Christmas Kisses with My Cowboy

by Diana Palmer

  But it looked as if Katy was wise to the deal. He wondered who’d been talking to her. He suspected the Indian, but how would that man . . . what was his name again, Parker? How would Parker know?

  “So it’s true,” Katy continued, nodding. “I thought so.”

  “It’s just a horse, honey,” he said softly. “An old horse. He could drop dead tomorrow.”

  Teddie stared at him coldly.

  Odd, how guilty that stare made him feel. He didn’t like kids, especially this one. He’d never wanted any, and he still didn’t.

  “You could get a colt and raise it,” he told the child.

  “That isn’t your decision,” Katy said quietly. “You have no place in this family except as my late husband’s attorney. I was wrong to trust you. I should never have asked you for help.”

  “Now listen, let’s not be hasty,” Ron began.

  “I’m signing over custody of Bartholomew to Mr. Denton tomorrow. His firm of attorneys is coming here from L.A. and they’ll handle the litigation. Mr. Dealy is going to find himself in more hot water than he ever dreamed, and this time he won’t walk away from the charges.” She smiled coolly. “You see, we have photographic proof of Bart’s injuries and at least two witnesses who can attest to them in court.”

  “Dealy said there were none,” Ron blurted out.

  “Amazing how you’re willing to believe the word of a man who’ll half kill a horse and lie about it. It must have been a big sum he offered you,” Katy added cynically.

  Ron took a long breath. He glared at Teddie. “If it wasn’t for that kid, you’d have done what I asked.”

  “That kid is the reason I asked you to come here, to help us save her horse. And you sold us out for a promise of money,” Katy added. “I’d like you to leave now, please. Don’t ever come back,” she added. “Don’t call, don’t write, don’t even try to text me. If you like, I’ll be happy to write you a check for all your expenses, including airfare and the rental car. Even your usual fee for representing a client,” she added with icy disdain.

  He shifted uncomfortably. “That won’t be necessary,” he said stiffly. “I’m not a poor man.” He moved just a step closer, stopping when she moved a step away. “We could have good times together,” he tried one last time, forcing a smile. “You’d shine in Washington society.”

  “I prefer living with the barbarians,” Katy said easily. “Sorry.”

  He let out an angry breath. “It’s the Indian, of course,” he said icily. “What, you going to marry him and live on the reservation? The man is ignorant!”

  “Really? What do you know about Schrodinger’s cat?” Teddie asked with faint contempt.

  “Schrodinger’s cat?” he asked, surprised. “It’s an experiment in theoretical physics.”

  “Parker has a degree from MIT in theoretical physics,” Katy said. “His father is an astrophysicist who works for NASA.”

  Ron looked properly shocked. He started to speak and just gave it up. He sighed. “Okay, it’s your life.” He looked around the place. “It’s a shack, but if you want to live here, it’s your choice.”

  “Why, that’s right,” Katy said with a smile. “It is, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “If you ever change your mind, you know how to find me.”

  “Piece of advice,” Katy said as she showed him out the door. “Don’t hold your breath. Have a nice trip home.”

  She closed the door in his face.

  Teddie let out the breath she’d been holding. She still hadn’t trusted her mother not to give in to the man’s persuasions.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Katy looked at her daughter with regret. “I’ve failed as a mother,” she said. “I’d like to think it was someone else’s fault, but it’s mine. I never should have taken a stranger’s part against you. You’re my daughter, and you love that horse. I can’t believe I agreed with Ron about putting him down. I’m so sorry, honey. So very sorry.”

  Teddie got up and went to her mother. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have run away. But I feel sorrier for Parker. He was only trying to help, and that lawyer treated him like an idiot.”

  Katy sighed. “Parker won’t speak to me anymore,” she said. “I don’t blame him. I wish I’d made better decisions.”

  “I thought you and Parker were getting close,” Teddie said.

  Katy sat down on the edge of the sofa. “We were. But I got to thinking about your dad and that it was too soon. I felt guilty.”

  “Daddy would want you to be happy,” Teddie told her. “He wouldn’t want you to be alone. He wasn’t that sort of person.”

