Lone Star Christmas

by Delores Fossen

  “Say, before you go, could you talk to Lucy, just to make sure she’s settling in okay?” Rosy asked.

  Part of Shelby was thankful for the change in subject, and it wasn’t unusual for her father or Rosy to ask her to check on one of the kids—or, like today, watch them when they were off from school. But what with the worry about her father and the chat with Callen, she was feeling emotionally spent.

  Shelby wouldn’t give in to that, though. Checking on the kids was important, and Lucy had been here only a week. Coming into a new place was hard, but it had to be even harder over the holidays.

  “Sure. I’ll talk to her,” Shelby agreed. “How about her brother, Mateo? And Rayna?”

  “Rayna’s fine. She’ll only be here three or four days while her mom’s in the hospital. No other family to take care of her. Mateo...” Rosy lifted her shoulder. “I was hoping Judd might try to bond with him a little.”

  Hope might spring eternal, but there was no chance of Judd doing that. He wasn’t only carrying a chip on his shoulder. It was a mountain. He just hadn’t driven that mountain out of town in a pickup truck the way Callen had.

  “Mateo and Lucy are going to need some TLC and chocolate cake,” Rosy insisted. “Chocolate cake fixes a lot of things.”

  In Rosy’s world, it did. But Shelby knew it was the love that went along with that cake that did the trick.

  “Don’t worry—I’ll save a piece of cake for you,” Rosy went on. “You can get it tomorrow unless you’ve got too much work to do to come by. Say, how’s the training going on that palomino, the one that the rich fella from Austin is boarding at your place?”

  She was indeed training a new horse, and Shelby wouldn’t have minded a little talk about that if she hadn’t heard the vehicle approaching the house. Now she let go of the cup, practically slapping it onto the counter and hurrying to the door.

  Her dad.

  Buck pulled up in his red pickup that was as familiar to her as her own hand. Ditto for the weathered Stetson that had aged to a rich cream color. As usual, he wore jeans. She’d never seen him in anything else except for Sunday, when he wore his one and only suit. His buckskin coat covered a blue plaid flannel shirt.

  “Please don’t mention that I said anything about sex,” Rosy whispered, coming up behind her.

  Shelby would have voluntarily sat on a vat of hot pokers before doing that.

  “Wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” her dad greeted her. “Thanks for staying with the kids.”

  “Anytime.” Even though it would likely be a big red flag of concern, she went onto the porch and down the steps to hug him. She’d hugged him plenty of times, of course, but not when he’d only been gone an hour or so. The red flag probably flapped a little harder when she held on longer than she normally would have.

  “How’d the appointment go?” she asked when she eased back from him.

  Oh yes. He’d noticed her concern. He might look a little frail, but he was still sharp. And about to lie to her.

  She was sharp, too. Shelby could see the lie forming in his green eyes, which were a genetic copy of her own.

  “Everything went fine,” her father said with his arm hooked around her—which meant he was no longer looking her straight in the eyes. Easier to maintain the lie that way.

  “Told you,” Rosy insisted from the doorway. “Buck’s right as rain.”

  Because, of course, rain was right.

  Except when it wasn’t.

  “Callen called,” Rosy told him when they stepped inside. “Shelby talked to him.”

  Buck paused in the process of taking off his coat, and his gaze shifted from Rosy to Shelby. “Is he coming to the wedding?”

  Shelby shook her head, and she instantly saw something deflate inside her father. There was no other word for it. His chest fell. His shoulders sagged a little. And the sigh that left his mouth was as weary as it could get.

  It broke her heart.

  “Miss Rosy?” Rayna called out from the kitchen. “I accidentally dropped the eggs, and they broke. You don’t want me to pick them up off the ground, do you?”

  Rosy gave a rare eye roll. “I’ll be back.” And she scurried away toward the kitchen.

  Shelby figured her father might want to try some scurrying, too, but he stayed put. “I just need a few more tests at the hospital,” he said, fixing the lie he’d told her earlier. Still not the straight truth, but it was a start.

