The Last Christmas Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  And because he carried in his heart that idea that she was somewhere else, he had never made pilgrimage to her grave. Not since the funeral.

  But he was miserable, and he was on the verge of having to leave the only place he really cared about. The only woman he’d ever really loved, and that was bringing him to a point where he had to ask questions. Because Ryder was right. He wanted to be told he had no choice.

  He wanted to be sent away. He wanted them to condemn him, to confirm that he was the villain in the story. Because that was the safety of guilt.

  That guilt that he carried over the gift he had given to his mother. It kept him safe.

  It kept him separate.

  Made sure he carried all the responsibilities that he had given to himself during her life. So that he never had to take a risk with the Daltons. So that he never had to take a risk with anything.

  He parked his truck at the gate to the old graveyard, and slowly, a bouquet of flowers clutched in his hand, he made his way up the path. He might not have been back here for seventeen years. But he knew exactly where the gravestone was.

  He stood frozen, staring down at the spot. Staring down at his mother’s name.

  And he knew the real reason he didn’t come here.

  Because it hurt. Because it all hurt so damn bad. And time didn’t do anything to take it away. It was just there were some days when he didn’t think of it. Some days when he woke up, and the first thing on his mind wasn’t her loss.

  But when it was there... It was as fresh as the day, and it all came flooding back here and now.

  Jane Heath.

  Beloved mother.

  Not daughter. Because her parents had disowned her when she had become pregnant on her own. Not wife, because Hank Dalton hadn’t loved her that way.

  Mother. His mother. It was all she had been in the end, and he had felt so... He felt so much like carrying on her memory and honoring her hurt was the best thing he could do.

  That carrying the guilt over what had happened kept her memory alive. Because God knew it actually hurt less than just carrying around the love of her.

  It gave him something to do.

  A grudge felt pretty active. Even if that grudge was against himself. Making talismans and putting holidays off-limits. Not celebrating Christmas because he had decided he didn’t deserve it. Not giving gifts. Not getting them.

  Not allowing himself to love the one woman that he truly wanted.

  “Mom,” he said, his throat tight. “I’m so sorry that I haven’t... That I haven’t visited. I miss you.” He swallowed down the rock that was climbing up his throat. “I haven’t been too busy. I’m just a coward. It hurts to stand here. To have to face the fact that you’re gone. Which is dumb, because I know you’re gone.”

  He knelt down, his knee connecting with the cold, hard ground, the ice that covered the top of it melting and leaving a wet spot on the denim. He pressed his palm to the earth. “I feel that you’re gone every day. But there’s something... Well, when I’m here I just want to talk to you. I haven’t had the words to say I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I failed you. And I know that you would say I didn’t. That it wasn’t my fault. But I haven’t been ready to hear that.”

  He closed his eyes. “I didn’t want to be forgiven. I didn’t want Ryder’s forgiveness. Or Rose’s. Or anyone’s. And I know I just would’ve had yours. Because you loved me. Because you loved me in ways that I’m afraid I grew up to not deserve. And I can’t ask you, because you’re not here.”

  He felt choked with his grief, and he fought hard to take a breath.

  “I haven’t been living how you’d want. But the way you’d want me to live means letting go. Making peace with some things that I’ve been using as walls. Hank Dalton didn’t know about me. His wife lied to him. She lied to you. And now I wonder... I wonder if I’m allowed to make a family with them. It won’t be the same.” He swallowed hard, and he let himself remember. Really remember.

  Not just the ways his mother had been hurt. Not just the ways he protected her. But the way she’d smiled, and the way she’d laughed. The story she’d told him when she tucked him into bed. The way she’d bandaged him when he’d fallen down.

  Rose was the only other person who’d ever done it.

  “No one will ever replace you. Because you shaped me into who I am. Because you taught me what I should care about. Because you chased away the monsters that were under my bed. No one will replace you.”

  And with that, he gave voice to his deepest fear. That somehow, by getting to know any of the Daltons, even just the half siblings, that he would somehow erase the importance of his mother in his life. Diminish that loss. But nothing ever would. Because no one could ever replace all that she’d been. And just as no one could take away the sting of the loss, no one could take away the joy of the sixteen years of life he’d spent with the best mother in the world.

  He lowered his head, a smile curving his lips. “You were the best. You didn’t really need me to pity you, did you? I spent all this time focusing on the way you were hurt. Not the way that you loved. And the way you love, that was the important thing, wasn’t it? That’s what you want me to remember. It’s what you want me to carry on.” He chuckled. “I’m in love with Rose Daniels. Bet you didn’t see that coming. I know I didn’t. And she’s... She’s the bravest. You would like the way she turned out.”

  And just like she had spoken into the air around him, he also knew his mother would have been fit to be tied that he had broken Rose Daniels’s heart.

  “You’re not any madder at me than I am at myself. She puts me to shame.”

  And like a whisper had come through the wind, he heard words inside his head.

