A South Texas Christmas

by Stella Bagwell

  “Yeah. Things like short skirts and long eyelashes,” she said dryly.

  Normally Neil would have laughed at Connie’s comment, but today he didn’t find it funny. He was tired of being labeled as a playboy, even if it was the truth.

  “There are other things that take up my time, Connie,” he said more sharply than he meant to. “Now tell me what’s been going on up there. Have any clients been in today?”

  There was a long pause and then she said, “Since when have you ever worried about that?”

  For a moment Neil wanted to throw the phone over to the squirrels and let them chomp the piece of plastic to bits. “Damn it, Connie, I’m not worried. Who said I was? I’m just curious. I shouldn’t have to point out that I’m not there and I’m not psychic.”

  “Well, all right, Mr. Grouchy,” she said in a halfway offended voice. “There’ve been three people in to see you already today. Mrs. Johnson was here to talk to you about her late father’s estate. The other two wanted you to read abstracts. Nothing exciting, like searching for a missing woman.”

  “Sounds like the place is burning up with business,” he quipped.

  “That’s the way it is. You leave the office and three-fourths of your customers show up wanting you to actually work.”

  He smiled in spite of his mood. “You’ve been my secretary too long, Connie. Your mouth is getting downright awful.”

  “That’s what my husband says, too. But he’s used to it,” she said with a laugh, then added, “Oh, by the way, I paid Luther ten dollars out of the miscellaneous fund to shovel the sidewalk clear.”

  Luther worked as a handyman for the hardware business next door to Neil’s office. “Are you talking about snow?” he asked.

  “What else? You took all the bull manure with you.”

  Ignoring her sarcasm, Neil said, “Well, it’s hard to think about snow when you’re sitting here sweating, Connie.”

  “Hot down there, huh?”

  In more ways than one, Neil thought. He was still steaming from those kisses he’d shared with Raine.

  “Believe me, Connie, you’d melt.”

  She laughed. “Tell me what else is going on down there. Have you met this woman without a past?”

  If he looked straight on, beyond the drooping arms of the oaks, he could see a portion of the horse lot. At the present, a couple of cowhands had roped a yearling and the little palomino was resisting the noose by rearing up on his hind legs and pawing the air. Neil understood just how the young horse was feeling. He didn’t want to be roped in by a woman or the feelings she invoked in him. He might be letting her lead him around with this fake fiancé thing, he told himself, but when this was all over, she could put her noose around some other man’s neck. He was heading back to New Mexico and peace of mind.

  “I have.”

  “And? Do I have to drag it out of you?”

  “And nothing. I’d say she has a faint resemblance to Darla, but if it is her, she’s changed drastically.”

  “That’s possible. I certainly don’t look like I did nearly twenty-five years ago. If I did, you’d be chasing me around the desk and I’d probably be letting you catch me,” she added with a chuckle.

  “Connie! You naughty girl.”

  She sighed wistfully. “I used to be. And speaking of used to be, if I remember correctly, Darla Ketchum was a beautiful, sexy woman. I can recall seeing her around Aztec on occasion and everywhere she went, she turned heads.”

  Mother always lectured me to not draw attention to myself. For some reason, Raine’s words about her childhood slipped into his thoughts and it dawned on him that Esther Crockett appeared to be the complete opposite of Linc’s mother. Darla Ketchum would have wanted her child to be the front and center of attention. She would have gloried in showing Raine off at social events, whereas Esther had done everything to keep attention away from Raine. Could the woman have done that on purpose? he wondered. Could she really be Darla and trying to hide herself and her daughter? Even after all these years?

  “Neil! Are you there? I asked about Raine, the young woman searching for her father. How are things going with her?”

  Neil swallowed as lingering desire stirred in the pit of his stomach. “She’s a lovely young woman, Connie. In spite of her mother, I might add. This Esther is strange and from what I can gather she raised Raine in a very restricted way. I’m surprised the young woman is as normal as she is. If I’d been in her shoes, I’d probably already be an alcoholic by now.”

