The Rancher's Family Thanksgiving

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  What could Tyler say to that? It wasn’t as if they were dating. If she were a guy friend, instead of a female friend, they would split the driving.

  Aware she was already vaulting behind the wheel, he climbed in the passenger seat.

  Unlike his extended cab pickup truck, which had a bench seat in front and back, hers had bucket seats in the front, and a bench in back.

  The bench was cluttered with what looked like half her closet—a pile of CDs, two umbrellas, a big portfolio, a large sketch pad and pencil set, and a stack of books on trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials.

  “Don’t say a word,” Susie muttered as she caught him looking at the mess.

  Tyler realized this was the first time he had actually been in her truck. For whatever reason, they had always taken his.

  “You’ve got clothes and stuff in yours.”

  Tyler always traveled with a clean shirt or two, a pair of jeans, clean coveralls and his vet bag. It made sense with the kind of work he did.

  Susie started her engine and backed out of her drive. “I’m planning to organize it eventually.”

  Realizing his knees were pressed against the dashboard, he felt around the side of his seat until he found the electronic controls. “Now that sounds like a good quote for your gratitude journal,” he drawled, positioning his seat back as far as it would go. He mugged at her comically. “‘I’m planning to do it eventually.’”

  Susie snorted and shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re so funny.”

  Tyler tilted his head. “Or is that ‘Never accomplish today what you can do tomorrow…’?”

  “Hilarious!”

  “I thought so.” Tyler settled comfortably in his seat.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a bad deal after all. When he was driving he had to pay attention to the road. As a passenger, all he had to do was look at the driver. And what a sight she was.

  She had fashioned her thick hair into a loose single braid that fell down her back. She was wearing one of her skirts again—the kind she always put on when she was meeting with potential customers. This one had a trim fit around the hips and was looser around the knees. She had on a pair of point-toed, high-heeled boots he didn’t think he had ever seen, and a thick wool turtleneck sweater, perfectly in keeping with the recent drop in temperature. No necklace tonight but hoop earrings he found incredibly sexy dangled from her ears.

  Realizing he was veering into dangerous territory, noticing everything about her this way, Tyler turned his attention briefly to the passing scenery. “How’s the gratitude journal coming anyway?”

  Susie emitted a soft sigh that lifted and lowered the curves of her breasts. “I’ve been working on some sketches for the cover.” She paused, shook her head, her frustration evident. “But thus far nothing is working.”

  “Want me to have a look at them?”

  “Would you mind?” Susie slowed down as they reached the entrance to the brand-new subdivision where the Clarks’ home was located. “I really need an unbiased opinion.”

  Unbiased, huh? “I’m not sure I can be without prejudice,” he said frankly. “I think everything you do is pretty terrific.”

  As she turned to him, he was inundated with a waft of her signature citrus and floral perfume.

  “Just so you know, McCabe,” she teased with a contented wink. “Flattery will get you nowhere with me.” Susie pulled over to the side of the wide boulevard, put the truck in Park and hit the interior lights.

  Telling himself that she hadn’t done what he’d like to do—stop the vehicle so they could kiss again—Tyler shifted position to ease the building pressure at the front of his jeans and quipped, “What’s that? Another confession-inspiring quote for your journal?”

  She reached around to get her shoulder bag and brought it back to her lap. “A statement of fact.” She pressed her lips together ruefully. “I know my faults and shortcomings better than anyone—”

  “Don’t we all,” Tyler reflected.

  One of his had to be an inability to stop seeing Susie as a woman he’d once again like to bed…a fact that left him riddled with guilt.

  They were supposed to be buddies here, nothing more.

  Oblivious to the ardent nature of his thoughts, she opened her bag and brought out a handwritten set of directions to the Clark home. “So polite compliments don’t work on me,” she mused in a low, distracted voice.

  “What about ornery ones?” Tyler couldn’t resist asking, focusing once again on their repartee. Anything to turn off the need… “Do those work?”

