A Cowboy for Christmas

by Lori Wilde

  Clucking a soothing noise, she removed a toddler in a blue T-shirt who was kicking hard, arms flailing. He seemed more mad than hurt or scared.

  Like any good mother, she examined him thoroughly in spite of the squirming and squalling. “Hold still for Mommy,” she pleaded.

  The boy bucked against her, snorting in loud frustration.

  Rafferty stepped closer. “Hey there, little britches,” he said, and gave the boy a stern but gentle look. “Ease up on the volume.”

  The toddler’s gaze fixed on him. His mouth clamped shut and he quieted, his eyes filling up with Rafferty.

  “He needs a nap,” the woman apologized. “And he misses his daddy.”

  “Traveling man?”

  She jerked her head up. “Huh?”

  “Is his daddy a traveling man?”

  Her face darkened and her jaw tightened. “My husband . . .” She trailed off, her voice distant, but strong. “Died in Afghanistan.”

  Damn. There was a lot of that goin’ around.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.” He tipped his Stetson. “It wasn’t any of my business.”

  She hitched the boy on her hip and turned back to stare at their two trucks kissing back fender to front, but the foggy sheen to her eyes told him she wasn’t seeing the slight damage. Was she thinking about her husband?

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  “Let me just get my insurance information,” she repeated and tracked around the front of her pickup to get to the other side. Rafferty trailed behind her. He couldn’t make himself not notice the sweet sway of her hips.

  She opened the passenger door and tried to one-hand the glove compartment open. The toddler started whimpering again.

  “You want me to hold him for you?”

  She pressed her lips into a grim line, shook her head. A fall of brown-sugar hair slanted across her cheek.

  “I don’t mind helpin’,” he offered.

  “I’ve got it,” she snapped.

  Rafferty raised his palms. He knew when to back off. This one’s nerves were wiredrawn and he had a feeling it was not just because of the smashup.

  She half leaned over, one side pressed against the seat, the child tucked in the crook of her arm, and dug through the glove compartment. Papers flew every which way—receipts, fast food napkins, computer printouts of MapQuest destinations.

  “I know it’s in here somewhere,” she mumbled.

  The kid was tuning up, working out his lungs.

  Rafferty met the boy’s eyes, laid a finger over his own lips.

  The toddler stilled.

  The woman’s head jerked up and she thrust the child toward him. “Fine. Hold him.”

  Rafferty’s arms wrapped around the boy, who looked surprised to be there. He studied Rafferty’s face with the astuteness of a miniature cop.

  In the meantime, the child’s mother was still rooting around in the glove compartment and muttering under her breath. “I found the old one, but it’s expired. The new one has to be in here somewhere.”

  “Could it be in your purse?” Rafferty asked, trying to be helpful.

  Their vehicles were blocking the back end of the parking lot and a few people had already thrown them irritated glances. If he wasn’t holding the baby, he would have gone ahead and moved his truck.

  “No, no, my husband always puts it in the glove . . .” She trailed off, her shoulders slumped, and all the fight seemed to go out of her. “I didn’t pay the car insurance.” She gulped visibly. “I forgot to mail it in. The stamped envelope is setting under a pile of correspondence on the table in the foyer.”

  “Look, it’s okay. Don’t worry. I’m insured.”

  “It’s not okay. It’s not okay. It’s not.” She pounded a fist against the dashboard and then burst into tears.

  Women’s tears did not scare Rafferty. Not when he’d grown up with a mother who was emotionally more child than adult, not when he’d practically raised his younger sister and brother all by himself.

  “Hey,” he soothed, the center of his chest pinching oddly. “It’s just a crumpled fender. Nothing to cry over.”

  “It’s not the damn fender.” She glowered.

  “I know. I know.” He shifted the boy onto his other hip and reached for one of the fast food napkins that had fluttered to the seat.

  Stop it. You know how you get. It’s not your job to solve her problems.

  His fingers accidentally brushed her arm.

