by Tina Leonard
“Didn’t you break anything when you met us?” Minnie asked.
Slowly, he took their hands in his. “Turns out I did,” he said softly. “My heart got broken. Which is why I know there’ll never be a little boy or a little girl I love as much as I do you two.”
They put their arms around his neck and squeezed.
“It’s okay, Mr. Calhoun,” Minnie said. “We’ll be all right. As Momma always says, the show must go on.”
OLIVIA GLANCED UP when Calhoun walked her two children into her father’s hospital room. “Thank you for bringing them,” she said, hugging both her children.
“Mr. Spinlove,” Calhoun said, politely tipping his hat.
“Hmm,” Barley said.
“I hope you’re feeling better.” He turned and met Olivia’s eyes. “Olivia, can I have a word with you?”
She got up and followed him into the hallway.
“How’s your dad?”
“Going home today. The doctor says he’s well enough to travel, but he needs to avoid strain and difficult conditions.”
“Olivia,” he said heavily. “How are you going to get all of you back home? To…where is it, anyway?”
“Kansas,” she said. “Not so far. We’ll be fine. We’ve managed before.”
“Your father can’t drive Gypsy’s trailer. He needs to rest. Does the doctor know what you’re planning? I’m pretty certain he’d advise against it.”
“We’ll be fine,” she said, but even inside herself she wasn’t certain.
“Where do the kids ride when you’re driving?”
“Usually in the truck with Dad.”
“Well, not this time,” Calhoun said. “At least promise me that. What if he has a heart attack, Olivia? Are you thinking this through?”
Anger flared inside her. “I would never endanger my children.”
He held up his hands. “I know you wouldn’t. But I don’t think any of this is a good idea.”
“My life is my own,” she said. “Just because something happened between us, doesn’t mean—”
Before she knew what had happened, he’d grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall into a small break room. Closing the door, he pulled her close to him. Olivia’s heart pounded.
“What exactly happened between us, Olivia?” he asked. “Yesterday you went cool on me. You took off like a cat out of a cannon. I made love to you, and I gave you time to tell me what was wrong. But you didn’t. And now you’re off again, without so much as a goodbye. I spent more time saying goodbye to your kids than you’d give me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Honestly, Calhoun, I don’t. I didn’t mean to fall for you, I didn’t mean to sleep with you and I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“But?”
“But we’re just not right for each other. And we both knew that in the beginning. I live in Kansas, you live here. My family travels, yours stays in one place, for the most part.”
“When they’re not avoiding something? Like their responsibilities? Is that what you were going to say?”
“No,” she said, stung. “Why would I? If anybody is avoiding their responsibilities, it’s me.”
He let go of her. “What do you mean?”
“I spent time with you instead of here with my father. I spent time with you instead of with my children. My horse, my packing—I haven’t done anything except be with you.”
“Do you regret that?” His face was hard.
“No.” She shook her head. “But I know it’s time for me to quit spinning daydreams and get back to reality.”
“Reality doesn’t include me.”
She shook her head in the negative.
“You’re a tough cookie, Olivia Spinlove. I see now where you don’t fall far from the tree.”
She felt her face flush. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Maybe you should tell me what it means.”
“If you’re saying my father—”
“I’m saying your mother,” he said pointedly.
He knew. She wasn’t going to tell him, but he knew. What was worse, he also knew she had planned on leaving him without telling him the truth.
“How did you find out?” she asked.
“So it’s true?”
“Apparently so. I haven’t asked Dad yet, and I’m not going to because he’s not supposed to get upset. It’s a talk that can wait.” She looked at him defiantly. “It’s bad luck for me, maybe, but it doesn’t change anything. Not really.”
His jaw tightened.
“I am sorry,” she said more gently, “but Calhoun, you said yourself you weren’t much interested in more than the surface of a woman.”
“I never said that.”
“Sure you did. You love to paint women, but you don’t paint women you love.”
He stared at her.
“I was never going to fit into your heart,” she said sadly. “Let’s not pretend. If I had fallen for your cowboy shtick, you would have hit the gas as fast as Last did.”
“That’s it,” Calhoun said. “I’m taking you home.”
She pulled away from him. “What are you talking about?”
“No woman,” he said, “and I mean no woman, accuses me of not having a heart. You’re going to bring the traveling circus to the ranch.”
“I cannot. We planned on being home by Christmas.”
He smiled at her, but it didn’t seem his eyes were happy. “Guess what? Christmas comes to Malfunction Junction just the same as it comes to Kansas.”
“What’s the point of this?” She glared at him.
“Because,” Calhoun said, “you’re the original runaway gypsy. I should have known that a lady with a horse named Gypsy, who lives in a motor home that stays on the road, would be all about roaming free. But Ms. Spinlove, you just ran out of run. Your kids need me, and they need stability, and they’re coming home with me for Christmas.”
Chapter Thirteen
Calhoun’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, clicking it on. “Calhoun,” he said.
“Best come on home, Calhoun,” Crockett said. “We have a baby on the way.”
Calhoun blinked. “A baby?”
