A Cowboy for Christmas Read online

“Special,” he whispered.

  “No. Yes. That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

  “It’s what I was going to say.”

  She put up a stop-sign palm. Universal sign language. Don’t come any closer.

  But he didn’t stop. He took another step, and the next thing she knew her palm was touching his chest and she could feel his heart pounding rapidly through the cotton material of his shirt.

  They stood there for so long. Just gazing at each other, Lissette’s palm stop-signed against his chest. No talking. Simply staring in wonder at what was passing between them. The yeasty smell of home-baked rolls wrapping them in a snug hug of aroma.

  And if Kyle hadn’t started crying, they might have stood there until the very end of time.

  Thirty minutes earlier Claudia had gotten a disturbing call from Peony Clark, a member of her book club and the weekend librarian at the Jubilee Public Library. They’d known each other for thirty-four years since they met at Lamaze class. Both of them had been husbandless at the time. Gordon was off on the cutting horse circuit, while Peony had just divorced her no-good husband because he wouldn’t work. They’d become each other’s coaches since they were the only two in the class not part of a couple.

  “I didn’t know Lissette had long-term, out-of-town company staying with her,” Peony began right off the bat. She wasn’t the sort to pussyfoot around a topic. “He’s such a young, handsome man.”

  The truck with California plates.

  Claudia’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  “He came in to check out books on how to start a cottage bakery and what to do if you have a deaf child and a book of poems by some Frenchman.”

  Claudia bit down on a knuckle to keep from groaning out loud. There wasn’t a shred of privacy in Jubilee. You checked out a book and ten minutes later the whole town knew about it.

  “Do you know who he put me in mind of?” Peony mused.

  “Who?” she whispered, hand to her throat.

  “Gordon.”

  Claudia closed her eyes, tightened her grip on the phone. It was he. She’d feared as much from the minute she’d seen the truck parked in front of Lissette’s house, but now she knew it was true. Rafferty Jones. And he was staying at Lissette’s house?

  She supposed she’d been in denial, thinking that Rafferty would never show up here. He had his money. There was no reason for him to come to Jubilee. As each day passed without him putting in an appearance, she began to breathe a little easier, but secretly, she’d been waiting. Dreading the inevitable. Eventually, everyone was going to learn about her awful secret.

  After Jake died, Lissette had asked her about Rafferty, but she’d brushed off the question because she’d been too ashamed and too shocked by Jake’s bequest to discuss it. Bless her heart, Lissy had just let it lie.

  Peony, however, was not shutting up. “Is Lissy keeping company with him?”

  “No,” Claudia snapped. “Listen, Peony, I have to go.”

  “Okay, I just wanted to give you a heads-up, because he really is handsome and if he’s staying with Lissy, people in town will start talking.”

  People like you.

  “Thanks, bye.” Claudia hung up.

  Agitated, she grabbed up her keys from the cobalt carnival glass bowl resting on her hutch and headed for the garage. By the time she got to Lissy’s house, nausea sat high in her stomach. The street in front of the Victorian was empty, but when she pulled into the driveway, she saw the plump rump of the red Dodge Ram dually. The same truck she’d seen before with those damning California plates.

  She killed the engine, sat there for a long moment, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Don’t go in. Just go back home. But she had to find out what was going on.

  Twilight elbowed out the dying rays of the evening sun as Claudia edged toward the back patio doors. She stopped underneath the old elm tree when she spied Lissette standing in the middle of her dining room with a tall, lanky man who looked so much like Gordon that Claudia almost cried out.

  Cupping a hand over her mouth, she stood watching, unable to move as her daughter-in-law put out her palm and Rafferty Jones took a step forward until Lissy’s hand was resting at the level of his heart.

  It was such an intimate scene, a man and woman gazing into each other’s eyes, totally spellbound, like something from a romantic movie.

  Oh God. Claudia’s stomach roiled. She’d never seen Lissette gaze at her son with that blissed-out expression. It was a look of pure, unadulterated hero worship.

