The Maverick's Christmas to Remember

by Christy Jeffries

  That’s it, she thought, racing across the stable floor to catch up with him. From now on, Caroline would have to always stay one step ahead of him. She was supposed to be the seducer, not the seducee. There was no way she was going to let this man and his perfectly shaped cowboy butt ride in front of her.

  * * *

  Craig tried not to watch the way Caroline’s hips rocked in the saddle as she cantered along the trail in front of him. However, after a sleepless night with nothing but some unfulfilled fantasies to keep him company, he couldn’t think of anything but his attraction to her.

  Well, his attraction to her and her age. Rob’s cradle-robbing comment from yesterday had been fleeting and made in jest, but Craig’s doubt about their age difference still lingered.

  Caroline was young and adventurous and had her whole life in front of her. And she was full of surprises. Every time Craig found out something new about her, he was taken aback. He shouldn’t have been shocked since she’d grown up traveling all over the world and had experienced things most people could only dream about.

  He was beginning to think that there was nothing she couldn’t do. Last night, he’d learned that she could easily count cards and would hold on to a winning hand before folding so that his competitive grandparents didn’t get so huffy at losing. And now, this morning, he was still in a state of wonder at how well she rode a horse.

  But looking the part was easy. Real ranch work was tough, and if Craig were to ever change his mind and get married, it would have to be to someone mature, someone who could step up to that kind of responsibility.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect sunrise,” Caroline called over her shoulder as they approached the trailhead. A pinkish glow outlined the mountains off in the distance and when he turned to look in that direction, he was immediately reminded of the exact shade of her dusky nipples last night as he’d cupped her breasts in his hands.

  Groaning, Craig shoved his Stetson lower on his forehead and asked, “Are you ready to head back now?”

  “Back to the ranch? Sure.” Caroline clicked her tongue at the mare, then pulled the reins around until Marley was nose to nose with his own mount. “Back to Rust Creek Falls? Not quite yet.”

  “You mean you want to stay here?” Craig felt the creases on his forehead push against his hat brim.

  “I would love that.” Her smile was bold and confident. “If I didn’t have Josselyn and Drew’s wedding to plan or that Presents for Patriots party we’re hosting next week, I’d be all for staying right here with you.”

  “That’s because it’s the slow season now.” Craig squeezed his knees against his stallion’s sides to get moving. “Give it a day or two during calving season when we’re busy from sunup to sundown rotating the herds, reseeding our grazing pastures, maintaining the equipment and then spending the entire night on birthing watch. You’ll think the chores will never end.”

  “I don’t mind hard work.” Caroline shrugged.

  “Well, working hard at planning parties and working hard at wrangling cattle during a muddy spring are two different things.”

  “Says who?” she asked, and he recognized that squared-off shape to her shoulders. “I’ve never worked on a ranch and I’m guessing that you’ve never pulled off a successful outdoor wedding for four hundred guests in the middle of a thunderstorm. Therefore, neither one of us would be qualified to make those kinds of comparisons about whose job is more difficult. But if you know someone who has done both, then I’d be glad to hear the results of their findings.”

  “Fair enough,” Craig replied. “There’s no way I could do what you do for a living.”

  “Is that why you were so quick to beat a hasty retreat every time you dropped me off at my office this week?”

  “Pretty much.” He nodded. “Discussing flower arrangements and table seatings and poofy white dresses surely has to be one of the most headache-inducing tasks on this earth. Just thinking about dealing with all those brides and their talk of having a perfect day makes me squirm.”

  “Says the man who works with bulls and artificial insemination,” she replied.

  “Exactly. I still wouldn’t trade any of my duties on the ranch for any of the mind-boggling demands and events you have to wrestle with every day. Except for maybe cake tasting. I could probably handle that responsibility.”

  Caroline laughed. “I bet you could handle any responsibility where you’re in charge.”

  “Are you calling me bossy?”

  “I’m just saying that you really like to look out for other people.”

  Craig grunted, unsure whether that was supposed to be a compliment or not, then clicked his tongue at his stallion to move along. “Come on, Jake.”

  “Jake?” Caroline said, drawing on her own reins to slow down. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, appraising her startled expression for any sign of injury.

  “Let me get this straight. Are we currently riding horses named after Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner—Jacob Marley?”

  “Technically my horse’s name is Jake, not Jacob. And C.C. named your horse after that book about the dog.” Still, Craig couldn’t deny the coincidences of so many references to A Christmas Carol. But he merely faked a casual shrug and urged his horse forward.

  They trotted along silently for a few minutes and then she eased her mount closer to his as the trail narrowed. She really was accommodating nicely to this different style of saddle and it made Craig wonder if she could actually accommodate other parts of his life.

  No. He shouldn’t even be letting his mind wander in that direction.

  “Did you always want to be a wedding planner?” he asked. Not that he would ever want a woman to give up her career to better facilitate his own. But it wouldn’t hurt to confirm that there was no chance she was actually willing to relocate to Thunder Canyon and become a cattle hand. The confirmation would be another red flag to add to his list of warnings on why he shouldn’t let their relationship go any further.