  Katy smiled. “You loved your dad.”

  “Oh, yes, I did. I miss him awfully. But I love Parker,” she added. “He’s very like Daddy was. He’s strong and funny and gentle, and he fights for me.”

  Katy flushed. “Something I didn’t do.”

  Teddie put her arms around her mother, feeling the woman stiffen. She drew back at once, but Katy caught her and pulled her close, rocking her.

  “My parents never touched me,” she whispered to Teddie. “It’s . . . hard for me to show affection. But I’ll try. Really.”

  Teddie hugged her back. “That’s okay. I can do all the hugging. I’m good at it.”

  Katy laughed and fought back tears. At least one good thing had come out of the misery of the day before.

  * * *

  A truck pulled up in her driveway the next day when she got home from work. Her heart jumped because she thought it might be Parker. But it was the man who had the wolf. What was his name . . . ? Matthews, that was it. Butch Matthews.

  “Mrs. Blake,” the man said, tipping his hat. “Mr. Denton sent me over with these papers about custody of your horse.”

  “If you’ll come in for a minute, Mr. Matthews, I’ll sign them, and you can take them right back.”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Come on in,” she invited.

  Teddie was waiting in the living room. “You have the wolf!”

  He chuckled. “Yes. I have the wolf. Sorry he scared you that time.”

  “I’m not scared anymore. I’ve been watching nature specials on wolves. Could we come over sometime and see the wolf? Maybe this weekend. If it’s okay?” Teddie pleaded.

  He smiled warmly at the child. “It’s okay. How about Saturday just after lunch?”

  Teddie looked at her mother, who’d just finished signing custody of Bart over to J.L. Denton. She looked up. “What? Saturday after lunch? That would be fine with me. But I don’t know where you live,” she added.

  “Parker does,” he said, and smiled.

  Then she remembered that he’d seen her and Parker holding hands at the Halloween celebration downtown. Obviously, he didn’t know that things had cooled off between them.

  “It would probably be best if you told me where to go,” Katy said, and looked so miserable that Butch just smiled and gave her directions.

  * * *

  Katy didn’t hear from Ron again. Well, except for once, when he tried to text her about rethinking her position on the horse. She blocked his number, as Parker had blocked hers. She didn’t even feel guilty about it.

  Things were better between her and her daughter. She opened up to Teddie in a way she hadn’t been able to before. She hugged the little girl coming and going, which made Teddie happier than she’d ever been in her life. The distance that had existed between Teddie and Katy was slowly closing.

  * * *

  Thanksgiving Day came and was uneventful. They went to Butch Matthews’s house the following Saturday to see Two Toes, the big white wolf with the dark gray ruff around his head.

  “He’s got dark streaks in the fur on his head,” Teddie exclaimed as she stared at the enormous animal lying quietly on a rug in front of Butch’s television.

  “He looks like he’s had a stylist color him up.” Katy laughed. “He’s really big, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is,” Butch agreed. “P
oor old thing, he’s about blind and most of his teeth are gone. I take him in to see Dr. Carr from time to time. He sure does attract attention in the waiting room on a collar and leash,” he added with a chuckle.

  “I’ll bet,” Katy agreed. “Is he gentle?”

  “Very,” Butch said. “He can’t see much, but he sits close to the television and when they run wolf stories on the nature channel, he howls,” he added. “So I guess his hearing is still good. I know his sense of smell is,” he murmured dryly, “because he figured out how to open my fridge and helped himself to a beef roast I was going to cook.”

  They both laughed.

  “He likes beef. But he’s a lot safer now that he’s getting it fed to him,” Butch told them.

  “Can I pet him?” Teddie asked, fascinated with the animal.

  “Sure. Just go slow. Let him smell your hand first.”

  Teddie got down on her knees in front of the big wolf and extended her fingers. He sniffed at them and cocked his head, sniffing again.

  She ran her fingers over his thick fur, just at the side of his head, and he nuzzled against them.

  “This is just awesome,” Teddie exclaimed. “He’s so sweet!”

