Santa in a Stetson

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  He did, and it was glorious to see her eyes so full of light as she moved against him, increasing the friction as she came closer to her moment.

  Her lips parted and her breathing became quick and shallow. “You...need to...know something,” she said.

  Ah, she was nearly there. For one brief moment he wondered if she’d tell him she was married, after all, and he didn’t want to hear it, not now. He urged her on with a firm grip on her bottom. “Don’t talk. Just feel.”

  “Russ...” She gasped and stiffened against him. “Oh, Russ...I love you!” The spasms took her then as she quaked in his arms. “I love you,” she said again.

  Pain knifed through his heart, although his body was warm, fulfilled, singing with joy. He’d let things go too far.

  JO FIGURED she’d given it her best shot. If Russ could walk away after being reminded of what they had together, if he could turn his back on the love she’d proclaimed, the love she knew was burning inside him, as well, then he couldn’t be saved from himself.

  As she snuggled against him, he stroked her back and held her very tight. She waited for him to say that he loved her, too. It was pretty obvious that he did. Whatever problems they hadn’t discussed would become unimportant once he’d confessed what was in his heart

  “Jo, sweetheart, I’m not worth lovin’,” he said at last

  It wasn’t what she’d hoped to hear. She could argue with him and point out all the good qualities he’d displayed recently, but that wouldn’t get her very far and she knew it. “Why aren’t you worth loving?” she asked, her cheek resting on his shoulder.

  “Because the guy you’ve been lovin’ so sweetly, the guy who’s still buried deep inside you, is a murderer.”

  “No!” The denial came out of her before she realized it. She slowly eased back so that she could look into his face. It was not the face of a man who could kill another person. She would stake her own life on that “No, Russ.”

  “I don’t blame you for not wantin’ it to be true. You don’t want to think you’ve given your heart to such a man. I apologize for that, Jo. I should never have let myself... I should have realized that we...” His troubled gaze searched hers.

  “Would fall in love?” she finished for him. “Because that’s what’s happened.”

  “No.” He shook his head and took her face in both hands. “You might think so now, but in a little while—”

  “I love you.” She let him have it full force, sending the message with her eyes as well as her words. “And you love me, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”

  He combed his fingers through her hair. “I can’t let myself love you, Jo.”

  “You can’t help yourself, cowboy.” She wiggled against him. “We just proved that. And it’s more than just physical attraction between us, too. You should see the way you look at me—take the way you looked at that Manx kitten and multiply it about ten times.”

  His gaze warmed as he stared deep into her eyes.

  “Just like that,” she said softly.

  He took a deep breath and sighed. “I think this is a conversation we’d better have when we’re both dressed. I’d count it as a big favor if you’d go put on some more clothes.”

  “I like the leverage I have right now.”

  His gaze was tortured. “Please, Jo. Please, darlin’.”

  “All right.” She climbed off his lap. “But you’d better not disappear while I’m out of the room. I promise I’ll hunt you down if you run off again like you did last time.”

  “I won’t run off.”

  “Then I’ll be right back.” She put her arms through the straps of the teddy and eased off his lap. In her bedroom she pulled on the sweats she’d hastily discarded. By the time she returned to the living room, Russ had fastened his own clothing and was pacing the floor.

  He turned as she came into the room. “Okay, let me get through this without any interruptin’, okay? I’ve only told this story once, and that was hard enough.”

  “Could we sit down?”

  “You can if you want. You should, and put that ankle up. I feel better on my feet.”

  She walked over to the couch and sat where he’d been positioned when they’d made love. The cushion was still warm. Following his instructions, she sat sideways and put both feet up on the couch. “I’m ready.”

  “I guess it started when my mom died of cancer five years ago. Then a year later Dad died, too. The doctors said it was pneumonia, but Steve and me think it was a broken heart. Anyhow, I always knew Steve would get the ranch and I’d get a hunk of cash, because Dad had explained it to us. That split was fine with me, because the woman I was engaged to had her whole family in Albuquerque and she didn’t want to leave them.”