  “What kind of tests?” she asked.

  “Just a shadow that showed up on an X-ray.” He brushed a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t start worrying about it until we know. And don’t mention it to Rosy.”

  She could agree to the second but not the first. That was because she was already worrying.

  “Too bad about Callen not coming,” Buck said, walking away from her. “I really wanted to see him.”

  Shelby sighed. Then cursed.

  She was going to Dallas.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “HEY, LITTLE GIRL. Have you been naughty?” Santa Claus called out to Shelby when she walked out of the parking garage and onto the sidewalk.

  Santa—and that was just a generic label, of course—came toward her, his lumpy stuff-filled suit shifting and waddling with each staggered step that he took. She thought he might be grinning at her, but it was hard to tell since his beard had shifted and angled across his face instead of his chin. He spoke through the matted tufts of the sideways polyester hair.

  “Would ya like to see something naughty?” Santa added, and his wink got stuck when some of the stray beard hair pasted his eyelashes together.

  That didn’t stop him from turning his backside to her and mooning her.

  As asses went, it was big and blinding white. She’d seen far better on some of the horses she boarded, but it was a reminder that she was in a big city where things like a mooning Santa could happen. A reminder, too, of why she lived in and loved Coldwater.

  There was still a risk of a mooning Santa in Coldwater if Gopher Tate got liquored up enough and found something red to wear, but Gopher was more likely to flash than moon, and he wouldn’t actually be naked beneath whatever coat he was wearing. And besides, Gopher fell into the “colorful” category. This guy was just a drunk perv.

  It was all about perspective.

  Shelby debated if she should just ignore the perv or dole out an insult, suggesting that he purchase some butt rash cream at the local pharmacy, but she didn’t have to make a choice. Two uniformed cops came running up the sidewalk toward them.

  “Bob!” one of the cops called out. “What have we told you about pulling stunts like this?”

  A mooning Santa named Bob. It didn’t hold a candle to a flasher named Gopher.

  “Sorry about this,” the cop said to her. He latched on to Bob and hiked up the Santa pants. “Did Bob bother you?”

  Shelby shook her head. She was only bothered by one thing right now, and Bob wasn’t it.

  “She’s gonna be naughty,” Bob slurred as the cops hauled him away.

  Well, that might work better than being nice—which was her default approach to anything that might not go her way. Like this meeting with Callen. Heck, being nice was her default approach, period. She had plenty of mean thoughts—naughty ones, too—but they rarely made it to her mouth in any kind of impressive, cohesive way. And that was the reason everyone thought of her as a nice, good girl.

  Perspective, indeed.

  Just once, she’d like to be the mooning Santa or the naughty one. For now, though, she’d settle for convincing Callen that he needed to return to the town that he hadn’t even glimpsed in his rearview mirror. Buck wanted him there, and whether she had to go naughty, nice or somewhere in between, Shelby would make it happen.

  Because of the shadow.

  Shelby no longer thought of that as something mys
terious, not when it came to medical tests. She’d looked up the term on the internet and had learned that it was often associated with a tumor.

  And with cancer.

  There weren’t many things that could have caused her to drive four hours to Dallas to see Callen, but that did it.

  Thankfully, his address hadn’t been hard to find. Neither had info about him. She’d got fourteen pages of hits with her internet search on him. Photos, too. Callen owned and operated Laramie Cattle and had been darn successful at it.

  Something she’d already known.

  Shelby had no intention of telling Callen that she’d kept cyber tabs on him over the years. Even when she’d still been with Gavin, she hadn’t been able to resist typing Callen’s name in the search engine and poring over the details of his life, both business and social.

  He apparently preferred brunettes.

  Ones who shopped in the 34D section of fancy underwear stores.

  No, best not to mention that. She would just plead her case to try to get him to change his mind about coming to the wedding, and then she would take her 34Bs and go back home.

