Parting the barbed wire carefully, she leaned down and stepped between the strands. “Will he try to kick me?”
“No.” The cowboy gulped in air. “He’s not mean. Just likes to be in control. I’ll feel better once I have a lead rope on him.”
Lacey retrieved the fallen hat before crouching down and pulling the rope out of the saddlebag. “And then what?”
“I…don’t know.” The snow fell faster and he muttered under his breath.
She could guess the nature of those mutterings as she handed him the rope and his hat. Anyone from this area knew that Wyoming blizzards could be deadly.
She thought he was local because he looked vaguely familiar. He wasn’t a Chance, though. She’d grown up here and knew what each of the Chance men looked like. Still, something about this cowboy was familiar. She’d seen those green eyes and dark hair before.
“Thanks.” He put on his hat and clipped the rope to the horse’s halter as the snow swirled and gusted around them.
“I hope you’re not thinking of riding back.”
He greeted that with a short laugh. “He’s never been ridden.”
“You can wait it out in my cabin, but that doesn’t solve the horse issue.”
He glanced from the horse to her cabin. “What’s in the outbuilding?”
“My Jeep.” She raised her voice to be heard over the howl of the wind. “But we can’t risk driving in this.”
“I know.” He secured his hat with one gloved hand when it started to blow off. “But can we stable him there for the night?”
“I guess.” She considered the logistics of getting through the fence. “You got wire cutters?”
“Nope.”
“Then I’ll get mine.”
“You have wire cutters?”
“I work for the Forest Service.” She started to walk away and turned back as curiosity got the better of her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“I grew up here. The name’s Tucker Rankin.”
“Tucker?” Her eyes widened. “I’m Lacey. Lacey Evans. Jackson Hole High School.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Small world. I’ll be back as quick as I can.” She hurried toward the fence and ducked through the strands of barbed wire.
Tucker Rankin. She hadn’t thought about him in years. Hurrying toward the cabin’s outbuilding, she sorted through her recollections of Tucker. He’d been a bad boy back then, too wild for her, although she’d secretly found him very sexy.
But one vivid memory surfaced. She’d gone to the Christmas formal their senior year against her better judgment. But a sweet, nerdy boy had asked her and she hadn’t had the heart to turn him down.
Normally she just didn’t do Christmas. Her mother had died when she was fifteen, and her mom had been the person who’d made the holiday special. After that it had been less painful to ignore Christmas completely.
Her dad had remarried when she was seventeen, and although Lacey had tried valiantly to appreciate her stepmother’s efforts, the lady wasn’t the most sensitive person in the world. She’d crudely trampled on all Lacey’s mother’s traditions.
A pre-lit artificial tree and battery-operated candles appeared. Cranberry and popcorn garlands were proclaimed too messy. Gifts were opened Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning. Any reference to Santa was labeled a childish fantasy.
Lacey’s sister and brother had adapted, but Lacey, being the oldest, had the strongest memories of pine-scented boughs, flickering beeswax candles, handstrung garlands and wrapped packages under the tree on Christmas morning. She’d never made the adjustment. Still, she’d agreed to be Arnold’s date for the Christmas formal.
Just her luck, the dance committee had decorated a huge evergreen that filled the gym with its fragrance, and they’d continued the torture by placing beeswax votives around the room. When Lacey had slipped outside, tearful with nostalgia, Tucker had been there, too, enjoying a forbidden cigarette.
He’d offered her his coat, and they’d exchanged views on Christmas. She’d found out that his mom had died on Christmas Eve when he was twelve, which was a way worse situation than hers. He didn’t celebrate the holiday anymore, either, but a girl had asked him to the formal.
Turned out she’d done it to make another guy jealous, and her ex had arrived to claim her five minutes ago. Tucker wasn’t having a particularly good time at this Christmas event, either. They’d shared their holiday angst, both past and present, that night.
