Christmastime Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  She cracked the door open and stepped inside. “Dad?”

  His head was bent down, gray now. She never pictured him gray. She was always surprised to see that he was. He looked up, his blue eyes flat.

  “What exactly are you doing here?” her father asked, not even making a nod toward being friendly.

  “I’m here to talk to you,” Sabrina said, approaching his desk without waiting for an invitation. “And I think it’s very likely that I should have come to talk to you a decade ago.”

  He looked down. “I’m not sure that we have anything to discuss, Sabrina.”

  “You’re wrong. We have a lot of things to discuss.”

  That brought his focus back to her. “I have a feeling you want to dredge up old history, but I don’t have the desire to do that.”

  “Why?” she persisted.

  “Because I’ve been remarkably forgiving of your behavior, I think.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. The sound was absorbed by all of the heavy wooden bookcases, as if the sacred space of Jamison Leighton was simply not made to contain such a sound and had to swallow it up as quickly as possible. “You consider this remarkably forgiving? You can’t look me in the eye. Our relationship was never the same after that night at the party, and you can’t pretend that it is.”

  “I didn’t say it was the same,” he responded. “How could it be?”

  “Why?” she asked, looking at him with new eyes. The eyes of an adult, and not one of a child.

  She had his eyes, and she was more aware of that now than she’d ever been. They were so much the same.

  Liam Donnelly had mortally wounded her pride and she had marinated in that hurt. Had stayed resolutely enraged at him.

  Suddenly she saw her father for exactly what he was. Something so similar to her own self it was shocking. A man whose pride had been wounded and who was clinging to the pieces of it.

  And he blamed her.

  “You can’t look at me because I embarrassed you,” she said. “Is that it? You think that me embarrassing you was the worst thing I could have done?”

  “Sabrina,” he said, “you behaved abominably. You embarrassed all of us.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of that. I have replayed the situation in my mind over and over again, Dad, I’m well aware of how it happened. But I was young, and I was hurt. I was hurt because you paid a man that I was in love with to leave me.”

  “But I was right. He did leave.”

  “Yes. You were right. And I was devastated. You didn’t comfort me. You didn’t even try. You just...leaned back into all that righteous fervor of yours and decided that it didn’t matter if there was any compassion as long as you were technically correct. But that wasn’t enough for me. I was seventeen. I worshipped the ground that you walked on.”

  “That can’t be true,” he said, his voice rough.

  “Why can’t it be true?”

  “If you worshipped the ground I walked on you would not have fallen for a man who was so unsuitable for you to begin with.”

  “Why?” she asked, genuinely confused.

  He turned his focus away from his computer completely, facing her full-on now. “Because if you knew what you did about your mother then you should know what it means to fall for someone who will never love you back in the same way,” he said, his voice hard. “And if you did not learn from that, then I must come to the conclusion that you thought me a fool as well. You certainly must have, for you dragged all of the secrets out into public. You must have hated your mother. And you...you must have despised me most of all. You must’ve found me to be a ridiculous old man.”

  Those words almost knocked her back. “You thought... All this time you thought that me knowing she was unfaithful made me...look down on you?”

  “How can anyone look at a man who is continually betrayed with any respect?”

  “I could,” she said. “I did. You were my father, and whatever she did didn’t make me think less of you. You were only trying to do your best. You were trying to do what was right. I do understand that. But there was no softness in it, Dad. And I needed softness. I didn’t need your rigid clinging to perfection.”

  “I could have done what I wanted,” he said, his voice rough. “When your mother fell pregnant with Damien I could have opted not to marry her. The first time she was unfaithful to me I could have left. And then we wouldn’t have you. And we wouldn’t have Beatrix. And we wouldn’t have this life together in our retirement, which has been remarkably better than those early years we spent together. I did what was right, I saw it through to the end and I am convinced that at the end of the day it was the best thing.”

  Which meant he thought cutting her off to save his vision of his life was the best thing too. “Rightness. Morality without quarter. Without compassion. Without love.”

  “I was never harder on you than I was on myself. Because I see myself in you. And I could see you going on that same path, and I did not wish it for you.”

  “So you cut me off when I made a mistake?”

  Her father heaved out a sigh, and for the first time she thought he sounded weak. Diminished. Like there was a crack in that booming, intimidating voice, and it made Sabrina feel slightly cracked as well.

  “I couldn’t face you,” her dad said. “Because you knew my shame. You knew what a failure I was. That for all of my talking about what was right I could not keep my house in order. I could not make my wife care for me. You worshipped me when you were young. I could not stand to see that broken.”

  “So you broke it yourself?”

  He paused then, for a long moment. And she was certain it was the first time she’d ever seen her father speechless. That was the beauty of all of that moral certainty. There was a response for every occasion.

  Yet he seemed to be searching for one now.

