Cowboys Under The Mistletoe: Five Christmas Christian Romance Novellas

by Kristen Ethridge

  How many times had Mallory wondered that herself? That if she could only be more of what her father wanted, things at home would have been better. She’d failed, and for years, she’d believed that her failure had led to her mother’s death.

  But what if Nolan was right?

  “So what happens now?” She asked, watching the snow continue to fall. The longer she delayed his going out, the more unsafe it would be. What if she caused him to be in an accident by not letting him go out until it was too late?

  Nolan gave her smile that warmed her all the way to her rapidly chilling toes. “I’m going to go get Meredith, and then I’ll be here. It should take less than an hour, but if I’m delayed for any reason, I promise I will call you.” Though his words were meant to reassure the instant warmth she’d felt at his smile had quickly turned to a chill deeper than anything that could be explained by the snow.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I promise,” he said. “I’ll be safe. I do stuff like this all the time.”

  Nolan reached out and gave her a quick squeeze. This time, she didn’t find the gesture reassuring. She’d only just begun to get used to enjoying the physical contact, and now, something inside her was deeply afraid.

  “Do you have a safety check or something that you do?” She searched his face, and didn’t like how unconcerned he appeared to be.

  “Would it make you feel better if I did?”

  She nodded. “It would make me feel better if you stayed home, but you don’t seem to be willing to do that.”

  “If I stay home, there is no one else to help Meredith. If it weren’t for that, we would be back inside, drinking more tea. I know you have a bad feeling about this, and I trust you. Which is why I promise I will do everything I know to be safe.”

  He looked inside his truck. After a few moments, he turned back to her. “Maybe your warning is a good idea in that it reminded me to check for essentials. I used the blanket that I usually keep in my truck for the kitten. I need to run in and get another one, because blankets come in handy for all sorts of things. And, I think I left my phone charger on the counter. I drank the last of the water I keep in here, but even so, it would be frozen by now. I should also have some snacks, just in case.”

  She stared at him. “I thought you said you’d only be gone an hour. This sounds more like you plan on being gone for days.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “But I don’t know what kind of condition Meredith will be in. If she’s cold, hungry, or thirsty, I want to be prepared.”

  They started back to the house, and he paused at the back of his truck, peering into it. “I should also grab my chains from the garage.”

  Mallory could tell that he was over explaining to make her feel more confident about the situation. But the more he talked, the more she thought about everything that could go wrong, and the more her stomach churned.

  They went back inside, and as he gathered his things, Ernie came out of her bedroom, wrapping a robe around her. “What’s all the commotion?”

  “Meredith decided to try to come home tonight, to beat the snow. But now she’s stuck in a ditch just off the main road. I’m going to pull her out,” Nolan said.

  Ernie smiled. “That will be a load off Donna’s mind. You know how she frets.”

  Nolan put his arm around Mallory. “Someone else is fretting too. Mallory is nervous about my going out there in this weather. I tried explaining to her that I do this sort of thing all the time, and that if I don’t do it, Meredith is stuck out there all alone.”

  He gave her a squeeze, but Mallory wished she didn’t feel so ridiculous over the whole thing. Ernie looked sympathetic. “I can understand that. It always makes me nervous when he goes out in the storm. But just like you and I need to eat, rain or shine, so do the animals. Nolan has learned how to stay safe in the elements. Still, I can’t help worrying. Why don’t we wait together?”

  Before Mallory could answer, Nolan squeezed her again and kissed her on top of her head. “I’ll only be gone an hour,” he said.

  Then he turned and headed for the door. She didn’t feel any better about his leaving, but she let him go.

  “It seems you and Nolan have taken a shine to one another,” Ernie said.

  She looked over at the older woman. “Nothing’s been decided. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Ernie went over to the large chair she occupied previously and sat down. “Sit. Cuddle that kitten of yours, and relax. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  That didn’t answer her question, but perhaps it was better she didn’t know. She did as Ernie told her, happy that the kitten had stayed warm in its blanket without her being there. Nolan had said earlier that he wanted her to leave the kitten from time to time to see if it could stay warm on its own, because then they would know it was finally able to regulate its own body temperature. She felt guilty that she hadn’t given it a thought until now, but how much more so would she feel if something happened to Nolan and she hadn’t warned him? Even so, if something did happen to him, she was going to be devastated.

  This was why she didn’t want to let anyone in. Why coming here had been a terrible mistake. As if to confirm all of her bad thoughts, the wind howled again, and something banged outside.

  “Don’t mind the noise,” Ernie said. “That’s just the screen door. It never latches right, and I forget about it until the wind picks up. One of these days I’ll remember when Nolan is around to fix it.”

  “He’s very handy, isn’t he? He seems to know a lot of things. I admire that.”

  Ernie nodded. “He’s done a good job of making his way in this world. No matter what life brings him, I know he will succeed.”

  He might not have been her son, but the pride in Ernie’s voice told Mallory it didn’t matter. There was something in that praise that made Nolan rise in Mallory’s estimation of him. But she didn’t say so. Her earlier comments about Nolan had gone unanswered, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear if Ernie saw whatever was happening between them as a negative.

