“Well, shit! Guess it can’t be helped. Is he pissed about the baby or happy?”
“Pissed as hell,” Natalie said.
“You are staying or I’m not going, and if I fall again, this old hip will break. So he can damn sure get over it. If you don’t stay, they’ll burn down the house trying to cook and the bathroom will go to mildew and ruin, and I don’t even want to think about the laundry. Promise me right now, damn it!” Hazel said.
Natalie looked across the table, her blue eyes locking with Lucas’s brown ones. It would serve him right for being such a self-righteous son of a bitch.
“Promise!” Hazel yelled.
“I’ll think about it until tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Fair enough. I’m supposed to go home with Willa Ruth tomorrow morning. If you go, I’m comin’ home and he ain’t seen pissed if I have to come home,” she said. “Now give him the phone.”
Natalie put it on the table and gave it a shove. “Hazel wants to talk to you.”
“Well, shit, Hazel, what was I supposed to think?” he said after a full minute of listening.
“Okay, okay! I will, but I don’t have to like it.” He shoved the phone back toward her. “She says that you are staying until she comes home in a month.”
“What do you say?”
“Doesn’t look like my opinion on anything means much around here anymore.”
She raised a shoulder. “That’ll teach you not to leave.”
“Hazel—was she surprised when you showed up with a baby?”
“I told her about Joshua before I came. She said that you had always loved babies and that you wouldn’t have a problem with him. Guess she didn’t know you as well as she thought,” Natalie said.
“How’d she fall, anyway? I told her not to get up on that step stool. She gets light-headed.”
Natalie set the bottle to one side and repositioned Joshua to burp him. She gently patted his back. “She wasn’t climbing on a step stool. We were talking, and she remembered a cake she had in the oven for supper. She hurried out to the kitchen, tripped over a chair, and fell. We called the hospital and they sent an ambulance. It took twenty minutes for them to get here and the whole time she begged me to stay.”
Grady pushed his way in the back door. “There’s a dead coyote out by the dog pens and them pesky pups are carryin’ on like they killed it.”
“I shot it,” Natalie said.
“Good for you.” Grady noticed Lucas and his blue eyes widened.
Lucas stood up and they met in the middle of the kitchen like two big grizzly bears in a fierce hug. Finally, Grady pushed back but kept his hands on Lucas’s shoulders and looked at him from toe to forehead.
“Don’t look too worse for the wear. You’re early. We had a big welcome home all planned out. Did you sign the papers sayin’ you are finished with all that soldier shit?”
A big grin covered Lucas’s face.
That was her Lucas.
Not the brooding one who’d scared the bejesus out of her in the backyard.
“Yes, they are signed, sealed, and delivered. My guard time is officially over. I won’t be reenlisting this time,” Lucas said.
“Well hot damn! I’m too old to run this ranch for a whole year by myself.” Grady was near six feet tall, slim as a rail fence, and gray-haired. His face was a study in wrinkles of every length and depth with bright blue eyes set deep in a bed of crow’s-feet.
“You didn’t run it by yourself. Dad and Gramps helped. But you could run it standing on your head and cross-eyed.”
Grady looked over at Natalie. “Surprised you, did he?”
Natalie nodded. “Yes, he certainly did.”
Grady went to the cabinet and poured a mug of coffee. “What’d Josh think of him? Lucas has always been good with babies and animals.”
“He’s being pissy,” Natalie said.
Grady’s smile got bigger. “Lucas or Josh?”
“Lucas.”
“Stop tattling,” Lucas said.
“I’m not tattling. I’m stating facts. You are pissy.”
Lucas threw up both palms. “Well, Jesus, I’ve got a right to be, don’t I? Come home and no one is here and you got a baby you didn’t tell me about.”
“Trouble in paradise.” Grady chuckled.
“Trouble in hell. She’s a she-devil,” Lucas said.