  “No way.” Caroline chuckled. “I didn’t know a thing about the industry until Vivienne Shuster hired me.”

  “So then how did you end up in Rust Creek Falls?”

  “I’ll tell you if you promise not to laugh at me.” Her face was solemn as she held up her palm, as if she was expecting him to repeat an oath. Craig humored her by crossing his finger over his heart. “It’s a long story, so I won’t go into the boring details, but when I was fifteen, my mom was doing a lecture series at the University of Montana about the history of overlooked female buffalo hunters. Anyway, I fell in love with the area and the campus, breaking my parents’ hearts because they’d hoped I’d choose to attend an Ivy League school.”

  “Why would I laugh at that?” Craig sat up a little straighter as he surveyed the land. “I definitely can’t blame you for loving Montana.”

  “That’s not the odd part. So I visited Rust Creek Falls a couple of years ago before I graduated college. And I... Well, let’s just say I had a premonition.”

  “A premonition?”

  “You promised. No laughing.” She narrowed her gaze at him until he forced the smirk from his face. Then she continued, “I have a degree in biology. Trust me, I understand science and reason and, therefore, realize exactly how crazy this must all sound. But the truth is, I’ve always known I had a destiny.”

  “And planning weddings in Rust Creek Falls is your destiny?” Craig was trying to make sense of it without appearing to sound doubtful.

  “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamt of getting married. Not like in a creepy Miss-Havisham-pining-for-a-bridegroom sort of way, but just in an excited, purpose-driven way.”

  “A purpose-driven way?” he repeated. Like she’d been so determined to get married, her brain seized on the first potential groom it could find and th
en completely fabricated him as the lucky guy? But before he could go down that road, she continued on.

  “When I was debating where to move after graduation, I saw an online ad for an assistant wedding planner and it just seemed logical that if I wanted to eventually get married, I should work around like-minded people.”

  “Like-minded people?”

  “Why do you keep repeating everything I say?” she asked and he shrugged. He had no idea why he was having such difficulty wrapping his brain around her words. “Anyway, I saw the job opening as a way to reach my destiny.”

  “So your destiny is to get married? That’s it?”

  “Well, to get married to the right man, obviously.”

  “And how are you supposed to know if you find the right man?”

  “I already have.” Caroline smiled and Craig’s stomach dropped.

  “But how?”

  “Like I said, I can’t really explain it. I’ve always been of the mind-set that I’ll know when I know. And finally, I know.”

  Craig hadn’t noticed that his horse was completely standing still as he stared at Caroline. Surely she wasn’t saying that she thought he was her destiny or that they were meant to be together in some mystical way. He’d promised not to laugh, but he couldn’t prevent the sarcasm lacing his voice. “Sounds very scientific.”

  “Science can explain a lot of things, but it can’t always explain emotions. Some intuitions are so powerful, they just feel right. Okay, let me try and break it down another way. Have you ever felt so connected to someone or something that you just knew it was part of your future?”

  “This ranch,” Craig admitted. “I always knew I was going to work the land and carry on my family’s legacy.”

  He didn’t admit that he’d originally planned to do so with Tina.

  “So just out of curiosity,” she asked as she tilted her head, “if ranching is such grueling work, why do you do it?”

  “Because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

  “What about the rodeo?” she asked.

  “Life is full of detours, I guess.”

  “Exactly. Some people might refer to those detours as fate. As though there’s a driving force that brings you right to where you belong.”

  “If by driving force you mean a busted collarbone, then yeah, that’s what brought me home.”

  “So that’s how you got your scar?” She reached out toward him, but the horses kept them too far apart.

  He touched the warm, jagged line along his neck. “Not exactly.”

  The silence hung between them, but as the wooden outbuildings appeared in the distance she asked, “Then was it another detour?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “When I was twenty-one, I was coming home from my engagement party of sorts in Kalispell,” Craig began. He continued talking but he’d used his boot heels to urge Jake forward, so he was no longer making eye contact with her as he spoke, and all Caroline could focus on were the three words he’d said. My engagement party.

  He’d been engaged before. She gave her reins more slack and Marley took the few steps to catch up when she heard him say something about a crash.

  “What kind of crash?” she asked, her pulse pounding. “What happened?”

  “Tina didn’t get to see her cousins very often, so she wanted to go out to a bar with them after the party. I was exhausted and needed to be back in Thunder Canyon early the next morning to meet with the veterinarian about one of our prize heifers. Tina wasn’t a drinker and told me that she was fine to drive home while I slept in the passenger seat.”

  Tina.

  Caroline’s heart was clawing for more information, needing to know more about the woman Craig had been in love with, but she pressed her lips into a tight line, letting him tell his story uninterrupted.

  “The highway patrol officer who did the investigation said she probably didn’t even see the stalled logging trailer when she took the turnoff too quickly.”

