Christmas Gifts: Small Town ChristmasHer Christmas Cowboy

by Gail Gaymer Martin

  Then she’d go home. She’d have to face her life eventually.

  At the door Travis shifted the crutches, leaning them against the wall. Elizabeth looked up, questioning what he was up to now. His expression shifted, softening the laughter that normally sparkled in those eyes of his.

  “Are you okay? You know I’m teasing, right? I do that, sometimes too much.” His words were soft, with an easy, sweet smile.

  She couldn’t get the words out. She’d never felt so out of control. She’d never been emotional. And now, tears streamed down her cheeks and her throat tightened painfully. She blinked to clear her vision. Before she could brush the tears away, Travis touched her cheek. Tenderly, with hands that were gentle but rough, he cupped her cheeks. His gaze captured hers, holding her frozen to the spot.

  She closed her eyes, unsure of how it could be this way, with a stranger comforting her.

  “It will get easier. It’ll hurt less.”

  His words were raspy and uneven. Did he know for sure that it would get easier? Did he know that she didn’t want to go back to St. Louis because she didn’t want the sympathetic looks people had been giving her for the last week? How did Elizabeth Harden get left for someone her fiancé picked up at the perfume counter?

  Elizabeth thought the girl Richard left her for was beautiful. She looked like a person anyone would want to know. Her name was Tonya and she looked fun and happy. Tonya looked like someone who didn’t have lists and schedules. Tonya probably had time for picnics and Saturday afternoon drives.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, sniffling as she tried to stop the surge of emotion. It didn’t work.

  The tears continued to stream down her cheeks. Travis wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Elizabeth let him pull her against a strong chest, hold her in strong arms. His flannel shirt was soft beneath her cheek, soaking up her tears. His hands rubbed her back and he whispered into her hair that she would make it through this.

  No one had ever held her the way he was holding her, as if she was the most fragile, precious thing in the world. She’d always been too strong for that kind of tenderness.

  After a few minutes he brushed a kiss across the top of her head and he let go, unwrapping his arms, stepping back. Elizabeth wiped the last tears from her cheeks.

  “I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry.” She closed her eyes and avoided looking at him. “I don’t fall apart like that, it’s just…”

  “You’re really going to make excuses? Why?”

  “Because I’m fine. I don’t have a broken heart. I’m not going to fall apart.”

  It made her mad that he looked sorry. For her. “I think it’s okay to fall apart once in a while.”

  “Oh, do you fall apart often?”

  He brushed his hand through her hair, tangling his fingers in flyaway strands. Finally he smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Never.”

  “Of course not.” She opened the door. “I’ll still drive you home.”

  “Thank you. And if I ever fall apart, you’re the first person I’ll turn to.”

  She looked back at him and she allowed herself to be pulled into a lighter mood generated by his humor. “If you ever need to be held, I’ll be here.”

  “In that case, I’m going to fall apart soon. And often.”

  He made it easy to smile. The cowboy who had flirted, rescued her from a bull and held children as if they were the most precious things in the world had somehow, in just a matter of days, become a friend.

  She explained to herself that this wouldn’t last. She’d drive him home and then she’d return to her home, her life. A simple plan that she meant to stick to because all of this was temporary, even the quick beat of her heart when his hand touched her back—temporary.

  Slick roads had kept them another night at Uri and Yelena’s. A night with the two of them stuck together in Yelena’s rose-scented parlor, listening to Uri snore as Yelena knitted a scarf. They’d glance at one another occasionally, hiding smiles when Yelena would look up from her yarn. It had been a long night.

  Now they were home. Travis couldn’t help but relax a little as the truck pulled up the driveway and his parents’ home came into view. It always felt good to get back here to his life and routine.

  Horses grazed in the fields, nibbling at grass now brown from winter weather. Winter did that to Oklahoma—painted it shades of brown and gray. The trees, the sky, the grass. But touches of blue and green put color back in the landscape. The green of a cedar tree. The blue of the sky when the winter storm ended.

