A True Cowboy Christmas

by Caitlin Crews

  He didn’t know what to do with her. That had been the trouble all along, hadn’t it?

  “You don’t have to pretend,” he heard himself growl at her, because maybe the real truth was that he didn’t know what to do with himself. “Pretending only makes it worse.”

  Her smile dimmed a bit, but didn’t disappear. “What am I pretending?”

  It had been about ten days since she’d said she loved him. Every one of which had felt, to Gray, like a stone-cold eternity.

  “You said something to me. You made it clear. Impossible to miss.”

  “You’re right. I did do that.”

  “You said some things, and I gave you the chance to take them back, but you didn’t.”

  “I have no intention of taking them back.” She was sitting too straight in the chair at the end of the table, that hazel gaze of hers locked to his and her chin tilted up. “I love you. I’m sorry if that’s upsetting.”

  “That’s not what this was about.” He sounded rough. Scratchy. “That’s not what this was ever supposed to be about.”

  “I know it’s not what you want to hear,” Abby said, her voice steadier than that look she was aiming at him. “But I’ve been in love with you forever. Maybe this wasn’t about that for you. It’s what this has always been about for me. Do you really think I would have up and married a random neighbor? Just like that?”

  “This is supposed to be a practical arrangement. This is a practical arrangement.”

  This time her smile was sharp. “I happen to think it’s eminently practical to marry a person you already love. Some people might consider it essential, in fact.”

  “You shouldn’t have said that out loud, Abby. You know better.”

  She considered him for so long that he started to feel strange in his own skin.

  “Why not?” she asked, and he wondered how much it cost her to keep her voice so light. So easy. Because it had to be costing her something. He couldn’t be the only one paying. “At a certain point, things begin to feel like lies of omission.”

  “No one says they love you without wanting something in return,” Gray gritted out. “And I can’t. You know that.”

  “I know that you think you can’t,” she agreed quietly, and that easiness was gone from her voice. Replaced by something that made Gray tense. “That doesn’t mean I agree with you.”

  “And this is where it starts.” All the agitation of the past weeks rolled through him then. That dark fury he was always afraid was about to erupt. The hollow, metallic space in him that he refused to call loneliness. The good thing she’d ruined by opening her mouth like that. Right when he’d been starting to think too highly of the whole situation. She’d sandbagged them both, for no reason at all. “These are the kind of demands that ruin marriages.”

  “What demands did I make?”

  “I can’t love you,” he belted out, aware that he was too loud. Too unhinged. Too unlike himself, but he didn’t know how to get himself back under control.

  He didn’t know how to hide from her, and that galled him.

  Abby stared at him for a long time. Too long.

  Gray watched as the color drained from her face. And there was a futility in those eyes that were usually bright and gold.

  You did that, he snarled at himself. Good job.

  “I never asked you to love me,” she said, her voice very precise, as if she was fighting to keep each syllable even.

  That notion scraped at him.

  “Of course you did,” he said, because he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “It’s not a statement. It’s the kind of thing that demands a reply. And you know it.”

  “I didn’t ask you to say anything. I didn’t ask you to reply.” There was an odd, sick note in her voice to match that awful look on her face. “And I certainly didn’t have the temerity to ask you to love me. Don’t worry, Gray. I would never be so stupid.” Her gaze burned into him. “I know my place.”

  He could tell they’d stumbled onto uneven ground—or he’d pushed them there—by that note in her voice. By the look on her face, as if he’d punched her in the stomach. And then by the way she pushed back from the table and rose to her feet gingerly.

  Gray was all too aware that he’d done that too.

  “You and I made a very specific agreement,” he said, trying to put it back on track. “We made vows, Abby. We agreed on what they meant.”

  She stood there, her fingertips on the edge of the dining room table, as if it was helping her balance. As if she needed help balancing in the first place.

  As if he’d taken her knees out.

  “I spent most of the day today delivering cookies all over the valley,” Abby said softly, almost like she was talking to herself. Though she was looking straight at him. “Then I took Grandma to church because she likes a Christmas service, but she also likes her Christmas mornings.”

  “Did I say you couldn’t do those things?”

  Abby sighed. “I spent all day out there, talking to people. Exchanging Christmas greetings. Chatting about life at the end of another year. That’s the point. You make a little something, and you celebrate the people you know by giving it to them. It’s neighborly. It’s nice. It’s a tradition, is what I’m saying, and it’s always been one of my favorites.”

  Gray didn’t know why he wanted to argue with that. She was telling a story, not mounting an argument. He didn’t know why his hands were in fists at his side.

  Or why there was that dark thing curled up in his gut that felt a lot like shame. Guilt. Self-disgust. None of them new to him. But Gray had imagined he’d buried them with his father.

  “Some of the people I give my cookies to are friends. People I love and who love me.” She wrinkled up her nose as if she was trying not to laugh. Or cry. “But some are just people I know. People who are part of the map of this valley and the map of my life, which are always overlapping whether I like it or not. Usually I like it. But on a day like today, it was hard to love it the way I usually do. Do you want to know why?”

