A wealthy cowboy in her stocking...

CJ Wesley values his privacy more than anything. If TV news star Natalie Baker reveals he’s really a Beaumont heir, the media will go wild. That’s when a surprise snowstorm strands the beautiful reporter in his house—and in his bed. Soon he’ll learn how much she’s discovered...and how much he wants her.

CJ defies Natalie’s expectations. The gruff, sexy cowboy knows how to heat up a snowbound cabin and make Christmas magical. Exposing the elusive Beaumont brother will save her job—but only at the price of their passionate connection. It’s a holiday dilemma...but will the right choice lead to forever?

Rich Rancher for Christmas is part of The Beaumont Heirs series.

“Here,” he said in that husky voice of his.

He held her by the shoulders and made her stand up straight. “Are you too cold?”

Her face, her hands, her feet—yes. But other parts of her?

CJ pushed the hood back for her. The rush of air around the back of her neck made her shiver. “A little,” she said, but anything else she wanted to add died on her tongue when he reached up and began to pull the zipper of her suit down.

He was unwrapping her. Slowly.

Oh, yeah—some parts of her were beginning to burn. She wanted to shift her feet to take some of the pressure off her center, but she didn’t want to break the spell of this exact moment.

“You never did tell me the other way of warming someone up.” She was surprised to hear her own voice come out deeper—more sultry.

Because she wanted this. Not the story, not her ratings—the man.

* * *

Rich Rancher for Christmas is part of the Beaumont Heirs series—One Colorado family, limitless scandal!

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Colorado! The Beaumonts Heirs are one of Denver’s oldest, most preeminent families. The Beaumont heirs are the children of Hardwick Beaumont. Although he’s been dead for almost a decade, Hardwick’s womanizing ways—the four marriages and divorces, the ten children and uncounted illegitimate children—are still leaving ripples in the Beaumont family.

Especially now that some of those illegitimate children are revealing themselves. CJ Wesley wasn’t happy when his half brothers dragged his parentage into the spotlight. He’s a rancher who just wants to be left alone. So far, no one knows his birth father’s identity and CJ is going to keep it that way.

But television personality Natalie Baker needs a ratings boost—and an exclusive reveal of another Beaumont bastard’s identity is just the ticket. She tracks CJ down with a plan—but she never expects the blizzard that strands her out on his ranch for Christmas. CJ doesn’t trust Natalie—but she’s not the same woman who smiles at him from his TV. Will Natalie reveal CJ’s secret—or will she trust him with her own?

Rich Rancher for Christmas is a sensual story about fighting for your dreams and falling in love. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! Be sure to stop by sarahmanderson.com and sign up for my newsletter at eepurl.com/nv39b to join me as I say, Long Live Cowboys!

Sarah

Rich Rancher for Christmas

Sarah M. Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SARAH M. ANDERSON may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out west on the Great Plains. Sarah’s book A Man of Privilege won an RT Book Reviews 2012 Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. The Nanny Plan was a 2016 RITA® Finalist.

Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and billionaires. Find out more about Sarah’s heroes at www.sarahmanderson.com and sign up for the new-release newsletter at www.eepurl.com/nv39b.

To my mom, Carolyn, who insisted I take touch-typing in high school instead of welding.

You were right. But then, you usually are!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Extract

Copyright

One

An old-fashioned bell chimed as Natalie Baker shoved the door open at Firestone Grain and Feed. Oh, the amount of dirt on that thing—she hoped it hadn’t ruined her expensive skirt. Except for the pine boughs and holly that hung in the windows, the entire store looked like it had been rolled through a pasture. She was a long way from downtown Denver.

“Help you?” a man wearing suspenders over a flannel shirt asked from behind the counter. His eyes widened as he took in her five-inch heels and her legs. By the time his gaze had worked its way back up to her perfectly contoured face and professional blow-out, his mouth had flopped open, too. The only thing missing was a stick of grass hanging out of his lips.

“Hello,” Natalie said in her best television voice. “I could use a little help.”

“You lost?” He looked her over again and she had to wonder if he’d ever had a woman in heels in this feed store before. God knew she wouldn’t be here if there were any other option. “You look lost. I can get you back to Denver. Take a left out of the parking lot and—”

She managed an innocent blush and then looked up at him through her lashes. His eyebrows rose. Excellent. He was a malleable kind of man.

“Actually,” she began, practically purring, “I’m looking for someone. I was hoping you might know him?”

The old man’s chest puffed up with pride. Perfect.

She was looking for someone—that part was the truth. Her information was that Isabel Santino had married a local rancher by the name of Patrick Wesley in the small ranching town of Firestone, Colorado. It had taken Natalie months to track down the marriage certificate in the county courthouses.

That’s how long it had been since the Beaumont bastards had revealed themselves to the public, back in September. Zeb Richards was the oldest of Hardwick Beaumont’s illegitimate children. Through a great deal of underhanded dealings that were rumored to be possibly illegal and definitely unethical, he had taken control of the Beaumont Brewery. When Richards had done so, he had had another one of Hardwick’s bastard sons, Daniel Lee, standing next to him. The two brothers now ran the brewery and, according to their last quarterly statement, their market share was up eight percent.

But there was more to the story than that. Richards had slipped up at a press conference when Natalie had flashed her very best smile at him and he had admitted that there was a third bastard out there. She hadn’t been able to get any more information out of him, but that had been enough.

The Beaumont bastards were big, big news. Natalie’s show, A Good Morning with Natalie Baker, had been milking the Beaumont family drama for months. It’d been easy, for a while. Zeb Richards had taken over the brewery and then had gotten the brewmaster pregnant. Apparently, he had fallen in love with Casey Johnson—or, at least, they were putting on an exceptionally good public face. They had mostly been seen at the playoffs and the World Series—and at their wedding, of course. That alone had fueled a twelve-percent ratings jump throughout the fall.

But it was December now. Richards and his new wife were old news and would stay that way until she had her baby. That was a good six months off and Natalie’s ratings couldn’t coast that long.

She had tried to dig into Daniel Lee’s past, but that had proved nearly impossible. It was as if he’d been erased from the public system. No one knew anything about him other than he’d started running political campaigns a few years ago, but even then, she couldn’t find anything. He was reputed to play hard and dirty—just like a Beaumont, she figured—but any question Natalie had asked about Lee had been met with a blank stare and a shrug.

That left her with one option and one option only: the mysterious third Beaumont bastard. Which presented its own special set of challenges because no one knew anything about the man except that he existed.

Natalie needed this story because she needed her show. Without it, what did she have?

“Well now, I know just about everyone around these parts. I’m sure I can help you out,” the old man said. “Who are you looking for?”

“I believe his name is Carlos Julián Santino? He also might go by Wesley.” She batted her eyelashes at the old man. “Do you know where I might be able to find him?”

The old man’s grin cracked and he looked significantly less welcoming. “Who?” he asked after a long moment.

That long moment told her things. Specifically, it told her that this feed store owner knew exactly who she was talking about—but he wasn’t about to give it away. Interesting. She was getting closer.

“His mother’s name was Isabel? She might go by Isabella.”

“Sorry, missy, but I don’t know anyone by those names.”

“Are you sure?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I can make it worth your while.”

The old man’s cheeks shot red. “Can’t help you,” he grunted, retreating a step. “Do you need any cat food? Dog food? Horse feed? Salt licks?”

Dammit. She was getting closer, she could feel it—but she had overplayed her hand.

