Christmastime Cowboy

CHAPTER THREE

SABRINA WAS SURE that Liam was out to ruin her life. Because not only did he manage to make their appointment to go look at the building the very next day after she had already shared the same airspace as him, but he made the appointment at 7:00 a.m.

Scowling, she charged into The Grind and shook the dampness from her boots, curling her toes and trying to stave off the chill. The coffeehouse always had a warmth about it, with its exposed brick walls and rough-hewn floor. It created a stark contrast with the stormy gray outside.

There was a line, because it was six forty-five, and she supposed that everybody was rushing to get their caffeine fix before they went about their days. Though there were also some retirees sitting, using social media on their tablets or playing crosswords in the newspaper. As if they had all the time in the world. Sabrina supposed they did.

There were a few people that look like they might be students, or graphic design types, wearing flannel with messy buns tied high on top of their heads. Men and women alike.

She envied them. She wanted to sit in the coffee shop all morning by herself on her computer. She did not want to contend with reality. She did not want to deal with Liam Donnelly, and yet, here she was about to be dealing with Liam Donnelly at far-too-early-o’clock.

She wrapped her arms around herself and hopped in place, distracting herself with her movements more than actually needing the warmth.

When she reached the front of the line, the girl behind the register smiled. Sabrina didn’t think she possessed the ability to smile at the moment. “Just a coffee,” she said. She was tempted to add that the girl was welcome to hold the cheer. “Room for cream.” She made no comments about cheer.

That was the worst part about living in a small town. You really couldn’t let yourself have a bad day. Because if you did, inevitably the person whose head you bit off today was the daughter of someone you needed to approve a permit tomorrow. Or the person writing up your bank loan.

Or just uncomfortably, someone you had to see day in and day out forever after and pretend that you never had a tantrum wherein you acted like a petty child that one time.

Small-town politics were a thing. A thing that left very little room for cranky faces and sharp remarks.

Though she was ever grateful for the etiquette that allowed two people to ignore each other as long as they could successfully not make eye contact. The tacit understanding that you could both pretend you hadn’t seen each other so that you could get on with your day.

That brought to mind the shock of running into Liam. That first time. They had definitely made eye contact. There was no way she could pretend she hadn’t seen him. And so she had fled Ace’s bar like a scalded cat.

Her pride had yet to recover from that. Because she had some difficulty explaining it the next day to her sister-in-law.

Not that she had given much explanation.

Frankly, the whole story with Liam was just more embarrassing than anything else. Embarrassing because she had been an idiot. Embarrassing because it still hurt. Because she had gone all-in on what her teenage heart had imagined was love, and caused a permanent rift with her father that hadn’t healed yet.

Just looking at Liam hurt. She didn’t know why, but it was all as tender as if it had happened yesterday.

Because when he had broken her heart, he had truly broken it.

She would love it if there was a more dramatic story. If she could claim that he had callously taken her virginity and ruined her for all other men, etc. etc.

Sadly, all she could really say was...that he had humiliated her. Made her feel like a fool. Made her feel as though she couldn’t trust a single instinct that she had. It had been the gutting loss of a friend and first love all in one. She’d laid herself bare to him—literally—and then he’d rejected her and disappeared. From her life. From town.

Then, not content to let that be the last of it, she’d confronted her father, who had confessed to her he’d told Liam to go. That he’d paid him to leave her alone.

Discovering that Liam had put a dollar amount on their friendship had been intensely wounding. Almost more so than his rejection.

But not even that had been enough for her in her seventeen-year-old despair. No, no. She’d had to get wasted at an event at the winery for the incumbent mayor of Copper Ridge and make a total ass of herself in front of every influential person in Logan County.

And loudly revealing her family’s worst secrets to hurt her father the way he’d hurt her...

Well, that wasn’t really about Liam anymore. Even if he was the root cause.

Of her estrangement with her dad and her eternal humiliation over playing the part of wounded opera heroine so publicly. As she put her pain and the depth of all her feelings on display for everyone.

Just remembering it made her skin crawl with humiliation.

She took a deep breath, trying to dispel the tightness in her chest. Trying her damnedest to smile when the girl behind the counter handed her her cup of coffee. She took the lid off, and the dark, scalding liquid spilled over the edge and onto her skin. She growled and stuck her thumb into her mouth, trying to alleviate some of the burn.

“Not a great morning?”

