by Diana Palmer
“Thanks,” Katy said with a smile.
“Bart looks so nice!” Teddie enthused. “You guys have been brushing him!”
“Well, Parker has,” Drum replied, noting Katy’s sudden flush. “He comes over almost every day to check on him. He’s fond of the old fellow. We all are.”
“Bartholomew’s special,” Katy said in a subdued tone. She’d ruined everything with Parker. It was hard, remembering that.
“Have you heard about Dealy?” Drum asked, excitement in his tone.
She turned to him while Teddie petted her horse. “No. What about him?”
“He heard about J.L.’s lawyers from L.A. and ran for his life. He skipped town. Nobody knows where he went.” He chuckled. “So J.L.’s attorneys got their investigator out here. Wherever Dealy ran, it won’t be far enough.”
“Good,” Katy said shortly. “I hope they find him and convict him and put him in chains. A man who’ll beat a horse will beat a person.”
“You’re right about that,” came a deep, quiet voice from behind her.
She knew the voice. She couldn’t bear to turn and see the censure in his eyes.
But Teddie had no such reservations. “Parker!” she cried, and ran into his arms, to be picked up and hugged and swung around.
“Oh, Parker, I’ve missed you so much,” Teddie said, her voice muffled against his broad shoulder.
“I’ve missed you, too, tidbit,” he replied. There was a smile in his voice. “How are things going?”
“Fine.” She grimaced. “Sort of fine.”
He put her down. “Bart’s looking good, don’t you think?”
“He looks great. Doesn’t he, Mom?” she added.
Katy was standing with her face down, her arms folded, feeling alone and ashamed and vulnerable. “Yes. He looks . . . very good.”
“Oh, there’s a calf!” Teddie enthused as she glanced over a gate farther down while Bart was eating. “Could I pet him?” she asked Drum.
He chuckled. “You bet. Come along.”
They stranded Katy with Parker.
She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, to see the accusation she knew would be in them.
“How are you?” he asked.
She moved one shoulder. “Teddie and I are getting along better than we ever have,” she said noncommittally.
“We heard that your lawyer friend left tracks heading out of town, he was in such a hurry.”
“Too little, too late,” she said stiffly. “I expect to spend years making it all up to Teddie.”
He moved a step closer. “You won’t look at me, Katy?”
She bit her lower lip. Tears stung her eyes. “I’m . . . too ashamed.”
“Oh, baby.” He pulled her into his arms and folded her against him, enveloped her in the scents of buckskin and smoke and fir trees. He rocked her while she cried, his lips in her hair.
“I turned against my own daughter,” she choked. “Against you. I agreed to let a greedy man almost put down a horse to save myself legal problems. I hate myself!”
He drew in a deep breath. “We have disagreements. We get over them.”
“Not always.”
“I have a regrettable temper,” he said after a minute, aware that Teddie and Drum were deliberately paying attention to the calf and not the two people down the aisle. “I’m sorry, too. I never should have blocked your number. That was low.”
“I deserved it,” she whispered. “I was horrible to you.”
“I was horrible back.”
She lifted her head. Her eyes were red and wet.
He bent and kissed the tears away. Which, of course, prompted even more tears.
“You aren’t really going back to Montana, are you?” she choked out.
He laughed softly, delightedly. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
She looked up at him with wonder. He was saying something without saying it.
“I’d love to have a ten-year-old daughter of my own,” he said solemnly. “I’d buy her pets, and drive her to parties, and take care of her horse. I’d take care of her mother, too, you understand. I mean, that would have to be part of the deal.”
Her eyes widened and then she laughed as she realized what he was saying.
He understood what her eyes were saying, as well. “I’d like a son, too,” he said softly, touching her hair. “Boys run in my family. Not a girl in the bunch, which is why yours would be so treasured.”
“I like little boys, too,” she whispered.