“Valentine’s having her baby. Any idea where Last is?”
“No, the son of a gun.” He looked at Olivia, thinking hard. “How long do I have?”
“Could be several hours. The doctor says first births usually take the longest.”
“I’ll be there. I have a matter to settle.”
“Spinlove matter?”
“Yeah.” Calhoun opened the break room door into the hallway so Olivia could leave, but she stood watching him.
“Hey,” Crockett said, “not that it’s any of my business, but I’m about to have a Christmas stocking made for Valentine’s baby, because it will be a Jefferson.” He coughed. “Seemed like those Spinlove kids mentioned something about liking stockings with their names on them.”
Calhoun watched Olivia watching him. What was he going to do with Marvella’s daughter? “I imagine they would.”
“Could send them up to their house for Christmas,” Crockett suggested.
“Excellent idea. Thanks for thinking of it. I’ll be home soon.” He hung up. “We’re having a baby, so I’m going to have to get. Make up your mind, Olivia. Pack Pops up and bring him to our ranch for the first leg of the journey, or let me drive you home to Kansas.”
“Calhoun, there’s no reason—”
“There’s every reason. Listen, Olivia, you remember how you warned me about your kids and how they always wanted attention?”
She nodded.
“Well, now they’re getting it. Real attention. I’m him. Mr. Attention.”
“You don’t have to be,” she said.
“Yeah, I actually do,” he told her. “I’m not sending you, a sick old man and two little children off on the road. It’s a dumb idea, but I understand where you’re coming from, because we
have dumb ideas all the time at Malfunction Junction. Only difference is we always have somebody around to dig us out. We have each other. On the road, you won’t have anyone.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “I see your point. Thank you for offering your hospitality.”
“So which is it? You come to me or I come to you?”
“We’ll come to Malfunction Junction. Just until Dad rests a bit.”
“Good.” Calhoun looked at her. “But don’t worry. It’s a no-strings-attached offer.”
“So…”
“So I’m doing this for your kids, Olivia.”
OLIVIA WATCHED Calhoun walk out of the break room, his big strides carrying him away from her. His words rang in her ears, leaving her breathless. Once before, he’d told her that he helped her kids because he was really doing it for her.
Now he was saying it was all about her kids.
It was the first time she’d seen him with any sort of anger in him, but now it was there, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d hurt him. Dishonesty was never a way to touch someone’s heart. And he didn’t appreciate her not needing him.
He had tried very hard to be patient and kind to her. She shivered, thinking about how sweetly he’d made love with her.
Even before Marvella’s disastrous confession, she had been planning to leave Calhoun behind without even a forwarding note—and he knew it. He might not have known it before, but he did now. He called her a gypsy, and she had to think he knew her better than she knew herself.
Now he had a reason not to want her, and it hurt. Maybe she’d meant to leave with him still wanting her, so that she would always feel desirable when remembering her onetime fling. Maybe it was true that what someone once did to you, you eventually did to someone else, as a way to heal yourself.
Only she didn’t feel healed. She felt broken.
The only way to make up to everyone for her actions was to start over. It was too late for them now. Even she knew that this race could not be rerun.
It was too late, because he no longer wanted her. Her relation to Marvella, as Marvella had predicted, was the final tearing between them. But more than that, she’d always had one foot propping open the door so she could shove him out at any moment.
She had, he’d gone, and now they were finished.
But he loved her kids, and he intended to do good things for them, even if it meant putting up with her and Dad and Gypsy and a motor home and everything else that came along with their act.
Everything about her was an act, she realized.
She’d been acting all along as if she didn’t care, when she cared more deeply than she could ever admit.
She went down the hall, realizing that she needed to have a long talk with her father. Minnie and Kenny came running out the door, meeting her in the hallway.
“Where are you going?” she asked them.
“Mr. Calhoun says we need to scram for a minute,” Minnie said. “And he gave us money for ice cream in the cafeteria.”
“Hang on a sec, and I’ll walk you down,” she said. “Sit right on that bench over there until I check out…everything,” she said, meaning Calhoun.
To her surprise, Calhoun was in Barley’s room, shaking her father’s hand.
“Now, I know you don’t like me, sir,” Calhoun said, “and I certainly don’t like you. Man to man, I think that’s a fair-and-square starting point. Personally, I’d rather someone tell me to my face that they hate me than act like they like me right before they bury an axe in my back. So, zero is fine with me.”
“What else?” Barley said, as Olivia hovered in the doorway, listening shamelessly.
“As a representative of the Jefferson family, I’m inviting you to our ranch to stay awhile, maybe a week, till you get your feet under you. It’s for the sake of Minnie and Kenny that I offer, because it’s Christmastime, and they deserve better than being broke down somewhere on a cold highway with a sick old man and a woman and a horse.”
“You know, son, I don’t like you,” Barley said. “Don’t like you a bit.”
But he said it without depth, Olivia realized, and that meant he was listening.
“That’s fine,” Calhoun said. “As I said, all I’m interested in is sharing the Christmas season with your grandkids. Can you do better right now, old man?”
