A Very Cowboy Christmas

by Kim Redford

  “Yes. What’s up?”

  “I’ll take you and Storm to the café, then I’m headed to the station.” He started toward the outside doors.

  “Wait!” Sydney pulled him to a stop in front of the check-in desk. “Is there a problem?”

  “I just got a text about a fire at the drive-in. Hedy’s got the booster ready, so I’m on my way.”

  “Not alone, you aren’t,” Sydney said loudly, tucking her handbag over an elbow as if readying for battle. “I’m riding shotgun, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  “I’ll get somebody else to help. You need to take care of your feet.”

  “I might limp a bit, but I’m good to go.”

  “Hey, you two,” Linda called as she stood up. “If there’s a fire, you best get gone. I’ll take Storm to the Chuckwagon.”

  “Thanks.” Sydney knelt and hugged her daughter. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Mommy, it’s a fire! Go. Go. Go.”

  Sydney gave Storm a quick kiss on the cheek, waved to Linda, and grabbed Dune’s hand.

  He held on tight as he led her outside. He didn’t doubt she’d keep up if they faced a bad fire situation, but he didn’t want her to hurt her feet any more. Still, this was Sydney Steele. She’d ride hell-bent for leather to help somebody or save a structure and never mind her personal cost. He’d been there, done that. He understood the drive. It was okay when he put himself on the line, but he didn’t want her doing the same thing. She was too precious to risk—yet he knew he could never say that to her, or he might insult her by suggesting she couldn’t handle what she was trained to do. So he kept his mouth shut even as he worried about her.

  He hit the remote on his dually, making sure the doors were unlocked before they got there. They parted at the tailgate, hit the front seats at the same time, and buckled up. He tore out of the parking lot and headed for Cougar Lane.

  He glanced over at her, still hoping he might persuade her to stay home. “I can get somebody else to go with me.”

  “There’s no time. Besides, I might as well get back on the horse now. With so much to do, I can’t put my feet up any time soon.”

  “Did they take out any thorns?”

  “A couple.”

  “Those are dangerous as all get-out.”

  “Tell me about it.” She gave a slight shiver. “No way am I getting an infection in those wounds. I’ve got antibiotic cream and bandages at home. I’ll change the nurse’s dressing later.”

  “Good. But still—”

  “It’s not like the old days when a cowboy could lose a foot—or worse—if he stepped on prickly pear cactus and didn’t get the thorns out fast.”

  “Bad memories die hard in cowboy country.”

  “True.” She gave a big sigh. “Right now, I’m just worried about the drive-in. Is it the snack shed?”

  “Hedy didn’t say. I hope not.”

  She sighed even harder. “No matter how fast you drive, I doubt we can get there in time to rescue the structure.”

  “If nothing else, we’ll contain the fire.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky. If somebody saw smoke early on and called in the alarm right away, we might save part of the building. And don’t forget the water sprinklers. Surely smoke would’ve activated them.”

  “Let’s hope.” He wanted her words to be true, but odds weren’t in their favor, not with the drive-in isolated and unoccupied. He wished he’d already talked with Bert and Bert Two about security. Should’ve. Would’ve. Could’ve. No point in even going there. They’d simply make the best of whatever situation confronted them when they got to the fire.

  “I guess there’s no point in worrying ahead of time.”

  “True.” He wheeled into the parking lot of the Wildcat Bluff Fire-Rescue Station. “You know where we go from here.”

  “Focus.” She pretended to zip her lips shut with her fingertips. “I’m done with needless worry.”

  “We just changed hats. We’re firefighters first and foremost now.”

  “Right.”

  Dune parked beside Hedy’s van, then piled out of his dually on one side with Sydney following suit on the other. He jogged with her up to the open bay door and went inside.

  Ash, the fire station cat, meowed from atop the hood of a booster with Wildcat Bluff Fire-Rescue emblazoned on the outside front doors. Ash appeared all decked out for Christmas with a big crimson bow tied around his neck that contrasted perfectly with his sleek silver fur.

