“No.” She closed the door behind him and gave Wiggins a glare as he had tobark-bark-bark!his hello to his favorite person.
“Then these are all for you.” Tarr lifted the basket over the back of the couch and groaned as he set it down.
She glanced over to the Christmas tree they’d started decorating that morning after their chores, and that they planned to finish tonight. Plastic crinkled and something that sounded like canned goods grumbled as he set the bags on the counter, and then he turned to face her.
She couldn’t clear the frown from her face before he caught it. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I got you three presents,” she said, because she might as well be honest.
“Briar, honey, I asked what would make this Christmas perfect for you, and you told me I could do whatever I wanted.”
“I didn’t know you were going to bring a laundry basket full of presents.”
Tarr stepped toward her, his gait even and slow. Everything about him was like that, and Briar actually really needed the steadiness in her life.
“I don’t care. I wouldn’t care if you got me nothing,” he said. “Every single one of mine reminded me of you, and that’s why I got them. It’s not a contest.”
He brushed his fingers along hers, his gaze dropping down to her hands. “Your fingers are cold, sweetheart.”
He wrapped them in his, and though he’d just come in from the winter cold, his hands were warm and hers fit inside easily. He lifted them and slid both of their hands into the pockets of her hoodie, where Briar pressed her palm flat against her stomach and Tarr covered her hand with his.
“It smells good in here,” he said, inching closer. “I brought the whipped cream, the oats, and other stuff you asked for.”
Briar raised her gaze to his. “Thank you.”
With his free hand, he reached up and smoothed her hair back. “Honey, today was supposed to be perfect. You can’t seriously be mad about the presents.”
She caught his hand as it dropped from her face. “Just surprised, I guess.”
He gave her a small smile, one that spoke of his mischievousness. “You underestimated me. Is that what I’m hearing?”
A smile slid across her face too. “No,” she said. “Now stop it.”
“How’s your stomach today?” he asked in his usual caring fashion. He pressed his hand tighter against hers, as if he could read her stomach issues that way.
Briar had learned that she could tell Tarr something once, and he’d remember it and come back to it later. She released him and slid her other hand into her hoodie pocket and sandwiched his between them.
“I feel better,” she said, though it hadn’t really been her stomach that had been bothering her. She certainly didn’t need to get into her female problems with her boyfriend, especially after only one month of true dating. With a heating pad, lots of Gatorade, and a few doses of painkillers, Briar could usually get herself back to the land of the living within a couple of days.
She slid her hands out of her pockets, and Tarr immediately wrapped her in his arms, a sigh coming out of his mouth. “Merry Christmas, honey,” he whispered.
Briar breathed in the goodness of him, getting a little bit more pine and that tangy spice from his cologne, and the cottony scent of his shirt, and the warmth of his skin. She fell back one step and looked up at him. “Merry Christmas, cowboy.”
She tilted her head back so he would kiss her, and Tarr could read her body language exceptionally well, because he did just that.
Though she’d been letting Tarr in more and more, and faster and faster, she’d never truly felt herself falling for him until that moment. Her first instinct was to stop and catch herself, pull back and rebuild the wall—anything to protect herself fromfuture heartache and pain when he left—but he stroked his lips against hers with absolute surety, and Briar let herself go.
She felt wild and free and absolutely out of control. But instead of flailing, she focused on the steady strength of Tarr’s arms around her. He would not let her fall, and he’d done everything in his power to help her heal—mostly focusing on her physical wounds from the coyote attack, but also in other ways he certainly didn’t know about.
He pulled away when a timer went off in the kitchen. “What’s that for?” he asked, turning that way.
She watched him walk through her house as if he lived there. He’d definitely been here a lot in recent months, and she liked the way he fit inside the small cabin with Wiggins—and inside her life too. The dog followed him into the kitchen, where Tarr silenced the timer on the stove and then pulled open the oven door. “You want me to check this, honey?”
“Yes,” Briar said, coming back to her senses. “I’m going to go change.”
After all, she couldn’t wear a sweatshirt to their private Christmas Eve party, even if it did have the wordJOYon the front. She left him to tend to the turkey breast, and she hurried down the hall and into her bedroom.
Tarr had been wearing a dark-washed pair of jeans, a forest-green polo with white and gray stripes, and his sexy cowboy hat. It was Christmassy without screaming it, and Briar quickly shed her leggings and sweatshirt and stepped into a much louder representation of the holiday.
