“I pick out the chicken, and just give her the vegetables and sauce. She loves it,” Bridget answered.
The rest of the meal was eaten in awkward quietness. The only time they spoke at all was to talk to Laela, and that wasn’t very often. When they’d finished, Bridget brought a pie and a bowl of freshly whipped cream to the table.
“If you’d rather have biscuits—I mean, cookies—or maybe take some to the barn with you this afternoon for a snack, they’re right there.” She pointed toward the counter.
“Enough,” Maverick said. “Why are you so mad at me?”
“Figure it out for yourself,” she said, tersely.
He pushed back his chair, stood up, and went straight to the utility room to put on his coat. Settling his hat on his head, he returned to the kitchen, picked up the whole container of cookies, tucked them under his arm, and headed out the back door.
How could he figure anything out when he had no idea what had set her off? Hell, he didn’t even know she had a temper until today. He worked until dark, and when he closed the door to the tack room, there wasn’t a speck of dust or a cobweb in sight. The old wood floor was spick-and-span clean, and every piece of trash or bucket of dried-up paint had been thrown in the back of his truck to be taken to the dump ground the next day.
The feeling in the house was still pretty chilly when he got there that evening. Laela eased the tension a little when she crawled over to him and raised her arms for him to take her.
“She’s never met a stranger,” Bridget said. “Deidre took her to work at the bakery with her every day when she quit working at the pub. The owner said those few months before Deidre died were the best he’d ever had at his shop. The baby drew the people in, and they bought all their bread and supplies while they were there.”
Well, well—Bridget was talking to him again. That was a step in the right direction.
“I think she’s going to be a cowgirl when she grows up. She likes my hat.”
“She’s going to be whatever she wants to be, but I doubt that it will be a cowgirl,” Bridget told him. “We’ve already eaten. Leftovers are on the stove, and your sweet tea is in the refrigerator. We’ll be in the living room.” She removed the cowboy hat from Laela’s head, and stood on tiptoe to place it back on Maverick’s head.
“I’ll take her in there. I thought we were making cookies this evening,” he said.
“I made cookies all afternoon. There’s plenty, so we can take some to Iris, and to the nursing home on Saturday, plus feed you through the week,” she said.
“I was looking forward to making them tonight. That song about Christmas cookies has been on my mind all day,” he said.
“What song?” Bridget asked.
He brought up the song by George Strait, took Laela out of the high chair, and two-stepped around the kitchen with her. The lyrics said that every time she put another batch in the oven that there was fifteen minutes for kissing and loving.
“Grandpa used to dance around the floor with Granny when this song played. They had an old cassette player and he loved George Strait,” he said when the song ended. “Granny will be eighty right after the first of the year, and Buster isn’t much younger. I wouldn’t be surprised if he stays with his daughter and doesn’t come back to Daisy.” He carried the baby to the living room and set her on the floor.
“And what happens if Buster doesn’t come back?” Bridget asked.
Maverick sighed. “Then it’ll be time for either me or Paxton to step up and come back to help her.”
“How do you feel about that?” Bridget sat down on the floor in front of the baby.
“I always figured Granny would eventually sell the place so she’d have the money to really retire”—he hesitated—“and I hoped I’d have the money to buy the place. I’ve always wanted something of my own.”
“Why wouldn’t she just pass the place down to you?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t expect her to do that,” Maverick said. “She and Grandpa worked to build this place, and it can be a profitable business again with some hard work. It’s her retirement fund, so to speak. Besides, I’ve been raised to make my own way in the world, not depend on handouts.”
“If you have your own ranch, you won’t have time for going to the pub so much, either,” she reminded him. “Iris told me that a ranch is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job, and that it pretty much owns you, rather than you owning it.”
“The Baker brothers I’ve been helping out on the Longhorn Canyon ranch and me and Paxton”—he stammered, trying to find the words—“we do kind of have a wild reputation, and I realized that owning a ranch would mean giving up part of my previous lifestyle, but it doesn’t mean that I’d be dead. I could still go to the honky-tonk and do some two-steppin’ once in a while.”
