A Cowboy's Christmas Carol

by Brenda Harlen

  “I’ll let you know,” he promised, sliding his hands under her sweater. “And by the way, I’m feeling much better now.”

  “I don’t think that’s what you’re feeling,” she said, even as her blood began to heat from his touch. She tried to refocus on the subject at hand. “Are you sure you feel up to taking a road trip with your whole family?”

  “The idea should be enough to give me a headache,” he acknowledged. “But Snowy Mountain is just north of town—hardly a road trip.”

  “How is your grandmother handling all of this?”

  “Are you trying to kill the mood?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, pushing his hands out from under her top. “The doctor said no physical activity, remember?”

  “How can I forget when you keep reminding me every five minutes?”

  “You can’t know how terrifying it was for me to see you lying in that hospital bed, so pale and motionless, not knowing if or when you were going to wake up.”

  “I don’t think my life was ever hanging in the balance,” he said. “But I guess I can imagine how you felt, because I know how I would feel if our situations had been reversed.”

  “So let me take care of you,” she said, and touched her lips lightly to his. “Please.”

  “I’d have to be an idiot to refuse such an offer,” he decided. “And since I’ve vowed to do my best to not be an idiot anymore, I’ll let you take care of me.”

  “Thank you.” She slid off his lap and onto the chair adjacent to him. “Now tell me how your grandmother’s doing.”

  “My mom says she’s taking some time to let it sink in. At this point, it’s still a lot of speculation. Her feelings might change if the situation changes.”

  “That makes sense,” Daphne agreed.

  “I want to be there for Grandma Daisy,” he said. “But if you really don’t think I should go to Snowy Mountain, I won’t.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said. But she also appreciated that there was a special bond between Evan and his grandmother, and she didn’t want to get in the way of him supporting her. “And while I’d prefer to have you here, I trust that your mother is up to the task of watching over you for a few hours.”

  “On second thought,” he said.

  She was smiling as she rose to her feet and held out her hand to him. “Come on—let’s go up to bed.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “To sleep,” Daphne clarified.

  He sighed. “That doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun as what I had in mind.”

  “I have no doubt, but you’re not allowed to perform any physically demanding tasks for at least forty-eight hours after your headache goes away.”

  “So I’ll just lie there and let you do all the work,” he said with a wink.

  She laughed. “I’m happy to know that you’re feeling better, but we’re still not having sex tonight.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure you’re up to making the trip?” Wanda asked, when Evan climbed into her minivan Saturday morning.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, settling beside his grandmother and fastening his seat belt.

  “How’s your head today?” Dorothea asked, confident that he wouldn’t evade a direct question so easily.

  “You mean other than as hard as a rock?” Vanessa chimed in from the front passenger seat.

  Dorothea’s lips twitched, but she didn’t shift her gaze away from her grandson.

  “It’s better,” he said.

  Which didn’t tell her a whole lot, but she had to figure he was old enough to be responsible for his own decisions. And, truthfully, she was grateful he was there. She was grateful to all of them for making the trip with her.

  “How’s your head?” Evan asked, reaching for her hand.

  “Spinning,” she admitted.

  “I’m not sure what this trip to see Josiah Abernathy is going to accomplish,” Wanda spoke up from the driver’s seat as they got underway. “His great-grandson said that he’s lost his ability to verbally communicate and rarely shows any reaction to anything.”

  “I was there for the conversation,” Dorothea reminded her. “You might think I’m old but my ears still work, and even if it turns out that dementia runs in my family, I’ve still got my faculties about me right now.”

  Vanessa swiveled in her seat to look at her grandmother. “It’s a good sign that you can joke about this.”

  Dorothea shrugged. “There are so many thoughts going through my head right now—” so many feelings warring inside her heart “—if I didn’t have a sense of humor, I’d probably lose my mind.”

  Wanda nodded. “I can understand that. It all seems so unreal, and yet, I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I ever found out that you weren’t my real mother.”

  “You’ve got no worries there,” Dorothea assured her. “I carried you for nine months and labored for nine hours, and I’ve got the stretch marks to prove it.”

  “You were in labor for only nine hours?” Wanda was stunned.

  “It still wasn’t a picnic.”

  “I was nineteen hours with Evan and twenty-six with Vanessa, because—” Wanda glanced at her daughter “—apparently you didn’t get the memo that second labors are supposed to be shorter.”

  “Maybe there was a mix-up with the message delivery system,” Vanessa said.

  “Or maybe you’ve always taken your sweet time to do anything,” Evan suggested.

  His sister responded by sticking her tongue out at him.

  “Mom, Vanessa stuck her tongue out at me.”

  “Mom, Evan’s being a tattletale.”

  Wanda just shook her head. “If you two don’t stop bickering, I’m going to pull over and—”

  “Look,” Dorothea said, interrupting their playful banter. “We’re here.”

  * * *

  Snowy Mountain was a residential facility located north of Bronco Heights that offered a full range of services, from independent living to end-of-life care. Josiah Abernathy lived in Snowy Mountain West, a wing of the complex devoted to seniors with varying degrees of dementia or Alzheimer’s. It was a big, open building, easy to get around in, and in which the man believed to be Dorothea’s biological father got round-the-clock care.

