A Cowboy for Christmas Read online

  “What castoffs did you get of Jake’s?”

  He shrugged. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “Then if it’s nothing, why not just tell me?”

  Rafferty sighed, shifted. “Claudia used to send boxes of Jake’s clothes and toys when he outgrew them.”

  That surprised her. She thought Claudia had been too resentful for that kind of generosity, and it made her feel bad that she hadn’t yet tried to mend fences with her mother-in-law. She should call her. Apologize.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to have the clothes. It was better than walking around in high-water rags, but just once, just one time I wished I had new clothes. Something bought just for me, something that was all mine. Something I didn’t have to share with an invisible big brother. Taking Jake’s clothes made me feel . . .” He paused.

  She didn’t rush to question him. Instead, she studied his face, watching for emotions that he was reluctant to show.

  He shrugged. “Unimportant.”

  “I’m sorry you were made to feel that way.”

  “Hey, we all have some kind of childhood angst, right? That was just my version.”

  “The tornado costume wasn’t Jake’s,” she assured him. “It’s actually a wedding prop.”

  “A what?”

  “You know, for the cowboy weddings that Mariah puts on. One couple met because of a tornado. They wanted it in their wedding. So we have a sandwich board made up with a picture of a tornado on it. All you have to do is drape it over your head and presto, instant costume.”

  Rafferty laughed and she realized how much she loved the sound. “I can do that.”

  Halloween in Jubilee was a little different from Halloween in most places. Around the country kids went from door to door, asking for tricks or treats. Some neighborhoods organized block parties. In other towns, parents pulled their decorated cars into school or church parking lots and kids trick or treated from car to car. Others honored the tradition of fall harvest with carnivals including games of chance, face painting, dunking booths, and cakewalks.

  Jubilee put its own unique spin on the holiday, merging several traditions into one. The local ranchers took turns hosting the experience. This year, Joe and Mariah Daniels opened up Green Ridge Ranch to the public.

  Instead of going door to door or car to car, kids rode horses, going from cow to cow, snatching handfuls of candy from the saddlebags strapped over the wooden cut-outs painted like Holsteins, but that was just the beginning of the festivities. After trick or treating came the bonfire. Complete with weenie and marshmallow roasts, spooky ghost stories told by some grizzled cowboy, and followed finally by a late night hayride. They had dunking booths for sinking sad sack cowhands, bobbing for apples, and instead of cakewalks, there were pie walks.

  Rafferty, Lissette, and Kyle arrived at Green Ridge Ranch. Ila was playing traffic cop, directing people where to park. He parked, cut the engine, and unbuckled his seat belt. “I’ll get Kyle,” he told Lissette, “so you can carry your pies.”

  “I do appreciate the help,” she said, retrieving the two boxes of Giddy-up Pecan Pie she’d made for the pie walk to help advertise her expanded bakery menu.

  Rafferty took the toddler from his car seat. Kyle was busily sucking on a pumpkin-shaped pacifier. Rafferty enjoyed the familiar heft of the boy in his arms. He trailed behind Lissette, feeling a bit out of place as people rushed up to her.

  “Mmm,” Ila said when they went past her. “Lissy’s pies are the fast road to inner peace.”

  “Well, well,” said Cordy as he came up to greet them wearing a black cape and vampire teeth, his only stab at a costume. “Let me guess. You’re a real Texas twister.”

  “What?” Rafferty frowned, and then remembered he was dressed like a tornado. “Oh, yeah.”

  “I’ll take the pies from you, Lissy,” Cordy offered. “You might want to hurry on over to the equestrian center. They’re saddling up the ponies for the kids.”

  “You want a beer, Rafferty?” Joe asked, nodding to a gold-plated horse trough loaded down with iced beer.

  Rafferty raised a hand. “No thanks. I better help Lissette with Kyle.” He didn’t drink, but he realized that other men often thought him odd or unsocial because he didn’t.

  He followed Lissette as she joined the stream of people walking through a gateway arch with a sign above it that said: “The Dutch Callahan Equine Center.”

