A Cowboy for Christmas

by Lori Wilde

  On the drive back to Jubilee, she’d toyed with the ring on the third finger of her left hand. It was time to take it off. She’d only worn it this long because of Claudia. The love she’d once felt for Jake had long disappeared, replaced only with sadness for the lost hopes and dreams and the waste of it all.

  That’s when an idea had taken hold inside her. Toss the ring into the river. Say good-bye once and for all. Close the book on that chapter of her life.

  “Oh, Jake.” She sighed. “How did we get here? Once upon a time we had such stars in our eyes.” Or maybe it had just been she. In her infatuation with cowboys in general and Jake in particular, she hadn’t seen things clearly.

  And now here was another cowboy standing in the middle of the boat ramp, staring at her with hungry eyes.

  A chilly thrill lifted the hairs on her arms. Rafferty was so sexy! Part of her wanted to throw the truck into reverse and shoot out of there, but how would that look? She forced a smile, parked the truck, and got out.

  “Hey,” she said a little breathlessly as she rounded her vehicle.

  “Hey.”

  They exhaled simultaneously.

  “Where’s Kyle?” he asked.

  “Babysitter’s. I have to go talk to Claudia in person.”

  Rafferty’s gaze searched her face, his eyes attentive as if he was trying to figure out every thought that went through her mind. She wasn’t accustomed to this kind of masculine attention. It made her nervous.

  And grateful.

  Gratitude was the dangerous part.

  He bowed his head against the gusting wind, the early afternoon sun slanted over his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing his Stetson and his mussed hair curled down the back of his neck. He hadn’t shaved that morning and her fingers twitched to trace over the dusting of dark stubble.

  He lowered eyelashes as long and thick as Jake’s and Kyle’s. Something all three Moncrief men had in common. Gorgeous black lashes. Those lashes softened the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Lines that said he’d brushed up against the hard side of life too soon and too often. On any other man, that hardness would be intimidating. But he wore it like a badge of honor, not a weapon. He made her feel safe.

  Something else to worry about.

  “You came out here to pay your respects to Jake,” she said.

  He nodded. “You too?”

  “I came—” She halted abruptly, not sure she should tell him the truth, then decided, no, she was just going to say it. “To say good-bye to him one final time.”

  Clouds passed over the sun, casting them in shadow. “One final time?” he echoed.

  Silently, she reached up, removed her wedding ring, and slipped it into her pocket. “I’m tired of pretending.”

  In the muted light, Rafferty’s whiskey-colored eyes darkened, glinted with meaning she couldn’t read. Was he upset with her? The taut planes of his face remained impassive. The man kept a tight rein on his thoughts, but of course, he was a cowboy. It was the nature of the beast.

  She lifted her chin. “Our marriage was over in our hearts, if not officially, long before Jake shipped off for his last tour. I’ve only worn the ring this long for Claudia’s sake. She was under the delusion that we had the perfect marriage.”

  Lissette braced herself. Waiting for his anger or his judgment or both.

  Instead, he nodded toward a dirt path leading through a forest of nearby public land. “Would you like to take a walk?”

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  He put his arm out, but didn’t touch her, rather ushered her toward the thicket, his hand stirring up the air behind her. She could feel him as surely as if he had placed a palm to her back. An involuntary shiver passed through her. Why did she overreact every time he came near her?

  “You’re cold,” Rafferty said, and the next thing she knew he was shrugging out of his blue jean jacket and draping it around her shoulders, leaving him wearing a blue chambray work shirt with the sleeves rolled up a quarter turn. His scent wrapped around her, warm and masculine.

  She didn’t need him to take care of her and here she was hugging his jacket around her, pretending she was chilled from the weather and not his proximity. “Thanks. It turned out cooler than I expected. I should have brought a jacket. Odd time of year in Texas. Hot one day, cold the next.”

  “No problem.”

