Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

  It echoed what his body was already doing to hers. She felt the cool air in the room on bare skin. Closer, she felt the heat and power of his body, warm and muscular where his skin brushed against hers, abrasive where the thick hair on his chest and stomach dragged against hers.

  By the time he finally went into her, she was writhing on the sheets, arching up to him, begging silently for an end to the slow, sweet torment of tension that built suddenly to flash fire.

  She felt one big, warm hand catch her upper thigh and position her. But he was teasing more than taking in the heated seconds that followed.

  “Oh...please,” she pleaded in a hoarse whisper. “Please!”

  “Yes.” He moved down against her, slowly impaling her. He was more formidable than she recalled, but no longer rushing or impatient. He made sure that she went with him every step of the way, feeling her shiver and cling as he intensified the heated power of his thrusts.

  Tears were rolling down her cheeks as she strained up to meet each downward motion of his hips. Her nails bit into his hips. She sobbed, finally, as the fever of it caught her up and made her shudder every time he thrust down into her body.

  And then, so suddenly, there was no time left. She was dying. She couldn’t live if the tension lasted much longer. She pleaded with him, twisted up to him, bit his shoulder in her agony of passion.

  He indulged her then, his body pressing her hard into the mattress as the rhythm and fever caught them both up in a whirlwind of ecstasy and dashed them into infinity for a space of exquisite, anguished seconds that, all too soon, fell away.

  * * *

  SHE WAS WET with sweat. She couldn’t get a single breath. She lay against his damp body, quivering in the aftermath. She felt a shudder go through him and her arms pulled him closer.

  “Better?” he asked at her ear.

  “Oh...gosh...!” she ground out. She shivered again. “I never knew...!”

  “Neither did I, honey,” he said quietly. He smoothed her dark hair. “I only knew one way, you see. The women I had were very experienced, demanding, wildcats in bed. They didn’t want tenderness, so I never learned it.” He drew in a long, satisfied breath. “But I think I’m getting the hang of it now,” he added on a chuckle.

  “I’ll say!” she exclaimed.

  He kissed her damp hair. “We haven’t discussed birth control,” he said after a minute.

  “I like little boys,” she said simply. “We should have at least one, while we’re still young, don’t you think?”

  He laughed softly, delighted. “We’ll take whatever we can get. But, I agree. A boy would be nice.” He kissed her closed eyelids. “I’m sorry about Rod,” he added tenderly. “We’ll get him a good attorney and do whatever we can for him.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, too. But I’m so proud of him,” she whispered, and her voice broke.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  He held her close, in the warm silence of the dark room. Outside, snow was falling harder.

  * * *

  THEY WENT TO see Rodney at the county detention center. He was quiet, contrite. For once, he looked like the brother Colie remembered from their childhood.

  “I’m so sorry, sis,” he said as they spoke over telephones on either side of a glass partition.

  “I’m sorry for you,” she replied. “I’m so proud of you!”

  He flushed a little. “Too little, too late. I’ve done so much harm...”

  “You’re my brother,” Colie said. “I love you. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. I just want to help you, however I can. You saved my life, Rod.”

  He grimaced. “I should have stayed. I just ran.” He made a face. “It’s what I’m best at—running. But I’m going to try to turn my life around. Daddy would have wanted that.” He fought tears. “I’m so sorry. He’d be ashamed of me!”

  “He’d understand, Rod,” she returned. “You know how he was. He never looked down on people, no matter what they did.”

  He nodded. “He was one of a kind.”

  “Yes.”

  They shared the grief of the loss of their parents. After a minute, Rod glanced behind her at J.C. “I’m sorry for the lies I told you, too, J.C.,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have been in your daughter’s life the whole time.”

  J.C. put his hands on Colie’s shoulders. “Your father turned my life around,” he said. “He had this great attitude, that everything happens for a reason. He’d say that things happened the way they were meant to.”

  “He would,” Rod agreed. He managed a smile. “At least Barry won’t be gloating,” he added. “They’ve got him in solitary confinement. He hit a guard.”

  “Bad move,” J.C. observed.

  “Very bad,” Rod agreed. “And it’s just the beginning of his troubles. He was skimming off the profits. By now, someone’s surely noticed. Even in prison, he won’t be safe from retribution.”

  “I’ve read about that sort of thing,” Colie replied. “He may not even get to trial.”

  “You never know,” Rodney replied.

  * * *

  IN FACT, BARRY TODD was found dead in his jail cell three days later of an apparent opioid overdose, despite the known fact that he never used the drugs he distributed. It was thought that he’d run afoul of some very dangerous people in the organization he’d belonged to. But nobody missed him.

  Colie got her job back at the law firm, sharing administrative chores with Lucy. She and J.C. took turns dropping Ludie off at pre-K and picking her up after classes. Colie was so happy that she radiated joy. Marriage suited her. It seemed to suit J.C. as well, because he never stopped smiling. He loved to show his small family off, everywhere from church to the grocery store. Even people who’d been critical of him years before now found things in him to admire. He was a tireless worker with the soup kitchen and the homeless shelter. So was Colie. They carried on the work her father had started.

