The Rancher's Expectant Christmas

by Karen Templeton

  “Because I don’t like the idea of you being here by yourself.”

  “Um... I’ve been alone since Gus left?”

  “And you’re not getting less pregnant, are you?” He tapped his fingers on the table, then pointed at her. “So Austin and I are moving over here tomorrow.”

  “Excuse me—”

  He got to his feet. “Actually, make that tonight.”

  “Now hold on, buster—”

  “Yeah? What? You gonna tell me I can’t move into my own house?”

  That got her, apparently. “Oh. Well. No, of course not. But—”

  “Don’t worry, not gonna encroach on your space.”

  An actual eye roll preceded, “What I meant was, I don’t want to put you out on my account.” She plucked her phone off the table, wagged it at him. “That’s why God made these handy little devices.”

  “And you’ve clearly forgotten how sketchy the service can get up here. Especially if the weather’s bad. And there’s no landline at my place. At least if I’m here I can hear you scream when you go into labor.”

  She gawked at him for a long moment, then burst into laughter. “One, there will be no screaming—”

  “Yeah, ask Mom how that works out for most of her patients,” he said, which got a glower in response.

  “And two,” she said, “unless you’re planning on gluing yourself to my side, whether or not we have cell service when the time comes is moot. So thanks for the offer, it’s very sweet. But I’ll be fine. Really.”

  His arms still crossed over his chest, Josh narrowed his eyes, trying to decide which path to take as he watched that stubborn little mouth. Oh, sure, he was well aware that sometimes the best thing was to step back and let a gal make her own decisions. He wasn’t a total moron. But neither was he gonna let pride—hers more than his, he thought—get in the way of doing what was smart. And wouldn’t it be nice, at least once in his life, to be around a woman who’d just let him be a man, for the love of God? To be protective like his daddy had taught all his sons they were supposed to be?

  Of course the irony was that his mother wasn’t exactly a delicate little flower, either. This was not a woman who freaked out and called her man to come rescue her from spiders and snakes and bears and such. On the other hand, his father had enough White Knight genes coursing through his veins for three people. So Josh wondered how Mom and Dad had worked that particular little issue out.

  But what his parents had or had not done wasn’t the issue. What Josh was going to do, however, was. Whether Dee was on board or not. “This isn’t about me being ‘sweet,’ or whatever you want to call it. It’s about common sense. Besides which, Mom said I should keep an eye on you.” A sort-of lie, but whatever worked, he wasn’t proud.

  Judging from the ravine gouged between her eyebrows, he guessed there was some pretty intense wrestling going on underneath those spikes. She picked up her fork again, even though the pie was long gone. As long as she wasn’t planning on using it on him, he was good.

  “It’s just...” A breath left her lungs. “It wasn’t until this last...fiasco that it occurred to me that...” She sighed again. “That all my life I’ve looked to some man or other to take care of me. Make the decisions for me. And I finally realized if I ever expected to actually be an adult someday I had to start thinking for myself. Taking care of myself. Instead of the easy way out. Whatever Dad’s reasons for sending me away, the fact remains that in his attempt to rescue me, to keep me safe, he kept me from learning how to handle...life.”

  “But you’ve been on your own for how long in DC?”

  “In reality? Not so much. God, Aunt Margaret and Uncle John were even worse than Dad. They wouldn’t even let me live on campus, for pity’s sake. So when I finally worked up the gumption to move into my own place after graduation—and they were not pleased, believe me—I guess the freedom sort of went to my head. And I made some bad choices.” One side of her mouth lifted. “Although at least they were my choices.”

  “I take it we’re talking about Phillippe?”

  “And did you not catch the plural, there? Choices. You are looking at a serial screwup. At least when it comes to picking men. Although the irony was that, after some of the dirtwads I’d dated? I felt like I’d won the jackpot with Phillippe. Because he was all urbane and crap, I guess,” she said on a humorless chuckle. “A man instead of a boy. Someone who’d actually look at me when we went out to dinner instead of his cell phone. Of course the problem was I was so naive I didn’t realize what a fake he was.”