  But it was a problem. A very big problem. In the exchange, his knuckles grazed her hand. Her body heated at his touch and she felt her nipples tighten. What was this? A dozen different emotions pelted her—anxiety, attraction, guilt, irritation.

  Yes, he irritated her.

  They tramped around a fallen log, passed through a cedar copse, their feet crunching crisply on fallen leaves. The wind bit their cheeks. They could no longer see the river, but they could hear it rushing softly toward Lake Twilight.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Huh?” For a second, she thought he meant metaphorically, and then realized he was speaking literally. “I don’t know.” She laughed. “You invited me for the walk.”

  “This isn’t my stomping grounds. I have no idea where this path leads.”

  “We’ll run into a fence soon. A ranch borders the public property. Why?”

  “I like to know where I’m headed.”

  They were walking side by side. She cast a glance at him. “You’re the opposite of Jake. He liked to be surprised. When we went on trips he refused to make reservations. He said it killed the spirit of adventure. We ended up staying in some gawd-awful places because of it. On our honeymoon in Corpus Christi, we forgot it was spring break and we ended up sleeping on the beach because there were no rooms to be had.”

  “Jake was a spontaneous guy.”

  Lissette couldn’t help wondering if he had known Jake better than she had. “We got sand fleas.”

  “You were a good sport to go along with it.”

  “I have a tendency to get caught up in whatever tide I find myself floating in and Jake was a tsunami. There was no denying him.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “What?”

  “Going with the flow.”

  “It is if you lose yourself. Jake was a storm who blew through my life,” she whispered, feeling terrible because she did not mourn her husband the way he deserved to be mourned. Although the tragedy of his death hurt and saddened her, a shameful part of her had been quietly relieved that the waiting and worrying was finally over. She could at last move on. “He left me breathless and broken.”

  Rafferty did touch her this time, the tips of his fingers gently pressing against the middle of her spine.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “You’re amazing. You know that.”

  She gave a half laugh. “I’m nothing special.”

  “Stop it.” His face turned fierce and the harshness in his voice startled her. “Stop hiding your light under a bushel. You’re exceptional, Lissette Moncrief, and it stuns me to think you don’t realize that.”

  She brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “If I’m so exceptional why did—” She bit down on her bottom lip, stalked ahead of Rafferty.

  “What?” He halted.

  She stopped, turned back to face him, hauled in a deep breath, and there in the quiet of the forest, she said the words out loud to another human being for the first time. “He was having an affair.”

  “Jake?”

  She nodded, pressed her lips together. Jake had been the father of her son. A man she once loved until war changed him into a stranger she no longer recognized.

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw his truck parked outside a no-tell motel.”

  “He could have been there for another reason.”

  “It wasn’t the first time.”

  “Lissette,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” she said lightly, because it no longer hurt. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  Rafferty shif
ted his weight. “He left your money to me.”

  “Hey, better you than his mistress.” She didn’t mean to sound bitter, because she really wasn’t bitter. Just stating facts.

  “Tell me more about your business,” he said.

  She was glad for the change in topic and they started walking again. She told him her plans for the cowboy-themed bakery and all the things she needed to do to make the business a success.

  “I could help with that,” he offered. “Loan you a little money to get going. Even if Slate wins a purse, it won’t be for several weeks.”

  “We’ve already discussed this.”

  “I’m not talking much. A few thousand. Just so you don’t have to pinch pennies.”

  She was about to say no, but she really did need some help if this was going to work. Was Rafferty the right person to borrow money from? “I’ll think about it.”

  “Just say the word and the money is yours.”

  She reached the barbwire fence before he did, stopped, and turned to find him standing right in front of her.

  “End of the road,” she said.

  They were face-to-face, her back to the fence, Rafferty’s shoulders hunched, the sleeves of his blue Western shirt billowing in the wind. He was shielding her, protecting her from the brunt of the cold breeze blowing off the river. She swallowed, uncertain what to say or do next.

  “It’s peaceful out here.” He took a step closer.

  “Quiet.”