“Well, darlin’ you are definitely not an angel,” Natalie said. “So stop pouting.”
“I do not pout.” He accentuated each word with a poke of his forefinger toward her.
She slapped his hand and heat radiated from her fingers all the way to the core of her being. Shit fire! It was a damn good thing he hadn’t kissed her or the whole ranch would have gone up in instant blazes.
“Don’t you slap me,” Lucas said.
“Quit acting like a child,” she said.
Grady clapped his hands. “My turn if you two can stop carryin’ on like teenagers. Jack called a few minutes ago. Hazel is bossing everyone in the hospital, so he’s coming on home before the snowstorm hits big-time. You hungry, Lucas? He gets real touchy when he’s hungry, Natalie. All us Allen men are like that. We ain’t fit to live with if you don’t keep us fed. That’s probably why he’s so irritable.”
“I’m starving because I didn’t eat supper. I wanted home-cooked Hazel-type food,” he said.
“Well, it ain’t Hazel food but it’s damn sure good. This little lady made lasagna for supper and let me tell you, cowboy, it’s better than that stuff you buy in a restaurant,” Grady told him. “Come on over here and take a look.”
Lucas followed him.
Grady reached up into the cabinet and handed him a plate. “We’re lucky she was here when Hazel fell. Reach over there under that towel and get a chunk of that Italian bread she stirred up from scratch. Did she tell you that she’s been cookin’ since she was a little girl?”
“She mentioned it.” He dug a slab of lasagna out from the dish sitting on the back of the stove.
Of course she’d mentioned it! They’d shared all kinds of information about each other in the past months. She knew what kind of food he liked, that he woke up grouchy every morning, that he liked strawberries but hated blueberries, and that he loved basketball but wasn’t a big football fan.
Grady carried his coffee to the table and sat down. “So y’all have met each other now. You going to work through this first shock or what?”
***
Lucas couldn’t tell Grady how disappointed he was.
“Well?” Grady asked.
“We’re still in shock.” Natalie bent to pick up the baby and there was a perfectly rounded bottom staring right at Lucas. The way she filled out those jeans created a stirring both physically and emotionally. He could have worked past the surprise if it hadn’t been for that baby. “I’m going to take Joshua back to the bedroom and settle him down for the night.”
Grady set his coffee cup on the table and hurried over to her side. “I’ll take the crib back there for you. Lucas needs to eat before that lasagna gets cold. Got to admit though, it’s good enough that I’d eat it right out of the fridge.”
Lucas had only taken two bites when Grady was back at the other side of the table. “What in the hell is the matter with you? I’ve never seen you so rude or seen you pout before in your whole life.”
“I am not pouting, Grady. Eleven months that woman and I have been talking almost every day and she didn’t say a word about that baby. Now she says she was in denial, whatever the hell that means. Maybe she doesn’t even know who the kid belongs to and that’s why she didn’t tell me.” The words spewed out like hot lava.
One of Grady’s shoulders hiked up a few inches. “You’ll have to ask her that for yourself. I figured you two
told each other everything the way you talked about her all the time.”
“I thought we had. Now I wonder if it was all just a bunch of lies.”
“She don’t strike me as the type to tell a pack of lies, and there might be a reason she didn’t tell you about Joshua. Ask her and stop your brooding,” Grady said.
“I don’t pout and I can’t think of a single reason that she’d keep something as big as a baby secret.”
He looked up to see her standing in the doorway. A good strong machete couldn’t have sliced through the tension between them. Her cobalt blue eyes flashed and her jaw worked like she was chewing gum. He checked to see if she had that pistol still stuck in her waistband, but it was gone, thank God.
“I’ve got something to say,” she said through clenched teeth.
He pushed back his plate and followed her into the dark den just beyond the big country kitchen. She stopped in the middle of the floor and turned around so quick that he plowed right into her. Her hands went instinctively to his chest and electricity lit up the room as sparks sizzled around them like lightning streaks. His hands wrapped around her waist, but as soon as they were both steady he took two steps back.