  “We’ve all been there, Dee.”

  “Maybe. Except...” She grimaced at her belly before once more lifting her gaze to Josh’s. “Some of us get taken in more than others.”

  At that, Josh had to laugh. “And it’s about the cute four-year-old I live with? I love the kid to death, you know that. But he wasn’t ‘supposed’ to happen, either. So you don’t exactly have the market cornered on stupid.”

  “And you do realize you’re probably the only person in the world who could say that to me and live?”

  “Only echoing your words, darlin’,” he said, and she sighed.

  “Even so...” Her mouth twisted again. “What became really clear to me, after Phillippe dropped his little bombshell and winged back to his wife and kidlets in the French countryside, is that it’s way past time I learn to love my own company. I don’t mean living by myself—I can do that, no problem. I mean, really being okay with not being part of a couple. Or defining myself by my relationships. Or expecting someone else to rescue me when things get tough.”

  “Wow. You’ve been thinking about this a lot, huh?”

  Her hand passed over her belly. “Ever since the stick turned pink. Although to be honest the seeds were planted a while ago. Just took them some time to germinate.” Her eyes glittered. “I want to be tough, you know? And I want, more than anything in the world, to be an example to this little girl. For her to be the ballsiest kid in nursery school,” she said, and Josh smiled.

  Only to sober a moment later. “So let me get this straight—me wanting to move in is somehow a threat to you wanting to be your own woman?”

  Dee blew a short laugh through her nose. “Woman, hell. Person.” She finally put down the fork. Thank God. “You know what’s funny? When we were kids, what I most hated about living out here was how cut off from the rest of the world I was. How...incomplete I felt. Or at least, how incomplete my life felt. As if I knew there was more ‘out there,’ even if I didn’t know what that was. Now I realize it’s only when we stop being afraid of being alone that we find completeness the only place we ever really can—within ourselves.”

  Josh frowned. “And that’s way too heavy for a simple country boy like me.” Even though, if he thought about it for longer than two seconds, she was right.

  “It’s true. Although don’t kid yourself, bud—” Her mouth curved. “There is nothing even remotely simple about you. There never was.”

  “That supposed to be a compliment?”

  Dee angled her head, her eyes narrowing slightly, like she was studying him. “It’s just...you. Who you are.” She hesitated, then said, “For what it’s worth? You were the only thing about here I regretted leaving.”

  Her words ringing in his ears, Josh frowned some more at the decimated pie tin before asking, “Even though I was one of the people who overprotected you?”

  A second or two passed before she pushed herself to her feet, a soft smile pushing at her lips. “You were there for me. And I’ll always be grateful for that. For the way you put up with me. For you. But...”

  “What?”

  “Let’s just say Dad wasn’t coming entirely out of left field when he sent me away. Because you were definitely something I needed to be protected from.”

  He felt like the breath had been
punched out of him. “You were always safe with me, Dee. Always. I would’ve never—”

  “Oh, I know.”

  Josh’s forehead creased. “Then—”

  “Figure it out, country boy,” she said, then started slowly out of the kitchen.

  “So does that mean Austin and I can move in or not?”

  One hand braced on the door frame, she turned. “It’s not as if I can stop you,” she said softly, but with a steely undertone that definitely made him sit up and take notice. Because damned if he didn’t feel like he’d just been issued a challenge.

  Even if he wasn’t entirely sure what that challenge was.

  Chapter Eight

  As she stood at the stove flipping grilled cheese sandwiches, Deanna heard, coming from the hallway, the little boy’s high-pitched giggles tangling with Josh’s pretend dinosaur roar. She smiled, despite feeling pretty tangled up herself. About, well, everything. Josh moving in and her being stuck here and feeling like she was about to explode and all those jumbled feelings about her father—

  “Something smells incredible,” Josh said, and she turned to see his still-giggling son clamped like a koala bear around one calf as Josh dragged him along the tiled floor.

