by Tina Leonard
“You seem awfully accepting of the mess,” he noted, sitting on the edge of his desk.
Jacey shook her head ruefully. “I’m partially to blame. I should have asked for the agreement in writing much sooner—which would have forced my boss to speak with corporate offices. Had I done that, I would have known, long before I even became pregnant, that it wasn’t going to work.” She sighed again. “So I’m at fault here, too. And they did give me two months’ severance pay, as well as a promise to provide me with excellent references. Almost all of my current salary from this job is going into savings, so when I do leave I’ll have a tidy nest egg built up.”
Rafferty ran his fingers across the filigreed edge of his massive desk. “Is this something you always wanted to do? Become a property manager?”
She found herself mesmerized by the stroking of his hand. “No. I sort of fell into it in college.” She forced herself to look up at his face. “I got a part-time job with one of my previous employer’s less fancy apartment complexes, answering phones and showing apartments, and I just got comfortable in that environment really quickly.” The way she had here on the ranch.
“As you’ve probably noticed, I’m very adaptable.” Too adaptable, her sister Mindy always said. To the point she often forgot about her own wants, needs and desires, in her quest to make other people happy. “Anyway, I worked my way up while I was in school to head manager. From there, I continued to move on to nicer properties, and eventually ended up at the one where I was when I quit. It was great because I always had a furnished apartment with the gig.”
“So that stuff in your car?” he prompted.
“Is about a fourth of what I own. The rest of my personal belongings—clothes, books, kitchen stuff—are in storage in San Antonio.”
“If we offered you more salary…”
She lifted her palm. “That’s not really it.” If it were just the amount of money she was making, the time she was able to spend with Caitlin, she would stay. She wouldn’t care what it did to her career trajectory.
“More time off?” He upped the ante.
“I’ve got plenty of time off, between meals.” More than she would have at any other job, she knew.
“Then what is it?” Rafferty looked frustrated.
If only he wanted her to stay for personal reasons. But that wasn’t the case, and she needed to remember that.
Pushing aside the memory of his kisses and the heat of her response to them, Jacey gave Rafferty the only excuse she felt he would accept. “I’m a city girl at heart.” She swallowed and forced herself to hold his direct gaze, even as she fibbed. “I just don’t think I would be happy here—” on this ranch with you, longing for something you are clearly unable to give “—long term.”
Chapter Six
Several hours later, Jacey sat at the head of the bunkhouse table. Caitlin was cradled in her left arm and she had a pen in her right hand. While Eli and the men chowed down on a dinner of jalapeño beef stew and homemade buttermilk biscuits, Jacey said, “You-all know I’m going to be here for Christmas.”
Welcoming grins, all around, confirming this was so.
Jacey opened her notepad. “How many of you are going to be here?”
A quick show of hands indicated all.
“So, what says ‘Christmas’ to you-all?” Jacey asked.
Stretch grinned. “Christmas cookies.”
“Don’t forget the fudge,” Hoss said.
The door opened and Rafferty walked in. The men looked surprised but pleased to see that the ranch scion intended to join them for a meal once again.
Jacey wondered if Rafferty’s presence had anything to do with the discussion they’d had in the study earlier. She knew he wasn’t pleased at the prospect of having to hunt for another chef. Other than that…she had no clue. Not that it should matter.
Rafferty’s father stood and walked over to Jacey. “Why don’t you let me hold this little darlin’ for a while,” he said.
Grateful for the respite, Jacey shifted Caitlin to Eli’s waiting arms, then picked up her pen again. “Red, what puts you in the spirit?”
“A Christmas tree,” he enthused.
“That’s easy enough.” Jacey wrote. She paused, shot a glance at Rafferty, and then Eli. “Unless there’s some objection…?”
“I think it’s a fine idea,” Eli said.
Jacey turned her glance back to Rafferty.
“I think we’ve got room in the budget for it,” he said dryly.
Everyone at the table looked relieved. They all knew how Rafferty felt about holidays.
“Gabby, what do you think of when it comes to this time of year?” Jacey asked, determined to make this a Christmas they all would remember.
Gabby shrugged. “Presents, of course.”
“Do you guys want to do Secret Santa this year? All put our names in a hat and draw somebody else?” Except maybe Ebenezer there, at the end of the table.
“We usually just give gifts to ourselves,” Stretch explained.
Hoss winked. “That way we don’t have to wrap ’em.”
“I do that, too,” Jacey admitted with a smile, ignoring Rafferty altogether. “But that’s not what Christmas is all about.”
There was a long, contemplative silence before Stretch finally ventured, “We could always talk to the Eagle Canyon Children’s Home, see what they might need and take some presents over there.”
“Now, that’s the spirit!” Eli said.
If only, Jacey thought, Rafferty could get it, too.
“YOU CAN STOP GAPING now,” Rafferty told Jacey an hour later as they perused the Christmas tree lot in Summit.
“Sorry.” Jacey turned to look at him beneath the brilliant yellow lights. “I just can’t get over you volunteering to drive me and the baby into town to pick out a tree.”
