A Texas Cowboy's Christmas

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Molly’s insides twisted with anxiety. Chance had said she had blinders on...

  Babs frowned. “She’s been mooning after that ne’er-do-well cowboy for years now. Lamenting their breakup to the point she won’t date respectable beaux more than once or twice. And then only if forced.”

  Molly could see why that would not make for a happy situation. For anyone. “Again...” A hint of steel entered her tone. “What does this have to do with me?”

  Babs waved a dissolute hand. “Delia, as you know, does not like to chase lost causes. She needs to see that Chance has indisputably moved on. With you. And the most dramatic, lasting impression way for that to happen is for her to catch you with him, in flagrante.”

  This was getting surreal. Molly felt the room sway. “You’re...joking.”

  Babs opened her handbag. “I assure you I am not. Now, Chance will be here in about ten minutes. If not sooner, given the message I left for him just shortly before you arrived. Delia will be here ten minutes after that.”

  Babs fished her keys from her bag. “All you have to do is seduce Chance in plain view, right here in the living room, and you will not only have more work than you can handle in Dallas but your son will be admitted to Worthington Academy, his tuition for the next five years fully paid in advance.”

  The proposition was so outrageous it took her a moment to recover. “I don’t know why you think I would even consider something so preposterous.”

  “Let’s not play games, Molly.”

  “I’m not,” Molly gritted out.

  Babs’s expression turned ugly. “You had no qualms asking Chance Lockhart to pay for Braden’s interview at Worthington Academy.”

  Sure she hadn’t heard right, Molly blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  Babs smirked, as if she still held the high card. “You didn’t know? How sweet.” She leaned closer, telling Molly snidely, “The problem is, as usual, Chance was a little too cheap. It would have taken a much larger donation to secure a spot for Braden at semester. Fortunately, I am prepared to spare no expense, if it means getting my daughter to start taking advantage of her own good fortune with Mr. X.” Babs stood and shrugged on her mink coat. “So you see, Molly, you and I have that in common. We’re both willing to do whatever it takes to safeguard our children.”

  Shock reverberated through her. “But I’m nothing like you!” Molly insisted.

  Babs flashed a manipulative smile. “Aren’t you? We will see. You have approximately six minutes to decide...”

  * * *

  CHANCE PASSED BABS on the road leading to the lake house. She was driving with her usual cool confidence. Which made him wonder what had happened with Molly.

  Molly’s red SUV was in the driveway.

  He walked in. She was on the sofa, her head in her hands.

  “Molly?”

  She looked up, her complexion ashen.

  Damning himself for ever letting her make this venture alone, he crossed quickly to her side. He knelt in front of her, consoling her the best he could under the circumstances. “What happened here?”

  Molly stared at him, a thousand emotions shimmering in her eyes. Anger, hurt, resentment. Disbelief...

  “What in hell did Babs say to you?” Clasping Molly’s hands, he pulled her to her feet. She moved woodenly into his embrace.

  He wrapped his arms around her. Instead of melting against him the way she usually did, she pulled away.

  “Chance, no!” she said in a strangled voice, looking all the more upset and betrayed. “I don’t want—” She choked up, shaking her head. “We can’t...”

  Aware he’d never seen her more devastated, he threaded his hands through her hair and lifted her face to his.

  Beneath her confusion, a glimmer of need shone in her eyes. “Molly,” he said again as his head lowered to hers. Desperate to comfort her in any way he could, he touched his lips to hers just as the front door opened behind them.

  “Really,” Delia’s low voice rang out in the chilly room. “You don’t have to put on a show just for me. I already know what Mother’s scheme is.”

  That was good, Chance thought. Because he sure as hell didn’t.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Molly could see why Delia was upset. She lifted her hands. “I didn’t agree to help your mother with her sleazy machinations.”

  Delia took off her sunglasses, her demeanor as world-weary as her tone.

  “And yet here you are in Chance’s arms,” the heiress observed, as if she couldn’t bear yet another disappointment.

  Chance frowned. “I initiated that. Molly wasn’t cooperating.” Looking irritated to find himself being a third wheel in whatever was going on, he turned his level glance back to Molly. “Is this why?”

  Figuring he was going to find out eventually, Molly folded her arms in front of her. Chance had been right. She never should have come here today, no matter how lucrative the job or how coveted the connection. Sometimes a job just wasn’t worth it. “Babs offered to get Braden accepted at Worthington Academy, his tuition paid for the next five years, if I would be caught in flagrante with you!”

  Chance did a double take. “What the hell?”

  Delia nodded, her shoulders hunched in defeat. “Mother’s determined to show me that Chance and I are still all wrong for each other. What she refuses to accept is that we’ve been over for years now.”

  Molly wanted to believe that. Just as she wanted to believe that the difference between her background and Chance’s would not keep them apart. “Babs thinks you still have feelings for him.”

  Delia scoffed, “Of course I do! I’ll always care about you, Chance. Even though things ended badly. We knew each other too long and too well for me not to care for you.”

  Chance exhaled wearily. “Seeing you again has shown me the same thing.”

