The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle

by Anne McAllister

  Erin's smile was wavering as her children dragged her over. "I … I just remembered an editor who asked me for some pictures for a small-town America piece," she said. "Although, the light isn't good. I should do it another time. I—"

  "Come on," Deke said to her. "Don't worry about the pictures. Come for a ride with us."

  "I don't think—"

  "Good. Don't," he said. "Come on." And he scooped Zack up and settled the little boy on his shoulders. "Let's go, gang. One last ride."

  Sophie and Nicolas fell in behind him. He didn't look back. But when he heard them telling their mother about their earlier runs, Deke felt a sense of relief. Erin was coming.

  "It will be too crowded," she said when they reached the top and the kids settled in again and he motioned her to get on. "I'm just here to take pictures."

  "Nonsense," Deke growled. "Here, Celie. Take a picture or two." He took Erin's camera and thrust it at Celie Tucker. Then he took Erin's arm and said, "Move up, guys." Then to Erin, "Get on."

  Celie snapped a photo of her glaring at him, and another of her rolling her eyes.

  "Nice," Deke said with a grin. "Small-town-American enthusiasm at its best."

  Erin gnashed her teeth at him, but finally she got on. And he got on behind her, settled his legs on either side of her, moved forward to press his body tight against her so that her bottom was wedged into the vee of his legs.

  Oh, yes. Oh, yes yes yes yes yes.

  Deke swallowed hard, cleared his throat. "Ready?"

  Good God, he sounded hoarse. His nose was by her ear. Her hair drifted against his cheek. He could smell her shampoo and something else exquisitely, ineffably Erin.

  "Give you a push?" one of the teenagers offered.

  Deke nodded, felt hands at his back, heard the scrape and screech of the snow underneath and Erin's quick intake of breath—and they were away.

  It was a kaleidoscope of mind-blowing sensations—speed and cold, closeness and warmth, exhilaration and desire, shrieks and gasps and murmurs. They flew, they leaned, they curved, they swept. And then they glided to a stop.

  "Whoo-whee!" yelled Nicolas.

  "It was the best, wasn't it, Mama?" Sophie demanded, turning to look back.

  "It was the best," Erin said breathlessly after a moment, and then she turned, too, to look back at Deke. Her eyes shone the way he always remembered Erin's eyes shining. Her lips were as red as her jacket, smiling the way Erin always used to smile at him.

  And Deke did what he'd been dying to do for days.

  He kissed her.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  « ^ »

  It wasn't fair!

  If Deke's kiss had been demanding, passionate, hungry, desperate, possessive—any of the above—Erin would have stiffened. Her mind would have shut down. Her mouth would have closed up. Her heart would have been safe.

  But it wasn't.

  It was joyous, gentle, warm, giving. It was the sort of kiss that was entirely appropriate between friends in public circumstances. There was nothing excessive about it, nothing in it that Erin could instinctively resist. It was brief and spontaneous and—damn it!—it left her wanting more.

  Wanting him!

  It was infuriating.

  And yet Erin found that she couldn't be furious. She couldn't be rude or stiff or rejecting in an effort to protect herself because once he'd kissed her, he didn't push. He pulled back and smiled at her—with his mouth and with his eyes. And she thought he looked just a little stunned by it, too.

  "I'm glad you came, Erin," he said simply as he climbed off the sled, brushed the snow off and helped her get to her feet, too.

  Meanwhile Sophie was looking at them, eyes dancing. He kissed you! she mouthed gleefully. And Erin knew what her daughter was thinking, what conclusions she was jumping to, and she shook her head fiercely.

  Don't! she wanted to say. Oh, don't! Don't hope! Don't believe!

  But heaven help her, a tiny part of her determined wall of resistance cracked, and she wanted to believe, too.

  She eyed him warily, suspiciously, expecting it was a first move, that next she'd find his arm slung about her shoulders or his fingers wrapping hers. But Deke didn't do anything else. He didn't say anything else. He helped the kids up, he dusted off Zack's jacket, he grinned at Sophie and teased Nicolas. And every once in a while, he smiled at her again.

