Christmas for Ransom Read Online Free PDF Page A

bacon in his face, all the while mindful of his manners, the words had Ransom’s cock grow stiff as a railroad spike. He shifted awkwardly, for he had no place to put it for a long while.
    Decorating a school room in the middle of the day gave no chance for romance. But it might be the start of something. She’d asked for him, after all. And if he had his way, he’d get the day to last as long as he could.
    Maybe past nightfall.
    “When do you want me to start, Miz Eliza?” He tried to use a voice as guileless as her gaze moments before. “I don’t want you to be tardy for school.”
    “I’ve called a break for the holidays. We can start soon as you’re done eating. Several of the children will be joining us.”
    His spirits fell, and he hoped his face didn’t.
    “They’ve spent days making chains out of colored paper,” Eliza said, and then spent a long delicious minute slurping down the last of her tea. He watched the tip of her little pink tongue, and his crotch burned with unfulfilled life.
    No way could he get up now. “I’ll have seconds first, then we can be on our way.”
    “Fine then. I’ll just retrieve my bonnet and shawl while you finish up.”
    As she got up from the table, her body swayed deliciously under her homely skirts, and he memorized every muscle. The other lodgers didn’t give her any nevermind at all, and from that, Ransom guessed they were all stupider than dirt.
    ****
    While Eliza waited on the porch, she watched Ransom shrug into a new overcoat inside the little foyer. He had cleaned up nicely. The edges of his harvest-colored hair curled across his shoulders, and her fingers longed to explore his deep, carved cheekbones. His hands had calluses, his manner was careful. Likely he tamed horses.
    Or maybe he followed the law. Something tweaked in her mind. Maybe she could hire him on to get Granny’s horses found and jail the bastards who’d thieved them.
    Eliza could hardly breathe, and it had nothing to do with the cold morning air. She knew the High Plains. Before long, the day would warm up enough for comfort, but despite the blue sky, she reckoned they were due for snow.
    Maybe a blizzard. Her heart swelled. Such a weather disaster would bind her to Pleasure Stakes and prevent her return to the Stony Brook.
    Prevent Ransom from leaving town, too.
    What was happening to her? She hadn’t paid a man this much nevermind in years. His table manners had been fine enough to take home to dinner, no worse, no better than any of the Stony Brook ’hands. While he’d eaten with vigor, it wasn’t the hunger of a starving man, just one who rarely got grub so well-cooked. Besides all that, the husky quiet of his voice fell on her ears the way velvet slid across skin.
    Down her spine skimmed another kind of warmth. His reaction to the tea cup touched her heart. How he must miss his granny. The words grunted out of her. Missing Granny wasn’t something Eliza did often.
    Outside, Ransom held his arm to her, and she placed her hand in the crook. Even through the brand new cloth, she was sure she felt his skin sizzle and wondered if he felt the same. From a tiny misstep as his foot reached the boardwalk, she reckoned he had.
    “Thanks for your help,” she said, shy, as they headed down the street toward the school. “I hope you’ll come to the pageant tonight.”
    He nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
    “You’re so tall.” She hoped she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt deep down. “You’ll hang those paper chains higher than ever before.”
    “You been teaching here long?” he asked. The rasp in his voice tickled her toes, and then some.
    “This is my third term,” she said, tongue quivering, too, at the sound of him. “I answered a newspaper advertisement.”
    “You from around here? You got the talk.”
    She smiled. “Lone Star born and bred. But I spent far too many years in Boston at boarding school. It’s good to be home.”
    “Your granny’s close by,