A Cowboy Christmas Miracle (Burnt Boot, Texas Book 4)

by Carolyn Brown

  Betsy kept slathering bread with mustard.

  “Well?” Naomi said impatiently.

  “What’s the real reason? You know I can do the work even if I’d rather be outside as opposed to cooped up in an office. So be honest with me and stop all this nonsense, Granny.”

  Naomi stirred the chicken soup and pursed her mouth into a tight, little pucker. “Something’s not right with you. It started right before Thanksgiving. I think you are seeing someone on the sly.”

  The mayonnaise jar slipped and Betsy had to do some fancy juggling to catch it before it hit the floor. “Why do you keep badgering me about that? You might have babies and marriage on the brain when it comes to my life, but believe me, you are the only one.”

  “Angela’s brother, John, will be here Thursday and staying through Monday. He’s coming to preach for Kyle and he’ll be staying here at Wild Horse,” Naomi said.

  “I thought he was a vet.”

  “He is, but he’s also a lay preacher. So he’s a good man who knows his way around a ranch,” Naomi said.

  “Well, ain’t that nice. I’ll take him to the bar and introduce him around on Friday night,” Betsy said in a sugary-sweet tone.

  Naomi’s head jerked around so fast that Betsy heard the neck bones pop. “You will not do any such crazy thing. He’s a fine young man, and you are going to a youth revival meeting with him on Friday night over in Saint Jo.”

  “Not me. I’ve got plans Friday. Make Tyrell go with him. He’s the one who let himself get caught and messed up Christmas.”

  “John is not gay!” Naomi snorted.

  “I know that. I met him at Angela and Jody’s wedding. Didn’t impress me then and won’t now,” Betsy said.

  Naomi’s beady little eyes narrowed into slits and the wrinkles on her forehead deepened. “You will do what I say.”

  “Or what? You’ll throw me off Wild Horse like Mavis did Leah?”

  “No, but you will forfeit your room here in this house and your place. I expect Jody and Angela can run this ranch together and you can go on back to working on your Daddy’s place.” Naomi’s voice was almost a hiss.

  “That can be arranged right now. Hey, Tyrell,” she yelled.

  Heavy boots on hardwood preceded him into the kitchen. “Dinnertime?”

  “Not quite, but you got any extra boxes out there? I can put my stuff in my truck, but I’ll need a few boxes to pack up some of it. I’ll take my sandwich up to my room and pack while I eat. Granny, you reckon I could have the place that Jody and Angela are moving out of?”

  “Not unless you do what I tell you,” Naomi said.

  “Granny?” Tyrell asked.

  “If she can’t follow orders, then she should get out of my house,” Naomi said.

  “What’s going on? Is dinner ready? I’m starving.” Tanner joined them.

  “No, dinner is not ready, but you know how to make sandwiches, so here’s the mayo knife. The mustard one is over there on a saucer. I’m not the fair-haired child anymore. I’m moving back home to Daddy’s place until I can either get a trailer brought in or build my own house.” Betsy picked up two sandwiches and carried them with her.

  “And she won’t get a dime of my money to do either one.”

  “Didn’t ask, Granny. I do have my own herd and my own money,” Betsy said.

  * * *

  Tanner’s blood ran cold in his veins when he walked into the tense kitchen that day. Someone had found out about the bet, and now there was a war within the family. He’d be the next one exiled from the big house and possibly off the ranch.

  He should have called it off the moment that Betsy had walked through the door, but he hadn’t thought for a minute that she’d give Declan Brennan a chance—not when she was in the direct lineage to run the whole shit and caboodle called Wild Horse.

  “Why?” he asked cautiously.

  “I’ve got to go to a rotten old revival with Angela’s brother, John, or else. Granny’s ultimatum,” she said.

  “She will obey me,” Naomi said.

  Tanner nervously raked his fingers through his blond hair. “Why won’t you go, Betsy? It’s just one evening, and I like him. He can talk ranchin’ for hours.”

  Betsy turned around at the kitchen door and asked Naomi, “Am I still welcome at Sunday dinner?”

  Naomi slapped the cabinet so hard that the mustard and mayonnaise jars rattled against each other. “When you apologize for your insolence, then we’ll talk about it.”

  “How about church? Do I still get to sit with the Gallaghers, or are you throwing me over into the Brennan camp?”

  “One more smart word, and I’ll put you off Wild Horse quicker than Mavis got rid of Leah. And I mean permanently, not just until you come to your senses and listen to reason. I mean the whole ranch, smarty-pants.” Naomi’s hand shook as it snapped up to point toward the door. “Think about that while you pack.”

  Betsy gave Tanner a look that sent cold chills down his back. This all started after the poker game. That’s when his cousin started acting weird and that look she gave him said that she knew something. He was still standing upright and breathing, so she hadn’t found out about the bet. Still, something wasn’t right with Betsy, and Tanner didn’t need a compass pointing him in the direction of River Bend to know that Declan figured into it. What if Declan had talked her into a date or two and she really was falling in love with him?