  Nervously Erin found herself smiling back. It would be churlish not to, of course. And how could she turn down Celie's invitation that they stop in and have cocoa and cookies in Artie's kitchen?

  And once there, when Celie said, "You and Deke ought to…" and Jace said, "When you and Deke go cut your Christmas tree…" she couldn't just jump in and say that Deke would probably be gone by Christmas and in any case there was no such couple as Deke and her.

  So she just listened and nodded and smiled politely and sipped her coffee while Deke bounced Zack on his knee and did the same.

  Finally the little boy began to suck his thumb and rub his eyes, and Deke got to his feet. "Reckon I ought to get this feller home and in bed. Thanks a lot," he said to Celie. And to Jace and Artie he said, "I'll see you around."

  And right then Erin could have made the point that they weren't a couple. She could have kept her kids with her and stayed to talk to Celie and Jace and Artie. But instead she finished her coffee, and Sophie and Nicolas began pulling on their jackets, and all of them left together.

  What was happening? Was she hoping? Daring to dream that Felicity might be right? It was a lot to read into a kiss.

  And yet as she walked home with an arm on Sophie's shoulders, Deke at her side and Nicolas running on ahead, it felt right. His kiss, this walk—the whole evening—reminded her not merely of her long-ago dreams, but of her life with Jean-Yves.

  It wasn't that she was mistaking him for Jean-Yves, either. Not at all! It was that she felt the same wonderful feeling she'd felt when she was with Jean-Yves—as if they belonged together, as if they were a pair.

  How on earth could she hope? He was leaving, for heaven's sake, if not next week, the week after! He'd finish hiring people to work for his dad and he'd be gone. Just like that.

  He lived in New Mexico. He had work there, he had land there, he had a life there.

  And yet…

  Something was stirring within her, hopes she'd determinedly squelched were gamely battling back to life.

  No, Erin told herself. No, no, no. Please God, no. She had to stop this! And yet…

  A kiss is just a kiss.

  There was, Deke was pretty sure, a song by that title. He could almost hear the melody humming through his mind—along with the very clear knowledge that a kiss like the one he'd shared with Erin tonight wasn't just a kiss at all.

  Born of desire and yet wholly spontaneous, a product of both the closeness they'd shared during the ride and the need that had been building in him since he'd seen her again, his kiss had held within it such a complexity of unspoken needs, fears, hopes and desires that Deke couldn't even put a name to them all.

  In fact, the simple awareness of how much more it meant than any kiss he'd ever shared with anyone before—even Erin herself—jolted him to the core. Deke had kissed a fair number of women. He'd kissed out of duty and out of passion. He'd kissed artlessly and for effect. He'd kissed as a child and as a man with sex on his mind.

  But the kiss he'd given Erin meant more. It spoke to their past and to their present and … and what? Something bigger than that. Something beyond that. Friendship? Well, of course they were friends. Always would be.

  This hadn't felt quite like friendship, though. It felt bigger than that. Deeper. It felt like a past, a present and a future.

  A future with Erin Jones?

  Deke lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling and considered that. Surely he wasn't serious. A future with a woman implied commitment. It implied forever. It implied marriage!

  He'd foreclosed on the notion of marriage at a very early ag
e. He didn't want a future with any woman. Did he?

  Well, he never had before, that was certain. Not even Violet, Zack's mother, had inspired a desire for matrimony. Had he discovered Zack's existence, he would probably have decided to give it a shot. For Zack. Because he would have owed it to Zack.

  Duty was something Deke understood. When something was his responsibility, he did it. He was, in that way at least, his father's son.

  But what he and Violet would have made of a marriage wasn't something he wanted to contemplate. What they had shared had never gone beyond good times and casual sex. He had no idea if they could have made a marriage last.

  What he shared with Erin was so much more.

  He thought about this past week, about sharing the house, the meals, the conversation, the children. Somehow it all seemed to work.

