Cowboys Under The Mistletoe: Five Christmas Christian Romance Novellas

by Kristen Ethridge

  “I think I’ll head back to the cabin instead. I don’t want Mallory to be alone when she wakes up.”

  The silence worried him. “Ernie? Are you there?”

  “Yes. You’re not developing feelings for Mallory, are you?”

  “Would that be so bad? I thought you harbored a secret hope that we’d end up together.”

  “I did. But after everything tonight, I’m worried about you. It’s tempting to want to save her, but don’t mistake that for love. She’s got a lot of healing to do before she’s ready for that.”

  Nolan considered her words. In truth, he wasn’t sure what he felt for Mallory. He’d been wrong in his initial impression of her, but he still wasn’t certain he’d seen the real woman. This fragile creature he’d left behind at the house wasn’t her either.

  As he drove up to the haystack, he could see the cows already lined up at the fence. He was late for their feeding. Mallory was the least of his worries.

  Nolan got out of the truck and went through the paces of feeding the cows. Sometimes that’s why he liked cows better than people. They were simple creatures, easy enough to get along with, and they didn’t leave a man constantly questioning the right thing to do. The scent of dried hay filled his nostrils, comforting him. When nothing else made sense, this did.

  Though he would never understand Mallory’s love for math, in a way, he did understand. He had his own safe place to comfort in times of need.

  As if to confirm his thoughts, Bessie, one of his best breeding cows, mooed at him. He reached over and scratched her neck, knowing that while most cows weren’t eager for a good pet, Bessie was different. They’d been through a lot together, Bessie and him, especially last year when she’d had difficulty calving.

  A nearby whimper caught his attention. Two eyes peered at him from under the water trough. The wind had picked up, and the scent of snow was in the air. It wasn’t snowing yet, but by morning, the entire place would be covered under a thick white blanket. If an animal was hurt, it wouldn’t last the night.

  He went back to his truck for a flashlight. Hopefully this wasn’t a fool’s errand, saving a predator, or some other kind of nuisance creature. Just in case, he also grabbed his shotgun.

  When he returned to the water trough, the creature was still whimpering. Now that he’d come closer, the faint mewling sounds sounded an awful lot like a cat. Hopefully the domestic kind. But how had it gotten so far out?

  As he shone the light on the spot, he was relieved to find that it was indeed someone’s cat. When he reached under, he was grateful for the thick leather gloves he always wore when he worked. The cat hissed and lashed out at him. Tempting to leave the creature, but with the weather blowing in, and the fact that it had sounded injured earlier, he couldn’t abandon it. Cats weren’t his favorite, but they were useful in the barn.

  He reached in his pocket for the beef jerky he always carried just in case. Nolan bent down near the opening and held the meat out. It wasn’t much for a cat to eat, probably way too hard. But at least the smell of it would get the animal thinking about food and safety. Within minutes, Nolan had gotten it out, only in doing so, he realized a much bigger problem. It wasn’t just a cat, but a mama and some babies.

  Fortunately, he had an old crate in the back of his truck, which he lined with the blanket he always kept in the cab. He put mama and one of the babies inside, hoping that Mama would stay with the one baby while he got the rest. There were five kittens in all, and from the looks of things, very near newborn. Their eyes hadn’t even opened yet. Nolan got them settled in his truck and brought them back to his house.

  When he got there, Mallory was sitting on the couch with her Sudoku book. She didn’t look up at him as he entered, but he smiled to himself as he realized that she was probably so deep in her work that she hadn’t yet noticed his return. Nolan adjusted the box with the cats, looking for a good place to put them.

  “Hi Mallory,” he said softly, hoping he’d given her enough time to adjust to his presence. In a lot of ways, she was like the injured animals he often cared for. Easily spooked, they needed a soft word and a gentle hand to feel safe.

  She looked up at him, the childlike confused expression gone from her face. “What do you have there?”

