I Saw Mommy Kissing A Cowboy (Cowboy Christmas Romance)

by Charlene Bright

That evening Jyl had a hard time getting Gabe to go to sleep. He had so much to tell her about helping Grant out, especially about a little horse that he really, really, really loved. He told her that the horse’s name was “Noelle” and Grant told him that meant “Christmas.” Grant had also told him that she was only a year old so she couldn’t be ridden yet, but he promised Gabe that if it was okay with Jyl, he would teach the boy how to ride another one of his horses that was good for kids. He was talking a mile a minute and he could hardly stay still. When he finally wound down, he passed out hard.

  When Jyl made it back out to the living room she told Grant, “Wow, he was so excited. Was he like that all day?”

  “Pretty much,” Grant said with a laugh.

  “I’ll bet you’re exhausted.”

  “I do wish I had his energy. He didn’t stop all day—going or talking.”

  She laughed. She was beginning to love the look he got on his face when he talked about her son. They were talking with Sharla in the living room, and when he finished telling them about Gabe’s antics, Jyl said, “Sharla and I met a really interesting man at the diner today. I wanted to interview him for the blog, but I have to admit that I’m a little nervous to meet at his place. I could meet him at the diner, but that’s a little public.”

  “You want him to come here?”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Of course not. I want you to treat this like it’s your own home. Who is the guy?”

  “Tall, dark, and dreamy.” Sharla said. Jyl and Grant both laughed and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you asked what he looked like.”

  “Thanks for clarifying that,” he said, “I thought you were talking about me there for a minute.”

  “That’s what Jyl says about you,” she returned.

  Jyl was sitting on the sofa with Grant at the other end. Sharla was sitting across from them in the rocking chair. Jyl reached out with her foot and kicked her.

  “Ow! Okay,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “She doesn’t say that about you.”

  “You don’t say that about me?” he asked, sticking out his bottom lip. Jyl wanted to lick it and then kiss his warm lips; she was still thinking about that sizzling kiss in front of the fireplace the night before. He’d been as good as he promised today and she found herself wishing more and more that he wouldn’t be. She had to remind herself not to send mixed signals. Joking with him was okay though.

  “Of course I say that about you,” she said with an eye roll. “Now, back to my job—”

  “Do you say it often?” he asked. A little smirk had creeped into his lips. It was really, really hot. … Stop it, Jyl!

  “Oh she says it all the time,” Sharla piped in. Jyl kicked at her again, but Sharla moved her legs.

  “Really? All the time?”

  “Constantly,” Jyl said, chuckling. “Now, can we get back to my job?”

  “Does she get that dreamy look in her eyes when she says it?” He’d turned his attention back to Sharla.

  “The dreamiest,” Sharla said with a giggle.

  “Okay, that’s it.” Jyl tried to stand up and Grant laughed. Taking hold of her hand, he pulled her back down on the couch—closer to him than she’d been before.

  “We’re just kidding,” he said with a wink at Sharla. “I know that you find me repulsive and you’re not the least bit attracted to me.”

  “Good, I’m glad you know,” she said with a giggle. “Can I finish telling you about this guy?”

  “Please do,” he said, trying to be serious.

  “He’s a Native American guy—”

  “Big, muscular, beautiful—” Sharla said, with her mouth practically watering.

  “King?” he asked before they could go on.

  “Yes! You got that from Sharla’s description? Do you think he’s beautiful too?” Jyl teased.

  “Well he’s not as beautiful as me. …”

  Jyl laughed. “So I’m guessing you know him. What do you think? Will he be an interesting interview?”

  “Everything King does is interesting. He’s a colorful guy.”

  “Is he a married colorful guy?” Sharla asked.

  “Nope and last I heard he wasn’t even dating.”

  “On that note, I’m going to bed—that way I have something fresh in my mind to dream about.” She said good night to them and Jyl looked at the time.

  “You must be exhausted,” she said to Grant. “I didn’t realize how late we were keeping you up.”