He bent and touched his mouth gently to hers. “We could get married. I mean, so people wouldn’t gossip about us. We wouldn’t want to embarrass Teddie. It’s a small community, after all.”
She reached up and kissed him with her whole heart. He kissed her back with all of his.
There was a loud clearing of a throat and a giggle. They hadn’t heard the first cough, or the first giggle.
They drew apart, a little flushed, and stared down into a child’s dancing eyes.
“Are you going to be my daddy now, Parker?” Teddie asked him.
He bent and opened his arms.
She ran into them and hugged him and kissed him and hugged him some more. “You’ll be the best daddy in the whole world, next to the daddy I lost,” she said against his shoulder.
“And you’ll be my little girl as long as you live, even when you’re married with kids of your own,” he said huskily. “You won’t mind, if your mom and I get married?”
“Oh, no,” Teddie agreed at once. She glanced at her flushed, happy mother with teasing eyes. “It’s nice to see her smile again. I thought she’d forgotten how!”
Parker only grinned.
* * *
And so, they were married. Teddie stayed with the Dentons while Parker and Mrs. Parker drove to Denver for a weekend honeymoon in a nice but not expensive hotel. Not that they saw much of it.
“Oh, my,” Katy gasped as they moved together in the huge bed.
He laughed softly. “I like it very slow. Is that all right?”
She was shuddering. “I’ll die.”
“Not just yet,” he whispered as he moved over her.
He was tender, and patient, and he knew a lot more about women than she knew about men, even after several years of marriage to her first husband. By the time she started winding up the spiral that led to an explosive, passionate culmination, she was sobbing with ecstasy she’d never experienced in her life.
He went with her the whole way, his voice deep and throbbing at her ear as his powerful body buffeted hers in the last few feverish seconds before the explosions began.
Afterward, as they lay in a sweating, exhausted tangle, she rolled over and pillowed her cheek on his broad chest. “And I thought I knew something about men.”
He laughed. “You knew more than enough. We’re very good together.”
“Oh, yes. Very, very good.” She smoothed her hand over his chest, deep in thought. “You know, we never spoke about birth control.”
“We never did.”
“Should we?”
“If you want to wait to start a family, we probably should.”
“I’ll be thirty soon.”
He rolled over toward her. “Does that mean something?”
“I’d like to be young enough to enjoy our children,” she whispered with a weary smile. “And Teddie will love not being an only child.”
“In that case,” he murmured, rolling her over again, “perhaps we should be more . . . energetic . . . about assuring that.”
She laughed. “Perhaps we should!”
* * *
Predictably, a few weeks later, Katy started losing her breakfast. Parker was dancing around the room like a wild man, hugging Teddie and swinging her around.
“Parker, Mom’s sick. Why are we celebrating?” she asked worriedly.
“She’s not sick, honey, she’s pregnant!” he burst out.
“Oh, goodness, really?!”
“Really!”
“I won’t be an only child! I’ll have brothers and sisters!”
“Well, maybe brothers,” he said hesitantly. He put her down. “There aren’t any girls in my family. Not any girl children. Except you,” he teased, grinning.
“Except me,” she agreed smugly.
“Could you stop celebrating and bring me a wet washcloth, please?” came a plaintive wail from the bedroom.
“Gosh, I’m sorry, sweetheart!” he said, rushing into the bathroom to wet a cloth.
Teddie sat by her mother on the bed. “I’m sorry and happy that you’re sick, Mom!”
Katy managed to laugh as Parker put the wet cloth on her forehead. “Thanks, sweetheart. I’m sorry and happy myself. Goodness, how will I teach while I’m throwing up?”
“I’ll get you a bucket to carry to work. Not to worry,” Parker teased.
“Parker, don’t you have a first name?” Teddie asked suddenly. “I mean, I call you Dad, and she calls you honey, but don’t you have a real first name? Is it Crow?”
“Not really. My father didn’t like my mother’s family, so he insisted on naming me after a man he idolized.”