As they strolled among the rows of beautiful Scotch pines along with other customers, Rafferty slid a hand beneath her elbow. He leaned down to murmur in her ear, “It was either this or help the cowboys with the dinner dishes. This seemed easier.”
The light touch, along with his proximity, had her tingling all over. She pivoted on her heel, trying not to inhale the tantalizingly familiar fragrance of his aftershave. She met his glance. “Does this mean I won our bet?”
The corners of his lips turned up. “I’m doing an errand, not celebrating the holiday.”
And perhaps, she thought, conjuring up an excuse to spend time alone with her and her baby. Although that was probably just wishful thinking on her part.
“It occurs to me we need to better define our bet.”
He rubbed his jaw contemplatively, waiting for her to continue.
“What do you consider actually celebrating Christmas?”
He shrugged aimlessly. “Doing all the things I used to do at Christmas.”
Wistfulness swept through her as she thought about what it might have been like to know Rafferty in happier times, before he’d become so aloof and cynical. Yet, at the same time, she empathized with his situation. It wasn’t easy, recovering from the loss of a loved one. Recovering from the loss of a child that he’d never had the privilege to know had to be so much harder.
Silence fell and their eyes met. Jacey felt an intimacy she didn’t expect welling up between them once again. He looked a little taken aback, too. Maybe because this seemed to happen every time they were alone together.
“Enlighten me, cowboy,” she prodded gently, wanting them back on track. “Tell me about Christmases past.”
He studied her, as if trying to decide how much he wanted to tell her about what he was feeling. Finally, he released a short breath and said, “I would buy presents for everyone close to me, which isn’t as easy as it sounds, since I never know what to get.”
“Obviously, you haven’t heard. It’s the thought that counts.”
The deeply cynical look was back in his eyes. “Obviously, you’ve never given anyone the exact wrong thing. It’s not a pretty pic
ture. You’re better off giving nothing than a gift that ends up insulting them or hurting their feelings in some weird way.”
Gift giving could be hard, but it was no excuse not to try at all. Figuring that was a discussion best left for another night, Jacey said, “So back to your traditions…?”
He shifted Caitlin to his arms, to allow her to better inspect the trees. “My mom used to make an incredible gingerbread house. When I was a kid, I helped her.”
This was a revelation. She saw him at home on the range, not hands-on in the kitchen. “Were you any good at it?” she asked curiously.
“I think I ate more candy than I put on the house. But…it was fun…and the house smelled incredible when all that gingerbread was baking.”
Jacey tried to decide between two elegant pines and found it impossible. She turned back to Rafferty. “What else?”
Affection and memory mingled with the underlying melancholy in his voice. “My mom used to cook two really great dinners for everyone on the ranch. One Christmas Eve, the other Christmas Day. We all went to church. Visited with friends. Wondered what it would be like if we ever actually had snow here. You know, the usual.”
Jacey held her breath as she wished he would kiss her again, really kiss her. “That doesn’t sound so hard.” In fact, it would be simple to recreate.
The problem was, she realized, Rafferty just wasn’t interested in making the Christmas of the present anywhere near as satisfying as the Christmases of his past.
“WHAT DID YOU DO this time?” Eli asked half an hour after they had arrived home.
“Care to clarify?” Rafferty inquired.
Eli added another log to the fire. “The two of you just picked out a Christmas tree and brought it back to the bunkhouse, which is something that should have made Jacey extremely happy. Yet she looks more morose than ever. What did you do?”
Hell if he knew what had made Jacey turn hot and cold on him once again. He shrugged. “We were just talking.” About Christmas. Which maybe said it all.
“Well, maybe you should stop that,” his father advised, replacing the screen. “Seriously, I want that young woman to stay here. So you need to stop doing your best to drive her away.”
Rafferty defended himself. “I wasn’t doing that!”
“Then what were you doing?” Eli probed.
Rafferty threw up his hands. “Being myself.”
“Well, maybe you should stop that, too.”
Rafferty sighed and changed the subject. He walked over to warm his hands next to the hearth. “I’m having them put the tree up in the bunkhouse.”
Eli stood with his back to the fire. “You don’t want one in the ranch house?”
Rafferty lifted a shoulder. “Do you?”
Eli wouldn’t commit. “Jacey might.”
Rafferty swore. His women-reading ability was really rusty. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.
Clearly exasperated, Eli said, “I’ll take care of it.”
“No,” Rafferty interjected quickly. “I’ll ask her.”
Eli sized him up. “You sure you want to do that?” he asked eventually. “You’ve already ruined her evening once.”
Rafferty winced. “All the more reason I should probably apologize.”
JACEY WAS IN THE MIDDLE of nursing Caitlin when the knock sounded on her bedroom door. Figuring it was Eli, she made sure the blanket was draped over her shoulder and across her chest, then said, “Come in.”
Rafferty walked in, then stopped in his tracks.
“It’s okay,” she reassured hastily. He couldn’t see anything except the obvious fact she was nursing behind the drape of cloth.
Clearly uncomfortable, he said, “My father pointed out I should have asked you when we were at the Christmas-tree lot if you wanted a tree for the ranch house.”