  Shelby went up the street to his office building and, following the directions she’d jotted down, she took the elevator up to the fifty-first floor. She’d taken some time to dress for the occasion. Nothing fancy, but she’d put on her good black jeans, a red sweater that’d been a gift from Rosy, and she had made sure there wasn’t any manure on her boots.

  When she stepped off the elevator and onto his floor, she realized she would have still been underdressed had she worn a pricey designer suit. This place was high-end with its white marble floors veined with the silver that was mirrored in the sleek reception desk and wall art.

  Since it was Saturday and the weekend after Thanksgiving, there weren’t as many people milling around as there likely would have been, but there was a woman at the desk. A busty brunette in a winter-white dress and silver high heels. Perhaps it was some kind of strange requirement that her clothes match the decor.

  “I’m here to see Callen Laramie,” Shelby greeted her.

  “Is he expecting you?” According to her name tag, she was Tiffany, and Shelby didn’t miss the stink-eye and once-over the woman gave her. Tiffany also turned up her perky nose, making Shelby wonder if she’d been completely successful with the manure removal from her boots.

  “Yes, he’s expecting me. I made the appointment through his assistant.”

  Which had been intentional on Shelby’s part. Yes, she could have called Callen herself since she had his number, but she’d been worried that it would be too easy for him to say no—again—over the phone. This time if there was a no, he’d have to say it to her face.

  Tiffany tapped the keys on the laptop in front of her—also silver—and she motioned to the hall off to the right. “Suite 5101.”

  Steeling herself up and still debating how to pull off a naughty approach, Shelby made her way there. The door was open but no Callen. However, there was an orange-haired woman in a flamingo-pink suit seated at a desk. The moment she spotted Shelby, she got to her feet.

  And she smiled.

  Not a trace of stink-eye, but the woman’s lids were covered with what could have been a kilo of green shadow and liner.

  “I’m Havana, and you must be Shelby McCall,” the woman said.

  Shelby nodded and would have maybe shaken hands with her if she hadn’t continued.

  “Daughter of Buck McCall,” Havana went on. “And someone from Callen’s past.” She came closer, leaned in. “Callen moans out your name during sex.”

  “What?” Shelby jerked away, ready to go a couple of steps past stink-eye, but then Havana laughed.

  “Just kidding,” Havana insisted. “I have no carnal knowledge about my boss. I’m just trying to break the ice a little from the frost Tiffany would have no doubt given you.”

  Well, she had indeed felt some of that frost, but Shelby wasn’t sure she liked Havana’s attempt at humor, either. Callen’s still moaning over me? I haven’t moaned over him in years, was what Shelby wanted to say, but she settled for, “I’m here to see Callen.”

  “Yes, I know. He’s on the phone right now, but I’ll take you in as soon as that little light turns green.” She tipped her head with the piled-up hair to the landline on the desk. The light was red.

  “So, of course I did a quick background check on you,” Havana went on. She helped Shelby out of her coat. “In the six years that I’ve worked for Callen, you’re the only visitor he’s ever gotten from his hometown. Needless to say, I was curious about you.”

  She recognized the questioning inflection in Havana’s voice that invited her to spill why she was there. Shelby had used such inflections herself, but for this she stayed quiet.

  “I figure this is about the armadillo wedding invitation,” Havana threw out there.

  So she’d seen it. Hard to miss it, and, yes, this visit was sort of about the invitation since that was what had triggered her father’s saying he wanted to see Callen. But the shadow trumped the armadillo.

  “Callen said he’d send the wedding gift himself,” Havana continued. “Know how many times in the past six years he’s actually sent a gift himself?” She didn’t wait for an answer but instead made a zero with her thumb and index finger. “Again, that’s why I was curious about you.”

  As she’d done with her Bob the Santa response, Shelby debated what she should say. Something snarky, maybe about how small Havana’s nose was for her to be sticking it in so many places. Or perhaps it was time for another moaning reference.

