Yuletide Cowboy

by Debra Clopton

  Jack was right behind him. “We ain’t gonna fall.” He grabbed hold of the ladder and jumped on the bottom rung.

  “What do you think, boss lady?” Chance’s eyes twinkled. “Do you feel safe enough to let them come up and maybe start helping build this thing?”

  She looked around at the two sides that were finished. “If they stay on that side I won’t worry so much that they’ll try to jump from the floor to the ground.”

  “Nice way to not say they might fall.”

  She laughed. “Knowing those two, they would jump intentionally just to see if they could do it.”

  “Come on up, but careful,” Chance called. Jack scooted up the ladder like a squirrel up a tree.

  Chance took him by the arms and helped him onto the deck of the tree house. “Dude, I thought you said you were scared of climbing a ladder?”

  Jack’s face blew up with a radiant smile. “I’m not scared of this. I’m scared of that.” He waved toward the house and the tall eaves. “That’s e-nor-mous.

  “It ain’t enormous. Clint Matlock’s barn, that’s enormous,” Gavin declared, hot on the heels of his brother. Chance reached for him also. “And I’m not scared of any of it.” Gavin beamed, then looked at Lynn. “But I’m not gonna scare you again, Momma. Just like Chance told me.”

  He was scaring her all right, just by his big talk! “What did Chance tell you?” she asked, her curiosity spiked.

  “That boys can be daredevils but cal-cu-lated. They got to be prepared and trained up for dangerous stuff so’s it balances the scale. But sometimes they just gotta think about their mommas.”

  She laughed nervously. “Well, thank you for thinking of me. If you become a daredevil I’m going to grow old before my time.”

  “And she’s too pretty to grow old before her time. Don’t you boys agree?”

  Chance had just called her pretty. The compliment was just to tease with her boys and yet there was no denying the way it washed over her. It had been a very long time since a man had told her she was pretty.

  She didn’t look at him. Instead she looked at her grinning boys.

  Gavin spoke first. “We ain’t gonna do that to you, Momma. Are we, Jack?”

  Jack shook his head. He turned serious. “You think my momma is pretty?”

  Chance hiked a straight black brow charmingly and showed his even more charming half grin. “I think you’ve got a beautiful mom inside and out.”

  Gavin and Jack stared at her with the excitement of two children who’d just won the Toys “R” Us lottery.

  She laughed, self-conscious about the moment. “You don’t really know me,” she said, teasing but serious.

  He looked shocked. “So you’re telling me you aren’t nice?”

  “Oh, she’s nice,” Gavin said. “Except when we don’t do what she says!”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jack giggled when she shot them a teasing scowl. “She makes us sit in time-out forever!”

  She knew he was playing, getting into the spirit of things. She poked him in the rib and he jumped away squealing. Chance caught him around the waist and poked him, too, as Jack wrapped his arms around Chance’s neck. “Your momma is just teaching you right from wrong because she loves you.”

  “We know,” Gavin said, launching himself toward Chance, wanting to be included in the hug. Lynn’s heart caught—partly because they were up so high and partly because of how hungry her boys were for male affection.

  Laughing, Chance caught him and pulled him close, keeping him safe.

  Lynn took in the sweet picture. It sent an ache of longing through her like nothing she’d experienced…. Her boys were on the safe side of the tree house with Chance in between them and the edge. Looking at them, it was easy to see what they were missing. Her boys were missing the man in their life who was supposed to love them and protect them from the hard, dangerous things in life.

  Her boys were missing that because she thought she was enough for them.

  But was she?

  Meeting Chance’s eyes, she smiled back at him and tried to enjoy the moment and not make more of this than she should.

  She and her boys were doing great. And if she looked at it from Chance’s point of view, this was good for him, too. This moment was a way to relieve some of the strain he was feeling from Randy’s death. That’s what this was. A great moment for her boys and for Chance.