An insidious voice whispered in the back of her head—you can’t do this. Natalie tried to push that voice away, but it was persistent. It always was.

She needed to find Carlos Julián Santino. A Good Morning was everything she had and she couldn’t let a little something like the lack of exclusive celebrity gossip be the final thing to take her down.

Still, she wasn’t going to find out anything else in this feed store. Maybe there was a café or a diner in town. She’d only started here because, as far as she could tell, Patrick Wesley owned a ranch where his family raised beef cattle and surely, cattle ate...something. She wasn’t even sure if the Isabel Santino who had married Patrick Wesley was the same Isabel Santino listed on the birth certificate from the Swedish Medical Center in Denver. There was no mention of any child in the marriage certificate and, try as she might, Natalie had been unable to turn up any adoption record between Patrick Wesley and Carlos Julián Santino.

So she could still be wrong. But given the feed store owner’s reaction? She didn’t think she was.

She slipped one of her business cards out of her coat pocket and forced her most winning smile back onto her face, as if she weren’t grossly disappointed. “Well, if you hear anything, why don’t you give me a call?” She pushed the card across the counter.

The man did not reach out and pick up the card, so Natalie left it in the dust. She turned to go...only to find herself directly in the sights of a tall, dark and extremely handsome cowboy.

“Oh!” She put a fluttering hand to her chest, playing up her delicate sensibilities to the hilt. “I didn’t see you there.”

The cowboy’s face was in dark shadows under the brim of his black hat, but she could tell he was watching her. Had he been there the entire time? It would be easier to flirt with him if he hadn’t seen her flirting with the old man.

Of course, it would be easier to flirt with this cowboy, period. Even though he was wearing a thick sheepskin coat, she could tell his shoulders were broad. He didn’t look like a man pretending to be a cowboy—he looked like a man who worked with his hands day in and day out. What kind of muscles were underneath that coat?

“Who are you looking for?” he asked, his voice deep and low and carrying just a hint of menace.

A delicious shiver went through her that had nothing to do with the cold. Her gaze dropped to where his hands rested on his hips. Dear God, look at those hands. Massive and rough-looking—a working man’s hands. Not smooth and polished and manicured. Not perfect. But real. How would those hands feel on her skin? Her body tensed at the thought of his fingers tracing a line down her chest, circling her nipples...

Oh, she could have a lot of fun with a cowboy like him. If she hadn’t had an audience, she might’ve told him that she was looking for him.

But she did have an audience. And a lead to chase. So she put on her most sultry smile. “Have you ever heard of Isabel Santino or Carlos Santino?”

His reaction to these names was so subtle she almost missed it, but a muscle ticked in his jaw. He tilted his head back—not far enough that she could see his eyes, but far enough she knew he was looking her up and down. She rolled her shoulders forward and popped out a hip—her Marilyn Monroe pose. It was usually very effective.

Today must not be her day, though. Not even the best that Marilyn had to offer got anything out of this cowboy. He might look like a fantasy come to life, but he clearly wasn’t going to play along. “Wilmer’s right—I’ve never heard of either of those people, certainly not here. And this is a small town.”

“What about Wesley?”

She saw that muscle in his jaw twitch again. “Pat Wesley? Sure, everybody knows Pat.” He tilted his head down again, hiding the rest of his face in shadows. “He’s not here, though.”

All the smiling was beginning to make her cheeks tight. “Where is he?”

She had couched the question in a sultry tone but the corner of the cowboy’s mouth twitched up—was he laughing at her?

He leaned an elbow against a stack of feedbags. He wasn’t her type—but there was something so gritty about this cowboy that she couldn’t look away. “Why do you want to know? Pat’s just a rancher. Keeps to himself—lived here his whole life. Not much to tell, really.”

This cowboy was not following the script. He wasn’t taking her seriously and he wasn’t falling under her spell. Most importantly, he wasn’t giving her anything she could use. Quiet ranchers who kept to themselves did not make for good headlines.

“Do you know if he has an adopted son?” She knew that Carlos Julián Santino would be thirty-four years old. She didn’t know how old this cowboy was—there was no way to tell, with his face in the shadows like it was.

There was that twitching in his jaw again. But he said, “Ma’am, I assure you he does not.”

What if she were wrong? Of course you’re wrong, the voice in the back of her head scolded her.

It was ridiculous for her to have thought she could find the one man nobody else could. She was ridiculous, pinning all her hopes and dreams for ratings gold, for fame and fortune, onto the Beaumonts and their various and sundry bastards.

She swallowed down the bitter disappointment. Unexpectedly, the cowboy tilted his head to one side, letting a little light spill across his features. It was a damn shame he wasn’t more helpful—or more interested—because he was simply gorgeous. He had a strong jaw with a healthy two-week stubble coming in that made her want to stroke his face and other things. What color were his eyes?

No, she shouldn’t be thinking about this guy’s eyes. She should be focused on her end goal—finding the lost Beaumont bastard. What would his eyes be like? Dark? Or light? Zeb Richards’s eyes were a bright green—which really stood out on a black man. She didn’t know if Carlos Santino’s eyes would be light or dark.

Still, she wanted to see what this cowboy’s eyes looked like. Would they tell her something that his body wasn’t? If she could get a good look at his eyes, would she see wariness—or want?

He tilted his head back down, throwing his face completely in shadows again. Crap. This was not her lucky day. This man was immune to her charms and she couldn’t stand in a feed store all day. She might not be very smart, but even she knew when to cut her losses. She pulled out another card and offered it to the cowboy. “If you find out anything, I can make it worth your while.”

He didn’t take the card. “I’m sure you can, Ms. Baker.” He stepped toward her and Natalie tensed. He knew who she was? Was he a viewer? A fan? Or was he one of those anonymous internet trolls who made her skin crawl even as she craved their attention?

Because when they were insulting her, at least they were paying attention. She was someone, even if she was someone they despised.

But he stepped around her, careful to cut a wide enough berth that there was no accidental touching. Instead, he went to the counter and leaned against it, his entire body angled toward Wilmer.

The body language was clear. It was them against her.

She did what she always did when she felt insecure—she took up as much space as she could. She straightened her shoulders and shot another one of her best smiles at the two men.

She said, “Gentlemen,” even though it was pretty clear that was a loosely applied term at best. And then, head held high, she walked out of the Firestone Grain and Feed and contemplated her next move.

* * *

“What the heck was that all about?” Wilmer asked, scratching the back of his head.

CJ Wesley kept an eye on the woman through the grimy windows of the feed store. She stood on the front step, no doubt plotting where to look for him next. Jesus, Natalie Baker was even more gorgeous in real life than she was on television. And in that outfit?

He knew what she was wearing was part of her act. No sane human would drive out to the windswept northern hills of Colorado in December in a skin-tight black skirt that, with black lace overlaying a black silk lining, looked exactly as warm as a bathing suit. Between the skirt and the sky-high heels—he was damn impressed at how she walked in them—her legs were what men wrote poetry about.

CJ cleared his throat. He wasn’t a poet and he wasn’t interested in Natalie Baker. As he watched, she stepped carefully down the stairs and moved toward a red convertible—a Mustang. Was there any car less appropriate for December in Colorado than that one?

Then again, everything about Natalie Baker was inappropriate, from her amazing cleavage to her fake smiles to her terrifying questions.

“No idea,” CJ lied.