  Gabe had offered to meet them at Snowy Mountain, but Dorothea had declined. They checked in with Becky, the charge nurse on duty when they arrived, and she led them to a spacious corner room with lots of windows looking into a courtyard filled with trees and wrought-iron benches and even a gazebo. Of course, everything was covered in snow now, but Dorothea imagined the area was scenic and peaceful in the summer.

  “Josiah’s just finishing up his lunch,” Becky said. “I’ll bring him in as soon as he’s done.”

  “Thank you,” Dorothea said.

  The room was simply furnished, with a nightstand beside the hospital bed, a built-in wardrobe on the opposite wall, a tall dresser with a few knickknacks and a couple of chairs for visitors.

  “There are a lot of pictures,” Vanessa noted, moving closer to peruse the framed photos on the wall.

  “Pictures are important to help trigger memories,” Wanda said, looking at the arrangement over her daughter’s shoulder. She sucked in a breath. “It’s him.”

  Dorothea had realized the same thing, but instead of being shocked, she felt...relieved and reassured that some of the pieces were finally starting to come together.

  “You mean Josiah?” Vanessa asked.

  Wanda nodded.

  “That’s not really surprising, is it? Of course he’d be in the pictures that are hanging in his room.”

  Evan remained silent, looking at his grandmother while everyone else was looking at the photos.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Wanda said. Then, to Dorothea, “Show her.”
>
  She pulled her sketchbook out of her ever-present tote bag and handed it over to her granddaughter.

  Evan took a step closer, studying the sketches as Vanessa thumbed through the pages.

  “Okay, that’s a little...unnerving,” Vanessa said.

  “It’s not unnerving,” Wanda, always practical, denied. “It simply proves that Grandma Daisy knew Josiah Abernathy at some point in her past.”

  “But why was she only recently sketching pictures of him?” Evan spoke up now, asking the question that everyone was wondering about.

  “Obviously something happened to stir up her memories.”

  Dorothea didn’t think anything was obvious, but she found some comfort in looking at the array of photos on the wall.

  “He lived a full life,” she noted. “He got married, had a few children, then grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

  “Children who might be your siblings,” Evan realized.

  She nodded as Becky returned, pushing a wheelchair ahead of her. Vanessa closed the sketchbook and slid it back into her grandmother’s bag.

  “Look, Josiah. You’ve got lots of company today,” the nurse said, positioning the chair so the old man’s back was to the window and setting the brake. To his visitors she said, “This is Josiah Abernathy. He’s not much of a conversationalist these days, but I know he’s happy to see you.”

  Then she left them alone to visit and went back to her duties.

  Dorothea lowered herself into the chair closest to Josiah and searched his face.

  “Do you remember him at all?” Evan asked her gently.

  “My memories are little more than vague impressions... I remember his eyes were kind, and he smiled easily.” But she still wasn’t 100 percent certain that the man she remembered was the one sitting in front of her now. Or maybe she was afraid to believe. “And I liked when he sang...”

  “What did he sing?”

  “‘Bicycle Built for Two.’” She leaned in closer to the old man. “Was it you who used to sing to me, Josiah? Do you remember the song?”

  He continued to stare straight ahead, giving no outward indication that he heard her or even knew she was there.

  And Dorothea couldn’t help but feel frustrated, wondering why the man’s family had reached out, wanting to find Josiah’s long-lost illegitimate child when he clearly had no interest or awareness.

  “Mom?” Wanda touched a hand to her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She swallowed around the lump in her throat and nodded. And then she quietly began to sing:

  “‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.’”

  Josiah’s head turned then, and he looked at Dorothea. “Beatrix?”

  Though his voice wavered, the name was unmistakable.

  “I’m Dorothea,” she said, and reached out to take Josiah’s hand, surprised when he grasped hers with unexpected strength. “But most people call me Daisy.” And she wondered now if the nickname had come from the song that someone—perhaps this man—used to sing to her.

  He didn’t say anything else, but held her gaze for a long moment, his eyes surprisingly clear.

  “This was a waste of time,” Evan said. “Obviously he thinks you’re someone else.”

  “No.” The response came from a petite blond-haired, blue-eyed woman standing in the doorway. “He knows exactly who she is. Beatrix is the name he intended to give his daughter, before he was forced to give her up for adoption.”

  “Who are you?” Evan demanded.

  “Melanie Driscoll.” She took a few steps into the room and addressed her next question to Dorothea. “Are you his Beatrix?”

  “I’m... Dorothea,” she said again. “Dorothea McGowan, formerly Hollister.”

  “I’m Gabe Abernathy’s fiancée. He told me that you were planning to stop by to see Josiah, and I was hoping I’d have the chance to meet you. I’m the one who found the letter.”

  “What letter?” Evan asked.

  “It’s a long story,” she said. “Why don’t we go out to the lounge where we can all sit down and talk?”

  They let Becky know where they were going and that they were taking Josiah with them, and when they were all settled with drinks and snacks from the little coffee shop, Dorothea reached into the side pocket of her tote bag for her flask.