  Tanner threw an arm around Naomi’s shoulders. “Granny, cut her some slack. The whole reason you’re moving Jody and his family in here is to make her see how great it’d be to have a husband and a baby. She’s not going to do that if she’s not living here.”

  Tyrell joined him in the kitchen. “And you know how wild she is. She’s liable to do something crazy if you don’t have her close by. That’s why you moved her into the big house after that happened with Leah over on River Bend anyway, wasn’t it?”

  Naomi shrugged Tanner’s arm away. “She needs to learn to follow rules. She’s had a taste of the good life. Now she can think about that. I’m reasonable. When she comes back and apologizes, then I’ll take her back into my good graces.”

  Tanner’s mouth went dry. Betsy, apologize? World peace would be easier to accomplish.

  * * *

  Betsy sat down on the overstuffed love seat facing the window in her huge bedroom. The one she’d be moving into wasn’t half as big, and her daddy was going to be furious with her for upsetting Naomi when she still wasn’t over the Santa Claus stunt. Maybe they should combine all the battles of the past year and call this one the Christmas pig shit war.

  It was a good thing she didn’t know Declan’s phone number, or she would have called him. She might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, and she did want to talk to him. His sister had handled exile with so much grace, but then Leah Brennan had always been a lady, something Betsy had never been in her whole life.

  Before she finished eating and began to pack, she decided she was not going to her parent’s house, at least not right away. She threw her clothing into a suitcase until it was full and then peered downstairs. There were no boxes at the bottom, so evidently Granny had told her cousins they couldn’t even help with that much. She stormed down to the kitchen, gathered up an armful of plastic grocery sacks from the pantry, and stomped back through the dining room and foyer. A few boxes or lack of them would not stop her from plowing full speed ahead with her plan.

  It took several trips, but not a single big, strong cowboy relative so much as opened a door for her. That was just fine. Paybacks could be painful. She was on her way to Gainesville when her phone rang.

  She answered it on the fourth ring. “Yes, Mama?”

  “You’ve had enough time to get home. Where are you?”

  “On my way to the school.”

  “What for?” her mother, Willa, asked.
>
  “Give me that phone.” Betsy heard her father, Henry’s, voice.

  “In a minute,” Willa said. “Why are you going to the school?”

  “To talk to Leah O’Donnell about renting their bunkhouse and leasing some of their land to put my cows on,” Betsy said.

  “I guess you’d best talk to your father.” Willa repeated what Betsy had said as she handed off the phone.

  “I told you living with your grandmother would never work. You need to come home, not move off Wild Horse. That won’t help, and it’ll just make things worse,” Henry told her.

  She braked and came to a stop in the bar parking lot. “Right now, I don’t care if it makes things worse. I’m near thirty years old, and this is ridiculous. I don’t want to go out with Angela’s brother.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t either. Mother had no right to do that to you,” Henry said.

  Betsy’s anger began to cool down. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “And until you are welcome in the big house, then your mother and I won’t be going to Sunday dinner either. Your grandmother has gone too far this time.”

  “You don’t have to do that. This is my fight,” Betsy said.

  “No, this time it’s our fight. I’ll help you unload your things. Your mother is putting fresh sheets on your bed. She’s missed you being here.”

  “Granny made me so mad when she told me I had a year to get married and then started pushing John at me,” Betsy said.

  “Come on home and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Okay, but I think it’s time for me to start looking for my own place,” she said.

  “We’ll talk about that too.”

  Chapter 12

  Declan arrived at the storage unit before Betsy, so he unloaded his stuff and wrote down the names of all the people who had donated on the slip of paper on his side of the big room. With its high ceilings and big floor space, the place would most likely still look empty when Kyle came to take everything away.

  It was cold as an Alaskan well-digger’s belt buckle outside, and inside wasn’t a bit warmer. He sat down in one of the office chairs and drew his coat closer to his chest. Where was that global warming when a person needed it? He could remember playing football with his cousins on Christmas day when they were kids, but the past couple of years had been bad winters, and it looked like they were in for another one.

  He heard the crunch of gravel and then a door slam. She was carrying two boxes that didn’t appear to be heavy, but they were tall enough she could barely see over them.

  “Need some help?” he called out.

  “Open the door?” she yelled. “I know you’re here because I saw your truck.”

  “Yes, I’m here. I’m holding the door for you so the wind won’t whip it shut. You’d best pull around to the end, and we’ll open the garage door to get that shed thing inside. Who helped you load it?”

  “Daddy did,” she said.

  “Did you tell him what we’re doing?” Declan asked.

  “Nope, told him it was a secret for the church that I was undertaking and that Elijah O’Riley had made it for me. Daddy might have an idea what’s happening, but I did not let the cat out of the bag,” she answered. “And Mama donated those two boxes of cedar garland. She used to string it around the windows, but here lately she’s just been using tinsel.”

  Together they got everything situated on the right side of the duct-tape line, closed both doors, and plopped down into the office chairs.

  “Want to talk about what happened at Wild Horse?” he asked.

  “I lost my place because I wouldn’t go out with Angela’s brother, John. It’s no big deal.”

  “And you’re back in the house with your folks?”