“She’s one of those TV people,” Wilmer said, and CJ had to wonder if Wilmer had just figured that out. He was many things, but Wilmer was not a morning-chat-show guy. If anyone paid even the slightest attention to the morning shows, they’d recognize Natalie Baker immediately. She kept her finger firmly on the pulse of the Denver social scene. If a sports star cheated on his wife, an actress fell in love or, say, a billionaire fathered a bunch of illegitimate children, Natalie Baker was there.

Which meant she was here.

Of course, CJ knew Natalie Baker was a beautiful woman. Her face smiled out at him in high definition every morning. But in real life, she’d not only been more beautiful, but also more...delicate, too. Although that could have just been the juxtaposition of her expensive clothes and perfect makeup with the grime of the feed store.

Wilmer waited until her car was out of sight before speaking again. “What do TV people want with your dad?”

“Don’t have a clue,” CJ lied again. Because he knew. He knew exactly why Natalie Baker was here. It had very little to do with his father, Patrick Wesley.

It had everything to do with Hardwick Beaumont.

CJ shook his head, hoping Wilmer would read it as confusion. “Dad’s not even here,” he reminded Wilmer because CJ knew one thing: all the gossip in this town ran through Wilmer. The Firestone Diner was almost as bad, but Wilmer Higgins at the Firestone Grain and Feed was officially worse. CJ had to get out in front of this and make sure Wilmer had his version of events before anyone started looking around too hard. “You know that man’s never done a scandalous thing in his life.”

It helped that Pat Wesley had lived in Firestone for all of his fifty-six years. Everyone thought they knew everything about him and not a damn bit of it was scandalous. He was the third generation of Wesleys to raise beef cattle on his land—CJ was the fourth. As far as this town was concerned, the most outrageous thing Patrick Wesley had ever done was marry a woman named Bell that he’d met while he was in the army instead of the girl who’d been his high-school sweetheart. But that had been thirty-three years ago, and since then?

CJ knew exactly how dull his dad was. It was not a bad thing. Patrick Wesley was a good man and a good father, but his idea of a wild Friday night was driving to the next town over to eat at Cracker Barrel and even then, he’d be home by eight and snoring in his recliner by eight thirty. Safe? Yes. Reliable? Absolutely.

Newsworthy? Not a shot in hell.

CJ didn’t know what made him madder about the sudden appearance of the gorgeous Natalie Baker asking questions—that the people he’d grown up with might one day figure out he wasn’t actually Pat’s son or that, once they found out, they might treat Pat and Bell Wesley differently.

He knew who Natalie was, of course. She was hard to miss. Her beautiful face was on his screen every morning at seven thirty. CJ didn’t actually like her show—it was too much gossip and innuendo about celebrities. But she also seemed to be the first to know anything about the Beaumonts. It wasn’t like CJ religiously followed them. Hell, he didn’t even like their beer. But he liked to stay informed. And that meant he caught A Good Morning with Natalie Baker most days.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was watching it for her. He wasn’t. Yes, she was beautiful on screen and, okay, she was stunning in real life. That had nothing to do with anything. He preferred that station’s morning weatherman to the other options, that was all. So watching her show was just a matter of convenience, really.

“I know,” Wilmer said, snapping his suspenders. “It just don’t make a lick of sense. I mean, you weren’t adopted.”

CJ forced himself to smile. “That’s what they tell me,” he said in a joking tone. It was a relief when Wilmer chuckled. “Clearly, they have the wrong Wesley.” Wilmer nodded and CJ took advantage of the pause to ask about the latest supplements for his horses. Wilmer enjoyed gossip, but he wasn’t about to miss out on a chance to sell a feed supplement.

CJ didn’t actually want the supplement but it was a small price to pay for distracting Wilmer from one Ms. Natalie Baker. He finished up his regular order with a sample of the new supplement and headed out to his truck.

He was going to have to tell his mother. She had lived in fear of the day when the Beaumonts would come for him. He had heard all the stories and, for years now, had followed all the headlines. He knew Hardwick Beaumont was dead and the idea didn’t bother him even a little. He couldn’t even bring himself to think of the man as his father—not even his birth father. Hardwick had been nothing more than a sperm donor. Patrick Wesley was his father in every sense of the word. He knew it, his parents knew it and the state of Colorado knew it. End of discussion.

God, this was going to upset his mother. She had relaxed after Hardwick’s death—although by then, CJ had been twenty-one and a man in his own right. But Bell Wesley had lived in fear that Hardwick Beaumont would come for her son for so long that worrying about it was a reflexive habit she couldn’t break. It was one of the reasons why his parents wintered in Arizona now. The Denver TV stations were saturated with Beaumont Brewery Christmas commercials this time of year and it always upset her. And his dad hated it when his mom was upset.

CJ always missed them at Christmas, but otherwise, he was glad to have the place to himself. And when they came back from wintering in Arizona, they were happy and relaxed and everything went smoothly.

This year, he was even gladder they were in Arizona. If Natalie Baker had found his mother and started asking questions, Mom might’ve had a nervous breakdown.

He drove slowly through town, keeping his eyes peeled. It was impossible to miss her Mustang parked in front of the diner.

Damn it all. He knew deep in his heart that he had not seen the last of that woman. Isabel might’ve gone by Bell and they might’ve downplayed her being Hispanic, but it was a damn short leap from Carlos Julián to CJ.

It was only a matter of time until he was outed as one of the Beaumont bastards.

Two

There were many things Natalie wasn’t—talented, pretty, likable, smart—but no one could say she wasn’t persistent. Even her father would have to grudgingly admit that she didn’t give up when the going got tough. It was maybe the only valuable lesson he’d ever taught her.

She shivered in her car, cranking the heat up a little more—not that it made a difference. The winds were blowing out of what she assumed was the north with a howling ferocity and there was no way her trusty Mustang was going to keep the chill at bay.

She’d spent the better part of the last three weeks visiting Firestone, making friends with the locals and trying to weasel out more information about Patrick Wesley and his family. It had not been easy. For starters, the coffee at the diner was awful and no one in this town had ever heard of a latte. More than that, it felt like the town had closed ranks. Just like that handsome cowboy and the feed store owner had.

Natalie was an outsider and they weren’t going to allow her in.

Still, she had just enough celebrity cachet to razzle-dazzle some of the locals. She was famous enough and pretty enough and she knew how to use those assets like laser-guided weapons. She had spent weeks flirting and smiling and cooing and touching the shoulders of men who probably knew better but were flattered by a young woman paying attention to them.

Maybe they did know better. Because it hadn’t been one of the old geezers who’d finally slipped up. It had been a younger man, in his late twenties and full of swagger. He’d been the only real threat to her. The old guys never would’ve followed up on her flirtations, which was why it was safe to make them. But this guy had seen her as someone he could use just as much as she could use him.

He had finally given her what she wanted, after she had made some vague promises that maybe the next time he was in Denver, he should look her up. It turned out that Pat Wesley—who appeared to be some sort of saint, according to the locals—did have a son. That in and of itself wasn’t so unusual.

But his son’s name was CJ.

Carlos Julián Santino had to be CJ Wesley. There was simply no other alternative.

She rubbed her arms over her coat, trying to keep the blood circulating through some of her body. She had been sitting outside of the house on Wesley land for half an hour and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could take it. It was freezing.

She kept going over the questions she’d ask this Wesley guy. Maybe it was the mind-numbing cold, though, because her thoughts kept drifting back to the second person she’d talked to—the tall, dark cowboy in the feed store.

