Cowboy Boots for Christmas

by Carolyn Brown

  “It was required, and besides, they had to have it on file before they’d let me have Martin. I hate this feeling. My insides are quivering and my heart is still racing.”

  “Just be still and watch the flames in the fireplace. That always helps me. That’s why I chose the room I did.” He gently massaged her tense shoulders. “Why were you on the sofa?”

  “This is the second nightmare. The first one was right after I went to sleep. We were arguing about not getting to eat Christmas dinner, and then the bombs hit the base and there was blood everywhere. I woke up, crying because you had blood on you. I couldn’t go back to sleep in that room, so I came out here,” she said.

  “Red punch pouring out over the floor and Christmas trees and firecrackers. It all went together to make a hell of a nightmare. Add that to Joe shooting up the whole living room with his gun noises, and it’s pretty good fodder for a nightmare,” he said.

  “Hold me for a little while longer,” she said.

  “As long as you need me, Callie. I’m right here.” He leaned his head forward and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “Call the coroner,” Joe squawked.

  ***

  Callie wasn’t surprised when Martin showed up at the breakfast table clutching his stomach and saying he couldn’t go to school. She’d suffered with the same symptoms too many times to count when she’d been his age. But staying home another day wouldn’t help one bit.

  “Time for the magic?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Finn looked up from his morning coffee. “Magic?”

  “Callie makes a magic cup of stuff that helps my stomach settle down when I’m afraid. Mama used to make it, but Callie does it better,” Martin explained.

  “What’s in it?” Finn asked.

  “A witch doesn’t reveal her secrets, not even during the Christmas season,” Callie said.

  She poured half a cup of milk in a mug, added a package of hot chocolate mix, a few drops of almond extract, and enough liquid coffee creamer to fill the cup. She stirred it well, stuck it in the microwave for one minute, and pulled it out.

  That and two pieces of cinnamon toast completed the magic breakfast guaranteed to heal any nervous tummy. It worked when she was a little girl having to start all over in a different school every time she turned around, and it worked when she was about to go on a mission over there in the sand.

  Martin sipped it, ate a bite of the toast, and nodded. “You will go with me, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will. We have to fill out all the papers, but on Tuesday, you have to ride the bus,” she answered.

  “I’m really scared, Callie.”

  The lump in her throat got bigger instead of smaller.

  Finn reached out and ruffled Martin’s hair. “I’m only a phone call away. I can be there in five minutes if you need me. There’s always a teacher close by so if anything spooks you, just run to her and tell her to call Salt Draw. And in the evenings when you come home, you’ve got two dogs, a parrot that never shuts up, and a cat that will be waiting for you as well as me and Callie.”

  Martin nodded. “What do I do if somebody like that Keith boy picks a fight?”

  “Bury the bastard in the backyard.” Joe hung upside down on the perch like he was dead.

  Finn ignored the bird and gave Martin’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Here’s what the rules were at my house when I was a boy: You are in trouble if you start a fight. You are not to throw the first punch or goad someone into throwing it. But if there’s no way out and some kid hits you, then you do what you have to do. And then you tell the teacher to call Salt Draw. Callie will be sure to tell them her cell phone number and the ranch number.”

  “Okay, then let’s get it over with, Callie. I’ve changed my mind about Christmas, though. What I really want is to never change schools again.” Martin sighed.

  The lump grew so big that it almost closed her throat completely off. When she was a kid, she and her sister both asked for that same thing for Christmas almost every single year.

  “Well, I’d say that it all begins with today, and if you don’t finish up that magic breakfast and get dressed, it can’t come true,” Finn said.

  Martin gobbled down the rest of his toast and drained the cup of glorified hot chocolate before he ran off to his room to get dressed.

  “Want me to go with y’all this morning? Might make him feel better,” he asked.

  Standing at the kitchen sink with her back to him, Callie barely nodded.

