A Cowboy For Christmas (A Copper Mountain Christmas) by Katherine Garbera

last time I talked to a kid before I moved back here.”
    “ Not a lot of kids in New York City?” he asked.
    “ Not in my circles. And if anyone did have children they had nannies, so I rarely saw them except in vacation photos,” she said.
    “ Your life sounds weird,” he said.
    “ It was. We didn’t even decorate our own homes for the holidays. We had services who come in and do it all for you.”
    He tipped his head to the side there was a bit of self-deprecation in the way she was talking. “Did you like that? I thought you were a decorator by trade.”
    “ I am,” she said. “I was a pain in the ass as they walked through my home trying to do their jobs. I made sure they put up only things that suited my taste. But that’s not the same. Some people would say that was bad karma.”
    “ Evan and I do the tree together every year,” he said. “You think you’re going to be able to remember how to do yours?”
    She tipped her head to the side, studying him with that wintry gray gaze of hers. What was she trying to find inside him when she looked at him like that? He hoped she found it.
    “ Want to help me?”
    “ I did already – I strung your lights,” he said, with a half-grin. He’d taken a look at her other decorations. There weren’t any signs of her life in New York. He’d have thought she’d have boxes piled up in the house but she didn’t seem to have brought anything at all from her old life with her, but then he remembered she’d had to get rid of everything to pay back her ex-husband’s debts. “I have no problems helping with the rest.”
    “ Good, I could use some muscle. Now that I fed you it’s the least you could do,” she said, with a sweet smile and some batting eyelashes.
    He liked her, he was trying to be cool and go slow but the good food and having his old friend back in town made that hard. He’d eaten two big helpings as well as most of the garlic bread. Annie didn’t eat like a bird but she was nowhere near his size and ate a significantly smaller amount. He enjoyed the novelty of just eating his food instead of having to stop and cut up Evan’s and telling him to use his fork.
    She was looking at him and he noticed she ’d finished eating. “I guess I should clean up.”
    “ Why?” she asked. “You’re my guest.”
    “ You cooked, I clean, right?” That was the deal he’d always had with Rainey and when he’d been growing up as well.” His mom had put all of their names on the calendar when they’d been young and each night one of them had to clean up the kitchen while she supervised. She’d sit at the table drinking a cup of tea and Carson had enjoyed those nights a lot. It was only time he’d had his mom to himself.
    “ Is that how it works?” she asked.
    “ Yes, that is how it works. No one should do it all. I’m a grown man and don’t need you to be my servant.”
    She leaned over and kissed him quick on the lips. “Thank you, Carson. It’s been so long since I’ve been around a real man… just pile the dishes in the sink and then meet me in the living room.”
    She scooted out of the kitchen and he watched her go, enjoying the sight of those tight jeans and the curve of her ass in them. He made short work of the dishes and looked around the kitchen after wiping down the counter and notice the photo on the refrigerator behind a Johnson’s Auto Insurance magnet that had been handed out in the nineties.
    The photo was of her dog sitting on a park bench with sunshine all around. He thought of how few people she had in her life. It didn’t fit with her personality. She’d always been social – what had happened in New York to change that? Then he saw the small red and green braided dough wreath ornament next to it. Her family had been so close before Gilly’s cancer. He knew that had changed all of them, but especially Annie. She’d started running then.
    Was she ever going to stop running?
    He wanted answers, but as he entered the