Christmas Kisses with My Cowboy

by Diana Palmer

  Ted reached over and took her hand. “Maybe we both should decorate this place?”

  Her face lit up. “I was thinking I’d ask to borrow your truck, but if you can come with me, that will make it even more special.”

  “It’s my day off.” He grinned back at her. “We can go whenever you want.”

  Ted helped himself to more coffee and sat back down again. “The tree is the easy part. We just head up to Morgan Ranch, check in with the family, and go and help ourselves.”

  “They still do that?”

  “Yeah, Billy and Chase have continued the tradition the first William Morgan started back in the eighteen hundreds. The Christmas decorations might take a bit more planning because we’ll need to go to a bigger town.”

  “Don’t you have any in storage?” Veronica asked.

  “I guess so,” Ted considered. “Dad definitely got some out last Christmas. I’ll check around the apartment.”

  “Maybe we should do that before we go shopping so we’ll know what we’re missing.”

  “Sure.” Ted resigned himself to a morning investigating the closets and finished his cereal, which hadn’t been too bad after all. “I’ll get on that right now before I have my shower.”

  * * *

  Veronica fed Bacon and took him out for his morning walk. There had been more snow the previous night, but someone had already been out and cleared a path from the body shop to the gas station. Having grown up with the snow and ice, Veronica wasn’t too worried, but she did put little pig boots on her pet to make sure he didn’t damage his hooves.

  She hadn’t lied when she’d said how much she’d enjoyed her evening with Avery. Jason hadn’t encouraged her to have friends and had gradually cut her off from her family and hometown. She’d tried to apologize to Avery for her long silence, but her friend had brushed aside her admission of guilt with a gentle understanding that had almost made Veronica want to weep.

  Having friends again—having the support of a local community who watched out for each other—was something she desperately wanted. But would Victor let her stay when he learned what she’d done? He was a man with great respect for the law, and he’d firmly insist that Veronica should tell the truth and accept the consequences for her actions.

  She got out her cell and anxiously checked her old local channel, but there was no news. Should she call her boss and just casually inquire if anyone had been asking after her? Like the police? But Leon wasn’t stupid, and he’d definitely want to know what she’d done. And, as she still wasn’t sure exactly what she’d done, she wasn’t going to confess and incriminate herself.

  She returned to the apartment, and found Ted standing on one of the chairs in the hallway in front of a closet packed with boxes. He glanced down at her after she’d put Bacon away.

  “Can you take these from me? They aren’t heavy at all.”

  “Sure.”

  Veronica reached up to take the box, which was helpfully marked “Christmas Decorations,” and took it through to the family room. She came back to receive the second box, sneezing as the dust rose to tickle her nose.

  She washed her hands and brought a damp cloth to wipe down the two boxes while Ted put away the chair and came to join her on the rug. He carefully opened the first box and peered inside.

  “This is definitely the Christmas stuff.”

  “Is it okay to just take it out and put it on the floor?” Veronica asked as she cut the tape on the other box.

  “Sure. It’s not as if this is a new rug. I think my dad brought it with him from our old place.” Ted started unwrapping newspaper parcels and Veronica took the other box and did the same.

  After a while, she glanced over to see Ted staring down at a star-shaped ornament. His smile had disappeared as he gently ran his finger over the metal. He must have sensed her interest because he looked up.

  “I’d forgotten about this one. My mom got it for me.” He held it up so Veronica could see it better. “She had it engraved with my name, hers, and the date.” He grimaced. “Shame she didn’t stick around to see me actually open my present that year.”

  “She left at Christmas?”

  “Two days before.” Ted shrugged. “I don’t think Dad ever got over it. She resurfaced in Fresno a few months later, and asked Dad for a divorce.”

  “I remember you getting really quiet at school and Beth crying a lot,” Veronica said carefully. “You know what small towns are like—we all knew your mom had left Morgantown.”

  “Yeah, well.” He turned the star over in his capable hands, his head bent low. “I did get to see her again occasionally after things settled down, but it was never the same.”

  “Did she remarry?”

  “No, which, to be honest, kind of surprised me because I was pretty sure she’d left Dad for another guy, but there never was anyone. I guess she just couldn’t stand living with us anymore.”

  Wincing at the echo of pain in his voice, Veronica took the ornament from Ted to read the inscription.

  “‘I’ll always love you, Teddy Bear.’” She met his gaze. “Maybe she was trying to leave you with something to remember her by?”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. “I’d rather she’d stuck around to be honest. If she’d loved me, she wouldn’t have left, would she?”

  Veronica considered the ornament, the metal warm from Ted’s fingers. “Have you ever asked her about that?”

  “Why would I?” He raised an eyebrow. “She went and she didn’t come back. What else is there to say?”

  Veronica wanted to tell him that there obviously was a lot that needed to be said, but knew it wasn’t her place.

  “She picked out most of these ornaments.” Ted gestured at the box. “I think Dad must’ve only used the ones he’d bought after she left because I haven’t seen these since then. She loved to buy a new one for each of us every Christmas—something special, or a private joke, or nickname.”

  “Like Teddy Bear,” Veronica said softly.