  Delia slid her sunglasses on top of her head. She loosened the belt on her black trench and perched on the edge of the sofa. “But coming all the way out here, going through the offer process with you, finding out how you still feel about monetary success, has also shown me that Mother was right to break us up. I never would have been happy living on a ranch named Bullhaven out in the middle of nowhere, with all those big, smelly Black Angus. Never mind going through the hassle of simultaneously building up two relatively small-time businesses from scratch!”

  Molly took umbrage with that. “First of all, Chance’s bulls don’t smell. I’ve been around them.”

  Delia waved off the details. “Maybe not to you. To me, everything out on that ranch is yucky and disgusting. I’m a city girl through and through.”

  That Molly could see.

  The question was...was she?

  Was Braden—who loved their small town and Chance’s ranch so much—a potential city boy?

  Or would her son wish for his roots, the way she was beginning to, and they hadn’t even left Laramie County yet!

  Her expression sober, Delia continued, “Being dragged out here—repeatedly—on what was clearly a lost cause, also made me realize I don’t want to work in the family business anymore, even as second in command. I really hate my mother’s maneuverings and all the drama.”

  “What do you want to do?” Chance asked his ex kindly.

  Delia gestured haphazardly, her elitist attitude coming to the fore once again. “Honestly? No clue. Thanks to the trust fund my daddy left me, however, I don’t have to be in any hurry to find out.”

  Molly had always wanted to have that particular option. Now, studying Delia’s self-indulgent expression, she wasn’t so sure that was such a good thing.

  “So maybe you should just tell your mother all that,” Molly proposed.

  “So she’ll leave Molly and Braden alone,” Chance added protectively.

&nbs
p; “And you.” Molly turned back to him.

  Once again, just like that, they were a team. At least for the moment.

  Delia scoffed. “First of all, talking to my mother, telling her what’s in your heart never works. She thinks the world revolves around cold hard cash.” Delia paused to let her words sink in. “And Mother’s right, for people like us, who have grown up with the world as their oyster, it really does. Which is why I’ve decided to take Mr. X up on his offer to rescue me from all this and fly back to San Francisco with him.”

  Suddenly Molly realized why Chance was so concerned about Delia. She’d obviously been sheltered to a fault. And hence, she’d remained incredibly naive despite her overall sophistication. “Are you sure you want to do that?” Molly asked gently. Be used like that? Like I once was? By a rich man who, at the end of the day, only cares about his own happiness?

  Delia paused to look at Chance, who remained stone-faced, then turned back to Molly. “Mr. X and I have been straight with each other. He wants a beautiful woman on his arm, one who’s very good at playing hard to get, to enhance the reputation he wants to build as a ladies’ man. So he can up his game.”

  Game, Molly thought. How appropriate.

  “And I need a break from my mother’s constant haranguing—which Mr. X has agreed to give—by hinting he wants to marry me. Mother won’t do anything to interfere with possible billions coming my way,” Delia continued.

  They all knew that to be true.

  “Anyway,” Delia finished with an airy shrug as Chance moved closer to Molly and slipped his arm around her waist. “If you want me to tell Mother you carried through on your end of the bargain and got caught in a passionate clinch with Chance so you’ll go ahead and get what you need regarding your son’s school, I’m happy to do so.”

  The knowledge Delia felt Molly could be part of any scheme, never mind one that low-down, rankled. His grasp on her tightening, Chance looked equally ticked off by the intimation.

  Her fury rising yet again, Molly reminded Delia, “Except I didn’t set you up deliberately.” She had been trying to do just the opposite.

  “Who cares?” Delia moved gracefully to her feet, suddenly looking very much like her mother. “Mother deserves to get scammed the way she was trying to scam me!”

  Molly knew revenge was a dish best not ever served. “Thanks,” she said tightly. “But Braden and I are fine.” In fact, this whole episode gave her second thoughts about trying to enroll her son with other children of the very elite. “I’d just as soon not have your mother’s involvement.”

  Delia sighed. “I hear you. Comes with way too many strings.” She said her goodbyes. The door closed behind her.

  Chance turned to Molly. “I’m sorry you got dragged into the middle of all this.”

  Molly thought of all that had gone on behind her back.

  All she and Chance still had left to discuss.

  She stepped away from his warm, comforting embrace, then said, with a deep soul-wrenching bitterness that surprised even her, “You know what, Chance Lockhart? You really should be.”

  * * *

  CHANCE COULD TELL by the quietly seething way Molly was looking at him that she was accusing him of something. And just when he thought, especially now that Babs and Delia and Mr. X were out of the way, that he and Molly were ready to take that next big step. “Did I do something?”

  “Maybe you should tell me.” When he said nothing immediately, her brow arched. “Unless there’s more than one thing?”

  There was only one mistake, and he saw now it had been a big one. He swore fiercely to himself, aware he should have leveled with her way before now. “You found out I intervened on Braden’s behalf at Worthington Academy to see he at least got an interview.”

  “Well, you must not have given enough, because he didn’t get accepted.”

