The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle

by Anne McAllister

  I'm trying, she told him every night when she looked at his picture. I'm trying hard.

  And sometimes—like today—it was easy.

  It had been a long time since she'd cut a tree for Christmas. She wasn't even sure where to go. But a phone call to Taggart this morning had solved the problem.

  "You can come with us, if you want," he'd said. "We're going out this afternoon, too."

  But Erin had declined. "No, I think you'd better send us in the entirely opposite direction. It wouldn't help family relations if both of us settled on the same tree."

  "We wouldn't," Taggart said. "You can't get two people to agree on the same tree, let alone nine!"

  "Eleven," Erin corrected. "Deke and Zack are coming, too."

  "Oh, yeah? He's still with you? Hey, Felicity," he called to his wife, "I think you might be right."

  "About what?" Erin demanded.

  "She said she thought Deke might hang around awhile."

  Erin thought there was a good possibility that Felicity had said a great deal more than that, but she wasn't sure she wanted to hear her sister-in-law's speculations.

  "Deke is staying until after Christmas," she informed her brother. "He's hired some new employees at the store and he has to make sure they work out. Besides, his father isn't out of the hospital yet. He can't leave until someone can manage things. And in her condition, along with C.J. and the job with Poppy, Milly certainly can't. Besides, he wanted Zack to have a family Christmas."

  "A lot of reasons," Taggart said. But even so, she could hear the tolerant amusement in his tone.

  "Just tell me where we can go to find a tree," she said irritably.

  Taggart laughed, but in the end he told her.

  "Thank you."

  "Anytime," he said. Then as she was about to hang up, he said, "Erin?"

  She felt instantly wary. "What?"

  "Deke's a good guy. I hope—" Taggart paused, then found the words he was looking for "—I hope things work out the way you want them to."

  "Thanks, Taggart," she said softly. "I do, too."

  Deke wasn't much used to family outings. In his family going "out" meant getting away from everyone else. No, it meant getting away from his father. Warm family feelings weren't thick on the ground.

  But he'd had new family experiences ever since he and Zack had moved in with Erin. And cutting down the tree wasn't something he intended to miss.

  The area that Taggart sent them to was an area Erin said she remembered well from their childhood expeditions in search of trees. Deke thought she would find one, then say, "This is it," and he would cut it down and they would head home.

  In fact, everyone had an opinion and wasn't afraid to voice it. He balanced Zack on his shoulders and followed the rest of them over the snowy hillside.

  "How about this one? No, this one?" Nicolas had a hundred opinions that changed by the second as he bounded on ahead.

  Sophie was nearly as bad. She kept wandering off and calling, "Over here! I've found the perfect one over here!"

  And then when they would all get there, she would have changed her mind or one of her brothers would point out the "perfect tree's" drawbacks: it was too short, too tall, too fat, too lopsided.

  Erin was more thoughtful, but she tended to find trees she thought needed tender, loving care. "We could turn the bad side to the wall," she'd say whenever Gabriel pointed out a gaping hole to her.

  "We could leave it here to live out its natural life in peace," Gabe said.

  And by then Nicolas would have found another one and they would trundle on. Eventually it became such a joke that Gabe started taking pictures of the "perfect trees."

  "I'm going to do a gallery of them," he said, eyes laughing.

  And Deke laughed, too, because it was a good idea and because it was a memory he would love to see preserved on film. Mostly it was the feeling he wanted to preserve—this feeling that you could each have your own opinion and be teased about it and no one would get upset.

  "What do you think?" Erin asked him.

  "I think this is wonderful," he said quite honestly.

  She blinked. "What's wonderful?" She looked around and he realized she was looking for a tree.

  He shook his head. "Not a tree. This. Doing this. All of us. I like it."

  "Oh." The notion seemed first to startle her, then to please her. She smiled at him with such warmth that it curled his toes inside his hiking boots. "Me, too."

  A strand of dark hair was blowing across her face just then, and automatically he reached out and brushed it away. His glove touched her skin—not even his fingers—but it was enough to make him want more. To want to take her hand in his and walk with her.

