A True Cowboy Christmas

by Caitlin Crews

  “This isn’t really my style,” she said nervously as Gray led her through the lobby, under paintings of famous outlaws and former local heroes alike, toward the grand ballroom Abby had only been in once before. For a charity auction. She’d put down what she’d felt was a generous fifty dollars on a local painting that had been auctioned off for thousands.

  “It could be my style,” Becca said from beside her.

  Abby was a coward because she focused on smiling at Becca and not whatever Gray might feel about this place as a location for the reception he hadn’t wanted. She was terrified he would judge her as the kind of person who thought she belonged in the Grand Hotel—

  He married you all of fifteen minutes ago, she told herself, the voice in her head sounding as brusque and matter-of-fact as her grandmother’s. Even if he thinks you’re a princess, he’s not going to divorce you tonight.

  Gray pushed through the doors to the ballroom. Abby held her breath.

  But she should have trusted Grandma, who wasn’t any kind of princess herself.

  The room was beautiful, just as Abby remembered it, and just as she’d seen it photographed on the town’s tourist-friendly website. But this was no black tie event today. It looked like a church picnic that happened to be inside. It made her smile.

  “Your grandmother told everyone it was a potluck,” Becca said at Abby’s side. “She even told people to bring blankets to sit on.”

  The town had delivered. There were old high school classmates camped out on thick blankets with their kids running around together. There were tables heaped with the sort of casseroles and chafing dishes that made up the backbone of small town communities. Abby knew at a glance that Genna Dawson had made her taco cups and Whitney Morrow had pulled through with the shepherd’s pie she brought to wakes and showers alike. Abby didn’t know if they’d all come in support or because they wanted to see the spectacle, but she found that for that first moment when everyone cheered the happy couple, she didn’t care.

  Gray was swept off into a lot of manly slaps on the back that turned quickly into the endless debate about what was the best and most cost-effective calving season. Abby waded through her own set of well-wishers, spanning every year of her life, until she found herself with Rae on one arm and Hope on the other.

  “You seem like you have a mission,” she said, looking from one to the other and back again. “Which we all know never ends well.”

  She could see Hope’s sisters across the room and was tempted to remind her friends of the last time they’d decided to scheme over tarot cards and candles and had nearly burned down the bookstore’s back storeroom. Abby wasn’t sure Faith, the oldest of the Mortimer sisters, had ever really forgiven them.

  “You’re well and truly married now,” Hope said, as if such near-tragedies had never happened. “I saw it with my own eyes. And you know what this means.”

  “It means I’m married.”

  But Abby knew full well that wasn’t what Hope meant. And they’d all been friends since the dawn of time, so they all knew she knew. Hope and Rae exchanged a speaking sort of look.

  “We meant to do this on the drive over,” Rae murmured. “But it didn’t seem like the right moment.”

  “Because who knows? Anything could have happened at the courthouse. Not that I thought it would,” Hope added when Rae frowned at her.

  Abby sighed. “I can guarantee there’s no way I’m interested in having this conversation right here, in a room filled with my grandmother, every pastor in town, and my second grade teacher.”

  Rae shrugged. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Grandma Douglas, as salty as she likes to be on occasion, didn’t cover this subject adequately, if at all. And I know Lily certainly didn’t step up to the plate at any time during her not-infrequent-enough visits over the past fifteen years.”

  “I got the talk right next to you in sixth grade,” Abby reminded them, already flushing from embarrassment at the prospect of this discussion she didn’t want to have. “Miss Ellison lecturing us about a woman’s special place and how best to care for it will haunt me forever. I don’t know why you would bring it up today unless you want to hurt me.”

  “This isn’t health class,” Rae chided her. “This is real talk.”

  “Because the two of you are made of sexual experience all of a sudden?”

  Hope liked to talk about sex, but had always been remarkably cagey about her own experiences—or even if she’d had very many of them out there in the big, bad world. Rae, on the other hand, hadn’t dated anyone to Abby’s knowledge since her marriage to Riley had ended.

  “Neither one of us is a virgin, Abby,” Hope said with exaggerated patience. “Let me break this down for you as simply as I can. When a man and a woman love each other very, very much, or are drunk in a bar somewhere—”

  “Speak for yourself,” Rae interrupted, making a face. “I would no more run off with some guy in a bar than I would prance naked down Main Street in full view of my parents.”

  “Both hideous images, so thanks for that,” Abby muttered, flushing brighter because she could see Rae’s parents a few tables away, talking to their neighbors. “Why are those the choices?”

  “I’m simply offering options,” Hope retorted. “I’m not judging anyone.”

  “Have you forgotten that we’re all charter members—and, in fact, the only members—of the Too Dirty to Admit It Book Club?” Abby protested. “I’ve read everything there is to read about the things a man and woman can get up to in bed.”

  “I know you have,” Rae said, the laughter draining from her face as they made it to the drinks table, and Hope busied herself pouring them all glasses of wine. “But books aren’t real life. Real life is … different. It’s not words on a page and your imagination, all fluffy and sweet. It’s bodies. It’s intense. Do you have any questions?”

