A South Texas Christmas

by Stella Bagwell

  Why didn’t she? Raine asked herself. She was a grown woman. She could go anywhere she wanted. The ranch gave her two weeks paid vacation, which she’d not yet taken this year. So her job wasn’t an issue. The real and only reason she couldn’t make the trip was that he was a dangerous man, at least to her common senses. Already he was spinning her thoughts and emotions in all directions. If she were to spend that sort of private time with the man, he’d have her heart sitting right in the middle of his palm.

  “I’d love to see where you live, but I don’t think that would be the best thing for me to do right now. Besides,” she added with a grin in hopes of lightening her words, “if I showed up, all your girlfriends might get angry with you.”

  He laughed loudly and then as his humor faded to a smile, his hand came up to cup the side of her face. “If I actually did have a girlfriend, she’d take one look at you and be as jealous as hell. And she’d have damn good reason to be.”

  His hand was warm and tender against her cheek and for a moment Raine wanted to believe he wasn’t a man who flitted from one woman to the next. She wanted to lean into him, feel his arms come around her, feel his lips take hers with breathless persuasion. But he’d just told her clearly that being with any woman on a long-term basis was not his style. So where would that leave her? With a few magical days and a broken heart, she figured.

  Clearing the tightness from her throat, she eased back from him. “I, uh, think it’s time we moved on. There’s a lot more of the ranch to show you. And I’m sure Geraldine will be expecting us to show up soon.”

  Not waiting on his reply, Raine turned and hurried to the truck. She didn’t want to give him, or especially herself, the chance to repeat the kisses they’d shared last night.

  Raine drove the two of them back to the main ranch yard and for the next hour, she showed him the barns and horse stables and a few of the prize colts that were raised on the Sandbur. Along the way she introduced him to several of the ranch hands, most of whom were Hispanic and spoke only broken English. By the time they reached the Saddler house, the morning had grown warm and the humidity felt like a wet blanket around Neil’s shoulders. His shirt was glued to his chest and his back whereas Raine didn’t appear to be affected by the tropical climate at all.

  “I really shouldn’t be meeting Mrs. Saddler looking like this,” Neil said as the two of them stepped onto the long portico that framed the entire front of the house. The outdoor furniture grouped along the spacious wooden floor was probably worth more than every stick of furniture in Neil’s house. But then he’d never been big on decorating. As long as he had a place to eat and sleep, he was content, a trait in him that his mother had always abhorred.

  “Don’t be silly. She’s used to seeing working men with dirty hands and sweat on their backs.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t been working and you look as cool as a cucumber.”

  Smiling with encouragement, she took him by the hand and urged him up to the door. “You’re not accustomed to being in warm weather in December.”

  Rolling his eyes, he lowered his lips to her ear. “That’s right. But I’m supposed to be. Remember I live in San Antonio, not in Northern New Mexico.”

  “Oh. I’d almost forgotten,” she said with a bit of surprise. “Well, if she mentions that you seem overly heated we’ll tell her you have to take some sort of medication that makes you sweat.”

  Shaking his head, Neil chuckled under his breath. “Now you’re going to paint me as sickly. What a hell of an impression I’m going to leave on these people.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Raine replied. “Like you said, you’ll be gone in a few days anyway. And I can always tell them I decided to end our engagement because you turned out to be a little weird.”

  “Thanks,” he said drolly.

  Raine knocked on the carved wooden door and soon a young Hispanic woman with two black braids and a wide smile ushered them into the house.

  “Miss Geraldine is in the parlor, Miss Raine. She’s been waiting for you and your man to arrive.”

  “Thank you, Alida,” Raine told the woman as they followed her out of the foyer and into what appeared to be a long great room.

  At one end, the floor stepped down three steps before they entered a short hallway. Two doorways down, the maid turned through an open archway and Neil instinctively reached for Raine’s hand.

  This time she clutched it tightly and Neil realized she was almost as nervous to introduce him to Geraldine Saddler as she had been her mother.