  Or she could go with a Bob tactic and moon her.

  But then Shelby saw it. The concern in Havana’s eyes. Concern that Shelby detected even beneath the unnaturally violet-colored contacts and magenta mascara.

  “Whatever you’re here to do, I’m on your side. Six years is too long for anyone to hang on to bah humbug,” Havana said, verifying the concern and lining the path to the possible beginnings of a lifelong friendship with a woman she’d just met.

  On the desk, the light on the phone flashed to green.

  “Showtime,” Havana announced. She patted Shelby’s back as she led her toward the massive double doorway. “Be brave, and never underestimate the power of a good French kiss between old friends.”

  With that, Havana pulled open the door and nudged Shelby in. It felt a little like being thrown to the wolves. Well, one wolf, anyway.

  Callen was standing at the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that had an incredible view of the downtown. His back was to her, but then he turned.

  And she turned into a melting puddle.

  Good thing Callen wouldn’t get a visual of that because she doubted it was pretty, but Shelby could feel the flush of heat make its way from her mouth to the center of her body.

  Oh my. He still had it, all right, and that “it” included but wasn’t limited to everything she saw. Because Shelby was reasonably certain that Callen would look just as good out of those clothes as he did in them.

  He wore cowboy clothes. Jeans, a casual white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, cowboy boots. But this was no ordinary cowboy with that thick black hair and those smoky gray eyes. And the face. Yes, there was another “it.” A strong jaw, nice angles, complete with some dark desperado stubble. He would have looked at ease at a poker table in a Wild West saloon. Maybe a high-noon shoot-out.

  And he would have looked especially good naked in her bed.

  There was a reason she’d spent so much time fantasizing about him.

  Shelby tried her best not to look as if she was still weaving her fantasies and got her mind back on what it should be on. Convincing Callen to come home. She had just about regained her mental footing when he pulled out a big gun in his hotness arsenal.

  A smile.

  Not a full-fledged one. Too ordinary for a man
like him. No. Only the corner of the right side of his mouth lifted. Just a slight hitch that caused a dimple to flash in his cheek. And the puddling returned.

  “Shelby,” he said. Of course, he didn’t just say it. No ordinary accent for him, either. It was a Texas drawl so smooth that it could have qualified as long, slow foreplay.

  “Callen,” she managed to say right back. Nothing smooth about her voice. Too much breath, which was somewhat of a surprise since it felt as if she’d forgotten how to suck air into her lungs.

  How could this happen after all this time? Yes, the heat had been there when she’d been sixteen, but she was a grown woman now. Strangely, that seemed to make the heat even worse. Her sixteen-year-old self wouldn’t have known what to do with Callen Laramie.

  She knew now.

  Shelby shook her head to clear it, squared her shoulders and prepared to launch into the argument she’d practiced on the drive. Callen disarmed that, too, with more of that drawled foreplay.

  “You ventured to the big city,” he said.

  Yes, and met a mooning Santa and a clever assistant who likely knew the depths of both their souls. Shelby settled for a still-too-breathy yes.

  The silence came. Not exactly awkward since his gaze was skimming her entire body. Heck, hers was still skimming his, too, and she figured it was too much to hope that he wouldn’t notice.

  Callen finally broke the gazing, half-smiling silence by motioning to the chair. “Have a seat. You want something to drink?”

  Probably best not to ask for a shot of whiskey and ice packs to cool her down. “Water if you have it.”

  He went to the far side of the room to a wooden panel, tapped it, and when it slid open, she could see a full bar. Callen grabbed a bottle of water, a glass and a napkin and came to her side to set the items in front of her.

  When his body brushed against hers, she caught his scent and dragged it in as if she were a starving woman. “You smell...expensive,” she muttered, her voice dreamy now. But since this wasn’t a dream, she quickly yanked herself back. “Everything in here smells expensive,” she amended. “You’ve done well for yourself.”