  “I found a cat and her kittens. They wouldn’t have survived out there, not with the storm coming, so I brought them here, where they will be safe and warm.”

  “Is there a storm coming?”

  Nolan nodded. “I can smell it in the air. They weren’t predicting a lot of snow, but I think they were wrong. It’s going to be a big one, and I can only hope that it clears in time for Donna’s big celebration.”

  Mallory rubbed her arms. “I don’t like snow. I hate being cold.”

  Now that she mentioned it, the air had grown a little chilly. “I’ll make a fire. We keep the heat low because we’re not here most of the day, and when we are, we use the fireplace.”

  He glanced over at the cat and her kittens. While the mama had the babies all neatly arranged under her for warmth, one kitten was laying apart from the others. Nolan reached into the box. The cat hissed at him, but let him touch the kitten. It was cold, shaking, and clearly the mother had given up on trying to save her baby. Not when she had four others to care for.

  Nolan picked up the tiny animal and held it against him. They’d saved a kitten they’d found in the barn a few years back by keeping it close to them for warmth. He’d worn that baby inside his shirt for a while to transfer body heat.

  But he also had a fire to make.

  He glanced over at Mallory, who was watching him. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  Handing her the kitten, Nolan explained how it needed to be kept warm as he suspected it was in the early stages of hypothermia. She grabbed a nearby blanket and wrapped it around herself, then made some adjustments with the kitten underneath.

  “I’m putting her against my skin. Do you think she’ll have enough oxygen?”

  Nolan nodded. “Plenty. We just need to get the cat warm.”

  He returned his attention to building the fire. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her doing something with the bundle under the blanket. Hopefully the kitten would be all right. He wasn’t sure how she would handle things if it died.

  Please God, let this kitten live. Don’t give Mallory any more pain to carry.

  Once he was reasonably sure the fire was going, Nolan stood and brushed off his pants. “I don’t know if the mother will continue to feed the baby, so I’m going to call and see if I can catch Ernie before she leaves the big house. She can stop by the barn, and pick up some kitten formula I have there for times like this.”

  Mallory looked up at him. “Does this happen a lot?”

  “Enough that I like to have supplies on hand. I can’t bear to see an animal suffer.”

  She gave him a smile that warmed his heart. If only such things were good for saving kittens. “Me either. I’ve always loved animals, but could never have one. Growing up, it wasn’t allowed. But now, with my job, it always seemed unfair to have a pet when I worked such long hours.”

  “You’ll find plenty of animals here. Maybe tomorrow, if the weather’s not too bad, I’ll take you around the barn.”

  Once again, the smile she gave him did something funny to his insides. Mallory was a remarkable woman, and the more time he spent with her, the more he found he liked her. Ernie had been right to caution him against getting too far involved. The woman before him was so fragile, too fragile, and didn’t know her heart well enough to be able to give it away.

  Nolan walked into the kitchen for some privacy while he called Ernie. He saw the hole in the wall he’d made shortly after coming here to live. In the beginning, Bert didn’t want to fix it, saying he wanted Nolan to have a reminder of what happened when he lost his temper. But later, Ernie told him they were keeping that hole forever, as a sign that nothing Nolan did would ever
make them love him less.

  Did Mallory know that kind of love?

  He suspected not, but he also knew like the injured boy he’d been and the injured animals he cared for, healing took time. And it would take time for Mallory to learn how to accept unconditional love.

  Was what he felt for Mallory the same kind of love he had for the animals, or was it going to something more? Nolan couldn’t give an honest answer, not when she had so far to come. Only time would tell.

  *

  The soft kitten against her skin might have been cold, but it warmed something in Mallory’s heart. She’d been ridiculous earlier, falling apart like that in front of Nolan. At least she hadn’t cried. What she told him, she’d never told anyone else about her parents – not even John. Why had she just blurted it like that?

  Obviously, she was under way too much stress. She’d thought she had a handle on everything. But clearly, losing her job, her boyfriend, and meeting a long-lost relative who continually brought up things from the past that should remain buried, was too much for her.