  “It’s not that late. I have to go out and check on one of my horses anyways. You up for a walk?”

  “Sure, there’s nothing better than a twenty-two degree walk at ten o’clock at night.”

  He grinned and said, “Especially if you’re in good company.” Sometimes when he looked at her the way he was looking at her right now, her insides liquefied.

  She checked on Gabe and then poked her head in to tell Sharla she was going for a walk and ask her to listen for Gabe. Sharla looked like she had plenty to say, but she just said, “Don’t hurry back; we’ll be fine here.”

  Jyl shook her head and said, “Behave!”

  Sharla giggled and said, “You behave—or better yet, don’t.”

  Jyl walked away to the sound of her mischievous friend’s giggle.

  * * *

  Sometime during the day, Grant had cleared the path from the house to the barn and the driveway as well. He must have used a tractor to do it because it was a wide, clear path. Jyl was cold even with her outer garments, but it didn’t matter. Once he took hold of her hand and they were out alone together in the night, she felt an internal sort of warmth that radiated outward. Tiny little snow kisses drifted down on them, so delicate that if she held out her hand to catch one, it would cease to exist. The sky was pure black with just a few stars that looked like they were deeply embedded into it like diamonds planted into the walls of a cave.

  He led her around behind the big barn to another smaller building. She had wondered what it was and when Grant pulled the door open she could tell that it was a stable of sorts. There were only two horses in this building, a gray mare and a smaller tan horse.

  “She’s beautiful,” Jyl told him.

  “Yeah she is,” he said, patting the horse on the flank. “She’s my love. I stole her out of an old farmer’s pasture.”

  “You stole her?”

  “Kind of … I eventually got permission to keep her.”

  She went over and pet the smaller horse. “Is this the one that Gabe is so in love with? Noelle?”

  “Yeah. He really liked her. Sally here is her mom.”

  “So tell me the story,” she said. He was taking things out of a wooden box on the wall. He came back over and opened the door to Sally’s stall. She stepped out and that was when Jyl saw the bandage on her leg. “Oh! What happened to her?”

  He pulled a stool up next to the horse and started unwrapping her bandage. Jyl was fascinated by how still and calm the horse was.

  “Well, I was on my way back from Piper one afternoon and I saw this girl standing in an overgrown pasture. We hadn’t gotten any snow yet, but it had been raining all winter and it was pretty cold and miserable out. I don’t know what made me really look at her, but I could tell as soon as I did that there was something wrong.”

  She found another stool and pulled it up next to his to watch him.

  “I pulled over and walked up to the gate,” he continued. “That was when I saw Noelle. She was lying in the wet grass—she was the smallest foal I’d ever seen. I was sure she was premature.”

  “Oh no!” She didn’t even realize that she was worried about a horse that was now standing healthy behind her. “What did you do?”

  He smiled, obviously enjoying that she was so into the story.

  “Sally was licking her—”

  “How did you know her name?”

  With a straight face, he said, “I asked her.”

  It took Jyl about half a second before she pushed
into his side and called him a name.

  He cracked up and said, “I named her Sally later on.”

  “Oh, go on,” she said, embarrassed.

  “So Sally was licking her, but the foal wasn’t standing. I tried to get it to stand but it wouldn’t stand on its hooves. It was just too weak. I had a feeding bottle in the trailer because I already had one at home that I had to feed. I went and got it and mixed up some milk replacement I had in the truck with some water I carry in case the old beater breaks down. I had to pick up the baby and I squeezed more into her mouth than she drank on her own, but she got some. I didn’t want to leave her there so I took her and put her on a blanket in the back of the truck. Sally was getting really agitated but I had to get some glucose in the baby and I had to get the owner’s permission to call out the vet. So I drove on up to the house which was about a mile from where I found them. It turned out the owner was a really old guy. He had a young kid taking care of his horses and he had no idea that Sally was even carrying a foal.”

  Jyl looked down at the horse’s leg as he used a pair of tweezer-looking things to pull out a pink-tinged packing. “What happened to her leg?”