  They stood, staring at each other. Then—whap!—a snowball hit him in the back. "Gotcha!" Nicolas yelled.

  Deke swung Zack down and handed him to Erin. "Sorry. Do you mind? Business to attend to."

  And, turning swiftly, he scooped up a handful of snow and went after Nico.

  He hadn't had a snowball fight in years. It was wonderful, exhilarating as, yelling and chortling, he and Nico and Gabe and Sophie pounded each other with snowballs. Looking up to see Zack waving his hands in glee and Erin laughing delightedly was one more thing to savor.

  Finally, when Nico had called truce and they were all damp and covered with snow, anyway, Erin showed them how to make snow angels.

  "See," she said to Zack, helping him flop on his back in the deep snow and waggle his arms up and down, "You're making wings. You're the littlest angel." She took his hands and lifted him carefully out of the snow, then turned to show him the pattern he'd made.

  Zack was delighted. "Dad!" he yelled. "See me angel!"

  "The only time you'll ever be one," Deke told him with a grin.

  Erin laughed. "He's always an angel for me."

  "I doubt that," Deke said gruffly.

  Erin nuzzled the little boy's neck, making him giggle. "We get along, don't we, Zack?"

  That much was abundantly clear. Zack had bonded with Erin and with her kids. Deke felt like he had a bond with her kids, too. And with her. Well, of course he did. But what did it mean?

  What did he want it to mean?

  He was still puzzling that over, standing there staring down the hill when something occurred to him, and he said, "What about that one?"

  "What? What one?" Erin looked at him oddly.

  Deke pointed. "That tree." He was the only one—besides Zack—who hadn't suggested a tree so far. He hadn't intended to at all. He'd just come along for the ride. It hadn't seemed to be his place to suggest anything. But he and Zack were now a part of this—they'd been included. And he had as good an eye as anyone, didn't he?

  Now he waited for the inevitable choruses of "It's too fat" and "It's too crooked" and "It's too tall" and "It's got a hole in this side."

  But nobody said a word. They all fanned out, moved closer, walked around it. The tree Deke had spotted was about ten feet tall—a good height for the very high-ceilinged rooms of Erin's house. It was full but not so bushy you couldn't hang anything on it. It didn't seem to have any gaps the size of the Grand Canyon anywhere in it. It was, to his mind, the perfect tree.

  Which meant, if Deke were honest, that it was exactly the sort of tree he'd always wanted to have for Christmas in their house when he was growing up.

  Of course they'd never had one like it. His father had said big trees were too much bother. His mother said they were messy and hard to clean up afterward; They'd always had a small tabletop tree decorated with those glass ball ornaments that broke if you looked at them—especially when you were eight. Their trees had always been very pretty, but not very touchable.

  "Why ever would you want to touch a tree?" his mother had asked when he'd said that once.

  "It's pretty big," he hedged now. "It'd probably be a pain to drag down the hill. Might be too big for where you want to put it."

  Erin didn't answer. She was still circling the tree thoughtfull
y. So were the kids.

  "Hmm," Sophie said, pursing her lips.

  "Umm," Nicolas said hopping around it, studying it from all angles.

  "Ah," Gabriel said, looking at it through the camera lens, snapping the shutter, moving on, shooting again.

  "Tree?" Zack said hopefully.

  "There's a lot of other trees," Deke said.

  "No," Erin said flatly. "This is the one."

  "Yea!" The kids all cheered and bobbed their heads and nodded.

  "It's not too tall?" Deke said, feeling suddenly unsure. "You don't think it'll be too big? Dwarf the living room? What if there aren't enough lights? What about ornaments? It'll take a ton."

  "Then we'll make more. Or find some."

  "But—"

  "It's perfect, Deke," Erin said, eyes shining as she smiled at him.

  It was right about then, Deke knew he was in love with Erin Jones.

  He pushed the broom around the grocery store the following evening and, as he had all day, thought about Erin. More specifically about loving Erin.

