A Cowboy for Christmas

by Stella Bagwell

  Damn him, why did he have to be so smart and nosy? Dropping her eyes back to her plate, she scooped up a forkful of eggs and lifted them to her lips. “I guess moving is a chancy thing to do. But I think my clothes will sell better out West. California’s economy hasn’t been all that good in the past few years and I think the women out there are looking for more affordable fashions.”

  Pleased with her quick thinking, Lucinda chewed the eggs, then reached for her coffee. While she carefully sipped the rich brew, she felt Chance’s gaze lingering on her. Was he suspicious of her, or did he merely like what he was looking at? Whatever the reason, Lucinda knew that she was definitely going to have to watch herself around the man.

  “You might be right about that, Lucy,” Dee spoke up. “Course, around here, we women just go to the closest mall and buy our clothes off the rack. Unless there’s a special occasion going on and then we have something made.”

  “Like my wedding. I’m getting married in May,” Sarah Jane said, her face suddenly glowing as she turned toward Lucinda. “I’ve already chosen the fabric for my gown. I’d love you to take a look at it, Lucy. I’d value your opinion.”

  Lucinda shook her head. “I’ve never done bridal gowns before.”

  “But I’m sure you know all about fabric and lines, how it will all look when it comes together. You—” Sarah Jane stopped abruptly, then quickly asked Lucinda, “Did you bring any of your work with you?”

  “Yes, several pieces are in my car. The woman who worked as my seamstress is going to send the rest to me once I get settled.”

  Sarah Jane turned a pleading look on her brother. “Chance, will you please go get Lucinda’s cases from her car? I’m dying to see her work!”

  Chance grimaced. “I’ve got cattle to feed, Sarah Jane. Several herds, in fact.”

  Sarah Jane pulled a face at him. “You have hired hands working, Chance. Surely they can make it without you for half an hour. Besides,” she went on before Chance could argue, “if Lucinda is going to stay here with us, she needs her own things.”

  He turned a pointed look on Lucinda. “Is that right?”

  When he looked at her, she couldn’t think, much less know what she needed. “I—well, if the wrecker gets my car this afternoon there’s no need for you to—”

  “Lucy, don’t you let him off the hook!” Sarah Jane practically shouted. “Mike’s the only wrecker service around here for miles. It might be tomorrow, or the next day before he gets around to getting your car out of the ditch. Especially if he knows you’re here on the ranch and not absolutely stranded.”

  But she was stranded, Lucinda thought. She looked to Chance. “Is she right? Could it be tomorrow before I can get my car?”

  Chance nodded. “Possibly. It’s still snowing outside.”

  “Forget about the snow, Lucy. Your foot is hurt. You can’t go anywhere until it gets better.” Dee spoke in a persuasive tone.

  Never having had a family to ply her with opinions and advice, Lucinda had always made decisions on her own. It more than bewildered her to have the Delacroix taking control of her plans.

  “I think I can drive if—”

  “Hellfire, woman!” Chance suddenly barked. “Didn’t you learn anything last night? There’s at least three or four inches of packed snow and ice on the highways! How long do you think it would be before you’d wind up right back in the ditch?”

  Lucinda might have made a foolish judgment in the weather last night, but that didn’t mean she was stupid. She shot him an annoyed look. “Don’t you people have snowplows out here?”

  Frowning at her, he said, “I’m sure the road graders are out at work, but I imagine the snow is falling about as fast as they can push it off.”

  So that was that, Lucinda concluded. She was going to be here on the D Bar D whether she wanted to be or not. “Then it looks like I will need my suitcases.”

  Sarah Jane began to giggle. “You’re not going to tell Lucy you have to work now, are you, Chance?”

  Ignoring his sister, he said to Lucinda, “After breakfast I’ll warm up the Jeep. Would you like to go with me?”

  Go with him? She did, and she didn’t.

  The indecision must have shown on her face, because Chance went on before she could give him an answer. “You don’t have to worry about wrecking again. We should be safe traveling in the Jeep.”