  He laughed. “You’re as impatient as your son. I’m getting to it.”

  “Sorry, go on.”

  “So I got the glucose from the old guy’s barn and got it into the foal and then I called the vet. The vet was at another ranch nearby and he got there within the hour. He did what he could there and then he took Noelle with him back to the vet hospital. The old guy and I talked for a while—I felt bad for him. He was feeling like it was his fault but, hell, he was ninety if he was a day—there was nothing he could have done. When I finally left, it was getting dark. I had to go by the pasture again and I thought it was strange that I didn’t see Sally. I was about two miles up the road when I saw her. She was in my rearview mirror. She was following me.”

  “She was not!”

  He laughed. “She was, too. I guess humans aren’t the only ones with a maternal instinct. She had torn up a piece of the barbed wire fence getting out and the hard part of it embedded in her leg.”

  “Oh my goodness. This is a year later. Is that from that same injury?”

  “Yeah. Stupid me, I took her back and the vet came out and dressed it the next day and told the boy who was taking care of the horses how to take care of the wound. About a week later, the old guy called me and told me the foal was back. I went out to see him and that’s when I noticed Sally had this horrible abscess on her leg. It was huge, like the size of a grapefruit. It had to be lanced and then a lot of the tissue around it had died so that had to be removed. When the old guy found out, he was livid. He fired his ‘help’ and then asked me if I wanted to take her. So, I did. The old guy passed away last summer, but until he did, he came out and saw them about once a week.”

  Jyl watched, fascinated as he re-packed the wound and wrapped a clean bandage on the horse’s leg. “So is it not healing?”

  “Oh yeah. This is mild compared to how it was. It ate into her bone.”

  “Oh that’s awful. The poor thing. She has such a sweet temperament for going through all of that.”

  Grant finished what he was doing and turned those blue eyes on her. Sometimes his looks froze her in place. She was captivated, and there was nothing she could do but look back into the deep blue oceans that swam there. With a completely straight face he said, “I recently met someone else a lot like Sally—only she’s a lot better looking.”

  “I’m not quite as sweet as she is,” Jyl said with a grin.

  He leaned in closer and let his lips hover above hers. She didn’t move. She wanted him to kiss her; she would deal with her emotional craziness later. Right now she knew if he didn’t go for it, she would. She saw his lips curl into a smile and then they disappeared as he crushed them down onto hers. He dropped whatever he was still holding and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her in close. For that second there was no guilt, no worries, no doubt—this was exactly where she wanted to be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When Jyl woke up on Friday morning, she was still basking in the warm glow of that kiss—three days later. They’d actually shared a few that night before Grant decided she was going to catch pneumonia and walked her back to the house. The warmth of it had carried her through that night and the memory of it had caused her to float through the next several days.

  Things had changed between them after that kiss in the barn. Or maybe it was before that. She wasn’t fighting it so hard. She still had guilt but she was coming to realize that she couldn’t let it dictate her life. She wanted to be with Grant worse than anything. They talked a lot during the day, but it was late at night after everyone else was asleep when they really opened up to each other. He told her more anecdotes about life on the farm and about being a deputy sheriff and what that was like. And she finally opened up to him a little bit about her fear that she would forget Josh. He didn’t try to push himself or his opinions on her; he just listened. And, every night before she went to bed, he would kiss her—and everything he was feeling was conveyed through the fire of the passion in that kiss.

  She was finally letting herself come around to the idea that Shar was right. Josh would want her to be happy. She was capable of loving one man—and the memory of the other. She wouldn’t ever let Gabriel forget his daddy, but she’d be doing him a disservice by pushing someone like Grant out of his life.

  She pulled her eyes the rest of the way open and sat up. She realized two things then: Gabe was gone, and she could hear a woman’s voice in the hallway that didn’t sound like Shar’s. She got out of bed and put on her robe. She started toward the door when she heard the woman say, “So, she’s in your room, in your bed, but you’re not sleeping with her? Right.” Who in the world was that?