  “From you?” With a smile, Susie took a quick look at what she’d written, then switched off the interior lights. She looked deep into his eyes. Winked. “If they seemed sincere, they just might….”

  SUSIE KNEW THEY WERE flirting. She just didn’t know what to do about it. Flirting was something she didn’t do with her male friends, lest they get the idea she was interested in them romantically. She hadn’t done it in the past with Tyler because they’d usually come together under somber or difficult circumstances, when neither of them were in the mood for joking around. Yet flirting with Tyler tonight seemed as natural as breathing. Worse, it was making her think about all sorts of forbidden things, like kissing him again, holding him and or letting him hold her. From there, her thoughts naturally went to the times in the past when they had let what seemed appropriate in the moment guide them and ended up in bed together. As friends, they could no longer do that. No longer make excuses for the unbridled lust and need for comfort that had led them astray in the past.

  They had to stay within the prescribed guidelines.

  A feat that was obviously going to be harder for her than she had imagined…And yet, she didn’t want to give up on the idea of spending time with Tyler. She wanted their relationship to move to a more comfortable place. She wanted to be able to rely on him day in and day out, and have him rely on her.

  Which meant she had to respect their agreement and keep her attraction to him in check.

  So, for the rest of the drive she let the conversation turn back to the landscape architecture options she intended to present to Emmaline and her parents that evening. Luckily, the recently built tract house the Clarks had just moved into was a mere half a block away.

  As she and Tyler emerged from the truck, he whistled. “Wow. No wonder Emmaline is unhappy.”

  The small, square ranch house had only one tree in the front yard, and a shrub on either side of the front door. All the other homeowners on the street had put in extensive landscaping. The Clarks hadn’t gotten around to it. But then, they were busy working jobs and caring for an ill teenager.

  Knowing she had her work cut out for her, but glad she was going to be able to do something to help lift Emmaline’s spirits, Susie walked with Tyler to the door.

  The Clarks answered the bell promptly, their expressions anything but welcoming. “I’m sorry,” Mr. Clark said. “We tried to call you but apparently you’d already left. This evening isn’t a good time after all.”

  “Is Emmaline sick from the chemo?”

  “No,” Mrs. Clark replied. “The antinausea meds they’ve given her seem to be working.”

  “You may as well tell them.” Emmaline stormed into the foyer. Her face was red and swollen from crying. “It’s no secret that I don’t have a friend left in the whole wide world!” Emmaline burst into tears again.

  “She’s been getting RSVPs from the slumber party invitations she sent out all day.” Mrs. Clark looked every bit as miserable as her only child felt.

  “Not one of her friends can come.” Mr. Clark looked as if he wanted to punch something.

  “Not can’t. Won’t,” Emmaline corrected, sobbing all the more copiously. “They don’t want to be around anyone with cancer! And I don’t blame them. I’m such a downer.”

  Susie handed her sketch pad and pencils to Tyler, then wrapped an arm around Emmaline’s shoulder. “Let’s go sit down and talk about it,” Susie urged the young girl g
ently, even as she gave Emmaline’s parents a look that pleaded for a moment or two alone.

  “I’ll go make some hot cocoa,” Mrs. Clark murmured, getting the hint.

  “I’ll help.” Mr. Clark hurried after her while Tyler followed Susie and Emmaline into the living room.

  “I’m really sorry your friends have deserted you,” Susie said.

  “I’m not really surprised, though,” Tyler put in, his tone harder, less sympathetic.

  Emmaline and Susie stared at Tyler in shock.

  He shrugged. “It happens to a lot of people. They get scared they’ll say or do the wrong thing so they don’t do anything, and figure by staying away they’re helping you more than they would be if they were actually around, seeing you through your illness.”

  Emmaline sniffed, looking somewhat comforted. “So you don’t think it’s about them not liking me anymore.”

