A Cowboy for Christmas

by Rachel Lee

  “When did that machine get so slow?” she asked.

  She made him smile. This woman actually made him smile. Another blessing in his life, he supposed.

  “Since we got impatient?” he suggested, pulling out the chair across from her.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” she said. “You can go back to playing. And pound the keys if you want.”

  He shook his head. “Won’t do a bit of good. I need to get used to this state of affairs. No telling how long it’s going to take to get Stella straightened out. Some things just don’t have quick solutions.”

  “I hear you.” She put her chin in her hand, kind of looking at him, kind of not. As if her eyes kept darting toward him, then pulling away. Had he made her more skittish? He sure hoped not.

  Or maybe she was trying not to look at him because she feared he’d glimpse the heat in her gaze. He’d seen it a couple of times, and if there was one thing life had taught him for sure, it was how to recognize when a woman wanted him.

  Keeping a lid on his own passions had gotten easier with practice, but Abby severely tested his self-control. He couldn’t be around her without a thrumming awareness of her womanliness, and no amount of telling himself to cool it really helped.

  Worse, he actually liked her. She was good to talk with now that she’d loosened up some. And despite her initial reluctance to have Regina here, she’d taken the girl into her heart. That couldn’t have been plainer after today.

  She was genuine, something he’d been sorely missing. Genuine, cute and, as she emerged from her shell, even charming in her own way. He wanted that woman he sensed inside her, the one she had been before Porter had ground her beneath his heel. He couldn’t imagine the things Porter must have said to justify his misdeeds, but he’d bet they were all ugly, to have left this woman so often unsure of herself.

  Taking a risk, he just came right out and asked. “So what did Porter tell you? That you’re not sexy, that you’re a lousy lover, a lousy wife?”

  She nodded, her lips compressing. “And more. I’m fat, a fat cow. His words.”

  “He couldn’t be more wrong.”

  Her head jerked a little. “You don’t have to be nice to me.”

  “I’m not being nice. Just truthful. I like your curves. I don’t get why women have to look like boys these days.”

  She chuckled. “What a thing to say.”

  “I mean, why should a woman fit into a man’s jeans? You aren’t built that way. Nature didn’t intend for a woman to be skin and bone.”

  “Oh, heavens, Rory!”

  “I’m just being honest. I spent a lot of time with women who were trying to diet down to the bare skeleton. Trying to look like runway models. The thing about runway models is they’re supposed to be that kind of skinny so they don’t interfere with the way the clothes hang. Walking clothes hangers. The women in my industry...well, they’re always complaining about how the camera adds ten or fifteen pounds. So? It adds them to me, too, but I’m not living on lettuce leaves. It isn’t right.”

  She caught her breath, still smiling. “Thanks.”

  “Not necessary. So you’ll never resemble heroin chic. That’s a good thing. I’d rather cuddle up to a soft armful that isn’t always poking me with bones. But it gets even more ridiculous.”

  She was still smiling and attentive, and he thought she blushed faintly. The coffee finished and she popped up to get the cups, probably trying to ease out of a slightly awkward moment.

  But Rory was past caring if it was awkward. Sometimes the truth needed to be spoken.

  “Ridiculous how?” she asked when she returned to the table and sat.

  “Where’s the first place a woman loses weight?”

  She definitely turned red now, so she knew.

  “Exactly. So they fight off that weight and the next thing they need to do is run in for a boob job. A never-ending circus in the pursuit of some kind of unreal beauty.”

  “Stella did that?”

  “You better believe it. She must be eighty percent plastic by now. Bigger breasts, injections of collagen and lord knows what, plumping the lips, getting rid of fine lines. It’s a constant pursuit of an ideal and it’s not real.”

  She hesitated, a faint smile still on her lips. “It seems to work.”

  “For some. For those who need to be in front of cameras a lot. For those with stupid husbands.”

  He’d come right back to Porter. She lowered her gaze.

  “Think about it, Abby. He married you in the first place. At the time he sure didn’t think you were a fat cow...which you’re not, by the way. Not even remotely. And so what if you were? Loving you has nothing to do with how you look. It has everything to do with how appealing you are. You’re appealing in a lot of ways, and if you finish coming out of that shell he put around you, you’ll be even more so. I keep catching glimpses of it.”

  He figured now might be a great time to shut his mouth. He’d said more than he should have, about matters that she hadn’t invited him to comment on.

  But then she raised her head again and smiled at him. “You’re a sweet man, Rory McLane.”

  “Maybe I’ve just grown up. Some at least. The thing is, I live a lot of the time in a make-believe world. Oh, there’s real stuff, real problems, real work, but a lot of it is make-believe. I outgrew that, and sometimes I get a real hankering for what’s genuine. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

  “Hence coming back here.”

  “Partly. I’m still living in a gilded world, though. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  She shook her head. “But reality intrudes.”

  Boy, did it ever. His thoughts returned to Regina. “Yeah, it does,” he said presently. “It surely does. Whatever, I’ll say it again. The things Porter said to you were excuses for himself. Don’t be taking to heart the words of a cheat and a liar.”