  A vile reptile of jealousy slithered through her. Jealousy because Amelia Jones’s son was alive and hers was not. Jealousy because Lissette was looking at Rafferty as if he hung the moon and painted the sky with stars. Jealousy because she feared losing the two things she had left: Lissy’s friendship and her grandson.

  On legs stiff as wooden picks, she spun around and stalked back to her car, barely able to breathe, her mind a jumble of past, present, and future, a future where she no longer had Lissy and Kyle in her life. Once her daughter-in-law found out what she’d done—

  She broke off the thought, couldn’t bear to think it. Rafferty had been so young. Maybe he didn’t remember her? Hopefully, maybe, please God. But even if he didn’t remember, she had no doubt that Amelia would have told him. Poisoned. Claudia had been so filled with poison when she’d learned about Gordon’s indiscretion.

  It hadn’t been Rafferty’s fault. None of it. And yet, she’d taken her anger out on that little boy. Nothing in her life shamed Claudia more than what she’d done twenty-seven years ago. She’d been crazy out of control. Madly in love with Gordon and jealous to the bone. Were there any worse sins than the ones committed in the heated rage of jealousy?

  Cataleptically, she shot from the driveway, peeled off down the street as fast as she dared in a family neighborhood. Rod Stewart was on the oldies channel of the satellite radio declaring that the first cut was the deepest. Ain’t that the damn truth? Not only the deepest but the widest as well, with pain that eviscerated your entire life.

  She squinted to see through the windshield, and that’s when she realized she was crying. Again? Seriously, Claudia? Here she was middle-aged, slipping rapidly toward senior citizen status, in prairie skirt and cowboy boots, ricocheting around Jubilee like a spent bullet.

  Sometime later—she had no idea how long because she’d been traveling in circles, but she’d already driven through a Beatles triple shot including “Hey Jude,” Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll,” “The Weight” by The Band; Three Dog Night; The Who; and now the Rolling Stones were telling her that she was “Out of Time”—Claudia made it back to her side of town.

  Even so, she was still trembling, fueled by jealousy, shame, regret, and bone-deep grief that she could not shed.

  The sky was inky black, only a sliver of ghostly moon showed through the filtering clouds. Suddenly, she felt too exhausted to breathe. She pulled over on the side of the road, dropped her face into her hands, and sobbed for all that had gone wrong in her life. She’d been hurt and betrayed and she’d lost the two most important things in the world.

  Her husband and her son.

  And now poor little Kyle was going deaf and Lissette was drifting rapidly away from her with the man that Claudia had cheated out of his birthright. Why, oh why had she done it? There was no taking it back. No unsaying it. No undoing the damage she’d done.

  “Damn you, Claudia Marie Bonham Moncrief. Damn you to hell.” She pounded on the steering wheel.

  Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. Suffering ripped through her. She closed her eyes, swallowed hard.

  Just go back. Introduce yourself to Rafferty. Tell him what you did. Put it all out in the open. Apologize. Ask for his forgiveness.

  Secrecy was what gave sins their power. Or so said her minister. But it wasn’t so easy, confessing the most awful thing you’d ever done. Risk losing the love and respect of the daughter-in-law she loved as much as she would ha
ve loved her own daughter.

  Claudia remembered the painful day Jake had learned about Rafferty. It was right after Gordon’s funeral and he’d been going through his father’s things and found the letter from that crazy buckle bunny Amelia Jones telling Gordon that he was Rafferty’s father. Why had Gordon kept it all these years?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jake accused.

  “It was your father’s private business.”

  “I had a brother! I could have known my brother! You kept me from my brother!”

  “Your father said it wasn’t true. I chose to believe him.” She had lied bald-faced, still trying to salvage her relationship with her son.

  He had stared at her as if he didn’t know her, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “How could you have stayed with Dad knowing he stepped out on you?”

  “I loved him,” she said simply, and that part was true. “I loved him since I was eighteen years old. There wasn’t a more beautiful sight in the world than your father on a cutting horse.”