“Really?” Teddie asked. “Who?”
Parker and Katy exchanged an amused look.
“Albert,” Teddie guessed suddenly. “For Albert Einstein.”
Parker whistled. “Sweetheart, you are a deep thinker. That’s it, exactly.”
Teddie grinned.
Katy laughed. “Albert.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t suit you. Parker does.”
“It does,” Teddie agreed. “But I’m still calling you Dad.”
She hugged him. He hugged her back.
Katy looked up at both of them and almost glowed with joy. “What a Christmas we’re going to have this year,” she exclaimed.
“The first of many,” Parker agreed. “I can’t wait to kiss you under the mistletoe!”
* * *
And it was a joyous one. The tree sat beside an open fireplace with logs blazing in it. The lights on the tree blinked in patterns and Teddie did most of the decorating, only letting Parker put the decorations and lights on the places she couldn’t reach.
The result was a nine-foot-tall wonder. They took photos of it to show the coming child, when he was old enough to understand the beautiful expression of the season.
Parker put an arm around both of his girls as they stared at the end result of Teddie’s and Katy’s labors.
“It’s the most beautiful tree we’ve ever had,” Katy said.
“Oh, yes,” Teddie agreed.
“We should bring Bartholomew in here and stand him up beside it. He could be a decoration,” Parker suggested dryly.
Bart had been returned by J.L. after Dealy was pursued, caught, arrested, and charged with animal cruelty. He faced years in prison for it. J.L.’s attorneys and their investigator had managed to dig up several prior charges that had been dismissed for lack of evidence. They found evidence to convict, so he was charged in more than ten cases. No local attorney would agree to try his case, so the judge appointed a counselor for him. The consensus of opinion was that Mr. Dealy would spend a long time contemplating his brutal acts.
Meanwhile, the Parkers sat around their beautiful tree and listened to Christmas carols and drank eggnog and ate fruitcake. Parker kissed Katy under the mistletoe and she called him her mistletoe cowboy. They even took a special horse treat out to the barn for Bart.
“This was nice of you, Dad,” Teddie remarked as they watched Bart nibble his treat.
Parker chuckled. “He had it coming. After all, he brought me a family of my very own,” he added softly, looking from a radiant Katy to a beaming Teddie. “And it is,” he added, “the nicest Christmas present I ever got!”
Blame It On the Mistletoe
MARINA ADAIR
Also by Marina Adair
Sweet Plains, Texas Series
TUCKER’S CROSSING
BLAME IT ON THE MISTLETOE
When in Rome Series
ROMeANTICALLY CHALLENGED
HOPELESS ROMeANTIC
Nashville Heights Series
PROMISE ME YOU
Sequoia Lake Series
IT STARTED WITH A KISS
EVERY LITTLE KISS
The Eastons
CHASING I DO
DRIVE ME MAD
Heroes of St. Helena Series
NEED YOU FOR KEEPS
NEED YOU FOR ALWAYS
NEED YOU FOR MINE
St. Helena Vineyard Series
KISSING UNDER THE MISTLETOE
SUMMER IN NAPA
AUTUMN IN THE VINEYARD
BE MINE FOREVER
FROM THE MOMENT WE MET
Sugar, Georgia Series
SUGAR’S TWICE AS SWEET
SUGAR ON TOP
A TASTE OF SUGAR
To my dear friend,
plot partner, and sister for life, Jill Shalvis.
Whiteout conditions, roasting RVs, or
the ER . . . there’s no one I’d rather
be stuck with.
Chapter One
Not much got past Noah Tucker. So he was a little embarrassed to admit that Christmas had completely snuck up on him. In fact, if a tinsel bomb hadn’t erupted overhead, causing him to reach for his off-duty weapon, Christmas would have gone completely unnoticed.
Because this year, Christmas was definitely female and sporting a pair of legs that—even though they were encased in green-and-white striped tights—made him wonder if holiday miracles really did exist.