“That’d be havin’ your cake and eating it too, now wouldn’t it?” she asked.
“Everyone needs a little kissin’ and lovin’ like the song says,” he told her. “And I usually find it at a honky-tonk, so if that means I’ll be havin’ my cake and eating it too, then I’ll enjoy every minute of it,” he said as he disappeared back to the kitchen to heat up his supper.
* * *
Well, you can bloody well think twice if you think you’ll be kissin’ and lovin’ on me for fifteen minutes while the cookies bake, not when you’ve got a harem out there waiting for you. Bridget closed her eyes and shook her head. She would run too, if she were in his shoes. Even if Alana was just a friend, Maverick still had Retta and Emily—one with a baby who wanted him to rock her to sleep and one with another baby on the way.
She heard the ring tone of his cell phone and the deep, low tones of conversation, and wondered which of his women he was talking to. Was it a different one from the two on the answering machine? Her imagination went wild, thinking about that, until he finally returned to the living room.
“Granny called.” He kicked off his boots and sat down on the floor with Bridget and the baby. “She said y’all talked earlier this afternoon. She’s already lookin’ forward to those cookies, and she’s getting acquainted with the other folks at rehab.”
“She told me that the place is really nice. She has her own room, and she eats in the dining room with the other folks. She says that there’s about ten of them right now, but some will go home in a few days,” Bridget said.
“She says she’s already made a friend. It’s some lady from down around Happy who’s living in an assisted place in Amarillo. Who knows if she’ll stay, or not? She may make it through tomorrow and decide she’s had enough or she might stay the whole time. You never know about her,” he said.
“Happy?” Bridget asked.
“I don’t know,” Maverick said. “Are you?”
“I mean is there really a village called Happy?” She didn’t mean to look into his eyes, but their gazes locked and she couldn’t look away.
“Yep,” he said without blinking. “Just fifteen minutes north of here, but we call them towns, not villages.”
“Ten minutes”—she finally looked away—“if I was driving.”
A broad smile covered his face. “So you like to drive fast?”
“Sean won’t let me drive his car anymore. He says that I scare the bejesus out of him, but”—one shoulder raised slightly—“if a car will go a hundred and ninety kilometers per an hour, then why only hold it back to one hundred twelve?”
“You are preachin’ to the choir.” His grin got even bigger. “Did you drive that fast with Laela in the car?”
“Of course not.” She shot a dirty look his way. “Fast cars and fast women. That your speed?”
“Throw in buckin’ broncs and bulls, and you pretty well sum up my lifestyle until a few months ago,” he admitted. “What about you? You like anything other than fast cars?”
One of her eyebrows shot straight up. “Evidently at one time I liked a fast cowboy, didn’t I?”
She thought he might say something about mothers and their responsib
ility, but instead, he said, “Being a mother doesn’t have to mean you give up your whole personality. It should just mean that you put your child first, and the good times second.”
“Does being a father mean the same thing?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, it does.”
Then why aren’t you home with your baby, or at least with Emily while she waits on the birth of her child?
He pointed toward the baby. “She’s rubbing her little eyes. I think she’s ready for a bath and bed. Can I read her the bedtime story tonight?”
Bridget suddenly felt like she hadn’t done her job. She’d been so busy trying to keep body and soul together, that she hadn’t even thought about starting to read to Laela every night. Besides, wasn’t seven months kind of young for a child to be entertained with a book?
“Sure,” she said, unwilling to admit her failure.
She drew a bath for the baby and tested it with her hand to see if it was too warm. Then she laid out a towel and washcloth on the ladder-back chair beside the tub, but even with all that preparation, she didn’t feel like she was doing enough—not when she hadn’t been reading Laela a bedtime story.