  Jake had snorted, glared at her scornfully. “If that’s love, then spare me.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about love.”

  “Blind cow.”

  Jake had actually called her a blind cow. It still hurt, even now. Nothing had ever been the same between them.

  The next thing she knew, Jake left town without a word and he was gone for the entire summer. He didn’t call her, not once. She’d been frantic, but she’d suspected all along where he’d gone. When he came home, the only thing he’d said about it was “I found my brother. He’s a good kid. I can’t believe Dad never recognized him. Never left him any money. It’s not right. It’s not fair. And I’ll never forgive you for not telling me about him.”

  Jake had never mentioned Rafferty to her again and for that she was incredibly relieved. But he was forever changed. Grew more arrogant. Harder. He threw himself into a bull-riding career. He did okay, but he was never great at it. But he was good-looking and had his pick of buckle bunnies who followed the circuit. Finally, as he got older, he realized he would never be a world-class champion. His best friend was killed in Iraq, and the next day, he retired from the rodeo and joined the army.

  Right after that, he met Lissette, and for a while things were good again. But then he got sent to the Middle East and he fell in love with combat. She could see it in his eyes. Then when Jake was killed she’d been shocked to learn that he’d left all his life insurance money to Rafferty. Trying to make up for his father’s mistakes, she supposed. But in the process, he’d made the same error Gordon had. He hadn’t taken care of his own child.

  Whose fault was that? Because of you, Gordon believed that Rafferty was not his son.

  A hand rapped on her car window.

  Claudia startled, glanced up. “Oh!”

  It was Stewart, wearing a leather jacket and holding a motorcycle helmet underneath his arm.

  She switched off the radio, peered into the rearview mirror, saw a Harley-Davidson pulled over on the shoulder of the road behind her.

  He rapped again.

  She rolled down the window.

  His forehead creased in concern. “Are you okay?”

  “You’ve got a motorcycle. When did you buy a motorcycle? Why did you get a motorcycle?”

  Stewart shrugged. “Middle-aged crazy. Lost-spouse grief. Who the hell knows? But I always wanted a motorcycle, so why not? Who cares if I look like a fool? I only get this one life and I’m going to live it the way I see fit.”

  “I did a terrible thing. A mean thing.”

  “You?” Stewart sounded as if he didn’t believe her. “You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”

  “Shows how much you know me.”

  “I know you. I’ve lived next door to you for thirty years. You were my wife’s best friend.”

  “I can be very mean.”

  He laughed like she had said something earth-shatteringly funny. Little did he know.

  “This is not humorous.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “I’m an awful person.”

  “You’re not,” Stewart disagreed. “We all have things we’re ashamed of.”

  Claudia tilted her head up to look at him. The headlights from his Harley glinted off his bald head in a totally sexy way. “What are you ashamed of, Stewart English? Did you ever cheat on Linda?”

  “No,” he said staunchly. “Never.”

  “Then you’re one in a million. What do you have to be ashamed of?”

  “Come for a ride with me and I’ll tell you?”

  “On your motorcycle?”

  “On my motorcycle.”

  “I’ve never ridden on one of those things before.”

  “Perfect. It’s time to lose your motorcycle virginity.”

  The virginity line should have offended her. If she were with her church group, she would have acted like she was offended. She was not offended. In fact, she wanted to giggle at the thought that she had any kind of virginity left. “I don’t have a helmet.”

  “You can wear mine.”

  “What will you wear?”

  “Might as well live dangerously. No one is getting out of this alive.”

  “Life sucks.”

  “Profound.”

  “Stop making fun of me. Life does suck.”

  “Sometimes it does. But not right now. Right now, in this moment, you have the possibility for a fine adventure if you’ll just take it.”

  “I’m wearing a skirt.”

  “Wrap it between your legs.”

  “I don’t know about this.”

  “It’s not rocket science. You climb aboard, hang on.”

  She nibbled her bottom lip. Maybe something adventuresome would shake off the dark funk.

