A Cowboy's Christmas Carol

by Brenda Harlen

  “Seriously, Van. Stop. Please.”

  “Why should I? You never listened when I begged you to stop telling me scary ghost stories when I was a kid.”

  “None of the stories I told you back then could be half as scary as hearing the words mother and naked together in the same sentence.”

  “You don’t think she’s entitled to have a life?” his sister challenged.

  “Of course she is,” he said, if not very convincingly.

  “Just not a sex life?” Vanessa guessed.

  He stopped pacing and banged his head against the wall.

  “Maybe it’s harder for you,” she acknowledged, “because you remember our dad. But I only ever remember Mom being alone, and I’m glad she isn’t anymore.”

  If she was trying to make him feel petty and ashamed, she’d succeeded. Because she was right—their mom had been alone for a long time, and Evan had never considered that she might be lonely.

  And if this Sean guy made her happy, then he should be happy for her. Unfortunately, that was probably going to take some effort on his part.

  “This has been going on since the summer?”

  “At least,” she confirmed.

  “So much for hoping that he’d be gone by Christmas,” he grumbled.

  “Because having to set another plate at the table would ruin the holiday, Ebenezer?”

  He frowned at that. “Are you implying that I’m a scrooge?”

  “To imply means to suggest without explicitly saying—I’m explicitly saying that you’re a scrooge.”

  “Thank you for the vocabulary lesson.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said primly.

  “Speaking of Christmas,” he said, because though it might not be his favorite time of the year, the topic was slightly more palatable than that of his mother’s sex life, “when are you coming home for the holidays?”

  “Classes finish on the eighteenth, so probably the nineteenth or the twentieth.”

  “Are you coming alone?”

  “Let me guess—Mom asked you to buy the turkey and you want to get a scrawny bird?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m only asking because you mentioned a boyfriend and maybe I’m interested in what’s going on in your life.”

  “It’s strictly casual,” Vanessa said. “And way too soon to even be thinking about introducing him to the family.”

  “Does this one at least have a job?”

  “Chaz was between jobs.”

  “For the whole six months that you dated him,” he pointed out.

  “At least I’ve had a relationship that lasted six months,” she said. “You’ve never stuck with a woman for longer than six weeks, and you haven’t had a relationship at all in—what has it been? Three years?”

  “Actually... I’ve been seeing someone for the past few weeks.”

  “A real-life human female?”

  Though he knew she was ribbing him, the wording of her question shifted his thoughts from Daphne to Alice, but there was no way he was going to mention a possible ghost to his sister.

  “Yes, a real-life human female,” he said now.

  “So why aren’t you with her tonight?” Vanessa asked.

  “I don’t have to see her every night,” he hedged.

  “And there it is,” she said, sounding a little sad.

  “There what is?”

  “A few weeks and already you’re pulling back. You always pull back when you start to get emotionally involved. Sex is fine, but God forbid you should actually let someone get close.”

  “I don’t pull back,” he said.

  “Every. Single. Time.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “And denial isn’t going to fix the problem.”

  He clamped his jaw shut, because telling her that there wasn’t a problem was more likely to be seen by his sister as proof of her point than an argument to change her mind.

  “You know it’s not your fault that he left, don’t you?” Vanessa asked, her tone surprisingly gentle now.

  “What?”

  “I thought that might be why you always leave first—so that you can’t be left behind, like we were when Dad walked out.”

  “Well, this conversation has gone way off track,” he decided.

  “Just think about it,” she said. “And maybe try to give this girl a real chance.”

  “I will,” he said, but it was a lie.

  He didn’t want to think about his father’s disappearance from their lives more than twenty years earlier.

  As for Daphne...well, even when he tried not to think about her, he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  Chapter Nine

  Operating an animal sanctuary entailed numerous and various responsibilities. Daphne loved interacting with the animals. She hated being stuck at her desk with paperwork, of which there was often a daunting amount. In addition to keeping daily records of supplies and expenditures, medication logs and behavioral charts, there were funding applications to complete and grant proposals to write in the hope that charitable organizations and government programs might decide to toss some of their money toward Happy Hearts.

  So when she finally completed a particularly onerous grant proposal Tuesday afternoon, she rolled the kinks out of her shoulders and decided to reward herself with some playtime in the adoption center.

  She’d just finished running Boo through the agility course when she saw a Jeep pull into the parking area beside the shelter. As she hooked a leash onto the dog’s collar, she saw a man get out of the driver’s seat, then open the back door for a passenger to exit the vehicle.

  The passenger, Daphne noted when they came around the front of the SUV, was a little girl wearing a pink coat, purple boots and two pigtails high on her head.

  “Hello, there,” Daphne said, meeting them en route to the entrance.

  The little girl spoke first, looking at the German shepherd with wide, curious eyes. “That’s a big dog.”

  “His name is Boo,” Daphne said.

