A Cowboy's Christmas Carol

by Brenda Harlen

“Do you run tours on Tuesday nights?” she asked him now.

  “Not in the winter.”

  “Good.” She sipped her coffee. “Because there’s a Christmas concert at Mountainview Elementary School on Tuesday and I’d love for you to go with me. Nothing embodies the pure joy of the season like the sound of children singing.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “You’re really not interested?” she pressed, obviously disappointed by his response.

  A children’s Christmas concert?

  Definitely not.

  “But I’m up for seeing a movie on Tuesday,” he suggested as an alternative.

  She shook her head. “Sorry. The concert is something I go to every year, and I don’t want to miss it.”

  On second thought...

  “What time does it start?” he asked, surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth.

  But maybe he shouldn’t have been, because as much as he didn’t want to go to the concert, he didn’t want to give up the opportunity to spend more time with her.

  Yeah, he was definitely venturing into dangerous territory here.

  And when Daphne rewarded his change of heart with another one of her sweet smiles, he knew that she was the reason he wasn’t even trying to navigate toward safer ground.

  “Seven o’clock,” she said, in answer to his question.

  “I’ll pick you up at six thirty.”

  “Can you make it six? I don’t want to be stuck standing at the back.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be here at six.”

  * * *

  Monday afternoon, Daphne was doing paperwork in her office at the adoption shelter when there was a knock on her door.

  “This is a surprise,” she said, pushing away from the desk to greet her stepmother with an air-kiss.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by, but I wanted to see where you worked,” Jessica Taylor said.

  “Visitors are always welcome—even family,” she said, softening the remark with a smile. “Do you want a tour?”

  “Maybe another day,” Jessica said. “Today, I wanted to talk about dogs.”

  “One of my favorite subjects.”

  Her stepmother offered a tentative smile. “I told your dad that we should have a dog at the ranch, and he agreed.”

  “Did he?”

  Jessica nodded. “So I’m here to get a dog.”

  “I appreciate that you thought of Happy Hearts,” she said cautiously. “But I’m pretty sure when Dad agreed to the idea of a dog, he was thinking you’d get in touch with a breeder.”

  “I don’t care what he was thinking,” Jessica said in an uncharacteristic show of backbone. “I refuse to pay way too much money for a pedigree when there are plenty of rescue dogs who need a good home.”

  Daphne could hardly argue the point, but she still had reservations. “Well, then, let’s take a walk around and see if any of our dogs appeal to you—and if they don’t, that’s okay, too.”

  As they made their way through the row of enclosures, she pointed out the information sheets that gave each dog’s name, breed and approximate age along with details of observed behaviors and personality.

  “I can’t believe that someone would just abandon a pet,” Jessica said after she’d read that status on several of the pages.

  “It happens more often than you want to know,” Daphne told her. “Some people grow tired of the responsibility, or they don’t want to deal with behavioral issues, or they can’t afford necessary medical care, so they dump the animal on the side of a road somewhere.

  “Boo was tied to the fence at the end of our driveway,” she said, gesturing to the three-year-old German shepherd in a nearby enclosure. “Which suggests that even if his previous owners didn’t care enough to keep him, they cared enough to ensure he would be looked after by someone else.

  “Rousey wasn’t nearly so lucky,” she said, moving on to the next enclosure. “She was left in a dumpster behind The Bronco Brick Oven.”

  “That’s so completely heartless,” Jessica said, crouching in front of the glass for a closer look at the short-haired black-and-white Chihuahua with tan markings.

  The dog lifted her head and stared at Jessica with one eye.

  “She lost an eye in a fight with a feral cat over food scraps,” Daphne told her.

  “Is that why you called her Rousey? Because she’s a fighter?”

  She nodded. “It seemed appropriate.”

  “Could I change her name?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then I’ll call her Button,” Jessica said. “Because she’s as cute as one.”

  Daphne was surprised by her stepmother’s assessment. Though she admittedly didn’t know her father’s third wife very well, she’d assumed that a woman whose designer labels were always perfectly coordinated wouldn’t look beyond labels. And while she was willing to admit that she might have judged her too harshly, she was certain that her father wouldn’t share his wife’s assessment of the tiny dog.

  “I appreciate your interest in Rousey—”

  “Button,” Jessica insisted.

  “—but I’m not sure she’s the right dog for you.”

  “You mean you don’t think she’s the right kind of dog for your father?”

  “And obviously you agree.”

  “She probably isn’t a dog Cornelius would have chosen, but he’s not here,” she pointed out. “I am. And I want Button.”

  Daphne looked at the dog, who was looking back with such a hopeful expression on her face that she knew she couldn’t stand in the way of her chance to go to a “furever” home.

