I couldn’t help but notice a flicker of emotion flash in his eyes.
“Do you do the Santa gig all the time? Because if I’m being honest, you were the grumpiest Santa that I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine that’s good for business.”
He sighed. “It’s not. I’m just filling in until Rod gets…”
Tex’s words trailed off, and I held back the urge to pepper him with a hundred questions. But I got the feeling this was the kind of man who warmed up slowly and trusted even slower. So I held my tongue and watched him work.
I’d never been one who had to fill every minute with chatter. So we fell into a comfortable silence. It took him about twenty minutes to finish the task, and we didn’t say a word the entire time.
When he was finally done, he glanced up at me, his eyes catching on mine.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got a batch of rabbit stew I could heat up if you haven’t had dinner.” Then he glanced down at my torso. “Do you have a change of clothes in your car? I can’t imagine that elf costume will be comfortable tonight. Plus, it doesn’t look warm enough.”
“Yes to the stew. Thank you. No to the change of clothes. I just have this costume and my winter coat. I never expected to get stuck in the snowstorm.”
He got up and pulled a pot out of the fridge and put it on the stove. Then glanced back at me again. “I’ve got a sweater that would probably fit you, but I don’t think my pants can accommodate your… hips.”
I flushed with embarrassment. I wasdefinitelya plus-size girl. And Tex was a big guy, but he was big in a rock-hard-muscle kind of way. Not the dad-bod version. I’d never fit in his pants.
“The costume is actually pretty comfortable,” I lied through my teeth. “I’ll be fine. But I might keep my coat over it until we go to bed for extra warmth.”
His eyes flashed up to mine when I said the word bed, a flicker of heat flashing between us.
Tex walked over to an overstuffed coat rack, grabbed a sweater off of it and clomped back over.
“Try this on,” he rumbled. “It’ll be more comfortable.”
It was a wool zip-up sweater, and it feltdivine.
Tex kept his cabin toasty warm, but the feel of the soft wool made me even warmer. The scent of the man clung to the fabric. It wafted up to my nose, mixed with wood smoke and the faint smell of horses. I breathed in deep and zipped it up.
“That’ll work?”
“Perfectly. I’ve never been around horses before. It seems cool.”
“My uncle’s always had them.”
“Rod?”
“Yeah. I grew up with horses. Learned to ride when I was six years old.”
“And you grew up here on Red Oak Mountain?”
“Yup. Born and raised. Wouldn’t leave it for any other place.”
My heart clenched in on itself. “That must be nice.”
“What?” he asked as he deposited a warm bowl of stew in front of me.
“Feeling like you have a home-base. My life has been… full of travel.” That was the nice way of saying that my childhood had lacked a certain level of stability. We’d moved frequently. Not just from one apartment to another in the same town, but between states.
My mom had done right by us, but she’d been a travel nurse. Which meant we’d traveled the nation pretty extensively. My shortest stint in one school had been three months. Talk about whiplash.
Tex studied me closely while I ate the stew. “Is that what you like? No roots? Lots of adventure?”
I laughed. “That’s the opposite of my life. Well, I mean, Iwantit to be the opposite of my life.”
I’d fallen into the same trap as my mom, moving to chase better circumstances. But I’d never found the right place to call home.