  Engaged. Jo’s heart did a little nervous dance. He’d nearly married someone. He hadn’t always been a restless loner.

  “I hadn’t expected Dad to die for a long, long time.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It was tough. I wasn’t ready for it, and I sure as hell wasn’t ready to inherit all that money.” He glanced at her. “I blew a lot of it, takin’ Sarah to Puerto Vallarta, buying a Thoroughbred Sarah fell in love with when we went to the races at Ruidoso. And I bought a bright red Firebird.”

  Jo could guess what came next and her heart ached for him. Any idiot could put the pieces together now, and she didn’t want to watch Russ turn himself inside out. “I get the picture,” she said, “and accidents happen, Russ. That doesn’t make you a mur—”

  “Let me finish.” He had his back to her, but his tension was obvious from the rigid set of his shoulders. “We were supposed to spend that Christmas with her folks, but I wanted somethin’ more romantic than a passel of relatives on Christmas Eve. She wasn’t crazy about my idea, but finally she said we could rent a room at Cloudcroft for the night if I promised we’d be back for the big family dinner the next day. So we started off, and by the time we got up in the mountains it was snowin’to beat the band.” He paused and heaved a sigh. “She wanted to go back.”

  “Oh, Russ.”

  “But I wanted that night alone with her. We had a fight about it, and during the fight I...stepped on the gas. I thought I was somethin’, all right, in that fancy car. I was somethin’, all right We hit black ice.” He shuddered. “I killed her.”

  Jo got to her feet and hobbled over to him. She looked into his eyes, dull with misery. “You didn’t kill her! Not the way you’re thinking, as if you meant it to happen.”

  “I meant to scare her,” he said quietly. “I was mad because I thought she chose her folks all the time, instead of me. I told her she was a baby, tied to her mama’s apron strings. I was feelin’ mean and spiteful. It was more than an accident, Jo.”

  “Don’t you think we all feel that way about people sometimes? Don’t you think we all do stupid things because of it? Most of the time we’re lucky and nobody gets hurt. You weren’t lucky.”

  “Oh, I was damn lucky. Just a cut on my chest.” He laughed bitterly. “The medics called it a miracle.”

  Jo gripped his arms. “It was a miracle, as far as I’m concerned. I will thank God every day of my life that you lived through that accident I’m sorry about Sarah. I hate all that you’ve been through as a result But you’re here with me now, and we have a chance to make something wonderful out of that tragedy.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Crazy about you.”

  He pulled away from her. “Think about it, Jo. Think about where this will all lead. Marriage, kids. How could I expect a kid to look up to me, want to be like me?” His tone became mocking. “Hey, son, if you’re lucky, you can grow up to drive a fast car and kill the woman you love, just like your old man.”

  Jo put her hands on her hips, her chest tight with frustration. “Oh, I didn’t realize only perfect men were allowed to be fathers. My mistake.”

  “I’m miles from being perfect, sweetheart.” His gaze pierced hers. “If I’d killed her with a gun, I’d be in prison,
maybe for life. But I killed her with my carelessness and my damn pride. Her folks are totally messed up by this, and they hate my guts, which makes sense to me. The way I see it, my rights to a regular life died with her. I’d accepted that, but then I met you, and my thinkin’ went haywire.”

  “It’s called love, Russ.”

  He shook his head. “I have no business lovin’ you or anybody.”

  “You can’t help it. And you have every right to love me.” She stepped closer. “Unless you’re too much of a coward.”

  His head snapped back as if she’d slapped him. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  The words came spilling out, and she realized she was lecturing herself, too. What she was suggesting wouldn’t be easy for either of them. “If you admit to loving me, you’ll be fighting ghosts all the way. Getting engaged again, telling a woman you love her, planning a wedding—I’ll bet all that pain you’ve stuffed down would come charging back.”

  “I haven’t stuffed down anything.”

  “Ha. Then why don’t you have a driver’s license?”

