A Very Crimson Christmas (Crimson, Colorado 4) Read Online Free PDF

the gut for Liam. Long ago, he’d imagined himself as the father of Natalie’s children. Those days seemed like a lifetime ago. He looked over his shoulder at the dark house. Liam’s chest tightened at the thought of Natalie curled up asleep inside. He tipped back his head, marveling at the amount of stars in the sky above him even as his lungs burned from the frosty air. He’d forgotten that about Crimson, both the hollow cold of night and how clear the sky could be without the city lights in the distance.
    As he turned for his SUV, he noticed a light on in the workshop that sat at the barn across the driveway. He started toward it, then noticed a woman’s frame silhouetted in the window. Natalie.
    He watched her for several minutes, her hair pulled back in a messy bun and wearing a faded chambray shirt rolled up to her elbows. Memory sparked in his mind, and he smiled as he headed for the door to the barn’s workshop.
    Natalie didn’t notice him come in and he realized she had earbuds in her ears as she hummed softly along with music he couldn’t hear. She held a pair of needle-nose pliers in one hand as she twisted a thin wire held under a bright light. After a moment, she reached for a bead from a case in front of her. She glanced up, and her gaze crashed into his.
    She screamed, slapping one hand to her chest as the earbuds ripped out of her ears. Her fingers upended the jar of beads, which went flying in all directions.
    “Sorry,” Liam said, although he wasn’t sorry to not be the only one in the room with a racing heart, even if it was for an entirely different reason. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” That much was true.
    “What are you still doing here?”
    “I fell asleep watching TV with Ruth. Someone put a blanket over me.”
    She took several deep breaths, her chest rising and falling in a way that made his mouth go dry. “I check on her before I go to bed each night.”
    “You’re not in bed.”
    “So observant, Liam.”
    “And you’re wearing my shirt.”
    At this, her gaze dropped. “Was this old thing yours?” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’d forgotten.”
    He didn’t bother to call her out on the lie. “It was my favorite.”
    “Want it back?”
    “It looks better on you.” He crouched down and began collecting the scattered beads from the floor. “As I remember, most of my clothes did.”
    She also picked up beads, and Liam found the silence oddly companionable. That was until the waistband of her jeans slipped down her hips and he got a flash of creamy skin again. He forced his thoughts away from her and focused only on reaching for the last of the beads.
    But as he came around the table and straightened, he found himself directly in front of Natalie. She stood totally still, her hand holding steady the bowl of beads. He dropped the ones he’d collected in and interlaced his fingers with hers, drawing his thumb along the calluses on the pads of her fingers.
    “How long have you made jewelry?”
    “A few years now,” she whispered with a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t sleep much and it relaxes me.”
    “You have talent.”
    “It’s just for fun.”
    He let out a bark of laughter. “I don’t believe that for a minute. When was the last time you did something just for fun?”
    Her mouth tightened as she looked deep into his eyes. “You were the last thing I did just for fun, Liam.”
    Despite how wrong it was, he wanted to be that for her again. He smoothed back the hair from her face and leaned forward. She closed her eyes, but instead of taking her mouth the way he wanted, he kissed the edge of her lips, then the tiny birthmark on the side of her temple. Her skin was as soft as he remembered, and she smelled like everything that had ever been good in his life.
    When she turned her face toward his, he couldn’t resist anymore. He claimed her mouth, gently exploring her with his lips and tongue. She opened for him and he delved in, reveling in the