  Yes, but would it be safe traveling with him? she wondered. Aloud she said, “I’ll be ready.”

  *

  A half hour later, bundled in her long, red coat and a white woolen scarf, Lucinda stood beside Chance on the back porch and looked out at the Jeep. Between it and her were several yards of knee-deep snow. How was she going to hobble through all of that?

  Reading her thoughts, Chance stooped over and lifted her into his arms. “Don’t worry about my back,” he said before she could put up a protest. “You hardly weigh more than a couple of sacks of good horse feed.”

  Instinctively Lucinda looped her arms around his neck and pressed her face dangerously close to his. “Good horse feed doesn’t weigh the same as bad horse feed?” she couldn’t help asking.

  Chuckling, he stepped off the porch with her and into the deep snow. “No. Bad horse feed weighs more ‘cause it has worms in it.”

  Beneath the brim of his Stetson, she could see the sky was lead gray and snow was falling thick and fast. She should have been worried at the sight. The more it snowed, the longer she would have to stay here on the ranch. Yet all she could think at the moment was that Chance didn’t smell like soap or cologne. His scent was pure man and so intoxicating she hardly knew where she was until he’d placed her on the Jeep’s bucket seat.

  “Thank you,” Lucinda murmured as he carefully pulled his arm from beneath her knees.

  “You’re welcome,” he said lowly.

  Her heart going in a mad gallop, Lucinda’s eyes inched upward to find his face hovering just inches away from hers. The tempting sight crumbled her common sense. And though she knew it was crazy, more than anything she wanted to cup her palms against his jaws, feel his skin, his whiskers, draw his face to hers and kiss his lips.

  “I think—” With one hand he reached above her head. The movement caused his face to dip even closer to hers. Lucinda drew in a sharp breath and gripped the edge of the seat. “You’d be safer belted in,” he finished, drawing the belt across her lap.

  “You’re probably right.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but at some point during the past few minutes she’d forgotten to breathe.

  As he snapped the seat belt against her tummy, she let out a long, burning breath, then waited until he’d stepped back from her before she drew in a fresh one.

  You’ve gone crazy, Lucinda, she scolded herself after Chance had shut the door and gone around to climb into his own seat. She’d spent the better part of this whole year in misery because of a man. How could she look at Chance, a man she didn’t really know, and feel such strong erotic urges?

  “You’ve certainly got Sarah Jane stirred up,” Chance told her as he carefully put the Jeep into motion. “If I hadn’t agreed to go get your suitcases, she would have probably tried driving herself.”

  Even though Lucinda was wearing gloves, she jammed her hands down into the deep pockets of the coat. Maybe there, her fingers would forget all about touching Chance Delacroix.

  “You make her sound headstrong.”

  Chance grunted. “She is at times. But I try my best to keep her reined in. Which hasn’t always been easy to do. A brother isn’t the same as a daddy. But I’ve tried to be both to Sarah Jane for the past ten years.”

  They were out of the ranch yard now and headed down the lane. Lucinda noticed it was lined on both sides by huge cottonwood trees. Like most of the other trees in this part of the country, the bare limbs had been permanently whipped to the north by the relentless winds. At the moment, the trees, as well as the railed fence that followed the arrow-straight road, were decorated with snow.


  “Your father has been dead that long?” she asked.

  He didn’t look at her. Nor did his expression alter as he answered, “Yes. He died suddenly. An aneurysm in the brain. He was still a young man at the time.”

  Even though his face didn’t show it, Lucinda could hear the pain of loss in Chance’s voice, and it told her that he’d obviously been close to his father.

  “I’m sorry you lost him. But at least you have your mother. And she’s still a young, vibrant woman.”

  A fond smile crossed Chance’s face. “Mother is one of a kind.” He glanced at Lucinda. “And she very much wants you to stay on the ranch for the holidays.”

