Page 4 of Yuletide Cookies (Christmas Card Cowboys #1)

Chapter Four

Heart galloping as if she’d run up three flights of stairs, Eliza splayed a hand to her chest.

Wyatt stood on the sidewalk, swaying like a man who had just learned the ground could not be trusted.

“You’re lost,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. Lost in ways I don’t have words for.”

His long coat hung dusty from the fall, one sleeve skinned bare at the elbow. The Stetson was dented where the car had sent it rolling across the asphalt.

His gaze tracked every movement on the street with the wariness of prey that found itself at the bottom of the food chain. She tried to image it. Every streetlight a mystery, every car alarm a threat.

Her phone pinged. She knew who it was without looking. Tessa, reminding her of girls’ night. Again.

“Listen,” she said. “I need to be somewhere. I’m supposed to meet my friends for dinner. If I don’t show at the restaurant, they’ll come here, and they are not ready for this .”

“So late at night?” His eyebrows drew together, equal parts protective and scandalized. “Ladies out alone in the dark? Doesn’t seem right.”

“Things are different now,” she said, and watched something shutter behind his eyes. “Women have a lot more independence.”

His jaw tightened. The muscle twitched. “I see.”

Did he think she was abandoning him? The thought twisted her gut. Here was a man ripped from everything he knew, and she was worried about drinks and gossip.

“But I can’t leave you on the street. You don’t know the rules. You don’t even know what can kill you.”

“Seems like most everything in this place.” A wry smile drifted across his lips.

True enough.

Another ping. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the accumulating texts.

From Tessa:

Zeke’s, don’t forget. If you’re out there helping people, stop it. Time for self-care.

From Fiona:

Megan’s already there ordering those jalapeno poppers you pretend you don’t like.

From Megan:

If you bail, we’re staging an intervention. WITH CHARTS.

“Come on.” She made a decision that felt insane even as the words left her mouth. “We need to get you somewhere safe, and I have about ten minutes to teach you how not to die.”

“Pardon?”

How in the world did you explain harnessed electricity? “From the lightning we put in walls and the fire we hide in metal boxes.”

Both eyebrows shot toward his hairline, and for a second, he seemed younger and incredibly vulnerable. “Wh-what?”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.” She headed for the stairs to her apartment above the bakery. “Follow me.”

The stairwell had never felt so narrow. The walls seemed to press in. She was hyperaware of the big man behind her, the creak of his boots, the whisper of his coat against the railing, the intoxicating scent of leather and man.

It was a little scary and oddly thrilling.

He hesitated at the threshold. “This is your private room.”

“Yes.”

“I shouldn’t come in.” He shook his head. “We don’t even have a chaperone.”

“It’s okay.”

“But what about your reputation? If it gets out you’ve been entertaining men alone in your place, the townsfolk will label you a soiled dove. I’d hate to think I caused people to turn against you.”

“Not in 2025.”

“Huh,” he said it in a tone of wonderment, as if he didn’t quite believe it but didn’t disapprove.

She motioned him inside, shut, and locked the door behind him.

He jumped at the click .

“Nothing to worry about, I promise.”

His gaze swept the room. Was he cataloging exits and threats?

She sure would be if she got yanked one hundred and forty-seven years into the future.

Except for him, the threats were her laptop’s screensaver floating fish and the microwave’s digital clock blinking 12:00 because she never bothered setting it.

“You hungry?” she asked.

“I could eat a bite.” He removed his cowboy hat with the same reverence a knight might remove his helmet, holding it in hands nicked with scars.

She motioned for him to sit at her tiny kitchen table, the one she found at a yard sale and painted mint green on a wine-fueled Saturday.

He sat gingerly, as if he were afraid of breaking the chair. Or maybe afraid it would disappear.

A streak of orange flew off the bookshelf and wound around Wyatt’s legs, purring loud enough to rival her ancient refrigerator’s compressor.

“Nutmeg!” Eliza scolded as she got out supplies to make him a sandwich.

Her cat, who hid under the bed when company knocked. The cat who took three months to stop hissing at Gram. The cat who never sat on anyone’s lap but hers rubbed against this stranger like he was catnip incarnate.

“Whoa there.” Wyatt raised both hands.

Purring madly, Nutmeg jumped into his lap and butted her head against his solar plexus.

Wyatt lowered his arms and scratched her behind her ears. “Haven’t seen a mouser this friendly in a while. Good cat. Knows her job, I bet.”

