Mistletoe Rodeo (Welcome to Ramblewood)

by Amanda Renee

  “God, Rache.” Sharing the suffocating space beneath her umbrella, his demeanor softened. “I’m sorry. Or maybe happy. Hell, I’m not sure what to say.”

  “There’s not much anyone can say at this point,” she responded. “Wes is gone. I’m having his child...but how can I even think of being a mother when I’m so emotionally...”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” he said. “No matter what you need, I’m here for you. Wes and I made a pact. Should anything happen to either of us, we’d watch after each other’s family.”

  “But you don’t have a family,” she pointed out.

  “Yet. But it could’ve just as easily been me whose life we were celebrating here today.” He bowed his head. “Seeing you like this...so sad...makes me almost wish it was.”

  Me, too.

  There. Even if Rachel hadn’t given voice to her resentment, it was at least out there, for the universe to hear. Ordinarily, Chance and her husband worked together like a well-oiled team, watching each other’s backs. But then Chance had had to go and bust his ankle while helping one of their fellow deputy US marshals move into a new apartment.

  If Chance had really cared for Wes, he’d have been more careful. He wouldn’t have allowed his friend to be murdered at the hands of a madman—a rogue marshal who’d also come uncomfortably close to taking out one of the most key witnesses the Marshal’s Service had ever had.

  Her handful of girlfriends had tried consoling her, suggesting maybe Wes wasn’t really dead...but Rachel knew. There had been an exhaustive six-week search for Wes’s body. Combined with that, of the five marshals who’d been on that assignment, only two had come home alive. Another two bodies had been found, both shot. It didn’t take rocket science to assume the same had happened to her dear husband.

  “Let me take you home,” Chance said. Despite his crutches, he tried to angle her away from the thrashing sea and back to the parking lot, to the sweet little chapel where less than a year earlier she and Wes had spoken their wedding vows.

  “You’re soaked. Being out here in this weather can’t be good for you or the baby.”

  “I’m all right,” she said, again wrenching free of his hold. This time, it had been her elbow he’d grasped. She was trying to regain her dignity after having lost it in front of the church filled with Wes’s coworkers and friends, and she just wanted to be left alone. “Please...leave. I can handle this on my own.”

  “Rachel, that’s just it,” he said, awkwardly chasing after her as she strode down the perilous trail edging the cliff.

  His every step tore at her heart. Why was he alive and not her husband? The father of her child. What was she going to do? How was she ever going to cope with raising a baby on her own?

  “Honey, you don’t have to deal with Wes’s passing on your own. If you’d just open up to me, I’m here for you—for as long as you need.”

  That was the breaking point. Rachel stopped abruptly. She tossed her umbrella out to sea, tipped her head up to the battering rain and screamed.

  Tears returned with a hot, messy vengeance. Only, in the rain it was impossible to tell where tears left off and rain began. Then, suddenly, Chance was there, drawing her against him, into his island of strength and warmth, his crutches braced on either side of her like walls blocking the worst of her pain.

  “That’s it,” he crooned into her ear. “Let it out. I’m here. I’m here.”

  She did exactly as he urged, but then, because she’d always been an intensely private person and not one prone to histrionics, she stilled. Curiously, the rain and wind also slowed to a gentle patter and hushed din.

  “Thank you,” she eventually said. “You’ll never know how much I appreciate you trying to help, but...”

  “I’m not just trying,” he said. “If you’d let me in, we can ride this out together. I’m hurting, too.”

  “I know,” she said, looking to where she’d white-knuckle gripped the soaked lapels of his buff-colored trench. “But I—I can’t explain. I have to do this on my own. I was alone before meeting Wes, and now I am again.”

  “But you don’t have to be. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I’m here for you.”

  “No,” she said, walking away from him again, this time in the direction of her car.

  “Thanks, but definitely, no.”

  Eighteen months later...

  THROUGH THE RAIN-DRIZZLED, holiday-themed windows of bustling Hohlmann’s Department Store, Chance caught sight of a woman’s long, buttery-blond hair. Heart pounding, his first instinct was to run toward her, seeking an answer to the perpetual question: Was it her? Was it Rachel?