  “Yeah.” He reached over and took the star from her, wrapped it back up, and started on the rest of the pile he’d already accumulated.

  “What are you doing?” Veronica asked.

  “Putting them back where they belong—in the closet gathering dust.” He abruptly stood up and went into the kitchen. “I need some tape.”

  Veronica waited for him to return, her hands palm down on her crossed knees. How could she have been stupid enough to forget that Ted’s mother walking out on him when he was twelve would have affected him so deeply? She’d been so eager to accept him at face value that she’d forgotten that everyone had hidden scars, and this one was a doozy.

  * * *

  Eventually, after Ted resealed the box and put it away again, he returned to sit opposite Veronica on the rug.

  “I suppose I should apologize.” He made himself meet her gaze. “I didn’t think something as stupid as a tree ornament would bring back so many memories.”

  “We’re good.” Veronica reached out to pat his knee. “I’m the one who should be sorry, badgering you to decorate your apartment.”

  “It’s fine.” He hastened to continue. “I’m totally over what happened with my mom, so I don’t know why I got so bent out of shape about it.”

  “Because feelings aren’t always logical,” Veronica said softly. “Because adults sometimes do shitty, selfish things without thinking about their kids? I lost both my parents when I was four, Ted. I know how it feels to be abandoned.”

  “Your parents died in a car crash. That was hardly their fault,” Ted reminded her.

  “Why do you think they were driving so fast?” Veronica let out her breath. “They’d decided they didn’t want to stay with Victor because the work was too hard, and they wanted to be free.”

  Ted frowned. “But what about you?”

  “They just left me there. Two days after they were confirmed dead, Victor got a letter in the mail they must have posted the day they left, explaining it all to him
,” Veronica said flatly. “I didn’t know any of this until I was eighteen and Victor told me the truth. I thought it was all a tragic accident.”

  Ted reached over, picked her up, and deposited her on his knee. She pressed her face against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ted murmured into her hair. “At least I got to see my mom again.”

  She placed her palm over his heart. “We both lost something, Ted. We can both grieve that loss.”

  Had he ever grieved for his mother? He couldn’t consciously remember doing so. He’d had his dad, his school stuff, and his part-time job at the gas pumps to keep him busy. And he hadn’t wanted to upset his father who was barely hanging on as he struggled to understand why his wife had left him.

  Veronica raised her head to look up at him. “I was lucky to have Victor and the rest of the family. I was so young when my parents ran off that I never really felt the lack of them. You were twelve when your mom left. That must’ve been hard.”

  “It was.” Ted couldn’t believe he’d actually said the words out loud. “And I still don’t know why.”

  “You should ask her.” Veronica looked him right in the eye.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Ted kissed her nose and then when he had her attention, her mouth, until she kissed him back. It was way better to show how he felt rather than talk about his feelings, and way more enjoyable.

  When she eventually eased away, they were both breathing hard, and she somehow had her hand up the back of his T-shirt while he was cupping her breast.

  “You sure you want to stop right now?” he asked softly. “Because I have a real nice comfortable bed where we could get naked.”

  She bit her lip and brought her hand up to his jaw. “I think I need to tell you something first.”

  “Okay.” He took his hands off her and resisted the impulse to readjust his jeans. “Shoot.”

  “I stole Bacon,” she said in a rush.

  Ted blinked at her. “As in your pet pig, and not the stuff from the supermarket?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “When I lived with Jason, he had a pig called Perry. Jason didn’t like her when she got big, so I ended up looking after her.”

  “How big does a pet pig get?” Ted asked suspiciously.

  “About two hundred pounds. And they can be really badly behaved if they aren’t cared for properly.” Veronica shrugged. “Jason lost interest in Perry when she stopped looking cute, but he was too scared to do anything to upset her, and he liked breeding her and selling off her piglets.”

  “Okay,” Ted said cautiously. “So where does the pig stealing part come in?”

  Veronica looked down at her clasped hands. “I . . . kept an eye on Perry after I left because I was worried Jason wouldn’t treat her right.”

  “How exactly did you do that?”

  “My old next-door neighbors hated Jason and were quite happy to send me regular updates on Perry whenever they saw her in the backyard. I couldn’t take her with me because my apartment didn’t allow pets.”

  “Hard to hide a two-hundred-pound pig.” Ted nodded. “So what happened?”

  “Jason kept breeding her and eventually, Perry became ill.” Veronica swallowed hard. “I ended up texting him because I was so worried, which was a terrible mistake because he’s never forgiven me for divorcing him. He said Perry wasn’t worth keeping anymore because only one of her piglets had survived.” Ted winced. “I offered to come over and take Perry to the vet to see if there was anything that could be done for her. I even offered to pay the bill, but Jason wouldn’t let me.”

  “So what did you do?” Ted prompted her gently.

  She raised her chin. “I went around to the house. There was no sign of Perry, which was bad enough, so I took Bacon.”

  Ted considered what to say next. “So basically you stole his pig.”

  “That’s what I told you in the beginning!” Veronica held his gaze. “He’s going to be furious! What if he comes after me?”