  The parlor, as Alida had called it, was much smaller than the great room and far cozier. A couch and two armchairs covered in a rose-patterned chintz were positioned in front of a large rock fireplace. Off to the left of the room near a row of paned windows was a wide oak desk with a telephone, inkpad and a small pot of Christmas cactus sitting on one corner. To the right of the room near an arched window was a tall Virginia Pine decorated with gold and red ribbons and hundreds of candy canes.

  Mrs. Saddler was sitting in a leather chair behind the desk and as Neil took in the sight of the older woman, he realized he was looking at one of the last true matriarchs of the Sandbur. She was dressed in a white peasant blouse and a tiered skirt of lavenders and blues. A squash blossom necklace made of red coral adorned her neck, while heavy silver earrings with the same stone hung from her ears. Her hair was platinum-gray and pulled sleekly back from her face and pinned in a tight twist at the back of her head. In her early sixties, Neil couldn’t help but notice that she was still an attractive woman. Yet that wasn’t the thing that had his eyes riveted to her smooth face—it was the tiny mole situated at the corner of her mouth. The facial mark looked exactly like the one on Randolf Ketchum, Linc’s late father.

  There you go again, Neil, trying to link these people to the Ketchums. Wake up and quit acting as though you’re in the Twilight Zone.

  He and Raine walked to the middle of the room and waited for the older woman to leave the desk and join them. While she approached them, Neil ignored the little voice in his head and assessed the rest of Geraldine Saddler’s physical appearance. She was tall and slender with an active spring to her step. But it was her face that struck him most. She had high, slanting cheekbones like Victoria and a variation of green eyes that ran in the Ketchum family. But how could there be a connection? It wasn’t possible. Or was it?

  “Good morning, Geraldine. I hope we’re not disrupting your morning,” Raine greeted her.

  “It would have been more disrupted if you hadn’t shown up,” she said with a wide smile. “Lex has already given me the news and frankly, I couldn’t be more excited or pleased.”

  Leaning forward she gave Raine a quick hug and kiss, then reached out a hand to Neil. “I’m Geraldine Saddler. Raine’s second mother if you want to know how the cow eats the corn around here. And I suppose you must be Neil.”

  Neil warmly shook the woman’s hand. “That’s right. Neil Rankin. It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Saddler. I hope you’ll forgive my appearance. Raine has been showing me around the ranch.” Thankfully, now that they were in the air-conditioned house, his shirt had begun to dry.

  “A grand place, don’t you think?” she asked with a proud smile.

  “Very grand and very beautiful. I can see why Raine loves it here.”

  Geraldine motioned for the two of them to take a seat. Neil, still gripping Raine’s hand, led her over to the couch and settled himself close to her side.

  “Raine you have certainly floored me with this news,” the older woman said as she eased into one of the armchairs. “You must certainly be able to keep secrets. I would have never guessed you’d been seeing a young man.”

  “Raine is bashful about these things, Mrs. Saddler. I had to urge her to break the news,” Neil said.

  From the corner of his eye, he could see Raine’s lips twitch.

  Geraldine settled a concerned look on Raine. “Well, I can understand Raine’s feelings. She has her mother to contend w
ith. Who, by the way is helping Cook right now. After Lex told me the news I immediately notified the kitchen to get a barbecue ready for tomorrow night. Esther wasn’t pleased with the idea of a party, but then Esther is hardly ever pleased about anything,” she added with a grimace. “God only knows I’d be jumping up and down with joy if Nicolette or Mercedes came home and told me they were engaged.” She looked at Neil, her expression full of warm approval. “They’re my two daughters,” she explained to Neil. “And I don’t want either of them living the rest of their lives alone and miserable. Women were put on this earth to be loved and cherished, not to go around pretending they’re as tough as men.”

  “But you’ve always been tough, Geraldine,” Raine pointed out. “If you hadn’t been, this ranch wouldn’t be here now.”

  She waved a bony hand at the two of them. “That’s a different sort of tough. And that’s a whole other story. I want to hear about you two. Have you set a date for your wedding yet? I tried to get information from Esther, but she clammed up. I think she’s ticked off because you kept her in the dark, Raine.”