  She should leave.

  But as she caught a glimpse of Nolan getting the mother cat and her babies settled near the fire, she wasn’t sure she could bear to. His kindness to her had hit her with a surprising level of force. True, he’d said unkind things about her to Donna. But he seemed to be doing everything he could to make up for it.

  As if he knew she was thinking about him, he looked in her direction. “How’s the kitten doing?”

  The kitten had warmed slightly, and Mallory thought she could feel its heartbeat against her skin. But she didn’t know anything about animals, certainly not sick ones.

  “It’s still cold, but better. Should we call the vet?”

  Nolan shook his head. “The vet can’t do any more than we are right now.”

  He got up and came over to her, the couch springs squeaking as he sat beside her. His body next to hers felt oddly comforting. Surely the kitten wasn’t warm enough by now, having Nolan so close would do the trick.

  “Can I see it?”

  Mallory lifted the blanket, and then the bottom of her shirt to get the kitten out. Though she barely showed any of her skin, and people these days wore far more revealing outfits in public, something about it made her feel even more exposed to this man. One of the women at the office who’d tried befriending her had commented about how hard it was to get Mallory to open up. And yet here she was, with a man she barely knew, and she felt like everything she normally kept private had been ripped open.

  Nolan took the kitten from her and cradled it in his hands. “Better, but still very weak. I hope Ernie hurries and gets here with the formula. I think food will help. Do you mind holding it a little bit longer?”

  “Not at all. I told you I love animals. I don’t know how things will work once I get back to my normal life, but maybe I should get a pet.”

  She knew she sounded hesitant, but now that the words were out, she sensed that getting a pet was exactly what she would do when she got home. For the first time since losing her job, she had made a decision. And that decision felt good.

  Nolan handed her back the kitten, and once again, she cradled it against her skin, just under her shirt. Then she wrapped the blanket back around her. It was no longer cold in the room, thanks to the fire Nolan had lit, but the softness of the blanket comforted her deeply. She didn’t have any fuzzy blankets at home, and that was another thing she would rectify upon returning.

  Though math had always given her comfort, being here was showing Mallory that perhaps math wasn’t enough.

  “That’s a good idea,” Nolan said slowly. “I’ve never had a pet until coming here either, and,” he hesitated, like he was about to reveal something deeply personal to him and he was afraid. Part of her wanted to tell him it was all right, that she had shared personal things with him that she wouldn’t dare, had never dared, reveal to anyone else.

  But putting herself out there as a confidante seemed almost too intimate.

  Nolan shifted his weight, making the couch springs creak again. “I know things are hard for you, and even though I don’t fully know what you’ve been through, and I can only relate pieces of it, I will tell you that the biggest healing I found was working with animals. Animals don’t judge you, they don’t tell you if you’re right or wrong.”

  Then he gave a soft chuckle. “Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. If you touch them wrong, or don’t take care of them properly, they’ll let you know. But overall, I’ve learned that when I’m not sure who to trust, and I’m not sure I can talk about it, the animals are always there for me.”

  His vulnerability touched something deep in her heart. He might not have been through the same things she had, but he knew. He knew the pain of having witnessed unspeakable things, the shame of having it follow you wherever you went, and the inability to give it a voice.

  Mallory had tried seeing a therapist for her issues. But the first woman wanted to talk, and when there are no words, speech is impossible. Another therapist had given her medication, but that had only made her brain foggy, making it impossible to do simple tasks, let alone math.

  The kitten snuggled deeper against her skin. She did feel safer with this tiny animal.

  “Do you think I could keep this one?” She knew she sounded tentative, her voice was barely above a whisper. But what if he said no?

  Nolan nodded slowly, and there were tears in his eyes. Or maybe that was just her seeing through the tears she was trying to hold back.

  “You know there’s a chance she won’t make it, right?”