  Tyler knelt in front of where Emmaline was sitting on the sofa. “I think it’s about them being scared of the possibility of death and then being ashamed and upset that they’re scared. Trust me.” Tyler looked Emmaline in the eye. “Your friends who have deserted you feel a lot worse than you do right now.”

  Emmaline’s lower lip slid out in a contemplative pout. “Okay, so they’re the ones in the wrong. I get that.” She dabbed her eyes. “It still doesn’t solve the problem of me not having any friends here in Laramie. And don’t talk about trucking in people who are interested in making friends with me because I have cancer, either. ’Cause that is just as bad.”

  “I agree,” Tyler said.

  “So what are you suggesting Emmaline do?” Susie asked curiously. She could see Tyler had some plan up his sleeve….

  Tyler smiled as if the answer were obvious. “I’m suggesting she go about making friends the old-fashioned way, by coming to the first annual McCabe-Lockhart-Chamberlain-Carrigan-Remington-Anderson family Thanksgiving with her parents.”

  “QUICK THINKING AND A wonderful solution to the problem, cowboy,” Susie told Tyler later on the drive back to her place.

  Watching him deal with Emmaline had reminded Susie why she had wanted Tyler around when she was sick. He knew just when to be sympathetic and compassionate. Just when to get a person to stop feeling sorry for themselves.

  Looking a lot more comfortable now than he did on the drive over, Tyler flexed his broad shoulders and propped one arm on the door rest. He draped the other across the seat behind her. “At last count there were going to be around 250 people at the gathering. All ages, all personalities. Emmaline and her parents will have the opportunity to make plenty of friends,” he said.

  Susie took a moment to think about that.

  It had been a very good idea.

  Slowing as they reached her street, she slanted Tyler a glance. The sheer size of him seemed to fill the cab. “You think our moms will mind the fact we expanded the guest list without checking with them first?”

  “Nope.” Tyler flashed an ornery grin. He turned toward her and asked, “What do you think about my chances of getting Mrs. Clark to make one of the pies on my list?”

  Susie parked in front of her home and cut the ignition. “I’m sure Emmaline’s mother would be happy to do it if you asked.”

  Tyler got out of the pickup. “But you don’t think I should.”

  Susie met up with him at her front bumper. The porch light bathed them in a welcoming circle of soft yellow light. “If I have to make the gratitude journals for all the guests, you have to do some cooking.”

  “With your help,” he reminded her.

  No more anxious to end their evening than he, Susie nodded. “That was our deal. Besides, I’m sure our moms will think of something for the Clarks to contribute to the feast.”

  “Okay,” Tyler conceded happily, “we’ll let them handle it.”

  Susie rummaged in her bag for her keys. “Meanwhile, speaking of those gratitude journals. You still up for looking at the cover design?”

  “A promise is a promise.” Together, they went into the house. Susie switched on lights. Tyler settled on the sofa.

  She dropped a stack of rough sketches in his lap, rummaged in the kitchen and came back with a bowl of chilled red and green grapes.

  “So what do you think?”

  Tyler thumbed through drawings of pilgrims, turkeys, holiday tables brimming with food, an autumn wreath and a horn of plenty. “Actually, I like the sketch of the fall garden you’re doing for Emmaline and her folks.”

  Susie hadn’t considered anything like that.

  She blinked, wanting to make sure she’d understood. “For the cover?”

  “The mock-up has flowers, and gold and red leaves. It’s peaceful and serene. Not something that people would be expecting or something that’s already been done to death.”

  Susie shifted the bowl to his lap, and got up to retrieve the sketch he was talking about. “This one.”

  “Yes.” Tyler’s expression was reverent, admiring. “You could put some writing on the front.”

  Susie scribbled out, “A Laramie, Texas, Thanksgiving” across the top of the page. “Down here—” she indicated the bottom “—we could put the date.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Okay, then.” Susie was filled with relief. “Now all I have to do is finish organizing the quotes for the top of each page of the journal and take it to the printer. And find some gold ribbon to bind the pages.” Suddenly, the task she’d been dreading did not appear all that daunting.

