Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

  “Making breakfast? You can cook, then?” Leopold asked.

  “Well, yes.” She hesitated, but he looked really interested. “I make biscuits and bacon and eggs.”

  “Pig meat,” the one called Reynard muttered.

  “Steak’s better,” Callaghan agreed.

  “If she can make biscuits, the other stuff doesn’t matter,” Reynard retorted.

  “Will you two shut up?” Leopold asked sharply. He turned back to Dorie and gave her a thorough appraisal, although not in the least sexual. “You don’t look like a bookkeeper.”

  “Nice hair,” Reynard remarked.

  “Bad scar on that cheek,” Callaghan remarked. “How did it happen?”

  Heavens, he was blunt! She was almost startled enough to tell him. She blurted that it had been in an accident.

  “Tough,” he said. “But if you can cook, scars don’t matter much.”

  Her mouth was open, and Leopold stomped on his big brother’s foot, hard.

  Callaghan popped him one on the arm with a fist the size of a ham. “Cut it out!”

  “Don’t insult her, she won’t come!”

  “I didn’t!”

  Reynard moved forward, elbowing the other two out of the way. He had his own hat in his hand. He tried to smile. It looked as if he hadn’t had much practice at it.

  “We’d like you to come tomorrow. Will you?”

  She hesitated.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” Leopold shot at Callaghan. “She’s scared of us!”

  “We wouldn’t hurt you,” Reynard said gently. He gave up trying to smile; it was unnatural, anyway. “We have old Mrs. Culbertson keeping house for us. She carries a broomstick around with her. You’ll be safe.”

  She bit back a laugh. But her eyes began to twinkle.

  “She carries the broomstick because of him,” Reynard added, indicating Leopold. “He likes to...”

  “Never mind!” Leopold said icily.

  “I was only going to say that you...”

  “Shut up!”

  “If you two don’t stop, I’m going to lay you both out right here,” Callaghan said, and looked very much as if he meant it. “Apologize.”

  They both murmured reluctant apologies.

  “All right, that’s that.” He put his hat back on. “If you can come at nine, we’ll send one of the boys for you.”

  “Thank you, I’d rather drive my own car.”

  “I’ve seen your car. That’s why I’m sending one of the boys for you,” Callaghan continued doggedly.

  Her mouth fell open again. “It’s a...a nice old car! And it runs fine!”

  “Everybody knows Turkey Sanders sold it to you,” Callaghan said with a disgusted look. “He’s a pirate. You’ll be lucky if the wheels don’t fall off the first time you go around a curve.”

  “That’s right,” Rey agreed.

  “We’ll stop by on our way out of town and talk to him,” Leopold said. “He’ll bring your car back in and make sure it’s perfectly safe to drive. He’ll do it first thing tomorrow.”

  “But...”

  They put their hats back on, gave her polite nods and stomped back out the way they’d come.

  Callaghan paused at the front door, with the screen open. “He may talk and act tough, but he’s hurt pretty bad, inside where it doesn’t show. Don’t hurt him again.”

  “Him?”

  “Corrigan.”

  She moved forward, just a step. “It wasn’t like that,” she said gently. “He didn’t feel anything for me.”

  “And you didn’t, for him?”

  She averted her gaze to the floor. “It was a long time ago.”

  “You shouldn’t have left.”

  She looked back up, her eyes wide and wounded. “I was afraid of him!”

  He let out a long breath. “You were just a kid. We tried to tell him. Even though we hadn’t seen you, we knew about you from other people. We were pretty sure you weren’t the sort of girl to play around. He wouldn’t listen.” He shrugged. “Maybe we corrupted him. You might ask him sometimes about our parents,” he added coldly. “Kids don’t grow up hating marriage without reason.”

  There was a lot of pain in his lean face. He was telling her things she’d never have dared ask Corrigan. She moved forward another step, aware of the other two talking out on the porch in hushed whispers.