  Mallory looked down at the kitten, wondering again what she should name her. She’d never gotten to name anything before, and suddenly, it seemed like an incredible responsibility.

  “Nolan doesn’t date much,” Ernie said. “Too many girls want things from him that he can’t give. He’s a cowboy, plain and simple. It isn’t fair to ask him to be anything else.”

  What did that even mean? She turned her gaze to Ernie. “Why would you date someone wanting them to be different? It seems to me that you date a person because you like who they are.”

  Her words didn’t seem like great wisdom, except that as soon as they came out of her mouth, she understood why things hadn’t worked out with John, and why she wasn’t terribly upset that things had ended. Yes, he’d done a terrible thing to her. But losing her job had been more of a blow than losing her boyfriend. She and John had never connected the way she did with Nolan. And looking back, she couldn’t honestly say what she’d liked about John.

  But Nolan? There was much to like about him.

  “And you think you know Nolan well enough to accept what he has to give?”

  Mallory took a deep breath. She hadn’t known him long, but they’d both shared things with one another that they’d never shared with anyone else. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

  “Not at all,” she finally said. “That’s one of the things we talked about. He says I have a lot of healing to do before I’m ready for a relationship. So we’re taking it slow. We have a connection, and I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. But I know I have a lot of things I need to sort out.”

  The expectant way Ernie looked at her made Mallory’s stomach churn even more than it had at the thought of Nolan going out in the storm. Ernie loved him, and she needed to know that her boy would be safe. It had been so long since anyone had looked out for Mallory in that way. Just her mother. And her mother was gone.

  But that’s
what this was about. Finally healing from the pain she’d shoved aside and buried.

  “I’ve given you a lot of excuses over the years about why I couldn’t come here for the holidays, or even a visit. The truth is, I didn’t want to be reminded of my mother. I’ve made myself forget a lot, but now...”

  Mallory looked over at the corner, where a rocking chair sat. A memory came back to her. Sitting there, on her mother’s lap, playing with the necklace her mother always wore. And if Mallory went into the guest bedroom, she would probably recognize many of the books on the shelf. Every night, she would lay in bed with her mother, and her mother would read to her. They had been happy here, the happiest Mallory ever remembered being. She closed her eyes, and she could hear her mother laugh. A weight seemed to be gone from her mother’s shoulders, and she remembered thinking that her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  Opening her eyes, Mallory looked at Ernie. “We spent the summer here, didn’t we? My mother, she was going to leave him, wasn’t she?”

  Ernie nodded. “He was so controlling, and that summer we thought we had it all worked out. But then he made her a bunch of promises, told her a bunch of lies, and she believed him. She went back to him. And immediately regretted it. He never gave her another chance to leave, but she thought, that when you finally graduated from college, she’d be able to escape.”

  The memories Mallory had shared with Nolan earlier suddenly made sense. “That’s what she meant when she told me that last day. That I would be graduating soon, and it would be all right.”

  “She had a plan. We had a plan. I don’t know what went wrong, or what made him decide to end things the way he did, except the police said he’d lost his job, so I suppose that was the last straw for him.”

  The distraught expression on her aunt’s face made Mallory realize that as much as Mallory blamed herself, Ernie also carried guilt over her sister’s death.

  “In my last conversation with my mother, she said he was upset and not to come home until she’d calmed him down.” As Mallory thought about the events of that day, she realized her mother, who’d always worked so hard to keep the peace, was probably trying to do just that. But as sometimes happened when her father was in one of his rages, it had backfired.

  Though no one could be certain of exactly what had happened, she was certain of one thing. It was no one’s fault. No one but her father’s. Just like Nolan had said, her father had been the one to pull the trigger.

  “All this time, you’ve blamed yourself,” Ernie said quietly. “That’s why you couldn’t face it. You couldn’t deal with your mother’s death because you couldn’t deal with your guilt.”

  Mallory nodded. “Until tonight, I would say that was true. But thanks to Nolan telling me about his past, and how he dealt with it, I know now that I couldn’t have changed anything.”

  Ernie got up from her chair and sat next to Mallory, then put her arms around her. “And I blamed myself for not getting her out of there sooner. But if I had pushed harder, who knows what your father would have done.”

  “She wanted to protect me,” Mallory said. “Every memory I’ve had of her since coming here has been about her protecting me. Wanting me to be safe and happy. I think if she saw me now, she would be really disappointed because I haven’t been.”

  Saying the words that had been stirring in her heart gave Mallory a new strength. “I thought I was doing what she wanted me to do, but I see now where I missed the freedom she was trying to give me. I’m sorry it took me so long to be willing to come here and face it.”

  Ernie held her tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to bring you here.”

  Mallory hugged her back. “I wasn’t ready. I thought I had everything under control, and it took losing what I thought was my security blanket to realize I didn’t have anything at all.”

  “I think we’ve both been placing our faith in the wrong things. I say I believe in God, but if I’d trusted in His sovereignty, I wouldn’t have been bearing the weight of this blame for so long. Nolan tells me that you don’t know God. Until you learn to trust in God, none of your security blankets will ever be strong enough to sustain you, no matter how hard you try.”