  She hadn’t considered that possibility. But as she examined Nolan’s face, she realized it was a probability.

  Please don’t die. She wanted to pray, like Ernie. But she didn’t know who she was praying to, or how to do it right.

  “Do you pray?” She asked, wondering if it was another stupid question.

  Nolan nodded slowly. “Bert and Ernie taught me. But you need to know that prayer isn’t a magic pill for getting what we want. Prayer is about becoming closer to God and knowing that even if the outcome isn’t what we want, God loves us deeply, and He wants the best for us.”

  His words gave her no comfort. But they were honest, and she appreciated that. “Then why do you pray?”

  “Because life makes more sense to me knowing there’s a God who loves me than being alone in this world.”

  She cuddled the kitten closer to her. “Do you think God loves me?”

  As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. What was wrong with her, exposing herself like this?

  “God loves you very much.” Nolan looked like he wanted to say something else, but then the door opened, and Ernie came in.

  “I’ve brought the supplies you asked for,” she said. “Is the kitten still alive?”

  That’s what this was about. Not dealing with bizarre emotions that she didn’t understand. “Yes,” she said. “But Nolan says she needs to eat.”

  “Then come with me,” Ernie said, walking into the kitchen.

  She unwrapped herself from the blanket, missing its warmth as soon as she did. But the kitten was more important.

  In the kitchen, Ernie was preparing a mixture of powder and water, then putting it into something that looked like a little dropper. “Give me the kitten,” she said.

  She handed her the tiny animal, and Ernie demonstrated how to feed it. The process was simple, and she was grateful that she quickly got the hang of it and Ernie gave over the task of caring for the kitten. Ernie explained that the baby would need to eat every couple of hours, especially over the first few days. But Mallory was fine with that.

  Anything to save this precious kitten. Until now, she hadn’t been sure of her purpose anymore. But perhaps, this kitten was exactly what she needed.

  Chapter Five

  Ernie had followed Nolan out to gather more firewood. The snow was falling fast now, and his instinct that they were in for a big storm was proving corr
ect. But that wasn’t Ernie’s concern. She never went out with him to gather wood.

  Fortunately, she was never one to beat around the bush. “You seemed rather cozy with Mallory in there,” she said. “I thought we agreed you were giving her space.”

  He let out a long sigh. “I’m trying. But I remember when I first came here, and Mallory reminds me so much of myself. She needs to know that she’s safe.”

  “Is she safe? What happens when she thinks she’s in love with you because of all you’ve done for her, and you don’t love her like that?”

  He didn’t have the answer, and Ernie probably knew it. “She has the kitten. And I told her…”

  Things about himself that even Ernie didn’t know. Things he’d never told anyone. But something about telling Mallory felt right. Maybe because she was the only person who could possibly understand. But he couldn’t tell Ernie that. Something deeply intimate had passed between Mallory and him, but he wasn’t ready to define what it was, and that would make Ernie even more concerned.

  “I told her the kitten was something she could love and care for in a time when she wasn’t sure who she could trust,” he finally said, hoping it would ease Ernie’s concerns.

  “And what if the kitten dies? It doesn’t look very strong. It’s going to take constant care to survive the night, and even then I don’t know if it’s going to be enough.”

  He nodded. “I told her that. She asked me about prayer.”

  Peace settled over him as he realized that this may be the answer to sorting out the situation with Mallory. Because the situation wasn’t about him or their feelings. There was something deeper happening in Mallory’s heart. And that was something Ernie was specifically equipped to help with.

  He looked at Ernie expectantly. “Mallory doesn’t know God. She doesn’t understand what prayer means. She doesn’t know how to find comfort in the Lord. You came in just as I was explaining what I knew, but everything I know, you taught me.”

  He’d initially been suspicious of Mallory and her intentions in coming here. Though he couldn’t be sure of her motivations even now, it was becoming clear to him that she was here for a reason. And that reason likely had everything to do with God.