  * * *

  Evan arrived promptly at six o’clock to pick Daphne up for the concert Tuesday night. While a holiday show put on by grade-school kids wouldn’t have been his first choice for entertainment, he would gladly suffer through it with Daphne by his side.

  He’d grown up in Bronco Valley, so he’d never been to the elementary school in Bronco Heights before. Which made it all the more puzzling that, as he followed the directions Daphne gave to him, he could picture not just the exterior of the stone building but the maze of interior corridors and neat rows of desks in a classroom that smelled of chalk dust and poster paint.

  “There’s a parking spot there,” Daphne said, gesturing to the empty slot between a minivan and Mini Cooper.

  He ignored the tension that had settled between his shoulder blades and maneuvered his SUV into position.

  “Busy place,” he noted.

  “Parents and grandparents and siblings will be shoulder to shoulder with aunts and uncles and other members of the community,” Daphne said as they made their way to the entrance where the cornerstone beside the doors established the date of the building as 1958.

  Since she’d invited him, she insisted on paying the admission fee and accepted a program for “A Holiday Celebration” from the teacher who took their money.

  Despite their early arrival, they walked into an auditorium already half-full. They found a couple of seats near the middle, and she offered him the program to peruse while they waited for the show to start. The front cover was divided into quadrants, each with a child’s illustration of a Christmas tree, a menorah, a kinara and a diya, and the back cover had various holiday greetings in different languages.

  “It’s a K to five school, so the songs and skits are usually pretty short and simple,” Daphne said. “The kindergarten class is always a lot of fun because half the kids are more interested in waving to their parents in the audience than singing, but what they lack in talent they make up for with enthusiasm. The first graders are a little more disciplined, emphasis on...”

  Evan knew Daphne was talking to him, but he could no longer hear her words. Instead, it was a man’s voice—or maybe the echo of his thoughts—that pla
yed inside his head.

  * * *

  She was at the school tonight, for the annual holiday concert. She’d invited him to go, but he knew her parents would be there and, after the big blowup with her family at Thanksgiving, he thought it would probably be best to give her father a wide berth for a few weeks.

  He didn’t care that Henry Milton didn’t like him.

  Sure, it would have been nice if her father wasn’t such a disapproving bastard, but he’d learned a long time ago not to worry about things he couldn’t control. All that mattered was Alice.

  And when school let out for the Christmas break, they were going to sneak out of town for a few days and get married.

  Only twelve more days now, because yes, he was counting.

  Alice had laughingly confided that her colleagues liked to tease her because she was as excited about the holidays as her second-grade students. She didn’t deny that it was true, though she didn’t tell any of them the real reason. Until the vows had been exchanged and she was wearing his ring on her finger, it would be their secret.

  “I’ll say goodbye to my students as Miss Milton in December, and hello to them as Mrs. Kincaid in January,” she’d said.

  She’d been disappointed that he was going to miss the concert, and he was sorry to do so. She’d worked hard to prepare her class for their big performance, and all of the students were going to have their noses painted red and wear reindeer antlers they’d made out of construction paper to illustrate the song they’d be singing: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

  Alice had shown him the prototype of the headwear, and she’d looked so cute with the antlers bobbing on top of her head, he couldn’t resist kissing her.

  Of course, one kiss had led to another, then another...

  He’d never thought it was possible to feel the way he felt about her, and nothing and no one would get in the way of them being together forever.

  Not even Henry Milton.

  * * *

  “Evan?”

  He started when Daphne laid a hand on his arm.

  “Are you all right?”

  He shoved the vision or memory or whatever the hell it was out of his mind. “Sure. Why?”

  “You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, because he knew she was making a joke, but her comment had struck a little too close to the truth.

  But was it truth or just his imagination?

  He wondered what his mother would say if he told her about the connection he seemed to have made with the ghost of Alice Milton’s undocumented lover, whether she would think he was making it up for attention—or maybe to bring attention to his business.

  Which, now that he thought about it, wasn’t an entirely unreasonable supposition. Oftentimes when people claimed to have had encounters with ghosts or experienced other paranormal phenomena, they were trying to capitalize on the event for financial gain—either selling the story to the tabloids or promoting a supposedly haunted B and B.

  Maybe he had been telling ghost stories for too long and was seeking a personal experience to make his job more palatable to himself, because every salesperson knew that it was easier to sell a product he believed in.

  The group of kids onstage must have finished singing, because the crowd was applauding their effort. Evan put his hands together, too, and determinedly pushed all thoughts of Alice Milton and Russell Kincaid out of his mind.

  * * *

  “I really enjoyed that,” Daphne said, as Evan drove them back to Happy Hearts after the concert was over. “And I appreciate you going with me. I would have gone on my own, but it was nice to have company.”

  “I enjoy spending time with you.”

