Burke's Christmas Surprise by Sandra Steffen

Author:Sandra Steffen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

It was after midnight when Louetta wandered out to the kitchen, absently finger-combing her hair. Although Wes had tried to keep her talking, she’d sensed an underlying sadness in him tonight. She’d always suspected that there had been more to his decision to return to Jasper Gulch than a few broken bones. When she’d tried to talk about it tonight, he’d clammed up tighter than the jammed window in her storeroom. And then. out of the blue, he’d kissed her. Not slow and easy, the way she was used to, but hard, as if he was trying to prove something, to her, and to himself. Louetta had no idea what had brought it on, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with his past. What was it with men and their secretive pasts?

She should go to bed. The regular breakfast crowd would be ready and waiting at their usual tables in less than eight hours. Pushing a heavy lock of hair out of her face, she continued to stroll through her quiet apartment, lost in thought.

A sound, like a spray of sand on glass, slowly made its way through the layers of her subconscious. She wasn’t certain how many times she’d heard it, but she glanced at the window, trying to place the noise. It couldn’t be sand on glass. Was it sleet, rain, hail? The weather had been mixed up for days, but the sky had been clear and full of stars when she and Wes had driven back to Jasper Gulch. A storm couldn’t form that quickly, not even in South Dakota.

She strode to the window, and found herself staring blankly at her own reflection. At the sound of another scrape and ping, she switched off the lamp and peered down. A man dressed in black stood below, his head tipped up, a pair of black dress shoes planted on the cracked sidewalk.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, a strange sense of déjà vu washing over her as she raised the window and leaned out. “Burke,” she called in a whisper-soft voice. “What are you doing?”

He tipped his head back farther, his eyes finding her on the shadowed sill, the street lamp on the corner washing his features in soft light. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“I see,” she said, even though she didn’t.

“There’s not a lot to do in Jasper Gulch.”

So that was it. He was bored.

“Normally,” she said quietly, “folks figure that out their first night here.”

She wanted to call back the words the second they were out, because Burke had spent his first night here with her. In bed. Making love.

A cloud passed over the moon, casting his eyes in shadow. It didn’t, however, completely conceal the change in his expression. Louetta thought it was very gentlemanly of him not to say anything. Fleetingly, she wished that fact didn’t cause her heart to turn so soft and her thoughts to turn so hazy.

She was wearing a thick cotton shirt and black jeans.

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