  His eyes took on a stubborn gleam. “Don’t need one.”

  “Oh, yes, you do. If you marry me, you’ll need one, because I won’t chauffeur you around like Steve’s been doing. You’ll have to start living again, Russ. And someday you’ll have to tell our kids what happened to Sarah. It’s called being human instead of a god on a pedestal. My guess is that if you make it through all that, you’ll be a far better father than somebody who’s never put himself through that kind of hell.”

  He gazed at her, and for a moment there was a flicker of hope in his dark eyes.

  She held her breath.

  The flicker went out and he backed up a step. “You’re blowin’ this out of proportion, sweetheart. We had us some good times. I appreciate that. But I’d best be goin’ now before we both say things we can’t take back.”

  She stared at him. “You idiot.”

  “You’re finally makin’ some sense.”

  Rage washed over her. “You total, complete idiot! You’re going to throw this away, aren’t you?”

  “You’ll thank me for it someday, little darlin’.” He walked past her and picked up his coat from the rocking chair.

  “Russ, don’t you dare leave me!”

  “Blackie needs to go home,” he said. “And so do I. I’ve overstayed my welcome, as it is. Take care of that ankle, sweetheart.”

  In disbelief she listened to him walk across the kitchen floor and go out the door. Moments later the garage door creaked. She kept expecting that he’d get outside and realize what a stupid mistake he was making. He’d remember the love they’d made, the love they could make in the years ahead. He’d come back.

  But he didn’t.

  15

  BLACKIE WAS a hell of a lot more eager to get home than Russ was. He had to keep a tight hold on the reins or the gelding would have tried to break a few speed limits on the way back to the Double G. Russ wanted time to think about what he was going to tell Steve and Claire about Jo’s tagging along on the Christmas run.

  He knew the story would be all over town in short order. Russ figured Steve might as well hear it from him, but he’d like a little breathing space to collect himself before making that revelation. There was a whisper of dawn in the eastern sky. Sick or not, Steve would be up soon. That boy hadn’t stayed in bed a morning for the past twenty years.

  Russ calculated how much time he had left before Steve walked out the back door toward the barn. He might just make it home, stable Blackie and escape to his little cabin before Steve showed his face. Considering that Russ had been delivering presents all night, he could legitimately sleep in as long as he wanted. That would postpone the discussion by a few more hours, at least.

  Russ loosened his grip on the reins and gave Blackie his head. The harness bells jingled merrily as the considerably lighter sleigh skimmed over the snowy roads. Russ turned up his collar and pulled his hat down over his eyes as the cold wind whipped past. The chilly slap of the morning air felt good and smelled of freedom. For the time being, it blew Jo’s claim that he was a coward right out of his mind. If only he and Blackie could keep going on like this forever, things would be just fine.

  Blackie wasn’t about to pass up the lane leading into the ranch. When the split-rail fence marking the edge of the ranch property appeared along the side of the main road, Blackie pricked up his ears and quickened his pace. He swung into the lane with such speed that the sleigh almost took out the rural mailbox beside the road.

  “Whoa, boy!” Russ wrestled the horse for control of the homeward stretch. If he barreled into the clearing jingling and jangling like this, Steve would be out of bed in a shot. Blackie snorted his protest and strained in the harness, but he slowed down.

  “Easy, boy,” Russ crooned, keeping his grip firm.

  “Easy.”

  The lane curved and the two-story log ranch house came into view. No lights were on. So far so good. Russ had always loved coming around that bend and seeing the house with it’s wraparound front porch and huge stone chimney, but this morning he had a knot in his stomach and a throbbing in his head that spoiled the usual pleasure of coming home.

  Blackie swung right toward the red barn, the color just starting to show in the early-morning light. Steve and Claire had argued when it came time to repaint the barn last year, Russ remembered. Claire had wanted it to be brown, to blend with the rest of the buildings, but Steve had insisted it had to be red the way it had always been, the way every barn should be.