  “Hey, Ash,” Sydney said. “As much as we’d enjoy you going with us, you’d better stay and take care of the station.”

  “Is that where he got to?” Hedy zoomed up in her power wheelchair, her silver hair worn in a single long plait dangling over one shoulder and sporting a crimson bow to match Ash’s. “Come here!”

  Ash immediately leaped down, sauntered over to Hedy, and jumped into her lap.

  “Glad you two were nearby,” Hedy said as she gave Sydney a closer look. “Land’s sake, what are you wearing?”

  Sydney rolled her eyes. “I didn’t plan on fighting a fire today, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Hedy nodded in understanding, then pointed at the rig. “Gear’s ready to go. As far as I know, that booster will get the job done. If not, let me know, and I’ll send in the engine.”

  “Okay.” Dune opened the driver’s door of the booster that was basically a four-wheel-drive pickup with a flatbed that carried a two-hundred-gallon water tank with a three-hundred-GPM pump and an automatic coiled hose.

  “Hang on.” Hedy wheeled around, disappeared in an open doorway, then returned with a gray sweat suit in one hand. “Sydney, you’d better change on the way.”

  “Thanks.” Sydney grabbed the clothes and then opened the passenger door. “Is the snack shed on fire?”

  “Don’t know,” Hedy said. “Moore Chatham discovered the fire and was wetting stuff down with a hose while he called me, so he didn’t stay to chitchat.”

  “No wonder,” Sydney said as she climbed into the rig.

  “Does Bert know?” Dune asked.

  “Yeah. Bless his heart. I called him with the bad news.” Hedy shook her head in dismay. “They’ll probably be there by the time you get there.”

  “Good. They’ll have keys to everything.” Dune stepped up into the booster.

  “I let Billye Jo know, so you’ll have whatever help you can use,” Hedy called out. “And y’all, I got a call from Kent. We’re getting that photo shoot all set for four days from now.”

  “Perfect,” Sydney said.

  “Thanks!” He slammed the door shut, started the engine, and glanced over to make sure Sydney was ready to rock and roll.

  “Let’s do it.” She snapped her seat belt in place and gave him a decisive nod.

  He backed out, hit the siren, and headed for Sure-Shot.

  Chapter 13

  As Dune barreled out of Wildcat Bluff, Sydney took deep breaths to try to slow her racing heart. It didn’t help much. She felt trapped in a day without end—one that kept piling crisis upon crisis.

  She’d started off the morning happy, feeling smart and chic in her vintage dress and driving Celeste, but life had quickly taken unexpected detours. Still, she was grateful for the day’s blessings, because things could have been much worse. Storm was okay. She was okay. And Dune had turned out to be not only okay, but her champion as well. Now if they could only find a way to save the drive-in, she’d be as happy as when she’d begun the day.

  She glanced down at her sadly wrinkled dress. She tried to brush off the dirt and stains but gave it up as an act in futility. Maybe the dress could be saved by the cleaners, but she wouldn’t count on it any more than she would count on saving the pretty heels. Fortunately, when she’d shopped in Dallas, she’d found other vintage clothes, shoe
s, and accessories, so she was still set for Christmas.

  At the moment, all she needed to do was focus on fighting a fire, but she couldn’t be an effective firefighter in her tight dress. She’d taken off her panty hose and thrown the shredded nylons away at the clinic, so that wasn’t a bother now. Hedy had come up with a solution for that issue, thinking way ahead of her.

  She reached down and picked up the soft cotton sweat suit from the floorboard and checked to make sure it was the right size. They kept an assortment of new T-shirts and sweats imprinted with the Wildcat Bluff Fire-Rescue logo at the station. She was doubly grateful for that foresight right now.

  Still, it brought her face-to-face with a new problem. She wasn’t overly modest, but she hadn’t stripped down to her skivvies with a guy in a long time—particularly in a less-than-romantic setting such as a firefighter rig. And what if a pickup passed close by? She didn’t much care for that thought at all.