  “I suppose I did,” he said, looking past her.

  “And you were too damn stubborn to apologize yourself? Too damned full of pride to fix this?” she asked, her heart beating faster, her hands trembling.

  “Yes,” he said, “I was.”

  “Do you love me, Dad? If I go off and join a dance troupe in Chicago, will you still love me?”

  He looked away from her. “What kind of question is that?”

  “It’s a ridiculous one, because I don’t know how to dance, but I just want to know if you love me. If you still love me. And if you will continue to do so if I make mistakes in the future, or do things that you don’t approve of. Because I want to fix this, but I can’t cope with the idea that I’ll do this work only to lose what I’m working so hard to rebuild later when I inevitably can’t be what you need me to be.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying—” she took a step forward, her hands pressed against her chest “—I want you to commit to loving me. If I’m going to try to fix this, if I’m going to try to mend this fence, and not stay angry at you for how much you hurt me, then I need to be sure that we’re not going to find ourselves here again. I’m changing. And I need to know that you’re changing too.”

  “I’m not sure I can change,” he said. “But I would like to try to mend fences with you.”

  “Do better than try. Fix the fences. It cost me my pride to come in here, it’s got to cost you something.”

  “Did you think that I stopped loving you?” he asked, his voice rough, shockingly so.

  “No,” she said, her throat getting tight. “Worse. I started believing you never really did. Because if you really love someone you don’t just stop. It’s not possible. It doesn’t matter what they do, it doesn’t matter what they say or shout in the middle of a crowded party. If you love someone it lives in you. It stays. And you just... It was so easy for you to stop seeing me as your daughter.
”

  Silence hung between them for a long moment, and then, her father stood. He reached out and touched her hand with his. A light touch. Small. But the first real contact she had with him in years.

  “I have always loved you,” he said. “Very much. But I have not always understood what I was supposed to do with those feelings.”

  She choked on a watery laugh. It was either that or sob uncontrollably and she didn’t want to do that. “I don’t know if any of us fully understands what we’re supposed to do with feelings like that.” Her throat tightened, her voice getting thick. “But I guess we just have to try our best.”

  “My best hasn’t been good enough,” he said. “My right wasn’t right enough.”

  A tear slid down Sabrina’s cheek and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. She was afraid to move. Afraid if she acknowledged the weeping it would never, ever stop. “Let’s just try now,” she said. “From now on let’s just try.”

  “You’re still going to be working with Lindy?” he asked after a beat.

  Sabrina felt that like a blow. A qualifier. Of course there would be one. There always was. “Yes,” she said. “Lindy is my sister, and I love her. And I would really like to figure out a way to have some reconciliation with Damien, because he’s my brother and even if I can’t agree with what he did I love him too. But, Dad, what’s right is right. And if that’s the case then Lindy is entitled to the winery.”

  “She could have stayed with him.”

  “I know you believe that, because it’s what you did. But Damien didn’t just cheat on her, he left her for another woman. He didn’t want to be with her. Should she have fought to be with a man who didn’t even love her?”

  “I don’t expect you to leave the winery,” he said, finally.

  She imagine that was the closest to admitting understanding as he would get.

  “Good. I hope that you’re able to come to the tasting room sometime. If you can’t because it hurts you still that it’s not in the family anymore, I do understand that. But I put the work into the opening. It’s mine too. It means something to me.”

  “And you worked with the Donnelly brothers on that,” he said. “I know Liam Donnelly is back in town. He paid me back.”

  “He is,” Sabrina said. “He’s part of the reason that I’m here.”

  A strange light reflected in her father’s eyes. It almost looked like...hope. “Did you find a way back together?” he asked.

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think that’s in the cards for us. But we’ve made our peace.”

  Her dad’s shoulders sagged. “I really was just trying to protect you. Because I did see so much of you in me, and I could see you getting caught up in a relationship that would end up the way mine did.”

  “I understand that. I really do now. I understand that we are a lot more alike than we are different. Which is something I think surprises both of us.”

  “I always knew. And I tried to spare you. It’s why I was so hard on you. But it seems that it wasn’t necessary. Because you made good on your own.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I love you, Dad.”

  “I never stopped loving you, no matter that I didn’t show it, I never did.”

  She had a choice then. To hang on, or to let go. To put up another wall, or to let herself be open. To let herself take the chance at being hurt again. She knew what she would have done a few weeks ago.

  Well, a few weeks ago she wouldn’t have been here at all.

  But she wasn’t going to go back to hiding. She was going to be brave. It was good practice, because in two days she was going to have to do the bravest thing she could imagine. She was going to have to let Liam go.

  So she might as well start practicing her bravery now.