  He resisted the urge to haul her into his arms and kiss some sense into her only because he didn’t want hot sex being the only thing keeping them together. “Is that what this is about? You wanted me to buy his way in, the way Babs bartered? Instead of just asking that he be tested and interviewed and given a fair shot?” He studied Molly in confusion. “Because I could still do that,” he said carefully.

  She tossed her head, her silky auburn curls swirling around her pretty face. Edging closer, she glared at him as if it were taking every ounce of self-control she had for her not to slug him on the chin. “No, you moron! It’s about the fact that you found it necessary to buy his preadmission interview and consideration at all, never mind behind my back!”

  He set his jaw. “How do you think my four siblings and I all got in there? How do you think the academy got such an over-the-top campus and facilities without charging six-figure tuition for each and every student? Parents make huge donations to pave the way for their kids and if necessary keep them there. It’s just the way things are done at that echelon, Molly.”

  She inhaled deeply, her luscious breasts lifting beneath the sophisticated evergreen business suit. “I see that now.” She raked her teeth across the plumpness of her lower lip. “What I don’t see is why you didn’t explain all that to me a whole lot earlier.”

  That part, at least, was easy, Chance thought. He returned her frustrated glare. “Because if I had told you that you needed more than just a letter from Sage, another alumni, to boost consideration chances, that you needed a big fat check of at least five figures just to get an interview there, you wouldn’t have allowed me to help. And I knew if you were ever going to understand what you were truly asking, in attempting to move to Dallas so Braden could enroll at Worthington Academy or another place just like it, was if you and he experienced it firsthand.”

  Hurt shimmered in her pretty amber eyes. “You figured I would think it wasn’t for him.”

  Another trap.

  “I didn’t know how you’d react, frankly. Because, yes, there are a lot of good things about the school, if you subtract the greased wheels and social hierarchy and all that.”

  “But you didn’t think Braden would belong.”

  Chance stood, legs braced apart, shoulders back, hands on his waist. “He loves bulls, Molly. Loves his cowboy boots. And his hat. And his friends here. Which isn’t to say he wouldn’t love a uniform, too. But, yeah, I hoped when the decision finally had to be made that you would want to stay in Laramie and leave him in the school he is in right now.” Exhaling roughly, he raked a hand through his hair. “Not because it’s going to in any way further enhance or detract from his opportunities, academically or any other way, but because he is happy there, and if you ask me, that’s what school should be about, making a kid feel happy and confident!” Damned if he didn’t suddenly sound like a parent. And an incredibly caring and overprotective one at that.

  “I agree.”

  Chance blinked. Almost afraid to think they might be on the same page once again.

  Molly shook her head, her mouth taking on a troubled tilt. “I’ve been reconsidering my education goals for Braden for days now. Ever since I Skyped with the academy administrators and had that uncomfortable meeting about why he didn’t get accepted. And then came back here and saw his Christmas program at the preschool.”

  Chance moved closer. He cupped her shoulders gently. “If you were having second thoughts, why didn’t you tell me?” So they could have talked about it. So he could have confessed what he had already done, and why, and had her understand.

  She whirled, sending a drift of perfume heading his way. “Because I hadn’t made up my mind entirely! And I didn’t want to say anything before I had.”

  He felt like he were facing off with a bear with his paw caught in a trap. “And now?”

  “I’ve decided to stay in Laramie through the rest of the school year.”

  That didn’t have the permanence he yearned for. Yet, wary
of pushing her too hard too fast again and ending up pushing her away, he asked quietly, “What about the two jobs you already have set up in Dallas?”

  Regret glimmered briefly in her gaze. She seemed to think she had failed on some level.

  He wanted to tell her she hadn’t.

  He didn’t think she would want to hear that, either.

  So he remained silent.

  With a sigh, she pointed out, her dejectedness more chilling than her earlier anger, “As you said, they are small tasks. And if we put our crews together, we could easily get them done in a couple of weeks. I just wouldn’t take on any more out of Laramie County for the time being.”

  “Well, that’s great news,” he said, beginning to think she was holding out for the same long-term future he was. In fact, the best Christmas present ever. “To have us working together again.”

  She didn’t seem to think so.

  She squared her slender shoulders. “But that doesn’t eliminate my need to build up a heck of a lot more of a financial safety net.” She looked all the more conflicted. “So I’m still going to eventually have to—”

  He held up a hand before she could continue. Grasped her hand before she could move even farther away. “I don’t want you and Braden to ever have to want for anything, either,” he told her huskily, tightening his fingers on hers. He paused to look deep into her eyes. “And you were right, merging our businesses into one would only bring you in another ten or fifteen percent annual revenue. Nothing close to what you’re trying to do moving to Dallas and entering that much more lucrative market.”

  Her eyes were steady, but her lower lip trembled. “I’m glad you understand that,” she said quietly.

  “I do. And that,” he said with a burst of excitement, “brings me to your Christmas gift.” Ignoring the skeptical expression on her face, he led her to the sofa. Sure everything was finally going to work out, he sat down next to her. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a red envelope with her name on it. Handed it to her with a flourish. “Open it!”