by Lori Wilde
Christmas morning was chaotic. Friends coming in and out of the house. Her parents showed up. No one wanted Lissette to be alone on her first Christmas as a widow. It was nice that everyone cared, but with the combo of Rafferty being a Christmas Eve no-show and Jake’s bizarre video, Lissette was on edge and she wished everyone would go home and leave her and Kyle to themselves.
“What’s this doing in the trash?” Mariah asked, rooting around in Lissette’s garbage.
“What?” Lissette dried her hands on her apron.
“This Christmas cactus.”
“I forgot to bring it inside and it froze.”
“Just because it froze doesn’t mean it’s dead.” Mariah plucked it from the garbage, started breaking of the dry, dead limbs.
“It doesn’t?”
“Christmas cacti are hearty.”
“It’ll come back?”
“It never left. Took a beating, yes, but it’ll put out new leaves. Not in time to bloom for this Christmas, but it’ll live.”
“Really?”
Mariah moved to the sink to add water to the plant that now looked completely horrible stripped of all its limbs. Just the core of the plant remained. It looked naked, stark, hopeless.
“Are you sure?” Lissette eyed the cactus skeptically.
“Positive. My mom used to keep a Christmas cactus. I have one. It’s blooming.”
“If I hadn’t neglected it, if I hadn’t left it out in the cold, this one would be blooming.”
“It would.” Mariah acknowledged. “But don’t assume that just when something looks ragged that it’s dead. If I hadn’t come by and you’d thrown it out with the trash, it would have been all over, but now . . .” Mariah smiled. “There’s hope.”
She settled the cactus on the windowsill beside the aloe vera plant. “Aloe vera heals. Maybe it will rub off on the cactus. Actually, aloe vera is a cactus too. So birds of a feather . . .”
“Belong together.” Lissette blew out her breath.
Mariah settled her arm on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re strong.”
“I feel weak. I feel crazy.”
“You’re neither,” Mariah said staunchly.
Just then a thin wail issued from the living room.
“Boys,” Mariah called to their sons. “Play nice.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that Kyle can’t hear.”
“It’s okay to speak to him. Don’t treat him any differently. That’s what the therapist said.” What Rafferty said too.
Rafferty. Maybe there was still hope there. Maybe she should call him?
While everyone else was gathered around her table eating and drinking, Lissette took her cell phone and went outside to call Rafferty. Her heart thumped as erratically as it had the first time she’d dared call a boy.
It rang and rang and rang. When the call finally went to voice mail, she felt too stupid to leave a message so she just hung up.
Two days after Christmas, the phone rang at midnight. Bolting awake out of dead sleep, Lissette grabbed for the phone. Her first thought was Rafferty.
“Is this Lissette Moncrief?”
“It is.”
“My name’s Heather Jones. I’m calling to tell you that Rafferty is in a coma in a Phoenix hospital.”
“What happened!”
“He’s been there since Christmas Eve. They didn’t know his identity at first, so my brother and I just found out this afternoon and we arrived in Phoenix a couple of hours ago. Rafferty was found unconscious on the side of the road in the Arizona desert. The police believe he was ambushed, beaten, and robbed. His truck was stolen and he was left for dead. If a passerby hadn’t found him when he did . . . In fact, the passerby wouldn’t have even seen him if it hadn’t been for the golden retriever puppy.”
“What puppy?”
“Rafferty’s foreman Guillermo Santo told me that he was bringing the dog to your son for a Christmas present. Apparently whoever took the truck tossed the dog out too. The puppy was sitting on Rafferty’s chest and that’s what caused the motorist to stop. Someone from the hospital staff took the dog home for safekeeping until Rafferty’s better. Everyone around here calls the puppy Hero,” the young woman was chattering a mile a minute, obviously stressed. “Guillermo also told me you and your son were very special to my brother.”
“Thank you for calling, Heather. I’m on my way to Phoenix.”
“We’ll be here.”
Lissette hung up. Rafferty had been headed for Texas on Christmas Eve. He’d been coming to see her. She would have been joyous except for the fact that he was in a coma. He’d been beaten and robbed. She bundled Kyle up, put him in the truck, and drove over to Claudia’s. Her mother-in-law answered the door in her nightgown.
“Lissy, what is it?”
“Rafferty’s in a coma in a hospital in Phoenix.”
Claudia paled. “I’ll keep Kyle. Don’t worry. Go to him.”
“Thank you.” Lissette grabbed her mother-in-law’s hand. “Thank you.”
Claudia held on to Lissette, gripping her strongly. “I’m so sorry. I still have to apologize to him.”
“Later. You can tell him later when he’s well.”
“I’ll drive you to the airport.”
“I can drive myself. Please, just keep Kyle. He needs stability.”
“Yes, yes, okay.”
“I’ll drive her.”
Lissette turned to see Stewart standing in the doorway of Claudia’s bedroom. He was buttoning up his shirt.
Claudia looked at him with pure love in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Lissy said. “Thank you both so much.”
