Her Christmas Cowboy

by Jessica Clare

  Then again, talking was hard. Maybe he’d write her a note. Or would that seem creepy? He didn’t know. He watched her house for a bit, and when the lights went out, he drove home, his thoughts on fire with possibilities.

  She hadn’t known his face before. She knew it now. He’d rescued her. He had her car to tow, and a standing date with her on Monday morning. He’d left his blanket with her. He had her keys.

  There were endless opportunities to see her again, not just that Santa crap. He needed to take advantage of these opportunities, too. If he was just chauffeuring her around like a nice guy, he’d get the chance to talk to her, more than just the blurted-out responses he kept flinging at her. He could hold a real conversation with her.

  He could bask in her presence.

  This was everything he’d wanted from the moment he’d seen her . . . and he needed to not mess this up. Caleb had to tread a thin line—he didn’t want to scare her and be too pushy, but he also didn’t want her to get away, not when he had the chance to romance her.

  So he drove home, his thoughts whirling, and when he got to the Swinging C Ranch, instead of heading to his private cabin back behind the main house, he raced over to Jack’s and pounded on the door.

  Jack didn’t answer—not right away. He slept like the dead, Caleb knew. Years of dealing with Hank’s snoring and Caleb’s habit of reading by flashlight, and Jack had learned to sleep through anything. So Caleb continued to pound at the door, waiting patiently for his brother to wake up.

  “Okay, okay,” Jack finally called out hoarsely. “Jesus. Give me a moment.” He came to the door a few seconds later, his hair standing straight up, and gave Caleb a red-eyed look. “Is someone dead?”

  “No.”

  “Well, someone’s about to be.” He glared at Caleb. “What the hell’s so important?”

  Caleb pushed inside, ignoring his younger brother’s sour attitude. “You have to help me. This is my big chance to win Amy.”

  “Win Amy . . . what the heck?” Jack scrubbed at his face with a tired hand. “What are you talking about? And where have you been?”

  “Amy’s car broke down by the side of the highway,” Caleb said, sliding into the recliner by Jack’s TV. He kicked up his legs and watched his grumpy brother as Jack settled on the side of his bed. “She said she didn’t have anyone to call so she called me and I went to go rescue her. She cried the entire time I was there, too.”

  “I’d cry if your ugly ass showed up to save me, too,” Jack teased, and Caleb tossed his hat at his brother. “You think she wants to date you now?”

  “I don’t think she was thinking about anything except her car being broken down.” He thought about the two humping Santa dolls in the trunk of the car and felt his face get hot. That was . . . damned odd. “I’m picking her up Monday morning to take her to work and I told her I’d get her car fixed.”

  “What? Ya damned sucker.” Jack shook his head. “I should have known. She’s gonna bat her eyes at you and use you like a sponge.”

  Caleb shook his head. Jack hadn’t seen how distressed Amy was, how utterly alone and adrift she’d looked. “She’s not using me. And she needs help. You should see her place. It’s a mess. Leaky faucets and a hole in the roof, and she acts like she doesn’t know what to do with it. She doesn’t know how to take care of anything.” He hesitated for a moment. “And she rescued a dog, too. A blind one.”

  “Oh man, don’t tell Uncle Ennis. He’s going to practically invite her into the family when he hears that.”

  Invite Amy into the family? Caleb was okay with that . . . as long as it meant she was marrying him. As long as they weren’t, like, siblings or anything. “I need to use this opportunity to talk to her,” Caleb said to his brother. “Help me think of what to do.”

  “And this can’t wait until morning?” Jack yawned.

  “No, I have to start working on a plan now. I’m giving her a ride to school Monday because her car’s busted, remember? Pretty sure it’s the alternator.”

  “If it is, you can fix that,” Jack said absently. He rubbed his head, thinking. “Okay. So you want to use this time to romance her, huh?” He squinted at Caleb. “How’d it go tonight? You say anything stupid?”