  Wanda sighed. “Really, Mother?”

  “I think I’m going to need it,” she said, tipping the flask over her mug to add a splash of Irish whiskey to her coffee, then she held it up. “Anyone else?”

  Melanie pushed her mug forward. “Just a drop,” she said.

  Dorothea obliged.

  As she went to put the flask back in its usual spot in her bag, Melanie spotted the sketchbook sticking out of the top. “Are you an artist?”

  “I doodle,” Dorothea said, never sure how to answer that question without sounding immodest. Because while she’d had some success illustrating a series of children’s books, she’d never really aspired to do anything more than that. She liked to draw; it was both a pleasure and a passion, but it was never a vocation.

  “Can I take a peek?” Melanie asked.

  Dorothea handed her the book.

  “I’d say you do more than doodle,” Melanie said as she began to turn the pages. “And now I know why your name sounded so familiar—you did the Messy Marsha books.”

  “Only the illustrations,” Dorothea said.

  “I loved those books when I was a kid, although my mom always said they should have been Messy Melanie books.”

  “No doubt that’s why the books did so well—the themes were universal.”

  Melanie turned the next page, and paused on the drawing of a man that Dorothea now knew was Josiah. “When did you sketch this?”

  “The date should be on the bottom.”

  “June,” she said. “You drew this six months ago. But...how?”

  “I don’t know,” Dorothea said. “I guess there must have been some memories of him, locked in the back of my mind. Why they were suddenly unlocked... I couldn’t say.”

  She turned another few pages, then gasped. “This is a picture of Winona Cobbs.”

  “That’s who it is,” Wanda said.

  “You know Winona?” Melanie asked, surprised.

  “I don’t know her, but she used to write a syndicated advice column, ‘Wisdom by Winona,’ and there was always a thumbnail photo of her in the corner.”

  “This just keeps getting stranger and stranger,” Vanessa murmured, reaching into her grandmother’s bag for the flask.

  “And we’re not done yet,” Melanie warned, speaking to Dorothea. “If Josiah is your father, and all the evidence seems to support that supposition, then Winona is your mother.”

  While she was processing this new revelation, the young woman folded back the cover to reveal the sketch of the log home that Wanda had asked her about only a week earlier. “Have you ever seen this house, Dorothea?”

  “I don’t think so,” she admitted.

  “It’s the Ambling A,” Melanie said.

  Evan shook his head. “That doesn’t look anything like the Abernathy ranch.”

  “Not their house in Bronco,” she agreed. “But there’s another Ambling A in Rust Creek Falls.”

  “But... I’ve never been to Rust Creek Falls,” Dorothea said, almost certain of it.

  “I’d be happy to take you,” Melanie said.

  “Wait a minute,” Evan said, reaching across the table for the sketchbook. He closed the cover and slid it back in Dorothea’s bag. “My grandmother isn’t going anywhere with you.”

  Dorothea rankled. “Your grandmother will go where she wants with whomever she wants.”

  He nodded an acknowledgment, duly chastened.

  “I apologize for sounding pushy
,” Melanie said. “But Winona lives in Rust Creek Falls, just down the road from my parents. I’ve gotten to know her quite well in recent years, and I know it would mean the world to her to finally meet the baby she thought had died at birth.”

  “Why would she think her baby died?” Wanda wanted to know.

  “Because that’s what they told her when they took the baby away,” Melanie explained. “When we started the search for her missing child, I wanted to tell her what we were doing, but I was worried about getting her hopes up and then disappointing her if the search was unsuccessful.”

  “And you still don’t know if it was or wasn’t,” Evan said.

  “We can do a DNA test—with your consent, of course,” Melanie said to Dorothea. “But I think we all know what the result will be.”

  “Why wouldn’t Josiah have told Winona that their baby was alive?” Wanda wondered aloud.

  “Obviously he wanted to, because he wrote the letter,” Melanie said. “But my guess is that when he went back to Rust Creek Falls to deliver it, he couldn’t find her, and that’s why he ended up hiding the letter in his old diary under the floorboards at the Ambling A.”

  “I’m still wondering...why the parents who raised me wouldn’t have told me that I was adopted,” Dorothea said.

  “Unfortunately, the only ones who can answer that question aren’t here to do so,” Wanda reminded her gently.

  “But it’s not so surprising really,” Melanie said. “Seventy-five years ago, closed adoptions were the norm rather than the exception. Which makes it even more incredible that Josiah was somehow able to locate the child he called ‘Beatrix’ and even enjoy occasional visits with her—sorry, with you—during the first few years of your life.”

  “Do you know when or why the visits stopped?” Vanessa asked.

  Melanie shook her head. “I can only speculate, because Josiah hasn’t been able to confirm or deny anything, but my guess is that maybe the adoptive parents worried that Dorothea was getting too attached to him—or vice versa.

  “It’s also possible that they didn’t know Josiah was her biological father but as she grew, they started to see a familial resemblance, and because they wanted to keep the circumstances of her birth a secret, they asked him to stay away.