She bit down on her thumb, then jerked it out of her mouth, not wanting to turn and confirm what she already knew. But she had to.

She turned slowly, curling her lip upward into what she hoped resembled a smile. “Liam. I thought we were meeting down the street.”

“We are,” he said. He smiled. “I just had the same idea you did, apparently.”

Today, he was dressed in a button-up shirt that was open at the collar and a pair of dark-wash jeans and a belt. His shoes were...nice. Very nice.

“You look like...well, like you’re headed to a business meeting.” She wanted to bite her tongue off for that. Because of course he was headed to a business meeting. They were having a business meeting. And, she too was dressed up. It was just that yesterday he had not been so dressed up. Which meant he was dressing up for Gage, but didn’t see the point in dressing up for her.

That was fine with her. She didn’t want him to dress up for her. She didn’t want him to do anything for her except maybe jump into the sea and float way the hell out of town.

She, of course, had simply dressed up because it was what she did. Not because of him. Never because of him.

“I could say the same about you,” he said, deadpan. “I’m just going to order a coffee. We can walk over to the building together.”

She wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary. Actually, she wanted to hit and spit and act like she was choking so that he could fully understand her displeasure. But she wasn’t going to do that, because she was mature.

So there.

“Great,” she said, adding a sugar packet to her coffee and stirring it absently while Liam walked over to the counter. He placed his large hands flat on the surface, leaning in slightly, making rather intense eye contact with the girl behind the register as he proceeded to order.

Sabrina felt something curl in her stomach, and she continued to stir her coffee absently, tearing open another sugar packet and dumping it in without thinking.

The girl fluttered, her cheeks turning a particular shade of pink as she tucked a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear.

Sabrina blinked, her upper lip curling without permission as she grabbed another sugar packet. She was stirring when she realized what she had done and sighed. It was too late, and now her coffee was two packets of sugar too sweet, and she was standing there acting like an idiot watching Liam flirt with a girl who had to be twenty-two.

At thirty, Sabrina did not find that amusing.

Of course, she shouldn’t care, because she shouldn’t care about anything that Liam Donnelly did. She should be more than happy to watch him flirt with another woman. He could crush somebody else’s self-esteem underneath his extremely nice shoe sole. He was not going to crush hers. Not ever again.

She deserved better than that.

She deserved...

Well, she deserved to get this tasting room up and running for her sister-in-law before Christmas. She deserved to have a lovely, cozy place to work in town where she could extol the virtues of Grassroots Wine and interact with customers, which was what she really liked to do.

Of course, that would mean not hanging out with her friend and fellow winery employee, Olivia, as much, because Olivia lived in Gold Valley and would definitely not be working the Copper Ridge tasting room. But they could still get together after work sometimes.

Her other friend, Clara, had quit working at Grassroots shortly after she had gotten engaged to her boyfriend, Alex. Which had been shortly after the bison had arrived at their ranch, and they had gotten busy with their new venture.

She was happy for her. She really was. But it meant she didn’t see her as often. But then, considering she was now the only single friend in that group, maybe it wasn’t so bad.

Olivia was perennially dating Bennett Dodge her boyfriend of several years, whom Olivia seemed convinced was about to propose at any moment.

Definitely for Christmas, she had said.

Privately, Sabrina was afraid that Bennett had no plans to propose anytime soon. But since Sabrina was an abject failure at relationships she was never even tempted to voice that concern.

Though a woman standing there with a stomach that had gone acidic while watching a man who had never been into her flirting with somebody else had no call giving commentary to anyone.

Liam took his coffee from the register girl’s hands and their fingertips brushed, and Sabrina couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. She smoothed out her expression as Liam made his way over to the cream and sugar. He dumped one packet of sugar in his cup, stirred it slightly, then popped the lid back on. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

They walked out the front door and back onto the wet, frigid street. In a couple of weeks, it would be decorated for Christmas, and there would at least be some glittering lights to pierce the eternal fall gray that had descended upon the coast. Right now, it was just cold and wet. Sabrina lifted her shoulders to her ears, trying to brace herself from the chill, and not at all trying to fortify herself against Liam’s presence.

“You should be careful,” she said, unable to keep the words back.

“With...what? I’m not running with scissors, I’m walking. With coffee.”

“It’s hot coffee. I burned myself when I opened the lid.”

“Sorry about the burn. But I think I can handle walking and drinking. Maybe you were just distracted.”