  A man in a horse costume was leading horses from the barn while ranch hands saddled them up and helped children climb aboard. Off to the side was a corral full of polled cattle.

  “One group of six at a time,” the man in the horse costume said. He pulled the horse head off, tucked it under his arm, and fanned himself with the opposite hand. “No one told me it was hot as hell in this damn thing,” he complained with a wink and a grin.

  “Brady!” Lissette exclaimed, and hugged the man in the horse costume. “You’re back.”

  “We are.”

  “Where’s Annie?”

  “Somewhere in this madhouse.” He flapped a hoof at the thickening crowd.

  “Rafferty, this is horse whisperer Brady Talmadge. Brady, Rafferty trains horses for the movies.”

  “I’d shake hands but . . .” Brady held up his hooves. “I’m familiar with your work. You’re famous.”

  Rafferty shrugged. “There’s not many people training horses for the movies.”

  “We should get together. Talk shop.”

  “I’d like that,” Rafferty said, and was surprised to realize that he really would.

  He and Lissette took Kyle to the corral where the saddled ponies were lined up. A surprised expression came over Kyle’s face when Rafferty set him in the saddle. He looked to his mother. She signed. “Okay.”

  Kyle shifted his gaze back to Rafferty. He nodded at the boy.

  Lissette gave Kyle a sack decorated with pumpkins. She walked beside him while Rafferty led the horse to where the trick-or-treating cows were set up. Unique way to experience Halloween. He would have loved this as a kid. Hell, he was enjoying himself now.

  After the trick or treating, they made their way over to the bonfire. Lissette had brought camp chairs for them to sit on and Rafferty went back to the truck to retrieve them. When he came back, he took Kyle from her. “So you can circulate with your friends.”

  She met his gaze. “I’m good right here.”

  He didn’t know what to think. Things with Lissette could turn on a dime. They had this whole push-pull thing going on between them, and while he understood why she ran hot and then cold and then hot again, it was starting to get to him. Especially when she looked so sexy and she kept throwing those winsome glances his way.

  Kyle stared at the fire, mesmerized. Rafferty bounced him on his knee while Lissette skewered a clutch of marshmallows and squatted down to hold them over the fire. Her hair gleamed in the crackling glow. The air smelled smoky.

  Nearby, an old cowboy was telling a modernized version of the story of the headless horseman to a group of tweens who were trying to act like they weren’t the least bit scared.

  When Lissette pulled a cooled roasted marshmallow off the skewer and popped it in Kyle’s mouth, Rafferty enjoyed seeing the delight spread across his face. Kyle held out a hand, wanting more.

  “Let him roast his own marshmallow, Mama,” Rafferty suggested.

  “I don’t want him getting that close to the fire. He’s too little.”

  “The boy knows what hot is.”

  She looked like she was about to argue, but she then nodded, loosing the apron strings.

  “Come to Mommy.” She held out her arm to Kyle, and Rafferty slid him off his knee so the boy could go to her. Lissette gave him a raw marshmallow and guided his hand, showing him how to put it on the skewer.

  Lissette glanced over her shoulder at Rafferty, a big grin on her face. She had one hand wrapped around Kyle’s waist as her son struggled to hold the skewer over a small flame at the bottom of the bonfire. He
kept turning his face into his mother’s chest to escape the intensity of the heat, but when she tried to relieve him of his obligation, he would grunt, screw up his face, and determinedly go back to his task.

  “He’s loving being in control,” Lissette said. “Thank you for suggesting I let him try.”

  “Hey, he’s an independent kid. There’s no holding this one back.”

  After the hot dogs were consumed and all the wieners roasted, after the ghost stories were told and the musical among them had played a few Halloween songs on guitars and harmonicas, Joe announced it was time for the hayride.

  A tractor engine revved up in an adjacent pasture. It pulled a trailer piled with loose hay. Teenagers were the first to climb aboard, jostling around to sit with a particular girl or boy. Next came the families who didn’t mind staying up late. The early birds were gathering up their things, saying good night and heading for their vehicles.

