“We ain’t put up a real tree in years. Henry put up a fuss about it at first, but he still cuts a real one for the cabin and he’s finally accepted a fake one in this house,” Grady said. “But we got us the biggest, realest-looking fake one we could and Josh is going to love it. Christmas is always better if there’s a kid in the mix.”
Natalie opened her mouth to say she was sure Hazel would be home by Christmas and that she wouldn’t even be there. Then a whoosh of cold air blew Henry into the kitchen before she could get anything out. He quickly kicked it shut with his boot and hung his black felt hat on a hook and his coat on the rack. His thick gray hair had a ring around it where his hat had set and his sharp nose was as red as Rudolph’s.
“Got lonesome as hell down at my place and I’m tired of them damn things you put in a toaster in the morning. Where’s the baby? Good Lord, he’s done grown a foot since Jack took me home on Sunday. I’m waitin’, Lucas! You ain’t too big or too old to hug your Gramps. If Kuwait did that to you, I’ll buy the whole damn country, plow it under, and spread cow shit all over it.”
Lucas met Henry halfway across the floor in a fierce hug. “Might be a good idea, but where would we put all those people?”
“Texas is a big state.” Henry patted him on the shoulder. “Good mornin’, Miz Natalie. Looks like we’re havin’ omelets. I want onions in mine and a thin layer of picante. Rest of this crew ain’t got the stomach for jalapeño, but I like it. And I see the waffle iron too. Lord, I knew I was coming to the right place even if the path down to my place is slick as Jell-O on a glass doorknob.”
His voice was gruff, but he had tears in his eyes when he hugged Lucas. “It’s an answer to an old man’s prayers to see you sittin’ in this kitchen. I prayed every day that God would bring you home safe. Grady says you’ve done your enlistment and you ain’t signin’ up for another one. Tell me that’s right.”
“It’s right.” Lucas threw an arm around Henry’s shoulders and walked with him to the table.
Henry looked up at the ceiling and said, “Thank you, sweet Jesus.”
“You remind me of my grandpa,” Natalie said.
Henry took the coffee that she poured for him. “Is that a good thing?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered.
Henry took one sip of coffee and set the mug on the table. “Then thank you. Now I need to see Josh. I like his name. It’s a good strong name like Lucas. Nowadays, girls are namin’ their kids such weird names it looks like they just throwed the whole alphabet up in the sky and whatever fell on the table, that’s what they named their kid.”
He grabbed the back of a chair and dragged it to the swing. “Now me and you are going to visit. Won’t be long until you get some of them eggs with picante sauce on them and I betcha you like it as well as I do.”
Natalie and Lucas exchanged a look across the tops of the three men’s various shades of gray hair. In a couple of easy strides he was in front of the refrigerator. He pushed things around and brought out a pint of picante sauce and set it on the cabinet beside the stove.
“They’re having such a good time with a baby in the house. It’s like they’ve got a brand-new toy,” he whispered.
She nodded. “They are happy, aren’t they?”
“They like you and there are a couple of things that we haven’t discussed that I will pay you extra for.”
“Cooking, cleaning, and what else?”
“Couple of parties. One to arrange, but Hazel has notes. And one to attend with me at the local Angus Association.”
“The what else will cost extra,” she said.
“Give me a bill before you leave. I can afford it. Look at them. Lord, they’re more excited about that child than they are me coming home.”
She slapped at his arm, missing it by a few inches. “Are you pouting?”
“Hell, no! I don’t pout. I’m just stating facts.”
“I promise when we’re gone you can be the glory child again.” She poured egg mixture into a cast-iron skillet and deftly whipped up a gorgeous omelet for Henry. She’d timed it perfectly so that the waffle iron blinked to the green light right after the omelet was on the plate.
“Still not pouting,” he whispered.
She ignored him. “Serving up breakfast for Henry. Putting in breakfast for Jack now. What does he want on his omelet?”
“Make Lucas’s first. I’m not through talking to Josh and it’d be a bad example to talk to him with food in my mouth. Way Gramps has been pushin’ ahead of me, he won’t even know my voice if I don’t put in some time with him,” Jack said.
“I’ll have sausage and cheese in mine. No onions,” Lucas said.
“Warm strawberry syrup on the waffles, right?” she asked.
His brown eyes sparkled. “You remembered.”
“Of course she remembered. Them computers is good for something. We didn’t have to pay to talk to you and we could see you even if your nose did look too big in the picture on the screen,” Grady said. “I expect Natalie was shocked when she saw that your nose didn’t look like Jimmy Durante’s.”
“Or Pinocchio’s.” Henry laughed. “This is some good breakfast. Worth every bit of the sleet that fell off that tree right down my shirt collar when I was getting in my truck.”
***
Natalie would put up with Josh instead of Joshua because it seemed to make the old guys happy, but she’d draw the line on Hoss or Buddy or Jay-Man! God, she hated nicknames. She didn’t even like it when Drew called her Nat, and he only did it when they argued.
The phone rang while she was loading the breakfast dishes. She recognized the ring tone and said, “Good morning, Aunt Leah.”