  Gray was certain he didn’t. But he nodded anyway. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Because there’s always someone—or in this case, a lot of someones—who have been pitying me all their lives. And now there’s even more reason.”

  Gray frowned. “Why would anybody pity you?”

  “Because they know what I am,” Abby said with a horrible matter-of-factness. “And even if I had somehow forgotten what I am, today would have reminded me.”

  “What are you? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m a plain, overlooked girl who was a virgin at thirty not because I was virtuously holding out for marriage. But because no one ever looked at me twice. I’m too tall. Too boring. I fade into the background when other girls shine. I’m not sexy, exciting, or any of the things girls need to be to catch the attention of boys. That was clear when I was Becca’s age, and it only got more apparent as time went by.”

  Gray shook his head, but what she was saying didn’t make any more sense.

  “I know who I am and so do you,” Abby said, and her voice was more ragged and more fierce. “I never pretended to be something I wasn’t. You decided to take pity on your plain, awkward neighbor who no one else wanted. And I decided that I wouldn’t care about all the pity. The whispers. The gossip that would either say I took advantage of a grieving man or worse, that you married the most dull and dependably unattractive woman you could find because there’s no chance I’ll cheat on you.”

  “Abby—”

  But she was on a roll. There was an awful light in her eyes, and she was holding herself so stiffly Gray was surprised she didn’t break.

  “And they’re right, of course. I won’t cheat on you. I would never cheat on you. Because I loved you when you were nothing but a daydream in my head, older than me and completely unaware that I existed. I loved you when I heard what was going on in your marriage, and I loved you after the accident, when you had to raise Becca on y
our own and keep your head up despite the fact everyone knew why and how Christina had left you.” Her voice was hoarse with too much emotion. Gray could see it on her face. Worse, he could feel it. “I’ve always loved you. I loved you when you were perfect in my head, and I love you more now that I know who you really are. Now that I get to live with you. Work with you. Sleep with you.”

  “Abby.” He tried again, his own voice suspiciously thick. “Abby, don’t do this.”

  “I never asked you to love me because I don’t need it. I’ve never needed it. I’m perfectly happy to go on as we always have. You’re the one who can’t seem to handle it.” She let out a hollow laugh that slammed through Gray like a punch. “Because I guess a pity marriage is okay with you, but not if you know that there’s emotion behind it. Not if you suspect for even one second that I might have real feelings for you. You can marry the ugly girl, work on building a family, but the idea that I might love you revolts you.”

  His jaw hurt, he was clenching his teeth so hard. “It doesn’t revolt me.”

  “I guess this is the grown-up, marital version of cooties. I guess I still have them. Nothing ever changes, does it? Merry Christmas to me.”

  “Don’t stand here putting words in my mouth.”

  “It was fine when there were no words in your mouth, Gray,” Abby threw at him, and whatever hold she’d had on herself was gone. He could see that. He could hear it. “I can think of a thousand reasons why a man who grew up like you did doesn’t know how to love anybody. You didn’t have to say anything. I would have been happy to leave it where it was because I’m used to loving you from afar. Why should this be any different?”

  “This is the problem with emotion,” Gray bit out. “You don’t even know why you’re angry. You let an emotion rule you, and it takes over. It’s the same every time, and you might not know where it ends, Abby, but I do.”

  “Great call. The only thing that could make this conversation better is for you to once again confuse me for your former wife.”

  Gray swore beneath his breath. He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Listen to me.”

  “I always listen to you,” Abby replied, her voice hard. “I listened to every single thing you’ve ever said to me. But I’m not sure you can say the same.”

  “I heard you,” he threw that out there, hard and cold. And maybe even more unhinged than before, though he couldn’t seem to care about that any longer. “I don’t want you to love me, Abby. I don’t want love.”

  “I understand. No love. No Christmas. Just angry, silent sex and shared chores.”

  “That’s what a marriage is.” It was only when the sound bounced back from the walls that Gray realized he was shouting. “That’s all a marriage is.”

  “That’s all our marriage is, yes,” Abby threw at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t make this mistake again.”

  Gray had no idea why he had the urge to run after her when she pushed back from the table and left the room.

  Just like he had no idea why he was standing there, his chest moving up and down as if he were running from something, when he’d said nothing but the unvarnished truth.

  Staring at her pile of Christmas presents made something in his gut pull tight and uneasy, so he wheeled around and moved into the kitchen. Where he found himself staring at that barn door of a kitchen table, with all the scratches and scars that had been left there over the years.

  So many of them left by Amos. And that damned red pen.

  Adding things, then taking them away. Keeping a running list of transactions and debts, grudges and obligations. Revenge, pettiness, fury, all carved into the wood.

  That was the true will and testament of Amos Everett.

  Discord. Unhappiness. As long as they all should live.

  You’ll die of loneliness, bitter and mean and crazy, just like the rest of them, Brady had said after the funeral. Like a prophecy.

  Gray shouldn’t have been surprised that he was no more and no less than the sum total of his own cursed blood. His father’s son. Doomed to exactly this.