  Her eyes widened a bit. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Well, that’s what he was. Why should you believe a single word he said?”

  * * *

  Why should she believe a single word he said? The words followed Abby back to her room when Rory returned to the piano. He played softly, quietly, almost a lullaby, and she stretched out in her bed, still wearing her fleece, buried under a comforter as the storm outside knocked at her windows, demanding entry.

  A cheat and a liar. In all these months, she hadn’t thought of Porter quite that way. She’d been furious with him, hurt by him, ashamed of her own failings. Mad that he’d cheated on her, but blaming herself for her inadequacies. Surely he wouldn’t have cheated if she’d made him happy?

  That question had plagued her endlessly, along with an unbearable sense of failure and humiliation. But Rory had opened up a man’s mind to her in the most interesting way. A man was like a cat, attracted to anything new and shiny. The man wouldn’t have married her if he’d really thought she was a fat cow. And why should she believe anything a liar and cheat said?

  He’d said she was pretty and appealing, too. She hugged that to herself. From a man like Rory, that meant a whole lot. He could have any woman he wanted, or as near as made no difference. She’d even done something the other day that she wasn’t proud of. She’d gone online to learn about Stella. She was a flawlessly beautiful woman, quite the star herself. When she looked at the photos, she could see a slight resemblance to Regina, although in her opinion, Regina resembled her father more.

  She had also seen plenty of photos of Regina with her mother. So Rory hadn’t been kidding about how Stella used her daughter. She soon gathered that most celebrities tried to keep their children out of the limelight. Not Stella. Funny, though, Rory had a slew of photos online, but only a couple showed him with Regina, and they were outdoors, caught together as they went somewhere. Not posed like the phot
os of Stella and Regina.

  Abby wondered about that. Stella worked so hard to look sexy and tempting. How did her daughter add to that? She didn’t get it. But there was probably a lot about that world she didn’t get and never would.

  Anyway, she felt guilty for even having looked for the woman online. She was getting too far into all of this, and she felt a bit like Peeping Tom. Curiosity and all that, but really none of her business even if it was all publicly available.

  Rolling over, she hugged a pillow, remembering a hug, a kiss, and kind words. Heat pooled in her, like a gravitational force, drawing her awareness downward to the warm place between her thighs. Dangerous feelings, but only if she unleashed them, so she let them be, enjoying the reawakening of her femininity after so long. Rory awakened her that way, and in other ways, as well.

  But she was still afraid. While everything he said about Porter made sense, she had to accept that she’d been lied to before, as well. The whole time he had cheated on her he’d been lying to her one way or another.

  Could any man be trusted?

  She wondered, seriously wondered. She watched Rory with Regina and saw something special there, but he was still a man who was capable of threatening a war of attrition against his daughter’s mother. She could understand why, but it made her uneasy anyway.

  How could she know if he was the kind of man who would do anything to get his way? No way to know, not yet, and she was far from ready to trust him or any other man.

  There had been a time not so long ago when she had trusted as easily as she breathed. Taking everyone at face value. But as she was learning, once lost, trust became a hard thing to regain. She’d closed into a protective shell, all right, but for good reason. Opening up meant taking the risk of getting emotionally gutted again.

  She squeezed her eyes shut focusing on her need to protect herself. She couldn’t endure that pain again.

  But as the wind continued to rattle the windows, she remembered what Rory had said just a little while ago to the dog. “There’s a whole lot of lonesome in this house.”

  There surely was. And odd as it might seem, Rory apparently was one of the lonesome ones. Unwillingly, realizing the risks, she nonetheless felt sympathy for them all.

  Chapter Six

  Rory had fallen asleep on the couch, dog on the floor beside him. Looking in, Abby smiled. Rally raised his head immediately, attentive, and she motioned to him. If Rory could let him out back, so could she.

  The sun was shining again, but the snow was still blowing hard, a bright day being lost in a whiteout. She grabbed her jacket and stepped out onto the back porch. Rory was right, the dog didn’t like this. He didn’t go very far to make his deposit before loping back up to her side.

  Even though the day had brightened a lot, the barn was still just a gray hulk behind the blowing snow. Abby knew this kind of weather from long experience, although it didn’t usually happen so early in the season. Whiteouts usually waited until the depths of winter when the snow was so dry it didn’t take much wind to kick it up. Of course, they didn’t usually have snow this early, either. One thing was for certain, they could probably be sure of a white Christmas.

  Not that it mattered. Things changed, the weather got weird sometimes. She let herself and the dog back in, then went to start breakfast. As lightly as they’d eaten last night, she decided to break out the bacon.

  But first she fed and watered Rally, who seemed a little less blue this morning. His tail had risen to half staff and wagged a bit as she filled his bowl.

  “Fickle boy,” she said to him as she patted his rump once. “Getting over your best girl already?”

  Or maybe resignation was just settling in. The dog stayed with her, begging silently when she started frying the bacon. Oh, he wanted some of that. She wondered if it would be a sin to give him a piece of the real thing instead of one of his bacon treats. Probably. Why spoil him for things he couldn’t continue to have?