  She didn’t need to complicate it with all this other stuff suddenly rolling around in her head. Like the realization that Chance Turner was a man she could trust. He was a man she could trust with all the shattered pieces hidden inside her heart.

  A shattered piece of glass wasn’t fixable. There were too many pieces crushed to dust particles that were irreparable. It was the same with her heart. Some women at the shelter with worse stories than hers were moving on. Stacy was one of them. But as hard as she’d tried to encourage others to take the step, she’d realized that her heart was too shattered. She couldn’t and wouldn’t put herself through believing in someone again.

  But seeing her boys with Chance told her that they were going to suffer in the long run because she couldn’t let go of her past.

  Chance was wrong. She wasn’t pretty on the inside or she’d be able to forgive and forget and move on.

  Her ex had been manipulative and mind controlling. And though she’d finally gotten out, it was a struggle. She’d come to realize deep in her heart that he still controlled her, even though she hadn’t seen or talked to him in over three years. It made her feel weak.

  She didn’t like knowing this about herself, but as much as she tried she couldn’t get past it. Some people could trust again. She couldn’t. And it seemed nothing or no one could change that.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lynn pulled herself out of the dumps by the next morning and headed over to the shelter. Dottie had called and asked her to talk to a new resident, Sandra, who she thought Lynn could help. Though Lynn was able to help others, she often felt like a hypocrite because she still had her own hang-ups. But she never refused to share her experience or to listen to a new resident pour out her heartache. Lynn never omitted that she still had struggles—a hang-up where trust was concerned.

  When it came to trust, each person had to work that out on her own timetable. It was much like grief. One person’s time to grieve the loss of a loved one was not charted on the same schedule as someone else.

  She did know and recognize that God had brought her through and she had a great life! She did.

  Sandra was a nervous wreck. She was a small woman with a kind face that wore the bright purple marks of a fresh beating and a swollen eye full of blood. In her eyes, behind everything, Lynn saw the struggle. She’d seen this over and over again and every time it made her sick to her stomach. But unlike the way she’d almost lost it at the bachelor auction, here she always was able to hold on to her emotions. When she was talking to women like Sandra it was all about helping free them.

  Dottie, tall and willowy with a slight limp left over from a near fatal meeting with a hurricane, had hugged Lynn the minute she arrived, and had introduced her to Sandra. Dottie was a Godsend for the shelter. They stood in an awkward moment as the boys raced each other to the large swing set the men of Mule Hollow had built them. A little girl sat on a swing hugging her doll.

  “This is Margaret,” Dottie said. “She’s seven and loves babies.”

  “Hi, Margaret, it’s good to meet you,” Lynn said. She never asked a child how she was doing when she’d just arrived. Poor children were disoriented, afraid, usually confused and scared. But putting that into words right off the bat to a total stranger was hard. Lynn knew from her own boys’ experience that it was best to let them acclimate slowly. Margaret didn’t say anything, just hugged her doll closer and looked at her mother. Lynn’s heart went out to the child, just for having to look into her mother’s bruised and swollen face.

  Overwhelmed with compassion and the desire to help, Lynn smiled at Sandra. �
�Let’s go talk. If you want to?”

  Sandra nodded.

  “I’ll watch the children.” Dottie patted her five-month-old’s padded bottom. “You take all the time you need. Margaret can help me babysit. How does that sound?” Dottie held her hand out to Margaret. The little girl glanced at her mother. Sandra nodded and Margaret reached out and took Dottie’s hand.

  Lynn led the way to the parlor that they used for group sessions and one-on-one meetings. Brady’s parents had dreamed of having a huge family and had built this giant ranch home in anticipation. But God hadn’t had it in His plan and they’d only been blessed late in life with Brady. Brady had turned the house into No Place Like Home. And this parlor, which had been used little in the years before the shelter, had become a room where much heartache was shared and much healing begun. Brady loved to say that his parents had had a dream for the house, but God had had a bigger dream.