  “Temporarily. I’m looking for a place of my own that is not connected to Wild Horse. There’re a couple of small ranches for sale between us and Gainesville that I’m going to take a look at after the holidays. One has a house on it, but it’s small. The other is just land, so I’d have to build or move a trailer onto the place.”

  Declan knew exactly which two places Betsy was talking about. He’d looked at both of them with the same idea. The one without a house butted up next to Finn and Callie’s ranch on the south. The other was another three miles down the road, and the white frame house was in need of a paint job and a new roof.

  “I thought you Gallaghers were only interested in buying land connected to what you’ve got,” he said.

  “Like the Brennans, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Maybe if a few of us disconnect from the ranch, then…”

  “You dream big, don’t you?” He smiled. “Let’s go to my truck. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  She smiled back at him, their gazes catching in the space separating the two chairs. “I do like surprises, like the note in my seat yesterday morning.”

  “We have to improvise, since the can is only available on Thursday.” He stood up and extended a hand.

  She put hers in it.

  He pulled her to his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I’m sorry you’ve had a rough time. With all the rumors flying around, I didn’t know what to believe.”

  She leaned back and looked up into his eyes. “Thank you, Declan. It is what it is, and really, it wasn’t a big deal. Daddy told me when I moved into the big house that Granny and I were too much alike to live together. I should have listened.”

  The way her green eyes looked right then, kind of sad and yet excited at the same time, seemed a lot more important than a bunch of words. Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips, and her eyes fluttered shut as he leaned forward. Then, his mouth was on hers, and they were in a vacuum, with no outside world, people, or feud to disturb them.

  Her arms went from his chest to around his neck, one hand splayed out in his hair, holding his head steady. His rough hands left her soft cheeks and roamed down her back, clasping her closer and closer until he could feel her racing heart keeping time with his. Good! That meant she was as affected by his touch and kiss as much as he was by hers.

  * * *

  Betsy melted into the kiss, forgetting who she was and who Declan was. At that moment, she didn’t care about anything but putting out the fire that he was building with his fiery kisses. Her body wanted more and more. Her brain was screaming at her to take a step back, but she turned down the volume and ignored it.

  Finally, Declan pulled away and brushed a soft kiss on her forehead. “My surprise won’t keep forever.”

  Lucifer’s nightmare! She wasn’t interested in a surprise. She wanted more kisses and a bout of hot sex on the concrete floor.

  Holy damnation, woman! What are you thinking? To leave Wild Horse and buy your own place is one thing; to have sex with Declan is taking it a step too far. It was Tanner’s deep drawl in her head that jerked her back to reality.

  Declan laced his fingers in hers and headed outside, turning out the overhead light and locking the door behind them. “I really was worried about you today.”

  “The rumors must be horrible.” Her voice was still breathless from making out.

  “The best one is that you’ve been seeing another O’Donnell and that he’s ten times worse than Rhett. They say you met him at one of those big O’Donnell affairs, like Thanksgiving or their end-of-summer picnic, and it’s all been on the sly. Naomi says she won’t even be shirttail related to the Brennans.”

  “What?” Betsy stopped.

  “Leah Brennan married Rhett O’Donnell. If you marry his cousin, then you’d be kin to the Brennans, right?”

  A grin twitched the corners of her mouth. “If that is the worst rumor in the basket, I could blow them away with the truth. Hey, would you believe that Betsy Gallagher has been kissing Declan Brennan? My grandmother would drop graveyard dead of acute cardiac arrest and so would
Mavis Brennan.”

  Declan settled her into the passenger seat and rounded the back of the truck. “That would be so hot that it would fry the gossip vines, telephone lines, and maybe even give a few more old-timers heart attacks,” he said.

  “I wonder what Mavis would think of that.”

  “I saw smoke coming out her ears when she heard the news of you and an O’Donnell. She laughed and said it would be good enough for Naomi, after trying to take Leah from her last year. Remember when she sent Tanner to try to sweet-talk Leah into dating him just to get back at Naomi?” He reached over the seat, brought out a small cooler, and opened it to reveal a quart of ice cream.

  “Peanut butter fudge. How did you know it’s my favorite?”

  “I didn’t, but it is Leah’s, and she always made me eat it with her after she’d had a tough day.”

  “So I’m like your sister?” She took a plastic spoon from his hand and dug into the ice cream.

  “I don’t kiss my sister except on the cheek or the forehead.” He dipped as deep as the spoon would allow and brought up enough that he could lick it like an ice cream cone.

  Suddenly, he leaned across the console and tipped her chin up, licked a drop of ice cream from the corner of her mouth, and then went back to eating. The sensation was surreal. Cold ice cream in her mouth, a cold tongue licking her lip, and heat chasing through her body like she’d just been hooked up to a moonshine IV.

  “I’ve never done that with my sister either,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Declan, what happens after Christmas?” she asked.

  “We celebrate with more ice cream. It can be used for good days as well as bad ones,” he answered.

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “I reckon things will take care of themselves a day at a time,” he said.

  Was that a hint of something sad in his voice?