  He could hear Abby upstairs, the old floorboards creaking as she moved around their bedroom. He wanted to go to her with a longing inside him so deep and so intense he was half afraid it would double him over where he stood.

  But only half.

  He couldn’t do what she wanted. He couldn’t be who she wanted. He wanted no part of her teenage crushes and her grown-up love, wrapped up in cinnamon sugar and vanilla extract, tied in bows and made pretty.

  That had never been what he’d wanted.

  Because, deep down, if Gray had learned anything at all from his father, it was that he didn’t deserve it.

  Something broke in him then. Gray didn’t think, he just headed for the door, shrugging into his jacket and stamping into his boots before he pushed his way out into the night.

  Outside, the stars were bright, the night was clear, and the cold was sharp and deep.

  It almost hurt to take a breath.

  Gray didn’t question where his feet led him. He trudged through the snow, skirting the horse pens on his way toward the hill. His boots crunched in the hard snow underfoot, and his breath was smoke against the night. He kept his gaze on the moonlight bouncing back off all the gleaming white around him, so the fact he hadn’t brought any kind of flashlight didn’t matter much.

  Not that it mattered anyway. It was like he had a homing device inside him, leading him back to the place he’d always known he’d end up one day.

  The family plot was buried under a few feet of snow, with only the tips of the gravestones sticking through, but Gray knew who they were. He could name his grandparents. A handful of uncles and distant cousins. Family on both sides, stretching back to the pioneer days, all of their lives leading to this quiet place. Near a river, in sight of the mountains, and free beneath the stars.

  He stood there, the cold air an ache in his lungs and that hollow thing where his heart should have been, and tried his best to feel the land.

  The land he had given himself to all his life. The land that would take his life back into itself in time.

  There had always been a comfort in this. Standing here, looking at his future. It was the circle of life, and he was a man who lived by the seasons. Hopeful spring into the sorrow of fall. Bright summer into cold winter. It was the simple truth of who he was and who he would remain, no matter what happened.

  But tonight, he didn’t see his fields. His cows. Everett beef and Everett land, acre upon acre, like it was the blood in his veins.

  Tonight, all he could see was Abby.

  She loved him.

  And Gray didn’t know how to love. He didn’t know how to love another person who might love him back the same way.

  Becca was his daughter. His love for her made sense to him because it was so much like the way he loved this land. Enduring. Permanent. So vast and so deep it might have scared him if it wasn’t just a simple fact of his existence. A fundamental truth of who he was.

  But then there was Abby.

  She loved him, whether he wanted her to or not.

  As Gray stood alone in the dark of a crystal, cold Christmas Eve he’d done his best to ignore, he finally understood the darkness in him wasn’t his father’s violence.

  Because Abby was right about that too. If he’d been likely to give into it, he would have already. And he hadn’t. The dark thing in him was far more insidious than the urge to pop his brother one.

  The darkness in Gray assured him he was meant to suffer. It whispered that marriages in this ranch house never stayed together long, and hadn’t his first attempt proved that?

  The darkness in him wasn’t his father’s rage. It was Amos’s bitterness.

  What lived in him was that bitter, cynical old man writing up that will, only to tear it up as soon as he was done or another temper hit him. Over and over and over again, so he could be sure to cause the most harm.

  Gray understood, out here in the snowy cemet
ery where he would lie himself one day, that he had always assumed this was the cost.

  He could have the land. He could steward it, exult in it. He could carry the Everett name forward and do his duty to his ancestors and descendants in turn.

  But deep down, he truly believed the price of that stewardship was suffering.

  His own suffering.

  He didn’t believe in love. Because he’d never had the opportunity to try, not really. He’d had Amos. The mother who’d left too fast and had barely looked back. The woman who’d given him a baby and then betrayed him again and again.

  He didn’t know what it was that cracked open in him then, but he knew it felt a whole lot like Abby’s hands on him. In him. Tearing him open and exposing his heart whether he wanted it or not.

  Gray didn’t know what love was. But he knew Abby. As far as he could tell, that amounted to about the same thing.

  “This is goodbye, Dad,” he said to the old man’s gravestone. To the night that surrounded him. To the stars so far above. To the future that waited for him here—but that didn’t mean he had to live the way his father did, one bitter foot in the frigid ground already. Simply being alive wasn’t enough. Gray didn’t want to exist. He wanted to live his life. Every minute of it. “I don’t want what you had. I can do better. I will.”

  It felt like a burden was lifted off him once he said it. As if he’d been carrying around more than Amos’s poison all this time. As if he’d been carrying the old man himself, tied to his back like one of the watching, waiting mountains.

  Gray didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want stone and cold, poison and regret.

  He wanted Abby.

  He wanted that smile of hers and the way she laughed, particularly when he was inside her. He wanted cookies and even the bright madness of Christmas, if it meant that much to her. He wanted the joy she never tried to hide, and that he could see now was the reason why she’d slid so seamlessly into his life.

  Because all the while, she’d loved him.

  Gray didn’t know what he needed to do to deserve that. But he intended to find out, if it took every remaining day of the life he planned to live in full before he returned to this place for good.