  The story of the marriage was in the local paper, but it was a slow news week and it was picked up by one of the larger dailies up in Montana a week or so later. Where it would eventually be seen by an unexpected reader.

  One Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks before Christmas, a sedan drove up in J.C.’s front yard and stopped just as J.C. and Colie were getting Ludie into the house after a Christmas shopping trip to the nearby Walmart.

  Wary, J.C. motioned Colie with Ludie onto the porch. He waited while a tall, white-haired man with dark olive skin got out of the car. He was wearing a black overcoat. He looked both dignified and solemn.

  “Can I help you?” J.C. asked, standing unobtrusively between his family and the visitor.

  The old man cocked his head and looked at J.C. for a long time. He managed a terse smile. “You don’t know me.”

  J.C. frowned. The voice was oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “No,” he said tersely.

  The old man moved a step closer. His eyes went to the porch and he smiled suddenly. “I read about the wedding in an old Montana paper that a parishioner brought by. It had a story on a missionary. But there was a story about you and your new wife, as well. That’s where I live, up in Billings. You’d be Colleen, I suppose?” he said to Colie. “And that would be Beth Louise. Ludie?”

  “Gimpa!” Ludie called out, laughing. “Gimpa got collar!”

  J.C. felt the blood draining out of his face. That was his father? After all the long years of neglect, of anguish, of pure hell in foster homes...!

  He started to speak, but before he could, his father unbuttoned his overcoat. It was there. The collar. The mark of a Roman Catholic priest.

  J.C.’s jaw actually dropped.

  Colie came closer with Ludie by the hand. “She said you had a collar, weeks ago,” she told the old man, almost in a daze.

 
The man looked down at the pretty little girl. “You look like my wife,” he said softly. “She had curly red hair and gray eyes. She was beautiful.”

  “Gimpa!” Ludie exclaimed and pulled away from her mother, to hold her arms out to the newcomer.

  He picked her up and hugged her, fighting tears. “Beautiful child,” he whispered brokenly.

  J.C. was still standing there, lost for words, fighting hatred and rage and curiosity, all at once.

  Donald Six Trees looked at him from serene dark eyes. “I have so much to say to you,” he began. “I hardly know where to begin. I feel that I should apologize for ten minutes before I even try to explain the wrongs I’ve done you.”

  J.C. was rigid, but he didn’t order the old man to leave. He just looked at him.

  “Your father was a minister, yes?” he asked Colie.

  “Yes,” she said with a sad smile. “I lost him—we lost him,” she corrected, “a few weeks ago.”

  “I heard a lot about him, from a mutual friend, a Methodist minister who lives in Billings. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Would you like coffee?” Colie offered with a wary glance at J.C.

  “I would,” the old man said. “If it’s all right with you,” he added, looking into J.C.’s turbulent eyes.

  “Remember what Daddy said,” Colie told her husband.

  He drew in a long breath. “I remember,” he said after a minute. He averted his eyes. “I could use a cup of coffee, as well.”

  “Come in,” Colie invited, and she smiled.

  The old man, still holding Ludie, followed her and J.C. into the cabin.

  * * *

  “MY FATHER-IN-LAW SAID that people have motivations for every single action,” J.C. said when they were sipping coffee at the kitchen table.

  “Some are more painful than others,” his father returned. He set down his cup. “There was a reason that I was drinking, when I wrecked the car and your mother died,” he said heavily. “I’d been working in the mines with my brother. I set off a charge too soon. There was a cave-in, and he died.” His face was set in hard lines. “I’d been drinking before that. But I really tied one on after I saw my brother’s body. His wife was collapsed on his body. She looked at me and called me a murderer.” He grimaced. “It was no more than what I’d been calling myself, but words have power. I left work and started drinking in a local bar. I was stoned when I got home. Your mother was very big on school meetings. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted. I told her that I was too drunk, but she said it was only two miles, it wouldn’t matter. She’d sprained her ankle two days before, and she couldn’t drive.” His eyes closed. “I was too drunk to reason. I just got behind the wheel and started driving. I missed the turn and went off the bridge.” He shook his head. “I ran. I ran and ran and ran some more. I knew she was dead at the scene and that I’d go to jail if they caught me.” He looked up at his son with agony in his face. “Running never solves a problem. It only makes it worse. It took me years to face what I’d done, to admit fault. I’d not only killed your mother, I’d deserted you at a time when you needed me most. I did go looking for you, after I sobered up, but they said they’d already placed you in a good home...”

  “Good home.” J.C. said the words with icy contempt. “Sure.”

  The old man saw more than J.C. realized. “I headed East. I worked at laboring jobs for a long time, until I was taken in by a Benedictine priest. He got me back into the church, taught me that I had to forgive myself before I’d be of any use to anyone else. He made me realize that all my life it had been me, what I wanted, what I needed. I’d never put anybody else first.” He grimaced. “Needless to say, it was a painful adjustment. But I made it. I trained as a priest and started working in the parish with the priest who’d saved me. He died last year and I took over his duties. But I never stopped looking for you,” he added, his dark eyes steady on J.C.’s strained face. “I’d given up until I saw a photo of the two of you in the paper, in the wedding announcement. I knew it was you when I saw you.” He shrugged. “You’re the image of me, when I was your age. Your mother named you John Calvin, and your mother’s father was a Calhoun. The newspaper said you’d lived in the Yukon Territory as a child.” He smiled sadly. “It wasn’t much guesswork to puzzle it out, after that.”