“Your mother is on the warpath. The shit is about to hit the fan, girl, and I’ll be damned if I’m in front of it when it does. If you are going to stay in that place with your Internet boyfriend, then honey, it’s time to call her. I can’t fend her off any longer,” Leah said.
“But she’s going to have a fit,” Natalie whined.
“Yes, she is, and she is entitled to a real old-time hissy,” Leah told her. “You should have told her ’bout Lucas in the beginning.”
“I know, but it’s complicated. I mean with the Internet thing. Lord, she would have had a heart attack. Everyone here is in love with Joshua and they’re all excited about Christmas with a baby in the house. They call him Josh and I haven’t even fussed at them for it. They’d be so disappointed if I left and…”
“And you kissed that cyber cowboy and you liked it, right?”
Natalie gasped. “How’d you know?”
“It’s in your voice. It’s high-pitched and squeaky like when you called and told me that you were pregnant and the baby belonged to Drew. Only thing that would make it go shrill like that is if you’d kissed Lucas. That’s all you did, right? I mean, you’ve only been there a couple of days.”
“Settle down. I inherited my squeaky voice from you, and I only kissed him a little while ago.”
“Call your mother. I’m going to be out of the house all day and I’m turning my phone off with the excuse that my students are taking final exams today. Lord, I don’t want to deal with the fallout!”
“I promise I will. But by night you’d better have it turned back on or she’ll be on your doorstep as soon as she can get there. It’ll be easier to talk her down on the phone than in person,” Natalie said. “Got to go! We are putting up the Christmas tree today.”
“God help us all!” Leah said and the line went dead.
Four men brought in an enormous box with a picture of a Christmas tree on the outside before she could get the phone back in her pocket.
“I smell”—Henry raised his eyebrows—“vegetable soup, right?”
“No, you don’t. You’re getting old. That’s chocolate cake, isn’t i
t?” Grady said.
“Don’t be calling me old. I know what I smell. Ella Jo made it once a week even in the summertime because it’s my favorite,” Henry argued.
“It’s both,” Natalie said.
“See, I told you it was chocolate,” Grady said.
“I’ll never get them raised,” Lucas whispered and headed across the den and dining room toward the back door.
The front of the house was an enormous square. Two doors opened from the wide porch. One into the living room that was as big as a hotel lobby. Two archways opened up to the left off the living room. One led into the den, the other into the dining room, with a third arch separating those two. The kitchen was at the back of the dining room with a normal-sized door opening into the living room and one into the dining room.
The whole effect created by so much openness was spacious and intimidating to Natalie. The guys set the biggest box she’d ever seen on the floor of the living room, just to the left of the fireplace. The picture on the box reminded her of the one they put up at the Opryland hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. She’d been mesmerized by that tree when she was a little girl and they’d gone there in December for a week.
“Hey, you come on back here, Lucas. Your job is right here. You’re the tallest one of us and you can do this without getting a ladder. We’ll go on out and get the rest of the boxes. You can put this thing together,” Jack said.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Lucas returned and saluted sharply.
Henry slapped him on the arm. “That’s enough of that shit. You ain’t in the army no more.”
“You’d never know that he’s an ordained preacher the way he talks, would you, Natalie?” Lucas said.
“Don’t you be tattlin’ on me while I’m gone,” Henry said.
Natalie picked up Joshua from the swing. “I’ll take him back to the bedroom and change him. It’s time for his morning bottle. Shall we sit on the sofa and watch or what is my job in all this?”
Lucas opened the box and picked up the base. “Your job is to make those old farts happy, and it don’t matter what you do, if Josh smiles at them, they are happy. So I guess your biggest job is to make sure they can see the baby and talk to him. Never knew three old dogs to get so excited over a new pup.”
***
Lucas was glad she was staying, but it could never work between them, not with a baby involved—no matter how much the family liked having a child in the house.
Natalie hadn’t been honest with him, but then he hadn’t been up-front with her, either. Still, it seemed like her secret was bigger than his… or was it?
“Okay, this box says lights and garland. Jack is bringing the one that says ornaments, and we’re letting Henry carry the one that says skirt and tree topper. He’s pitchin’ a shit fit, so don’t tease him about not being able to carry anything heavier,” Grady whispered to Lucas as Henry appeared in the living room.
Natalie was back by the time Henry set down his box and was about to sit down in a rocking chair when Henry reached for the baby.
“I’ll feed the baby while you young people decorate the tree. Me and him are already good friends. Been a while since I burped a baby, though. Is it still two ounces and then throw ’im over the shoulder?”
She draped a burp towel over Henry’s shoulder and handed him the baby and the bottle. “It’s like riding a bicycle. It all comes right back. I think he does like you.”
He put the bottle nipple into the baby’s mouth and eased down into his favorite rocker/recliner. “Babies always like me. Jack liked me better than his momma and that used to just bug the shit out of her. Now Mr. Josh, we are going to get real comfortable and you can take a little nap after you get your belly filled up. Don’t you worry none, son. I’ll wake you up when they plug in the lights. You won’t miss the good part, I promise.”