  She drew back, alarm running across her face. Belatedly, she must have realized what he was after, because she accepted the napkin he offered, pressed it to her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been through a lot. Losing your husband—”

  “It’s more than that.” She sobbed softly. “He can’t hear, he can’t hear.”

  Rafferty was confused. “Who?”

  She waved at the baby.

  “Your son?” he asked, just to clarify.

  “He’s going deaf.”

  Sympathy yanked at him. Because of his deaf ranch foreman, Guillermo Santo, who never allowed his lack of hearing to slow him down, Rafferty knew that from the boy’s point of view, deafness wasn’t the end of the world, but the news had to have been a sharp blow to the mother. He started to tell her about Guillermo, but stopped himself. He shouldn’t get into her business.

  “Ah, hell,” he mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

  “I just found out today and there’s nothing the doctors can do to stop his hearing loss. He’ll be completely deaf by the time he’s five.” She shredded the napkin with anxious fingers. “I haven’t told anyone yet. I can’t bear to tell anyone.”

  “I get that.”

  “I can’t stand to listen to their questions, see the pity on their faces.”

  “ ’Course not. You need time to absorb it yourself.” The toddler had fallen asleep in Rafferty’s arms, curled up against his chest; the pressure of the little boy’s head weighed heavily against his heart.

  “He’ll never be able to identify birds by their calls or hear a football coach holler out plays or listen to his wife tell him that she loves him.” Her voice cracked again as a fresh round of tears sprang to her eyes. She swiped at her cheeks with both hands.

  Jesus, just walk away, Jones.

  But how could he do that? He had her boy in his arms. He reached out to her then, pulled her from the truck, and just held her there in the parking lot. The child in one arm, the distraught mother in the other.

  Rafferty was instantly aware of everything about her—the softness of her skin, the sound of her ragged breathing, the pressure of her breasts poking against his ribs. Trapped. He felt trapped, and yet underneath it was another, completely opposite feeling.

  Contentment.

  On the street, a pickup truck with a throbbing bass passed by. A breeze gusted shaking autumn leaves from a nearby elm tree. Dark clouds bunched overhead. An elderly man and woman crossed the parking lot, arms linked, holding each other steady.

  Rafferty shifted his gaze back to the woman in his embrace. Her crisp white blouse smelled of spray starch and the neckline dipped into a modest V revealing just the barest hint of cleavage. Sexy in an innocent way. Above her collar hung an opal stone suspended from her long, slender neck by a fine gold chain. Her skin was smooth and creamy pale. She was not a woman who wandered out into the sun much, and the contrast to his own tanned skin was stark.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is stupid. I don’t usually . . . This isn’t . . . me.”

  “Shh. It’s okay,” he said. But it wasn’t okay and they both knew it. With her son’s diagnosis, her life had changed forever.

  Shoppers skirted the fender bender, staring goggle-eyed, taking mental notes, drawing erroneous conclusions about them. Nosy Roseys. Ogling. The downside of small-town living.

  The woman’s hands curled into fierce fists. “I’m about to implode. I can’t take any more. Not now. Not on top of everything else.”

  The October breez
e ruffled her hair over his shoulder. She smelled like cinnamon rolls—sweet and warm and yeasty. Spray starch and cinnamon rolls. A homey kind of scent he had not grown up with. She dropped her forehead against his neck. Through the open collar of his western shirt, he could feel her soft breath feather the hairs on his chest.

  “I’m so furious at my husband for leaving when I needed him most.”

  “That’s understandable.” He rubbed her back, hurting for her in an alarmingly empathetic way.

  She tilted her chin up. “Is it? Is it really? Or are you just trying to make me feel normal?”

  “What’s normal?”

  “I have no idea.” She laughed mirthlessly, but he felt her body relax. She pushed her fingers through her hair, ruffling the thick honeyed strands.