  “You want to go on the hayride?” Lissette asked, a hopeful note in her voice.

  “Sure,” Rafferty said easily. He got up from the folding camp chair, held out a hand to her.

  She hitched Kyle on her hip and took Rafferty’s hand. They walked across the pasture in the light of the full moon. Rafferty found them a spot big enough for the three of them. Kyle’s eyelids were already sinking.

  One of the guitarists sat across from them. He was picking a tune from The Band Perry, “If I Die Young.” It made Rafferty think of Jake. He wondered if Lissy was thinking of him too. How many times had she and Jake ridden on a hayride just like this together?

  “None,” she whispered.

  Rafferty startled. “What?”

  “You were wondering how often Jake and I took a hayride.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “When you’re thinking about Jake you get this tense set to your chin.”

  “He never took you on a hayride?”

  She shook her head. “He said it was too slow-paced.”

  Rafferty stretched out an arm around the back of the trailer’s boards. Lissette’s hair trailed over his hand. A jumble of emotions mixed up inside him. Desire. Longing. Sex. Things he shouldn’t be thinking about. Not in regard to his dead brother’s wife.

  “Well, lucky for you I like slow-paced,” he drawled, and immediately regretted it the minute he said it.

  “I’ve noticed,” she said in a throaty tone, “that you don’t ever get in a hurry.”

  “You should have seen me the time I dislodged a nest of yellow jackets from a lemon tree when I was twelve. I was moving pretty quickly then.”

  “I’ll bet.” She chuckled.

  “You’re making fun of my pain?” he teased.

  “Did you get stung?”

  “Six times. On the face.”

  “Ouch. I’m sorry.” She reached up to cup his cheek in her palm.

  The soft, simple stroke was his undoing. Try as he might, Rafferty couldn’t fight off his natural masculine reaction. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, prayed it was dark enough on the ride that nobody noticed.

  The guitarist switched tempo and went into Vince Gill’s “Cowboy Up.” That got the group—including Lissette—singing along.

  The tractor toiled through the field. The moonlight played against scarecrows and pumpkins. The leaves of a corn maze rustled spookily in the wind. Lissette leaned against his shoulder. Her sweet scent carried to him. She looked so sexy in her vampire cape, dark makeup, and black fishnet hose. Some of the couples were kissing. Rafferty quelled an almost impossible urge to kiss Lissy.

  It was a perfect night. The kind of special night you wish you could capture in a jar so when you opened it later you could be right back in that moment. Too bad memories didn’t work that way.

  “Is he asleep yet?” she whispered.

  Rafferty bent his head to get a look at her little Spider-Man. His eyes were shut tightly and he was slumped in his mother’s arms, completely relaxed. “He’s out.”

  “You’ve made this so much easier,” Lissy murmured.

  “What?”

  “Dealing with Kyle’s deafness.”

  “It was sheer luck that I knew sign language.”

  “I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if fate didn’t bring us together.”

  Rafferty smiled. “You believe in fate?”

  She shrugged. “What if you hadn’t been in Australia and you’d come the minute you heard about Jake’s death? You wouldn’t have stayed around in July.”

  “Probably not,” he admitted.

  “What if Jake hadn’t left you the money? You probably won’t have shown up at all.”

  “I would have,” Rafferty said, but he had to wonder if it was true.

  “It just seemed you showed up at the right time.”

  “It’s easy to romanticize coincidence.”

  “We don’t want to do that, do we?”

  “Do we?”

  The tractor labored to a stop. They were back at the ranch house. Mariah and Joe were there to greet them. The other passengers climbed out, parents collecting sleepy children and belongings. Neighbors called to one another.

  They bade their hosts good night and drove home.

  “It was a wonderful evening,” Lissette said. “Thank you for making it so special.”

  “It wasn’t an effort. I enjoyed being there.”

  They didn’t speak the rest of the way home, but the sexual tension inside the cab of Lissette’s truck was thick as custard. Staying away from each other for several days had not diminished his desire for her one bit. Rather, it made him want her that much more.