  “Are you all right?” He pushed the chair back and crossed the floor in a few long strides, put his hands on her shoulders, and turned her around to face him. Tears rolled down her cheeks like a river in the springtime, dripped off her jaw onto the dark green sweatshirt she wore, and left dime-sized wet dots.

  Finn drew her close to his chest and patted her back. “He’ll be fine, Callie. He might have some arguments, but that’s just new-school stuff.”

  “I know. I’ve been there,” she sobbed.

  “He’ll make friends,” Finn said. “This is Burnt Boot, and it’s public school he’s going to. The feuding families have their own private schools.” He tipped her chin up and looked into her watery eyes. “We’re all starting over here, but we’ll be okay, Callie, I promise.”

  His lips found hers in a sweet, passionate kiss that sealed his promise, and she believed that they would be okay. But first they had to get past this day. She clung to him as long as she could and then spun around toward the sink to dry her face on a tea towel when she heard Martin’s footsteps.

  “I’m ready if you are, Callie,” he said.

  “Finn was just asking if we’d like him to go with us this first day,” Callie said.

  Martin raced the rest of the way across the floor and hugged Finn. “That would be great. You reckon you could come in the school with me, too, just so all the kids could see who you are?”

  “I could do that,” Finn said.

  Martin looped his backpack over his shoulders and squared up his shoulders. “I’m ready. Move ’em out, cowboys.”

  ***

  Finn noticed that Martin was wearing his black work shoes when they got into the truck. They’d been cleaned up, but they showed signs of lots of wear and the laces were frayed. He didn’t blame the kid. He would have gone barefoot before he wore those ugly shoes with lime-green soles. Looking at them was probably what gave him a stomachache that morning to begin with.

  When they got out of the truck, playground noise rattled the naked limbs of the old oak trees circling the area as if they could protect the children of Burnt Boot. Cold north wind didn’t faze the kids as they ran instead of walked and yelled instead of talked normally.

  Warm air full of the smell of glue, kids, and fresh floor wax rushed out when Finn opened the big old-fashioned wooden door. The Christmas pictures taped to the windows and the smells that permeated from the hallways said that it was probably the same as other small Texas schools: maybe older than some but definitely not so different.

  “Could I help y’all?” a lady asked.

  “We’re here to enroll a new student. I’m Callie Brewster,” Callie said.

  Finn could hear the nervousness in her voice, and he took her hand in his. “Callie and Martin here live on Salt Draw with me. I’m Finn O’Donnell.”

  “What grade are you in, Martin?”

  “Third,” he said shyly.

  “I’ll take you to the elementary wing. That way you won’t have to go back out into the cold. I’m Gloria Dean, the first-grade teacher. I have a son in the third grade.” She led them down a long hallway, through a double set of modern glass doors, and into another wing.

  “What’s his name?” Martin asked.

  “Harry. He’s got red hair and lots of freckles. You’ll meet him today. Right down there is the office. See that sign hanging out there over the door?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You go on in there and talk to Miz Tamara
. She’ll get you all enrolled. I’ll tell Harry that you’re here. He’ll be excited that the new student is a boy. There’s only five, counting you, in the class. There are seven girls, making an even dozen now in the third grade.”

  Martin grabbed Callie’s other hand in a death grip. “Can’t you just homeschool me, Callie?”

  The office door swung open before Callie could answer.

  Tamara smiled brightly and motioned for them to come inside the office. “Come right on in here. We’ve been expecting to see y’all this morning. Gladys is my distant cousin and told me you’d be coming in. You can start classes today, but there will be some things like shot records that I’ll need by the end of the week.”

  Callie pulled a manila folder from her big purse and handed it to Tamara. “This might cover it, but if it doesn’t, just let me know, and I’ll find the rest.”

  “Oh, I see that you’ve done this before,” Tamara said. “Well, have a seat right there while I copy these off.”

  Callie briefly explained the situation with Martin and the upcoming trial. “Finn is providing a safe house, but we’d rather not make any of this public. We just want Martin to fit in with the kids here in Burnt Boot.”

