The Cowboy's Christmas Surprise. Marie Ferrarella

getting serious about any of the women he went out with—which was just the way she liked it.

      Someday, Holly firmly hoped, Ray Rodriguez would come to his senses and realize that what he had been looking for all this time had been standing right there in front of him all along. The fact that he’d said more than once that he wasn’t looking for that special someone didn’t carry any weight with her. It was a rare man who admitted that he wanted a wife in his life, that he wanted something other than to be a carefree, love-’em-and-leave-’em man that all the available women in the area—and some who weren’t so available—flocked to.

      Just before he opened the front door to Murphy’s, Ray bent close to her ear and promised, “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you until we find Laurie.”

      The moment he said that, Holly fervently hoped that Laurie and her friends had gotten stuck in some parallel universe and had, for all intents and purposes, disappeared off the face of the earth for the duration of the evening.

      Her wish to that end intensified when, to her surprise, Ray took her hand. “So we don’t get separated,” he explained.

      The explanation came with an accompanying puff of warm breath—his—that instantly seemed to sink right into the sensitive skin along her neck and cheek.

      For a split second, Holly thought her heart was going to burst through her chest, it was hammering that hard. But she managed to take in, hold and then release two long, even breaths, which in turn steadied her pulse—or got it as steady as was humanly possible, given the circumstances.

      She took another long breath before saying, “I’m not worried.”

      He turned to look at her over his shoulder, guessing she’d said something but the din from the saloon had completely swallowed it up.

      “What?” he asked, his voice just a decibel below shouting.

      This time, it was her turn to lean forward and bring her lips to his ear. “I said, I’m not worried,” she repeated.

      Something tightened in his gut as he felt her breath along his ear. It sent a reflexive shiver through a large part of him, which surprised him. Feeling slightly unsettled, his eyes met hers.

      And held.

      For just an isolated fragment of time, Ray felt something happening, although what that something was, he wasn’t sure. He just knew it was something. Something unusual.

      Something different.

      The next moment it was gone.

      Whether he’d shaken it off or it had just been absorbed by the noise and the atmosphere, he didn’t know. All he knew was that it was gone. And he was relieved.

      And maybe just a little saddened, as well.

      Turning from her, feeling just the slightest bit unsteady on his feet—as if he’d just gotten up from his sickbed to come here—Ray carefully scanned the crowd directly in front of him.

      The band, he could see, was just setting up. Which meant that he and Holly weren’t late.

      Instead of dwelling on the odd sensation in the pit of his stomach, he focused on being able to hear Liam’s best efforts and on finding Holly’s friends. He knew he wouldn’t feel right about just leaving her alone here. It would be a little like abandoning a newborn on the steps of a church in the middle of the night. There was no telling if she’d be all right or not until her friends found her.