A Cowboy for Christmas

by Lori Wilde

  “Yes, but that was before he decided to reenlist in the army.”

  “There’s no reason to let the entry fee go to waste.”

  True enough. “That sounds good, but you said it would cost me three or four thousand dollars to train him. That money is earmarked for expanding my bakery business. I can’t do both. The bakery is my future and this thing with Slate is a total gamble.”

  “Not if I help you. Slate’s a good horse. I was just out at the acreage looking him over again.”

  She wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. “You’re offering to train the horse?”

  “It’s what I do for a living.”

  “Don’t you have someplace to be? A ranch to run? A movie to make?”

  “I’m in between movies. My ranch foreman handles the day-to-day operations on my ranch. I can take some time off. Let me do this for you.”

  “Don’t feel guilty on my account because Jake gave you the money. I absolve you of all guilt. Go back to California guilt-free.”

  “It’s not guilt,” he said. “I have my own reasons for wanting to stay awhile in Jubilee.”

  “Had you planned on staying for a while before you got here?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Why the change of heart?”

  “Meeting you and Kyle, I—”

  “We don’t need you to feel sorry for us.” She bristled.

  “I don’t feel sorry for you.” His eyes were on hers, steady as the sun.

  “No?” She felt oddly breathless.

  “I feel sorry for me. For the father I never knew. For the brother I lost. For the childhood I never had.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, you won’t take the money, at least let me do this. It goes against my sense of honor to walk away leaving you and Kyle high and dry.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “I know you will.” He looked one hundred percent sincere. “There’s no question of that. But don’t let pride override common sense. Jake left you the cutting horse. Let me train him and then sell him for you after the futurity is over. It’ll do wonders for my ego.”

  “Ego, huh?”

  Rafferty’s lips curled in a smile. He was particularly handsome when he smiled. “I want to prove that I’m as good a horse trainer as my father. Better even.”

  How could she deny him the opportunity? Especially when it benefited her.

  “You can pay me with free room and board while I’m here. How does that sound?”

  It was so tempting, but dangerous as well and there were Claudia’s feelings to consider. “I suppose we could try it for a few days. See how it goes. Trial basis.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Okay.”

  “Would you like a cinnamon roll?” she asked, pushing back the baker’s spice rack to make room for the saucers she took from the cabinet.

  Her mother had given her the rack for a bakery school graduation present. The hand-carved wood rack was from Williams-Sonoma, a store she could not afford to shop in. The squat glass jars held rich, dark cocoa powder, vanilla sugar, whole allspice, cloves and nutmeg and ground Saigon cinnamon.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Smells good too.” He came closer until Lissette was hemmed in between him and the corner of the kitchen cabinet. “You smell good. Like cinnamon candy.”

  “It’s not me.” She held up the spice jar marked “Cinnamon” in block lettering.

  “Nope, it’s you.”

  She raised her wrist to her nose. He was right. She did smell of cinnamon.

  “It’s my favorite spice.”

  Was Rafferty flirting with her? He didn’t seem the flirty type, but she could swear he was flirting with her—the look in his eyes, the closeness, his friendly tone, the compliment. This was why it was dangerous to have him around. Even if he wasn’t flirting with her, she was imagining it. Wanting it.

  “Here.” She shook off the feeling—if he was going be staying here, she couldn’t have any of that—and pushed a cinnamon roll toward him. “Help yourself to the coffee.”

  “Da.” Kyle stood in the kitchen entryway in his diaper, pointing at Rafferty. “Da.”

  “Don’t read anything into that sound,” Lissette said quickly. She didn’t want Rafferty thinking that Kyle was calling him daddy. “It’s about the only thing he says.” She wiped her hands on a cup towel, moved to pick up her son. “Hey, little man, do you need a dry diaper?”

  “What do you feed him for breakfast?” Rafferty asked. “I’ll get it ready while you change him.”

  “You’re too helpful, you know that?”

  “And you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “The Trojan horse was a gift.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” He inclined his head toward the door.

  Did she? “No,” she answered truthfully. “I’m just . . .” She searched for the right words so as not to hurt his feelings.

  “Cautious. I get it.”

  “Kyle loves Cheerios. No milk. He eats them dry.”

  “Where do you keep the cereal?”

  She hoisted Kyle onto her hip, nodded toward the pantry.

  Rafferty retrieved the cereal box. “Got a little plastic bowl?”

  “His Elmo bowl is in the dishwasher.”

  “Gotcha.”

  She took Kyle into his bedroom to change him. He squirmed the entire time. When she was done, she put him down and he immediately toddled back into the kitchen ahead of her, clearly fascinated with Jake.

  Rafferty had found the bowl and poured up half a cup of Cheerios into it. He squatted down in front of Kyle, gave him a big smile.

  Kyle reached for the Cheerios, but Rafferty set the dish on the table out of his reach. Her son grunted in frustration.

  What was Rafferty up to? Lissette stood in the doorway watching him.

  Rafferty formed a circle with his right hand, and then slowly and distinctly enunciated, “Cheerios.”

  Kyle cocked his head, studied first Rafferty’s hands and then his face.