“And you, missy, are going to help Lucas put the lights and the garland on the tree while I watch and make sure it’s all on there just right,” Henry told Natalie.
“You mean while you boss us all around like hired hands,” Lucas said.
“It’s a tough job, but I’m up for it,” Henry teased.
Chapter 5
Lucas carefully slipped the cardboard center out of the first strand of lights and looped them over his arms. Natalie didn’t have to be told what to do next. She’d seen her mother and father do this dance her whole life. Her father slowly walked around the tree and her mother placed the lights in the right spots. When she was a little kid it took forever. She and her brothers bounced around the room impatiently waiting for their turn to put ornaments on the low branches.
She could visualize Lucas as a little boy doing the same thing while Jack and Hazel draped the lights and the garland. Until that moment, she’d never thought of him as a child. He’d come into her shattered world as a full-grown adult. Had he been a quiet, brooding child or a busy, loud boy that kept Hazel on her toes?
“Starting at the bottom,” she said.
Lucas held out his arms. “Is that a question or a demand?”
“It’s a statement,” she shot back.
“Don’t be too rough on him. This is his first year to do this job. Usually Jack and Hazel put the lights on the tree, and he’s the impatient one waiting to hang the ornaments,” Henry said.
So he hadn’t been a dark introvert but a normal kid like her and her brothers.
Grady pointed at Lucas. “And you don’t antagonize her.”
“Hey, don’t take up for her. She’s already sassy enough,” Lucas said.
“And don’t you forget it.” She picked up the end of the string of lights and squatted to clip the first one on a bottom branch. When they’d finished that strand and started on the second, she realized why it took so long and why her mother and father giggled so much while they walked around and around the tree.
Every time she and Lucas moved they brushed against each other. His arm against her breast. His hip against her belly. Her bare hands on his forearms as she unwound another length. His eyes so close that she could count the gold flecks in them. It might be humorous to a couple of married people who’d been in love for nearly thirty years, but it wasn’t a bit funny to her that morning.
Her whole body hummed like a bumblebee when they clipped the final light at the top of the tree. She should write a self-help book about relationships, and the first test would be decorating a Christmas tree. If the two parties involved didn’t want to fall into the nearest bed after they’d put the lights on a tree and tear each other’s clothing off, then they should shake hands and walk away.
“And now the garland,” Henry said.
“Joshua ain’t asleep and he didn’t put up a fuss when you held him, so it’s my turn.” Jack took the baby from Henry before he could protest.
It was normal for elderly women to rush around after church to get their hands on babies or young teenage girls to hurry over to her side to be the first to hold Joshua. But most normally, old men looked from afar at babies and kept a good safe distance from them. Yet there was Jack and Henry fighting over him and Grady keeping a close watch to swoop in for a turn at holding Joshua.
Natalie squatted again to begin placing the gold tinsel ropes.
It was her first tree ever to decorate without Drew. Damn the army. Damn the war. Damn the IED that blew him up. Damn all of them. Why did he have to go to the army anyway?
He should have gone to college. He should have been born to parents who were young enough to keep up with him instead of a couple who already had grandchildren and were too tired to care where he was or what he was doing. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been in such a big hurry to get the hell out of west Texas.
His father and mother had both passed during his first tour of duty. He came home for each of the funerals but only for a couple of days. When he died, his sisters
came to the funeral and one of them tried to comfort her by saying that Natalie had been more like his sister and they were like his aunts. It hadn’t helped much.
“That loop is too droopy,” Lucas said.
His deep drawl jerked her back into reality. She readjusted it and glanced over at the three men. Jack and Grady were on opposite ends of a long leather sofa and Henry was still in the rocker/recliner. Drew would have liked all of the Allen men, but he’d have really liked Henry with his twinkling eyes and sense of humor.
“See that, baby boy? Folks are going to think it’s the prettiest tree in the whole state come Saturday night, aren’t they?” Henry said.
Natalie stood back a ways and looked at the tree. “This thing is huge. It might take until Saturday night to get it decorated.”
Grady chuckled. “Honey, you’re doin’ just fine. Y’all will have this done by dinnertime and then we’ll eat that chocolate cake and start the rest of the decorations. The tree ain’t even half of what we got to do.”
“Oh my Lord! The cake!” She dropped the garland and dashed off toward the kitchen in a long-legged blur.
***
She ran with the grace of a gazelle, all legs and no wasted motions. Lucas wondered what it would be like to have those legs wrapped around him. The room was already ninety degrees hotter than hell from all the accidental touches and bumps, and thinking of her in bed, in a hayloft, or even in the cab of his truck jacked it up another ten degrees.
Her voice floated back to the living room. “It’s burned black. I’m opening a window to air out this kitchen. Then I’m going to whip up another one. It only takes thirty minutes and y’all can eat it warm with ice cream on top.”
“I thought I saw a pecan pie on the counter. We’ll make do with that,” Jack said.
“Henry likes chocolate. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
Lucas carefully laid the garland on the floor. His mouth was parched worse than it had been during a Kuwaiti sandstorm. “Y’all want a glass of tea?” he asked. “I’m going to get one. This is some tough business.”
The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby Page 7