  No. It wasn’t her. And this time, just as so many others, the disappointment landed like a crushing blow to his chest.

  That day at the chapel had been the last time he’d seen her. Despite exhaustive efforts to track her, she’d vanished—destroying him inside and out.

  When eventually he’d had to return to work and his so-called normal life, he’d put a private investigator on retainer, telling the man to contact him upon finding the slightest lead.

  “You all right?” his little sister, nineteen-year-old Sarah, asked above an obnoxious Muzak rendition of “Jingle Bells.” She was clutching the prewrapped perfume box she’d just purchased for their mother. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Might as well have,” he said, taking the box from her to add to his already bulging bag. “Got everything you need?”

  “Sure,” she said, giving him the Look. The one that said she knew he was thinking about Rachel again, and that her wish for Christmas was that her usually wise big brother would once and for all put the woman—his dead best friend’s wife—out of his heart and head.

  Two hours later, Chance stuck his key in the lock of the Victorian relic his maternal grandmother had left him, shutting out hectic holiday traffic and torrential rain. Portland had been swamped under six inches in the past twenty-four hours. The last time they’d had such a deluge had been the last time he’d seen Rachel.

  “Where are you?” he asked softly as the wind bent gnarled branches, eerily scratching them against the back porch roof.

  Setting his meager selection of family gifts on the wood bench parked alongside the door, he looked away from the gray afternoon and to the blinking light on his answering machine. Expecting the message to be from Sarah, telling him she’d left a gift or glove in his Jeep, he pressed Play.

  “Chance,” his PI said, voice like gravel from too many cigarettes and not enough broccoli. “I’ve got a lead for you on that missing Finch girl. It’s a long shot, but you said you wanted everything, no matter how unlikely...”

  Despite the fact that Rachel had run off without the decency of a proper—or even improper—goodbye, her tears still haunted him when he closed his eyes.

  Chance listened to the message three times before committing the information to memory, then headed to his computer to book a flight to Denver.

  * * *

  “WESLEY, SWEETIE, PLEASE stop crying,” Rachel crooned to her ten-month-old baby boy, the only bright spot in what was becoming an increasingly frightening life. Having grown up in an orphanage, Rachel was no stranger to feeling alone in a crowd, or having to make it on her own. So why, after six months, was this still so hard?

  Despite her hugging and cooing, the boy only wailed more.

  “Want me to take him?”

  She looked up to see one of Baker Street Homeless Shelter’s newest residents wave grungy hands toward her child. She hadn’t looked much better when she’d first arrived, and Rachel still couldn’t get past the shock that she and her baby were now what most people would call bums.

  After reverting back to the name she’d gone by at the orphanage, Rachel Parkson, she’d traveled to Denver to room with her friend Jenny. But while Jenny had gotten lucky, landing a great job transfer to Des Moines, Rachel had descended into an abyss of bad luck.

  A tough pregnancy had landed her in hospital.
While she’d been blessed with a beautiful, healthy baby, at the rate she was going, the hefty medical bill wouldn’t be gone till he was out of high school. Wes’s life insurance company had repeatedly denied her claim, stating that without a body it wouldn’t pay.

  Making a long, sad story short, she’d lost everything, and here she was, now earning less than minimum wage doing bookkeeping for the shelter while trying to finish her business degree one night course at a time through a downtown Denver community college.

  She was raising her precious son in a shelter with barely enough money for diapers, let alone food and a place of their own. She used to cry herself to sleep every night, but now, she was just too exhausted. She used to pray, as well, but it seemed God, just like her husband, had deserted her.

  Baby Wesley continued to wail.

  “Sorry for all the noise,” she said to the poor soul beside her, holding her son close as she wearily pushed to her feet with her free hand. She had to get out of here, but how? How could she ever escape this downward financial spiral?

  “Rachel?”

  That voice...

  She paused before looking up. But when she did, tingles climbed her spine.

