Santa Wore Spurs

by Various

  "Texas Tomboy is in," she said smugly, widening her smile. "Who were you on the phone with?"

  "That was my friend, Tucker. He and three other guys will do it. With Ryan and me, that makes six. There's a break in the rodeo schedule this weekend, so they thought it would be a hoot to do it. They were all jealous when I got the Laramie gig. I told them it'll get them women so they're all in," he said with a chuckle and a shrug of his shoulders.

  Hope would bet Cord Dixon had plenty of women. He probably had to beat them off with a stick. But he was sitting here with her. Tangling his fingers in her hair. It was unimaginable really.

  "Now all we need is a location," she said. His fingers brushed Hope's shoulder and her nipples tightened as a shiver passed through her body. She thought it was an accident, but then he made small circles on her skin.

  "They're all going to meet us at my daddy's ranch in Tyler on Saturday morning. I haven't asked my dad yet, but I talked to my brother, Dean."

  "He was okay with it?" Hope asked.

  The motion of his hands stopped and he looked away. "Not exactly, but he agreed to it. We'll just stay clear of him and work it out. We can stay out of his way. There's an empty bunkhouse the guys can stay in. We'll probably sleep out there too."

  Cord's voice contained an edge, and she guessed at the reason. "Your family doesn't support your career?"

  Hope shifted a little closer to the arm of the sofa, away from his body heat and the scent of his piney cologne, which was causing her brain to short circuit. If she scooted closer to him like she wanted to, he might think she was like Tonya Laramie. Hope could fully understand the woman's problem resisting this man, even though her methods left a lot to be desired.

  "That's putting it mildly," he said with a short laugh. "My career is supposed to be at that ranch helping my family. They think I deserted them." His eyes darkened before he admitted, "Actually, I did desert them."

  "Are you sure going there is a good idea, then?"

  Hope wasn't so sure. She didn't want to be the cause of more friction between them. Having the photo shoot at the ranch would probably do that.

  "We'll work it out. They won't give us trouble," he promised with a tight smile. "I need to see them anyway."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friday morning, Hope thought Cord had seriously misunderstood his brother as she watched them argue on the front porch of the big ranch house. A dark-haired boy, who looked a lot like Cord's brother, watched them through the window at the front of the house. Hope stayed in the truck and was thankful she had. It almost looked like he and his brother were about to go to blows as Dean shoved Cord and he staggered back, holding up his hands.

  They argued a minute more, then Cord pushed a hand through his hair. As he stormed back toward the truck, his face was dark red and his jaw tight. He flung open the truck door and got behind the wheel then roughly twisted the keys in the ignition.

  "You okay?" she asked.

  Cord dragged in a breath, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. "No, I'm not okay. My brother is being an ass, and my daddy is at a cattle auction in Dallas. My mama is helping with a charity bazaar at church this weekend," he listed off his frustration as he shoved the truck into gear and gunned it.

  Hope was thrown against the back of the seat then launched forward toward the dash as the truck fishtailed. She gritted her teeth, bracing for more jarring as he sped over the rutted road. "Do we need to find somewhere else to do the shoot?" she asked.

  They didn't have time to look for an alternate location.

  Cord ground his teeth. "No, we are having the shoot here, whether Dean likes it or not. He'll just have to deal with it."

  Her excitement for the project faded a little. Things were not starting off on the right foot here. If Cord was in this kind of mood all weekend, it wasn't going to turn out well at all. And she certainly didn't want to be in the middle of his family drama. She had enough of her own to deal with.

  "Why don't we just go into town and get a hotel?" she suggested. "We'll look for somewhere else to shoot tomorrow."

  "This is my fucking home too. Dean is not running me off," Cord growled and shoved his foot down on the accelerator harder. Hope thought she'd probably have whiplash by the time they got where they were going. He headed down a dirt path beside the house and drove over a cattle guard then down a long, winding dirt road toward a rough wooden building in the distance.