They’d also shared a heated kiss that had scared the living daylights out of her. Rattled by the lust he’d inspired with one kiss, she’d returned his coat and dashed back inside. They’d never talked again.
After taking her wire cutters out of the Jeep, she quickly assessed the interior of the outbuilding that doubled as a garage. A horse would fit in there next to her Jeep, which was old and beat up. A few kicks from a horse’s hooves wouldn’t be noticed.
Inviting Tucker into her cabin to spend the night wasn’t quite so convenient. She’d planned to spend three days there with Lenny. Until a week ago, BTB (Before The Bimbo), she and Lenny had been practically engaged, and she’d intended to take a stab at celebrating Christmas on a small scale.
A one-bedroom hideaway had seemed adequate for a couple. But she and Tucker were not a couple, and there was only one bed. He was too tall to fit comfortably on the couch, and she hated to make him sleep on the floor when she had no sleeping bag or air mattress.
But the blizzard was upon them and he had to get in out of it. They’d work out the details later. She lowered her head and leaned into the wind as she returned to the fence. Tucker stood like a marble statue beside the horse, and Lacey wondered if he held himself rigid so he wouldn’t betray any weakness with an unmanly shiver.
“I called the ranch.” His lips looked a little blue and his eyelashes and eyebrows were crusted with snow. “I said I’d wait out the storm here. I explained you were an old high school friend.”
“Perfect.” She had a little trouble manipulating the wire cutters with her thick gloves on, but she managed to cut both strands and pull them back, creating a decent-size opening. “Let’s get going. It’s cold out here.”
His chuckle became a cough. “I noticed. Oh, wait. There’s a sack of oats in the saddlebag. I’ll lead Houdini if you’ll grab the oats. He’ll need something to eat.”
“Right.” She moved quickly through the opening in the fence and over to the snowmobile, which, at the rate it was snowing, would soon be covered. Oats in hand, she followed Tucker through the fence and across what had been a defined road an hour ago. Soon it would be obliterated, too.
She dashed around both horse and man to open the double doors into the outbuilding. The cold must have had a calming effect on the paint, because he walked into the shelter without protest. Maybe he had realized that it wasn’t so much fun being outside in a blizzard.
Lacey gestured to the heater designed to prevent engines from freezing. “This should help keep him warmer, too.”
“He’ll appreciate that.” Tucker brushed the snow from Houdini’s back before glancing around the makeshift garage. “Do you think I could use that bucket in the corner to feed him some oats?”
“Don’t see why not.” She retrieved the bucket and handed it to him, along with the small sack of oats. “Will this be enough?”
“I’ll only give him half for now, in case I need to ration it.” He opened the sack and poured some into the bucket while managing to hold it away from Houdini. Once he set it down, the horse shoved his nose deep into the bucket and began munching. The bucket rattled against the outbuilding’s cement floor.
Lacey couldn’t imagine that little bit of oats would satisfy an animal of Houdini’s size. “I brought apples, and I have some carrots left over from the stew I made, if you want to give him those later on.”
“Stew?” Tucker was so obviously trying to control his shivers as he smiled at her. “God, that s-sounds wonderful.”
“You’re frozen, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then let’s get inside and warm you up.” She’d thought it was an innocent remark, but as they closed the horse inside the outbuilding and she led the way into the cabin, she thought about how she could warm him up, and it had nothing to do with stew.
That kiss had replayed itself in her mind quite a few times since she’d found out who he was. He’d had a reputation in high school as a skilled lover, and if that kiss had been a sample, his reputation had been well deserved. For several months after the kiss, she’d had potent dreams involving nak*d bodies writhing on soft sheets.
And here she was, snowbound with the object of her teenage fantasies. She blew out an impatient breath. What nonsense. For all she knew Tucker was married and had a couple of kids.
Once they were inside the warm cabin and had started divesting themselves of their jackets and gloves, she glanced at him. “I suppose someone will be really disappointed if you don’t show up for Christmas Eve.”