  “I like quiet.” He rested a hand on the fence post beside her. The muscles in his wrist flexed with tension and his eyes were murky. He had the same look on his face as he’d had last night when they were together in the cab of her truck. The tips of his cowboy boots almost touching hers.

  He did not move.

  His scent, however, encroached on her. His jacket weighing heavily on her shoulders. He smelled good. Sexy and masculine.

  Lissette was suddenly hyperaware of everything—the raspy sound of their comingled breathing, the tingling sensation shooting through her nerve ends, how the material of his jeans stretched across powerful thighs. How his brown eyes actually had sumptuous flecks of gold in them. She thought of honey crisp apples dipped in rich caramel—sweet and tart and gooey delicious.

  A strong physical urge pushed through her with an intensity she’d never felt before. Desire. Yearning. Lust.

  As irrational as it seemed, her body wanted his. You just want to feel something again. That’s all. She was feeling plenty of things right now. Plenty scared.

  “Lissy,” he murmured.

  The way he spoke her nickname, so low and rhythmic and gentle, loosened something inside her head. Turned off the faucet of logic or turned on the spigot of capriciousness. The part of her that had been fighting to keep breathing, to put one foot in front of the other, to pick up the pieces of her tattered life, evaporated, and she was left with no defenses, no ramparts.

  She was vulnerable, raw, open. So stupidly open to even the smallest glimpse of peace.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I have to go.”

  Then before she did something incredibly stupid like allow him to kiss her, she ducked her head and rushed away.

  On the way to Claudia’s house it occurred to her that if a bystander had seen her and Rafferty together—meeting on the boat ramp, taking a walk, Lissette rushing back with her cheeks flushed and looking guilty—he would have assumed a rendezvous. It hadn’t been a tryst but it would certainly look that way to an outsider.

  She pulled into Claudia’s driveway and stared at the ranch-style bungalow. Her mother-in-law was not going to be happy when she learned Rafferty was in town, working for Lissette, and living in her garage apartment.

  By nature, Lissette found conflict uncomfortable, which was the reason Jake had always gotten his way with her. She hated to fight. Disagreements made her feel as if she was being attacked. For the most part, she had trouble taking a stand. She could usually see both sides of an argument. Plus a small voice at the back of her head often whispered, Why put in your two cents’ worth when no one listens anyway?

  Jake used to teasingly call her a fence sitter. “Hey Lissy,” he’d ask, “what’s the view from the fence?”

  One memory from her childhood stood out crystal-clear. When she was three or four years old, she’d gone shopping with her mother and sisters. It was winter and they were bundled in coats. As they crossed the Target parking lot, Brittany, her older sister, was showing off, twirling her sparkly baton and bragging about how she was the prettiest girl in her class. (She was too.) Her mother pushed Samantha in a stroller, and clung to Lissette with her other hand. Across the parking lot, glittery pinwheels, advertising a sidewalk sale, spun gaily in the cold breeze, looking bright as a rainbow.

  The spinning entranced her and one thought centered firmly in the front of her mind. I want it. Her desire was so clear. She thought of nothing else, but she wanted that pinwheel. She broke away from her mother’s hand and dashed for the display.

  Car brakes squealed. Her mother screamed her name. A horn honked so loudly in her ear that Lissette startled, snapped from the mesmerizing pinwheel trance. She stared quivering into the hot, yawning, bug-splattered grille of a tangerine-colored sports car that had halted just inches from her nose.

  Her mother reached her, fell to her knees, scooped Lissette into her arms, and squeezed her so hard against her chest that she couldn’t breathe. The rough material of her mother’s tweed coat scratched Lissy’s cheeks, already raw from the cold weather. She tried to separate from her mother, struggled to breathe, but the harder she moved against her the more difficult it was to catch her breath. Her mother’s distress became her own.

  “Don’t ever, don’t ever . . .” her mother wailed.

  A man got out of the orange sports car. “She just darted out in front of me. Zip, like a lightning bolt.”