  J.C. started to speak, stopped, tried again.

  “You have to make up, Daddy,” Ludie piped up, leaning against her father’s long legs. “Gimpa’s my only gimpa, now.”

  “She does have a point,” Colie said softly, smiling at him.

  He looked torn. But after a minute, he smoothed his hand over his daughter’s curly head. “She has a point,” he agreed finally. “Hatred serves no purpose, except to propagate itself,” he added.

  The old man smiled. “And forgiveness is divine,” he added.

  “Divine.” J.C. looked at the man he’d spent his life hating, and realized that the only person he’d hurt was himself. As Jared Thompson had said, everyone had reasons for the way they behaved, for the hurtful things they did. “Well, it’s a start,” he said absently.

  “The longest journey begins with a single step,” the old man replied. He hesitated. “I’ll try, if you will.”

  J.C. thought about it for a minute. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll try, too.”

  The old man’s dark eyes lit up, like fires on a cold night.

  IT TOOK TIME, but J.C. and his father finally reached an accord. As Ludie said, she had only one grandparent living. The old man wasn’t the same person J.C. remembered from his fraught childhood. It was obvious that this priest had found redemption, and that he loved his son. J.C. agreed with Colie that forgiveness was more important than retribution. The old man, like J.C., had paid a high price for his past. It was time to let it go.

  * * *

  A FEW WEEKS after they were married, Colie met J.C. at the door when he came home late one night and excitedly held his hand to her still flat stomach.

  She didn’t say a single word, but J.C. knew what had happened immediately. He gave a whoop and whirled her around and around before he stopped and kissed her until her mouth was sore.

  “Gonna get a baby brother!” Ludie piped up nearby. She was grinning from ear to ear.

  “It will probably be another girl,” J.C. teased. “I love girls.”

  Ludie shook her little head. “Gonna be a boy!” she said, and giggled.

  * * *

  EIGHT MONTHS LATER, J.B. and Colie Calhoun announced the birth of a new family member: a little boy, whom they named Jared Rodney Thompson Calhoun. Ludie didn’t even gloat.

  * * * * *

  CHRISTMAS COWBOY

  To the men and women

  of the Cornelia Police Department.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS THE holiday season in Jacobsville, Texas. Gaily colored strands of lights crisscrossed the main street, and green garlands and wreaths graced each telephone pole along the way. In the center of town, all the small maple trees that grew out of square beds at intervals along the sidewalk were decorated with lights, as well.

  People were bundled in coats, because even in South Texas it was cold in late November. They rushed along with shopping bags full of festively wrapped presents to go under the tree. And over on East Main Street, the Optimist Club had its yearly Christmas tree lot open already. A family of four was browsing its sawdust-covered grounds, early enough to have the pick of the beautifully shaped fir trees, just after Thanksgiving.

  Dorie Wayne gazed at her surroundings the way a child would look through a store window at toys she couldn’t
afford. Her hand went to the thin scar down an otherwise perfect cheek and she shivered. How long ago it seemed that she stood right here on this street corner in front of the Jacobsville Drugstore, and backed away from Corrigan Hart. It had been an instinctive move; at eighteen, he’d frightened her. He was so very masculine, a mature man with a cold temper and an iron will. He’d set his sights on Dorie, who found him fearful instead of attractive, despite the fact that any single woman hereabouts would have gone to him on her knees.

  She recalled his jet-black hair and pale, metallic eyes. She’d wondered at first if it wasn’t her fairness that attracted him, because he was so dark. Dorie had hair so blond it was almost platinum, and it was cut short, falling into natural thick waves. Her complexion was delicate and fair, and she had big gray eyes, just a shade darker than Corrigan’s. He was very handsome—unlike his brothers. At least, that was what people said. Dorie hadn’t gotten to meet the others when she left Jacobsville. And only Corrigan and three of his brothers lived in Jacobsville. The fifth Hart male wasn’t talked about, ever. His name wasn’t even known locally.

  Corrigan and three of his four brothers had come down to Jacobsville from San Antonio eight years ago to take over the rich cattle operation their grandfather had left to them in his will.

  It had been something of a local joke that the Harts had no hearts, because they seemed immune to women. They kept to themselves and there was no gossip about them with women. But that changed when Dorie attended a local square dance and found herself whirling around the floor in Corrigan Hart’s arms.

  Never one to pull his punches, he made his intentions obvious right at the start. He found her attractive. He was drawn to her. He wanted her. Just like that.

  There was never any mention of marriage, engagement or even some furtive live-in arrangement. Corrigan said often that he wasn’t the marrying kind. He didn’t want ties. He made that very clear, because there was never any discussions of taking her to meet his brothers. He kept her away from their ranch.