Bridget opened the box with the lights. “Every year, but we usually bought a real tree. It wasn’t very big, though. I kept a lot of the ornaments.”
“Where are they?” Maverick asked.
“A friend, Sean, let me store five boxes in his spare room until I get back to Ireland. Nana rented her place, and we had to get everything out the day before we flew to Texas. I had no place to store the furniture so I sold or gave it all away. All I kept was pictures, ornaments, and things that reminded me of Nana,” she answered.
Another thing that had been piled on top of all her other sorrows—Maverick was a big, tough cowboy, and when he thought of losing Paxton, and then Granny, and then the ranch, and only having five boxes to pack his memories in, and then after all that, flying halfway around the world to a new place—it’s a wonder she wasn’t crazy as a rabid raccoon. Maverick sure didn’t want to be her breaking point.
“Did you live close to your grandmother your whole life?” Maverick carried the box to the window and strung the lights on the inside of the frame.
“Not my whole life. Nana had lived in the same house since before I was born, though. I went to live with her when I was four. My mother decided to run away to Egypt with another man and leave me with my father, who was in the Irish Army,” she answered. “How about you? Where did you grow up?”
“Right here until I graduated from high school.” Maverick continued to string lights as he talked. “Then I went to work on the Rockin’ B Ranch. You’ll see the place when we go there for the Christmas party next Sunday. Granny is a distant cousin to the lady who owns the spread. Then when Paxton graduated two years later, he came to work with me. We wanted to stay right here, but Granny said it would be good experience for us to work for someone else and learn all we could about big ranchin’. Buster has been the foreman here for as long as I can remember. They’ve always hired several high school kids to help out through the summer.”
“Seems like you would have known most of the ranching business by staying right here,” she said.
“Maybe so, but Granny has her reasons, and truth is, I wanted to go.” He carefully got another foot of lights around the edge of the window. “So why didn’t your father keep you with him?”
“He was gone away on deployment too often. He was killed in one of those missions when I was sixteen, and then it was just Nana and me. And now it’s just me and Laela,” she said. “What about you? Did your father live here on the ranch in this house?”
“My dad and mother lived in town. Mama hated anything to do with the ranch, and she worked in Amarillo in a bank. Dad worked here on the ranch with Granny and Grandpa, so he’d bring us with him and Granny would take care of us. Then he died when I was just five and Paxton was three. Mama didn’t like the idea of driving out here every morning, so she let us stay here all week. Six months after Daddy died, she remarried, moved to California, and signed us over to our grandparents. Grandpa was the father figure in my life.”
“Do you see your mother often?” she asked as she unwrapped ornaments and laid them on the coffee table.
Maverick shook his head. “We went for a week in the summers a couple of times. She sent us Christmas cards with money in them a few times. She retired last year and moved to the Bahamas with her fourth husband. We hear from her on our birthdays every couple of years.”
“We’ve got a lot in common, only my dad came home to see me and Nana every chance he got, and I had him until I was sixteen,” she said.
Maverick ran the light cord to the floor and plugged it in.
“Ohhhh!” Bridget’s full mouth made a perfect little circle.
Maverick wanted to kiss those lips, but he took a step back instead of forward. “So you like the lights, I guess?”
“Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love all the decorations and the cooking and”—her eyes stayed glued on the window—“shopping, and especially being with family. Deidre, Nana, and I always had Christmas dinner together.”
“Have you gotten to go Christmas shopping?” Maverick thought maybe seeing the mall in Amarillo all decorated for Christmas might cheer her up.
“No, and I do need to buy a few things for Laela,” she said.
“I’ll be glad to take you,” Maverick said.
“Thank you, but our weekends are pretty well taken up with the church program,” she reminded him.
“We’ll go one evening during the week.” He strung the garland around the lights.
She stood back and watched every move. “That reminds me of the Shamrock. Denny, my boss there, and his wife used to fix the windows like that for Christmas.”
“I remember.” He smiled.
Her voice let him know that she was homesick already. At the end of the month, she’d be more than ready to get on a plane and go back to Ireland where her roots were. He was insane to think about a second chance with her. The place for her to heal and find closure was in a little village south of Skibbereen, not in Daisy, Texas.
“Thinking of Christmas makes me want to start baking biscuits, or cookies as you call them here in Texas, or maybe scones to take to Iris the days we can visit her.” Bridget got a faraway look in her eyes and then sighed. “Nana and I made shortbread cookies and breads for her friends when they were ailing. And then on Christmas we made her famous almond pound cakes and took them around to all the neighbors.”
“If you haven’t discovered it already, Granny has a terrible sweet tooth. Dessert is her favorite part of any meal.” Maverick chuckled. “We should make our cookies for the nursing home tomorrow evening. We could take some of them to the rehab center for Granny on Tuesday.” Maverick finished the last bit of garland, then took a few steps back to eyeball his work. “Time for a picture. Stand right there to the side of the window and smile. Granny wants to see photos of everything as it happens.”
Maverick took several pictures and then handed Bridget the phone and let her choose her favorite one. While she was flipping through them, she came upon the photo Maverick had taken just as she was about to get out of bed, the sun streaming through the window and lighting her red hair on fire.
