Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (best free ebook reader .txt) 📕

“Okay, fine, great. So, you got your way. And we’re friends. What more do you want?”

She frowned. If she thought he was being deliberately obtuse she would have been really mad, but he seemed actually baffled. “I want... I just think there could be more.”

“We’re friends,” Dev said firmly.

“We had to be more than friends to make this baby.”

“No. We had to be really drunk to make this baby. And you had to be really, really persistent.”

“Dev.” She slid off the bed. Her heart hammered in her chest. She could poke at him, and usually get her way, but this was more than getting her way. It was being honest. It was laying herself out for rejection.

Because truth be told, all the things she felt for him, she wasn’t certain he reciprocated. Why had she avoided it all this time? Because she didn’t know if Dev could ever look at her and see something other than an annoying neighbor who was slightly helpful with the whole ranching situation.

But that meant she didn’t know if he could feel something for her. Or did. The only way to know was to put herself out there.

She considered getting up and going upstairs and leaving it at that. It would keep everything the way she was comfortable with, and wasn’t that important when there was a madman threatening them and shooting at them?

But she found herself stepping forward, even as Dev stilled and looked down at her with that unreadable expression. She swallowed at her dry throat and lifted her hand to his cheek. He kept staring at her and nothing changed.

But he didn’t step away. He didn’t take her hand off his face. She wanted to do more. Press her mouth to his like she had back home. Hug him until something made sense and the fear melted away.

For so long she hadn’t let herself feel this. She’d pushed it away. Prodded at him when what she’d always wanted to do was...this. Be there for him. Help him. Love him.

“I think there could be an us,” she said, though her voice sounded strangled and her heart was beating so hard in her ears she could scarcely hear herself.

“Why the hell would you want there to be an us?” he asked, his voice ragged with pain. Then he stepped away from her hand and locked it all down. “We argue all the time. I’m old and grumpy and my leg doesn’t work right,” he said, his voice flat, his reasons just as flat.

The only way she’d ever figured to get through that shield of his was to be infuriating. “So?”

He curled his fingers in his hair like he was tempted to pull it out. “Go to bed, Sarah.”

“Give me one good reason. All those things you listed? They’re things I know about you. Have worked beside and cared about for most of my life. Your grumpy doesn’t scare me. I don’t care how many years older you are, and your reasoning is pretty bad if you’re using your leg as an excuse.”

“I am the son of Ace Wyatt, damn it.”

He said it as if that was supposed to shock her. Or change her mind. When it was just another fact in a long line of them she’d always known. “Well, I’m the half sister of Anth Wyatt, apparently. I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

“Why do you have to be such a steamroller?”

“It’s the only way to get what you want.”

“You don’t know what you want.”

“You apparently want me to punch you again.” This time when she moved to touch him, it wasn’t gently. She grabbed his forearms—to keep him there, to keep him still, to keep him connected. “If I was worried about the Wyatt blood, I wouldn’t have badgered you into doing this for me. If I was worried about that... I can’t even imagine. I never knew anything about my parents before this week. Not one thing. I told myself I didn’t want to. Because it doesn’t matter. They weren’t in my life. I wish they’d had a chance to be, but... I had Duke and Eva. You had Grandma Pauline and your brothers. That’s what matters.”

“You always had Duke and Eva. I had the Sons. For years.”

“So, I suppose Jamison is bad news. After all, he spent eighteen years with the Sons. And this baby? Tainted. Your blood’s in there, Ace’s too. Doesn’t stand a chance, does he?”

“That isn’t what I’m saying,” Dev said, his teeth gritted.

“Then what are you saying?” She had to swallow at the lump in her throat. If he said he didn’t feel that way—if he came out and truly rejected her—she would have to accept it. She would have to accept it and still allow his help raising the baby because she wanted him to be a father. He was still her partner in ranching. If he rejected her, she didn’t get to run away or cut him out. He was always going to be here, and she’d have to suck it up and deal.

This was why you kept your stupid feelings to yourself.

But she remembered that he’d kissed her. Even if the aftermath was fuzzy. In that hotel hallway he’d kissed her. They’d made a baby together. When she touched him, he didn’t bolt.

He settled.

There was something here. But it was Dev, so the only way to get to it was to fight for it. “You want to prove there’s nothing here or it wouldn’t work or whatever it is you’re looking to prove—fine. Prove it. Kiss me.”

SHE’D NEVER KNOW how for a split second Dev had been all too tempted to do just that—to shut her up, to stop this obnoxious, circular conversation, but most of all to have his arms around her.

She’d been shot at. Pregnant with his child and shot at because of her connection to him—more or less. He wanted to hold her and he wanted...

So