because Ramona was pushing away from him.
“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t—”
She lifted a hand, and he stopped talking. For a moment it was like she was studying him, and there was something about the way she did it that made everything in him run cold.
“I should have known better,” she said.
Softly. Quietly.
Devastatingly.
“Ramona—”
“I told myself that it didn’t matter what we called this, or what you said you did or didn’t feel, but I was lying to myself,” she told him, and what was different was that she didn’t look mad. She didn’t look upset.
She looked something like resigned, and it made him want to claw back these past few minutes and do them over. And better.
“It was just a knee-jerk reaction,” he told her.
“I’m sure it was. But you can make it up to me, right? It’s simple.” Now she folded her arms in front of her chest and her blue gaze got narrow. “Just say it back.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Ramona, this isn’t what—”
“Say it,” she said again, and he understood, then, that she wasn’t mad or upset.
She was furious. Coldly, intensely furious.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried again, but it was like he was caught in the grip of a tight, hard fist and he had no idea how to loosen it.
“Perfect,” Ramona breathed, and he could see a new kind of light in her gaze. It was not even remotely warm. “I can’t even blame you. You’ve repeatedly told me and showed me who you are. I’m the one who keeps pretending you might magically turn into someone else.”
“I’ve never cared about anyone the way I care about you,” he managed to get out, though it felt like knives in his throat.
“Do you really?” She stepped forward then, and poked a finger into his chest. “I think you’re full of shit.”
“I am a lot of things, I grant you,” he began, but she poked him again. Harder.
“You’re wildly, madly, unbearably in love with me, you idiot,” she threw at him. “You have been since the night we met, the same as me. And you’re never leaving Cowboy Point. You love it here. Your family means everything to you. Sometimes I think the only reason you even talk about leaving is because you told your brothers you would, and now you refuse to back down.”
He thought maybe his mouth dropped open, but he couldn’t seem to find any words.