  “What makes you think Gray and I haven’t already…?” Abby began, blushing furiously. “As a test run before we jumped into this whole marriage deal?”

  “The red face, for one thing,” Hope said dryly, dispensing the wine she’d poured. Abby took hers and clenched the stem of the glass. Too tightly. “But also because if you had, in fact, relieved yourself of your vestal virgin status and didn’t tell me?” She shook her head, as if the consequences were too dire for her to voice them.

  “Does it really hurt?” Abby asked, and she was sure she hadn’t meant her voice to go so soft and uncertain, there. But even though that was humiliating, she pushed on. “The entire internet seems to be divided in half, and yes, I googled it. Some say it’s terrible, but then they usually go on to tell upsetting stories of how they lost their virginity in the first place. And then other people claim that it’s all some weird, made-up thing, and it doesn’t hurt at all because it’s like a … high five, or something.”

  Rae and Hope met eyes again over their glasses.

  “I would not call it a high five,” Hope said after a moment. “Because the last time I checked, nobody high fives inside their body.”

  Rae nodded. “Realistically, it might hurt. But how much really depends on him. And I’ve seen Gray Everett with his foals and his calves and his own daughter. He doesn’t strike me as a kind of man who won’t slow down and take his time when necessary.”

  Abby felt as if she were being smothered where she stood, but didn’t want to call attention to herself by gasping for breath. “That’s a good thing? Slow?”

  “Slow is fun,” Hope assured her, her eyes sparkling. “You want to feel so much good stuff that by the time it’s actually happening, if you do hurt a bit, it’ll all sort of disappear into everything else you’re feeling.”

  “And if he isn’t … careful?”

  “Then you tell me,” Rae threw out at once. “And I will personally smack him upside the head with a shovel—”

  “Who are you smacking upside the head?” came Gray’s voice, low and amused.

  All three of them jumped, then turne
d to see Gray standing there next to the knot they’d made. Abby didn’t know why she kept feeling like a teenager again, today of all days. She was the bride. His bride, in fact. She was a grown woman.

  Yes, she happened to also be the same scared little virgin she’d been at seventeen, but that wasn’t exactly common knowledge.

  At least, she hoped it wasn’t.

  It might be a rumor, sure, but no one aside from Hope and Rae knew. Including Gray.

  Especially Gray.

  “Hi,” she said, doing a great impression of her shy and awkward seventeen-year-old self, and felt her cheeks singe. She knew it was only the fact that they loved her with all of their hearts that kept Hope and Rae from laughing at her.

  But Gray made no particular attempt to hide the way his lips curved.

  “Hi.” He let that hang there for a moment, then relented. “I’m not much of a dancer, but this is a wedding.”

  He held out his hand.

  Abby felt as if she was under a spell. She was vaguely aware of Hope taking her wineglass from her, but all she could focus on was Gray. She slid her hand into his, because she couldn’t imagine doing anything else when he was holding his hand out like that. She didn’t want to do anything else. She didn’t even fully understand what he’d said, but she wasn’t sure she cared when she was touching him again, and it became clear soon enough anyway. He drew her through the crowd of Cold River townspeople until they were in the center of the room, and then he pulled her into his arms.

  Abby still couldn’t believe any of this was real.

  Especially not when music started playing nearby, from a few of the local musicians who hung around Cold River Coffee on the weekends. Nothing fancy, but Abby hadn’t realized how powerful simple could be until now, when all Gray did was hold her in his arms, there in front of people who’d known them both all their lives.

  Then they danced.

  It was more of a swaying, really. Back and forth, an easy movement along with the music, but all of Gray’s considerable attention was focused on her. And Abby could feel the entire town staring at her too.

  She might have died of embarrassment if Gray hadn’t been there to hold her up.

  “You looked like you were enjoying yourself a minute ago,” he said after a moment of nothing but too much attention, his hand on her back and the other tucked against his chest like a real couple. “Now you don’t.”

  “This became a whole lot more public than I was anticipating, that’s all,” she managed to say, lifting her chin so she could look him in the eye and try to ignore the riot going on in her pulse.

  “I wasn’t planning to keep the fact I married you a secret.”

  “That’s not what I mean. It’s just … everyone’s staring.”

  “Everybody loves a bride.”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure they like me as a bride, though. It might be the spectacle.”

  He didn’t exactly frown, though she could tell that she’d displeased him somehow. And she didn’t like that at all.

  It was amazing how much she didn’t like that.

  “You keep acting like you deserve it if people look at you funny,” he said after a moment. “When maybe they’re just looking.”

  The makeshift band was plucking out a familiar country love song, but there was something tight and anxious crouched there inside Abby’s chest.

  “You’re marrying me because I’m practical, remember?” She searched that dark green gaze of his, though she couldn’t have said what she was looking for. “This is me. Being practical.”

  She couldn’t read the expression on his face. As if he was considering her in a new light, and that didn’t make the crouching thing in her chest ease any.

  For a while, all they did was dance.

  When the band started a second song, other people joined them out on the dance floor that was nothing more than a cleared space between blankets, and Abby didn’t know why some part of her felt like crying. It was the ache that never seemed to go away, that she was starting to think was a part of her. Or a part of her when she was around Gray, and she’d married him now, hadn’t she? Maybe this was how it was going to be from here on out.

