Page 9 of Her Cowboy Prince Charming

“Dylan is coming back.”

Dylan, the second oldest Granger, had been deployed for nearly eighteen months.

“He is?”

“Yep. For Christmas,” Levi said.

“No way,” she said.

“Yeah, he’s on his way back now. He’s in Germany.”

“Back for Christmas,” she said.

She looked around the house, at the dearth of decorations. They really hadn’t...done anything.

The holidays were weird.

“What?” Levi asked.

“We haven’t seen him in so long. It just seems like...he should have a Christmas to come back to.”

“That’s true,” Levi said. “I’ve got... I got a hell of a lot of work here on the ranch...”

“I can help,” Damien said. “I actually love Christmas.”

She turned to him. “You do?”

“Hell yeah,” said Damien. “It was always a big deal in my family.”

He got a little bit gruff then. And she felt... She felt bad. Because she knew that Damien’s mother had passed away about nine months ago, but she hadn’t really known her all that well, and... The thing was, both of her parents were dead. So that sort of thing often just felt like a sad fact of life. But now she realized he would be headed into the first Christmas since losing his mother. She had left Pyrite Falls when he did, moving with him. And he had certainly been taking care of her.

She had been a single mother for as long as they had known Damien. Which was a pretty long time.

“Well, hey, if you don’t mind. We have Christmas decorations around here somewhere. And you’re welcome to cut a tree off the property.”

“Absolutely.”

“Jessie will help,” Levi said.

And Jessie felt tension creep up her spine.

“For all you know, I’m busy,” said Jessie.

“What the hell would you be busy with? The work I gave you to do?”

“You’re such an ass, Levi,” she said.

“But I’m acorrectass.”

“Get dressed,” Damien said.

And something about that scraped along her skin. Well. She knew exactly what it was. It was the fact that last night she had been entirely undressed in front of him.

But she didn’t want Levi to see that. Didn’t want her brother to get wind of anything.

So she simply turned on her heel and ran back upstairs. And in her mind, she saw him standing there, holding her shoe.

CHAPTER FOUR

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