  Let go.

  He opened his fist and released his hold on the bouquet. He let the flowers drop in front of the gravestone.

  Let go.

  Not of his mother. Not even of his grief.

  Because grief was an echo of love that didn’t have a person you could give it to anymore. And it wasn’t always bad. It just was.

  It was the guilt.

  It was the guilt that stood in front of everything. His protection from his pain, and the wall between him and the love he wanted to give Rose.

  And yeah, it would mean getting rid of his protection. Because he couldn’t love with all he was and protect his heart.

  But a life without Rose wasn’t life.

  And it wasn’t a grudge his mother would want as his monument to her. It was his happiness. Everything she had done had been for his happiness. For his protection.

  And he had built an idol to the wrong thing. Because he had wanted to worship at the safer altar.

  Love was terrifying. Love was wild, and it wasn’t safe.

  Love was like Rose. Bright-eyed and relentless, and nothing he could control.

  “I love you,” he said. “Nothing will ever change that.”

  Nothing. Whether he decided to make some family connections with the Daltons or not. Whether he went and found some happiness of his own.

  For the first time in seventeen years, he felt peace. The oddest sense of peace as he stood there looking at those flowers on his mother’s grave. Because there was nothing left to do for his mom but love her. He didn’t have to hate himself, he didn’t have to hate other people.

  He just had to live.

  And he knew exactly what he wanted.

  Because all these years, his mother had been gone, and his tribute had been self-imposed exile.

  But he realized now. He could love. As freely, as big as he wanted. And all these years he’d chosen not to. He had shrunk himself down and made his life small. His mother deserved a better tribute than that.

  His life deserved a better tribute than that. He’d survived, but he hadn’t been living.

  It was the most humb
ling damn thing. To realize that he was the one who hadn’t known all this time. That he was the ignorant one. All those times he’d accused Rose of not understanding, of not seeing what was right in front of her, but he was the idiot.

  And Rose was right. He hadn’t been able to recognize love when he saw it. But more than that, he hadn’t been able to recognize what made life worth living.

  You could live with low stakes. You could live without fear or pain, you could live with guilt just fine. As long as you didn’t love anything.

  But that was gray. A dull existence with no Christmas decorations. When the alternative was a brightly lit tree and cookies from his childhood, a woman who had been putting bandages on his wounds for almost two decades. A woman whose love would be strong enough to heal all that burned inside of him now.

  He had to find her. He had to find her and he had to tell her. He had to pray that it wasn’t too late.

  Christmas might be over, but he needed a miracle.

  He had stopped praying a long time ago. Because he had felt like God must not like him a whole lot. Must not really want to listen to him. But he prayed now. Because he needed hope. A hell of a lot of it. It was amazing how hope could change things. Amazing how love could.

  And he was desperate now, for both.

  He looked down at those flowers, sitting on the grave. That was like love. Love in the middle of a world that was filled with hurt. Filled with uncertainty.

  Love.

  He had never expected to go into a graveyard and come out more sure of love and life than he ever had been before.

  And it occurred to him then that perhaps his mother wasn’t as gone as he’d been thinking.

  Because she had still managed to teach him something, even now.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into the air.

  And when he walked back through the gates of the cemetery, he felt lighter than he had in years.

  * * *

  ROSE WAS BUCKING hay, but sadly. She hadn’t known it was possible to do that job with such low energy. But she was learning it was true. Here she was, trying to live her dream. Trying to find the same sort of magic in Hope Springs that she had always seen in it.

  It wasn’t there, not now. And she was beginning to come to the conclusion that while you might be able to survive a broken heart, it was just going to hurt for a while. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to bounce back. She had always been that way. And some of it had been out of a desire to avoid being a burden to her family. But some of it was just that she didn’t like to feel bad.

  Her conversation with Barbara had been weird and rewarding. The woman was lonely. And Rose was beginning to understand lonely was a very sad place to live. Finding a connection with someone she’d disliked before made her feel...well, better for a minute. But not for long.

  She was just living in a particularly sad moment in time, and she had to accept that.

  That her work would feel a little bit heavier for a bit. That the joy would be gone from her day-to-day. Until she found a way to make new joy.

  And she was fresh out right about now.

  Logan was her other half. She felt like she was wandering around, missing a crucial part of herself.

  Asshole.

  Her movements became a little bit angrier after that.

  Anger wasn’t a whole lot more fun than sadness, but at least it had a bit more energy.

  She heard heavy footsteps crossing the barn and she turned. Her anger ignited. “I thought I told you that you had to leave?”

  “You did,” Logan said, his perfect, beautiful mouth set into a grim line. She wanted to kiss that mouth. And she wanted to punch it.

  “Well, then, why are you here? You have some nerve, showing up and standing there, and just being...there.”

  “I’m here to beg for your forgiveness, if that helps.”

  “I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your apology.”

  “What about if I told you I loved you?”