  Rafferty picked up the dish again, then repeated both the sign and the spoken word.

  Immediately, Kyle made a circle with his hand in imitation of what Rafferty had done, along with puckering his little mouth into the shape of an O.

  “Good boy!” Rafferty exclaimed, ruffling Kyle’s hair and rewarding him with the bowl of Cheerios.

  Her son beamed up at him.

  Surprised joy squeezed Lissette’s throat. She splayed a palm over her chest. Her son had just communicated in rudimentary sign language!

  “Are you okay?” Rafferty asked.

  Overwhelmed, she nodded, unable to speak.

  “Should I put him at the table?”

  She motioned toward the dining room table chair topped with a red plastic booster seat.

  Rafferty guided Kyle to the table. Lissette turned away, pressed her lips together tight, laid a hand over her mouth. She blinked, busied herself with taping up the boxes filled with the tiers of the wedding cake.

  After he had Kyle situated, Rafferty came over to rest a hand lightly on her shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I can’t tell you how hopeful it makes me feel to see him picking up sign language so quickly.”

  “It’s going to get better,” he promised, his touch at her shoulders tightening into a reassuring squeeze.

  She quelled a strong urge to lean against him. It was too much, this contact, their swiftly growing closeness. She stiffened and he responded instantly, dropping his hand, backing off.

  “Well,” he said. “I have some calls to make. Find out who I know that might be interested in buying a first-class cutting horse.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated.

  He headed toward the door, stopped when he got there, turned back around. “Lissette?”

  She met his gaze but couldn’t read what he was thinking. “Yes?”

  “Where’s Jake buried? I’d like to visit his grave.”

&
nbsp; “It’s going to get better, I promise,” Mariah said, and slung an arm around Lissette’s waist when the wedding was over. It had been a ten A.M. ceremony with a reception brunch, and the bride and groom had just left. A few friends and family members lingered in the reception hall, which had been converted from a horse barn, visiting and catching up.

  Since she was contract labor and not an employee, Lissette usually didn’t hang around once she got the cake set up. But that morning after she arrived, she’d told Mariah about Kyle’s diagnosis and Rafferty’s appearance in her life. They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk beforehand, so she stayed afterward, needing her levelheaded friend’s take on her situation.

  “I know.” So as not to give in to self-pity, she started pulling the white lace slipcovers off the chairs and folding them into neat squares. “I don’t think it was such a smart idea for me to let Rafferty stay in the apartment while he trains Slate to compete in the futurity.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know how I am about cowboys.” Lissette waved a hand. “They’re my fatal attraction.”

  “Are you saying you’re attracted to him?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, I could be, and that’s what’s so scary.”

  “You’re not going to fall for him just because he’s a cowboy. You’re not that shallow.”

  “A cowboy who’s staying in my backyard. I don’t get why he’s willing to do this for me. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

  “He probably just wants to help.”

  “I don’t want to feel beholden. Not to him. Not to anyone. Not anymore. Is that crazy?”

  “Not crazy, no.” Mariah shook her head. “But everyone needs help now and again and this certainly qualifies as one of those times. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or helpless. Honestly, I think it’s kind of sweet that he feels protective of you. Especially since staying here in Jubilee is bound to stir up some negative blowback for him.”

  “You mean Claudia.” Lissette patted the slipcover flat and added it to the pile she was accumulating.

  “That’s going to be a sticky wicket.”

  Lissette groaned and covered her face with a hand. Telling her mother-in-law about Rafferty was not going to be fun. “I know. How did I get myself into this situation?”

  “Hey, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Lissette glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was in earshot. “I had a sex dream about him.”

  “Who? Rafferty?”

  “Shh.”

  Mariah looked slightly shocked, but she rushed to reassure her. “It’s just a dream, Lissy. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It’s that stupid cowboy fantasy I’ve had since I was a teenager. You’d think after things didn’t go so well with Jake I would have gotten over it.” She snatched up another slipcover to fold. “That’s it. I’m going to tell him I made a mistake this morning. I don’t need his help selling Slate. Joe or Cordy or Brady would be happy to help me find a buyer. Why did I agree to his scheme?”

  “What’s the difference if Rafferty helps you or one of your friends?”

  “You’re right.” She gritted her teeth. “I hate being a damsel in distress.”

  “Men like to feel needed, Lissy.”

  “Well, he can feel needed somewhere else.”

  “It’s not about Rafferty, is it? Not really.”

  Lissette slumped down into one of the chairs she’d just stripped of its slipcover. “No,” she admitted. “I just don’t want to get into another situation like I was in with Jake. He took control and I followed. I don’t want to repeat that pattern.”

  “Rafferty’s not Jake. Just give him a chance. And besides, he’s not going to be here forever. His time in Jubilee is limited. Cut yourself some slack. Let him train the horse. Hell, bring him to our monthly poker game next Friday. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  At two o’clock that same afternoon, Rafferty stood on the banks of the Brazos River that ran a serpentine path between the twin towns of Twilight and Jubilee. The river divided the two counties, Parker to the north, Hood to the south.