“So?” he asked.
She shut him up when she shoved one finger under his nose and said, “I’m not a liar. Everything we shared was the gospel, honest truth. The only sin of omission I have to repent for is Joshua. And I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t believe it myself. Then I didn’t know how to tell you. There I was six months pregnant and you damn sure wouldn’t believe me when I told you that I’d been in denial about it. You’d have thought I was one of those cyber bimbos that lie about everything.”
“And you’re not?” he asked.
Natalie really did not like him right then. He’d been such a sweetheart the past eleven months. Lord, she’d have curled up and died without him to talk her through the tough times. How in the devil could a man as sensitive and kind as Lucas change because of a little baby?
“I am not, and I do know who Joshua belongs to. Believe me, I know very well,” she said in a high voice. “It takes a big man to accept a single mother and a baby. I’d hoped you’d be that big. I was wrong. I’m going to call Hazel and tell her to come home instead of going with her daughter. I won’t live under the same roof with you for a whole month.”
Her finger annoyed him worse than all the sand in Kuwait. He pushed it away. “Grow up. We don’t have to like each other for you to take on the job of cook and housekeeper. And who is the father?”
She whispered, “After the comment you made, you don’t deserve to know. You really are a jackass, but I couldn’t have made it through this past eleven months without you. You were my stability. Even when times got tough, I could depend on you to be there just before I went to bed at night. Without that I don’t know that I could have ever lived through Drew’s death or losing my job. He’d been my best friend since we were toddlers and I still miss him so much. Good night.” She brushed the flowing tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and headed out of the room in long strides.
He watched her go and knew exactly how she felt. Drew had been his best friend from the time that the man settled into the bunk right above his. The camaraderie over there was something that civilians could never understand. Drew talked about Silverton, Texas, a little town up on the edge of the Palo Duro Canyon and being able to see nothing but cotton fields and sky in that part of the country. But mostly he’d talked about his best friend, Natalie Clark, those next two weeks. He’d told them stories about her that sounded outrageous, but after the pistol, the coyote, and the way that she didn’t back down an inch from him, Lucas believed every one of them now.
Lucas eased down into his favorite recliner and for the first time he felt like he’d come home. What in the hell was he going to do? The attraction was there just like he’d thought it would be, but he could fight that until Hazel came back home.
He shut his eyes. Damn, that woman was a spitfire!
“Overwhelmed?” Grady asked from the doorway.
“Yes,” he said softly.
***
Natalie curled up in a ball on the bed and wept into a pillow. She needed Drew to tell her what to do and he wasn’t there. He was buried at Arlington and his oldest sister had gotten the medal they gave him posthumously.
Lucas had filled the boots Drew left behind. Lucas had been the one whom she told about her basketball team winning the regional tournament. He’d been the one that she whined to that spring after the first track meet, and he’d laughed at her sunburn around Hollywood-type sunglasses. Lucas had been there for her when the school did not renew her contract late in the summer. He’d listened to her talk about weariness after long hours of supervising the cotton crew that fall. He’d been out on a weeklong mission when she had Joshua and she meant to tell him about the baby, but down deep she must’ve known that he would react just the way he did. She’d wanted to see him in person so badly, then Hazel called and swore that he’d be fine with the baby.
Now it was all gone.
Her contract to coach and teach science at the high school in Silverton had not been renewed. They’d said it was because they were combining the girls and boys coaching duties and hiring a full-time science teacher for the junior high and high school. That was just to cover their asses. They weren’t hiring her because she was pregnant with Drew Camp’s baby, but they damn sure didn’t want a lawsuit brought against them if they admitted it. Drew Camp had gotten the title of resident bad boy after they’d gotten to high school. That was the year that her parents did everything including telling her that she couldn’t hang out with him anymore, but the bond between them was so strong that it hadn’t worked. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone. But at least she had Lucas to keep her from going crazy and now he was gone, too.