  The colors itched inside him, waiting to be painted. He had studied the woman behind the wheel of his truck. He thought about her in the midst of a gray-and-brown canvas, her auburn hair, the deep red of her sweater. Yeah, he’d paint her. He’d capture her with that smile, the one that said she had forgotten for a minute that she’d been hurt.

  The way she’d smiled when the children at Samaritan House surrounded her with hugs and laughter.

  The way she smiled when he whispered that she should always be Mrs. Claus. He’d been teasing because that’s what he did. But the teasing had changed, without his even knowing how or why, the teasing had become too much like what he wanted.

  He had a sudden empathy for fish, because when they were snagged and being reeled in, they must feel a little like he felt. He was getting pulled toward something and he didn’t know what.

  “It’s beautiful.” Elizabeth’s observation brought everything back to focus.

  The house ahead of them, two-story brick, white columns across the front porch. He remembered back more than twenty years, the first time he’d seen it. He had thought it had to be another orphanage. It had scared him silly at five, this big house and all of the Coopers who had waited on the front porch.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.” He unbuckled his seat belt as she pulled around the circle drive and parked.

  The front door opened. His mom stood in the entry, waving, her smile huge and welcoming. She’d been thrilled when he called and told her that Elizabeth would drive him home. She’d been a little too thrilled. Yeah, the matchmaker in her had to be working overtime. She’d always told them that she had a dozen kids because she wanted several dozen grandchildren.

  No pressure.

  She hadn’t been thrilled to hear of him falling and the concussion that had caused him to lose his balance. She should be used to it. It wasn’t as if injuries weren’t a pretty common thing for the Cooper guys.

  He walked with Elizabeth, maneuvering ice and patches of snow. Elizabeth had insisted on stopping at a department store and picking up a few things. Not that he blamed her. She’d brought one change of clothes to Tulsa and he knew, from experience with his sisters, that a woman needed way more than that. She carried her purchases in a new, bright red suitcase.

  “Welcome to Cooper Creek, Elizabeth.” His mom hugged their guest and led her into the house. Travis smiled. That’s what his mom did, she brought everyone into their house.

  Which might explain why he’d turned the bunkhouse into an apartment. He had his space, a place that went undisturbed and where he could escape the crowds. He hadn’t lived in the main house for over ten years, not since his seventeenth birthday. That’s when his dad had helped him finish the renovations on the forgotten apartment attached to the stable.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cooper.” Elizabeth followed his mother to the kitchen. “I appreciate your taking me in for a day or two.”

  “Oh, honey, we want you for more than a day or two. There’s no reason for you to rush off when Christmas is just around the corner and your parents are—” his mom patted Elizabeth’s arm “—well, out of the country.”

  “I do have to get back to St. Louis. With my dad gone, I’m sure there will be situations I need to take care of for him.”

  “Well, we’d love for you to stay as long as you like.” His mom poured two cups of coffee. “Are you tired? I’m sure you’ve had a long couple of days, dr
iving Trav around, playing Mrs. Claus and then the trip to Dawson.”

  “I’m not at all tired.” Elizabeth turned to look at him. “You don’t have to stay with me.”

  “I have to leave,” he looked at his watch, “in thirty minutes.”

  “Don’t you think you should put your foot up?”

  “No, I’m fine. I have to ditch these crutches, though.” He finished his coffee.

  “Who’s going to drive you over to Back Street?” His mom looked a little worried. “I don’t know if your dad or Jackson is at the barn, but one of them could take you over.”

  “I can drive myself.”

  Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Where is it you have to go?”

  “Dawson Community Center is putting on a live nativity for Christmas. I’m helping with props and scenery. It has to be finished this week.”

  “Oh, well, I don’t mind helping.”

  “Are you sure?” Yeah, a part of him wanted her to go with him. The other part wanted time alone.