Nutmeg kneaded his thigh and lowered her eyelids, a little drool dripping down her chin.

“Wow. She hates everyone except me. She bit my ex-boyfriend. Twice.”

“Smart cat.” The corner of his mouth ticked up. “Animals are a good judge of character.”

“You want to wash up before you eat?”

“I’d be obliged. Where’s the pump?” He stood, easing Nutmeg to the floor with a gentleness that fluttered Eliza’s heart.

“Right here.” She showed him the sink faucet, trying to see it through his eyes, this everyday miracle of instant water. “Turn this handle.”

Nutmeg followed him to the sink, weaving figure eights around his boots like she was casting a protection spell. He reached out tentatively, twisted the knob, then jerked back when water gushed forth.

“Mother of a biscuit eater.” His ears reddened. “That sure is something.”

“Crash course in not dying. This handle is the hot water. It can burn you.” She turned on the hot water spout and steam rose.

“Goll durn!” He shot her an apologetic look. “Pardon my language.”

She almost laughed. If he only knew the things she screamed at her laptop during tax season. She pointed to the electrical outlets, considering how to explain alternating current.

“These holes in the walls? Lightning lives there. Tamed lightning, but it’ll kill you just as dead if you don’t know how to use it. So just stay away from them until I can explain properly later.”

“Lightning in the walls,” he repeated, like he was trying to make the impossible words stick. He flexed his fingers. “I’ll stay clean away.”

“The stove…” She turned the dial, blue flame whooshing to life. “This makes instant fire. But it’s gas, like lamp oil, but different. Leave this alone, too.” She shut it off.

He jumped back, his hand flying to his hip as if he meant to shoot it out of instinct.

“Everything here is lightning or fire,” he said, his tone full of dark humor. “Are you a witch?”

“Oh no, everyone has fire and lightning now.”

He quirked and eyebrow.

Her phone buzzed strongly enough to skitter across the kitchen counter.

“What’s that box?” He eyed the cell phone.

“Just my friends.”

A panic-stricken expression crossed his face. “Inside there?”

“No.” She thought about explaining but shook her head. No point overwhelming him with how cell phones worked. “It’s the way we communicate in twenty twenty-five. Instead of writing things on paper, our messages show up on this box.”

“I see,” he said, but the expression on his face said he absolutely did not.

Eliza peeked at the screen. This text was from Megan:

WHERE ARE YOU??? Five minutes before we storm the bakery and drag you out by your HAIR. Tessa has already downed a martini, and she’s telling the bartender about her mother again.

She texted back.

I’m coming, I’m coming. Hold your mini horses.

“I’ve got to get a move on.” She quickly made him a ham and cheese sandwich, added a dill pickle and potato chips, and thrust the plate at him. “Here you go.”

He sat and stared at the sandwich like he couldn’t wait to dig in. “Thank you kindly, Miss Foster. I sure am grateful to you. If I had to get tugged through time, I’m glad I landed in your place.”

“Me too,” she said, surprised that she meant it. “I’m sorry, but I really do have to go. They’ll come looking if I don’t show, and I can’t explain you to them without sounding unhinged. Will you be okay?”

“Miss Foster.” He drew himself up with a dignity that belonged in a world of calling cards and courtship.

“Yes?”

“I’ve survived blizzards that buried whole towns, stampedes that shook the earth, rattlers mean enough to chase a man on horseback, and one memorable grizzly who had opinions about my cooking. I can manage your home.”

“My world almost killed you fifteen minutes ago,” she pointed out.

“That was outside.” He gestured around her apartment. “This is just shelter with peculiar conveniences. Like a fancy hotel in Denver, but with trapped lightning and fancy water pumps.”

Her phone lit with a photo from Tessa, four martini glasses on Zeke’s scarred wooden bar, condensation beading on the glass. One had Eliza written on it in purple Sharpie.

This drink is getting lonely. It might cry.

She grabbed her purse. “I’ll be gone an hour. Ninety minutes tops. Stay away from the windows. People might see in, and you’re not exactly contemporary looking. Don’t answer the door for anyone. Touch nothing that has buttons or screens or makes noise or?—”

“Miss Foster,” he said, interrupting her spiral. “I’ll be fine. Go see your friends.”

She looked at him one last time, this impossible man in his trail-worn coat, sitting at her yard-sale table with her traitorous cat purring in his lap and a ham sandwich in front of him.