  “Is he still...like that?”

  His eyes were cold, but as they looked into hers, they seemed to soften just a little. “He’s not the same man he was. You’ll have to find out the rest for yourself. We don’t interfere in each other’s lives, as a rule.” His gaze went over her wan face. “You’ve been to hell and back, too.”

  He was as perceptive as his brother. She smiled. “I suppose it’s part of becoming an adult. Losing illusions and dreams and hope, I mean.” She locked her fingers together and looked up at him quietly. “Growing up is painful.”

  “Don’t let go,” he said suddenly. “No matter what he says, what he does, don’t let go.”

  Her surprise widened her eyes. “Why?”

  He pulled his hat lower over his forehead. “They don’t make women like you anymore.”

  “Like me?” She frowned.

  His dark eyes glittered. He smiled in a way that, if she hadn’t been half-crazy about Corrigan, would have curled her toes. “I wish we’d met you before,” he said. “You’d never have gotten on that bus.” He tilted the hat. “We’ll send Joey for you in the morning.”

  “But...”

  The door closed behind him. He motioned to the other two and they followed him down the steps to the four-door pickup truck. It had a big cab. It was streamlined and black, and it had a menacing look not—unlike Corrigan Hart’s brothers!

  She wondered why they’d all come together to ask her to go out to the ranch, and why they’d done it when Corrigan was gone. She supposed she’d find out. She did wonder again about the fifth brother, the mysterious one that Corrigan had mentioned. None of these men were named Simon.

  * * *

  LATER, THE TELEPHONE RANG, and it was Turkey Sanders. “I just wanted you to know that I’m going to have that car I sold you picked up in the morning and put to rights,” he said at once. “I guarantee, it’s going to be the best used car you’ve ever driven! If you would, just leave the keys in it, and I’ll have it picked up first thing. And if there’s anything else I can do for you, little lady, you just ask!”

  He sounded much more enthusiastic than he had when he’d sold her the rusty little car. “Why, thank you,” she said.

  “No problem. None at all. Have a nice day, now.”

  He hung up and she stared blankly at the receiver. Well, nobody could say that living in Jacobsville wasn’t interesting, she told herself. Apparently the brothers had a way with other businessmen, too. She’d never have admitted that the car had worried her from the time Turkey had talked her into buying it, for what seemed like a high price for such a wreck. She had a driver’s license, which she had to have renewed. But never having owned a car in New York, it was unique to have one of her own, even if it did look like ten miles of bad road.

  * * *

  IT WAS A COLD, blustery morning when a polite young man drove up in a black Mercedes and held the door open for her.

  “I’m Joey,” he told her. “The brothers sent me to fetch you. I sure am glad you took on this job,” he added. “They won’t give me any money for gas until that checkbook’s balanced. I’ve been having to syphon it out of their trucks with a hose.” He shook his head ruefully as he waited for her to move her long denim skirt completely out of the doorframe so that he could close the door. “I hate the taste of gasoline.”

  He closed the door, got in under the wheel and took off
in a cloud of dust.

  She smiled to herself. The brothers were strange people.

  The ranch was immaculate, from its white wood fences to the ranch house itself, a long elegant brick home with a sprawling manicured lawn and a swimming pool and tennis court. The bunkhouse was brick, too, and the barn was so big that she imagined it could hold an entire herd of horses.

  “Big, huh?” Joey grinned at her. “The brothers do things on a big scale, but they’re meticulous—especially Cag. He runs the place, mostly.”

  “Cag?”

  “Callaghan. Nobody calls him that in the family.” He glanced in her direction, amused. “They said you’re the reason Corrigan never married.”

  Her heart jumped. “No kidding?”

  “Oh, yeah. He doesn’t even look at women these days. But when he heard that you were coming back, he shaved and bought new clothes.” He shook his head. “Shocked us all, seeing him without a beard.”

  “I can’t imagine him with one,” she said with some confusion.