For the first time in her life, she was totally alone and it hurt so bad that she thought she’d die.
“What would Drew tell me to do?” she whispered.
He would tell you that you’d whined enough. Get up and wash your face and quit that carrying on. He’d tell you that come light of day, things just might look a helluva lot different, the inner voice reminded her softly.
She threw the pillow against the far wall and wiped her eyes dry with the tail of her shirt. She was a strong woman. She’d lived through the vicious gossip in Silverton when folks figured out she was pregnant. She’d held her head up when she told her folks and her three younger brothers that the baby belonged to Drew and she was keeping it. She’d settled down on the back of the cotton farm in her single-wide trailer house and worked for her father, taking only minimum wage like the rest of the hired hands. Two weeks after Joshua was born she helped bring in the cotton crop with him settled into a sling like a little Indian papoose.
She could endure Lucas’s rejection even if it did hurt like hell. But it would take a miracle to change things come daybreak. Some things couldn’t be changed and Lucas would never accept Joshua, which meant that she wouldn’t accept Lucas.
Joshua made sucking noises in his sleep. She gently touched his chubby cheeks with her fingertips. There was no denying that those dark brown eyes and thick lashes had come from the Camp side of the family. She wanted to pick him up and hug him close to her chest, but if he woke up, it would take a band of angels to get him back to sleep.
Chapter 2
Jack popped the handle on the side of the recliner and leaned back. His salt-and-pepper-colored hair was too long again, but he only went to the barber once a month no matter how shaggy it got. His eyes were brown but not as dark as Lucas’s. He was built on the same frame as Lucas, only a couple of inches shorter: tall, broad-shouldered, big muscles, and an angular face that was beginning to show signs of rough and rugged work.
Grady followed his lead and claimed the recliner next to his. �
�Get comfortable, Lucas. You are home.”
“Spit it out, son. There’s something gnawin’ at you,” Jack said.
Lucas paced from one end of the oversized den to the other. Four recliners—two on each end of a long brown leather sofa—a sturdy wooden coffee table, entertainment system with a large plasma screen television, and end tables scattered among the recliners, and still the room looked half-empty.
Back when Gramps built the place, there was supposed to be a dozen boys romping through the house, so he’d oversized the living room, kitchen, dining room, and den to accommodate them and their friends. But Jack was the only child that Henry and Ella Jo could ever have, and the house was lonely until they brought Grady to live with them too, after his mother and dad died.
Lucas settled into the recliner again, but he couldn’t find the words to spit out anything. He was glad to be home, but he wished he was back in Kuwait so he didn’t have to face all the crazy emotions wound up inside him like a string of last year’s Christmas lights.
He had just finished the last of his supper when Jack barreled into the house telling all about the weather and Hazel in one breath. He’d stopped in his tracks and quit talking when he saw Lucas sitting at the table.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You made it home early. It’s a good thing Hazel is laid up in the hospital. She’s been planning your homecoming for a month. It’s all she’s talked about. What she was going to make for you to eat, the banner she’d ordered to string out on the porch, whether this storm would keep your plane from landing—I could go on and on.” He’d crossed the floor and hugged his son.
Now they were lined up like three tired old cowboys in the recliners they’d used for years. Grady’s and Lucas’s on one end of the sofa, Jack’s and Henry’s on the other end.
“He’s all upset because Natalie didn’t tell him about Joshua,” Grady said.
Jack looked down the length of the sofa. “That so?”
Lucas nodded.
“Even with your problem? I’d think it would be a good thing. But that’s your call. You’re the one who’s been doin’ that Internet dating shit with her for almost a year. But hey, you don’t have to like her or the baby. It’s up to you, but I promised Hazel I’d do anything in my power to keep her here on the ranch until Christmas, so that’s what I’m going to do. You got a problem with that?” Jack asked.
The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby Page 2