Despite the amount of time she’d spent in Firestone over the last three weeks, she hadn’t seen him again. Not that she’d been looking—she hadn’t. He’d made his position clear. He would not help her and she couldn’t afford to waste time on a dead end.

But that hadn’t stopped her from thinking of him. It was hard not to—not when she peeled that heavy sheepskin coat off his body and threw his hat to the side in her dreams. She’d spent weeks waking up frustrated and achy, all because of one cowboy with an attitude problem.

What had his eyes looked like? Did he watch her show? Did he ever wonder what she was like?

While she mused, she kept scrolling through Twitter. Her last tweet—a tease about tomorrow’s big reveal of a “major star” on A Good Morning—had only gotten four retweets. She clicked over to Instagram and saw that the cross post had gotten no replies.

Tightness took hold of her chest that had nothing to do with the cold. It’d been like this for weeks now—her reach falling, her interactions dropping off a cliff. If no one paid attention to her, she wouldn’t matter. At least if they were mad at her, they were paying attention. But once the attention stopped...

Her phone pinged—a text from her producer, Steve. Anything yet?

Natalie forced herself to breathe once, and then twice. Working on it, she texted back.

The latest numbers are in—you’re falling behind. If you can’t pull this out, I’m giving your slot to Kevin.

The tightness in her chest squeezed so hard she had trouble breathing. There was no way she could wait until the next Beaumont baby was born—she needed Carlos Julián Santino or CJ Wesley or whatever name he went by and she needed him now. She could not lose her spot to Kevin Durante. Kevin had great hair and that was it. He was dumber than a post, lousy in bed and, unfortunately, was exactly the sort of benign golden boy that did well on morning television. She’d rather cut off her toe than give her spot to Kevin.

No worries! she texted back. I’ll be in touch.

There was an agonizingly long pause before Steve replied. You better be right about this, Baker.

I won’t let you down! she texted back, hoping that sounded far more confident than she felt.

Steve was running out of patience with her. If she lost ground to Denver This Morning, then she’d be out of a job, out of broadcasting, out of the public eye. Steve’s job security rested entirely on beating Denver This Morning in the ratings. She knew damn good and well he wouldn’t go down with her ship. He would replace her in a heartbeat if it came to that. With Kevin.

So, she continued to sit in the freezing cold outside of the Wesley house, waiting. The house was dark and she had knocked on every visible door when she’d arrived. She was as confident as she could be without breaking and entering that no one was home.

Okay, she bargained with herself, she would tough it out for ten minutes and if no one showed up she would head back to the diner. The coffee might be god-awful, but it was hot. And maybe that grumpy cowboy would show up.

She spent the next ten minutes toggling between Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, trying to fight the growing sense of panic at the lack of likes and hearts and favorites and retweets. Clearly, her last posts hadn’t been shocking enough. Feeling desperate, she posted: Rumor has it that Matthew Beaumont and his child-star bride Whitney Wildz are expecting—but is the baby really his?

She felt a pang of guilt at the lie before she reminded herself that the Beaumonts were a public entity and this was how the game was played. Besides, if anyone could handle the heat, it was PR genius Matthew Beaumont. Really, the Beaumonts should be thanking her. She helped them sell beer, after all.

The guilt successfully contained, she posted and cross-posted the rumor. As the comments added up and the retweets accumulated, the tightness in her chest loosened. This was better. She had a therapist once tell her that her need for approval was unhealthy and she should accept herself for who she was. Natalie had accepted that she was not going back to that therapist ever again.

Still, she was freezing. She put down her phone and went to put her car into Reverse when she saw it—a vaguely familiar pickup truck rolling up behind her. Oh, thank God—she was in no mood to die of frostbite out in the middle of nowhere.

Well, well, well. If it wasn’t a particularly familiar-looking tall, dark, handsome cowboy climbing out of that pickup truck. She should’ve known. The cowboy in the black hat from the feed store was none other than Carlos Julián Santino Beaumont Wesley. That muscle twitch in his jaw—that was his tell. She had been so close to the truth—why hadn’t she seen it?

Her heart did a funny little skip at the sight of him and honestly, she wasn’t sure if that was because he was the man she’d been searching for to secure her job for the foreseeable future or...

Or if she was just glad to see him.

That was ridiculous. She wasn’t glad to see him and he sure as hell wasn’t glad to see her—even at this distance, his scowl was ferocious. She waited until he had shut the door of his truck before she opened her own door. She unfolded her legs slowly, letting her skirt ride up a little so he could catch a glimpse of her thigh as she stood. “We meet again.”

A whole lot more than his jaw was twitching. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He was pissed, but she refused to cower. “I believe I’ve been looking for you, Mr. Santino. Or should I say, Mr. Beaumont?”

She was pushing her luck and she knew it. He was practically vibrating with rage and no amount of bare leg was going to appease him. If only she’d guessed that the man she was looking for was the cowboy from the feed store, she would’ve at least put on long pants because that cowboy had not been interested in her body. And, by all accounts, he still wasn’t.

“My name is Wesley,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Sure, we can play it that way. CJ Wesley, right?” With shivering fingers, she pulled out her phone and opened up the camera app.

The next thing she knew, she was staring at her empty hand. She blinked and looked up just in time to see Wesley pocketing her phone. “Hey! Give that back!”

“No,” he said, and almost smiled. “I don’t think I’m going to. You’re on private property, Ms. Baker. You’re about two steps away from flat-out stalking me. You’ve been working your way through the population of Firestone for the last three weeks trying to get out here. I’m trying to think of a good reason why I shouldn’t call Jim Bob and have you arrested for stalking, trespassing, and—” His gaze swept over her body. “And sheer stupidity. Did you even look at the weather before you drove out here today? Don’t you know there’s supposed to be a blizzard that hits tonight? And you’re out here in what—a pair of heels and a skirt? You’re lucky you’re not dead of exposure already.”

She stared at him and, for a moment, forgot to arrange herself in the most seductive way possible. The first part of what he said—the trespassing and stalking—wasn’t so surprising. She’d had people angry at her before.

But the part about the blizzard and exposure? He was mad at her—perhaps justifiably—but it had almost sounded like he was concerned about her. “Our meteorologist said it wasn’t going to hit until tomorrow.”

“Get in your car,” he said sharply.

The force of his words backed her up a bit. Although it could have been the wind. “What? No! You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere without my phone.”

Unexpectedly, he jerked his head up and looked at the sky. Dark, she realized. His eyes were a deeper color—hazel? Maybe light brown. Not the light green of so many of the Beaumonts. The shadow from the brim of his hat had to have been the reason why she hadn’t seen the Beaumont in his face in the feed store. Every Beaumont man had the same jawline. CJ Wesley was no exception.

She was beginning to shake, the wind was that vicious. She eyed his heavy sheepskin coat with jealousy. “Look,” she began, “I’m sure there’s something—”

“Ms. Baker,” he interrupted, “get in your car and start driving. That storm isn’t going to hit tomorrow. It’s coming. Now.” As he spoke, he reached back into the bed of his truck and pulled out several grocery bags. “And I’m not giving you your phone back. I’ll take a hatchet to it before I let you take pictures of me and splash them all over God’s green earth. My life is not for sale.” He looked up at the sky and grimaced. “City slickers,” he mumbled, she thought.

He brushed past her, moving too fast for her to grab him and get her phone out of his pocket. He set down the groceries on the porch and fumbled with his keys.