  “Just grilled cheese.” Josh tried shaking Austin off his leg. More giggling ensued. Deanna smiled. “And don’t look now, but there’s something stuck to your leg.”

  “You’re kidding?” All wide-eyed, Josh raised his leg enough to bump the kid’s rump on the floor, making Austin laugh even harder. “I thought that leg felt awfully heavy,” he said, scooping his son into his arms and growling into his neck before grinning at him. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Right here!”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Uh-huh. You’re so silly, Daddy!”

  Chuckling, Josh kissed the top of Austin’s head, then set him down again. “Looks like Dee’s got your sandwich done. Go get up in your seat.”

  But as long as that let’s-mess-with-Deanna’s-head list was, Josh and her living under the same roof definitely topped it. Precisely because of stuff like this, watching him be unabashedly goofy with his little boy, effortlessly straddling the line between responsible adulthood and childlike innocence. No wonder Austin adored his daddy. Because it was equally obvious how much Josh adored his son.

  And the more she witnessed all this mutual adoration, the more her heart ached for something that had always felt just out of reach. How tempting it was to see Josh with Austin and think, Maybe...?

  Which is precisely why she needed to stick to her guns about claiming her own selfhood and independence and ability to make her own decisions. About ratcheting down her expectations, bringing them more in line with that thing called reality. Because her very survival depended on it. Then again, for all she knew Josh was looking at her and thinking, Oh, hell, no. For sure he was thinking something, if those weird glances he shot her every so often were anything to go by. So moot point, most likely.

  By now Austin had scrambled into his chair, grinning up at her when she set the sandwich in front of him, cut into four triangles, crusts on the side. Another Talbot charmer in training; God help every female in the county with a beating heart. “Thank you, DeeDee!”

  It’d grabbed her breath when the child started calling her that yesterday, out of the blue. No one but her mother had ever called her that.

  “You’re welcome, big guy,” she said, ruffling his hair, then turned to see Josh grab his denim jacket off the hook by the back door, shrugging it on over a black fleece hoodie she’d like to burn, frankly.

  “I won’t be gone but two, two-and-a-half hours at most,” he said with a brief glance to her super-sized middle. He’d sold a horse the week before, to a young barrel racer right over the Colorado border, and—as usual—was delivering the horse himself to personally check out the prospective accommodations. Although he was clearly conflicted about leaving Austin with her.

  “And we’ve been through all this,” she said, handing him a paper sack with his own sandwich, a bottle of water, a bag of chips. It wasn’t much, but tonight’s steak-and-potato casserole would make up for it. “It doesn’t make sense taking Austin all the way to your folks when you’re going in the opposite direction. And as you said, it’s only for a couple of hours. The chances of my popping out a baby in that time span are slim to none. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

  “But you have her number, right? Of course you do, what am I saying? But I’ll leave Thor, just in case.”

  In case of what? she wondered, even as she said, “I’m fine, Josh. We’re all fine. And will be fine. Honestly, you’d think no pregnant woman ever had another child to look after. Right?” And she even sounded confident. Yay, her. “Besides, Val said she’s coming over in a bit, so we won’t even be alone for all that long. So go, get out of here.”

  He still hesitated—jeez—but finally walked over to Austin to drop another kiss on the boy’s head before giving Deanna a funny little smile. And for a moment—not even that, a millisecond—she almost thought he was going to kiss her goodbye, too. And wasn’t that totally nuts?

  Then he was gone, taking what felt like half the air in the room with him. Not to mention a good chunk of her bravado. Because the only other time she’d been alone with a little kid was that day when she’d shooed Gus off, when the old man hadn’t been more than a few minutes away and she knew Josh would be back soon and she hadn’t been this pregnant.