By the time her plane landed in Phoenix, Lissette was shaking all over. Rafferty had been coming home to her. For three days, she thought he wasn’t coming back. She had struggled to put him out of her mind and get on with her life, but how could you forget a man who’d branded you in the way Rafferty had branded her?
She took a taxi from the airport to the hospital. Once she stepped through the doors and the antiseptic smell washed over her, it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. What if he never woke up from the coma? Fear was a boulder in her throat. She walked to the front desk and asked about him.
“ICU hours are restricted,” the receptionist behind the desk told her. “But you can stay in the waiting room.”
“Thank you.”
The woman told her how to find the waiting area.
Each step felt like a million miles as she moved across the waxed floor to the bank of metal elevator doors. She punched the button and waited. “Please be okay. Please be okay,” she prayed.
When she got to the waiting room, it was filled with a cluster of families and she had to sign in at the front desk. “Name?” the woman asked.
“Lissette Moncrief.”
The woman crinkled her nose. “Are you family? Because only family is allowed in.”
“She’s family,” said a voice behind her and she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Lissette turned to look into the eyes of a pretty blond woman who resembled Rafferty a bit. They both had the same cheekbones. “Come sit with us,” she murmured, and guided Lissette to a corner of the waiting room. “I’m Heather, by the way. Rafferty’s sister. And you’re Kyle’s mother.”
Lissette nodded and wondered what Rafferty had told Heather about her.
“This is my brother Dane.”
The young man was on a tablet computer. He had a California surfer dude look to him—blond, brawn, and bronze. He put the tablet aside, stood up, and shook Lissette’s hand. “Hey.”
She forced herself to be calm and tolerate the introductions. It was good to meet Rafferty’s siblings and know that Rafferty hadn’t been here alone, but she felt desperate to see him for herself. “How is he?”
“He’s going to be okay,” Heather said. “I told him you were on the
way. Whispered it in his ear and I’ll be damned but if two hours ago he didn’t wake up.”
“Really?” Tears misted her eyes.
“He’s bruised and battered but he’s going to be okay,” Heather reassured her.
“Visiting hours,” announced the woman from behind the desk. “But only two may go in at a time. Fifteen-minute limit.”
“You go on in alone,” Heather said. “We saw him the last time.”
“Are you sure?” Lissette asked.
“He was driving fourteen hundred miles to be with you on Christmas Eve. You must mean the world to him.” Heather gave her a little push. “Go on.”
Lissette didn’t have to be told twice. She followed the other visitors through the double doors into the intensive care ward. She searched for the room with his name on the little placard outside. Smoothing her hands over her hair, she stepped into the room.
It was a shock to see him looking so pale, hooked up to all that machinery, but she schooled her features. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Lissy,” Rafferty croaked, his voice scratchy. “Is that really you or am I having another one of those fantastic morphine dreams?”
She sat down on the edge of his bed. “Don’t try to talk.”
“I was trying to get to you in time for Christmas Eve. I would have made it too.”
“What did I just tell you? Your throat must be sore.”
“I heard you,” he said. “I want you to know that I heard you. I always hear you. I will always hear you. Even if I go deaf I will hear you.”
“Shh, Rafferty, shh.”
“I know you don’t want me to talk, to save my energy, but I have to tell you.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Don’t make this easy on me. You make things too easy on people. I need this.”
“Okay.” She settled her hands in her lap. “Say what you need to say.”
He reached out for her hand and she sank it in his. “Look at me.”
She raised her gaze. Met his dark eyes, felt something important soften inside her. “Yes?”
“I love you.” He brushed his thumb against her knuckle. She couldn’t have looked away from him if someone had walked into the room with a bomb strapped to him. “I know you’re going to insist it’s not real. It’s too soon. All those arguments you built up against your feelings, but I’m not going to be denied. I love you and I think you love me too.”
“I do,” she said helplessly. “That’s precisely why I sent you away.”
“I went home. I found out everyone was doing fine without me. And who am I to think that I have to take care of everyone?”
“You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, Rafferty Jones.”
“I care about you, Lissy. I care about Kyle.”
“You care about your family too. Your brother and sister are out in that waiting room because they love you too.”
“Yes, but I’ve been holding them back by watching over them too much. Holding on too tightly. I was afraid.”
“What were you afraid of?”
“That if I let them learn on their own they’d get hurt.”
She rubbed the back of his hand.
“But I figured out you’ve got to get hurt to grow. Look what happened to you after you lost Jake and found out about Kyle’s deafness. You took charge of your life. You expanded your business. You came into your own as a woman. If I keep holding tight to the reins, my family will never find their own power.”
“That whack on the head really got to you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It did.”
“There’s nothing wrong with looking out for those you love.”
“It’s a balance,” he said. “Between taking over and taking care. You’ve taught me the line of balance, Lissy. If I’d never met you, I would never have been able to get to this point.”
“Sure you would have.”
“I screwed up.”
“You didn’t.”