  He thought about the sled ride tonight. It would have been exhilarating and fun with only Zack, but with Erin and Sophie and Nico it had been so much more. And after, when they'd gone into Artie's, the easy conversation and camaraderie reinforced the feeling that they were a family—that they belonged together. And when they'd walked home afterward, him towing the toboggan with one hand and balancing Zack who was nodding off on his shoulders with the other, and Erin with her arm around Sophie's shoulders while Nico ran on ahead like a boisterous puppy, he remembered drawing a breath and looking around—at the town, at the kids, at Erin—and savoring every moment of it, wanting to hang on to it, be a part of it.

  He'd never thought about being part of a family—about being a husband, a father. All he remembered of his own family life was the tension between himself and his dad, his mother's inability to do more than wring her hands, and the unhappiness that seemed to permeate the very air they breathed.

  He knew that wasn't the way all families were—he'd seen, of course, families like the Joneses—but he'd always expected that it was inevitable for any family he was a part of.

  But now, tonight, for the first time he began to wonder if he could make a go of it. He wondered if he could make a go of it with Erin.

  And he wondered what Erin would think.

  It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

  All over Elmer twinkly little lights were springing up. Garland was appearing on banisters and fences. The little town library had The Night before Christmas on the docket for story hour, and the Laundromat had tinsel strung over the three new dryers. The Busy Bee announced stollen and cranberry cake and mince pie on its menu, and the Dew Drop was sporting a neon reindeer in its window with a very bright red nose indeed.

  Even on the other side of the door at Erin's house in The Spa, Celie was playing Christmas music for her customers. Bing Crosby, Jimmy Stewart and the Grinch were the fastest moving videos, and just yesterday Celie had put up a tiny Christmas tree with a string of homemade lights and candy canes and set out a plate of homemade Christmas cookies.

  And Erin thought it was time she got ready, too. She'd waited a little after Thanksgiving because she'd been so busy, she'd told herself. But it wasn't entirely that. It was Deke and Zack—having them there, having them be part of her memories of Christmas.

  She wasn't sure what she'd thought—that they might leave within a few days, that they might head back to New Mexico, never to return and that would be that. In which case, yes, it would have been smart not to prepare for Christmas until they were gone, so she didn't have more bittersweet memories of Christmas in Elmer to think back on year after year.

  But they didn't leave. They were still here. And after going sledding and to Artie's last night, she knew that they were going to be a part of her Christmas memories forever.

  She might be able to keep Deke out of her bed, but she'd never be able to keep him out of her heart.

  So, if she was going to have memories anyway, Erin decided she'd make them the best possible memories she could. And if she cried about them in years to come, well, there was no help for it. At least she'd be happy now.

  So that morning, after Deke left for the store and the older kids left for school, she—and Zack—began to get ready for Christmas, too.

  "You probably don't remember your first Christmas," she told him because Zack liked a running commentary whether or not he understood every word. "And you might not remember this one, either. Probably, in fact, you won't. But we'll always remember you."

  She took him to Artie's store and bought an evergreen wreath and yards of pine garland and Christmas lights from Jace.

  "You want me to carry it home for you?" he asked. "Artie won't mind."

  And Erin smiled, loving the small-town consideration as she juggled Zack and her purchases. "That would be great."

  There was an underlying motive to his offer, as Erin discovered when they got home. Carrying Erin's purchases meant that Jace got to stop in at The Spa behind the house and eat Christmas cookies and kiss his wife. Watching them together made Erin both smile and ache as she missed the take-it-for-granted closeness that happily married couples had.

  She contented herself with kissing Zack, then taking him outside where she hung the wreath on the front door and looped lights and garland along the porch railing. Then, while Zack chased Sammy around in the snow, Erin strung the tiny white lights she'd bought over the two evergreens in the front yard. When she finished she turned the lights on even though it was still daylight. It made things look festive and they would welcome the kids when they came home from school that afternoon.