She just stood there, gaping at him. “I am not leaving without my phone.” Her life was on that phone—her connection to the world. If she didn’t have it...well, she didn’t have anything.

He stopped as he got the door open and turned back to her. “You leave right now or you won’t be leaving at all.” He pointed at the sky behind her.

Reluctantly, Natalie turned her face into the wind. It was so bitingly strong that it was hard to keep her eyes open. Finally, she saw what he was talking about. It wasn’t just the gray sky that had washed the colors out of the landscape—it was a huge gray cloud. Suddenly, she could tell that it was moving—quickly. The cloud was bearing down on them, erasing the landscape underneath it. It was a living, moving thing—a wall of swirling white. She hadn’t noticed because she’d been too busy looking at her phone and then at him. There weren’t many buildings around here to use as landmarks, but it was clear now that the storm was almost upon her and that she was screwed.

For the first time that day, she felt real fear. Not just the everyday anxiety that she struggled with all the time—no, this was a true, burning fear. Storms in Denver could be a weather event—but there were snowplows and twenty-four-hour pharmacies. There were snow shovels and sidewalks, and sooner rather than later, she would be able to get out and move around her city.

But now she was in the middle of nowhere with a blizzard about to hit. This wasn’t the makings of a white Christmas. And given that she was already half-frozen, it wouldn’t take much to finish her off.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at the cloud wall. Time seemed to slow down the faster the storm moved. Then, suddenly, she was in the wall of snow and wind. She tried to scream, but the wind tore her cries out of her throat and threw them away. Her first instinct was to curl into a ball and shield her nearly bare legs, but dimly, in the back of her mind, she knew she needed to move. Standing still meant death. Not the slow death of a ratings slide. A real, irreversible, not-coming-back-from-it death.

She stumbled to one side, but the wind pushed her back. Her car! She looked around but couldn’t even see the Mustang. There was nothing but gray and stinging snowflakes and blisteringly cold wind.

Then, unexpectedly, she felt something warm and solid at her back. Arms closed around her waist and physically lifted her into the air. Wesley. Her first instinct was to struggle—but the fact that he was warm overrode everything else. She let him carry her, trusting that he knew where he was and where he was going. After what seemed like an hour but was probably only a minute or two, a dark shape loomed out of the snow—the house. He carried her up steps and thrust her through the door, where she promptly tripped over the groceries. She landed with a thud on her bottom, dazed and freezing and wet.

She looked up and saw Wesley struggling to get the door shut. He put his shoulder into it and slammed it against the wind, and instantly, she felt at least ten degrees warmer.

“Thank you,” she said. Well, she tried to say it. Her teeth were chattering so hard what came out sounded more like a keyboard clicking.

Wesley loomed over her, his hands on his hips. At some point, he’d lost his hat, which meant that for the first time, she had a really good look at his face. His hair was a deep brown and his face was tanned. He had snowflakes stuck to his two-week beard. She couldn’t stop shivering, but he just stood there like an immovable boulder.

An angry immovable boulder.

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, as if he could see exactly how worthless she felt. So, still shaking so hard that she could barely get her feet under her, she stood. It was then she realized she’d lost one of her shoes. Dammit, those had been Dolce & Gabbana.

“Thank you,” she said again. It came out less clicky this time. “I’ll just warm up and then I’ll go.” She swallowed. “I’d like my phone back, please, but I promise I won’t take any pictures of you.” It hurt to make that promise because her producer was expecting results and without them...

CJ Wesley had just saved her life. He obviously didn’t like her, but he’d still dragged her into his house. And for that, she was grateful.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

She could be grateful and still be irritated at the tone in his voice, right? “Get what?”

“The convertible of yours? It’s not four-wheel drive, is it?”

“No...”

He sighed heavily and looked toward the ceiling. “I send you back out in this, assuming you can even get to your car before you freeze to death in that getup,” he said, waving a dismissive hand at her outfit, “you won’t make it off the property. You’ll drive off the road, get stuck in a ditch and freeze to death before nightfall.” He leveled a hard gaze at her and all of her self-defense mechanisms failed her. She shrank back. “You’re stuck here, Ms. Baker. You’re stuck here with me for the duration.”

Three

“What?”

CJ had to stop himself from stepping forward and brushing the snowflakes from her eyelashes. She was an ice princess right now, the White Witch of Winter. If he wasn’t careful, she just might bewitch him. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She shuddered again and this time, he didn’t think it was entirely from the cold. Now what? Maybe he should have just left her out there, since he couldn’t seem to get rid of her any other way.

But even as he thought it, he felt guilty. That was not the Wesley way and he knew it. So now, it appeared he would be spending the next several days—possibly even Christmas—with Natalie Baker. The one woman who had not only figured out he was related to Hardwick Beaumont, but also wanted to use that knowledge for...for what? Ratings?

“I could...” She looked out the front window. CJ looked with her. It was a solid mass of gray. It could’ve been fog, except for the small particles of snow and ice pinging off the window.

“No, you can’t. I’m not going to let you freeze to death out there.” He gritted his teeth. How was he going to keep her out of his business if she were physically stuck in his house?

How was he going to keep his hands off of her if she were stuck in his house?

Hell, he’d already failed at that. He’d picked her up and all but slung her over his shoulder like he was a caveman, dragging her back to his cave. Her body had been cold, yes—but also soft and light and...

“You’re probably freezing,” he went on, trying to stay in the present.

Because the present was a wet woman who was criminally underdressed. He needed to get her warmed up before she caught her death. And given the way the wind was howling out there, he didn’t have a lot of time. “You better take a hot shower while we still have power. And if there’s anyone you need to call to let them know you’re all right, you should do that now.” She opened her mouth but he cut her off. “You can use my house phone.”

He wanted her to move, or at least do something—but she didn’t. Instead she looked at him with a mixture of confusion and anxiety. “Are you being nice to me?”

“No,” he answered quickly, even though it was a lie and they both knew it. “But I don’t want your death on my hands.”

That statement sobered her up. “Oh.”

She sounded small and vulnerable and dammit, that pulled at something inside of him. But he wasn’t going to listen to that something because he liked to think he wasn’t an idiot. And only an idiot would fall for whatever Natalie Baker was trying to pull over him. She’d spent weeks hunting for him and she’d already tried to use her fabulous body as an enticement on more than one occasion. For all he knew, she had decided raw sexuality wouldn’t work and instead was making a play for his heartstrings.

It wasn’t going to work. He was immune to all the vulnerability she was projecting right now. “Who do you need to call?”

He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she seemed to get even smaller. “Well, I guess...” There was a long pause. “Well...” she said again, blinking furiously. “No one.”

He stared at her. “You’re probably going to be here for Christmas, you realize that, right?” Surely, there had to be someone who would miss her. She was a famous TV personality. He’d recognized her the moment she set foot in the feed store. Someone as beautiful and talented as Natalie Baker... Even if she didn’t have close family, she had to have friends.

She shook her head. Then she tried to smile. “I’m not going to lie, the shower sounds great. I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold.”

He eyed her clothes again. She kicked out of her other shoe, and suddenly, she barely came up to his shoulder. She had nothing on her legs but a tight, short skirt underneath a peacoat in a wild fuchsia color. He couldn’t decide if she was oblivious or just stupid about the weather. Or if she’d planned it this way—planned on getting herself trapped out here with him.