  “Oh yeah,” Caleb muttered. “But maybe if I’m around her enough she won’t care.” Or maybe if he was around her enough, he’d loosen up and stop saying such dumb shit. Either one worked for him. After all, Hank had been married to Becca for about five months now, and Caleb was able to string sentences together around her finally.

  Not long ones, but real sentences. It was a start. He was sure he could do the same with Amy, preferably before he had to dress up as Santa.

  “Okay,” Jack said, rubbing his hands. “I got it.”

  Caleb sat up, tensing. “What? What’s the plan?” Of the three Watson brothers, Jack was the one who was great with women. If anyone had ideas, it’d be his brother. He always knew what to say.

  “You said her car was busted, right?” When Caleb nodded, Jack continued. “And her house was a mess? Broken stuff?”

  Caleb nodded again.

  “You offer to help her with all this stuff. She’s got no money, right? So she could use the help of a nice guy like you to fix her faucet and help her with her car.” Jack gave him a smug smile.

  That . . . didn’t seem like much of a plan. “I was going to do that anyhow, Jack. I can’t just leave her with her faucets dripping and her car broken down. That ain’t who I am. I can fix all that stuff lickety-split.”

  “I know you can, dummy.” Jack sat up and smacked Caleb lightly across the forehead with the back of his hand. “But for this to work, you need to fix this stuff nice and slow. You take your time. Fixing her faucet? That’s gonna take at least a full afternoon.”

  “It is?” He was pretty sure the wax ring just needed to be replaced on the knobs and—

  “It is,” Jack emphasized. “And maybe while you’re helping her with it, you take your shirt off and flex a little.”

  That . . . didn’t sound much like something Caleb would do. Then again, telling her that he’d “do Mrs. Claus” and then bolting away sounded more like something he’d do, so Jack’s idea was better. “Go on.”

  “You can help her fix her car, but maybe it just takes a long time. And you take a lot of breaks.” Jack shrugged one shoulder. “And you chitchat with her. Talk to her about things you like. Things you know about.”

  “Like the Donner Party,” Caleb added immediately.

  “Aren’t they the ones that ate each other?” Jack furrowed his brows and shook his head at his brother. “You really are terrible at this shit. Don’t talk to her about cannibals. Talk to her about things that interest her.”

  “Like . . . ?”

  “Well, the obvious one is that it’s the holidays. Ask her about Christmas. Ask her what she’s doing for Christmas. Ask her about the kids in her class. There’s a million things. Make it seem like you’re interested in what she has to say.”

  That wouldn’t be too hard, because he was absolutely interested in what she had to say. Everything that came out of Amy’s mouth was endlessly fascinating to him. “And fix things like I planned, but go real slow.”

  “Super slow,” Jack agreed.

  “You’re a genius.”

  “I know.” His younger brother gave him a smug look. “We’ll get you hooked up with this schoolteacher yet. We just need to be crafty.”

  Jack made it sound like a challenge, and that sat a little wrong with Caleb. Amy wasn’t a prize to be won. She was a person—a sweet, gentle woman with a brilliant smile and sad eyes that made him want to give her the world. But Jack was the expert.

  Caleb was just a tongue-tied cowboy who was terrible with women. So he’d defer to Jack.

  This plan was a good one, though, and Caleb was encouraged. He left Jack’s cabin beh
ind and went to his own, but he couldn’t fall asleep. He was too busy thinking of all the things he needed to do to help out Amy.

  He’d become her new best friend, the one she could lean on for all her troubles . . . and then maybe once they were friends, she’d realize she was in love with him just like he was with her.

  A man could dream.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Fix things slowly, Caleb reminded himself as he drove up to Amy’s place at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. He’d dropped off dog food for Donner on Saturday morning but left it on her porch so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. He hadn’t been ready for that yet. This morning he would help her with a few things around the house, then meet up with Jack after he and Hank finished morning chores at the farm. They’d drive out to Amy’s car and tow it, and then Caleb could fix the car at his leisure and romance Amy at the same time.

  He was prepared this morning.

  Didn’t matter that he hadn’t slept a lick since Friday—he could sleep some other time. Right now he was fired up with opportunity. He’d been in Painted Barrel for months now and never really had a chance to spend time with the beautiful teacher. Now he was going to take every opportunity and squeeze them for every moment, just like Jack suggested.