  Ernie looked hesitant, pulling away slightly as she examined Mallory’s face. “I know this will sound discouraging to you, but my biggest concern with you getting involved with Nolan is that you aren’t a believer. And I don’t think a person’s faith should be adopted simply for the sake of a relationship. Not that I believe that you are anything like your father, but Carol’s biggest mistake in marrying him was thinking that it would be all right even though he didn’t share her beliefs about God.”

  How many times had her father mocked her mother’s belief in God as being stupid and unscientific? The necklace she remembered playing with wasn’t just a necklace. It was a cross. Mallory had always admired her mother’s courage in refusing to give up what she believed. And now, she could honestly say that she wished her mother had passed some of that on to her.

  “I wouldn’t want that for Nolan either,” Mallory said. “I hated how my father treated my mother for her faith. I didn’t want to learn about it because I didn’t want to be stupid too. All I had was the fact that I was smart. And I couldn’t give him one more reason to hate her.”

  She looked up at Ernie. “I don’t know what I believe about God, because I don’t know much about Him. But I do know that my mother wasn’t stupid. And my father wasn’t right for how he treated her. I wish my mother was here now. For so many reasons. But I would like to hear…”

  Another memory came to her. “You put me in Nolan’s room so I wouldn’t have to see the things that reminded me of my mother. Is the little bookshelf still in the guest bedroom?”

  At Ernie’s nod, Mallory got up and practically ran there. She flipped on the light, and looking around, she understood why Nolan had given up his room for her. Everything was exactly as she remembered.

  She leapt onto the bed and buried her face in the quilt. Though it had probably been laundered hundreds of times since they’d stayed there, she could still see her mother wrapped in that blanket and she longed to capture even the tiniest essence of the woman she missed so much.

  After confirming that there was no remaining trace of her mother in the quilt, she turned and looked at the bookshelf. As she’d suspected, every title was familiar to her. And as she read each title, she remembered. These weren’t just children’s books. They were all Bible stories. Stories about Jesus.

  Mallory went to the one about the lost sheep, and pulled it from the case. She held it tight to her chest. Footsteps sounded behind her. She didn’t turn around, and instead she closed her eyes.

  “This was my favorite. The shepherd left behind all of his other sheep to search the whole world for the one sheep that was missing. My mother told me that no matter how lost I ever got, Jesus would still be searching for me.”

  She began to sob as she clutched the book tighter. Maybe her mother had been taken from her far sooner than a mother should leave her child, but her mother wasn’t gone. She’d left traces in all of Mallory’s memories, footprints to follow if she only had the courage to see them. Her mother had read this story over and over to her hoping that she would remember when she was lost. And it had taken her becoming really really lost to have that memory return.

  Somewhere in all of this, Ernie had come to Mallory and put her arms around her. Ernie gently led Mallory to the bed, wrapped her in the quilt, and let her cry.

  Chapter Eight

  As Nolan peered through the swirling snow, he was grateful he’d installed the new fog lights on his truck over the summer. With visibility barely 100 feet at most, his regular headlights wouldn’t have been able to penetrate the near white-out conditions. Mallory’s feeling that he should stay in had been dead on. Only a fool would go out in this weather. But with Meredith stuck, he didn’t have much of a choice. Conditions had probably been safe enough when she’d headed out t
o the ranch, but they’d deteriorated too quickly.

  He could barely see the road, and only by gauging the dips from the ditches that ran alongside to catch the runoff was he even sure that he was still on it. Even for experienced drivers like Meredith, it would be easy to misjudge the side of the road and end up stuck. For a moment, he increased his speed, but the back of his truck immediately started to slide. He backed off the accelerator, grateful that when he’d gone into the garage for his extra chains, he’d spied the sandbags and, mindful of Mallory’s concern, had added them to the bed. Without that added weight, he would be all over the road, and have probably ended up in the ditch himself. The chains helped, but he was glad he’d done his best to listen to Mallory’s warning.

  Mallory was probably still frustrated with him for not staying home. She’d been so sure of the danger to him. She’d been right. And thanks to her warning, he’d taken extra precautions that were probably the only thing keeping him safe right now. But how could he use this to convince her that it was safe to trust her instincts? If something bad happened, it would confirm her belief, but obviously he didn’t want that. But if he came home safely, which he was determined to do, how could he let her know the importance of her compassion for him?

  Though he’d told her that they should take things slowly, the deeper he found himself in the storm, the more he thought that it might be better for Mallory if she didn’t have to face her pain alone. He’d done that, with the help of his counselor, but it would have been nice to come home to someone’s loving arms. Even now, as the wind howled, he wished he’d invited her along. Until tonight, he hadn’t realized how lonely his life could be sometimes. True, he had Ernie for company. But Mallory’s company was different.

  Ahead, he could see faint flashing red lights. Hopefully, it was Meredith. He’d already taken longer than he’d planned to get to her, and he’d hate to have another delay. But if someone else was stuck, he’d have no choice but to help out.