“Me? Hardly. More like you were the distracted one. That girl was making a fool of herself over you,” she said, keeping her eyes determinedly fixed straight ahead on Main Street. Most of the shops weren’t open yet, and wouldn’t be for a couple of hours. Right now, only Pie in the Sky bakery was also up and running. The other shops, full of artisan gifts, vintage clothing and specialty foods, wouldn’t open until closer to ten, when the tourists were up and around.

“I didn’t notice,” he said.

That made her want to take the lid off her overly sweet coffee and splash it in his face. Because of course he didn’t notice. That was his MO. Make a young girl fall in love with him and then act like he hadn’t realized. Act like it was shocking and horrifying when she propositioned him.

“Right,” she said stiffly.

“Sabrina,” he said. “Are you going to spend our entire working relationship acting like you want to cut me open and feast on my liver?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Liam. I don’t like liver.”

“Are you going to spend our entire working relationship—”

Sabrina stopped walking and turned to face him. “If you lecture me on my behavior, Liam Donnelly, I really will kill you. I have no problem working with you in a professional capacity, because I am a professional. But the fact is, you don’t know me. You knew me thirteen years ago. And even then, you didn’t know me that well. So, you have no idea whether how I’m behaving is just the way I behave, or if it has something to do with you. Because you don’t know me. Remember that before you lecture me again.”

* * *

THE THING WAS, he did know her. At least, he had back then. He wasn’t going to say that though. But the fact of the matter was, there was a point in time when he had known Sabrina better than just about anyone. Because they had talked. At first, because she had followed him around with an obvious crush, but then gradually because he had come to enjoy her company.

That had been the problem with Sabrina from the beginning.

It was part of the problem with her now. Because, no matter that he should feel nothing for her, she was far too beautiful for her own good, for his own good. Just like always.

And when she’d kissed him...

Well, when she’d kissed him he’d felt like the sun had come out from behind the clouds for the first time. Something about that kiss had made him feel deep, Far more raw, far more real, than he was prepared for.

He was older now, and he doubted she could conjure up that stunning response in him again if she tried. He was also a little more jaded when it came to arousal, and still, she got to him.

Even though she was vibrating with irritability, her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, her posture rigid, as if she was doing an impersonation of a very indignant plank of wood, he still thought she was beautiful.

He wasn’t sure what the woman he’d ordered his coffee from had looked like. The woman Sabrina had accused him of flirting with. That was the funny thing. Sabrina had been seething at him about how he could never know her, all the while assuming she knew him.

He wouldn’t point out the hypocrisy, though, because there was no point. She was already mad at him. He would wait to throw something like that at her when she was relaxed and fine. That, at least, would result in a little more amusement.

Not that he should try to make Sabrina angry, or enjoy it in any fashion. But he found that he did.

“Sorry,” he said, not feeling sorry in the least.

“I don’t believe that.”

“That’s okay. A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing.”

She made a strange scoffing sound and tapped the top of her coffee cup. “Oh, I know. Believe me.”

They walked on in silence. Until Sabrina cleared her throat. “So, what have you been up to for the past...well, since I’ve seen you?”

He chuckled. “I don’t actually think you’re interested in that, Sabrina.”

“I am interested in that, Liam. Do you know how you can tell? Because I asked. If I wasn’t interested, I wouldn’t have.”

“Well. You have seen me a couple of times in Ace’s bar, and you didn’t ask me then. In fact, if memory serves, you just left.”

“Right. Well, I remembered that I had somewhere else I wanted to be.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere? Root canal?”

“Surprisingly, you’re not the first woman to say she’d rather get a root canal then be around me.”

Sabrina laughed, a short, somehow-unamused sound that was more than a little bit forced. “Well, I do hate to be unoriginal. Maybe not a root canal then. Maybe getting towed behind a fishing boat by my big toe?”

“That I haven’t heard.”

He didn’t answer her question, and she didn’t press. And then they had reached the end of the street, arriving at the vacant corner building he thought would be the ideal location for the showroom. They would catch most of the traffic as it came through Copper Ridge, and quite a bit of foot traffic too.

Anyone headed down to the beach would most likely come this way, and anyone headed out toward the winery itself, or to the town of Gold Valley, would pass through as well.