  Then Jace and Celie came out and helped her build a Zack-size snowman between the trees. The little boy stood by, looking amazed, then laughed delightedly when Erin went inside and came out to wrap a bright red scarf around its neck, stick sunglasses on its face, then add a pine cone nose and a line of red gumdrops for a mouth.

  "You like that?" she asked, and sang him "Frosty the Snowman" and twirled him around in the snow.

  Then Jace went back to the hardware store, Celie went back to The Spa because her next appointment had appeared, and Erin took Zack in for lunch and then a nap. And while he slept, Erin did more holiday preparation—including all the holiday things her Parisian friends had thought she was crazy to do.

  As her friend, Nathalie, always said, "Why would I make wonderful food when I can buy it everywhere?"

  The trouble had always been, while there were wonderful foods to be bought in Paris, none of them evoked the feelings of home she had so wanted during the holidays. And so every year she'd created her own Montana Christmas alongside their Parisian one.

  This afternoon she did it again. She prepared the cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator so the kids could cut out Christmas cookies when they came home from school. When that was done, she began to mix up batches of quick bread—loaf after loaf of cranberry and orange and lemon and cinnamon—then baked it and breathed deeply of the aromas that called to mind Christmases of her childhood. She froze some loaves, sliced others and wrapped still others for gifts to friends and her kids' teachers.

  She got out the Christmas candles her mother had sent her and put them on the built-in bookcases in the living room. She added the snow globe she and Jean-Yves had bought in Vienna the first Christmas they were married, and the carved wooden Nativity set her grandfather had whittled when she was a child.

  Then she got the box that had the Christmas ornaments in it—another Elmer tradition that her friends had rolled their eyes at. The ornaments were ones that she and the kids had made out of baker's clay and yarn and felt—very amateurish and far from elegant. But they recalled so many wonderful times she happily tolerated a little homemade tackiness to celebrate the joys of their family Christmases together.

  She was just getting out the children's stockings when Zack appeared on the stairs, looking sleepy-eyed but intrigued by all these new decorations and by seeing her hanging stockings on the fireplace mantel.

  "Ah, Zack, you need a stocking, too, don't you?" Erin said.

  He clutched his blanket against his cheek and tipped his head
quizzically. "S'ocking?"

  "One of these with your name on it," she said, flapping Nicolas's white woolen sock on which she'd embroidered his name in red chain stitch down the side. "So Santa can put presents in it."

  She didn't think Zack knew what presents were yet, but she figured he'd learn. And there was still time to make him a stocking like Gabriel's and Sophie's and Nicolas's. And she decided she would—even though he might not be here for Christmas.

  If he wasn't, well, then Deke could hang it in their house in New Mexico. Let him look at it Christmas after Christmas. Let him tell Zack tales of Montana, of Elmer, of all of them.

  Give Deke a few memories, too.

  But she didn't let herself think any more about Deke. Instead she put on some Christmas music and swept Zack up into her arms, waltzing him and his blanket around the living room as she told him about Christmas in Paris.

  That's what she was doing when the back door banged open and Nicolas and Sophie burst in.

  "Are we goin' to get the tree?" Nicolas demanded.

  "When can we cut the tree?" Sophie asked.

  Obviously the wreath and garland and Christmas lights had signaled that holiday preparations were finally underway.

  "Soon," Erin promised. "Maybe tomorrow. This weekend for sure."

  Nicolas found the cookie dough in the refrigerator, and Sophie eyed the cranberry bread.

  "Can we have some? Please, Mama?" she said hopefully.

  "And can we cut out the cookies?" Nicolas begged. "Please, Mama?"

  "Please, Mama?" They chorused together. "Please?"

  And Zack joined the chorus, bouncing in her arms and echoing words that Erin heard not only with her ears but with her heart. "Mama," he said patting her cheeks. "Mama, please."

  Deke found his butcher on Friday.

  The clerks hadn't been too hard to come by—Evelyn's niece Cassie was happy to come in every morning while her daughter was in preschool. And Cassie's friend Julia was coming in on Saturdays, and Evelyn herself agreed to come an extra two afternoons a week. But finding a butcher had been trickier.