  “That’s a funny name,” the girl said. “Mine’s Fiona.”

  “And I’m her dad, Rick Howard,” the man said.

  “Welcome to Happy Hearts. Is this your first visit?”

  Rick nodded. “Fee discovered your website when she was doing research for a project at school,” he explained. “Since then, she’s been checking it every day to see the dogs and cats—and begging to visit.”

  “And get a puppy,” Fiona said, since her dad had left out that very important detail.

  “Our dogs and cats are always happy to have visitors,” Daphne said. “But I’ll warn you, some of the dogs get really excited when they see new people, and when they bark it gets pretty loud.”

  The little girl nodded her head in understanding. “I have a little sister, she gets pretty loud, too.”

  Daphne chuckled. “Well, then, come on in and take a look around.”

  While the man and his daughter wandered, Daphne gave Boo a treat and returned him to his enclosure.

  A few minutes later, Rick and Fiona tracked her down again.

  “I can’t find the puppies,” the little girl said, sounding distraught. “Where are Barney, Betty, Dino, Fred, Pebbles and Wilma?”

  “You memorized all their names?” Daphne was impressed.

  “I told you,” her dad said, with a wry smile. “She’s been on the website every day.”

  Which likely explained why she’d recited them in alphabetical order.

  “Where are they?” Fiona asked again.

  “The puppies were really small when they came to us,” Daphne said. “So they’ve been living with a foster family and they’ll stay there until they’re ready to be adopted.”

  “When will that be?” the girl asked impatiently.

  �
��The first week of January.”

  “But that’s not until after Christmas, and I really want a puppy for Christmas.” Fiona’s tone was imploring.

  “Everyone wants a puppy,” her dad said. “But puppies are a lot of work. They have to be housebroken and—”

  The little girl’s eyes went wide. “I don’t want our house to be broken.”

  He chuckled. “It’s an expression, Fee. It means that they need to be taught to go to the bathroom outside. And to help them learn, you’d have to go outside with them, whether it’s raining or snowing, early in the morning or late at night—”

  “Even in the dark?” she asked worriedly.

  “Even in the dark,” he confirmed.

  “Maybe we could teach a puppy to go to the bathroom in the bathroom,” she suggested as an alternative.

  “If you taught a puppy to go to the bathroom in the bathroom, then he’d want to eat at the dinner table. And if you let him eat at the dinner table, then he’d want to help make dinner. And if you let him help make dinner...” He let his words trail off when she giggled.

  “You’re silly, Daddy. That stuff only happens if you give a mouse a cookie,” she said.

  “Or a pig a pancake,” he pointed out. “Or a moose a muffin.”

  “I still want a puppy,” she said, unwilling to be deterred from her goal.

  Daphne flagged down Samantha, who was passing through, and whispered a request for the volunteer to bring out one of the smaller dogs.

  Then, taking pity on the girl’s obviously wavering father, she said, “Actually, none of our dogs or cats is available for adoption right now.”

  “How come?” Fiona asked.

  “Because it’s too close to the holidays.”

  “And Santa might not know where to bring their presents if they go to a new home?” the child guessed.

  She couldn’t help but smile. “Something like that.”

  “And probably because too many pets that were taken home for the holidays were brought back after, when the excitement of having a new pet wore off and the responsibility got real,” Rick surmised. “And that would make those dogs and cats really sad.”

  “That, too,” Daphne agreed, grateful that the child’s father had understood it wasn’t an arbitrary policy but one in the best interests of the animals.

  “My brother’s a vet in Bozeman,” he said. “He volunteers at his local SPCA and is very firmly in the ‘adopt, don’t shop’ camp.”

  “A vet in the family is lucky,” she said. “Caring for a pet can get expensive.”

  “If we got a puppy, we’d never bring her back,” Fee promised. “Except maybe to visit her brothers and sisters, if they were still here.”

  “We’re always happy to have pets come back to visit,” Daphne said. Then, when Samantha returned with an adorable little dog on a pink rhinestone-studded leash, she asked, “Have you met Penny?”

  Fiona dropped to her knees for a closer look at the dog. “Look, Daddy! A puppy!”

  Samantha unhooked Penny’s leash, then pulled a small ball out of her pocket and rolled it across the floor. Penny immediately gave chase, pounced on the ball, then returned to drop it at the volunteer’s feet.

  “She’s actually five years old,” Daphne told the dad, who was watching his little girl play with the dog. “But she thinks of herself as a puppy.”

  “I don’t remember seeing her on the website,” Rick said.

  “She just came in two days ago,” she explained. “Her owner died suddenly, and we wanted to make sure no family members wanted to take custody of Penny before we advertised her availability, but her information is going online tomorrow—unless someone happened to put in an adoption application before then.”

  “What kind of dog is she?”