He reached for the phone and smiled at the picture.
“I should have at least gotten your last name,” she said.
He nodded. “I asked for your phone number, remember? But…” He shrugged.
“But,” she butted in, “we weren’t ever going to see each other again, and a clean break after that night seemed to be the right thing to do, right?”
“Right,” he said.
“I pick this one.” She held up the phone, displaying a photo they’d just taken. “If you look close, you can see a reflection of you taking the picture in that mirror behind me. That way Iris gets us both.”
“Let’s take a selfie of both of us in front of the window with the lights all around us.” He joined her in front of the window, stooped slightly so he could get their faces together, and put his cheek next to hers. The sparks were definitely there when his skin touched hers. He held the phone out as far as he could and snapped two pictures before he straightened up.
“What do you think?” he asked as he showed them to her.
“They’re both good. Could you send them to my phone too?” she asked. “I’d like to send them to my friend who’s keeping my things.”
“Sure will.” He handed her his phone. “Program your number in there. Sean is your friend, right?”
She put her number into the phone and gave it back. “That’s right. He offered to let me rent the spare bedroom in his flat until I could get on my feet, but then Iris called with her invitation. He was a couple of years behind me in high school, and then we worked at the bakery together in Skibbereen before I had to quit. He made me promise to send pictures.”
“I’ll send everything that we take and you can decide what you want to send him.” Maverick opened the box with the tree and began to sort through the limbs, laying them in piles.
“What are you do
ing?” she asked.
“Sortin’ by color. Red ones are longer and go at the bottom,” he answered. “I guess you didn’t have to do this, since you bought a live tree.”
She shook her head. “We only had a three-foot tree that took about thirty minutes to decorate.”
“We have a tradition in this house,” he said. “The youngest person in the house on the day we decorate gets to put the star on the tree. So if Laela isn’t awake, we’ll have to wait for her to wake up to put the crowning touch on the top.”
“And just how is a wee babe going to reach to the top of a seven-foot tree?” Bridget asked.
“I’ll hold her up there and help her.” Maverick reached to the top of the tree. “See, no problem.”
“She’ll have the star in her mouth as soon as you hand it to her, and cry when you take it from her. You better rethink this, cowboy,” she said.
A wide grin covered his face, and his eyes twinkled. “Darlin’, what I’ll do is put the star on the tree, then hold her up beside it for you to take a picture. I’ll bet that she reaches out for it. The picture will look like she actually put it there.”
“What would we be bettin’?” she asked.
“Whatever you want to bet is fine with me,” he told her.
“Then we’ll bet on a kiss on the cheek as friends, under this mistletoe.” She held up a ball of artificial mistletoe tied with a red ribbon.
“Just as friends?” He got the tall tree set up and ready for the branches.
“We really should be friends, since we have to live in the same house, bake cookies together, and share the Christmas program. If Laela touches the star, I owe you a kiss. If she doesn’t, you owe me one, but don’t be thinkin’ that a kiss on the cheek will be giving me a case of the round heels,” she told him.
“Round heels?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Surely you’ve heard that. Round heels means that you kiss me, and I fall backward into the bed and pull you down with me,” she explained. “Now where do we hang this?”
“It always goes right above the door from the foyer into the dining room.” He took it from her hand and hung it on a small gold hook.
Maverick had never had a friend that was a girl. As her friend maybe he could help her find some kind of closure for all the sorrows in her heart. He was willing to give it a try, but that would probably rule out any of those second chance ideas.
* * *
“A perfect place for it.” She smiled and then began pushing the color-coded branches into the right places.
When they were all in place, Maverick went around the tree a dozen times, tweaking the branches here and there before he was satisfied with it. She woulda never guessed that a Texas cowboy could be so fussy about things.
“Granny will throw a shoe and leave the hospital if it’s not right,” he explained. “Now for a picture. Stand right there on the left side, and do this.” He posed, hand out toward the tree, like he was showing it off for a television commercial. Bridget snapped two pictures with her phone before he could move.
“Now she can have one of you,” Bridget said.
“But you look like a model. I’m just a rough old cowboy,” he argued.
“But you’re her old cowboy grandson, and she’ll cherish the picture. I’m sending it to her right now,” Bridget told him. “Now the lights, right?”
“Yep, I’ll wrap them around my arms and you can place them. We’ll start at the top and work our way down,” he said.
Bridget found out really quickly how often skin brushed against skin during the time it took to decorate a tree. By the time they were finished with the lights, ornaments, and garland, it felt like the temperature in the room had risen at least fifteen degrees.
As if on cue, Laela awoke and started jabbering just as they’d hung the last ornament. Bridget started toward the bedroom with Maverick so close behind her that she could feel his breath on her neck. She almost wished that a case of round heels would jump right off the walls and onto her feet.
“Hey, baby girl,” he said.
Laela reached up toward him.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Bridget took her out of the crib. “You belong to me until we get you a clean nappy, and then we’ll take you to see the lovely tree and all the decorations. It’s so pretty, love. But you can’t try to climb it.”