  When the second song ended, she could admit she was grateful he stopped dancing. They could go back to talking with the people who’d showed up for them, instead of not talking to each other.

  It had never occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, it was easier to love a man from afar.

  Abby chatted with more of these people she’d known all her life and ordered herself not to look for pity on their faces when they offered her congratulations. Because maybe Gray was right. Maybe they were just looking. Maybe she was the one adding intention to it. She took a few moments with Becca, as much to make sure she stopped acting as if she was the hostess when she should have been enjoying herself as to make sure she was okay.

  “Of course I’m okay,” Becca replied. She’d frowned. “Why? Are you not okay? Can I do something?”

  “You can have fun,” Abby suggested.

  But she didn’t push it when her brand new stepdaughter stared back at her as if she’d suggested she turn herself into a dragon and breathe fire on the nearest pastor.

  Then, finally, she went and sat with Grandma in the corner of the room where they could look out and see everyone.

  “This is a very nice party,” Abby said as she settled in the chair next to her grandmother. “I didn’t think I wanted one. But then it turns out I wanted exactly this.”

  Not only because she was enjoying the fancy picnic thing, she admitted to herself. But because she hadn’t realized she’d needed this small break between marrying Gray and tossing herself headlong into her life with him, whatever that looked like. A reception meant some breathing room. She could sit with what her friends had told her about sex. She could observe the way her new brothers-in-law behaved to Gray and to the town and to her, comparing Brady’s sharp charm to Ty’s lazy ease.

  It meant she could be only Abby for a little while longer.

  Next to her, Grandma smiled and reached over to pat her on the thigh. “I expect you’re like me in more than just looks, Abigail.”

  “I hope so. I’m not sure I like the alternative.”

  Neither one of them looked over to where Abby knew Lily was, holding court in a corner with a few people from town that Abby had always had to challenge herself to find the goodness in. But at least that was better than Lily standing there at Abby’s side, whispering her poison directly into Abby’s ear.

  Punching yourself in the face would also be better than that, she told herself sharply.

  “I married your grandfather when I was sixteen,” Grandma said, her steady gaze trained on the crowd before them. “I knew he was the only one for me. And that I wouldn’t be marrying again, no matter what happened.”

  “I’m surprised you could know something like that at sixteen.”

  Her grandmother turned, her eyes bright. “Seems to me you knew who you were going to marry at sixteen too. It just took you a minute or two to get to the altar.”

  Abby let out a shaky sigh and pressed a hand to that fluttery place below her chest. “Someday he’s going to find out that I’ve had a crush on him for all these years, Grandma. And I’m afraid he’s really not going to like it.”

  “Maybe so. But that day isn’t today. And until that day comes, there’s no point worrying about what he might or might not say about something he might or might not already know. You work on the marriage, not what made it happen.”

  It was the same great advice everyone had been giving her today that didn’t help at all, because the people dispensing it knew exactly what they were talking about, and Abby had no idea what language they were using. Sex, marriage, men. Garrulous old Lucinda Early had even started talking about babies.

  “How am I supposed to know—”

  “Every marriage is different,” Grandma said with that calm certainty that had always soothed Abby. Today was no diffe
rent. “And then again, every marriage is the same.”

  “You said the secret to staying married was not getting divorced.”

  “That’s rule number one. Rule number two is that you don’t have to be right even if you are. And rule number three? You’re never alone in a marriage, maybe especially when you think you are.”

  Abby sighed. “I don’t know what that means.”

  Grandma only patted her on the thigh again, the way she might a fractious animal or a finicky pie crust. “You will.”

  When Gray came to find her this time, he nodded to Grandma with that old world courtesy that made Abby’s stomach swoop around inside of her, then pulled her up to her feet.

  Abby leaned down and kissed Grandma on her forehead, inhaling her familiar scent of lavender and sugar, and tried not to let the tears well up as Gray pulled her away.

  It wasn’t goodbye. It was a change. Just a tiny change of address, that was all.

  “Grandma—” she began.

  “Go on now,” Grandma replied, all serenity and a wisdom that made Abby shake. “I’ll see you soon, Abby. Very soon.”

  Abby held onto Gray’s hand and let him tug her out of the flow of traffic, so he could look down at her. There were too many things sloshing around in her head, so all she could think about was how strange her left hand felt clasped in someone else’s with that brand new ring biting into her finger. Well, that and the fact that Gray remained the most handsome man she’d ever beheld. She wondered if she’d always lose her breath when she looked at him.

  And something she didn’t want to acknowledge, deep inside her, wondered if he’d ever lose his breath when he looked at her.

  She shoved that away as if it were on fire. Because she was terrified it would turn her into ash, right there in her wedding dress.

  “I think we’ve hit every note there is to hit,” he said in that drawl that felt like heat all over her. “Vows were exchanged, and we had a little party to make everybody feel better about it.”

  “Do people feel badly?” Abby tried to focus on someone or something other than Gray and failed. “I figured they would think it was unexpected, sure, but not necessarily bad.”