Teacher's Christmas Cowboy (Trinity Falls Sweet Romance - Icicle Christmas #5)

“He was about five years ahead of me in school, I want to say,” Jared said, looking disappointed that he didn’t have a good story for Sylvester. “So I didn’t get to play with him, no. But everyone always said Arthur Davies is a good guy.”

That made Cora smile. People had still said that about him as an adult.

“I’m going to ask my brothers about him, now that I know you,” Jared decided. “And if they have any good stories, I’ll make sure to come and tell you.”

“That sounds great,” Sylvester said, his eyes going right to hers.

She smiled at him, feeling a wave of love so strong she couldn’t speak.

Arthur might have gone, but he had left her with the most wonderful gift of a son. No matter how lonely she felt at night, Sylvester always brightened her days. And knowing he was right there in his room beside hers helped her sleep on the hardest nights.

“I’m going to have a look at your windows to make sure they’re easy to open up,” Jared told Sylvester. “Does that sound okay?”

“Sure,” Sylvester told him excitedly. “Do you want to see my room?”

“Definitely,” Jared said.

Cora found herself smiling again as she followed the two of them up to begin their window inspection in Sylvester’s new room.

Afternoon light streamed in, and it was like she was seeing the beautiful woodwork for the first time again.

“All this was done before they even had power tools,” Jared told Sylvester, his voice a little soft with wonder as he pointed to the carved posts on the staircase. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Mom said that yesterday,” Sylvester said, laughing.

Jared’s blue eyes flashed to hers again and she felt her cheeks heat.

She should have allowed the two of them to get further upstairs before she followed. Jared had stopped for an instant and now she was practically in his arms.

She cast her eyes away, but her senses were filled with him. She could practically feel the heat pouring off him and he exuded the familiar masculine scent of clean sweat and the outdoors, with a whisper of something that was all his own.

She paused, letting them get ahead of her, and feeling a little unmoored. She hadn’t noticed a man this way since Arthur, but it was only her senses noticing Jared, not her heart. And it was only natural. She was still a young woman. Her nose didn’t know he wasn’t her husband. It didn’t mean anything at all.

“Why are the fish in a hole?” Sylvester asked.

Jared only stared at him for a moment, and then chuckled.

“You mean the fishing hole,” he said. “It’s not really a hole at all. I never really thought about that before. It’s just a really great place to fish, with lots of trees, and a giant rock that sticks out over the water and gets nice and warm in the sun.”

“Neat,” Sylvester exclaimed as they stepped into his room.

“That’s a lot of boxes,” Jared said to Sylvester in an impressed way, completely unaware that his mother was still in the stairwell, her stomach twisting in knots.

“Those are all my books,” Sylvester told him. “I’ve read almost all of them.”

“You read that many books?” Jared asked.

She had reached the doorway now, and she steeled herself before peeking in on them.

Jared was crouched down, his big body curved around one of the boxes as he perused the titles.

“Gulliver’s Travels,” he said. “That one was actually pretty good.”

“I didn’t know you were a reader,” Cora said, unable to help herself.

“Oh, I just had to read some of this stuff back in school,” Jared said, immediately straightening and scratching the back of his neck. “I liked that one, though, because cool stuff happened in it.”

“It’s an adventure story,” Sylvester said wisely. “That’s why I like it too. Try this one, you’ll love it.”