  “I believe you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE DAY OF the grand opening and tree lighting was chaos wrapped in tinsel. All hands were on deck down at the shop, preparing massive vats of mulled wine, special cheese platters and other items that would be given out as free samples. They had also prepared a best of Copper Ridge gift basket that would be on sale for a limited time to appeal to the influx of tourists that were coming through for today’s festivities.

  The tree that Liam and Sabrina had decorated the night before was lit up and glittering, and Lindy had brought down additional decorations to make the space look extra festive.

  She had hung up mistletoe, and it took every ounce of Liam’s self-control not to grab hold of Sabrina and test that mistletoe out.

  He knew what they had said about their time together. About it only running up until this moment.

  But he had a feeling that it wasn’t going to go that way. Hell, why should it?

  What they had worked. And it was good. There was no reason to end it now. No reason to end it until it wasn’t fun.

  Sometime after tonight he would have that talk with her. But he had a feeling they wouldn’t even need to have it. It didn’t make any sense that they would.

  Feeling full of glad tidings of comfort and joy that he would have a gorgeous woman in his bed later, Liam took one last look around the shop and then walked out onto the unusually busy street.

  His brothers and their wives and fiancée were in attendance; even Alison, who was looking a little bit pale, seemed to be getting into the spirit.

  His niece, Violet, was there also, looking a bit more dour than swept up in the spirit of the season, but he had a feeling that was all about her street cred and not indicative of any actual feelings that she had about the situation.

  There were carolers wandering the streets in clusters, the women in velvet dresses and the men in suits with bow ties and cloaks.

  There were chestnuts roasting in an iron pot and being handed out free to various people, booths with different art projects for children and a chance for them to meet Father Christmas.

  If Liam was ever going to have kids, this was the kind of thing he would want to bring them to. Because it was kind of thing he had never gotten a chance to experience.

  Something made his stomach get tight, but he ignored it. He was getting pretty damned good at ignoring things like that. A lifetime of practice, he supposed.

  Funny Olivia from the tasting room was also there, and so was her boyfriend, Bennett, who had brought along his friend Kaylee again. The poor woman seemed to be functioning as a very uncomfortable third wheel.

  Liam was hardly an expert on friendships between men and women, since his relationships with women tended to be about one thing. But, given that, it was very hard for him to imagine that two people were as close as Kaylee and Bennett and didn’t share a physical connection.

  Though he supposed it was possible, and that he was an asshole.

  He just doubted it.

  Not that he was an asshole. But the other thing.

  It wouldn’t be dark yet for a couple more hours, and it wasn’t until then that they would light the Christmas tree. In the meantime, it was all going to be carols and warm drinks, and children running around shrieking.

  It was funny, because he had completed this entire operation thinking it was something he had done many times before. Being involved in the start-up of the new business.

  But he had never done anything quite like this. In a place quite like this. He didn’t look out into a tightly packed crowd and simply see an endless sea of people. It was something else. Something more. He looked out at that crowd and saw each individual person. People he knew, people he had at least seen before. And if he hadn’t seen them before this they were still people he would probably see again. It was something unique. It was something that gave him the strangest urge to hide. Because he wasn’t anonymous here. Nobody was. He couldn’t simply blend in, another dark suit in a field of them.

  No
, here he was Liam Donnelly. In a button-up shirt, blue jeans and cowboy hat. One of the Donnelly boys.

  For better or for worse.

  He wasn’t used to it. He didn’t like it. This basic, simple existence that forced him to be...him.

  He forced a smile, pushed his sleeves up and went back inside the tasting room, where Sabrina was chatting with customers and answering questions about wine and cheese pairings.

  He watched as her pretty mouth curved upward into a smile, and he was reminded of the time they had sat in here and tested out those very pairings. When she had kissed that wine off his lips and he had gotten drunk on the taste of her.

  That tattoo on his back burned. And he could swear he felt that line going from the tattoo through to his heart. He’d put the image on his back, where he couldn’t see it most of the time, but he knew that it rested right behind his heart for a reason. Another thing he had tried to deny for a long time, but was having difficulty doing now.

  She was... She was damn well part of him and there was very little denying that at this point.

  He jumped in, helping serve free mulled wine to customers, offering service with a smile, because he was actually pretty damn good at that as long as it was a performance.

  The girl from The Grind who had flirted with him just a few weeks ago stopped by, and about batted her eyelashes right off her face trying to get his attention. But he didn’t care. No other woman affected him at all. No other woman but his. Sabrina.

  She really did feel like his.

  He looked over and saw that she had been watching the exchange, and noticed there was something wistful in her expression. Surely, at this point, she knew how he felt. Surely she knew that no other woman appealed to him more than she did.

  If she had any doubt, he would have to make sure that he erased it.

  He grinned at her, and she returned the smile, ducking her head and touching the back of her hair, which reminded him of how she had finally taken it down for him. How it had felt to sift his fingers through the silken locks.