The baby loved water and was usually fussy when Bridget took her out of the bath, but that night she was grouchy all through it. She threw her toys over the side and tried to crawl out before Bridget could even get her hair washed. Not until she was finally wrapped in a towel did she eventually smile.
“You are a spoiled lass, for sure,” Bridget said as she put a gown and a nappy on her. “You don’t even know what reading a bedtime story is, and yet you’re having a bit of a fit for it.”
Once she had Laela’s hair dried and brushed, she carried her to the living room and handed her off to Maverick, who was sitting in a recliner. He popped the leg rest up and reached for a children’s book on the table beside him.
“Where did that come from?” Bridget asked.
“Granny has a whole bookcase full of them in the fourth bedroom. Tonight we’ll be reading The Mitten, a story about a big snowstorm and animals. There’s lots of pictures to entertain this princess,” he said.
Bridget plopped down on the sofa and listened while Maverick did the voices of the animals in the book. He really was good with children, she thought, and should have a dozen, but not with as many women.
Still, there was something so sweet about seeing a big, old rough cowboy with a baby in his arms, taking time after reading each page to point out the animals and other items in the book. It was like there were two Maverick Callahans. One was that wild, carefree man she’d met in Ireland, and the other was a kind, gentle soul. When he finished the last page, Laela leaned her little head onto his chest and closed her eyes.
“I think she’s asleep,” he whispered.
“Not quite yet,” Bridget said. “You’ll know when she’s really sound asleep.”
“How?” he mouthed.
“Just wait a minute or two. You’ll feel her sigh, and that’ll be when she’s really asleep,” she told him.
Still feeling guilty about not reading to Laela, she promised herself that when she got back to Ireland, she’d read Irish books to Laela. She should hear the stories that Nana had read to Bridget in her native language.
“I hadn’t thought to start reading to her,” she said.
“Never too young for books,” Maverick said. “That’s straight from Granny. She read to us every night. I don’t know who liked Harry Potter more. Us or her. There it is—that sigh you talked about. Can I take her to the crib?”
“Sure,” Bridget said.
She might not approve of his lifestyle, and they might not even be able to be friends, but she had to admit, he was damn good with kids!
Chapter Seven
When Bridget walked into Iris’s room she thought that Iris’s color was fantastic compared to what it had been when they went to church on Sunday. Evidently the medicine they were giving her for the infection had kicked in and started to work. Iris was sitting in a lift chair and motioned them over. “Give me that baby. I’ve missed her. What’s in the bag?”
“Shortbread cookies and scones that’d still be warm. I made fresh strawberry preserves this morning to go on them,” Bridget said as Maverick put the baby in Iris’s lap.
“I’ll give Laela some Granny sugar and then get right into them. The food here is good, but scones remind me of Ireland and my childhood,” Iris said. “My new friend Wanda is coming down here to meet y’all. Mav, you sit right here.” She pointed to the folding chair on her right. “And this one is for you, Bridget.” She nodded toward the one on her left.
When Iris kissed her on both of her chubby, little cheeks, Laela laughed out loud, so she did it again. “Did you see that big Christmas tree in the lobby? It’s not as pretty as the one at home, is it?” Iris was one of the few who didn’t talk in a “baby voice” to Laela. “Mav sent me pictures of you putting the star on the tree. Until you get a baby brother or sister, that can be your job every year.”
Bridget bit back a smart-ass reply about Laela not getting a sibling, and that she’d be taking her baby home in a few weeks. Maybe next year Maverick could bring Retta’s baby, Annie, or Emily’s baby to put the star on the tree.
“Knock. Knock.” A husky voice floated into the room before a lady with lavender hair pushed her walker inside. “I’m Wanda Jackson, but I’m not that famous country singer from years ago. I can’t carry a tune in a galvanized milk bucket. Iris invited me to come into her room and meet y’all.”
“Take this precious child and let us get into the scones.” Iris lifted the baby up to Maverick. “Wanda, this is my grandson Mav, and this is Bridget and the baby is Laela. All y’all, this is my new friend.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miz Wanda.” Maverick flashed a brilliant smile.