  “I suppose he could do that,” Ted acknowledged. “But do you really think he’s going to come all the way out here just to get his pig back?”

  “I don’t know!” Veronica said. “That’s why I came here. I thought Uncle Victor would be able to help me.”

  “But Vic’s away.”

  “Yes.” Veronica didn’t look very impressed with his impeccable logic or speed of thought. “I know that now. I didn’t at the time.”

  “Okay, so what does this have to do with whether or not we go to bed together?”

  Veronica scrambled off his lap and paced the worn rug, her arms wrapped around herself before turning back to Ted.

  “Are you being deliberately annoying?”

  Ted shrugged. “Nope, I guess it just comes naturally to me.”

  “I’m trying to be honest with you.”

  “I get that.”

  “Do you not care that you might be having sex with someone who stole a pig?”

  Ted looked from her flushed face down to her pink kitten socks and slowly shook his head. “I can’t say that it bothers me.”

  “Uncle Victor will be so disappointed,” Veronica whispered.

  Ted held up one hand. “Just clarifying that I’m not related to you, and I didn’t bring you up, so I’m not conflicted about this at all.”

  She spun away from him and looked out of the window, her shoulders hunched almost up to her ears.

  “Should I tell Nate?”

  Ted got up from the floor. “Do you want to?”

  “Of course I don’t. I wish I could go back in time and change everything that happened, and—” She sighed. “Well, maybe not all of it because I do have Bacon.”

  “What else happened?” Ted asked slowly. “You stole the pig, and you don’t regret that. What do you regret?”

  She drew herself up. “The stealing part, Ted? That I should have taken the time to negotiate some deal with Jason and not just . . . taken him. I panicked.”

  From the way she was avoiding his gaze, Ted had a strong suspicion that she might have done something else, but seeing as his opinion of Jason couldn’t get any lower, he didn’t have a problem if Veronica had trashed the house a little on her way out.

  “Do you want me to talk to Nate for you?”

  “No, I’m a big girl. If it comes to that, I’ll talk to him myself.” She blew out a breath. “Thanks for offering, though.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ted paused. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  She looked so guilty that he almost wanted to laugh.

  “I . . . don’t know yet.”

  “Well, at least that’s honest.” He waited again. “Are you sure you don’t want to spill the beans? Because you’ll probably feel much better if you let it all out.”

  She reached for his hand. “I just can’t.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  She squeezed his fingers hard. “Maybe.” She met his gaze. “Would you prefer it if I moved out?”

  “Dammit, no!” Ted frowned at her. “Why would you even think that?”

  “Because I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “For harboring a pig stealer?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve ruined everything because I didn’t think things through properly. I should have kept this to myself. I wanted this Christmas with you to be special, and now I’ve made you mad.”

  “I’m mad because you’re trying to leave, not because of the stupid pig,” Ted said patiently. “Hell, you could have brought ten pigs with you and I wouldn’t have noticed. I just want to spend Christmas with you, too.”

  She bit her lip and eyed him hopefully. “If I promise to tell you the rest of it the moment I can, will that do?”

  “I’m not the one putting up barriers here, Veronica,” Ted reminded her. “That’s all you.”

  She studied him for a long moment and then slowly nodded. “Okay, then.”

  “Okay, what?” Ted w
anted to make sure they were on the same page.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “And consider my offer of my nice big bed? I changed the sheets this morning.”

  Her smile made something inside him relax. “How about we start with the Christmas shopping and see how that goes?”

  Ted kissed her cheek. “Okay, you win. Let’s get going.”

  * * *

  She should have told him everything. Veronica couldn’t get that thought out of her mind as they headed to the nearest town with a decent mall. Why had she stopped? He’d been surprisingly calm about the pig stealing and she had an instinctive sense that he’d be okay about the rest of it. But he also reminded her very much of her uncle Victor who, while being totally on her side, would expect her to do the right thing, step up, and accept the consequences of her actions.

  She glanced down at her cell phone. Should she text her old neighbor Sharon who’d always kept an eye out for Perry? Or would it be better to talk to Leon who was a little more removed from the neighborhood, but disliked Jason enough to help her out? She’d been gone for over a week now and no one had contacted her about anything—which could be a good or a bad thing....

  Ted made the turn into the parking lot and looked over at her.

  “You okay?”

  She found a smile somewhere. “Yes, sorry, I was just thinking about what we need for the apartment, and I also have to get something to wear for the wedding. It’s not going to be super dressy, is it?”

  Ted chuckled. “You know Avery. She doesn’t like a fuss and neither does Ry.” He slotted the truck into a corner parking spot and turned off the engine. “The groomsmen are wearing the same Western shirts, and the bridesmaids are wearing whatever they like as long as it’s green, because that’s Avery’s favorite color.”

  “I’ll definitely need something. I haven’t been to a wedding for years.” Veronica glanced down at her jeans and sweater. “I didn’t bring anything formal with me because I knew Victor would have me out there working the moment I arrived.”

  “Yeah, he probably would have. I’ve pulled a few carrots out of the ground for him once or twice when I just went up there to deliver his mail.” Ted grabbed his jacket from the back seat and checked if he had his phone and wallet. “You ready to go?”