  Raine shot a regretful glance at Neil before she turned her gaze back on Geraldine. “I’m sure Mother is upset with me. She always gets that way if I do something without telling her first or seeking her approval beforehand.”

  Nodding with understanding, the older woman said in an encouraging voice. “Well, don’t worry about it, my dear, she’ll come around by the time you have the wedding. And you are going to have the ceremony here on the ranch, aren’t you? I won’t allow you to sneak off to some out-of-the-way place where I can’t see you in white and cry into my handkerchief.”

  Neil should have been squirming in his seat. After all, the last thing he’d ever expected to hear was his own wedding being planned. But since last night when Raine had implied to her mother that the two of them were more or less engaged, he’d grown to the idea of matrimony. There wasn’t anything scary about planning to marry a woman when he knew the whole thing was just an illusion. He could play along and enjoy having a reason to touch and hold his fiancée.

  Beside him, Raine stuttered, “I—I don’t know, Aunt Geraldine. We—uh—Neil and I haven’t gotten that far with things yet.”

  The other woman smiled gently as her gaze encompassed the couple sitting closely together on the couch. “I hope you’ll accept my offer, Neil. Even though I am prejudiced, the ranch is a pretty place and we serve some of the best food around. I promise I’ll see to it personally that your wedding is one to remember.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Saddler. You’re very generous,” Neil told her.

  She looked at him with keen interest. “Lex tells me you’re a financial advisor. Have you been doing that type of job long?”

  At least the advisor part was true enough, Neil thought. “About thirteen years.”

  The older woman nodded her head in an approving way. “Then you’re firmly established. That’s good. It makes me happy to know that Raine won’t have to struggle for things she needs. Back when Paul and I first married, the ranch was prosperous, but we went through some very rough patches over the years. Especially back in the seventies when the bottom fell out of the cattle market. We had to claw our way out of debt. But then—you deal in keeping finances straight— I don’t need to tell you anything about providing security for your wife.”

  With a fond smile, he reached over and patted the top of Raine’s hand. “I’ll see that Raine gets whatever she wants. Within reason.”

  As soon as Neil spoke the words, it struck him that he was actually telling Geraldine Saddler the truth. He wanted to give Raine what she wanted the very most—her father’s identity. He realized he’d made this whole trip and agreed to go along with her charade because he didn’t want to disappoint her. Simply put, he wanted to make the beautiful woman sitting next to him, happy. So what did that make him, a shadow of his father? he asked himself. No. He wasn’t about to fall into the hopeless existence his father, James, had fallen into. He wasn’t going to love a woman so incessantly that he would sacrifice everything to make her smile.

  “Geraldine, my needs are small,” Raine said. “You don’t have to worry about Neil providing for me.”

  Raine’s voice tugged his thoughts back to the moment and he glanced over to see pink color on her cheeks, but whether it was from annoyance or embarrassment, he didn’t know. He was beginning to see, however, that she wasn’t a spoiled young woman who’d been coddled as an only child. She wasn’t out to have her way at other’s expense, especially where her mother was concerned. In his opinion, she’d taken drastic lengths not to upset the woman. And that selflessness he saw in her only made him want to help her more.

  “I’m not in the least bit worried,” Geraldine said with a smile. “The only thing that does concern me is eventually losing you as our bookkeeper. The families have always trusted you implicitly and that’s something that will be very hard to replace.”

  Raine awkwardly cleared her throat and Neil could feel her body tense next to his.

  “I—wouldn’t be worried about that, Geraldine. It will be a while before Neil and I actually get married. And even then—well, I might be able to persuade him to live here on the ranch.” She looked at Neil and smiled with sweet suggestion. “Mightn’t I, darling?”

  Something about the plaintive shadows in her green eyes kicked him smack in the middle of his chest and before he could even think of a reasonable response, he leaned his head down to hers and kissed her softly on the lips. “Anywhere that will make you happy, sweetheart.”

