Suzanne took a steadying breath and bit the bullet. “Mom…I’m not coming home for Christmas.”

There was a long pause down the line. “What? But…we’ve never spent a Christmas apart.”

The quietness of her mother’s voice was more effective than any other tone she could have adopted. If she’d yelled or scolded or even cried, Suzanne could have rallied against it, but her mother’s disappointed voice was the hardest to take.

Suzanne just didn’t disappoint her parents.

Shit. How did a person tell her mother she didn’t want to see her at Christmas without being disappointing? Winona’s mother had passed away three years ago, and Suzanne knew that Winona would give anything to have one more Christmas with her mom. And here Suzanne was trying to weasel out of this one with her mom.

It was ridiculous; her parents didn’t even believe in Christmas. Not like other people did anyway. Why was it so important that she be there? Sure, it would be the first time in twenty-nine years they had Christmas apart, but…it had to happen sooner or later.

Casting frantically around in her brain for a suitable excuse—something compelling—she grabbed hold of the first thing that sprang forth. “I’ve met someone. I’m spending Christmas with him.”

Suzanne wasn’t sure who was more stunned at the blurted admission—her mother or herself. Met someone? That’s what she’d chosen? That was a degree of stupid she hadn’t even realized existed until now. An image of Grady stripped to his chest in the mudroom appeared unbidden, and she quashed it.

Shit.

“But, darling…you’ve not even been gone for two weeks.”

“No…I met him before that. Through Winona. We’ve been keeping in touch online.”

And just like that, she was off to the races…building this lie instead of trying to walk it back, which made her feel lower than a snake’s belly. But despite her initial panic, it was a good ruse. Her mother had always fretted about Suzanne’s lack of romantic entanglements.

Artists need to love, darling.

“He lives in Credence?” Her mother said Credence in much the same way she said street art.

“Yes, here, at the ranch. He’s a…rancher.” She swallowed as she dug the hole a little deeper. But if Suzanne was going to successfully pull off this lie, she was going to have to be convincing, and at least she could talk about Grady with conviction.

It wasn’t like he was ever going to know. She’d be back in New York in a few weeks with their relationship over and neither he nor her parents need ever know the truth.

“The…rancher?”

“Yes.” Suzanne crossed her fingers behind her back.

“So you’re staying at his place? There’s not a cottage?”

Suzanne thunked her forehead against her drawn-up knees and shut her eyes as the hole deepened. “There is a cottage.” The most convincing lies always held as much truth as possible, right? “I was in the cottage. But I’m…not now, no.”

She needed her mother to believe it was serious. Serious enough to not come home for Christmas. Suzanne shacking up with a rancher in rural Colorado ought to do it.