  As she led Sandra into the pretty pale blue room, Lynn prayed that she could be God’s facilitator of the beginning of Sandra’s healing process.

  To her surprise she didn’t have to coax anything out of Sandra. She was ready to speak. Ready to try and find answers. Like Lynn had been when she’d finally left her husband, Sandra was seeking a way to stop the cycle. She was just trying to get her mind around how to do it. She opened up and everything flooded out…. She was so upset that trust wasn’t an issue. She just needed someone. And she was worried that her abuse was her fault.

  “No, Sandra, it’s not your fault. You can’t think about how long you stayed. You’re out now,” Lynn said, not too long into the conversation. “From this point on you have to look forward. God led me out of my abusive marriage, but I did the same thing as you. I let myself stay in that situation far longer than I should have. I was mixed up and I’d heard so many lies, and so many situations had been twisted, and over time I was turned inside out and unable to see clearly. Distance helps us see more clearly. Each passing day helps…. There may be emotional scars that take far longer to heal than those marks on your face. But life can be better for you and Margaret. I promise.”

  Sandra wrung her hands together in her lap. “But my mother despises that I’ve done this. She says that God hates divorce and that I’ll reap the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life.”

  Good, well-meaning—and not so well-meaning—Christian folks could be so judgmental, so clueless some times. “You were living in a dangerous situation for you and your child. Yes, God wants marriages to last, but I don’t believe God wants us to stay in a situation like that. I have to answer for leaving my marriage one day and, Sandra, I am proud to say that I kept my boys safe. You and I both have no one to be accountable to for our action except God.”

  Sandra contemplated that before nodding. “I understand.”

  “No one understands like those of us who have been down this road. For me, leaving was hard to do. Despite the pain and the fear I lived with and as unhealthy as my situation was, it was still hard to make myself leave.” Drew had hit her during his drunken, emotional rages, and his infidelities, followed by contrite apologies, were always the same. And always painful.

  She finally realized they were merely his way of manipulating her into doing exactly what he wanted her to do—abusive in so many ways.

  “But maybe I could have done something different,” Sandra said. “Margaret loves her daddy.”

  “It’s not your fault, no matter what, when a man hits you.”

  Drew had always managed to make it Lynn’s fault. Toward the end he’d grown more and more physically abusive, as if the more he hit her the easier it was. And she’d allowed it, believing the lie that somehow it was her fault. “We do things we shouldn’t because we love our spouses—so we put up with things and believe the one we love when he says it’s our fault. Sandra, God gave you Margaret to love and protect. You have taken the first step toward doing just that.”

  Lynn totally understood where Sandra was coming from. She’d started out as a strong person but somehow she’d lost her way. At some point her mind told her this was the way she was supposed to live. And the way it had happened…she’d lost herself and her path because of the worst part—how much she’d loved Drew and trust ed him.

  She was so ashamed to admit to herself or anyone that she’d loved a man who could do that to her. If it hadn’t been for her boys she would have stayed there. It was humiliating to realize that about herself. With distance she’d understood that any love she’d ever had for Drew had been wiped out by the bad things he’d done. And that gave her freedom. But the issue remained that she’d misjudged him and loved him in the first place. How, how, she asked herself, had she ever loved a man like that? Was her judgment that bad?

  She and Sandra talked for over an hour and Sandra seemed to feel better and stronger about what she’d done when they finished. A long road lay ahead, but at least Sandra was on the path to freedom and healing.

  Lynn hoped she’d helped Sandra. But she was thinking about herself as she drove away. She would never allow herself to become embroiled in a bad marriage again. She feared it more than anything in life. It would not happen. God had helped her over the last few years to know what a great life she had now. And to believe that she and her boys would and could be okay. It was just that lately niggling doubts and worries had started in on her. Why now, when everything was going so well?