  “Chance?”

  * * *

  AFTER ALL THIS TIME, was it really Rachel? Raising Wes’s child in a homeless shelter? Why, why hadn’t she just asked for help?

  Chance pressed the heel of his hand to stinging eyes.

  “Y-you look good,” he said, lying through his teeth at the waiflike ghost of the woman he used to know. Dark shadows hollowed pale blue eyes. Wes used to brag about the silky feel of Rachel’s long hair cascading against his chest when they’d made love—but it was now shorn into a short cap. “And the baby. He’s wonderful, Rachel. You did good.”

  “Thanks,” she said above her son’s pitiful cry. “We’re okay.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see you... To help you...”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Bull,” he said, taking the now screaming baby from her, cradling him against his chest, nuzzling the infant’s downy hair beneath his chin. “What’s his name?”

  “Wesley,” she said, refusing to meet his gaze.

  He nodded, fighting a sudden knot at the back of his throat. Such a beautiful child, growing up in such cruel surroundings. And why? All because of Rachel’s foolish pride.

  “Get your things,” he growled between clenched teeth, edging her away from a rag-clothed derelict reeking of booze.

  “W-what?”

  “You heard me. You tried things your way, honey, and apparently it didn’t work out. Now we’re doing it my way. Your husband’s way.”

  “I— I’m fine,” she said, raising her chin, a partial spark back in her stunning eyes. “Just a little down on my luck. But things will change. They’ll get better.”

  “Damn straight they will.” Clutching the infant with one arm, he dragged her toward the shelter’s door with the other. “You don’t want charity from me, fine. But is this really what you want for your son? Wes’s son?”

  While Chance regretted the harshness of his words, he’d never retract them. Years ago he’d made a promise to her husband, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to back out on it now.

  He glanced away from Rachel to take in a nearly bald, fake Christmas tree that’d been decorated with homemade ornaments. Pipe cleaner reindeer and paper angels colored with crayons. Though the tree’s intent was kind, he knew Rachel deserved better.

  While killing time on endless stakeouts, Wes would ramble for hours about his perfect wife. About how much he loved her, how she was a great cook, how she always managed to perfectly balance the checkbook. Wes went so far as to offer private morsels he should’ve kept to himself—locker room details that should’ve been holy between a man and his wife. But because of Wes’s ever-flapping mouth, whether he’d wanted to or not, Chance knew everything about Rachel from her favorite songs to what turned her on.

  Another thing he knew were Wes’s dreams for her. How because she’d grown up in an orphanage, he’d always wanted to have a half-dozen chubby babies with her and buy her a great house and put good, reliable tires on her crappy car.

  Chance had made a promise to his best friend; one that put him in charge of picking up where Wes left off. It was a given he’d steer clear of the husband-wife physical intimacies—she was off-limits. Totally. But when it came to making her comfortable, happy...by God, if it took every day for the rest of his life, that’s what Chance had come to Denver prepared—and okay, he’d admit it, secretly hoping—to do.

  Looking back to Rachel, he found her eyes pooled. Lips trembling, she met his stare.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”

  Baby Wesley had fallen asleep in Chance’s arms. His cheeks were flushed, and he sucked pitifully at his thumb.

  “I—I tried breastfeeding him,” she said. “But my milk dried up.”

  “That happens,” he said, not knowing if it did or didn’t or why she’d even brought it up...just willing to say anything to get her to go with him.

  Shaking her head, looking away to brush tears, she said, “Wait here. I’ll get our things.”

  * * *

  FOR RACHEL, BEING at the airport and boarding the plane was surreal. As was driving through a fog-shrouded Portland in Chance’s Jeep, stopping off at an all-night Walmart for a car seat and over five hundred dollars’ worth of clothes, diapers, formula and other baby supplies. The Christmas decorations, hundreds and thousands of colorful lights lining each new street they traveled, struck her as foreign. As if from a world where she was no longer welcome.

