Read Cowboy Who Came For Christmas (Harlequin Romance) for Free Online

bags.
    She watched him, amazed. “How did you know...?”
    His chuckle was quiet and sure. “My mama always makes hot tea when she’s upset.”
    Sophia latched onto that tidbit, a wistfulness filling her soul. She ached for a family of her own but for now, Bettye and her other neighbors would have to do. “Your mama and you—are you close?”
    He turned and gave her a quick glance. “Yep. I’m close to both my parents. They live in Austin, not far from my house. They help me take care of my daughter, Gaylen.”
    So he was married. Good. Sophia could put yet another wall between them. And she could let go of that sizzle of attraction that seemed to spark her back to life each time he touched her.
    “Where’s your wife?” She’d asked it before she could think it through. “I mean, won’t she be wondering where you are?”
    He didn’t turn around, but his hand went still on the teakettle. “She’s gone.”
    So much for trying to focus on the positive. So did that mean he was still married and his wife had left? Or did that mean his wife was dead? Sophia refused to ask.
    “She left when Gaylen was eight months old,” he finally said. “I’m a divorced single father.”
    Sophia’s heart went out to him and his little girl, but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by saying that. “So you’re a single father who chases criminals in the snow.”
    “Yep.” He opened a tea bag and dropped it into a big floral mug. “And I need to be done with this and home by Christmas Eve.”
    Sophia hoped that would happen. “You think you’ll find him around here?”
    “I think so. He’s here for a reason, but he’d have to hunker down tonight or risk freezing to death.”
    She decided to feel Adan out and get a few details in the process. “I wonder why he decided to come to Crescent Mountain.”
    Adan left that statement out there floating on the air between them along with the scent of chamomile tea. Finally he said, “I wonder that, too.” He brought her the tea, his gaze sweeping over her face. “It sure would make my job easier if you’d just tell me the truth.”
    Sophia didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to shout that yes, she knew who Joe Pritchard was but...she thought he was dead. She thought he would never hurt her again. So how could that possibly be him out there?
    But she couldn’t find her voice. She couldn’t speak his name. So she sat there and watched Adan while he watched her drink the herbal tea and she hoped against hope that Joe wasn’t on this mountain.
    But Adan didn’t pressure her anymore. He pulled out his cell phone and tried to make a call. “No bars,” he finally said, frowning down at his phone. “Guess the storm is messing with the reception.”
    “We never have good reception up here,” Sophia told him. “It comes and goes even on good days. If we have important calls to make, we go down into town and sit on a bench or do our business in the Crescent Diner. They have free Wi-Fi there.”
    “I see.” He tapped his phone and put it away. “I wanted to check in with my parents and tell Gaylen good-night.”
    He sat for a moment, his gaze on his phone. Sophia chanced a glance when he put it on the table and saw a picture of a pretty blond-headed little girl. His daughter?
    Before she could ask, Adan picked the phone back up and started tapping away.
    “Notes to myself,” he said by way of an explanation. “So I won’t forget the chronological order of things.”
    Sophia couldn’t believe her world had shifted within the space of an hour. The Christmas decorations Bettye had helped her make and put on the tree now held a garish shimmer that only reminded her of other Christmases she’d rather not remember. Days and nights that had involved overly decorated rooms and expensive catered dinners. And a facade that crumbled like dry bricks.
    Sophia didn’t miss that kind of fake holiday. Nor did she miss the disconnected misery of growing up moving