  In some ways, he rationalized, he had loved her for years. Certainly, back before she'd left for Paris and he'd left for New Mexico, she'd been the most significant woman in his life, the one who mattered most, who knew him best. And naturally he'd felt a love for her that a guy feels for a dear, devoted friend.

  And back then—other than the physical sort of back seat groping he did with his assorted girlfriends—that was the only kind of love he'd been capable of.

  The other kind—the soul-deep, heart-searing, mind-warping sort that his sisters seemed to have found with their husbands and Taggart had found with Felicity and, let's face it, that Erin had found with Jean-Yves—had been out of his league entirely.

  And now?

  Now he understood its power. Now he saw its value. Now he believed in it and wanted it—with Erin.

  He'd gone to bed last night distracted by the realization that he loved her, trying to make sense of what that meant, trying to figure out which way to run with it. It wasn't a foregone conclusion, he feared. It might have been if he'd fallen in love with Erin fifteen years ago. But not now.

  Now they were adults. Now they each had a life, commitments, children.

  What did it mean to love Erin? What did that love ask of him?

  And what was he going to ask of her?

  And that's where his head had been all day long—fretting about what he would be asking, and if she could give it. Whether or not she loved him. Or was she still in love with Jean-Yves?

  It always came back to Jean-Yves.

  She was still his friend, he didn't doubt that. But could she ever be more than that?

  She slept with you, idiot! he told himself over and over.

  And that might have convinced him that she loved him—if she'd wanted to keep sleeping with him. But she hadn't. In fact, she'd made a big point, when he'd come and asked if he and Zack could stay with her, about providing him room in her house—but not in her bed. Once had apparently been enough, Deke thought grimly.

  A guy could have some serious doubts about his prowess as a lover given enthusiasm like Erin's.

  The only thing that saved him there was remembering that, at the time, his lovemaking hadn't left her cold. Either he'd given her pleasure or she'd sure as shootin' faked it. And this was Erin, he reminded himself. Erin would never fake a thing like that.

  No. He was pretty sure he'd pleased her. But afterward she hadn't been so pleased—and that was what bothered him. Afterward, she'd acted as if making love with him had been a betrayal of her love for her husband.

  And there he was, back thinking about bloody Jean-Yves LaChance again—and he was no further along thinking about what he was going to do about Erin.

  "Hey, Deke, I'm off now." Leo came out of the back room, pulling on his jacket, smiling as brightly as he had been when he'd arrived that morning.

  Deke couldn't help smiling back. "Go okay today?" he asked. It had seemed so to him. Having Leo there had made things run a lot smoother. But he hadn't asked Leo before now.

  "Fantastic." Leo's grin widened further. "Time flies when you're havin' fun."

  Deke raised his eyebrows. "Fun?"

  "All in how you look at it," Leo said. "Helluva lot more fun bein' here workin' and visitin' with folks than it has been sittin' at home."

  Leo was right, Deke thought. The grocery store wasn't a bad place. It was a lot easier to deal with now than it had been when he'd looked at it from the perspective of a twenty-two-year-old. Then he could only see it as a millstone around his neck. It amazed him that his father, who'd been even younger than he was when he'd gone to work with his father, had taken to it so easily.

  "See you in the morning," Leo said. "If you stop and see your old man, tell him I'll look in on him soon."

  "I'll do that."

  It was nearly six-thirty, and he really didn't want to stop at the hospital. He wanted to get home to see Erin and the kids. But he knew his father counted on the daily report.

  "You're late," his father said when Deke walked into his room. He was sitting up in bed, wearing a robe. His color was better now. His voice was stronger. And apparently so were his opinions.

  Deke ignored the comment. "Leo's working out fine. He said he'd stop and see you soon."

  "Not here he won't."

  Deke just looked at him, not sure what he was supposed to say to that.

  "I mean," his father announced, "I'm going home tomorrow." There was a note of triumph in his voice. He looked like he might actually smile. Of course he didn't.