  “That bad, huh? I’m so sorry to hear that. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could actually find her father,” Connie suggested. “It might bring some real joy to her life and it sounds like the young woman deserves it.”

  Raine did deserve some joy, Neil thought. She was too soft, too sweet to be hurt by the likes of him. But God, how he wanted her. And would it really hurt her if they did make love?

  “She does deserve to be happy. That’s why I’m staying here on the ranch. With her mother, actually.”

  There was such a long pause on the other end of the line that Neil was beginning to wonder if his secretary had fainted. “Connie? Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, I heard. But I don’t believe. I thought this whole investigation was going to have to be done in clandestine fashion so that Esther wouldn’t catch on to what you were doing? Now you’re telling me you’re staying in the woman’s house! What am I going to hear next?”

  A catlike smile crossed his face. “That I’m engaged.”

  “What!”

  “Engaged. Everyone here believes that Raine and I are getting married…to each other. In fact, they’re giving us a party here on the ranch tomorrow night.”

  “Holy cow! And you’re going along with this…charade?”

  “I had to. Otherwise my being here on the ranch couldn’t be explained.”

  “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. For you to even agree to a fake engagement is enough to make your own dear father turn over in his grave. I’m not believing what I’m hearing. This Raine Crockett must be a mighty persuasive young woman. Uh, by the way, what does she look like?”

  The little palomino had decided to give up the fight and follow one of the cowboys around the dusty lot. The young horse looked almost happy to have someone leading him and stroking him gently on the head. Neil wondered if he’d ultimately be that happy if he ever gave in and allowed a woman to lasso his neck. He surely doubted it.

  “That’s not important, Connie. And I want to make sure that you don’t speak to Nevada or Linc about any of this—not yet. I haven’t really had a chance to start nosing yet and right now I don’t want to make any sort of assumptions that might get the hopes up of the Ketchum’s and then have them fall flat. Understand?”

  “Of course, Neil. My lips will be zipped. I’m just a bit disappointed that you sound so negative, though. Ever since Raine first called the office, I had a feeling that there was a real connection here to Darla Carlton. Guess my intuition was off this time.”

  “Don’t say that yet, Connie. Just because Esther doesn’t seem like the Darla we remember doesn’t mean we’re on the wrong track. In fact, I’ve been having these odd déjà vu feelings all morning. And don’t start laughing, but the family members that own this ranch remind me of the Ketchums.”

  “You mean they physically look like the Ketchums?”

  “A whole lot like them.”

  “How odd. What could it mean, Neil?”

  Rising from the iron bench, he wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his arm and glanced toward the Saddler house. “It might not mean anything, Connie. But I’m getting a germ of an idea. I’ll call you back later—when or if I find anything.”

  He said goodbye to his secretary then put the small cell phone back into his shirt pocket before he made his way over to a back entrance of the house.

  After a quick knock on the door, he stepped inside and found himself in a long room that appeared to be the kitchen.

  A tall, thin woman with iron-
gray hair coiled into a bun atop her head was sitting at a large wooden table snapping fresh green beans into an aluminum bowl cradled in her lap.

  As Neil entered the room, she looked up in question. “Hello, young man, what can I do for you?”

  Her eyes were so brown they were nearly black and her long fingernails were painted a bright red. Judging from the deep wrinkles on her face, she’d been on this earth many years, yet she appeared to be as spry as someone twenty years her junior.

  “I’m Neil Rankin,” he introduced himself. “I’m Raine’s fiancé. I was just looking around the ranch and thought I might come in and beg a drink of ice water from you.”

  Actually he’d not known he was stepping into the kitchen, but the ice water had been on his mind.

  “Nice to meet you Neil Rankin. Everybody calls me Cook. My real name is Hattie, but I’ve been the cook for so long that that’s what I answer to.” She motioned toward the refrigerator several feet away. “Help yourself to the water. There’s glasses in the cabinet to the right of the refrigerator.”