  “They’d have put him down if I hadn’t offered to take him in,” Butch told Katy while they watched her daughter pet the wolf. “Old things aren’t useless, you know.”

  “I do know,” Katy said solemnly. “My late husband’s attorney came out to help us keep Teddie’s rescued horse, and he sold us out to the man who beat him. I sent him packing a few days ago.”

  “Good for you,” Butch said. “Your horse may be old, but he’s got a lot of life left in him. Shame what that man did to him. Real shame. I hope he doesn’t get off the hook this time.”

  “He won’t,” Katy said. “We signed over custody to Mr. Denton and his attorneys are getting ready to pin Mr. Dealy to a wall. They have eyewitnesses to the beatings, even recordings taken from cell phones. Apparently, Mr. Dealy wasn’t too careful about hiding his abuse.”

  “If J.L.’s involved, Dealy will do time.” He shook his head. “Those lawyers from L.A. are real hell-raisers. I wouldn’t ever want them after me.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Have you seen Parker lately?” she asked quietly.

  “I see him occasionally,” he said. “He spends a lot of time working out with weights at the gym when he isn’t working on the ranch. He’s been pretty sad lately. Told J.L. he was thinking about moving back up onto the reservation in Montana.”

  Katy winced. She knew why he felt that way. She crossed her arms over her breasts and sighed.

  “Guess you two had a dustup, huh?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” she replied. “I made some really stupid mistakes over the horse. Ron was so logical and he laid out the difficulties of a lawsuit in such a way that I considered taking his advice and letting them put Bartholomew down. Teddie was almost hysterical. Parker told her that nothing was going to happen to her horse. He stood up to Ron. For a few minutes,” she added ruefully, “it would have looked to an outsider as if he were her concerned parent and I was an outsider trying to ruin her life. He cares a lot about her.”

  Butch didn’t comment.

  “I’m still in the learning stages about showing affection,” she confessed after a minute. “My parents were ice-cold with me. I think they cared, in their way, but they never touched me. I grew up being alienated from other people. Now, I hug Teddie coming and going and I’m trying very hard to make it all up to her. Luckily for me, she has a forgiving nature.”

  “And Parker doesn’t,” he murmured dryly.

  She flushed. “And Parker doesn’t.”

  “He lived with an abusive father. His mother died young and he was left to the mercy of relatives, but they already had a son whom they loved. Parker was pretty much a beast of burden to them, from what I learned about him. He had a great brain and a teacher sent him to MIT to study theoretical physics, helped him find a scholarship that paid for everything. When he came out, he couldn’t see himself teaching. And there was the war. He was patriotic to an extreme. He still is. He signed up for overseas duty and went to war with me.” He sighed. “It didn’t turn out the way we thought it would. War is glamorous until you see what happens to people who fight in them. After that, it’s an evil you wish you could erase from the world.”

  “That’s what my late husband said.” She watched Teddie with the wolf, who was lying on his back now, letting her pet his chest. “I felt guilty, because my husband has only been dead a few months,” she blurted out. “Teddie said he wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life alone, that he was never like that. She knew him so well. They were close, in a way that she and I had never been, until just lately.”

  “So you backed away from Parker and now he won’t talk to you,” he guessed.

  She nodded. “He was the best thing that ever happened to my daughter. I feel worse about separating them than I do about alienating him myself. He’s a good man.”

  “He is. Stubborn. Bad-tempered from time to time. But he’ll never desert you under fire.”

  They stood in a companionable silence for a few minutes. Katy looked at her watch.

  “I hate to break up this lovefest,” she teased Teddie, “but I have to put on stuff to cook for supper. Time to go, sweetheart.”

  Teddie smoothed over the wolf’s head one more time and got to her feet. “So long, Two Toes,” she said softly. “I’ll come back to see you sometime if Mr. Matthews doesn’t mind.”

  Butch laughed. “Mr. Matthews doesn’t mind. Anytime. Just call or text me first.”

  “I don’t have your number,” Katy said.

  He held out his hand. She gave him her cell phone, and he put his name in her contacts list. “Now you have it.”

  “Thanks very much,” she said.