  The question drew her up short for a minute. Was that happening to her? Was she developing a taste for things she couldn’t have, like Rory and Regina?

  If so, she was headed for a mighty fall sooner or later. Of that she had not the least doubt. Rory would go back to Nashville eventually, and wherever he went, Regina and the dog would go with him.

  Loss already shadowed her future, as it darkened her past. Which she guessed made her the ultimate fool.

  She looked at the Great Dane, unable to mistake the pleading in his gaze. “Dog treat for you,” she said firmly, then went to get him one. No way was she going to teach that animal to want what wasn’t good for him.

  A lesson she needed to keep in mind for herself. Most definitely.

  “I smell bacon.”

  Rory’s voice drew her attention to the kitchen door. She wondered if he had any idea how scrumptious he looked with tousled dark hair, sleep-heavy blue eyes, and his shirt hanging crookedly.

  “The aroma of bacon will wake the dead,” he remarked. He stepped into the kitchen and she immediately reached for the coffeepot to pour him a mug. He slid into the chair at the table and put his head in his hands.

  “To feel this hungover,” he mumbled, “I should have at least enjoyed getting drunk last night.”

  A quiet laugh escaped her. “You’re just overtired.”

  “You’re looking pretty chipper,” he remarked as he lifted his head when she put the mug in front of him. “Thanks.”

  “It’s all pretense,” she answered. She was feeling the lack of sleep, as well, but she would have bet she’d gotten more of it than Rory had. She’d fallen asleep listening to him play quietly.

  She flipped the bacon and separated some more slices for cooking. “Are you hungry?”

  “Surprisingly enough, I’m ravenous.”

  “Eggs?”

  “Perfect. What can I do to help? Toast?”

  “I can handle this, and you’re hardly awake. Enjoy your coffee.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Then his gaze trailed to the phone. “Nothing from Regina?”

  “Not yet, but considering she’s been at a sleepover all weekend, she’s probably zonked by now.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed a little. “I forced myself to get used to not having her around all the time, but that’s gone by the wayside. I miss that girl.”

  “I do, too,” Abby admitted. “You know, I can’t imagine her driving a nanny crazy.”

  He smiled wearily. “I can. Stella probably exaggerated the degree, but if Regina dug in her heels and got really stubborn, she might have frustrated one or two into quitting. Especially if they expected unquestioning obedience all the time. My fault. I didn’t want my daughter to be raised to be a robot.”

  Abby continued cooking, wondering how many strips of bacon amounted to ravenous. She liked that he didn’t want his daughter raised to be a robot, though. As she was cooking, she noted that the day grew darker, as if fresh clouds had blotted out the sun from earlier.

  Then the phone rang and Rory snagged it. “Hello? Oh, hi, Nancy. How are the girls doing?” Silence. “Well, sure, if you think you can survive it.” He laughed. “All right then. Yeah, put her on.”

  Abby quickly pulled bacon from the frying pan and put it on a paper-towel-covered plate. She listened intently as she put more bacon into the pan, then popped some rye bread into the toaster. Butter. She had to remember butter.

  She loved the way Rory’s voice changed when he talked to Regina. It grew gentle and warm, like a wonderful blanket. He did more listening than talking as she reached for the butter dish and set up her assembly line. Toast for two had become meaningless all of a sudden. Like how many strips of bacon to cook. Sighing at herself, she calculated one slice of toast for herself and four for Rory. If he wanted more, she could make it.

  She was pulling the last of the baco
n from the frying pan when he hung up. She took the pan from the heat to let it cool a bit before she started the eggs, and turned. “How is she?”

  “Oh, she’s having a wonderful time. Nancy Nash said to forget coming to get her today. The roads are impassable in places, there’s more snow coming in and she says Regina can catch the bus with Betsy in the morning. The girls aren’t driving her crazy, and Regina says she’s having a wonderful time, and by the way, Betsy has a horse.”

  Abby had to laugh. “The horse dream is still alive and well.”

  “Apparently so.” He rose and came to get more coffee before sitting again. “I heard all about the horse, and how good Regina is getting at looking after it.”

  “Thud.”

  He laughed, the sound tired. “I heard that hint. Probably the whole county did.”

  “How many eggs?”

  “Two, please. Over easy?”

  “Done.” She turned back to the stove and cracked eggs into the pan that she had put back on the burner.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Rory admitted. “Thing is, the horse would have to stay here. No place for it at my Nashville home, and transporting it all that way...would that even be kind to the horse? Why do I think that would cause a whole new raft of problems?”

  “Because you’re smart?”

  He smiled wryly. “Or maybe too adult. I don’t know. I’m thinking about it and that’s as far as I’ll go right now. Eventually I’ll probably have to go back to touring and all that, unless I want to retire permanently. Not sure I’m ready for that. And if I head back, well...” He shrugged one shoulder.

  She put plates full of bacon, eggs and toast on the table and he dug right in. She was a little slower, sipping some coffee first. When he went back to Nashville. The words seemed to be written on the air in neon. But how else could it be? He couldn’t possibly run a career from here, could he? Everything he needed was there.