  The forbidden fruit.

  Rafferty carried Kyle into the house for her. He laid the boy down in his bed, kissed his head and whispered, “Sweet dreams, little guy.”

  Straightening, he turned to find Lissette standing in the door looking completely irresistible in her vampish costume. She’d cocked her leg at a totally seductive angle and there was a come-hither tilt to her head. Until now, he’d never understood the sex appeal of vampires. But right now, all he could think was Suck my blood.

  Did she want him or was he reading something into her posture that wasn’t there? Desire ran through him, brooding and untamable. He licked his lips.

  “Rafferty,” she breathed.

  The sound of his name on her tongue sent a hot, hard pulsing straight to his groin, and his burning need for her, which had been growing steadily every day, could no longer be denied.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lissette raised a hand to her hair, thinking how silly she must look in the vampire costume, and ducked her head. He’d already shed his tornado costume long before the hayride. They stood on opposite sides of the living room. He pulled off his cowboy boots and set them aside. She kicked off her black stilettos.

  Rafferty’s eyes never left hers. He studied her like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen and she studied him right back, marveling that it was possible to feel this way about someone so soon, especially when the rest of her life was in tumult.

  He traced a finger down the bridge of her nose, stopping at the tip to press down, and then he trailed a path over the ridge of her cheekbone, and followed the line of her jaw to her chin. He caressed her with reverence, marvel in his eyes as if he were a fortune hunter who’d spent his life seeking a legendary treasure he’d almost stopped believing in and had now accidentally stumbled across it.

  “C’mere,” Rafferty murmured, and held out his hand.

  His deep tone of voice, the look of his face cast in shadows sent a sweet shiver winnowing through her bloodstream, but she did not resist. Her will had been slowly eroding since that first night in the pasture.

  His hand on hers was sure and strong; his lips firm, but sweetly inviting. They’d been building toward this moment for the past few weeks. Even so, she should have resisted.

  But she wanted to yield to him. Meld into him.

  Was that so wrong? Was she falling back into old habits simply be
cause he was so easy to be with? Going with the flow, letting herself be carried along by the current of sexual energy surging between them, a dandelion shedding her seeds to the breeze.

  But his kiss quickly snuffed out all doubts, blotted everything from her mind except for how he made her feel. Fully, one hundred percent wanted. He wasn’t demanding, but instead took his time, drawing out every bit of response in her. His body was so strong. So warm. Radiating so much masculine heat.

  His tongue flirted with hers, teasing, coaxing, exploring, arousing.

  She strained against him, desperate for more contact. Sensation swirled her around until she didn’t know up from down. She felt like silk sliding darkly down a cascade of melted chocolate—rich and weak—and she finally understood there was no going back. She didn’t want to go back.

  He slipped a hand down her spine, pressed it to the small of her back. Her pulse quickened and she wrapped her arms around his taut waist, held him close. She clung to him and he kept kissing her, exploring her, tasting her. She could feel every inch of his arousal, hot and insistent.

  Crave.

  She craved him.

  His hand slipped to her bottom, his palm cupping one cheek. Panting, aching, she savored every second. Nothing in her universe—and it was a universe of delicious tastes and scents—had ever been so scrumptious.

  When he finally pulled his lips away from where he’d been doing devastating things to her throat with his tongue, she let out a noise of frustration. Don’t stop. She’d waited so very long to feel like this. Fully and completely alive.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured.

  She knew she wasn’t beautiful. She had two beautiful sisters. But Rafferty made her feel beautiful.

  “I know there’s a lot of good reasons not to do this, but Lissy, I’ve never in my life wanted a woman the way I want you. Need you.”

  “I want you too.”

  “Last thing I want is to hurt you.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He laughed. “Darlin’, it’s already gonna hurt when I have to leave.”

  Why do you have to leave? she wanted to ask, but she knew. He had a life in California and hers was here. There were too many other complications. He was her dead husband’s half brother. There was Claudia to consider. And Kyle. She could not be irresponsible with her heart.