There was silence for a moment. Barley said, “Well, I could, but the doc says I can’t. Of course, he doesn’t know his ass from a goat, but I’ve got to go with his orders or he says I’m gonna end up on the wrong side of a grave.”
“Well,” Calhoun said, “you seem fit enough to me. But doctor’s orders are just one more thing to live through. You’ll be fine in a week, I imagine, and able to cart your family home.”
“So, what about my daughter?” Barley said gruffly.
“She says she thinks she can get you home herself.”
Barley humphed. “Stubborn.”
“Well, I know. So it’s up to you to convince her that while you’re obeying orders, you might as well sit and see a working ranch while you have the chance.”
“Working ranch?”
“Yes, sir,” Calhoun said proudly. “That’s what we are.”
“I thought y’all were just a bunch of leftover candy-ass dime-store cowboys living off your daddy’s money.”
“That, sir, would be a rumor.”
“Marvella told me that. She runs the—”
“We have acquaintance with Marvella. We have a love-hate relationship. We love to hate each other. It’s a good relationship and benefits us all when we need it to. Something similar to what I’m proposing to you.”
“Hmmph,” Barley said. “I don’t like you.”
“I’m not worried about it, Barley. Let’s get this thing agreed to, because I’ve got a baby on the way, due to make a delivery any moment now.”
“What?” Barley exclaimed.
“Well, not my baby, precisely. It’s my brother’s, Last’s. But he’s not around, and that means we all step up to the plate. Actually, it doesn’t matter whose baby it is, because Jefferson men don’t forget what’s right.”
Barley sighed. “I may have misjudged you.”
Calhoun glanced over his shoulder, catching Olivia eavesdropping. “I’m going to go hitch your trailer,” he told her. “Why don’t you see about dismissal papers for your dad. I’ll pull around front. You have two options. You can drive your motor home and stay in that as you do now, and I’ll drive Gypsy’s trailer, or you can drive Gypsy, and I’ll cart your crew home in my truck. You can stay in one of our smaller houses on the property. Your choice. Either way, we’re only a couple hours away if you’ve forgotten something.”
Olivia blinked. “Dad? What would you like best?”
Barley’s eyes grew big. “To be honest, and as much as I hate to admit it to this contrary individual, I am tired of living on the road. I am fairly sick of our motor home, and it does seem to me that, if it’s not putting you out, a real house would be a wonderful place to stay for the Christmas season. But only for a couple of days,” he warned.
“Only until you’re feeling stronger,” Calhoun agreed. “We’ll get you gone as quick as we can. I promise.”
He glanced at Olivia, his words for her, then left the room after she handed him their keys.
“Whoa,” her dad said. “Did you two have a row?”
“No,” Olivia said carefully. “We’re just not interested in each other.”
Barley wrinkled his nose. “Then why is he doing all this if he isn’t an egg-sucking weasel trying to get into my good graces so he can be my son-in-law?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said softly, picking up the flowers Marvella had brought her father and placing them in the trash. “I forgot to tell you that those flowers were from Marvella.”
“Oh.” He looked surprised momentarily. “Why would she bring me flowers?”
“I guess because you took sick at the rodeo,” Olivia said carefully. “Maybe that’s
how they do things here.”
He scratched his stubbly beard. “I guess. So, where’s that crazy cowboy? And what did you decide about all our vehicles?”
Olivia blinked. Her father didn’t seem either concerned or impressed that Marvella had been by to see him. Then again, her father was a wonderful actor who had been working audiences for years. “I’ll drive Gypsy, because we can unhitch the trailer and still have a vehicle for us to use.”
“Mom?” Minnie said, poking her head around the door. “You promised us ice cream, and we’ve been waiting patiently—”
“Oh, my gosh. Dad, I’ll be right back.” She went out the door, catching up to the kids. “Now, listen, you two can’t take money from Calhoun in the future, okay? He was just being nice this time, but—”
“Mom,” Minnie said, stopping in the hallway. “Please don’t worry so much. We’re not asking him for money. We’re not asking him for anything. We remember the rule.”
“No cowboys,” Kenny said. “We’re being good.”
Olivia hesitated, staring down at her two beautiful children. Children she loved more than anything in the world. They did try so hard to be good.
“We were hoping for a father, but now we understand Calhoun is not the one,” Minnie said. “He only broke his heart when he met us. To be our father, he has to break something more important.”
“Like an arm,” Kenny said. “I think.”
“What?” Olivia looked at her children in their mismatched clothes, with their messy hair that hadn’t been combed, and their eager-to-please expressions.
“It’s okay, Momma,” Minnie said. “We understand it all.”
Olivia followed her children down the hall. Had anything in her life ever hurt this much?
She had thrown away the one person who loved her children the way she’d always dreamed a man would.
And he’d tried to love her, too.
AN HOUR LATER, Calhoun pulled up at the hospital, driving his truck, with Gypsy’s trailer hitched to it. He’d forgotten Olivia would need clothes for the whole clan. This way they could leave their truck behind, and Olivia could drive the motor home.