  Neil fetched the drink and after swigging half of it down, he refilled the glass, then carried it over to the table where the old woman continued snapping beans.

  “Mind if I join you, Cook?”

  The old woman gestured to a chair across from her. “Glad for the company.” She rested her hands on the edge of the bowl and surveyed him with her dark eyes. “Esther told me about you this mornin’, but she didn’t tell me you were so good lookin’. ’Course, Esther likes to pretend she doesn’t notice such things anymore, but I know better.” She winked and grinned. “No wonder Raine finally let loose and latched on to a man.”

  Down through the years Neil had heard all kinds of lines from all sorts of women, but he’d never had a woman exactly like Cook to come on to him.

  “Raine actually loves me for my brain,” Neil said with a grin.

  The old woman cackled loudly. “Yeah. I’d bet on that.”

  Neil drank a bit more of the water, then glanced around the long, rectangular room. The kitchen had an old feel about it and looking at the huge gas range located in a center island of the room, he expected the appliance had been put there before he’d even been born. Yet he figured that Cook was perfectly comfortable with the condition of her workplace and preferred it this way.

  “Have you worked here on the Sandbur for a long time, Cook?”

  “Thirty years.” She picked up another handful of beans and began to snap.

  “So you were here when Esther and Raine first came,” he deduced.

  Cook nodded. “Yep. Raine was just a baby then. Not even walking yet. And Esther was—” She paused and scowled thoughtfully. “What is that term you young people use nowadays? Stressed. Yes, Esther was stressed out. I’d just call it plain old frazzled.” She leveled a look on Neil. “Guess Raine’s told you about Esther not being able to remember?”

  Neil nodded while thinking he might have walked into a gold mine of information without even trying.

  “Yes. That’s a matter that has troubled Raine for a long time. She really wants to know where her father might be, or if she has other family elsewhere. But Esther isn’t too keen on Raine making a search for her past.”

  Cook snorted in unladylike fashion. “That’s ’cause she’s always tried to act holier-than-thou and she don’t want her daughter findin’ out she hadn’t always been perfect.”

  “Hmm. So you know that Esther had a wilder side?”

  Chuckling, the old woman tossed down the pieces of beans and looked at him. “Not proven facts, but it was pretty obvious to me when she came here that she wasn’t as innocent as a newborn lamb. Why else would someone have beaten her near to death? No, she was up to no good before she came here to the Sandbur. That’s why she wants everyone to forget those days. Especially her daughter.”

  Neil casually drummed his fingers against the tabletop even though his mind was spinning with unasked questions. “How did you know about the circumstances of her accident? Did Esther tell you about it?”

  “Lord no! Miss Geraldine and Miss Elizabeth, before she died, God Bless her soul, looked into the police reports and tried to launch an investigation of their own into the matter. But they never got anywhere with it. Esther was against it all, you see. Still is, just like you said.” Shrugging her shoulder, the old woman smiled with approval.

  “But now Raine has you and all that stuff don’t matter. You two can make a family of your own and Esther will just have to deal with her own demons.”

  Deal with her own demons. Neil wished he knew what those demons actually were. If he did, he might just get to the bottom of Esther Crockett’s past. But he couldn’t question the woman herself. She was like a clam at the bottom of the sea.

  “Raine loves her mother very much,” Neil commented carefully.

  “Raine couldn’t do anything else but love her mother. That’s the kind of young woman she is. Loves everybody. She’d shoo a rattlesnake from the yard rather than chop its head off with a hoe. She’s been a bright spot here on the ranch for all of us. I hate to think of you takin’ her away, but I want her to be happy. And from the looks of you, I don’t doubt you can make her that way.”

  Could he? Neil wondered. If he did actually become Raine’s husband, could he give her all the things she would need to make her happy? If giving a woman pleasure was meant to be a man’s sole purpose in life, then God only knew how his father, James, had bent over backward trying to fulfill that goal. But he’d not managed to keep Claudia pacified, much less satisfied. Neil would be crazy to think he could do any better at being a husband than his father had been.