  Russ had voted with Claire. He’d lost his taste for anything red. But Steve had talked Ned and Russ into helping him paint the barn while Claire was visiting her ailing mother in California. Russ had expected Claire to be fighting mad when she came home and found the red barn, but instead she’d hugged Steve and told him that if he needed the barn to be red that bad, it could be red.

  Right after that, Steve bought the sleigh that Claire had always wanted, and the leftover barn paint had been just enough to put two coats on it. Russ had been impressed with the way Steve and Claire worked things out between them, especially after the endless fights he’d had with Sarah, where neither of them seemed to get what they wanted.

  He’d been trying to keep Jo out of his mind the whole trip home, but as he pulled Blackie to a stop in front of the barn and climbed down to unhitch the gelding from the sleigh, there she was right back in his head. He couldn’t seem to keep her away.

  It was partly the good loving, but that wasn’t all of it, maybe not even most of it. Jo warmed a special place in his heart. He kept thinking of how she’d cheerfully put up with all kinds of problems during their adventure. Sarah wouldn’t have made it past the incident with the ladder and the cops. He could still hear Jo singing Christmas carols as they jingled down the road, and see the sympathy in her eyes when she figured out why Hector Barnes had become a hermit. Not very many women would have kept on with the journey after spraining an ankle, or would have agreed to make love in the back of a sleigh in the dead of winter. No doubt about it, Jo was one of a kind, just as Steve had said.

  And that was exactly why he had to leave her alone, so she could find somebody better than him.

  He worked quickly, and soon Blackie was snug and warm in the barn. Then Russ realized he couldn’t feed Blackie without feeding the rest of the horses, or he’d have a mutiny on his hands. When he finished with that, he decided a note to Steve was in order, or Steve might feed the horses again when he came out A note meant going into the ranch house instead of straight back to his cabin, but it couldn’t be avoided. He’d be real quiet.

  Walking through the back door into the kitchen, where he knew Steve would go first for a quick cup of coffee, Russ flicked on a light. He took a piece of paper from the pad Claire always kept handy for making grocery lists, grabbed a pencil from a cup on the counter and sat down at the long oak table. The coffee, on an automatic timer, was already perking, and boy, did it
smell good.

  The whole house smelled good, in fact. In spite of being sick, Claire had baked last night, judging from the pumpkin, apple and mince pies sitting on the counter. There were six pies, which seemed like too many for dinner, so maybe she was planning to freeze some for later. A slice was gone from a pumpkin, Claire’s favorite, and an apple, Steve’s favorite. The mince was for him.

  The pine scent of the huge Christmas tree in the living room drifted in, along with the leftover aroma of the mesquite they must have burned in the fireplace last night. Russ pictured them cuddled on the big leather sofa, one of Claire’s afghans tucked around them, while they shared pie and coffee and watched the fire.

  They’d have put on some Christmas music, too, because Claire loved that, and they’d probably opened one special gift from each other, as they usually did on Christmas Eve. It was a wonderful picture, one he could never expect to see happening in his own life. The sudden feeling of unbearable loss paralyzed him, and he sat staring at the piece of paper, trying to remember what he’d meant to write on it

  “So you’re home.”

  Russ glanced up, amazed he hadn’t heard Steve’s boots on the stairs. “Yeah, I’m home.”

  “How’d it go?” Steve walked over to the coffeemaker and took a mug out of the cupboard above it

  “We...I got everything delivered.” Well, that should do it, he thought. Ol’ Steve wouldn’t miss a slip like that

  Steve didn’t turn around or comment on the we part of Russ’s answer, but that didn’t mean anything. Steve could be a real cool customer sometimes. “Want some coffee?” Steve asked.

  “I guess.” He might as well have coffee to go with the lecture he was bound to get in a few minutes. He took off his hat and laid it on the table before slipping his arms out of his coat and hanging it over the back of the chair.

  “How about some pie? Claire made a mince one in honor of you bein’ here.”

  “I’ll get it.” Russ pushed away from the table.

  “Hey, sit down. You’ve had a long night.”