  So he was bringing over breakfast. Fresh coffee was in an extra-large thermos, heavily sugared and creamed because she’d sucked his coffee down Friday night and Libby had mentioned once that her teacher liked lots of stuff in her coffee just like her uncle Caleb, and it had stuck in his mind as just another reason why Amy was perfect for him. He’d snagged some of the fresh-baked pumpkin-spice muffins that Becca had sent with Hank, along with a paper bag of Christmas cookies. For her dog—Donner, hell of a name—he’d raided Uncle Ennis’s vet clinic and gotten a leash and harness, more dog food, and treats, and he’d tossed the bundle of goods into the back of his truck, along with his toolbox and a shovel.

  In his pocket, he had a series of notecards with phrases he could reference when he talked to her. Written on them were good conversation starters that he’d thought up. Things like “So, what’s your story?” and “Are you spending the holidays with family?” and “Have you finished your Christmas shopping?” He had one with weather-related phrases, and one with teacher types of things to ask her. He flipped through them as he drove down the snowy roads toward Painted Barrel. He wasn’t memorizing them, because he knew himself well enough to know that the moment he saw her, they’d all fly out of his head anyhow. He was practicing saying them aloud, because the more comfortable he was with each phrase, the more likely it wouldn’t trip on his tongue.

  “So, what’s your story?” he asked aloud to the truck as he drove. “What brought you to Painted Barrel? What made you take up teaching?”

  Jack would laugh his fool head off if he heard Caleb. Hank would, too. Uncle Ennis and Becca would probably just look at him with pity, though. That might be worse than the laughter.

  He got to her house long before dawn was even peeking through the sky. Caleb didn’t ring the doorbell just yet, though. Instead, he parked in the street and got out his shovel and a bag of rock salt. He felt a little bad about leaving it icy all weekend, but she wasn’t going anywhere, he reckoned. Caleb cleaned off the sidewalks and the driveway, scraped the ice off the porch and the steps, and because her neighbor’s yard was pretty close (and because he was still nervous), he did their drive, too. All the while, he muttered to himself. “What made you take up teaching? What’s your story? What made you decide to move to Painted Barrel? What did you do before coming here?”

  He was going to nail this shit.

  With that confident thought going through his head, Caleb put the shovel away, took a deep breath, and grabbed the bag of food and the extra-large thermos. Hands full, he knocked on the door and waited. It was early. Real early, and he wondered if she was asleep. That might be awkward, especially if she was in her pajamas. He’d had a lot of time to daydream about what Amy looked like when she slept, though, and he didn’t think she was a pajama type. More of a silky nightie with a bit of lace and hardly any straps . . .

  And now he was sweating.

  Caleb sucked in a breath as she peeked through the window in the living room, and then he heard steps coming toward the door. His cock was uncomfortably hard in his pants—all that thinking about her in a nightie—but his coat was long and hopefully she wouldn’t notice anything.

  She got to the door, and sure enough, she was in a flannel robe, a bright-red-and-green holiday affair that hadn’t figured into his fantasies (but would now), and her hair was pulled up into a messy knot atop her head. There were dark circles under Amy’s eyes and she blinked at him sleepily. “Oh. You’re here early. I’m not ready.”

  “You’re a problem,” he blurted, then winced when her eyes widened. “It’s not a problem.”

  The dog pushed past him, heading into the yard, and Amy grimaced, heading out onto the porch after him. “No, Donner, wait—”

  A runaway dog, he could handle. “I’m on it.”

  Caleb set the bags down on the porch, dug out the leash and harness, and followed the dog into the snow. Luckily, Donner wasn’t going far. He sniffed, looking for the perfect place to do his business, and when he was done, Caleb clicked his tongue and the dog sat as if trained. That answered that—he was probably a ranch dog that had been dumped once he’d lost his eyesight, or wandered away from his home. Either way, he was smart. “Good boy,” Caleb murmured, keeping his hands on the dog’s matted fur and petting him as he collared him. He kept the leash short and clicked his tongue, then patted his side as he walked so the dog would have a noise to follow. Donner fell into step right at his side, obedient and calm.

