The Cowboy's Christmas Surprise. Marie Ferrarella

she had a strong suspicion that Miss Joan had eyes everywhere, and if she wore her navy dress to Murphy’s, Miss Joan would know and get on her case about that.

      Besides, this had to have cost the woman a pretty penny, she thought as she lovingly glided her hand along her hip.

      Holly took a deep breath. “Okay, ready or not, here I come.”

      Grabbing her hoop earrings from the top of her bureau—a gift from her mother on her graduation day—she put them on as she walked toward the front of the house. The earrings were the one good piece of jewelry she had besides the small gold cross her father had given her on the first day of school.

      She heard voices coming from the living room.

      As she drew closer, Holly cocked her head, listening intently.

      She could make out her mother’s voice, but the voice that was answering her mother didn’t sound anything like Laurie—or any other female she knew, except possibly Miss Joan. But even Miss Joan’s voice wasn’t this deep.

      If she didn’t know any better, she would have said that the voice she heard belonged to—

      Holly’s heart began to pound the way it always did whenever she first heard his voice and realized he was somewhere close by.

      “Ray?” she asked as she walked into the small living room.

      Ray shifted his brown eyes toward her a beat after he uttered a preoccupied, “Hi.” But once he actually focused on her, the greeting was immediately followed by an awestruck, “Wow,” and then a joking request for some sort of proof of identity.

      “Doll, is that really you?” Ray asked, staring at her and cocking his head as if that could somehow help him clear his vision, or at least allow him to make a better identification of the shimmering fairy princess entering the room. He took a step toward her, staring so hard his eyes all but burned into her. “Wow,” he said again. “You clean up really well,” he told her, appreciation all but vibrating in his voice.

      “Doesn’t she, though?” Martha said, pride brimming over in her voice as she, too, turned around to face Holly.

      A warm, pleased feeling swept through her, but she told herself that Ray was just being nice. After all, they were friends and they’d known each other since they were children.

      “What are you doing here?” she asked him. Holly glanced around, expecting to see Laurie somewhere in the room, but there was no indication that he’d come with anyone.

      What was going on here?

      “Well, this afternoon I happened to mention to Laurie’s brother that I was going to see if Liam could play half as well as he thinks he can, and I guess Laurie overheard me because next thing I know, she’s asking me for a favor, saying that she and her friends were going to Murphy’s tonight, too. Her problem was that she didn’t have enough room in her car for everyone. She thought that since you and I are friends, maybe I wouldn’t mind picking you up and taking you with me.” He shrugged casually. “I said sure, why not. Why didn’t you tell me you were going tonight?” he asked. “You know that I would have taken you—like I am now.”

      Her shrug matched his, except that hers was tinged with self-consciousness. “It kind of just came up as a spur-of-the-moment, last-minute thing,” she told him, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

      His eyes swept over her as the corners of his mouth curved in a smile that could only be described as wicked.

      “That dress certainly doesn’t look like a spur-of-the-moment thing,” he told her.

      In all the time that he’d known Holly, he’d never seen her looking this good, this, well, sexy for lack of a better word. Did she even know that? That she looked really hot? He had a feeling that, this being Holly, she didn’t.

      He had a full agenda planned for tonight, but it looked as if he might have to add chaperone to that list. As her friend, he didn’t want to see guys hit on her if that made her uncomfortable.

      Seeing that Holly was momentarily stuck for a response to Ray’s assessment of the dress that adorned her body, Martha came to her daughter’s rescue.

      “That was a birthday present I gave her last year. You know how Holly is, she saves things until the very last minute—even leaves the tags on until she wears the item for the first time,” she added, seeing that there was one telltale tag hanging from the back of the stunning dress. Shifting her wheelchair so that she was behind her daughter, Martha drew close enough to remove the tag with one well-executed yank.

      “I knew it would look good on you,” she told her daughter, playing her part to the hilt.

      “Good?” Ray echoed incredulously. “Doll, you’re downright beautiful in that.”

      “She’s downright beautiful without it, too,” Martha told him. The way she saw it, Holly enhanced the clothing she wore, not the other way around.

      “Mom!” Holly cried, mortified at the implication of the words.

      “No, she’s right,” Ray cut in. “You’re a beautiful person, especially on the inside, Doll. I’ve always said that.” He had a feeling it was getting late. “Okay, you ready to go?” he asked, glancing at his watch. He’d expected to be there by now, looking over the crop of women the band had attracted. “The first set is at eight and I want to get there before that, look over the crowd and all that good stuff,” he told her.

      She felt her heart go back to its regular measured beat. She knew what he meant by “good stuff.” How could she forget? If Ray was going to Murphy’s, it was because he wanted to see if the promise of a band had drawn any new faces from the neighboring towns and places farther south.

      “Well, we wouldn’t want you to be late,” she told him glibly.

      “You two have fun, now,” Martha told them as she followed in their wake to the front door. “Don’t worry about Molly—or anything else, either,” she instructed Holly. “Just for one night, please act your age and not mine.”

      “Good advice, Mrs. Johnson. I’ll see that she follows it,” Ray promised the woman with a bright smile. “Okay, milady, your chariot awaits,” he told Holly grandly, bowing from the waist and gesturing toward the truck that he always drove.

      “I see that your ‘chariot’s’ been freshly washed,” she teased as she opened the passenger-side door and got in.

      “Can’t make a good impression in a dirty chariot, now, can I?” he asked with a laugh, getting in on his side.

      Holly made no reply.

      She knew that the good impression he was talking about referred to whatever woman he set his sights on tonight, but just for the moment, she pretended that he’d actually done this for her and that he was her date, not just a friend doing another friend a favor.