  “I’m not, but who I am or am not sleeping with isn’t really your concern any longer, Ashley. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your voice down. As a matter of fact, you should go. I’ll find the necklace for you—”

  “No. I need it for a dinner I’m going to tonight. Go in there and get it. I’ll wait.”

  “I’m not really sure who you think you are, Ashley. You’re not going to march into my home and chase off my company—”

  “Yeah, so who is that one that took the boy into the kitchen? Are you running a boarding house now?”

  “Get out.”

  “No. Not without my necklace.”

  Jyl heard someone grab the door handle. She stepped up quickly and tried to lock it before it was pulled open and she was face to face with the blond from the photograph. It was the mayor. Damn. The woman raked her eyes over Jyl’s likely disheveled appearance and then with a smirk in Grant’s direction, she said, “This is taking slumming to new levels.” Jyl looked at him. It took everything in her to keep from slapping this …

  He must have seen it in her eyes. He grabbed the mayor by her arm and pulled her out of her reach. Then he took Ashley by her shoulders, and with his face right in front of hers and fire burning in his own eyes, he said, “Get out of my house or I will arrest you for trespassing. Leave the key on the table on your way out.”

  Ashley smiled, but it wasn’t pretty and it didn’t reach her eyes. “Right and then I’ll have your job. Don’t make threats you can’t back up.”

  “Being the mayor doesn’t give you the right to trespass.” He stomped over to the night stand and pulled a silver chain out of the drawer. He walked back over to her and shoved it into her outstretched hand. “Now get out!”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he held open the bedroom door and motioned for her to leave. She turned around swiftly and left the room with an exasperated sigh. He followed. Worried about Gabe, Jyl grabbed a robe and walked out of the room behind them.

  Once in the living room, Ashley walked over to a chair and turned back. She took one last look at Jyl before picking up a long white coat and tossing a key on the table by the door. Then she turned on he
r heel and marched out.

  When she was gone, Grant turned back to Jyl and said, “I’m so sorry about that. Damn it! I should have warned you about her before she came marching in here.”

  “She has a key to your house?”

  “Yeah … I mean she did. She doesn’t now. She hasn’t used it for a long time. Damn it!”

  “Where’s Gabe?”

  “He’s okay. Sharla got up right about the time he did and then Ashley waltzed in here and Shar took him to the kitchen right away. She’s been running the blender in there and all kinds of other stuff.”

  She walked around him toward the kitchen.

  “Jyl, it’s not what you think. I haven’t seen her in months other than the tree lighting and we didn’t speak there. Please don’t be upset.”

  She turned around before she got to the kitchen door and said, “I’m not upset, Grant. I don’t have any right to be upset. You and I aren’t … we’re not together. You can hand out as many keys to your house as you’d like to.”

  “It’s not like that. …”

  “Whatever it’s like, Grant … it’s fine. It’s your business. This is your house.” She turned and went into the kitchen then. She didn’t realize until she saw the look on Shar’s face that she was shaking all over. She put a hand out and held on to the back of a chair. She suddenly felt sick.

  “Hi, Mama! We’re making pancakes.”

  She didn’t think she’d be able to smile, but one look at her son’s face told her otherwise. He had pancake batter on his nose and something green in his hair. She smiled at him, and then her eyes met Sharla’s. “Thank you,” she mouthed to her friend. Sharla winked.

  “Okay, let’s get these puppies on the grill,” she told him. She glanced out the window then in time to see Grant headed for the barn. She suddenly felt angry again—but not at Grant. She’d meant what she told him; it was none of her business. She was angry with herself. She’d listened to him and Sharla and she’d let them convince her that he wasn’t going to hurt her. But, he obviously had a serious relationship with this mayor person and for some reason he’d not only not mentioned it, but when she asked him if he ever had a serious relationship that he lost, he had said he hadn’t. The woman had a key to his house. What does he call serious?