Read Online Linda Ford by Once Upon a Thanksgiving - Free Book Online Page A

down and he landed with a thud that shookthe air from him. His lungs hurt. He couldn’t make them work.
    Kathleen lay across his chest. She pushed back to look into his face, her eyes dark blue and full of things he dared not acknowledge.
    She saw he couldn’t breathe and scrambled to her knees. “Buck, take a breath.” She shook him a little. “Come on. You’re scaring me.”
    His lungs decided to work, and he sucked in air until he wondered how much he could hold. He let it out in a gusty exhalation and lay there.
    “Are you okay?”
    He hadn’t intended to frighten her, but oh, it felt good to know she would worry so about him. He sat up and grinned at her. “I’m fine, sweet Kathleen. Just fine.” He got to his feet, pulling her up with him.
     
    Sweet Kathleen, he’d called her, the sound of her name on his lips pleasant as honey. He stood facing her, studying her.
    “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
    “I’m fine.” She struggled to bring her thoughts into order. “You took the brunt of the fall.”
    “Let me check you over.” He turned her about, brushed snow from between her shoulders, then brought her back to face him. He took his time examining her face. The warmth of his gaze on her lips brought a toe-to-hairline blush to her skin.
    “There’s snow stuck to your hair.” He brushed it away with his fingers. They seared across her cheek.
    She caught her breath as something wrenchedinside her—a sweet, fierce sensation of pleasure and hope. Her growing fondness and admiration for Buck bordered on something more profound. A feeling so new and powerful she didn’t want to examine it too closely for fear it would abandon her.
    “Kathleen.” His husky whisper reached into her head, making it impossible to think beyond this moment when time ceased to exist.
    His gaze grew more intense as he looked so deeply into her eyes, she felt his gaze touch her innermost secrets. “Kathleen,” he breathed her name again, his attention on her mouth.
    He lowered his head. She knew he meant to kiss her. He paused—whether to give her time to demure or to reconsider his intention, she couldn’t say.
    She had no desire to refuse him and tilted her head upward. His lips claimed hers, warm, firm, gentle…almost reverent. She clutched at his upper arms, holding on as the world fell away and there was nothing but them.
    He ended the kiss but pulled her to his chest and pressed her face to the spot where Joey found such comfort and welcome, and she found the same. This man was a rock. An anchor. She could trust her very being to him.
    “Kathleen, you are a special woman.”
    She smiled into the soft warmth of his coat. “Buck, you are a special man. A noble and good man.”
    His chuckle rumbled beneath her ear. “I love to hear you say so.”
    Love? Could this be love? This wonderful, satisfying, exhilarating sensation of wanting time to stop, everyone else to disappear, her life to begin at this moment? If so, she couldn’t imagine anything better in the whole world.
    Buck eased her back, took her hands and pressed them tight to his chest. “We need to get back.”
    “Of course.” She’d forgotten the others. Forgotten everything but Buck. But he would never forget Joey. “I wish—”
    “Shh.” He pulled her closer. “Let’s take what God offers us without demanding more.”
    It sounded like a warning not to expect anything beyond the moment. “Buck, won’t you consider staying? Give people a chance to see how good and noble you are?”
    He stiffened, tried to hide it. Sighed almost imperceptibly. She knew he didn’t intend for her to notice. “Kathleen, I wish I could.”
    “Is it because of Joey?” She wanted desperately for him to say it was the reason, even though it wouldn’t explain why he’d promised Rosie he would stay away even when she didn’t know he had a son. “Because you need to give people a chance to accept him.”
    “Do you think they ever would?”
    “Perhaps not everyone,