  Amy beamed at them from the doorway. She was beautiful this early in the morning, so beautiful it made his chest ache just to look at her. “You’re a genius,” she told Caleb. “He’s been running away all weekend and I have to keep luring him back.”

  “Ranch dog,” was all he said, and offered her the leash as he went inside. The interior of her place looked worse now that he’d had the weekend to process things. It didn’t match who she was. Amy was always immaculately groomed, and her clothes looked fancy. This place looked as if college kids inhabited it, with its mismatched furniture and bare walls. It was damned odd, especially for someone who was always as elegant as she was.

  When Caleb turned, though, he saw that the blanket he’d wrapped around her Friday night was on the small, worn love seat. Had she slept there all weekend? Why? It looked damned uncomfortable. He noticed the musty smell was just as strong this morning as it was Friday night and began to wonder. “Gonna look around.”

  “Oh, okay.” She held the leash and led the dog into the kitchen. “Let’s get you some breakfast, Donner.”

  Caleb did some poking while she fussed over the dog. He opened doors and closets. Saw the neat and tidy bathroom and frowned to himself at the leaking faucets there. The closets were full of clothing, but everything else seemed to be in order. There was a guest room full of boxes, all neatly labeled, but no furniture. Her bedroom was the last spot to check out, and he hesitated for a moment, not wanting to pry into her privacy. Curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the door. He saw the caved-in ceiling and the stripped bed, and the smell of old, standing water was overwhelming. He’d seen enough, and it made him angry.

  Why wasn’t anyone taking care of this place? She was renting it, right? Whoever was renting it to her was a real dick who clearly didn’t care if the place was livable or not. He made a mental note to ask Becca who Amy’s landlord was. Becca was good friends with Amy, and she always had all the town gossip. She’d know what was going on.

  Until then, it was up to Caleb to help Amy. To take care of her. Jack had told him to take his time and fix things slow. He’d do that with the car, but everything else? There was enough stuff to keep him busy here for weeks on end, no prete
nding necessary.

  So he closed the door to the bedroom and said nothing. No sense in shaming her. It wasn’t her fault the ceiling had collapsed, but it bothered him that she was sleeping on that damned love seat. He paused to text Jack.

  CALEB: When you head this way, get the mattress out of my cabin and bring it with you.

  JACK: Aww shit. You moving in? You work faster than I thought!

  CALEB: No. You’ll see when you get here.

  JACK: Interesting . . .

  He’d let Jack stew on that for a bit. For now, he had work to do. Caleb headed toward the kitchen, where Amy was hugging the bag of dog food to her side and gaping at the cellophane-wrapped plate of muffins that he’d brought, along with the cookies. “Are you sure you meant to bring all this?”

  He shrugged, heading toward her sink. “This is a problem.”

  “I know,” she told him, getting a chipped bowl out of the pantry. “My landlord said his guy would be by soon enough to handle it, but I haven’t seen him yet. He must be busy.”

  Caleb grunted. His estimation of her landlord went from rock bottom to even lower. He watched her for a moment, noticing that all her dishes were mismatched. It was just another thing that didn’t add up. She fed the dog before herself, and he went out to his truck to get his toolbox. When he came back, she was tackling the muffins and coffee, a look of pure bliss on her face.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Amy said to him, a cup of coffee in hand. “This is amazing. You’re amazing.”

  He was going to blush like an idiot if she kept praising him, so he said nothing. Just went to her sink and pulled open the doors underneath to look at the pipe work. There were leaks under there, too, with a bucket underneath to catch water. No surprise. Everything in this dump of a house seemed to be leaking. He got out his wrench, and as he did, he brushed against the notecards in his pocket. Right. He wanted to ask why the hell she was living in this small, crappy place, why she was so broke, why she was alone. Those words would come out wrong, though. He needed to stick to the script he’d made himself, the lines he’d practiced.