  “Pity about his leg, but he’s elegant on a horse, just the same.”

  “I think he gets around very well.”

  “Better than he used to.” He pulled up in front of the house, turned off the engine and went around to help her out.

  “It’s right in here.”

  He led her in through the front door and down a carpeted hall to a pine-paneled office. “Mrs. Culbertson will be along any minute to get you some coffee or tea or a soft drink. The brothers had to get to work or they’d have been here to meet you. No worry, though, Corrigan’s home. He’ll be here shortly and show you the books. He’s trying to doctor a colt, down in the barn.”

  “Thank you, Joey.”

  He tipped his hat. “My pleasure, ma’am.” He gave her a cursory appraisal, nodded and went back out again.

  He’d no sooner gone than a short, plump little woman with twinkling blue eyes and gray hair came in, rubbing her hands dry on her apron. “You’d be Miss Wayne. I’m Betty Culbertson,” she introduced herself. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “Oh, yes, please.”

  “Cream, sugar?”

  “I like it black,” she said.

  The older woman grinned. “So do the boys. They don’t like sweets, either. Hard to get fat around here, except on gravy and biscuits. They’d have those every meal if I’d cook them.”

  The questions the brothers had asked about her cooking came back to haunt her.

  “None of them believe in marriage, do they?” she asked.

  Mrs. Culbertson shook her head. “They’ve been bachelors too long now. They’re set in their ways and none of them have much to do with women. Not that they aren’t targeted by local belles,” she added with a chuckle. “But nobody has much luck. Corrigan, now, he’s mellowed. I hear it’s because of you.”

  While Dorie flushed and tried to find the right words to answer her, a deep voice did it for her.

  “Yes, it is,” Corrigan said from the doorway. “But she isn’t supposed to know it.”

  “Oops,” Mrs. Culbertson said with a wicked chuckle. “Sorry.”

  He shrugged. “No harm done. I’ll have coffee. So will she. And if you see Leopold...”

  “I’ll smash his skull for him, if I do,” the elderly woman said abruptly, and her whole demeanor changed. Her blue eyes let off sparks. “That devil!”

  “He did it again, I guess?”

  She made an angry noise through her nose. “I’ve told him and told him...”

  “You’d think he’d get tired of having that broomstick thrown at him, wouldn’t you?” Corrigan asked pleasantly.

  “One of these days he won’t be quick enough,” Mrs. Culbertson said with an evil smile.

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Everybody’s already talked to him. It does no good.”

  “What does he do?” Dorie asked curiously.

  Mrs. Culbertson looked at Corrigan, who’d started to answer, with eyes that promised culinary retribution.

  “Sorry,” he said abruptly. “I can’t say.”

  Mrs. Culbertson nodded curtly and smiled at Dorie. “I’ll just get that coffee. Be back in a jiffy.”

  She left and Corrigan’s dark eyes slid over Dorie’s pretty figure.

  “You look very nice,” he said. His eyes lifted to her wavy hair and he smiled appreciatively. “I always loved your hair. That was a first for me. Usually I like a woman’s hair long. Yours suits you just as it is.”

  Her slender hand went to the platinum waves self-consciously. “It’s easy to keep like this.” She shifted to the other foot. “Your brothers came to the house yesterday and asked me to come out here and look at the household accounts. They say they’re starving.”

  “They look like it, too, don’t they?” he asked disgustedly. “Good God, starving!”

  “They were very nice,” she continued. “They talked to Turkey Sanders and he’s repairing my car.”

  “His mechanic’s repairing your car,” he told her. “Turkey’s having a tooth fixed.”

  She knew she shouldn’t ask. But she had to. “Why?”

  “He made a remark that Cag didn’t like.”

  “Cag. Oh, yes, he’s the eldest.”

  He brightened when he realized that she remembered that. “He’s thirty-eight, if you call that old.” Anticipating her next question, he added blithely, “Leo’s thirty-four. I’m thirty-six. Rey’s thirty-two.”