  “We’re so far back in the woods here, I don’t see a problem, but we’ll keep a watch. How’s that?”

  Finn nodded. “Thank you. Being a new kid in a small school is going to be tough enough without that business coming out.”

  A buzzing noise was followed by kids flooding the hallway out in front of the office. One little red-haired boy waved at Martin. Finn could have shouted when he saw that the child was wearing black athletic shoes and not cowboy boots.

  “That must be Harry,” Callie said.

  “Seven girls,” Martin moaned.

  ***

  A few snowflakes fell on the truck windshield on the way back to Salt Draw. The temperature had dropped low enough that they scooted off as fast as they hit.

  “Looks like we’re in for a cold run this morning,” Finn said.

  Callie groaned. “It’ll be like training camp all over again.”

  “Terrorists don’t wait until the weather is perfect,” he said.

  “But we’re civilians,” she argued.

  “It’s up to you, Callie. I’m going. You can come with me or stay in the house. I’ve kept up with my training for two years, and it’s not going to get any better. Verdie told me this part of Texas was in for a real stinker of a winter if she had it figured right. That’s why she sold the ranch when she did. Said she didn’t want to fall and freeze to death before anyone came around to figure out why she wasn’t answering her phone.”

  “I’m fighting this rather than thinking about Martin in a new school,” she said honestly.

  He ran a palm up her arm. “He’s going to be all right.”

  “I know that, but it might not be today.”

  “No, today is going to be tough even if it goes well. Seven girls, for God’s sake.” He chuckled. “Stop worrying.”

  “What if…” she started.

  He reached across the seat and put a finger on her lips. “‘What if’ just creates worry. Let’s go run ten miles to loosen up our bodies and then work out for an hour. That’ll take your mind off everything. You probably won’t even make the first loop this morning, but when you get tired, you can turn around and come on back to the house. You’ll have to build up to capacity in my makeshift gym to keep up with me, so if you can’t do that this first day, it’s okay.”

  She pushed his hand away. “Don’t bait me, Finn.”

  “Don’t be a wuss, Brewster.” He parked the truck close to the back door. “I’ll be ready to run in five minutes. I’m not waiting on you.” He jogged around the truck and opened the door for her. When she bailed out, he grabbed her around the waist, spun her around to his chest, and laid one of the hottest kisses on her lips that she’d ever experienced.

  “There now. That’ll warm us both up while we run,” he teased. “But I’m still not waiting for you.”

  “Wait, hell! O’Donnell, you’ll have to catch me,” she smarted off.

  She ran through the house, jerked on her running gear, added a hooded sweatshirt to it, and was heading out the back door when she saw him a few feet ahead of her. She sprinted until she was beside him and he started the cadence.

  “One mile,” he called out the first line.

  “No sweat,” she came in behind him.

  “Two mile—better yet,” he said.

  “Three miles—gotta run,” she singsonged.

  “Four miles—just for fun.”

  They both yelled the next lines: “Come on—let’s go. We can go—through the snow. We can run—to the sun.”

  Then he started the countdown. “S-N.”

  She chimed in with, “I-P.”

  He yelled, “E-R.”

  And they both yelled, “Can you be—like me? Sniper, yes, sir.”

  By then they’d both found their pace, and their feet hit the ground at the same time on every step. It was exhilarating running outside again, pushing herself until she only thought about making the end of the line, but she wasn’t expecting to find a damn rope hanging in a tree when she got there. Finn grabbed it and, using the knots for handholds, hauled his body up to the high limb of the cottonwood tree then, using the same rope, rappelled down the backside.

  When his combat boots hit the ground, she jumped and grabbed the first knot, made her way up it, and did the same thing he did. He ran in place until she was ready. “Ready for the return trip?”

  “I thought this was a loop.”

  “It is. This is the turnaround on the loop.” He took off and she kept up.

  “That’s more than five miles,” she said.

