Jodi Thomas - A Texas Christmas

NEVER TOO CLOSE

She put her arms around his neck and held tight to keep from falling as his hands moved up and down her body with a light touch. He kissed her ear and then her cheek as she shook against him. Its all right. Breathe, Maggie. This isnt going to hurt.

I know. Im just nervous. Ive never... she managed to say.

Sams strong hands moved down past her waist and fanned out over her hips as his mouth opened against her throat. The warmth of his tongue circled her skin as his hands began to move up over her back, pressing her closer against him. He wasnt holding his feelings back and letting her remain safe from being involved. Tears trickled down her warm cheeks as she let herself drift with the moment and not worry about the pain that would surely come when she was alone again.

Melting against him, she breathed deep as he retraced his journey from her hip to the back of her hair. This time he pulled the tie holding her hair and dug his hands into her wavy curls. God, I love the feel of you, he whispered as if to himself and not her. Gently he tugged a handful of her hair, pulling her head up. His warm breath brushed over her cheek a moment before his lips moved over hers. This time the kiss was light, teasing.

She cried out at the pure pleasure of it and heard him laugh softly against her cheek. Then he kissed her again and again, playing with her mouth but never kissing her deeply as he had before.

I cant get enough of you, he whispered against her throat as he tugged a few buttons of her blouse free so he could taste the spot lower on her neck.

Collections by Jodi Thomas, Linda Broday, Phyliss Miranda, and DeWanna Pace

GIVE ME A TEXAN GIVE ME A COWBOY GIVE ME A TEXAS RANGER GIVE ME A TEXAS OUTLAW A TEXAS CHRISTMAS BE MY TEXAS VALENTINE (coming soon)

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

A Texas Christmas

J ODI T HOMAS
L INDA B RODAY
P HYLISS M IRANDA
D E W ANNA P ACE

ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

O NE W ISH : A C HRISTMAS S TORY

J ODI T HOMAS

Chapter 1

December 1887
Kasota Springs, Texas

Sam Thompson stood in the blackened corner of the alley silently watching the mercantile across the street. Wind blew against his back as if trying to force him to move from the shadows. He needed to be heading home, but the woman inside the store kept him rooted in place.

She moved now and then past the windows, sometimes looking out as though hoping to see someone coming to shop. Her slender form drew him now just as her green eyes had the first day they met.

Sam shoved his hands farther into the pockets of his worn coat and prayed no one walked through her doors tonight. Margaret Allison had no idea of the danger she was in, and he had the feeling if he walked across the street to tell her, she wouldnt believe him.

He was a Thompson, and in this town that usually meant he was one step above the wolves who came down from the north on cold nights like this to hunt. Thompsons lived out along the southern breaks near the Palo Duro Canyon, not here in town among the civilized folks. Thompsons kept to themselves and minded their own business.

If Sam walked into the mercantile, Maggie Allison would be more likely to think hed come to rob her than help her. He didnt much care about whether she lost money or not. Everyone knew that her parents always had money. After all, they sent her to a big school back East to grow up. They must have left it all to their only daughter. She could weather a robbery, but he didnt like to think about what the drunken gang of outlaws, now building courage by the mug, would do to her when they found her alone.

She had no one to protect her, but Sam was a man who didnt have the time to be her hero. If shed just lock the door and go up to bed, he could get home before it started snowing.

He stomped his feet to keep them from freezing and tried to talk himself into leaving. Maggie Allison hadnt said more than a few words to him in twenty years. He didnt even think she remembered meeting him when theyd been six. It wasnt his job to worry about her. The town had a sheriff and plenty of upstanding men. She didnt need him.

So why didnt he get on home to his responsibilities and leave her to her fate?

The memory of Maggie in pigtails crossed his mind. Even at six shed been prim and proper in her starched dresses covered with a white apron, her red hair always in place, her manners perfect, her green eyes wide open as if she was afraid shed miss one moment of life if she wasnt alert. Ill never tell you a lie, Sam Thompson, shed said the day theyd met. And I promise never to be mean to you, if you promise never to be mean to me.

Hed been six, but he swore shed won his heart that first day of school.

When the teacher told her to sit next to him, she didnt hesitate. However, she did spend the morning telling him he smelled bad and his fingernails were dirty and he needed new shoes and she didnt like the color orange.

Sam smiled remembering how shed split her sandwich in half and shared with him that first day. Maggie Allison was different from anyone hed ever met, and she fascinated him. She did everything right, learned everything first, said exactly what the teacher expected her to say. The only thing he had in common with the proper little red-haired girl was that no one liked her either. She didnt seem to mind. She read or stayed in with the teacher while other kids played, but Sam tried to join in and hed been given more than one black eye to show for it.

It had taken him three years of walking four miles to school to figure out what his grandfather had told him all along: he didnt belong in town. Only, unlike his relatives, Sam had learned to read, and hed impressed the teacher enough that she always packaged a few books for him and left them by the schoolhouse door. Hed walk to town on the first of every month and drop off the last books before he picked up the next set. Then, in the midnight hours, hed sit by the fire and read. Over the years he sometimes thought of Maggie sitting beside him that first year encouraging him as she pointed out the words with her thin little finger.

In the shadows cold, Sam saw her step near the window once more. Proper as ever, with her hair now pulled back in a knot behind her head. Her parents had sent her away to school after that first year. Folks said it was because she was too bright to stay here. Most said shed probably never come back to a small town in the middle of nowhere, but she had. She came back to bury her parents last year, and to Sams surprise, she took over the mercantile.

He studied her now, knowing he needed to go home, but not being able to stomach the thought of her being hurt or killed. The drunks hed overheard talked of what theyd do to her, how theyd make her scream even after theyd taken all her valuables. Theyd joked about how she was probably a virgin, and virgins dont tell what happens, so they could probably use her the next time they passed through town.

Sam forgot about the cold. Hed wait until she locked the door.

Chapter 2

Margaret Allison paced the worn floors of her store. Shed told everyone she was staying open late every night this week before Christmas so folks could do any late shopping, but so far not one customer had come in.

She knew every respectable person in town was either at Wednesday-night prayer meeting or at one of the parties to celebrate Christmas. The Wilsons were having a huge dinner for fifty, the school was putting on the Christmas story tonight, and shed heard even the saloon got in the mood and was running a special on beer. Everyone in town, even her two part-time helpers, had somewhere else to be tonight.