  “If it helps, I won’t look,” Dune said in a low, husky voice.

  She glanced over at him, realized he knew exactly what she was thinking as if he had the code to her mind, and saw his lips twitch in amusement. “What if somebody passes us or—”

  “They’ll get a good show.”

  “It’s not funny.” She tried to sound stern, but she could almost see the humor in her situation.

  “You might as well laugh, because you’re not fighting a fire dressed in that getup.”

  She sighed, putting an extra oomph in it.

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your clothes today, but maybe you didn’t pick the best day to wear them.”

  “That’s an understatement if ever I heard one,” she muttered more to herself than to him.

  He pointed down the road. “We’re coming up to the turnoff for Sure-Shot pretty soon. If you don’t want to moon the entire town as we drive down Main Street, you might want to get busy.”

  “I guess I better.” She didn’t know why she was so reluctant to change clothes. Maybe it simply felt too intimate, too sexy to share with a guy who already had her on edge. She wasn’t usually a procrastinator, but right now she needed a sharp push, so she gave it to herself.

  She reached down and quickly untied her shoes. She eased one sneaker off after the other, but she left on her comfy socks covering her abused feet.

  “You’re starting with your shoes?” Dune sounded disappointed as he drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel.

  She tossed him what she hoped was a suitably quelling look, then shook out the gray sweatpants, probably men’s, because the length looked about right to handle her long limbs. She eased her feet into the legs, grasped the elastic waist, and quickly pulled the pants up under her dress, shimmying to get them firmly in place so they wouldn’t later fall down around her ankles.

  “What happened to my show?”

  “You weren’t supposed to watch.”

  “Guess I stretched the truth, didn’t I?”

  She rolled her eyes, then raised her arms and reached behind her neck. She clasped the hook and eye with both hands, fumbled the metal pieces before unhooking them, and then slid the zipper down as far as she could make it go from that angle.

  Now came the tricky part. She leaned forward, reached behind to the middle of her back, and unzipped all the way. She quickly slipped down the bodice, pulled out her arms, tugged off the dress, and tossed it on the floor. She felt the air chill her bare arms and upper torso. Hopefully, there’d be no passing pickups until she got into her sweatshirt.

  “What are you wearing?” He glanced over at her, appearing puzzled, then looked back at the highway.

  “Slip.” She’d been proud of finding pale green underwear, particularly pretty with delicate lace around the bodice and hem, to match her dress. Now she wished she’d waited to wear the entire outfit.

  “A what?”

  “These retro dresses require a full-length nylon or silk slip underneath if the dress doesn’t have a lining. It covers my bra and panties clear to the bottom of the skirt.” She felt as if she should be in a museum giving a tour instead of discussing her most personal clothing with a too-interested cowboy. At least it distracted them from the worry of not knowing what they’d find at the drive-in when they got there, so she went with the discussion.

  “Why?”

  “Without a slip, light might shine through the skirt and reveal…well, legs.”

  “And that’d be bad?”

  “For the era, yes.”

  He chuckled as he gave her another quick look. “Are you sure that’s the real reason? It’s slinky and sexy as all get-out.”

  “You may have a point about there being several reasons for wearing a pretty slip.”

  “Don’t doubt that I do.”

  “But I won’t need it under sweats.”

  “You don’t need it at all.”

  She rolled her eyes at his logic. Maybe once she had her body covered with a comfy sweat suit, he’d forget all about her slip. She raised her hips, grasped the slip’s hem, and quickly pulled it upward, but the fabric tangled in her hair and trapped her arms above her head.

  “Need help?” he asked in a voice gone deep and rough.

  “Just drive,” she mumbled against the soft silkiness of the slip, then gave a hard tug and jerked it free. She took a deep breath as she tossed her slip toward her dress on the floorboard.

  “I’ll take that.” He quickly grabbed her slip in midair with one hand and tucked it by his side near the door—all while keeping the other hand steady on the steering wheel.