  She shifted the drawing aside, and took back the bowl of grapes. They munched awhile in silence.

  Tyler appeared to be in no hurry to go home, nor was she in a rush to see him leave.

  And yet there was an underlying tension between them. Questions she had yet to pose, but really wanted—needed—to ask.

  Maybe because there was so much she still did not understand about him.

  “By the way, you were really great with Emmaline tonight,” she said.

  He looked pleasantly surprised at the compliment. “Thanks.”

  Susie pushed on deliberately. “Watching you talk to her, I realized you’d make a really fantastic dad.”

  His brows knit together in a frown, confirming her opinion this was dangerous territory.

  “I don’t see marriage in my future,” Tyler told her gruffly. He got up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen. He returned with a glass of tap water in hand. He studied her over the rim of his glass. “You know that.”

  “I know you’ve said it,” Susie replied, remaining where she was with effort. Her fingers curved over the edge of the bowl. “Most bachelors think that way at the height of their independence. It’s why they are single. But they usually end up changing their minds.”

  Tyler’s expression turned stony. He sat down beside her and took another handful of grapes. “Not me.”

  Susie looked at the rock-hard thigh six inches from hers. “Afraid you’ll be fenced in?”

  Tyler propped his feet on her coffee table and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Why do you care?”

  Why indeed? Susie wondered.

  Usually her philosophy was to live and let live.

  She shrugged her shoulders aimlessly. “Because I know your family is the same as mine, in that respect. Having kids, loving them, taking care of them, is a vital part of being a McCabe or a Carrigan.”

  Tyler scowled and finished the rest of his water in a single gulp. “I can do that as an uncle.”

  Susie studied the implacable lines of his face. Usually, she was the one hiding her feelings, her secret shortcomings. Not tonight.

  Tyler looked as uncomfortable as she did every time the subject of the “future” came up.

  She turned toward him, her knee brushing his muscular, jean-clad knee. “But why don’t you want it for yourself?” she persisted.

  He narrowed his hazel-green eyes at her. “Because I don’t do anything I don’t do well,” he said mildly.

  Susie exhal
ed in frustration. She leaned forward. “But you do have what it takes, Tyler. You just demonstrated that tonight.”

  He disagreed with a shake of his head and an averted glance.

  “It’s easy to do what needs to be done when you’re not all that emotionally involved,” he stated finally.

  Susie supposed that was true. But…

  “You care about Emmaline.”

  Tyler plucked the remote control off the coffee table. “I didn’t say I didn’t.”

  “But?” Susie watched him turn on the TV.

  Tyler gestured nonchalantly. “I handle situations like this so well precisely because I don’t let myself get too close.”

  Susie could attest to that. Whenever she and Tyler had gotten too close, he had backed away. Just as he had backed away after they’d made love.

  At the time, she had thought it was her.

  What if it wasn’t? What if it was him? What if he was the one with intimacy issues? What if they both had them?

  “Like with Catastrophe?” she asked cautiously at length, studying the emotionally shuttered look in his eyes. “You care about that horse,” Susie continued, when a moment passed and he didn’t respond. “I could swear you’d even like to keep him for yourself. But you won’t.”

  “I’m his vet.” Tyler started flipping channels. “I don’t want to lose my objectivity.”

  Susie rolled her eyes at the age-old male aversion techique. “So you’ll get him well, find a new home for him.”

  His expression turned even more unrelenting. “Teddy has already agreed to take Catastrophe when he’s well.”

  “So you can forget about the stallion and get on with your life,” Susie guessed.

  Tyler settled on a recap of all the weekend football games. “Pretty much.”

  “Just like you’ve always done with me,” Susie stated flatly.

  TYLER DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to say. No one else had figured this out. No one else had dared question him on it. He turned off the television and shifted to face her, aware he was no closer to understanding her than she was to understanding him. “In the past, yeah, that’s the way it was because we were crisis buddies. To be able to help you, I had to retain a certain distance.”