Home for the holidays was something Noah and his brothers avoided at all costs, which was why he’d waited until the cold had finally scared everyone indoors before taking a stroll through his hometown. But Santa’s Helper—late twenties, five-three, whisky brown eyes, and long blond tinsel-tangled hair—didn’t scare all that easily.
Nope, she was perched on a ladder, with enough twinkle lights to decorate every house from Sweet Plains to the North Pole, trying to place a snow angel atop the tree on the sheriff’s station lawn. Her elf-inspired ensemble wasn’t doing her any favors. Neither was the fact that she was a petite thing trying to decorate a monster of a tree all by her lonesome.
She’d donned a short, green velvet getup with a matching pointy hat and shoes, all trimmed in fur. It was like sexy collided with Christmas, making her the sexiest Elf on the Shelf he’d ever encountered.
“Son of a sleigh bell,” she mumbled as another shower of tinsel drifted to the ground, causing momentary whiteout conditions.
Back in Austin, Noah would have simply checked to ensure she was okay, then gone about his own business. But he wasn’t in Austin. He was in Sweet Plains, Texas, and for the next three weeks his business involved returning to the family ranch, Tucker’s Crossing—a place he’d spent a lifetime trying to escape—to help his brother, Cody, sort through the mess their vengeful old man had left behind.
Imagining what was to come, Noah decided to take a few additional moments of silence for himself before entering the storm.
He looked up and shielded his eyes from falling pine needles. “You need some help, Elf on the Shelf?”
“Holy Christmas!” she squeaked, nearly tumbling right off the ladder—her snow angel not faring so well in the kerfuffle.
Either, like him, she didn’t take kindly to being caught off guard or she didn’t like to admit when she needed help, because after she found her balance and righted her hat, she shot him a look angry enough to roast his chestnuts.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she accused in a hushed whisper.
“No, ma’am,” he drawled, rocking back on his heels. “Just being neighborly is all.”
“Well”—again with the hushed tone—“go be neighborly someplace else.” And, after a nervous glance around, she shooed him off with a mittened hand.
A cold chill blew off the distant rolling hills as Noah took in the twinkle-lined streets and garlanded storefronts of downtown. With not a singl
e Who strolling through Whoville, Santa and his hooved brethren could make an emergency landing on Main Street, and no one would be the wiser. Then there was Miss Elf, the one soul brave enough to face the elements, back to stringing lights and ignoring him.
Most people would take one look at those wide doe eyes and velvet getup and assume the elf was simply spreading holiday cheer.
Noah wasn’t most people.
He was a Texas Ranger, trained to be suspicious. And it didn’t get more suspect than someone decorating the tree in front of the sheriff’s department after sundown, when the skies were threatening to rain down some serious trouble on Sweet County.
Whistling a Christmas tune, he strolled over to pick up the tree topper and shook fallen leaves from its hair. “What about your snow angel? Seems he’s lost a wing.”
“Must have been the result of testosterone-induced rage. It’s a growing problem in these parts.”
“Is that how you lost your wings, angel?”
“You should see the other guy.” That smart mouth of hers curled up into a wicked grin. “Now shoo.”
“Just as soon as you tell me if Logan’s aware that you’re out here spreading holiday spirit all over his sheriff’s station,” Noah said, referring to his old friend and the recently re-elected sheriff.
“Why is that any of your business?”
Noah couldn’t help but grin. It wasn’t that Miss Elf didn’t scare easily. She didn’t scare at all.
“Santa’s helper or not, you’re trespassing.”
“Says you.”
Noah had been known to make even the most dangerous of criminals wet their pants with a single look. However, this woman was looking at him as if he were as harmless as a snowman in a Stetson. So he casually opened his jacket, sure to uncover his glimmering badge. “Says the great state of Texas.”
He could tell she wanted to argue, but his badge accomplished what he hadn’t been able to on his own—silence her. Only for a moment though.