“It’s a pleasure,” Bridget said. “Did you break a hip too?”
“No, honey, I had to get my knee replaced for the second time. I wore the hell out of the one they put in fifteen years ago. The doctor argued with me about having another surgery, since I’m seventy-five, but I told him he’d replace it or I’d beat him to death with my cane.” She laughed. “You ain’t from around here, are you? Is that a British accent?”
“Irish,” Bridget said. “I’m only here for a few weeks to help Iris.”
“Well, that’s right sweet of you. That baby is beautiful. She’s going to grow up to be a handful.”
Bridget laughed, but it was forced. She hadn’t thought of Laela’s teenage years until that moment. There would come a time when she’d be as ornery as Bridget and Deidre had been, and Bridget didn’t look forward to those days one bit.
Iris dug into the bag they had brought and took out the containers. “And we have scones and fresh-made strawberry preserves. You forgot to bring us plates and silverware. Maverick, go right down that hallway, all the way to the end.” Iris talked with her hands. “The last door on the left is the dining room. Ask the lady in there for a couple of paper plates and some plastic spoons. You might get us some napkins too.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Maverick stood up, handed the baby off to Bridget, and held Wanda’s walker while she sat down in the chair he’d vacated.
He’d barely gotten out of the room when Iris turned to Bridget. “What’s going on at home? Talk fast. As fast as he walks, he’ll be back soon.”
“Everything is fine,” Bridget said.
“No, it’s not. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in here when y’all came in. You’re fighting or at least arguing, and I want to know why.” Iris removed the lids from the two containers and handed the cookies to Wanda.
She selected one and bit into it. “This is so good, and you’re such a sweetheart to share with me, Iris.”
“You are welcome. Everyone needs friends and family,” Iris told her, then focused her stare on Bridget again. “Time to ’fess up.”
Bridget couldn’t tell Iris that her precious grandson had knocked up at least two ot
her women, so she put all the blame on another one. “Alana came to see Maverick. He says that she’s like a sister, but she’s so beautiful.”
“Don’t ever let anyone intimidate you, my child,” Iris scolded her gently. “If Alana was going to get involved with a Callahan, it would be Paxton, not Maverick. He’s the one who’s always had a thing for her and wouldn’t ask her out because he was afraid of rejection. On the way home from Ireland, I caught Maverick looking at a woman’s picture on his phone. That lady looked a lot like you. Did y’all meet over there?”
Bridget couldn’t lie to Iris. For one thing, she’d been too good to her. For another, the woman would see right through it. “We met at the pub where I worked the last night he was in Ireland, but I didn’t even know his last name until I saw pictures of him at your house.”
“I thought so, and so did your grandmother. Virgie said something happened right before I left, and you weren’t the same,” Iris said. “I think there was a flame there between y’all even if you didn’t spend much time together, and you need to see if it has any fire left in it or you’ll always wonder why you didn’t. That’s my advice, and your nana would tell you the same thing. You think about that. I hear Mav coming back, now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bridget had no choice but to spend time with Maverick, but she couldn’t say that there was no chance in bloody hell that there was fire left between them, without spilling the beans about Maverick’s women. Retta’s and Emily’s voices on the answering machine had been like pouring water on any spark that might be there. “And thank you for the advice, but”—she hesitated—“another thing is that I’m going through a little depression. At first I was in denial when Nana told me she only had weeks to live. Then when she was gone, I was angry at God for taking her. Now, I’m just kind of numb.” She wiped a tear away.
Wanda patted her on her arm. “Honey, I know just how you feel. I had four children and lost every one of them. My oldest two died in the Gulf War, my daughter with cancer, and my baby boy in a car accident. A mother should never have to bury her children. It’s an unnatural grief, but, honey, happy memories help heal all the pain and soon just the sweet things are what you’ll remember.”
Christmas with a Cowboy Page 8