  “You almost killed my child,” her mother screamed, still squeezing Lissette with every ounce of strength she had in her. “She could have died.”

  Lissette felt she could either keep struggling and have the life squeezed out of her or go limp into her mother’s arms. She let go, stopped fighting to breathe, accepting what was, and when her mother finally released her, she felt strangely disappointed.

  She shook off the memory, and bracing herself for the conversation she’d been dreading all morning, Lissette tapped lightly on her mother-in-law’s front door, and then pushed it open and stepped over the threshold. “Knock, knock,” she called.

  “Lissy?” Claudia’s voice drifted thinly to her from the back room.

  Her mother-in-law hadn’t changed the house since Jake was in high school. A coatrack made of deer antlers stood in the foyer, a yellow rain slicker hanging from one of the horns.

  Lissette ran a hand over the paneled wall as she walked down the corridor. “Where are you at?”

  “Bedroom.”

  Claudia didn’t sound right. Concerned, Lissette made her way to the back bedroom. The door was ajar, and before she even pushed it open, apprehension closed over her.

  Nudging the door farther open with the toe of her boot she realized for the first time that she was still wearing Rafferty’s blue denim jacket. It was too late to take it off now. The sleeves hung below her fingertips. Involuntarily, she curled her hands into self-conscious fists.

  She stepped into the room and smelled an aroma she did not normally associate with her mother-in-law.

  Alcohol.

  An empty bottle of Merlot rested on the oak hardwood floor. On the bedside table sat a glass with a few swallows of red wine left in it. From the old-fashioned record player in the corner, Billie Holiday sang the blues. It was the middle of the day and Claudia was drinking?

  “Are you sick?”

  “Does heartsick count?” Claudia sat in the middle of her bed in her nightgown, her eyes red-rimmed and a box of tissues beside her. Spread out in front of her lay photographs covering every inch of the duvet. There were pictur
es of Lissette and Kyle, snapshots of Claudia and Gordon when they were young, but predominantly, the photos were of Jake.

  Jake as a newborn swaddled in a powder blue blanket. Jake on his first birthday, diving into a chocolate cake and wearing nothing but a diaper. A four-year-old Jake holding a fishing pole in one hand, a three-inch sun perch in the other. A similar photograph a year later, Jake holding a front tooth in one hand, a dollar bill in the other, and wearing a wide, gap-toothed grin. And as he grew older there was Jake with a broken arm. Jake with a broken leg. Jake with a black eye. Jake with stitches in his forehead.

  Oh, Claudia. Lissette’s heart twisted. “Mom, how long have you been in bed?”

  “All day,” she declared, hiccupped loudly, slapped a palm over her mouth. Laughed.

  “Have you eaten anything?” Lissette moved aside some of the photographs and sat down on the end of the bed. Her gaze fell on the picture of her and Jake at their wedding. They were both grinning like fools, but even then, there was something about the untamed look in Jake’s eyes that troubled her now. Why hadn’t she seen it then? Quickly, she glanced away.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You gotta eat something. Let me fix you some soup.” Lissette started to get up.

  Claudia grabbed her. “No, stay here. Tell me about Kyle.”

  She sighed. “Maybe this conversation should wait until you feel better.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “So.” Her chin-length silver bob was mussed flat in the back from the morning spent in bed. “I’m over twenty-one.”

  Lissette hesitated.

  “Talk. I’m fine,” Claudia insisted.

  Slowly, in excruciating detail, she told her mother-in-law everything that the doctor and audiologist had told her the previous morning. How was it possible that only one day had passed since she’d received the terrible news?

  Claudia sat there looking like she was about to come unraveled. Where was the strong-willed woman that Lissette usually leaned on?

  Her mother-in-law’s shoulders shook. Her chin trembled. She was quaking all over. Her head bobbing from the force of her sorrow. Lissette felt it. Claudia’s grief. Deep in her bones. The same way she’d immersed into her mother’s distress on that long-ago day in the Target parking lot.