Either way, he was willing to get her some dry clothes. That skirt wasn’t going to keep her warm even if he got his fireplace cranked up. “All right. But,” he said before she could make a move deeper into his house, “these are the rules. I hold on to your phone for as long as you’re here and you stay out of my life. Otherwise, it’s a hell of a long walk to town in this weather.”

He wouldn’t really kick her out—but she didn’t need to know that.

For a second, a sign of toughness flashed over her face and he thought she was going to argue. But just then, the wind rattled the door and the color—what little of it she’d managed to regain—drained from her face. She nodded, looking almost innocent. “Understood. I’m sorry that I’m intruding upon your Christmas.”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you?”

It wasn’t a nice thing to say—thereby proving her wrong. He wasn’t being all that nice to her. Which bothered him, even though it shouldn’t. It especially bothered him when she had the nerve to look so...defeated. Sure, maybe that was the wet clothes and the straggly hair—and the mascara that had started to slide. The woman before him right now was anything but polished.

Before his guilt could get the better of him, he said, “This way.”

This was a mistake because someone like Natalie Baker—he didn’t even know what to call her. A journalist? A reporter? A talking head? Well, whatever she was, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep her out of his life, not if they were going to be stranded here for four or five days. Sooner or later, she’d stumble upon something he didn’t want her to see. His baby book or the awkward photo from eighth grade when he accidentally cut his hair into a mullet while trying to be fashionable.

He hoped she’d take a long shower so he could do a sweep of the house and hide as much of his life as he could.

He passed the thermostat and cranked it up. It might get warm in the house, but with the way that wind was blowing, they would lose power sooner rather than later. If he hadn’t been busy arguing with her, he could’ve gotten the generator going already. As it was, he’d have to wait until the snow stopped. And who knew when that would be.

Besides, when he glanced back at her, she had her arms wrapped around herself as she trailed after him. Her lips were blue—actually, all of her looked blue. Crap. He really did need to get her warmed up.

He led her back to the guest room, which had the advantage of being the room with the least amount of family pictures. As long as they had power, he’d leave her in this room. If he could, he’d lock her in it—but he knew that would only make matters worse. He could see the headline now—Long-Lost Beaumont Bastard Locks Beloved Celebrity in Guest Room.

No, thank you.

The guest room had an attached bathroom. “We’re probably going to lose power in the next half hour, so plan accordingly.” He thought she nodded—it was hard to tell, because she was shaking so hard.

God, what a mess. He went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. “Make sure you stay in there until you’ve returned to a normal temperature.”

The other alternative to get her body temperature back up was to strip them both down and crawl under the covers with her.

He looked at her legs again. Long and, when not borderline frostbitten, probably tanned. The kind of legs that would wrap around him and—

Whoa.

He slammed the brakes on that line of thought something quick. There would be no nudity, no cuddling and absolutely no sex. What he had to do right now, as steam curled out of the bathroom and she shrugged out of her fuchsia coat to reveal a thin silk blouse that was soaked at the cuffs and collar, was remember that every single thing he said and did from this point on was as good as public. He wouldn’t touch her and, what’s more, he wouldn’t allow her to touch him. End of discussion.

“I’ll bring in some better clothes for you,” he said as he headed out of the room. Because if he had a look at her walking around in that tight skirt and that sheer blouse for the next three or four days...

He was a strong man. But even he wasn’t sure he was that strong. Not if she was going to look all soft and vulnerable as well as sexy.

“Thank you,” she said again in that delicate voice.

No, he wasn’t going to think of her as vulnerable. Or delicate. It was probably just an act designed to get him to open up to her.

He hurried to his parents’ room and dug out some appropriate clothing—long underwear, jeans, shirts and sweaters and socks. His mom was a little shorter and a lot curvier than Natalie Baker, but her things should fit. Better than anything of his, anyway. She’d swim in one of his sweaters.

He knocked on the guest room door and, when no one replied, he cracked it open. Good. The bathroom door was closed and he heard splashing. She was in the shower, then. Standing nude under the hot water, maybe even running the soap over her body, her bare breasts, her...

He hoped she’d locked that damn door. He laid the clothes out on the bed and almost scooped up her things to take them down to the laundry room to dry. But then he caught sight of the lacy bra and matching panties—pale pink, like a confection that she’d worn on her body—and he drew back his hand as if he’d been burned. Okay, so now he was going to not think about her body wearing those things. And he also had to not think about her not wearing those things.

Oh, God. This was a disaster in the making.

He forced his thoughts away from the woman steaming up the shower. He had practical things that he needed to get done. It was obvious she had no idea how to ride out a blizzard, which meant it was up to him to keep them both from freezing to death.

He made sure that every other door on the second floor was shut, then he hurried downstairs, pausing to snag the family photos off the wall. He shoved those into the coat closet. Luckily, he’d laid a fire in the fireplace before he’d gone to town this morning, so all he had to do was light it. Once it was going, he went to the kitchen. He had a roast in a slow cooker, but he turned on the gas oven anyway, just to build up the heat in the house. Once the power went, the wind would sap any warmth from this room in a matter of minutes. And if he just left it on, he wouldn’t have to worry about lighting it with a match later.

He scrubbed a couple of potatoes and put them in the oven and then, after a moment of internal debate, dug an apple pie out of the freezer and put it in the oven, too.

Every fall, his mom went into a frenzy of cooking and baking. CJ had long ago figured out that it was her way of coping with the guilt of leaving her only son alone during the holidays. He had an entire deep freeze full of casseroles and cobblers and meals in bags that all he had to do was heat up in the oven or the slow cooker. Pretty much the only thing she didn’t leave him was pizza and beer, which was why he’d headed to the store this morning after sending his hired hands home for the storm and cutting his chores short. If he was going to be snowed in for Christmas, he wanted a couple of pizzas to round out the menu.

Then he did another sweep of the downstairs. He pulled more photos from the wall and the mantel over the fireplace. These he carried back to the office—that had a door he could lock. If he could, he’d put the entire house in that room and bolt the door shut.

The parlor was where most of the photo albums were—it had a door, but not a lock. Well, he’d just have to keep her out of it. Much as he didn’t like it, he would have to stick to Natalie Baker like glue.

Finally, with dinner underway and as much of his life hidden as he could hide, he headed back up the stairs. Just as he reached the top, she opened her door and stepped out into the hall.

CJ’s breath caught in his throat. Gone was the too-polished, too-perfect celebrity. And in her place...

She’d pulled her hair into a low tail at the side. Her face was free of makeup, but somehow she looked even prettier. Softer, definitely.

That softness was dangerous. So was any question he was asking himself right now about whether or not she’d put the lacy pink panties back on.

So he did his best to focus on anything but that. “Better?” he asked in a gruff voice, but he didn’t need to ask because he could tell. The color had come back into her cheeks—a natural blush instead of an artfully applied one. Her hair was fair—more blond than it looked on-screen. Without the heavy layer of eye makeup, her eyes seemed wider, more crystal blue.

Bad. This was bad.

“Yes, thank you.” Even her voice sounded different now. True, she was no longer shivering with cold, but when she was on television, talking to the camera and interviewing stars, her voice had a certain cadence to it, low and husky. That was gone now.

CJ realized with a start that he might be looking at the real Natalie Baker. And he couldn’t do that. If he started thinking of her as a real person instead of a talking head, then he might get lost in those blue eyes.

Luckily, the storm saved him from himself. With a pop, all the lights went out. Natalie didn’t scream, but he heard her gasp in alarm.