  Though the words were appropriate, his tone sounded stiff, as if he wasn’t really focused on their conversation. And even as they chatted more during the drive, she couldn’t shake the feeling that his mind was somewhere else.

  When he pulled up in front of the house, he got out of his vehicle to walk her to the door, as he always did, but this time, he kept the engine running.

  “I made Christmas cookies today,” Daphne said. “If you wanted to come in for coffee and cookies?”

  She thought—hoped—he’d guess that her offer of “coffee and cookies” was an invitation to more, but whether he did or not, he shook his head.

  “Thanks, but I really need to get home.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she said, not just disappointed but a little concerned about his sudden distance.

  “But I’ll see you Friday,” he said, forcing a smile.

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Then he lowered his head to kiss her goodbye, an effort that seemed more perfunctory than passionate at first. But when he pulled her closer, some of his tension seemed to ease, and he kissed her until they were both breathless. And for just a second, when he looked into her eyes, she thought he might change his mind about the cookies—and other goodies—but he only said, “Good night, Daphne.”

  Then he was gone.

  And she was left standing on the porch, watching his taillights disappear into the darkness.

  “Well, that was weird,” she said.

  “Weirder than the fact that you live on a haunted farm and talk to ghosts?”

  So Alice was back.

  “Only one ghost,” she said.

  “Well, then, that’s not weird at all.”

  “You’re not being helpful.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alice said, this time sounding sincere. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Didn’t you see? He kissed me goodbye and then he just left.”

  “Ah, you wanted to be tangling the sheets with him again.”

  “How did you—no,” she decided. “I don’t want to know.”

  “I wasn’t peeking in the window while you were doing the deed,” the ghost assured her. “But I could tell, seeing the two of you together afterward, that there was a new closeness—a greater intimacy—between you.”

  “How could you tell?” she wondered, apparently having changed her mind about not wanting to know.

  “Your auras were pink.”

  “Is that a ghost skill—reading auras?”

  “It’s hardly specific to those who have passed, but it might be easier for us because we’re not so focused on the concrete details of here and now.”

  While Daphne had never really understood the whole aura thing, she’d been forced to open her mind in a lot of ways since taking up residence at the farm, leading her to ask, “So what does pink symbolize?”

  “Love. Happiness. Passion.”

  “What color was Evan’s aura tonight?”

  “He’s stressed. And confused. His aura is muddied right now.”

  “Is that my fault?” she asked worriedly. “Am I stressing him out?”

  “No, it’s not you. He’s just dealing with some things that he didn’t anticipate ever having to deal with. Otherworldly things.”

  “Oh, Alice. What have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” the spirit denied. “But he’s connected—whether he wants to be or not.”

  “How? Why?”

  “Because he’s the one you love, and he can bring back the one I love.”

  Chapter Eight

  He was an idiot.

  And a coward.

  After the concert Tuesday night, Evan had kissed Daphne at the door and walked away instead of taking her to bed and spending long, glorious hours making love with her again, as he really wanted to do. And then last night again, he’d declined her invitation to return after the tour.

  Why?

  Because he was an idiot and a coward.

  Because he was seriously starting to believe that her farm was haunted and he wanted no part of it.

  But he couldn’t deny that he
wanted Daphne.

  She was his first thought in the morning and his last thought at night, and even after only one night together, he couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone else.

  But were those feelings real? Or were they somehow tangled up with everything else that was going on? Because there was no longer any doubt in his mind that something else was going on.

  Ever since Daphne had mentioned that Alice Milton had a fiancé who’d died with her in the fire, he seemed to be getting caught up in the story, in their lives. And he had no interest in getting tangled up with a bunch of ghosts—especially when he knew that ghosts didn’t really exist.

  There was alive and there was dead and anything in between only existed in legends and books and movies.

  With that thought in mind, Evan turned his attention to the night ahead—and of course he thought of Daphne. He had no doubt that if he showed up at her door, she’d invite him to come in, but he’d decided it would be smarter to keep his distance from Happy Hearts for a few days. To give them both some space to figure things out.

  Or maybe he could invite her to come to his place. Maybe if they made love in his bed, in his definitely-not-haunted apartment, it would be easier to separate reality from the crazy dreams and visions that had been playing out in his head.

  He opted to try the space thing first and called his mom’s house instead.

  “How does pizza sound for dinner?” he asked when Grandma Daisy answered.

  “Delicious,” she said.

  “Pepperoni and mushrooms?”

  “And hot peppers.”

  “I’ll see you in half an hour,” he promised.

  Grandma Daisy had the table set for two when he arrived with the pizza box in hand thirty minutes later.

  “Isn’t Mom eating with us?”

  His grandmother shook her head. “She’s out.”

  He frowned at the succinct response. “But her car’s in the driveway.”

  She opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer. “Obviously she didn’t take her car.”

  “It’s kind of cold to be out walking.”