“I didn’t make it to you in time. I hurt you.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” She leaned down to kiss him and he cupped the back of her head in his palm, pulling her closer to him.
“All that matters now is that we’re together. Are you ready to take that step with me?”
She nodded. “I’m ready now.”
“What changed?”
“The coma thing was a biggie,” she said.
He smiled. “If I’d known that’s what would convince you I would have gone into a coma a long time ago.”
She chuckled. “You could have picked a less dramatic way to get your point across.”
“You are a magnificent woman.”
“You are given to superlatives.” She stroked his cheek.
“Around you, it’s a necessity.”
“I found a video Jake made just before he left for his last deployment.”
His face grew serious. “Oh?”
“He told me about the demons.”
“Was it bad?”
“I hated that he felt like he couldn’t talk to me. I hated that I couldn’t save him.”
“Me too.”
“But he wanted us to be together.”
“What do you mean?”
She told him about the entire contents of the video. “He knew you would come take care of me and Kyle if anything happened to him. That’s a lot of confidence. Jake didn’t put a lot of trust in people. You convinced him.”
“I wished I’d known him as well as he felt he knew me.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll take this as slow as you want, Lissy, but I want you. I’m moving to Jubilee. I’m turning the ranch over to Guillermo to run and I’m letting my family live their own lives and I’m going to start living mine.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
“And I hope you want to share it with me.”
“Well, if you’re going to be rattling around Jubilee, what choice do I have?” she teased.
“We’ll have to have a Christmas redo. I have something I want to give you.”
“A present?”
“A present.”
“Rafferty, the only present I need is your recovery.” She traced his dear face with her index finger. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her and she wasn’t about to let him get away. She was going to do what Jake told her to do. She was going to open her heart and let love in. The love she saw shining in Rafferty’s eyes. “Claudia and I made up. She’s got something to confess to you.”
“I never blamed her for anything.”
“I know, but she needs your forgiveness.”
“I’ll give it to her.”
They stared at each other. Poignancy gripping them in the exhilarating embrace of emotion, joy and sadness, relief and tension, sorrow and love. Lots and lots of love. Life was complicated, scary, exquisite, so many things, and from here on out they were going to share it together. They would weather all the ups and downs—the births, the deaths, the weddings, the funerals. Life was complicated and grand and glorious, and Lissette didn’t want to waste one second more without him.
Epilogue
Two weeks later, Rafferty pushed the grocery cart through Searcy’s grocery store, past the sale items in the middle of the store. Marked-down Christmas items that hadn’t sold before the holiday. Candy canes and garlands and candy mistletoe. At this hour of the morning, the store was almost empty. A few senior citizens shopped the aisles.
“Got the list?” he asked Lissette.
“Right here.” She held it up for him to see.
He leaned over, picked up one of the candy mistletoes, and held it over their heads, and then he bent to kiss her sweetly on the lips. She absorbed his warm flavor with a heartfelt sigh. They turned onto the baking goods aisle. Kyle was in seated in the cart and he was busy turning the pages of Pat the Bunny.
“What’s first?” Rafferty asked.
“Flour.”
“Shouldn’t we buy t
he fifty-pound bags at Costco?”
“We should,” she said, proud that she now had someone to lift the heavy fifty-pound sacks for her. But his handiness wasn’t the only reason she felt proud. Rafferty had chosen her. He’d come back. Bruises still lingered under his eyes, but they were fading. He caught her studying him, slipped an arm around her waist, and whispered, “I’m doing fine.”
“You have an irritating habit of reading my mind.”
“You love it and you know it.”
“How do you do it?”
“I know you, Lissette. As well as I know myself.”
“That’s a bit cocky, don’t you think?” she said, but inside, she felt very happy. She rested her head against his shoulder. Three months ago if someone had told her she would feel like this she would never have believed it. In such a short time, she’d gone from shattered to complete.
“You can trust it.” Rafferty ran his hand up her spine. “I’m here. This is real.”
“Stop that!” She chuckled.
“I can’t help it, Lissette. When I’m attuned to a woman, I’m attuned to her.”
“I’ve never had that with anyone.”
“Get used to it.”
Once upon a time, she’d been madly in love with Jake. When she’d first met him, the chemistry had swept her away, but then the passion had ebbed, she’d been left with a stranger. That was not going to happen with Rafferty. The passion she felt for him grew stronger, more fortified with each passing day. He was a cowboy she could count on.
This was the cowboy the fortune-teller had told her about on that long-ago day.
He reached for her hand, laced it through hers, and they strolled down the baking goods aisle. A woman was pushing her cart in their direction. She saw their joined hands, smiled, and moved over to the side so they didn’t have to separate in order to get past her.
“Thank you,” Lissette whispered as they went by.
“Been there.” The woman smiled.
Lissette realized this was the first time she’d been there. So head over heels with a man that she didn’t want to let go of his hand to traverse the baking goods aisle.
“Here we go,” Rafferty stopped in front of the flour and bent down to pick two sacks off the bottom shelf. He set them in the cart.