  "Well, that's good," Deke said. "Glad to hear it. Doc must think you're doing well."

  "Doc wants this bed for some other poor sod," his father said. "But I'm not sad to be going home." He let out an expressive sigh, then fixed Deke with a steady stare. "What'd you decide?"

  Deke frowned. "About what?"

  "What you were rattlin' on about last time you were in here," John Malone said impatiently. "Whether you were stayin' or goin'."

  "Staying," Deke said. "For now."

  His father frowned. "What's that mean? For now? Till tomorrow? Till next week?"

  "Till after Christmas. At least."

  His father's look still challenged him, but Deke had no further answer than that. So he just shrugged. "That's all I know. Do you need help getting home tomorrow?"

  "Of course I don't. And you'll be workin' anyway."

  "Right. Of course you don't." Deke rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, wondering why he bothered and wanting perversely to laugh at the same time. "Well, fine. I'll drop by the house tomorrow night after work and see you there. Wish Mom the joy of you," he muttered under his breath.

  John frowned. "What's that you say?"

  "Nothing, Dad. Have a good night. See you tomorrow." Deke started for the door.

  "You haven't brought the boy yet," his father called after him.

  "I will." He would sometime. But he needed to sort out his own life first.

  "Dad wants me to bring Zack to see him," he said that night at the dinner table. It was, he discovered, easier to talk about his father than to sort out his own life. Much easier than discussing what mattered—which was how he felt about Erin and how she felt about him.

  "Does he?" Erin raised a brow. "That's good, surely. And you wouldn't have to stay long. They don't like little kids in hospitals for more than a few minutes."

  "He's not going to be in the hospital. He's coming home tomorrow."

  "He must be doing well. I'm sure he'll be glad to get home."

  "Drive my mother nuts," Deke muttered, then sighed. "Guess I'll take him over on Sunday. Can't do it during the day. I'd be missing work. God help us, the store might fall apart if I missed five minutes there."

  "I could take him," Erin offered.

  Deke paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. "Take Zack to my folks'? You'd do that?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "You know what he's like."

/>   "With you." Erin shrugged. "He's not that way with me."

  "He could be." Deke had never told her the disparaging things his father had said about her "leading him astray" all those years ago.

  "I suppose he could. But he won't. He's always polite," Erin said, then grinned. "Maybe he just thinks of me as a potential customer. We could stop by tomorrow afternoon."

  "We could make a Welcome Home sign!" Nicolas suggested. And when both adults stared at him, he bounced eagerly on his chair as he explained to Deke, "We did that for my dad when he came home from the hospital once. And for a friend of Mama's. Mama says it always makes people feel better, don't you?" He looked at his mother for confirmation.

  "Well, yes, but…" Erin looked slightly stunned at the notion, but she seemed actually to be considering it. And the longer she sat there, considering, the more intrigued she looked. Finally she smiled across the table at Deke, and he felt that current of awareness arc between them again. "That's not a bad idea, actually."

  "A Welcome Home sign? Pardon my skepticism." Anyone less likely to inspire Welcome Home signs than John Malone was hard to imagine.

  "Why not make one?" Erin said, actually looking enthused. "I'll bet no one ever has."

  "You'd win that bet," Deke said dryly.

  She rolled her eyes at him. "Well, I think Nicolas has a good idea. It might make your father happy. And even if he isn't, what do we have to lose but some time and some butcher paper? And we've got a roll of that."

  "He'll think it's a waste," Deke said. He knew his old man.

  "He'll think we care," Erin countered.

  "Do you?"

  She stared at him, as if his question surprised her. Then she said, "Of course we do. He's your father!"

  Which meant what? That she cared about his father because she cared about him? Deke wished he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to ask. She would simply say that of course she cared about him. They were friends, weren't they?

  And yes, damn it, they were. But Deke didn't want simply to be friends! He wanted more. He looked at Erin with a mixture of anguish and frustration.

  She got up and started clearing the table. "I'll make room," she said to the kids.

  "I'll get the paper," Sophie said, leaping up.