  The October wind blew against the water, whipping up moody whitecaps. Dead leaves fell from the red oaks. They skittered across the asphalt of the empty boat ramp, dry and thin as old bones. Numb gray clouds bunched, threatening to pepper the muddy ground with more rain, and the air smelled briny.

  He breathed in the bitter, brittle, brown flavor, jammed his hands into his pockets, and hunched his shoulders. He thought about going back to the truck for his denim jacket but decided not to bother. It felt good, this bracing blast.

  A mourning dove cooed from its perch on the highline wire overhead. Far off in the distance, a drilling rig pounded steadily, echoing a hard, steely tempo up and down the river. This part of the country sat on the Barnett Shale, the largest producible reserve of natural gas in the United States. No boats traversed the waterway. No cars passed on the bridge. No one anywhere. In that moment it felt like the loneliest place on earth. And this was where Claudia and Lissette had left Jake. Cremated him. Scattered his ashes. Walked away. Without even a tombstone to mark his passing.

  Unexpected resentment rapped on his chest. He didn’t know where the feeling came from, but by damn, there should be some kind of monument to honor a fallen solider, some testament to the fact that Jake had existed. He got the feeling his brother hadn’t been the best husband or father in the world, but he had mattered, and however briefly, Rafferty had known him, he’d loved him.

  “It was Jake’s wishes,” Lissette had said as he’d stood in her kitchen that smelled of cinnamon rolls. “ ‘When my time comes, cremate me and don’t make a damn fuss. No military brouhaha. No ceremony.’ Those were his exact words.”

  The wind mussed his hair and Rafferty finally gave in and retrieved his jacket. He wandered back down to the water’s edge, sat on a large, flat, smooth river rock. The stone was cold, even through the seat of his jeans, and he was glad for the warmth of his jacket. He watched bits of flotsam whirl and twirl down the river.

  “Well, Jake,” he said, “you sure screwed the pooch. You went back to war when you could have walked away. Left that sweet wife of yours alone. Abandoned your boy. Now he’s gonna grow up without a daddy. You don’t get how tough it is for a boy without a dad. But I do.”

  Great. Now you’re sounding like a Lifetime movie of the week. Poor you. Suck it up, Jones.

  “Still can’t believe you left a woman like Lissette,” he mumbled. “She’s something special. Didn’t you know that?”

  In his mind’s eye, he saw Lissette as she’d looked that morning in the kitchen, a flowered apron tied in a perky little bow around her narrow waist, her busy hands boxing wedding cakes. Those slender, delicate hands produced such smooth, graceful movements. Those hands kneaded and mixed, cut and shaped. And the things she baked—crumb cake and cinnamon rolls—tasted like sugary magic on his tongue. He figured love was like that, created from the heart, sweet and unexpected, like Lissette, drawing him in with the scent of cinnamon and home.

  Home.

  Nostalgia for something he’d never had drifted over him. But this was not his home. He didn’t belong here. He knew that, but stupid thoughts keep crawling through his mind, unwanted and forbidden.

  He liked the hint of sassiness in Lissette that reared its head at unexpected times. As if sass were a little-used muscle and she was trying to sneak in a workout. There was something innately compelling about the brown-sugar-haired, warmhearted, single mother that got to him, something that had nothing to do with their current situation. He would have been attracted to her under any circumstances. She possessed an unconscious grace, a quiet, enigmatic sexiness, and a pair of sorrowful green eyes that, when she turned them on him, made him forget his own name.

  Guilt crept in then for the way he was feeling about his dead brother’s wife. Desire. He wanted her. It was completely wrong. Make no mistake. He knew it, but he wanted her all the same.

 
; Biology. Chemistry. Grief. His habit of falling for women in need. He liked being the one that other people ran to when they were in trouble. Although it always seemed to backfire on him in one way or the other. Any or all of those excuses were true, but in the end, they were simply excuses used to rationalize the sleepless night he’d spent thinking of Lissette and the kiss he’d wanted to steal.

  One smart thing. That was the one smart thing he’d done. Or rather, hadn’t done.

  If he hadn’t promised Jake he would take care of her, if he hadn’t hatched this scheme to train Slate and enter the cutting horse in the futurity just so he could secretly purchase the stallion from her as an anonymous buyer to save her pride, he would have already been on the road back to California.

  The sound of a truck engine drew his attention to the boat ramp where his pickup was parked. So much for solitude. He hadn’t made much headway into his conversation with Jake. Hadn’t even touched on the gratitude he felt for the way his half brother had saved his ass from prison on that long-ago summer day.

  He couldn’t make up his mind whether to just stay here or get in his pickup and clear out before the other vehicle showed up. In his hesitation he ended up in the middle of the road, halfway between the rock and his pickup when the other truck came into sight.

  It was a familiar black extended-cab pickup with tinted windows.

  Lissette.

  Chapter Eight

  She should have expected Rafferty to be here. Why hadn’t she expected him to be here? But honestly, she hadn’t even known that she was going to be here, coming to the river where they’d scattered Jake’s ashes had been a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

  Lissette had paid Mariah’s babysitter Ruby an extra twenty bucks to keep Kyle for a few more hours while she had a long talk with Claudia. It would be easier; she rationalized, if Kyle wasn’t there to stir the emotional pot.