If he’d had a hat in his hand, Jacey noted, he would have been twisting the brim. He didn’t, so instead he tucked his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and stood awkwardly, awaiting her reply.
I really have to get out of here before I fall in love with this amazing, confounding, difficult man.
She swallowed. “It’s okay. Caitlin and I are going to be leaving on the twenty-seventh for El Paso anyway.”
He seemed oddly eager to please. “You could have one in your suite back here. There’s plenty of room.”
Only one problem with that, Jacey thought. “Can you really see your dad coming in here to enjoy it?”
Rafferty shrugged. “He’s got the one in the bunkhouse to appreciate.”
Jacey didn’t want them going to all that trouble for her. She felt, in some ways, she had disrupted life enough on Lost Mountain Ranch. “I don’t think so.”
He strode close enough to search her eyes. “You want one, don’t you?”
I want you to want one. I want you to open up your heart again. But aware that might not be possible, Jacey repeated, “You really don’t have to go to any trouble for me, Rafferty.”
And that was when Caitlin took it into her own hands to end the exceedingly difficult conversation by grasping the blanket in both tiny fists.
ONE MINUTE RAFFERTY WAS standing in the bedroom with Jacey and Caitlin—although he could only hear not see the baby going to town on Jacey’s breast. The next, he was standing there looking at Jacey unveiled.
She was more beautiful than any madonna he had ever seen. Blouse open to the waist, baby pressed to her breast, the other revealed in all its satin-skinned, rosy-tipped glory, she was simply the most incredible woman he had ever seen.
Jacey’s mouth flew open in distress, and she let out a gasp.
Knowing the only thing he could give her at that moment was her privacy, he exited the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Hours later, he was still aroused. Still wanting her. Wishing he could erase the past so he would be free to love again. So he did the only thing he could do.
He told the men to get started without him the next morning and went into town on some made-up errand instead. Then he stopped by the tree lot run by the civic club and purchased the biggest, most beautiful tree they had, as well as two wreaths and another tree stand.
He drove them back to the ranch, took it all inside, left it where she’d find it and then saddled up and headed out to the range to make up for lost time.
He didn’t know what he expected when he got back to the ranch hours later, and showed up for dinner in the bunkhouse for the second night in a row, along with everyone else. But it definitely wasn’t what he got. Wreaths on both front doors, a Christmas tree in the living room at the ranch house—in addition to the one in the bunkhouse—and Jacey joking around with the guys, Dad acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
As if he hadn’t gone way out of his way to make sure she had what she needed to celebrate Christmas in a way she’d be happy.
“So what do you fellas want to put on the tree?” she asked cheerfully as they dug into their chicken enchiladas, rice and refried beans.
“I like the electric lights,” Gabby put in.
“Especially the colored ones that blink,” Stretch said.
“Yeah, I remember we had those one time, years ago,” Hoss agreed. “They were real pretty with the glittery ornaments.”
Eli turned to Jacey. “We have boxes and boxes of decorations in the storeroom over at the ranch house. My wife collected them. Use whatever you like for both trees.”
Before Jacey could even nod her thanks, Eli continued, “Rafferty, would you mind showing Jacey where they are and then carrying out whatever she needs? I’ve got a meeting tonight.”
“No problem,” Rafferty said, noting without surprise that Jacey did not look thrilled he’d been tapped for the chore.
Later, she confirmed as much when they were both back at the ranch house alone.
“Just point me in the right direction. I’ll take it from there,” Jacey said tensely.
“Are you mad at me?” Rafferty led the
way to the storeroom located behind the garage.
“Why would I be mad at you? You brought me a tree and two wreaths to put up.”
Rafferty ignored her polite but aloof regard in an effort to get to the truth. He held open the door, switched on the light and followed her inside. “I figured you would have at least acknowledged it.”
Jacey set the baby monitor on top of one of the boxes, then whirled toward him. “Okay. You want to put it all on the table? You didn’t have to buy another tree and two wreaths just because you saw my breasts, Rafferty.”
“I didn’t do it for that reason,” he explained, irked she would think he was that crass.
She glared at him, obviously reading something he didn’t begin to get into his actions. “Really.” She stomped closer, looking as if she wanted to smack him. “Then why did you do it?”
Rafferty shrugged, aware for someone who declared he was not going to celebrate Christmas, his actions did not make any sense. “Because you are right—my dad deserves to celebrate the holiday along with everyone else, as do you, and Caitlin. After all, this is your first Christmas with your new baby and hence worthy of celebrating. So you should have a tree where you live as well as where you work.”
She looked him up and down. “What else?” she demanded.
He tried to ignore the pretty color flooding her cheeks. “Under the circumstances, it was the right thing to do.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously.” He came closer, too. “It was.”
Jacey tilted her head up to his. “You remember that old saying? You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool me?”
Rafferty exhaled. Obviously, she was thinking about their embarrassing moment as much as he had been thinking about it today. So they might as well dissect it the way women liked to do whenever anything monumental happened…and get it over with. “Okay, Miss I-Know-A-Hidden-Agenda-When-I-See-It,” he said, “I confess,” he fibbed. “I did it because I saw your breasts.”