  Chance’s tires crushed the gravel of Lynn’s drive as he pulled to a stop. It had rained but he’d noticed Lynn didn’t have a Christmas tree. So what did he do? He asked her if he could take her and the boys to cut one. He’d come over two straight days and worked on the tree house and it was now finished. He could have disappeared and gone out to the stagecoach house for the solitude he needed, but the boys really wanted a tree.

  He’d picked up some wood to repair Lynn’s front porch. Lifting the lumber from the truck, he carried it around the back of the house to the barn. Tiny sloshed around in the mud, dashing all around Chance, and before he made it to the back door it flew open and the boys raced out. They wore rubber boots and coats that could repel the wet, cold weather. He felt good seeing them. “Hey, buckaroos!”

  “Merry Christmas, Chance,” Gavin yelled, jumping in a puddle.

  “No, Gavin,” Jack exclaimed. “Momma said don’t get wet. We’re goin’ ta get a tree. Now.”

  “Gavin,” Lynn said, coming to a halt on the back step. “Your brother is right. What did I tell you?”

  Chance hid a laugh as Gavin reluctantly stepped out of the puddle and looked up at his mother.

  “Don’t get wet,” Gavin said. “I’ll be too cold to go get a tree.”

  The kid was funny. “Then load up,” Chance said. “Let’s get us a tree.”

  The boys whooped and raced off around the corner, sloshing through shallow puddles as they went.

  “Hi.” Lynn sighed. “All I can do is try.”

  Chance instinctively gave her a one-armed hug as he met her twinkling eyes. “It’s all good.”

  “Yes it is.” She looked up at him. “Are you ready for this?”

  His heart felt as if it were being pumped up like a balloon. Goodness, she took his breath away. “I was born ready.”

  But looking at her, holding her close and wanting to hold her closer, he knew he wasn’t ready at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lynn walked beside Chance as they followed the boys through the woods on the Turner ranch. Her thoughts were distracted. When Chance had put one arm around her and looked into her eyes her world had begun to spin. She’d been thinking about him before he got there. Ever since he’d played with her boys in that tree house, she’d been thinking about it—how her boys were on the safe side, with Chance in between them and the edge. It had been so easy to see what they were missing. So easy to see what they could have if she were able to fall in love with a good man. Because she knew in that moment in that unfinished tree house, with two sides built and two sides open, that her boys m
issed having a man in their life to love and protect them.

  Walking beside Chance, looking for a Christmas tree, underlined the fact in bold black.

  Her boys were missing that because she thought she was enough for them.

  But was she? No.

  She’d looked into Chance’s eyes and wanted him to embrace her like a man in love would do. She’d wanted him to kiss her…wanted to feel cherished and protected. She’d looked into Chance’s eyes and wanted her life to be different. Wanted all the horrible past to have never happened. If it had never happened then there was hope for her—but she wouldn’t have her boys. She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling the strength of Chance’s embrace. Her past had happened and nothing could make it not so. Her boys were the proof that God could make good from any bad situation. She wouldn’t choose a clear past over her sons.

  And she and her boys were doing great. That was what she told herself when she’d stepped out of Chance’s em brace. It was what she told herself as she’d pretended his touch hadn’t affected her.

  But it had.

  “What about this one?” Gavin yelled. He was standing beside a gigantic cedar tree.

  “I think that’s a little too big,” Chance called. He was walking beside her as Jack and Gavin bounded from one tree to the next.

  “You sure are quiet,” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  “Is it something I did?”

  “No. It’s just stuff.”

  “Can I help?”

  No, he couldn’t, because the stuff she was dealing with was knowing Chance Turner was a trustworthy man. He was a man she could trust with all the shattered pieces hidden inside her heart. And yet she couldn’t do it. She thought of Sandra and all she’d told her…. She prayed that, like so many of the others, Sandra could become totally free from her past.

  Lynn hated admitting that she wasn’t free from her own past. Hated admitting that she was more fragile than she wanted to be. But it was true. She wasn’t just cracked, she was broken on an emotional level.