  “Dune!”

  He tossed a smile her way. “You said you didn’t need it anymore. I could use some sweet memories. At night. In bed. With the lights out.”

  She felt the heat all this lingerie discussion with him was building in her ratchet up a notch, but she didn’t want to admit it or she’d have to accept how he was truly affecting her, even on a firefighting mission. “You’re just doing this to distract me from the drive-in, aren’t you?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  He glanced back and forth between the road and her bra. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.”

  She glanced down and realized that she wore nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants and a lacy vintage bra. Talk about getting distracted by him. She quickly shook out the sweatshirt, looking for the front.

  “I’ve always wondered how they got that particular shape of women in the old movies. Now all is explained—stiletto bras go with stiletto heels.”

  She couldn’t help but chuckle. She knew exactly what he meant about those impressive double points under pinup girl sweaters, because she now sported a couple herself. “Like I said, I’m going vintage all the way, except for the panties, of course.”

  “That’s not all the way,” he said with a touch of humor in his voice. “You don’t need panties, now do you?”

  “I can’t believe we’re talking about my underwear.” She did her best to sound huffy, but actually, if she wanted to admit it, he was upping her heat level with every single word. She lifted the sweatshirt, thrust her arms into it, pulled it down over her head, and slipped it into place. That ought to take care of any more lingerie discussion.

  “You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” he said quietly.

  She didn’t look at his face, not wanting to see what he might be feeling about her that could turn her smolder into an outright blaze. Even so, she noticed that he gripped the steering wheel with both hands hard enough to turn his knuckles white. If truth be told, those fifties ladies knew quite a bit about more being less, or wearing provocative clothes while fully dressed to the nines.

  “If you keep this up, you may need to hose me down before we start putting out the fire,” he said in a tight voice.

  “You started it. Not me.” She turned partly in her
seat to look at him, but that was a bad idea. He looked big and strong and oh-so-kissable. Plus, he’d been flirting with all this talk till she hardly knew which end was up. She needed to push back, so they didn’t get into deeper water. “You’re acting as if you’ve never seen a lady in her unmentionables.”

  “Unmentionables?” He gave a dry chuckle. “Not hardly. I’m going to be mentioning them—for sure seeing them—the rest of my life.”

  She sighed, realizing she wasn’t going to win this one and that she didn’t even want to win it. If he’d been doing a striptease, maybe she’d need a douse of cold water, too. Whatever spark had ignited between them wasn’t getting any cooler. It was getting stronger by the moment despite everything they were dealing with on so many fronts.

  “Good thing you’re dressed in sweats.” He turned off Wildcat Road. “I’m not sure if Sure-Shot could handle you in primo retro.”

  “I’m not sure Sure-Shot can handle you either.”

  He slowed down on Main Street as a cowboy jogged across the street to the Bluebonnet Café. “You got anything in vintage for a man?”

  She grinned, chuckling as she followed his thoughts. “I’ve got a fedora—and nothing else.”

  “That might do it.”

  “I suspect it just might.” She caught his gaze and felt as if she’d somersaulted into the deep blue water of a hot spring that spiked her own internal temperature to a rolling boil.

  He nodded, as if acknowledging their mutual heat, then stiffened and pointed down the road. Dark gray smoke spiraled high into the blue sky over the drive-in’s location.

  She inhaled sharply. All the banter and humor they’d been using to keep their worry—and much more—in check went right out the window. Now they were professional firefighters, and they’d allow nothing to get between them and containing or extinguishing the blaze.

  Chapter 14

  Sydney leaned forward, gripping the dashboard, as Dune stepped on the gas at the far edge of Sure-Shot and rocketed down the street. She could only hope against hope that the snack shed was safe.

  When they reached the drive-in, the front gates gaped open, and smoke billowed upward from somewhere deep inside the white fence. He slowed only long enough to get the booster safely through the open area, then drove around the side of the big screen, and the drive-in spread out before them.