  Lucinda pushed her hands deeper into the coat pockets. “What about you? Dr. Campbell said you were the top dog around here.”

  Chance laughed and Lucinda felt herself melting at the warm sound. “Being the top dog doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Not when the dog has two women to keep happy.”

  Sighing, Lucinda looked out at the golden plains that were now covered in a sea of white. It was a very beautiful sight to Lucinda. But last night she’d learned just how harsh and unpredictable this country could be in spite of that beauty.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t keen about me staying in your home,” she told him. “For all you know I could have a very sordid past.”

  Chance didn’t believe her past was anything close to sordid. At least he didn’t want to think it was. However, she did seem secretive about herself. But rather than putting Chance off, her evasiveness had only made him more intrigued with her.

  “Are you warning me that I might wake up one morning and find that you’ve skipped out with all the silverware and every last Christmas gift under the tree?”

  Lucinda couldn’t help but laugh at his ridiculous question. “Maybe I should wait until you open your gifts first. I might not bother taking the things I don’t like.”

  “Well, I don’t imagine you’d like the box of farrier tools Mother got me. Fashion designers probably don’t shoe horses.”

  Smiling, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “How do you know that’s what she got you?”

  “Because I told her to.”

  Lucinda shook her head with wry disbelief. “That couldn’t be any fun. Your gifts are supposed to be a surprise.”

  Chance kept a tight grip on the steering wheel as the Jeep plowed through the deeply rutted snow. “Oh, you can rest assured Mother will have plenty of other surprises under the tree.”

  Yes, Lucinda figured Dee was the sort of person who loved Christmas and gave as much as she could to everyone around her.

  “What are you going to get for Christmas, Lucinda?” he asked a bit impishly. “Have you already told Santa what you want?”

  If there truly was a Santa Claus, Lucinda would have simply told him she wanted someone to love her, to share her life and make a family with. But the possibility of there being a real Santa out there somewhere was about as remote as her finding a man she could trust enough to give her heart to.

  “Santa forgot about me a long time ago. So I guess I’ll—” Actually Lucinda wouldn’t be getting anything for Christmas. But she didn’t want to admit that to Chance. It was too painful to think about, much less share with a man who’d never known what it was like to be really and truly alone. “I’ll have to wait and see what my friend in Chicago sends me. Probably a box of chocolates. She thinks I’m too thin.”

  She. Chance shouldn’t have been so pleased to hear that Lucinda’s friend was female. But he was. He couldn’t help wanting to believe that she was completely unattached. He wanted to know that every time he looked at her, he wasn’t looking at another man’s woman.

  “Last night I got the distinct impression you were running from Chicago,” he said.

  Inside the coat pockets, Lucinda’s hands tightened into fists. Her gaze remained fixed on the windshield. “I didn’t run from Chicago. I simply left.”

  “And you left because of a man. Didn’t you?”

  Was she that transparent? Lucinda wondered. Dear Lord, had he been able to read the wanton thoughts going on in her head a few minutes ago when he’d set her in the Jeep?

  Slowly she moistened her lips, then glanced over at him. He was watching the road ahead, but she knew he was expecting her to answer. She also knew that if she didn’t give him one, he’d continue to pester her about it.

  “What makes you think I left Chicago because of a man?”

  His mouth twisted. “Because I figure you had to work long and hard to build up the sort of clientele you need to make a living in your business. You wouldn’t just up and leave all that for a change of scenery.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you said at breakfast. But I wasn’t born yesterday, Lucy. You might have fooled Mother and Sarah Jane with all that business about the economy, but you didn’t fool me.”

  Turning her head, she frowned at him. “I didn’t know cowboys played detective.”

  “Now you’re being flip,” he accused.

  “And you’re being nosy,” she shot back.

  He suddenly braked the Jeep to a halt and Lucinda looked out to see they’d reached her wrecked car. Good, she thought with relief, maybe he’d go after her cases now and let this whole conversation drop.

  Her hopes were quickly dashed when Chance squared around in the seat to face her.