  “Eight, actually. We did this much in training before breakfast,” he reminded her. “One mile,” he called out the beginning of the cadence.

  “You’re full of shit,” she yelled.

  “Two miles,” he said.

  “You’re a slave driver.”

  “Three miles.”

  “You are going to hell for this.”

  He chuckled without even losing his breath. “Callie is a wuss.”

  “Callie is an S-P-O-T-T-E-R.”

  He stepped up the pace a notch, but neither snowflakes in her eyes or sleet collecting on her jacket was going to let her fall behind. They hit the bunkhouse porch at the same time, and he held the door for her. Once inside, he tossed a bottle of water at her. She caught it in the air, twisted off the lid, and downed half of it before coming up for air. He pulled his jacket off, drank the whole bottle of water, and fell down on a floor mat.

  She hated sit-ups every bit as bad as push-ups, but with her competitive spirit, she wasn’t losing to Finn the very first day of workouts. She did the same one hundred that he did then flipped over on her stomach and did a hundred push-ups. When he popped up and headed for the weights, she was right behind him.

  “You want to spot or go first?” he asked.

  “I’ll go first,” she said. If she stopped even for a few minutes, she’d collapse. The only thing that kept her going was the idea of a long soaking bath in that big tub back at the house.

  She did ten reps and then traded places with Finn. “We going to shoot after this, or is that after dinner?”

  “I thought we’d wait until it’s snowing harder to make it more fun.” He grinned. “Did you bring a ghillie suit? We could play real war.”

  “Hell no! I don’t care if I never see one of those things again,” she said. “But rest assured, darlin’, I can outshoot you even in blinding snow. All you had to do was pull the trigger. I had to do the work.”

  “But you’ve been practicing inside and I’ve kept up my skills in the weather.” He finished his reps and sat up on the end of the bench.

  She threw him a towel, and he wiped sweat from his face. He combed his wet dark hair back with his fingers and looked up at her. “So what’s for dinner, darlin’?”
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  She slapped him with her towel. “Apple pie after that shitty comment.”

  “Joe wants apple pie.” The bird pranced from one end of his rod to the other. Angel sat on the back of the sofa, watching his every move.

  “I’m going to fry that foulmouthed fowl if he doesn’t learn to shut up,” Callie said.

  “You are a wicked woman, but your kisses are straight from heaven. They’re hot as hellfire, but nothing that passionate could come from anywhere but the courts of heaven.”

  “You are full of shit, Finn, but I like that pickup line real well. We’re having a light dinner and a big supper on school nights. I don’t think Martin eats enough in the school cafeteria, and he refuses to take his lunch with him.”

  “I’m not bitchin’. If you weren’t here, honey, I’d be eating soup out of cans and bologna sandwiches,” he answered.

  “Don’t call me by that bitch’s name. You can call me anything but that.”

  He jumped up, squared his shoulders, and stood at stiff attention, then saluted. “Yes, ma’am. I bet I can beat you to the house.”

  “Not in your wildest dreams.” She grabbed her jacket and was gone before he could bend over and pick his up from the floor. She barely slowed down enough to open the door when she reached the porch. She rushed inside and headed straight for the bathroom. He was only two steps behind her, but she turned on the hot water and didn’t know whether he collapsed on the sofa or went straight for the shower in his end of the house.

  “Kidney bean soup for dinner,” she mumbled as she left her clothing on the floor and slid into the steaming hot bath. “Fried chicken and biscuits for supper. There’s plenty of chocolate cake left over from yesterday and store-bought cookies in the jar for after-school snacks.”

  She leaned back in the tub, letting the warm water work the kinks out of her body. She hadn’t had a workout like that since she’d been home. The gym seemed like a pansy cop-out after the paces Finn had just put her through, but he’d been right. It had damn sure taken her mind off Martin’s first day at a new school. She waited until the water went lukewarm before she crawled out and wrapped a towel around her body. She peeked out the door to be sure Finn wasn’t in sight and darted across the hallway to her room.