Read A Cowboy For Christmas (A Copper Mountain Christmas) for Free Online

paint supplies. Back in the house, Rumple was waiting for her.
    She scratched him behind the ears, found an old bowl in the kitchen, and filled it with water for him. Placing the ornament on the counter where she could see it, she got to work fixing up the house.
    For the first time she wished she had someone to lean on. Someone she could talk to, not so they could solve her problems or fix her, but just so she didn’t have to carry this all inside. She’d screwed up and she was back at the one place she never wanted to return to.
    She ’d had just enough time to make a plan. She hadn’t been able to keep her leather-bound planner, but the FBI had let her take all of her notes out of it and she’d used binder clips to keep it together. She sat at the kitchen table and made a list of everything she’d need to make the house livable. It was habitable. A roof over her head and she knew she should be grateful to have it.
     

 
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    La Terre De Reves was looking a little sad, and as he drove up to the front of the house he noticed signs that Annie was living there now. The wreath on the front door, the cobwebs cleaned from the windows, and a box marked Christmas on the porch.
    He knocked on the door and heard a loud bark, and then the sound of dog ’s nails on the hardwood floor.
    “ Good boy, Rumple,” he heard Annie say a second before the door opened. “You’re the best guard dog in the world.”
    The English Bulldog stopped and barked one last time as he looked up at Carson. He’d always loved dogs and bent over to pet him. The ‘guard dog’ licked his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
    Rumple gave him one last lick and then turned around to waddle back down the hall. Carson stood up slowly and noticed that Annie had been staring at his butt. He arched one eyebrow at her and she shrugged.
    “ You’ve got a great ass. It’d be a sin not to stare.”
    He laughed. He figured it was pretty run-of-the-mill but he was glad she liked it. “I had an extra-long paint roller and two free hours if you want some help.”
    “ I’d love your help,” she said. “The house is pretty run-down.”
    “ Years of neglect will do that to a place.”
    “ To a person too,” she added.
    “ Have you been neglected?” he asked. “You never did tell me what happened to your marriage.”
    “ That’s old news and not very interesting,” she said. “I’d rather live in the now.”
    He didn ’t like that she kept deflecting any topic that got too close to the real woman. And even though he was attracted to her, he wasn’t interested in being just another diversion in the Annie show.
    “ Forget it,” he said. “You can keep the roller – we’ve got a bunch back at the ranch.”
    He turned on his heel to walk back to his big Chevy F150, wishing this felt more like a narrow escape than genuine disappointment. Considering he’d spent the last two nights lying his bed and wondering if he might have a shot at the one woman he’d never been able to forget—he knew that was a lie.
    “ Carson.”
    He stopped and glanced over his shoulder at her. He wore a cowboy hat, his thick shearling jacket and heavy boots, and he knew that when she looked at him she saw an image. It was the image that had initially drawn Rainey to him.
    He saw a woman in a flannel shirt and a pair of skintight leggings. In his mind she looked like home but he knew that was an illusion. For a woman to be home she’d have to want to stay some place and not always be moving on. Annie wasn’t home.
    “ I’m… I don’t want to talk about New York or my marriage. It’s embarrassing and painful,” she said. “But I really don’t want you to go either.”
    “ I’m not asking you strip your soul naked. I just need to know that you’re not toying with me.”
    “ Why would I be?”
    “ Because you’re a leaver, Annie.” He wanted to know if that had changed. He wasn’t about to risk falling for her again if it was just an odd