  “Maybe I am nosy,” he conceded. “But I just don’t see how running across the country could cure you of a broken heart.”

  He thought she had a broken heart? Before she could stop herself, she let out a caustic laugh. “I’m not moving across country because of my heart. I—” She broke off, then heaved out a sigh as Chance patiently folded his arms across his chest.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  Why was he doing this? she wondered. She was just someone he and his family had befriended. In a few days she’d be out of their lives. It shouldn’t matter to him why she’d left Chicago. But it seemed to, and that shook her.

  As far as she knew, no one had ever really cared what happened to Lucinda Lambert. Some, like Richard, had pretended to. Others, like those at the orphanage, had cared for her because it was their job. So why should she think this man was any different?

  Tossing her hair away from her face, she let out a weary sigh. “I left Chicago because—well, a whole lot of bad memories were there and I wanted to get away from them. I want to start somewhere fresh.”

  “I can understand that,” he replied, his voice much softer than it had been moments ago.

  Could he really understand? she wondered as her eyes slowly searched his strong face. She couldn’t imagine him ever feeling so desperate that he wanted to leave his home. He’d always had a family who loved him.

  Swallowing down the sudden lump that had collected in her throat, Lucinda turned her gaze back outside the windshield. “Last year at this time I was engaged to be married.”

  His jaw tightened. “What happened?”

  She shrugged as though none of it mattered, but Chance could tell from the distant look on her face that she was back in a painful time and place. He could only wonder what sort of man could have hurt this woman. Moreover, what kind of man could ever have given her up?

  “Things didn’t work out. He was—very possessive and I—well, I broke off our engagement and ended the relationship.”

  She’d pulled her hands out of her pockets and removed her gloves. Now they were on her lap, clasped together so tightly her knuckles were white. Chance wanted to reach over, unclench her hands and press them between the two of his. He wanted to reassure her, make her smile, make her glad that she was with him and not that man she’d once promised herself to.

  “Do you regret that it’s over?”

  Chance’s question pulled her gaze back around to him. If only he knew how desperately she wished the whole thing with Richard was finally and truly over.

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head.
“It was the only choice I had. Now I want to put all of that behind me.”

  Maybe her heart wasn’t broken and maybe she was moving simply to have a fresh start. But he wasn’t blind. The shadows that haunted her eyes told him she was troubled about something and that bothered Chance. More than he cared to admit.

  He opened the door, but before he climbed to the ground, he looked at her and said, “Then I hope you can leave all those memories back there, Lucy. I really do.”

  As Lucinda watched Chance wade through the snow to her car, she realized she was shaking. It wasn’t strange for a woman to want to kiss a man as attractive as Chance Delacroix. But now her wants were going a step further. She’d told him a part of her past and had wanted to tell him more. She’d wanted to lay her head on his chest, hang on to his broad shoulders and tell him the fear and helplessness she’d been living with these past months. What did it mean?

  Don’t think about what it means, she silently whispered. Don’t think about him or the way he smells and looks and talks. Just because he was a big, physically tough man didn’t mean he could protect her, or that he’d even want to.

  No, she thought, the only person who could take care of her and keep her safe was herself. She had to remember that.

  Chapter Five

  “Lucinda, these are the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen in my life! Look at this blue crepe suit, Mother. Wouldn’t it be great for traveling?”

  The three women were in Lucinda’s bedroom, where Sarah Jane had scattered Lucinda’s fashions all over the bed, dressing table and a stuffed armchair.

  Dee picked up the Wedgwood blue jacket lying on the bed and held it out in front of her.

  “It’s very nice,” she agreed. “What size is it, Lucy?”

  “An eight, I think.”

  Dee shook her head. “Forget it, Sarah Jane. That’s too small for you.”

  “Oh, but I love it. I wish you could make another for me,” she told Lucinda, who was sitting in a nearby rocking chair with her injured ankle propped on a footstool. “Or do you ever duplicate your pieces?”