  “Limited time offer.” He held out his hand. “It’s now or never.”

  Why not? What did she have to lose? What was the worst that could happen? She and Stewart get splattered all over the pavement in an accident. After all she’d been through that didn’t seem so bad.

  God, you’re morbid today.

  Yeah, well, she’d just discovered her only grandchild was going deaf and her husband’s illegitimate son was staying at her daughter-in-law’s house. And Lissette had stopped wearing Jake’s ring.

  “Claudia?”

  “Yes, okay, I’ll do it. Follow me home, I’ll change and then we’ll go.”

  “I’m afraid if I give you that much leeway you’ll back out. Come now. Lock your purse in the trunk.”

  This was stupid. She should just tell him no, but she did not. She locked her purse in the trunk as he suggested and gave him her car keys since she didn’t have a pocket.

  He tucked her keys in the front pocket of his jeans and led her to the motorcycle. It was big and shiny with chrome. A right large mechanical beast.

  Stewart strapped the helmet onto her head, and then got on the bike. She straddled the seat behind him, but was reluctant to wrap her arms around his waist, until he started the engine and she felt the growl of power. She’d better hang on if she didn’t want to get thrown off.

  Claudia slipped her arms around his waist was startled to realize how strongly muscled his torso was, even at fifty-nine. It felt so novel, touching a man again in such an intimate way.

  The Harley took off and Claudia gave a little squealing giggle at the surging acceleration. She hadn’t giggled in years. It made her feel giddy, girlish, and foolish.

  You’re too old for this nonsense.

  Maybe so, but she couldn’t resist the thrill that buzzed through her system and she found herself resting her helmeted head against Stewart’s shoulder.

  Stewart drove them through the darkness, faster and faster, until Claudia’s heart was riding in her throat. You shouldn’t be here with your best friend’s husband. But Linda was dead. Like Gordon and Jake.

  Gone.

  The past was past, the future, murky and uncertain. All she had was right now. Right this minu
te and she was clinging to the waist of a sexy, bald fireman, the sleeves of her sweater were flapping out behind her as they sped away into the night on a souped-up Harley.

  If her neighbors saw them it would set off a gossip storm.

  He drove around Jubilee Lake. It wasn’t much of a lake as lakes went. Very small, filled mostly with cattails and water lilies. No good for swimming or boating. Mostly, it was a necking spot for young couples. What was it they called it now days? Canoodling? Or was that term passé too? Once you got beyond a certain age, it was hard to keep up. Time moved so swiftly.

  The rising moon sent a shimmer of light reflecting across the water. Stewart pulled over to a spot underneath a large pecan tree. The pecans would be coming off soon. Next month. Maybe she’d come back and gather enough to make pecan sandies as a gift to Stewart to thank him for taking her motorcycle virginity.

  “Why are we stopping?” she asked after he killed the engine.

  He reached up to unsnap the strap from around her chin and lift the helmet off her head. “So I can do this.”

  He dropped the helmet to the ground and she was so lost in his eyes she didn’t even hear it fall. The next thing she knew she was in Stewart’s arms and he was kissing her like tomorrow might never come.

  Chapter Ten

  Rafferty stayed for the pot roast. He shouldn’t have stayed, but the thought of eating alone in the garage apartment was too solitary to bear. He was accustomed to taking his meals with his ranch hands, or when he was on a movie set, with the crew. Before Dane and Heather had gone off to college, he’d tried to have a family meal at least once a day, and he missed the ritual with his siblings. Shared mealtime had a way of drawing people closer. That was the danger of eating with Lissette and Kyle.

  The three of them sat at the kitchen table just like a family.

  Connecting.

  It was a damn scary thought. He’d just raised his younger siblings to adulthood, finally gotten his mother straightened out. For the first time ever, his life was his own. He could be selfish for once. Discover what it was that he truly wanted. He’d dreamed of such freedom for years.

  Why then did he feel the urge to take on the task of shepherding his dead brother’s family? A brother he barely knew. He couldn’t seem to break the caretaking habit.