“It’s all right,” he said, coming the rest of the way to get her. The hall was darker than normal because he’d shut the doors. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” He reached out to touch her—just to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. But when he did so, she latched onto his forearm with a tight, fearful grip.

He sucked in air and fought the sudden urge to wrap his arms around her and keep her safe. Dammit, she was getting to him.

“Sorry,” she said, loosening her grip—but not letting him go. “I guess I’m a little jumpy. I’m not normally this poorly prepared.”

CJ didn’t think he could believe she’d gotten stranded by accident. But whether or not her presence here had been planned didn’t change things, at least not for the next few days.

Suddenly, he was aware that they were standing in a mostly dark hallway, touching. He withdrew his hand. “We should grab the pillows and things.”

She jerked her head up in surprise. “What?”

“I’ve got a fire going downstairs in the living room. Once the snow stops, I’ll go outside and get the generator started, but until then we should stay in front of the fire.” He didn’t tell her that he had a fireplace in his room and that there was another one in his parents’ room. This wasn’t his first blizzard.

He wasn’t letting her sleep in his parents’ bed—or his. Absolutely no sharing of beds.

He felt her exhale, the warmth of her breath around him. Almost without being aware of it, he started to lean toward her. “Is that so you can keep an eye on me?”

There wasn’t any point in lying. Besides, lying did not come naturally to him. Perhaps Hardwick Beaumont had been good at it, but Patrick Wesley was honest to a fault. The only thing he had ever lied about was CJ’s mother and CJ. In fact, CJ was sure that Pat had told the lie so many times about marrying Bell on leave and having CJ arrive before he’d been honorably discharged that both his parents believed it, heart and soul.

CJ wanted to believe it, too—because Pat was his father. CJ resented the fact that the ghost of Hardwick Beaumont hung over him—always had, always would.

And he resented this woman for bringing Hardwick Beaumont’s ghost with her. Yes, the anger felt good. He was going to hold on to that anger for as long as he could. She might be prettier in real life, and that softness about her might call to him, but he was furious at her and that was that.

He walked back into the guest room and stripped the blankets and pillows off the bed. “Here,” he said, shoving them at her. Then he went to his own room and did the same. There. Now they didn’t have a reason to come back upstairs for the next several days.

Wordlessly, he led the way back downstairs to the living room. The fire had taken and the room was bathed in a warm, crackling glow.

He dropped his bedding on the couch and went to work rearranging the room. The coffee table went to the far side under the windows, where it would be darkest and coldest. He pulled the couch forward so it faced the fire and then dragged the recliners over so they boxed in the heat on each side. He laid a blanket over the coffee table so that drafts wouldn’t come in underneath it. And then he made a pallet on the floor. “You can take the couch.”

Her eyes widened and CJ knew she understood him perfectly. He would sleep on the floor, directly in front of her, to keep her from sneaking off in the night and snooping.

She hesitated. “You’ve done this before.”

He wasn’t sure how he was going to talk to her without revealing things. Well, the trick was to reveal as little as possible. “I have. This is not my first blizzard. But I’m gathering that it’s your first time.” The moment the words left his mouth, he winced. That was an unfortunate double entendre.

But, gracefully, she ignored his poor choice of words. She fluffed her pillows and shot him a sheepish grin. “I suppose that was obvious. It’s different in Denver.” She folded her blankets, making a sort of sleeping bag on top of the couch. Then she straightened, her hands on her hips. He got the feeling she was judging her work—and finding it lacking. “I didn’t plan this,” she said softly. “I’m not... I’m not always a good person. But I want you to know that I didn’t come out here with the intent of making you rescue me.” She didn’t look at him as she said this. Instead, she kept her head down.

If that were the truth—and that was a big if—he wondered how much the admission cost her. “Might as well make the best of it. I prefer not to spend the next few days being miserable. It’s the Christmas season—good will toward all men and women.”

She glanced at him, but quickly dropped her eyes again. Her mouth curved down in a way that CJ recognized—it was the kind of smile his mother made when she was trying not to cry.

He didn’t want Natalie Baker to cry. She hadn’t cried when she’d been half-frozen. Why would she do so now? Finally, after several painful seconds, she whispered, “Peace on earth?”

That was the truce. “Can’t promise you a silent night, though—that wind’s not going to stop.” Her smile was more real this time and somehow it made him feel better. What was wrong with him? It was enough that he had saved her from freezing to death. It was not his responsibility to make her happy. End of discussion.

However, that didn’t stop him from adding “Dinner should be ready. We can fill our plates and sit in front of the fire.”

She followed him into the kitchen. The house had always had a gas stove and this was exactly the reason why. CJ got a burner lit and put the kettle on.

“We have some instant coffee and a lot of tea.” He left out the part about how his mom vastly preferred tea to anything else. Those were the kinds of details he had to keep to himself. He went on, “There’s a roast in the slow cooker and potatoes and apple pie in the oven.” He lifted the lid and the smell of pot roast filled the air.

“Oh, my God—that smells heavenly,” Natalie said. She stepped up next to him and inhaled the fragrant steam.

They worked in silence, assembling the meal. He got down two big bowls and showed her where the tea and the instant coffee were located. He carved the roast and filled their bowls with meat, vegetables and gravy. The kettle whistled and she moved to turn it off.

He was not going to think about how effortlessly she moved around his kitchen. She did not belong here and the fact that he was having to remind himself of this fact approximately once every two-point-four seconds was yet another bad sign. At this point, he wasn’t sure he’d recognize a good sign if it bit him on the butt.

It was only when he settled onto the couch with his feet stretched toward the fire that she spoke again. “This is wonderful,” she said as she gracefully folded herself into a cross-legged posture on the couch—a solid four feet away from where he sat.

He appreciated that she wasn’t starting with another line of questioning—even if she was just trying to soften him up, he was glad there was no full-on assault. That didn’t mean he was going to not ask his own questions, however. “How come you don’t have anyone waiting for you?”

She didn’t answer for a long time—which was understandable, because she was devouring the pot roast. CJ did the same. They ate in silence until she set her bowl to the side. “I could ask the same of you—you’re here all alone and Christmas is coming. You don’t even have any Christmas decorations up.” She looked around his living room. It seemed more barren than normal, with all the pictures gone. “But I won’t ask,” she said quickly before CJ could remind her of the rules.

He didn’t miss the way she avoided answering his question. He glanced up—no ring on her finger. He didn’t think she ever wore one—but it was entirely possible that, if she had a ring, she just didn’t wear it while she was on TV.

She tucked her hands under her legs. “So, what are we supposed to talk about? I’m not allowed to ask you questions about yourself and so far, I haven’t felt comfortable answering any of your questions.”

He shrugged. “We don’t have to talk about anything. I don’t have a problem with silence.”

“Oh.” Her chin dipped and her shoulders rounded. But then she straightened. “Okay.”

He gritted his teeth. At any point, she could stop looking vulnerable and that would be just fine by him. “I don’t want to be your lead story. I would rather not talk than have everything I say be twisted around and rebroadcast for mass consumption.”

She sighed in resignation, but she didn’t drop her gaze this time. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m off the clock. Anything we talk about would be off the record.”

Like he was going to take her word for that. “Patrick Wesley is my father. That’s the end of this discussion. I will not allow my personal life to be monetized for someone else’s gain.”

