Page 104 of Snowbound Surrender

He had to do something to cool the heat that pumped through him every time that industrious look came into her eyes. That look and her stalwart spirit had kept him awake in the small hours of the night, debating whether he would like to master her or whether it would be far more enjoyable to let her have her way with him. He scrambled to find the most innocent, the most humorous light he could shed on things.

“I can see this as a house filled with children, a nursery, as it were.” He cringed inwardly as his mind went straight to all the ways they could make those children.

“Do you think?” Miranda’s expression lit with thought and something far more innocent than he could ever manage. “Do you think we could turn it into an orphanage of some sort?”

And now his heart was melting into a gooey pool, even as another part of him grew decidedly more rigid. “I can imagine all the delightful young tots snuggling into bed on Christmas Eve night, eager to find out what Santa will bring for them.”

Her eyes glittered with fondness as she stepped into the hall to stand beside him. “Goodnight, little Timmy,” she said, blowing a pretend kiss into the empty bedroom. She pivoted to face the doorway of the room across the hall. “Goodnight, Agnes. I’m sure Santa will bring you that doll you’ve wished for.”

The power of her imagination was so beautiful and sweet that Randall could hardly stand it. There was only one thing he could do. “Goodnight, James.” He played along, taking her hand and heading slowly down the hall toward the staircase leading to the ground floor. “I just know there will be a set of tin soldiers with your name on it under the tree tomorrow.”

“And a tiny tea set for you, Jane,” Miranda added. She giggled deep in her throat at the game.

Randall’s heart squeezed in his chest. Never in all his years of traveling, in all of the mad schemes his father had pushed him into so that he could make something of himself, had he ever found the time to consider a wife and children. But now, as he and Miranda stepped slowly down the hall, waving and blowing kisses into empty rooms, a hope or longing or the sheer boredom of being trapped in a snowstorm overtook him. He found himself not only entertaining the idea of Miranda by his side forever and a parcel of children with them, he ached for it. Even though it made no sense. He’d known Miranda for less than two full days. But two days of close quarters felt more like two years.

“Oh!” Miranda perked up as they reached the end of the hall. “We don’t have any Christmas decorations for the children.”

The sweet joy of their make-believe tugged Randall along as if it was second nature. “We’ll just have to do something about that, then.”

His imagination blossomed as he tightened his grip on Miranda’s hand and led her downstairs. There was precious little in a saloon that made for good Christmas decorations, buthe wasn’t about to give up this idyll, not when Miranda seemed so happy.

“Of course, the most important Christmas decoration is the tree,” he declared, heading for his trunk of brushes near the dwindling fire in the newly-clean saloon.

Miranda helped him search through its contents, and together they discovered that brushes had quite a way of looking like pine boughs when you were desperate. In spite of their determination not to use the saloon’s main room because it was too costly to heat, they were soon constructing a mad Christmas tree made up of chairs and brooms, crates and smaller boxes, near the fireplace. It was an ugly monstrosity, but it was also a balm to the hints of misery and pitifulness they’d uncovered by cleaning up the saloon’s bedrooms.

“I feel as though we should be singing carols as we decorate the tree,” Miranda said with a smile as she draped the rags she used to clean out glasses over the brushes and boxes to give the whole more of a Christmas tree shape.

“We should.” Randall nodded, then launched into a hearty tenor rendition of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”

Miranda beamed and giggled, then joined in with her own sweet soprano. When she reached the words, “Joyful all ye nations rise,” Randall suddenly knew what true joy was.

“Join the triumph of the skies,” he sang out clearly. His father would tell him he was being ridiculous. Anyone passing would think the two of them had lost their minds. The wind was still blowing, the saloon was growing so cold his fingers were numb. Miranda was close to being a complete stranger…and yet she wasn’t. A voice in his soul whispered that he was on track to have the best Christmas of his life.

As mad as it was to sing Christmas carols while constructing a tree out of brooms, brushes, and saloon detritus, it was evenmore outrageous that he fervently wished the blizzard would never end.

CHAPTER 6

As heartwarming andcozy as their Christmas tree make-believe was, two more days of being trapped in the saloon as the blizzard continued to blow had Randall’s patience shrinking like a fuse about to ignite dynamite. He and Miranda finished cleaning the second floor, but his thoughts kept turning to all the ways the two of them could put those bedrooms and their contents to good use. He’d even pocketed some unused French letters, then discarded them, then gone back to retrieve them and hide them with his things. Part of him was certain he’d be able to control himself where Miranda was concerned…but not all of him. Better safe than sorry.

It was even worse when they moved on to clean out the attic in their fourth day of confinement.

“What do you suppose this is for?” Miranda straightened from where she had been sorting through trunks of discarded clothing and held up a contraption consisting of leather straps and studs with a ring-shaped pocket on one side. “It sort of looks like horse tackle, but not quite.”

Randall’s face burned hot with awkwardness…and, he hated to admit it, arousal. He knew a harness when he saw one. The carved phalluses he kept finding and hiding suddenly madesense. He leapt across a pile of broken furniture pieces to snatch the harness from her hands.

“I wonder how that got up here,” he mumbled, whisking it away to the other side of the room and the sack of things to burn he’d been filling. Four days trapped alone with a woman he was growing to admire, care for, and, yes, desire more and more, and his mind was betraying him. It was too easy to mentally picture her wearing that harness, the two of them in bed together, with Miranda?—

“You know what that really is, don’t you?”

He regretted his thoughts so much that her insistent question made him jump and twist to face her, like a schoolboy caught stealing a pie off a windowsill. “Hmm? What?” It was impossible to play innocent when his face was hot enough to be a beacon in the storm.

Miranda planted her fists on her hips in that delightful, tempting way she had, and began to march across the attic toward him. “That thing is too small for a horse. You know what it is, don’t you?”

“Um…”

“Why are you all flushed and squirmy, Randy?” She wore a mock scolding look, humor in her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching.

Heavens above, she must be crawling with impatience and cabin fever too if she was pressing him about items found in the saloon’s attic. When they’d first started cleaning the bedrooms, she practically fainted at the sight of a dirty sheet. Randall wasn’t sure which Miranda got under his skin more, the proper one with delicate sensibilities or the bold one brimming with energy and curiosity.