  Chapter Nine

  Surprise flickered across Raine’s face, but Neil suspected she wasn’t feeling nearly as amazed by his reaction as he was. Not two minutes ago he’d been promising himself he wasn’t going to get carried away with this need he felt to help Raine. Now he was vowing, in front of this Sandbur matriarch, to bend over backward to make Raine a happy woman. Dear Lord, this role he was playing definitely had enough drama to warrant an Oscar. Either that, or he needed to head to a psychiatrist’s couch.

  He was still gazing into Raine’s wondrous expression when a movement through the doorway caught his attention and he looked up to see Esther entering the room carrying a tray of refreshments. After one dour glance at her daughter, the woman placed the tray on a low coffee table in front of the couch.

  “Here’re the things you asked for, Geraldine. I waited until Cook took the brownies out of the oven. They’re still hot so you might want to eat them now,” Esther suggested.

  “I’m so glad you brought the refreshments instead of Alida,” Geraldine said to Raine’s mother. “You can sit down and join us for a few minutes.”

  Straightening to her full height, Esther ignored Raine and Neil and headed toward the doorway with plans to exit the parlor. “I don’t have time for that. Since you’re planning a barbecue for tomorrow night, I need to round up Joaquin and put him to work firing up the cooker. All the mesquite wood has been used so he’ll probably have to go out and cut more. And—”

  “Esther! Forget about all that,” Geraldine interrupted sharply. “For Pete’s sake, this is your daughter. This is a momentous time in her life. You should be smiling and rejoicing with her. I was only telling Neil a few minutes ago, how happy I’d be if Nicolette or Mercedes were to come home and tell me they’d gotten engaged. Talk about parties, I’d raise the roof myself. Now come sit,” she ordered.

  Neil had already seen firsthand that Esther was stubborn, but apparently when it came to Mrs. Saddler, she understood she had to bend or suffer the consequences.

  Her face stoic, she walked over to the armchair next to Geraldine’s and sat stiffly on the edge. “Geraldine, your daughters are different from my Raine. They’ve been out and seen the world. Raine has been sheltered and—”

  “Whose fault was that?” Geraldine interrupted, then before Esther could answer, she rose from her chair and helped herself to a brownie and a cup of coffee.

  Her mouth a thin line, Esth
er said, “I only worry that she’s doing the right thing. And how could I know the answer to that when I don’t know Neil any more than I know the man who delivers groceries to the ranch.”

  Returning to her seat, the other woman delicately used her thumb and forefinger to lift a morsel of brownie to her lips. “You always worry, Esther. My God, if worry were a commodity, you’d be damned rich by now. And as for Neil, he’s sitting right across from you. It’s your own fault if you don’t get to know him.”

  Hurrah for Geraldine Saddler, Neil thought. At least this woman was on Raine’s side. But what would she think, Neil wondered, if she learned that Neil was really here to snoop into Esther’s background. Would she be empathetic to Raine’s cause? Would anyone else here on the ranch understand the desperation Raine felt to find her father?

  For the next few minutes, they ate the brownies and chatted about general things pertaining to the ranch and the weather and Neil’s work. With Raine’s mother present, the conversation grew stilted in spite of Neil’s efforts to keep things light on his end. It was a relief when the woman finally left the room and Raine announced to Geraldine that she was taking Neil to view her office.

  “Whew!” Raine said under her breath as they left the parlor. “I was afraid they were going to ask you about certain places in San Antonio and you’d be staring at them dumbfounded.”

  Neil chuckled. “I was probably looking dumbfounded anyway. By the way, do I have black marks all over me?”

  She cast him a puzzled glance. “No. Why?”

  He slipped his arm around the back of her waist as they moved along a wide hallway. “Because I feel as though I’ve just been grilled to medium-rare.”

  She giggled and Neil realized he loved the sound. It wasn’t one of those silly, shallow sounds, but a sound of pure amusement and he liked that. He wanted to hear her laugh and see her spirits lift.

  “No. You still look pretty raw to me, Mr. Rankin.”

  Neil wondered what she meant by “raw” but he didn’t question her as the two of them traveled the hallway for a few more feet, then took another corridor for several more before Raine opened a door on the right and motioned for him to follow her inside.