Besides, outside his parents and apparently Hardwick Beaumont, there was only one other person who knew that Patrick Wesley was not his birth father. CJ had been in love in college—or he thought he had. Really, he had been young and stupid and full of lust and he’d confused all of that with love. But he thought he’d had what his parents had found so he’d told his girlfriend about Hardwick Beaumont being a sperm donor because if he were going to propose to a woman, he wanted her to know the truth about him. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life hiding behind the Wesley name.

He had never forgotten the look on Cindy’s face when he’d told her that actually, he was sort of related to the Beaumonts. Her eyes had gone wide and her cheeks had flushed as he’d sat there, waiting for her to say...something. He hadn’t been sure what he’d wanted her to say—that it didn’t matter, maybe, or that she was sorry his mom was paranoid about the Beaumonts. Something. Hardwick Beaumont had still been alive then, although CJ had been twenty-one and beyond his reach.

Cindy hadn’t done any of that. After a few moments of stunned silence, she had started to talk about how wonderful this was. He was a Beaumont—and the Beaumonts were rich. Why, just think of the wedding that they could have on the Beaumonts’ dime! And after the wedding, they could take their proper place in the Beaumont family—and get their proper cut of the Beaumont fortune and on and on and on.

That was the moment he realized he’d made a mistake. Panicking, he tried to write the whole thing off as a joke. Of course he wasn’t a Beaumont—look at him. The Beaumonts were all sandy and blond—he was brown. It was just... Wishful thinking. Because he’d been bored with being a rancher’s son.

He was never sure if Cindy had believed him or not. She’d been pretty mad at him for “teasing” her with all that money. The breakup that followed had been mutual. She wasn’t going to get her dream wedding with the bill footed by the Beaumonts and he...

Well, he had learned to keep his mouth shut.

Besides, it had always been easy to ignore the two fundamental lies that made up his life—that Pat Wesley was his father and that his parents had married quietly a year before Pat had brought Bell home with him. It’d been an easy lie to tell—Pat had been finishing up a tour of duty in the army and they told everyone that he and Bell had met and married in secret while he was home on leave. That was why he’d shown up with a wife and a six-month-old that no one else had known about. And because Pat Wesley was an honest, upstanding citizen, everyone had gone along with it.

CJ’s mother was brown and Pat Wesley was light. Pat was tall and broad, just like CJ. The fact was, CJ looked like their son. There had never been a question.

The Beaumonts had no bearing on CJ’s life. He would’ve been perfectly happy if he’d never heard the Beaumont name for the rest of his life.

But now he was sitting across from someone who knew—or thought she knew. Which was bad enough. But what made it worse was that she was looking to capitalize on the knowledge.

She was staring at him, this Natalie Baker. “What do you want me to call you?” she asked.

“My name is CJ Wesley. You can call me CJ.”

She held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Natalie.”

He hesitated, but when he touched her, palm to palm, a jolt of something traveled between them. He might’ve thought it was static electricity, but it hit him in all the wrong places. His pulse quickened and warmth—warmth that had nothing to do with the roaring fire only a few feet from them—started at the base of his neck and worked its way down his body.

Oh, no—he knew what this was. Attraction. If he wasn’t careful, it might blow into something even more difficult to contain—lust.

He jerked his hand from hers. “Natalie.” Quickly, he got to his feet and gathered up the dishes. “I’ll get the pie.”

Four

Natalie sat on the couch, trying to make sense of what had happened.

It didn’t look like that was a thing that could be done because the longer she stared into the fire, the less she knew about what was going on.

That wasn’t entirely true. Once she had thawed out in the shower, her brain worked just fine. She just didn’t quite grasp how, in the last two hours, she had gone from being Natalie Baker, host of A Good Morning with Natalie Baker, to being a human popsicle, to being...

To being CJ Wesley’s unofficial guest.

She felt naked. That feeling had nothing to do with the three separate layers of clothing she was wearing. It had everything to do with the way that man looked at her, his face no longer hidden in the shadows—with the way he asked her why she didn’t have anyone waiting for her.

Because she didn’t. She could try to lie and say that her producer, Steve, would notice her absence but...it was almost Christmas. They’d been filming segments ahead of schedule and planning to strategically reuse old clips so the crew could have some time off.

She didn’t have a single person who would miss her over the next five days. It wasn’t like that was a shocking revelation. She’d known damn good and well that it would be yet another Christmas spent alone. She didn’t celebrate the holiday. Why would she? The day was nothing but the worst of bad memories.

But somehow, telling CJ that had been... Well, it’d been painful. It had been acknowledging that she was completely alone.

She was more or less completely at CJ’s mercy. And he didn’t even like her.

But he wasn’t taking advantage of the situation. Anyone else would’ve looked at her half-frozen and seen an opportunity—but not him. Instead, he had clothed her and now he was feeding her. He had gone out of his way to make sure she was comfortable.

He was being entirely too decent. She hadn’t realized that people like him existed.

Oh, sure—she knew there were still good humans in the world, the ones who ran soup kitchens and read books during story time at the library. But they didn’t come into her world. No, everyone she dealt with wanted something. She didn’t know how to talk to someone if it wasn’t a negotiation.

And CJ Wesley had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to negotiate. She didn’t have anything he wanted and he wasn’t interested in giving up anything to her.

They had reached an impasse. In less than two hours.

Awareness prickled over her skin the moment he entered the room, even though he was padding around silently in thick sheepskin-lined moccasins. There was something about the way the air changed around him. For all of his decency and grudging niceness, CJ Wesley was a powerful force to be reckoned with.

“Good,” he said as he crossed in front of her and sat back down on the couch, then handed her a plate overflowing with what looked like the best apple pie she’d ever seen.

She wasn’t sure what he was calling good—the pie or the fact that she hadn’t wandered off to unearth his family secrets.

“Thank you,” she said. “You don’t have to serve me.”

There—the muscle in his jaw twitched just as he said, “It’s no problem. I’m happy to do it.”

She twisted her lips to one side, trying not to smile at him. “You’re lying. But I appreciate it anyway.”

He paused, a forkful of pie halfway to his mouth. “I’m not lying.” The twitch was harder to see this time, because he was sliding his fork into his mouth.

But she saw it anyway.

“You have a tell. Did you know that?”

He avoided answering her for several long minutes, so she dug in to the pie. Sweet merciful heavens, it was even better than it smelled. Homemade and warm, the apples perfectly spiced and the crust flaky. The roast had been excellent—but this?

Maybe she had died in the snow. She’d frozen to death and this was actually heaven. Curled up on the couch with a sexy, grouchy cowboy and the best apple pie in the world.

“This is fabulous,” she all but moaned around her third forkful.

“Thanks, my—” He bit off the word. “Thanks,” he said again.

She surreptitiously glanced at his hand—no ring, no tan line, either. Aside from the clothes she was wearing—which were baggy and not exactly in the height of fashion—there were no other signs of women in this house. At least not since she’d taken her shower. She was pretty sure there had been pictures on the wall and now there weren’t. But she had been too cold to study them when she’d originally walked through the house.

No, CJ didn’t have a wife. Which meant that this pie had probably been made by his mom. The very woman that Natalie had been stalking through court records for months.

It was equally obvious that he was absolutely not going to acknowledge his mother’s existence.

Natalie Baker, morning television host, would have pressed for details. But the pie was too good and the fire was too warm and she just didn’t want to. If CJ were right, she would have several days to work on him. But not right now. Her stomach was full and she was feeling warm and drowsy—well, parts of her were. Other parts of her were way too attuned to the man sitting three feet away from her.

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