  “I’ll repay you,” she said from the passenger seat, swirling a pattern in the fogged window. Presumably, he was heading toward his lovely hilltop home she’d always secretly called the real estate version of a wedding cake. “For everything. The clothes. Plane ticket. I’ll pay it all back. I—I just need a breather to get back on my feet.”

  “Sure,” he said. Was it her imagination, or had he tightened his grip on the wheel?

  “Really,” she said, rambling on about how Wes’s life insurance company refused to pay. “Just as soon as I get the check, I’ll reimburse you.”

  “Know how you can pay me?” he asked, pressing the garage door remote on the underbelly of his sun visor.

  She shook her head.

  He pulled the Jeep into the single-stall detached garage she’d helped Wes and him build, that same enchanted summer she and her future husband had become lovers.

  It is said a woman’s heart is a deep well of secrets and Rachel knew hers was no different. Squeezing her eyes shut, she saw Chance as she had that first night they’d met at Ziggy’s Sports Bar—before she’d even met Wes. Despite his physical appearance—six-three, with wide, muscular shoulders and a chest as broad and strong as an oak’s trunk—Chance’s shy, kind spirit made him a gentle giant to whom she’d instinctively gravitated.

  Never the brazen type, Rachel had subtly asked mutual friends about him, and every so often, when their eyes met from opposite ends of the bar during the commercial breaks of Monday Night Football, she’d thought she’d caught a glimmer of interest. And if only for an instant, hope that he might find her as attractive as she found him would soar. But then he’d look away and the moment would be gone.

  Then she’d met Wes—who’d made it known in about ten exhilaratingly sexy seconds that he didn’t just want to be her friend. Handsome, five-eleven with a lean build and quick smile, Wes hadn’t had to work too hard to make her fall for him—or to make any and all occasions magic.

  Chance turned off the engine and sighed. The only light was that which spilled from the weak bulb attached to the automatic opener, the only sounds those of rain pattering the roof and the baby’s sleepy gurgle... Angling on his seat, Chance reached out to Rachel, whispering the tip of his index finger so softly around her lips...she might’ve imagined his being there at all.

/>   “Know how you can repay me?” he repeated.

  Heartbeat a sudden storm, she swallowed hard.

  “By bringing back your smile.”

  * * *

  RACHEL AWOKE THE next morning to unfamiliar softness, and the breezy scent of freshly laundered sheets. Sunshine streamed through tall paned windows. After a moment of initial panic, fearing she may have died and moved on to heaven, she remembered herself not on some random cloud, but safely tucked in Chance’s guest bed in the turret-shaped room she’d urged him to paint an ethereal sky blue.

  The room was the highest point in his home, reached by winding stairs, and its view never failed to stir her. Mt. Hood was to the west, while to the east—long ago, while standing on a ladder, paint brush in hand, nose and cheeks smudged blue—she’d sworn she could see all the way to the shimmering Pacific. Wesley and Chance had laughed at her, but she’d ignored them.

  To Rachel, the room represented freedom from all that had bound her in her early, depressing, pre-Wes life. The panoramic views, just as her marriage, made her feel as if her soul was flying.

  As she inched up in the sumptuous feather bed to greet a day as chilly as it was clear, the room still wielded its calming effect. She’d awakened enough to realize how late it must be...and yet Wesley hadn’t stirred.

  Tossing back covers, she winced at the wood floor’s chilly bite against her bare feet. With one look at the portable crib that had been among their purchases the previous night, Rachel realized that Wesley’s cries hadn’t woken her because he wasn’t there.

  Bounding to the kitchen, she found her son sitting proud in his new high chair, beaming, covered ear to ear in peachy-smelling orange goo.

  “Morning, sleepyhead.” Baby spoon to Wesley’s cooing lips, Chance caught her off guard with the size of his smile.

  “You should’ve woken me,” she said, hustling to where the two guys sat at a round oak table in a sunny patch of the country kitchen. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I took the day off.”

  “I’ll pay you for your time.”

  He’d allowed her to take the spoon as she’d pulled out a chair and sat beside him, but now, his strong fingers clamped her wrist. “Stop.”