  She stopped, and she dropped the shovel, the thick wooden handle making a heavy sound as it hit the ground. “Go on.”

  “I’m a coward. You’re right. And I went to your brother, and I basically dared him to punch me in the face. For him to tell me that I needed to leave you alone, that I wasn’t welcome. Something to let me off the hook. But he wouldn’t. I wanted Ryder to punch me in the face and say that debauching you was the worst thing I could’ve ever done.”

  “Please tell me you did not tell my brother you...debauched me.”

  “I did. I figured he would hit me. Good and hard. But he didn’t. He said that we’d be good together. Provided that I can give you what you deserve. And he believes that I can if I quit being a coward. He did exactly what you did. He made me accountable for my choices. I hated that. I had to get down to what really bothered me. And what you said... What you said kept ringing in my ears, Rose. That it suited me to blame myself for my mother’s death. And you’re right, it did. For a thousand reasons. Because if there was someone to blame, it felt like there was a reason. Like maybe I could keep other bad things from happening. That by not loving you I might be able to keep you safe. That I might be able to keep myself safe. If I made it so I didn’t deserve any of this that I might not have to face the fact that I was just afraid. Afraid to love you, because losing you would devastate me. But I can’t live like that anymore. I can’t be death’s bitch. I can’t let my grief decide who I’m going to be.”

  “Logan...”

  “I love you,” he said. “I think I have for the last five years. Since that moment you smiled at me. Since... You’re part of my heart, Rose. Part of the healing that this place brought to me, and I was too much of a damned coward. You are right. It was all here in Hope Springs. But I didn’t want to heal, because healing meant taking chances again. And it’s so much easier to just not take chances.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve been there. Fearful and just a wreck. Not able to enjoy the life I had, the love that I had because I was living scared. But I wasn’t too afraid to love you. I was brave. I took a chance. And you... You devastated me.”

  “I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry. And it’s a piss-poor excuse, Rose, I know it is, but I have to tell you... The feeling that I had when I came out of my room and saw you standing there in the kitchen, wearing my T-shirt, baking the cookies... It reminded me of when I saved up enough money to send my mom on that trip. The look on her face when I gave her that cash. I was so proud. And I was so...happy. With where I was in life. And it was so soon after that that it was all taken away from me. That feeling, that hope, that happiness, it goes with that kind of devastation for me. It’s a whole process of unlearning it. Of being brave enough to trust that moment. I’m sorry I wasn’t before. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

  Her heart crumpled. And she felt her face crumple, too. She couldn’t stay mad. Not in the face of that. Not in the face of that vulnerability. That honesty. She could imagine him too well. That proud teenage boy who had worked so hard to give his mom that break. And to have that moment destroyed the way that it had been... She hurt for him. And she couldn’t hold herself back. Not anymore. She closed the space between them and pulled him into her arms. “I forgive you,” she said. “We’ve already lived with enough hurt. We can just... We can just love each other now.”

  “I’d like that,” he said, his throat tight, his words coming out hoarse. “I really would.”

  “Are we going to get married and stuff?”

  “I expect we should,” he said.

  “I’d really like that. I never wanted to be a wife, Logan. But I’d really like to be yours.”

  “Well, that suits me,” he said. “Because I never particularly wanted to be a husband. But I would like to be your husband, Rose Daniels. Because you’re my other half. You’re right. We’re soul mates. And I found out the hard way
that I don’t function very well without half my soul.”

  “Yeah. Me neither.”

  “I’ve always thought life was pretty mean. But it brought me you. It brought us together. I prayed for this. For us. Here we are. Might change the whole way I think about things.”

  “Logan.” She stretched up on her toes and kissed his mouth. She kissed him with everything she was. Everything she had been. Everything she would be.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  Rose Daniels was happy with her life. And she hadn’t realized quite how full it was, until the man who worked by her side had become the man who held her in his arms.

  This man who was, and always had been her horizon line, guiding her. Loving her. It was miraculous. And after everything they’d been through, she was happy to accept a miracle.

  * * *

  LOGAN WAS SURPRISED how well the family took it. But then, it was pretty obvious that they’d all figured it out at that point. So when he and Rose showed up later that evening at the main house, hand in hand, no one seemed particularly shocked, though Ryder took him to task and asked his intentions. Logan asked for Ryder’s permission to marry her, then said he intended to do it with or without his permission.

  “It’s not his permission you need,” Rose said. “It’s mine. And I already gave it.”

  Ryder gave it to them anyway. Logan was half convinced he’d done it just to make Rose angry, because Ryder found Rose’s anger amusing.

  The only person who seemed somewhat muted was Iris. Though she pulled her sister in for a hug, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  They had missed Christmas together, and it was nice to be sitting around the Christmas tree now, even though they’d missed the day. It felt right. It felt like home.

  But better.

  So much better.

  “You know,” Rose said later, when they were lying in bed back in his cabin, “it occurs to me that I’m actually a really great matchmaker.”