  “So Cag hit Turkey Sanders?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then who broke his tooth?”

  “Leo.”

  “Cag got mad, but Leo hit Turkey Sanders?” she asked, fascinated.

  He nodded. “He did that to save him from Cag.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Cag was in the Special Forces,” he explained. “He was a captain when they sent him to the Middle East some years back.” He shrugged. “He knows too much about hand-to-hand combat to be let loose in a temper. So we try to shield people from him.” He grinned. “Leo figured that if he hit Turkey first, Cag wouldn’t. And he didn’t.”

  She just shook her head. “Your brothers are...unique,” she said finally, having failed to find a good word to describe them.

  He chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Do they really hate women?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “I’ll bet they’re sought after,” she mentioned, “especially when people get a good look at this ranch.”

  “The ranch is only a part of the properties we own,” he replied. “Our people are fourth-generation Texans, and we inherited thousands of acres of land and five ranches. They were almost bankrupt when the old man died, though,” he mused. “He didn’t really have a head for figures. Broke Grandad’s heart. He saw the end of his empire. But we pulled it out of the fire.”

  “So I see,” she agreed.

  “The only problem is, none of us are married. So if we don’t have descendants, who’s going to keep the empire going?”

  She thought of the most terrible answer to that question, and then got the giggles.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She put a hand over her mouth until she got herself back under control. “Sorry. I was only thinking of that movie about the man who got pregnant...!”

  He gave her a level look, unsmiling.

  She cleared her throat. “Where are the accounts?”

  He hesitated for a minute, and then opened the desk drawer and took out a set of ledgers, placing them on the spotless cherrywood desk.

  “This is beautiful,” she remarked, stroking the silky, high-polished surface.

  “It was our grandfather’s,” he told her. “We didn’t want t
o change things around too much. The old gentleman was fond of the office just the way it is.”

  She looked around, puzzled by the plain wood paneling. There were no deer heads or weapons anywhere. She said so.

  “He didn’t like trophies,” he told her. “Neither do we. If we hunt, we use every part of the deer, but we don’t have the heads mounted. It doesn’t seem quite sporting.”

  She turned as she pulled out the desk chair, and looked at him with open curiosity.

  “None of your brothers are like I pictured them.”

  “In what way?”

  She smiled. “You’re very handsome,” she said, averting her eyes when his began to glitter. “They aren’t. And they all have very dark eyes. Yours are gray, like mine.”

  “They favor our mother,” he said. “I favor him.” He nodded toward the one portrait, on the wall behind the desk. It looked early twentieth century and featured a man very like Corrigan, except with silver hair.

  “So that’s what you’ll look like,” she remarked absently.

  “Eventually. Not for a few years, I hope.”

  She glanced at him, because he’d come to stand beside her. “You’re going gray, just at the temples.”

  He looked down into her soft face. His eyes narrowed as he searched every inch of her above the neck. “Gray won’t show in that beautiful mop on your head,” he said quietly. “It’ll blend in and make it even prettier.”

  The comment was softly spoken, and so poetic that it embarrassed her. She smiled self-consciously and her gaze fell to his shirt. It was open at the collar, because it was warm in the house. Thick black hair peered over the button, and unwanted memories of that last night they’d been together came flooding back. He’d taken his shirt off, to give her hands total access to his broad, hair-roughened chest. He liked her lips on it...

  She cleared her throat and looked away, her color high. “I’d better get to work.”

  His lean hand caught her arm, very gently, and he pulled her back around. His free hand went to the snaps that held the shirt together. He looked into her startled eyes and slowly, one by one, he flicked the snaps apart.

  “What...are you...doing?” she faltered. She couldn’t breathe. He was weaving spells around her. She felt weak-kneed already, and the sight of that broad chest completely bare drew a faint gasp from her lips.