  Yeesh, overthinking much? she thought on a sigh, then carted her own sandwich over to the table, along with a glass of milk and a bowl of red grapes. Which Josh had specifically told her Austin wouldn’t eat. Never mind the kid had eaten vegetable stew, for godssake. And loved it.

  “What’re those?” Austin asked, suspicion colliding with curiosity in his scrunched up face. Somehow, Deanna swallowed her laugh.

  “Grapes.”

  “Oh. I don’t like those.”

  “Yeah, your dad told me. That’s too bad,” she said, popping one in her mouth and mentally patting herself on the back for not pushing him to take a taste. Because, for one thing, she remembered when she’d visit Aunt Margaret when she was little, and her aunt would force her to take at least two bites of everything on her plate, even if it made her gag. Yeah, I’m looking at you, liver. And for another, if she’d learned nothing else from five years of selling artwork, it was that you never gave the potential buyer the chance to say no.

  She might’ve, however, made a few these-are-so-yummy noises as she munched.

  Austin frowned at her. Then the grapes. Then her again. “Are they good?”

  “Well, I like them. But I thought you said you didn’t.”

  “Actually... I don’t think I ever tasted one.” Which would naturally beg the question, Then how do you know you don’t like them?

  “I see.” Deanna tossed another grape into her mouth. Austin frowned harder.

  “C’n I have one?”

  Deanna looked at the grapes. “Huh. I don’t know...”

  “But we’re supposed to share. Daddy says. Grandma, too. Please?”

  Oh, God—were those tears? For heaven’s sake, she’d only meant to see if she could get the kid to try a grape, not break his spirit. Deanna practically shoved the bowl toward him. “Of course, sweetie. I’m sorry, I was only teasing.”

  After shooting her a way too grown-up look, Austin twisted a grape off the cluster and took the tiniest nibble imaginable. Then he nodded. “I guess it’s all right.” He took another, only marginally bigger, nibble. “But it’s not nice to tease.”

  Deanna’s face flamed. “No, it’s not. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Austin said with a shrug as he finally shoved the rest of the grape into his mouth. And took another one. “Daddy said you’re not used to being around lit
tle kids, so I should go easy on you.”

  And if she’d had any food in her own mouth, she would’ve choked on it. “He actually said that?”

  “Uh-huh. C’n I have more milk, please?”

  “Sure, sweetie.” Feeling slightly dizzy, Deanna pushed herself to her feet—yes, by bracing both hands on the table and shoving with all her might—grabbed his plastic cup and lumbered to the fridge. Four, hell. Kid was sharp enough to hold office. And probably more so than most people who did—

  “Knock, knock—anybody home?”

  “It’s Aunt Val!” Austin yelled, morphing back into a little kid as he practically fell out of his chair to streak out of the kitchen, his sneakered feet thundering down the hallway. Judging from the high-pitched jabbering that followed, Val had her two munchkins in tow. Probably why the cat, who’d been asleep in his bed beside the woodstove, took off for parts unknown. Because you never knew with toddlers. Especially that one, Deanna thought, smiling, remembering Val’s youngest’s nonstop energy and curiosity two days before on Thanksgiving. And that’s gonna be this one in a year or so, she thought, and she gulped down her smile.

  She was so not ready for this. That. Her.

  And she should probably get over that real quick.

  “In the kitchen,” she yelled as she cleared Austin’s plate, shoving in one of his leftover crusts as she trudged from table to sink, trying not to wince. But damn, her daughter had the hardest head in the history of hard heads, which Deanna prayed was not prophetic for the kind of teenager she’d be.

  And maybe she should worry about knowing when to feed and change her before fretting about adolescent angst—

  “Oh, my goodness—did you decorate even more?” Val said from the doorway, grinning, her long staticky hair floating around the shoulders of a denim jacket worn over a heavyweight hoodie.

  “I might have a slight...problem,” Deanna said, and Val laughed.

  “So I see. But the house looks incredible. Even in here. That tiny tree on the buffet is seriously adorable. Although you do realize how high you’ve set the bar for the rest of us?”