  “Listen. Forget all about this fender bender,” he said. “Your truck is fine and I have insurance to fix mine. No harm, no foul. You go on home, put your baby to bed, have a hot soak in the bathtub, eat something healthy, and then turn in early. You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

  His advice sounded lame. How could he offer advice to a woman who’d lost her husband prematurely and violently and then just found out her child was going deaf? He could tell her that the boy would easily adapt to what she saw as a handicap. Guillermo considered his deafness no different from eye color. Just part of who he was. She needed time to grieve and let go of the image of what she thought her son might be, but Rafferty wouldn’t tell her this. Eventually, she’d come to understand it for herself.

  “I can’t let you do that.” She stepped from the circle of his arms. “I’m so embarrassed I broke down like this in front of you.”

  “Think nothing of it. I’m a stranger in town. You’ll never see me again. You can pretend I was sent by your guardian angel to help you through a bad day.”

  “I like that idea. Thank you.” She gave him a slight smile. She had gorgeous lips. Right out of a man’s fantasy.

  “Will you be okay to drive?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, reached for her son.

  He passed the boy to her. “You’ll get through this and one day you’ll be happy again.”

  “Right now, that sounds like a pretty impossible promise.”

  “Just hang in there.”

  Platitudes.

  He knew it as surely as she did, but now they were at the awkward stage. She’d shown him—a stranger—too much raw emotion. They’d touched in an intimate gesture saved for close family and friends. Plus she was probably feeling like she owed him gratitude she didn’t want to owe. That would make anyone feel uncomfortable.

  Get away from her as quickly as possible and leave her to her sorrow. She wasn’t his responsibility. But Rafferty had a hard time walking away from anyone in need. Like it or not, it was just the way he was wired.

  You can’t save the whole world.

  “Thanks,” she said. “For being so understanding. Usually, I’m not this high-strung.”

  He got a glimpse of the steel magnolia in her as she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I believe you.”

  Rafferty waited while she secured the boy into his car seat once more and settled herself behind the wheel. Hang those people tooting their horns at him to move his vehicle. Slowly, he sauntered back to his truck. He climbed in, started the engine and with a sharp screech of metal, backed up, separating his truck from hers.

  She slid on sunglasses, hiding her weary eyes, and waved at him as she left the parking lot.

  That was it. She was gone. Out of his life.

  He should feel happy right? Instead of disquieted. Shrugging off the feeling, he took the parking spot she’d vacated and tried not to think about her, but his shirt was still damp from her tears and his collar smelled of her.

  Pleasing. Sweet. Special.

  The crowded store was packed with moms who’d just picked their kids up from school and were swinging by for groceries on their way home. Seeing those kids with their mothers made him think of Amelia and how he’d never had a normal childhood.

  When he was small, before the other kids came along, Amelia called him her snoopy little bodyguard because he quizzed the men she dragged home. He wanted to know who they were, what they did for a living, and why they were with his mother.

  Amelia would laugh, make excuses for him to the men, then give him two dollars and tell him to go down to the corner store to buy a Nutty Buddy for them both. He’d protest because they hadn’t yet had dinner and Amelia would say in a high voice that tinkled like glass tapped with a spoon, “You can’t count on anything in life, Rafferty, so eat dessert first.”

  By the time he got back from the store, Amelia and the man of the day would be in her bedroom making thumping noises. He’d sit in a chair in the hallway licking his Nutty Buddy while hers melted. Eventually, the bedroom door would open, the man would leave, and Amelia would stagger out rumpled and smelling funny. She’d pick the melted chocolate and nuts off the puddle of ice cream and then lick her fingers. She’d wander into the kitchen, pour a glass of red wine, then collapse on the couch in her filmy pink housecoat, stare out the window, smoking Virginia Slims and reciting melancholy lines from her favorite movie, Doctor Zhivago.

  To this day, Rafferty hated both Omar Sharif and Nutty Buddies. But Amelia was better now. Finally, one of the numerous rehabs he’d gotten her into had worked. She was taking her medication, staying sober, and doing well.

  Family.

  What could you do? They not only affected who you became, but the choices you made. Like it or not, you couldn’t escape your DNA. Family marked you with indelible graffiti and weighted you with the freight of permanent memories. Good, bad, indifferent, and everything in between. Blood branded you. Claimed you. Broke you down to the most basic level.