  “Tell me, Cook, do you like Esther?”

  Neil could tell from the puzzled frown on Cook’s wrinkled face that she found his question strange. He supposed it was in a way, but so far he’d not met anyone who’d had anything good to say about the woman.

  “Well, I guess I never thought about it really. The woman is a hard worker. She’s always here early in the morning to help me in the kitchen, then she goes on to her other chores around the place. We’ve always got along, but Esther isn’t a body you can cozy up to, you know. She keeps her feelin’s to herself. I suppose I like her well enough.” She grinned at Neil as she reached for another handful of beans. “Guess you’re worried about what sort of mother-in-law you’re goin’ to be gettin’, but I wouldn’t fret about that, Mr. Rankin. Raine will be worth it.”

  Cook’s words had Neil’s thoughts returning to Raine’s office and how passionately she’d kissed him and clung to him. The red-hot memory was almost enough to believe she would be worth loving for a lifetime.

  Later that afternoon, across the ranch in Esther’s house, Raine was sitting in the living room, pretending to watch a news channel on television when her mother walked in.

  The moment Esther spotted Raine without Neil by her side, the woman’s brows arched with surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly. “Where’s Neil? Or has he already decided to leave?”

  Even though Raine realized Neil would actually be leaving in a few days, the idea that her mother believed she couldn’t hold on to a man, even for a couple of days, was degrading and hurtful.

  “No. Neil is still here. All men don’t run out on their wives or fiancées, Mother. He’s looking around the ranch, visiting with some of the hands.” She supposed, Raine thought glumly. After she’d left him in her office, she didn’t know what he’d done. Other than gone off somewhere and had a good laugh about her good-girl attitude.

  The other woman tossed a key ring onto a small table by the door, then crossed the room to take a seat on the opposite end of the couch from her daughter.

  “Well, I’m actually glad that Neil isn’t here right now. Since we haven’t had a chance to talk about any of this yet and—”

  Raine quickly held up her hand. “There’s nothing to be said that hasn’t already been said, Mother. I don’t want any lectures right now. I
don’t need any lectures, either.”

  A pained expression crossed Esther’s face and Raine couldn’t help but feel guilty. She hated being deceitful with her mother, but the woman had pushed her to these lengths. Esther had never understood Raine’s deep desire to find her father. She’d always insisted their lives were fine with just the two of them.

  And maybe it was fine, Raine thought dismally. But having her father would make it so much better. And what if Esther had children before her accident? Didn’t she want to know about them? They would be Raine’s brothers or sisters.

  No, Raine told herself, she couldn’t let a pang of guilt stop her from finding the past. Because without the past, she couldn’t see herself stepping into the sort of future she wanted so desperately.

  Sighing, Esther wiped a hand across her forehead. “I guess all these years I’ve struggled to raise you means nothing to you. You’re in love and you’ve forgotten all about your mother.”

  Raine rolled her eyes. “Really, Mother, you might as well play some violin music in the background.”

  Esther sat like a rigid pole on the edge of the cushion. “See! It’s not like you to talk to me this way. Is that what this man—this Neil has done to you?”

  Yes, Raine wanted to say. He’d given her a backbone and the strength to finally reach for the things she wanted instead of just living her life to appease her mother’s whims.

  “Please, Mother, let’s not argue. Why can’t you just be happy for me? You heard Geraldine. If it were Nicolette or Mercedes getting married, she’d be thrilled. Why can’t you be thrilled, or at the very least, be pleasant about the whole thing?”

  Her lips compressed to a thin line, Esther looked away from her daughter. “Because it worries me. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

  “Like you were?”

  Esther’s head whipped back around and she stared at Raine with narrowed eyes. “What kind of question is that? Why would you ask me such a thing?” she demanded.