Page 22 of Yuletide Cookies (Christmas Card Cowboys #1)

She curled her fingers into his arms, feeling the solid muscle beneath his sleeve. “What was that?”

“You.” His eyes blazed, like amber caught in firelight.

“Me?”

“The sound of your laugh, the touch of your hand, the way you look at me like I’m worth something.”

“You are worth something to me, Wyatt. You’re everything .”

“I remembered how you pressed your shoulder against mine as we rolled Maggie’s dough thin enough to see the grain of the board through it.

And the way your eyes caught the colored lights on the Ferris wheel.

” He brushed a strand of hair from her face, his touch reverent.

“That memory kept me alive in a place where I didn’t exist.”

Her tears came harder, unstoppable, soaking his shirt. “Wyatt...”

“I was fading away there,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“Becoming nothing. I was disappearing, just like you saw on the card. My hands would go transparent. I could see through my own chest.” He drew her closer, his voice a vow carved from bone.

“I don’t belong there anymore. I don’t belong to the past. The only place I am real is here. With you.”

A sob cracked her chest. She cupped his face in both hands, desperate, terrified, certain. “Then don’t ever leave me. I can’t. I won’t do this again.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the ashes on her carpet. “We don’t have to worry about that card taking me away again. The portal is closed. I’m here with you for good.”

“The bakery is saved, did you know that? The loan is paid. Foster’s will continue, but none of it matters without you. None of it.”

His hands closed over hers, steady, anchoring.

“I won’t ever leave you. You hear me? I’m yours.

Only you.” His voice dropped, tender as the moment in the gazebo when they’d almost kissed.

“Remember what Maggie wrote on that recipe card? ‘Takes two hearts.’ I think I finally understand what she meant.”

Something broke loose in Eliza, something she had held tight since the night he vanished.

Grief, longing, fear, all of it burst like a storm giving way to joy. A wild, disbelieving laugh tangled with her tears. “If this is a dream, I swear I’ll never wake. I’ve wished for you every night. I told the card to bring you back. I begged it.”

Nutmeg stirred at the foot of the bed, her purr rumbling loud enough to fill the quiet room. She fixed Wyatt with that knowing gaze, as if she’d expected him all along.

He bent, his voice rough against Eliza’s mouth. “It’s no dream. And if it is, let’s never wake.” His fingers threaded through her hair. “I told you I would have courted you in my time until the whole town grew tired of hearing about it. I meant every word.”

And then he dipped his head and kissed her.

Not a soft brush, not a fleeting promise, but a consuming, bone-deep claiming.

His mouth crashed onto hers with all the hunger of lost days, all the grief of exile, all the reverence of a man who had clawed his way back through nothingness for one reason alone.

She rose onto her toes, fingers clutching his hair, his jaw, anything to keep him there. She pressed closer, feeling the steady beat of his heart against hers.

The kiss drove deeper, demanding, tender, desperate all at once. He kissed her until her lips throbbed, until her lungs burned, until her soul remembered what it was to be whole.

When at last he dragged his mouth from hers, he didn’t release her. His forehead pressed to hers, their breath mingling ragged in the dim room.

“Eliza,” he said, voice hoarse but unshakable. “You’re my home. My forever.”

Her tears wet his cheek as she clung to him, the scent of their mingled breath sweet as the Yuletide cookies they’d baked side by side.

“I turned Sweet Delights down,” she whispered against his lips. “I couldn’t sell Maggie’s recipe. Not after what you said, that some things are worth more than money. And now every family in town is making those cookies. Some things belong to everyone.”

His eyes flashed with pride. “That’s my girl. Maggie would’ve been proud.”

“We can run the bakery together.”

His smile came fierce, certain, unmovable.

“That we can. And I aim to master every recipe in that box, just like I promised. Biscuits I already know by heart. But those sugar cookies, that peppermint bark, those ginger stars you showed me, Eliza, I’ll learn them all.

I’ll stand at your counter until my hands know every measure the way they know a skillet handle. ”

She laughed through her tears. “It’s more than cookies, Wyatt. It’s credit cards and traffic lights, ovens with buttons instead of dampers, people who’ll try to put you on Instagram before you’ve had your morning coffee.”

He tipped his head, bemused but steady. “Then you’ll teach me.

One step at a time. As long as you’re beside me, I’ll learn the world over again.

” His voice deepened, fierce and certain.

“And I’ll love you to the end of my days, the way Sam loved Maggie.

That kind of love doesn’t end with time.

It carries forward, just like these recipes. ”

Her sob caught and turned into a laugh. “Welcome home.”

His thumb traced her bottom lip, gentle as when he’d tended her burnt fingers. “I already am.”

Nutmeg leapt from the bed onto the floor and wound between their legs, her tail curling around Wyatt’s ankle like an anchor, holding him in place. She mewed once, decisively, as if to say, This time, stay put.

Outside, the wind stilled, and snow began to fall, thick lazy flakes that clung to the window glass.

The old house seemed to exhale, settling into a peace it hadn’t known in years—the kitchen below waiting for morning light, for flour to dust its counters, for two pairs of hands to work side by side.

And in that room, two hearts, four hands, no time but now, they began the life Maggie’s cookies had always promised. A love deep enough to last forever.

* * *

If you enjoyed Wyatt and Eliza’s story, you can’t miss Tessa and Cade’s romance. Grab your copy of Reindeer Wrangler!