  “I’m sure, unless you’d rather I didn’t.” The narrow-eyed look she gave him made him wonder if she could read his thoughts.

  “No, that would be great. I’m going to go down to my place and get ready. We’ll leave in about thirty minutes.”

  His mom clapped her hands together and smiled. “That’s perfect. That’ll give me time to show Elizabeth to her room.”

  Yeah, perfect. Travis couldn’t think of anything less perfect than his mom alone with Elizabeth, talking about him and plotting. He smiled, though. Let her have her fun. Elizabeth didn’t plan on staying long, so it wasn’t as if his mom would get anywhere.

  As he walked out the front door, he heard his mom say his favorite words—“and this is a picture of Trav.” He was six years old, and his brothers dressed him up like a hula dancer.

  Chapter Five

  After getting settled, Elizabeth got directions from Angie Cooper and headed for the stable to find Travis. She walked down the driveway, steering clear of the spots still covered with ice and snow. The sun sank on the western horizon, painting the sky shades of lavender and pink. She pulled gloves out of her jacket pocket and slipped them on.

  As she walked, horses wandered to the fence and then walked along it, following her. In the distance she could see tall fences and bulls grazing on brown winter grass. A truck eased through the back of the field and cattle walked behind it. Elizabeth stopped to watch and after a few minutes she hurried on to the barn.

  Stable or barn? It was a huge metal building and as she stepped inside she saw that it held a high-ceilinged arena and on one side, stalls for horses. Music drifted down from the far end of the building.

  That had to be the bunkhouse apartment where Travis lived.

  The music got louder. She hesitated outside the door listening to old rock but finally rapped lightly. A few minutes later he opened it, looking pretty disheveled. Earlier he’d been wearing contacts. He’d replaced them with the dark-framed glasses he sometimes wore. His smile didn’t really welcome her. In fact, she got the feeling she might have overstepped her boundaries.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know if you were coming back up to the house.” She was not a teenager with a crush, so why did she stumble over her words and sound as if she’d just bumped into the cutest guy in school without meaning to?

  He stepped back and motioned her inside. “Come in. I lost track of time.”

  Elizabeth stepped into Travis Cooper’s world. A cluttered, kind-of-crazy world. The living area and kitchen were one huge room and had the look of a loft apartment she’d once rented. But this apartment was attached to a barn. She smiled as she looked around, going from the black leather furniture, modern, not country, to the white cabinets and black counters of the kitchen. And then chaos. Next to the kitchen the loft look ended and mayhem reigned.

  There were easels, canvases leaning against paint-splattered walls and bright lights.

  “What in the world?” She turned to face her host.

  “My art studio.”

  “You paint?”

  He laughed and took her by the hand. “I paint. It’s always kept me out of trouble. When life gets crazy, when my brain won’t settle down, or as a kid when I couldn’t stay out of trouble, painting gets me back on track.”

  “When your brain won’t settle down?” She studied a painting, of a bull in the arena, foam and dirt, a cowboy gripping the rope. It was abstract with wide splashes of browns and reds, like a camera unable to focus on a fast-moving subject. “This is really good.”

  “For a country boy?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I just wouldn’t have thought of you as an artist.”

  “I don’t know that I’m an artist. It’s more that I have to keep busy and this is how my energy is best channeled.”

  “You seem settled to me.”

  He picked up a box and filled it with paints, brushes and pencils. “That would be the medicine.”

  “Medicine?”

  “I’m ADHD, have been my whole life.” He led her past a canvas with a setting similar to the one outside. Gold and brown grass, a winter sky and a bare spot in the center. “Sit. I thought I’d outgrow the ADHD. You know, like it was just something that happened to kids who were hyper. But I’ve learned that it’s who I am and it isn’t going away.”

  She sat on the stool that he pulled into place and pointed to. He left her and stepped back behind the canvas. Shouldn’t she be expecting the unexpected by now?

  “Shouldn’t we be going?”

  “Later.”