  Which brought him back full circle to the reason he was here in Jubilee. Family pulling at him from both ends. He thought of the brown-sugar haired woman in the Ford pickup truck and hoped she had family to help her. She was going to need it.

  Thank God, he hadn’t gotten her name and phone number. Otherwise, he might have been tempted to call and check on her.

  Rafferty fisted his hands. People often didn’t want his help. He had a hard time wrapping his head around that one. He’d been accused of thinking he had the answers to everyone else’s problems, but when you saw someone heading blindly off a cliff, didn’t you have some kind of responsibility to stop them from taking the plunge? Did that make him a know-it-all?

  He tucked the questions to the back of his mind, bought tuna and crackers and V–8 juice, and took it back to his truck. He sat there in the parking lot eating and practicing what he was going to say to the person he’d come to Jubilee to see.

  Excuse me. You don’t know me but . . . No, that sounded lame. Hell, he’d had fourteen hundred miles to come up with a good intro and he still couldn’t think of the right way to break the news.

  He finished his meal, dusted off his hands, and consulted the map to his destination. He’d studied it a dozen times during the drive to Texas, but now that he was so close, he got a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  Just get it over with.

  Mentally, he shook himself, started the pickup, and headed for the X spot on the map a mile away. He flipped on the radio. Barenaked Ladies were singing, “If I Had a Million Dollars.” Lighthearted. He could use a dose of that in spite of his situation.

  The closer he got, the tighter anxiety’s grip on his spinal column grew. His sense of honor prevented him from simply mailing what he needed to deliver, along with a letter of explanation. It’s what most people would have done, but he couldn’t do that. He’d made a promise. This deserved a face-to-face meeting. Even if it made his palms sweat.

  He entered a tree-lined neighborhood filled with old homes built around the turn of the twentieth century. Lots of flowers and big sturdy oaks. White picket fences and window flower boxes. Two-acre lots. Roomy, welcoming, the whole damn works. Totall
y opposite of his arid horse ranch outside Los Angeles.

  How different would his life have been if he’d grown up here? How different would he have been?

  Useless. Such thoughts. He’d grown up on the streets of old Hollywood in a variety of squalid apartments. Amelia, who’d once been an extra in a couple of B movies, was convinced she’d make it as a star as long as she didn’t let her kids get in the way of her ambitions. But booze, men, and drugs? Oh yeah, those came before anything—children, career, her health.

  Self-medicating. She’d been self-medicating. Trying to ease the pain of her bipolar condition. He understood it now, but back then? He’d been one resentful kid.

  He glanced at the map. The house he was looking for turned out to be a three-story Queen Anne Victorian with a gated archway on a corner lot. Rosebushes, devoid of flowers this late in the season, grew in wild profusion along the fence line.

  Rafferty cut the engine and sat staring at the front of the house. An American flag fluttered from a holder that was positioned underneath the eaves. A toddler’s Big Wheel in camouflage colors was parked to one side of the uneven cement driveway that meandered away from his view to the back of the house. A sack of horse oats lay propped up against the side of the house.

  An odd swell of panic struck him and he blew out his breath. He felt as if he’d stumbled across a Norman Rockwell family blindsided by war. Dammit, Jake, why did you have to go and get your stupid self killed and leave me behind to pick up the pieces? Messy shit, this.

  Story of Rafferty’s life. Cleaning up after everyone else. He hadn’t even had time to grieve the brother he barely knew and now here he was about to face the Widow Moncrief.

  What was he supposed to say? Sorry your husband left his money to me instead of you? It didn’t matter. He was giving it back. He couldn’t keep the money, no matter how much he could use it. Rafferty had never in his life taken something that didn’t belong to him and he wasn’t going to start now.

  What would Jake’s wife say to him? How would she react? Would she tell him stories about his brother? Would they become friends?

  In your dreams, bastard boy. You don’t belong here in Norman Rockwellville. Fractured or not.