  “A Shih Tzu–poodle cross, otherwise known as a Shih-Poo. She’s fully grown, requires only moderate exercise and loves lots of attention.”

  “But she can’t go home with anyone until after the New Year?”

  “There are exceptions to every rule,” Daphne said. “If your brother the vet is willing to vouch for you, I might be willing to make an exception.”

  Rick continued to watch Fiona, obviously already head over heels in love with the little dog, and sighed. “We only came in today for a visit.”

  “And that’s okay, too. If you need more time—and you should definitely make sure your wife is on board before you make any final decisions—by all means, take that time.”

  “My wife sent me over here with our daughter knowing that I have a hard time saying no to her, so I know she wants a dog as much as Fee does.”

  The little girl’s giggle had him sighing again.

  “If my application is approved, can I come back to pick her up on Christmas Eve?”

  “We don’t really have the facilities to take care of children.”

  He chuckled. “I was referring to the dog.”

  She smiled. “Let’s get the paperwork started.”

  * * *

  Evan had no intention of taking relationship advice from his sister, and when he headed over to Happy Hearts Tuesday afternoon, it wasn’t because Vanessa had told him to give Daphne a chance—it was simply because he wanted to see her.

  “You look happy about something,” he said when he encountered Daphne on the path leading from the adoption shelter to the main barn a few minutes later, Barkley trotting along beside her.

  “It was a good day—and it just got better.” She kissed him lightly. “Did we have plans tonight?”

  “No,” he said, patting the dog’s head to acknowledge him, too. “But I was hoping we could make some.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He followed her into the barn. “We could start with dinner,” he said. “I’ll even let you pick the restaurant this time.”

  She smiled at that as she made her way down the center aisle, greeting each of the animals by name. “A tempting offer.”

  “But not a yes,” he noted.

  She began preparing a bottle for the baby goat. “Because I’ve got chili in the slow cooker in the house.”

  “I like chili,” he said.

  She offered him the bottle. “You feed Billie while I take care of the rest of the animals, and then I’ll feed you.”

  They made quick work of the chores, then closed up the barn. Barkley raced ahead of them to the house, obviously eager for his dinner. They hurried to follow, eager to get out of the cold, their breaths puffing out in clouds and the snow crunching beneath their boots.

  “At times like this, I wish I lived in Florida,” Daphne confided as she stomped her feet on the porch.

  “I’d rather deal with the cold and snow than gators,” Evan remarked.

  “You might have a point there,” she said, hanging her coat.

  “Mmm...it smells good,” he said as he followed her into the kitchen.

  “Almost like real chili, you mean?” she teased.

  “Almost,” he agreed.

  She gave Barkley kibble and fresh water, then washed her hands before filling two bowls from the slow cooker and setting them on the table. He washed his hands, too, and took a seat across from her at the table.

  “You haven’t been in touch much over the past few days,” she said, her tone deliberately casual as she buttered a slice of crusty bread. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ve just been busy working on a research project.”

  “What are you researching?”

  “The fire at Whispering Willows.”

  She dipped her spoon into her bowl, a slight furrow creasing her brow. “Any particular reason?”

  “I’ve been wondering about something you said.” He lifted his own spoon to blow on the chili. “About how Alice’s fiancé died with her in the fire, because in all the research
I’ve done, I can’t find any mention of him.”

  “Well, I must have read it somewhere,” she said.

  “But you don’t remember where?” he pressed.

  She shook her head. “Sorry. I do have a folder of old newspaper clippings about the fire—research I did before I bought the property. You’re welcome to look through it if you want.”

  “I might do that,” he said. “I did manage to dig up a copy of the fire marshal’s official report, but it only mentioned human remains later identified to be those of Alice Milton. There was no mention of anyone else.”

  She shrugged. “So maybe I was wrong.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  And, having done a little more digging into the matter, neither did he. He planned on telling Daphne what he’d learned, of course, but first he wanted to know what she knew—and how she knew it.

  “Why all the questions?” she asked, sounding more defensive than curious. “Are you planning to change the narrative for your tour?”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with the tour.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  He hesitated. “I’ve been having some strange dreams recently...since the night I stayed here, in fact.”

  She pushed away from the table and rose to her feet, apparently needing some time to process this revelation. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “I’ll have a glass of water,” he said, since that was what she was already pouring for herself.

  “What’s strange about your dreams?” she finally asked, returning to the table with the two glasses.

  “For starters, I’m not me in the dreams... I’m Russell Kincaid.”

  “Who’s...oh.” Her hand shook slightly as she lifted her glass to her lips.

  “You know who he is?”

  Daphne nodded and set down her drink to pick up her spoon again. “He’s the man Alice Milton was in love with.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she warned, swirling the utensil around in her bowl.

  “Try me,” he suggested.

  She drew in a slow breath, as if to brace herself before lifting her gaze to look him in the eye. “Alice told me.”