  Caroline’s hand flew to her mouth. Oh, no. Craig’s strange reaction to his parents’ not wanting him to drive last night when he was tired suddenly made more sense. It was then that she recalled his tension during the first half of the drive here yesterday and she blurted out, “The cross!”

  “What?” Craig’s head pivoted toward her as though he’d just remembered she was still beside him, still listening.

  “We passed a white wooden cross when we were on Highway 90,” Caroline offered.

  “That’s where her Jeep went off the embankment. She’d swerved, but the left fender still swiped the back of the trailer. The initial collision woke me up, but by then we were already skidding off the road. It was her daddy’s old ranch vehicle and the windshield was one of those fold-down types. The hinges had gotten rusty, so when we rolled, the impact caused the whole thing to go in the opposite direction toward us. I don’t remember landing, but when I came to, the top corner of the windshield frame had me pinned against the roll bar.”

  By this time, the horses were standing still again, as though Jake and Marley were in equal stages of grief and couldn’t move. Anguish covered Craig’s face and Caroline wanted to climb down off the mare and drag him into her embrace. She wanted to hold him, to comfort him. “How long were you stuck like that?”

  “The responding officer said it was only five minutes. The driver of the stalled rig had seen us go off the road and called 9-1-1.”

  “And Tina?” Caroline asked, already knowing the answer.

  “We should’ve driven a safer vehicle, but I’d just sold my truck because we were saving money to build our own house on the property line between our parents’ places. The Jeep was built well before anyone had even heard of airbags. Hell, it was so old, we only had lap belts. So there was no way to prevent the steering wheel from breaking her ribs and puncturing her lung.”

  Caroline bit down hard to force back the gasp rising in her throat, then looked up toward the sky to keep the tears from trickling out of the corners of her eyes.

  “I couldn’t get to her.” Craig’s voice was flat when he spoke again. Flat and so defeated. It made the tears Caroline had been holding back spill over. “I fought against the broken windshield but the struggle drove it in deeper. The only part of her I could reach was her hand. I was holding it when she took her last breath and all I could think was that it should have been me driving. I was supposed to protect her. She was looking at me, smiling at me, before she died. But I couldn’t save her.”

  “I can’t imagine how painful that must have been for you, Craig. I’m so sorry.”

  His only acknowledgment of her condolences was a brief nod. “We’d grown up together and had always planned to eventually join our families’ cattle operations. But being here at the ranch was a constant reminder of that dream dying alongside her on the highway. I stayed long enough for her funeral, but left for Billings the next day. I had a friend doing the PBR circuit and, at the time, it seemed like traveling from town to town while simultaneously punishing my body in the arena would be the easiest escape.”

  “But then you came back.” Caroline understood why he’d left, yet she also understood why he couldn’t stay away. Not only was this land beautiful, but it also filled a person with a sense of peace. A sense of belonging.

  “Yep. A few broken bones and one career-ending surgery later, I came home. I had nowhere else. She was gone, but I could still make the ranch live on.”

  “You must have really loved her,” Caroline whispered. He possibly loved her still.

  Craig was gazing at something in the horizon, seemingly lost in his own world, when he said, “Tina was the perfect woman for me.”

  * * *

  “I think Tina would’ve loved her,” Will said as he drove the all-terrain vehicle along the perimeter of his property the following day.

  Craig kept his ha
t low and his face averted, studying his brother’s fence line for any loose posts or fallen wires. “Loved who?”

  “Caroline. You know? The woman you’re engaged to?”

  Clenching his back molars together as Will swerved to avoid a rut in the narrow dirt trail, Craig tried to remember why he’d agreed to come to Will’s ranch today and help him do some minor repairs before the breeding season started. Oh, because he’d poured his heart out to Caroline yesterday morning in Thunder Canyon and then she’d barely said a word to him the entire drive home last night.

  Her home, that was. Not his home. Craig didn’t really know what to call the little rental house here in Rust Creek Falls. Although, he’d packed a second duffel bag and brought it with him as if he’d planned to move into the place with her.

  It had been late when they’d finally pulled into her driveway, and while he’d been relieved that she didn’t invite him to sleep in her bed with her again, Craig had spent the remainder of the night on the sofa wondering if he’d done something to hurt her feelings.

  When an emergency call came in this morning from a bride demanding Caroline drive to some dress shop in Kalispell, Craig grabbed his keys off the hook by the kitchen. But Caroline insisted that she could drive herself and then proceeded to tell him in painful detail what it would be like when an elderly, no-nonsense seamstress told a very vain and very stubborn bride that she would need to lay off all the bridal shower cake and mimosas if she wanted to fit into her dress on her wedding day.

  So instead of subjecting himself to that particular brand of misery—which was only slightly worse than worrying about Caroline driving herself—Craig had accepted Will’s request for help on his ranch. Too bad they couldn’t have taken a good old-fashioned work truck out to the fields instead of this four-wheel-drive Raptor.

  “We’re not engaged,” Craig ground out as his stiff neck rocked side to side against the five-point harness. “Remember, I already told all of you about her head injury and the confabulation and how she thinks I’m her fiancé.”