  “I thought…”

  He raised a hand, paintbrush in his mouth while he studied the canvas. She started to ask him why she needed to sit and he raised a hand to stop her again.

  “Give me thirty minutes and we’ll go. I’ll even buy you dinner at the Mad Cow.”

  “Mad Cow.” She leaned, wishing she could see what he was doing to a landscape that obviously depicted the countryside around them. Why would he need for her to sit? Well, that was obvious, but she didn’t want to be in the center of his landscape.

  “Hold still.” He glanced around the edge of the canvas. “Maybe look off over your right shoulder, like you just spotted something interesting.”

  “I’m a business major, not a model.”

  “Right, I get that. Now smile a little, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s the Mad Cow?” She shifted as he’d asked and looked to the side.

  “The only restaurant in town, unless you want an egg roll or corn dog from the convenience store.”

  “Yummy.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it.” He winked and went back to work. “He missed out, you know.”

  He? Oh, Richard. She didn’t want to talk about losing her fiancé days before her wedding. Why did Travis want to bring it up? She sighed and turned to face him, to study his face, his serious expression.

  “I don’t think he missed out,” she admitted, a little to herself, a little to Travis. “I mean, he obviously didn’t love me. And he really seems to love her. That isn’t missing out, is it?”

  “I think it is.” He dabbed the brush into paint and went back to work. “I think he missed out.”

  Her heart did a crazy, unexpected twirl. Reality would get it back on track, make it less likely to make something out of nothing. Travis Cooper was a player, very much like the one who had left her. They knew how to say sweet things when it mattered, and break a girl’s heart as if it didn’t.

  “Should we go shopping for gifts tomorrow, for the children at Samaritan House?”

  Travis shook his head. “Stop worrying. This isn’t my first year doing this.”

  “But there are so many of them and Christmas is just around the corner.”

  “I know that. Put away your pocket organizer and relax.”

  “That’s mean.” She scooted off the stool. “We should go. It’s almost six o’clock.”

  Travis glanced at his watch and mumbled something she cou
ldn’t hear and he kept painting. “I’m almost finished.”

  “Should I be afraid?”

  He grinned and shook his head. She studied him, the cute and studious-looking cowboy. At the bull riding event she’d put him in the category of “cowboys who like to have a good time.” Now she had to rethink her stereotype.

  He dressed like Santa for children in a group home and he painted. He knew how to hug a woman in a way that made her want to stay in his arms because his arms were a safe place.

  Yeah, she should be afraid.

  “You can look now.” Travis stepped back from the canvas, pleased because he’d managed to capture what he’d envisioned just a short time earlier. He had captured the lost look in her eyes.

  Elizabeth stepped next to him, all serious and worried, her brows scrunched together. He smiled down at her as she studied the painting.

  “I look sad.”

  He studied the portrait of a woman standing in a field, just the way he’d imagined her. The dark red of her sweater, auburn hair blowing in a light breeze, straw-colored grass dotted with snow.

  “No, not sad. You’re looking for something.” He turned to drop his brush in cleaner.

  “Really? What do you think I’m looking for?”

  He picked up a rag and wiped his hands. “That’s something you have to figure out.”

  “Oh, aren’t you mysterious.”

  “I’ve heard a little mystery gets a woman’s attention.”

  Elizabeth picked up her purse and headed for the door. “This woman deals in cold, hard facts and punctuality. We should go.”

  “Elizabeth, it was a joke.”

  “I’m not here looking for something, Travis. I’m here because my flight got canceled.” She sighed. “And because my parents are on my honeymoon. And because my fiancé eloped with a woman he met while buying a gift. For me. I’m not looking for anything. I’m really just looking for a way to get home and back to my life.”

  “I can help you do that, tomorrow.”

  Her expression softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it. You’ve been nothing but kind.”

  Travis thought about that and he laughed. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t been kind. For the most part I’ve been thinking that some bozo made a huge mistake, and that I’m really glad he did.”