  He walked them out onto the porch. A cold wind was blowing. “We hear that Dealy’s lawyer in Denver quit and he’s trying to find a local lawyer who isn’t afraid of J.L.’s bunch from L.A.”

  She laughed. “Good luck to him. Anybody who supports that polecat is going to be in some really hot water. There are things that money can’t buy. A lot of them, in fact. Beating up a poor old horse is low on my list of desirable character traits.”

  “Mine as well,” Butch agreed. “I love horses. I’m not good with them, like Parker is. But he’s got a gift. Some people have more of an affinity with animals than others do. Your daughter definitely has it,” he added, watching her climb into the SUV.

  “Yes,” Katy said. “I was reluctant to let her adopt an abused horse. They can be problematic. But she solved that problem nicely by getting to know Parker.” Her eyes grew sad. “Ever wish you had a time machine?” she wondered.

  “Lots,” he said.

  She smiled at him. “Thanks for letting us visit Two Toes. He’s a celebrity in these parts.”

  He grinned. “Maybe I should start hawking autographed photos of him. Dip his paw in ink and put it on a picture of him.”

  She pursed her lips. “Lesser things have made people wealthy.”

  He shrugged. “I’m like you. I can take money or leave it. If I can pay the bills, that’s all I want.”

  She chuckled. “Me, too. See you.”

  “See you.”

  She turned on the ignition and drove them home. Teddie was wired like a lamp the whole way home, enthusing about the sweet wolf.

  When they got home, Katy put on her roast while Teddie looked at animal videos on her cell phone.

  “I miss Parker,” Teddie said sadly.

  Katy drew in a long breath. “I know.”

  Teddie looked up. “You could call him.”

  Katy bit her lip as she put the cover on the Crock-Pot and set the timer. “I tried,” she said huskily. “He blocked my number.”

  Teddie winced. “Oh.”

  “Sometimes, we just have to accept that things and people change, and there’s not a lot we can do about it,” Ka
ty told her daughter. She sat down beside her. “We have a roof over our heads, and some cattle, and we’re going to have Bartholomew back when Mr. Denton gets through having his lawyers trounce Mr. Dealy in court.”

  “I hope they trounce Mr. Dealy from head to toe,” Teddie said angrily.

  “Me, too.”

  “Can you take me over to Mr. Denton’s place to see Bartholomew sometime?” she asked her mother. “I really miss him.”

  “Of course, I can. I’ll text Cassie and see if it would be convenient to go tomorrow, if you like.”

  Teddie smiled. “That would be great! Thanks, Mom!” She hugged her mother.

  Katy hugged her back, thanking God for second chances. “I don’t say it much. But I do love you.”

  Teddie hugged her harder. “I love you, too, Mom.”

  “I’ll bet Bartholomew doesn’t miss us much, where he’s living,” Katy teased. “It’s like a luxury hotel for horses.”

  Teddie laughed. “Yes, but it’s the people you miss, not the place.”

  Katy only nodded. It was a wise comment, from a young girl. Wiser than her age denoted.

  * * *

  Cassie said it was all right, so Katy loaded up Teddie and they drove over to the Denton ranch, both wearing jeans and red checked shirts and down-filled jackets, because it had turned cold. In fact, snow flurries were coming down around them and heavy snow was predicted for the next two days.

  “I hope it doesn’t become a blizzard,” Katy murmured as they got out of the SUV at the barn. “I hate driving in snow.”

  “They’ll close the schools, won’t they?” Teddie asked hopefully. “If they do, you and I could make a snowman!”

  “We’ll build one of Ron, with a hay mustache, and we’ll pelt it with mud balls,” Katy muttered.

  Teddie burst out laughing.

  * * *

  Bartholomew was in his own spacious stall, chowing down on a mix of corn and additives to make him healthy.

  Drum, J.L.’s foreman, smiled at their approach. “Missing your horse?” he teased Teddie. “He’s been miserable.”

  “He lives in luxury,” Katy pointed out.

  He chuckled. “Even living in squalor where you’re loved beats living in luxury where you’re not,” he said philosophically. “Not that you guys live in squalor. It’s a good little ranch.”