He could tell Sabrina all of that, but she was smart enough to figure it out on her own, and to see the advantages the location would bring to Grassroots. He had a feeling that any resistance she was putting up was just for the sake of it. Because she was still pissed at him. Which he had known, because of the aforementioned running out of the bar when she had seen him. Not that his own reaction had been neutral.

But that was the thing about her. The thing that he could never quite figure out.

He could forget women he’d had sex with. He had forgotten women he’d had sex with. More than once. He wasn’t exactly proud of his behavior in that particular arena, but it was what it was.

And before Sabrina, he had never gotten close to a woman without getting naked with her. And even then, there had been a limited emotional connection. He had his reasons for that, and they were good reasons, in his opinion.

Still, Sabrina had defied everything he’d known about himself. At least, in the end that was what it had added up to.

He hadn’t seen it coming. Not from the beginning. That was the important part. Meeting her hadn’t felt like anything special at all. It had seemed safe. Easy. If he’d had any idea what his feelings for her would turn into, he would have pushed her away a hell of a lot sooner.

But then he probably wouldn’t have gotten a full ride through school, so he supposed everything happened for a reason.

Still, he had not expected seeing her to feel like a punch in the chest. She had walked into Ace’s, those beautiful blue eyes widening as they had met with his. Like a magnet. The moment she had walked in he had looked, and she had found him.

As if there was no space between them at all. As if there weren’t thirteen years between them. Thirteen years and some hard decisions and some hurt.

And then, just like that, the moment had snapped in half, reality coming down on it like the fall of an ax. And she had run right out the door.

It had damn well ruined his night. He had been determined then that he was going to break the dry spell that he’d been in the midst of since he’d come back to the ranch. But then, of course, all he had been able to think of was Sabrina.

“This is it,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys.

“Are we meeting Gage here?”

“Nope.” He jammed the key into the lock and turned it. The lock was gold, ornate and old-fashioned. Not original to the building, he didn’t think. But possibly from the 1930s. Which was an odd thing to be focusing on, but it was that or continue to ruminate on Sabrina.

He pushed the cranberry-colored door open and gestured for her to go in first. She did not. Instead, she stood there, staring at him.

“I got the keys from Gage last night. He said it was fine if we had a look around.”

She was still staring at him.

“He’s not a real estate agent,” Liam said, walking into the building since it didn’t seem like she was going to. “He has other things to do that don’t entail hovering over us while we look around. Anyway, I thought you might appreciate the chance to speak freely.”

He could tell by the tentative steps that Sabrina took inside that she had been hoping Gage West would be here to act as a buffer between them. Liam had been hoping for no such thing. He didn’t want her to have a buffer. He didn’t want a buffer at all.

He didn’t need one. He was more than capable of dealing with the situation. Actually, he relished the chance to do this. Because he might have taken a deal a long time ago to stay away from Sabrina, but now, no man owned him. Least of all Jamison Leighton.

Which meant he could be here with her if he wanted to be. And actually, she was the one who had to play nice with him. The Leighton family didn’t hold a single damn thing over his head anymore.

He turned a slow circle and looked around the room. It was clean and in good condition. There was no furniture in it of any kind. It was just big and empty. Picture windows looked out over Main Street and out toward the Chamber of Commerce, the Crab Shanty and, beyond that, the ocean.

It was the best of Copper Ridge, all visible there from the shop.

They would need a counter, some coolers and a seating area. But, given that they planned to keep everything simple, it should come together pretty quickly. He had done a lot more with less.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

And then, a moment later he realized his mistake. Because there was no way Sabrina was going to let this be that simple. If he had voiced a complaint, he would be much more likely to get her on board.

Her lips twitched, and then her left shoulder. “I don’t know about that. And really, I think that Lindy should come and look at everything before we make decisions.”

“I was under the impression that Lindy had enough on her plate, and that she wanted you to handle it.”

He could see that Sabrina wasn’t used to being challenged directly. It was another thing that was interesting about her. Another difference. When he had known her she had been a lot more open. Sweeter. A lot more likely to crumple if pressure was applied.

Now she might be more outwardly brittle, but he had a feeling it would take an iron squeeze to get her to crack.

And when she did... Yeah, he was afraid she would shatter. And he had no intention of shattering her. Messing with her a little bit while they worked on this project was one thing. But he wasn’t a total dick.

“It’s a big decision though,” Sabrina said, “so, I think it’s definitely something she should be a little more involved in, no matter what she might think now. Right now... She’s just very focused. Very, very focused.”