The baby squirmed and wiggled the whole time Bridget tried to change her, and then jabbered and pointed toward the floor.
“Does she want down to crawl around and play?” Maverick asked.
“I think she’s looking for Ducky and Dolly,” she said.
“Well, if she wants the cat and dog to come inside and share the moment, then I’ll go call them,” Maverick said. “But wait until I get there to take her in the living room. I want a picture of her face when she sees everything.”
“You’re spoiling her,” Bridget said.
“Little girls are supposed to be spoiled.”
He left the room. Bridget heard him call the dog and then the cat. Both animals bounded into the room and jumped onto the bed. Laela held out her hand. Ducky licked it, and Dolly rubbed against her shoulder.
“All right, pretty girl, you’ve got your animals now, so let’s be going to see the pretty living room.” Bridget picked her up.
Ducky and Dolly hopped off the bed and followed them to the living room, where Maverick waited, ready to take a picture.
“What do you think, lassie?” she said, facing Laela toward the tree.
Laela’s little mouth made a cute little round circle and her big green eyes popped wide open. Then she reached for Maverick.
“I think she’s afraid of it,” Bridget said. “Or else she wants to play with your phone. Don’t let her do that. She chews on everything.”
“No, she wants me to let her put the star on it.” Maverick took her in his arms and carried her right up to the tree. She reached out and touched a bright red ornament, then pulled her hand back and said some things that Bridget was sure that God didn’t even understand.
Bridget got her phone ready to take the picture when Maverick held her up to the top of the tree. With his free hand, Maverick picked the star up and set it right on top of the tree. Then he lifted the baby up, and as if she knew what to do, Laela wrapped her little hands around it.
Bridget got half a dozen pictures before the baby let go and started to squirm. Maverick put her on the floor, and she crawled a distance away and sat up. She cocked her head, as if trying to decide what to do with the new thing in the living room.
“Don’t move her,” Maverick said. “I can get really good pictures from the floor.” He got down on his hands and knees, and started snapping pictures with the other. Laela’s eyes glittered at the sight. She pointed and jabbered at the dog and cat, then at the tree, as if she was telling them to look at the big, beautiful thing.
“Look at her, Bridget. Her eyes are big as saucers. She likes it. Granny is going to love these pictures.” Maverick was so excited that he dropped his phone.
“Sean will love them, too.” Bridget snapped several before Laela finally crawled away to chase Dolly around the coffee table.
Maverick rolled up on his feet. “I believe you owe me a kiss.”
“But I didn’t say when you could collect.” She grinned.
“Hey, now!” he protested as he took several steps toward her.
“No, you have to wait until we’re under the mistletoe,” she teased.
He was close enough that she could see the little gold flecks in his green eyes, and then he backed away. “I’m going to go get a beer. You want one?”
“Yes, please.” She sat down on the sofa and sent pictures to Sean.
Maverick brought back two beers and handed one to her. Then he sat down on the floor beside Laela in front of the Christmas tree. She crawled up in his lap and reached for a bright red ornament hanging on a low branch of the tree. He took it off and let her hold it. When she grew tired of it, he put it back an
d got another one for her to touch. He had a baby in his lap, and a beer on the coffee table behind him, each representing a very different lifestyle. Which would he choose if he had to give one up to have the other? Bridget wondered.
Chapter Five
Bridget was busy doing laundry on Monday morning when Maverick came back to the house unexpectedly. She could tell from his expression that he was excited. “We’ve got a new baby calf in the barn. Laela needs to see it. Can we put some warm clothes on her and take her out there?”
“I’ll get her stroller and get her bundled up,” Bridget said. “Why’s the calf in the barn? Don’t they stay with their mamas?”
“Most of the time, but this is a first-time mother, and she’s rejected him. That means I’ll have to try to put him on another heifer that has a new calf and see if she’ll take him as her own.”
Laela wasn’t the only one excited to get a breath of fresh air that morning. Bridget could hardly wait to take a nice little hike out to the barn. Ducky met them at the front door and followed them around the house. Dolly was sleeping in the sun on the back porch, but she awoke at the clacking sound of the baby stroller wheels on rough ground and ran along with Ducky just ahead of them.
“Looks like we’ve got us a parade.” Bridget zipped her fleece-lined coat up to her neck. “This wind is drier than what we have in Ireland. Even inland, we get a little of the ocean salt in the wind. Where will we go to do Christmas shopping?”
“Up to Amarillo. That would be the city that you flew into,” Maverick explained.
“That’s a lot of distance. It took us thirty minutes to get here in the car that Iris sent for us. Is there not a closer place?” Bridget shaded her eyes from the sun with the back of her hand.
He shook his head. “When you leave Daisy, there’s nothing but ranchland from here to Amarillo.”
“Holy Mother of God!” Bridget gasped. “Just how big is Texas?”
“Pretty big,” he said. “Eight hundred miles wide from east to west and almost that many miles from north to south. I looked it up on the flight home from Ireland. Texas is about eight times the size of your country.”
Christmas with a Cowboy: Includes a bonus novella (Longhorn Canyon Book 5) Page 6