  On either side of the road were huge pastures. She was sure they would be green in the spring, but right now they were brown and dead looking. A few head of cattle milled about on one side of the rutted road, and a few horses on the other. The animals stood in hock-deep mud, grazing on round hay bales in the middle of each pasture.

  Hope wondered if they could find anywhere more scenic to shoot. She had no idea how big the ranch was, but the pastures definitely weren't going to work. "We need to scout out some locations."

  "I have a few in mind. Winter isn't the best time to find good spots, but we can ride out tomorrow and I'll show you some that might work."

  "Ride?" she squeaked, her eyes flying over to him. She hoped he meant in a truck because Hope did not ride horses. She had never been on one of the beasts.

  "Yeah, on horses. You're on a ranch, Tinkerbell. That's how we get around out here," he said, his voice a little lighter than it had been a few minutes ago.

  "I don't ride," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. As close as she'd ever come to riding a horse was on a merry-go-round at a fundraising fair when she was eight years old.

  Cord glanced over at her and smiled. "I'll teach you. Don't worry, it's easy."

  "So says the cowboy who was probably on the back of a horse at two years old," she said snidely, glancing over at him. They could drive wherever he wanted to show her. Hope was not getting up on a horse. Period.

  Cord pulled the truck to a sliding stop in front of a whitewashed building with a long front porch. It looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. "You don't have ranch hands staying out here?" she asked curiously. Hope knew nothing about ranches, but she did know they usually had ranch hands who were responsible for caring for the animals. The depth of the mud out in that pasture told her they weren't being cared for well.

  "There's a newer bunkhouse on the other side of the ranch, but Dean only has two men helping him now. They culled the herd for winter. He'll hire more men in the spring," Cord informed as he leaned closer to the dash to look at the bunkhouse. "Looks like he's let this place go down though."

  "Maybe he spent the money on cattle," Hope offered, knowing she didn't know the first thing about it. She just wanted the frown on his handsome face to disappear.

  "Maybe..." he said as he glanced at her then looked back at the bunkhouse. "But I can't believe daddy didn't at least paint this bunkhouse last spring. These boards will rot if they're not painted." The whole ranch looked weathered and downtrodden, sort of like Cord had when Dean treated him like an unwelcome stranger a few minutes ago.

  Guilt swirled inside of him, and Cord knew he had a lot of fences to mend here. Not just the wooden ones he saw falling down around the driveway either. He had to rebuild his relationship with his family. It wasn't going to be easy but he was determined to try to do just that.

  Cord opened his door and slid down from the truck. "Let's get our stuff inside," he said as he walked behind the truck and let down the tailgate. He glanced up at the puffy gray clouds overhead. "It looks like it's going to snow."

  Hope groaned then grabbed the edge of the blue tarp covering her equipment bag. "I sure hope not. That's all we need."

  "Might make for some pretty pictures," Cord offered as he leaned over the tailgate to drag the heavy bag to the edge.

  "And it might ruin my equipment."

  "It's all about the shot, right?" he asked with a laugh. Cord slid the strap of the equipment bag over his shoulder then slung the strap of his duffle over the other. He turned toward the house and said, "I'll get your
suitcase out in a few minutes."

  At the front door, he set the bags down and pulled open the screen door. It screeched shrilly, making Cord's teeth hurt. The door knob almost came off in his hand when he turned it. He pushed it inward and propped open the screen with his hip.

  With a nod, he let Hope walk in first and heard her gasp. He dropped the bags and fumbled along the wall for the light switch. Miraculously, it came on, but what he saw made him too stunned to speak. Dust covered every surface of the room, from the furniture to the wooden floor and cobwebs rounded every corner. It smelled musty and moldy. When his eyes stopped on the south wall, the water stains that tracked halfway down the wall, and the bowed sheetrock, told him why.

  "Good God," he said, staring inside.

  "Yeah," she agreed. "This place is a mess."

  Heat surged up his neck. "I'm sorry. I'll go to the house and get some cleaning supplies. I don't know what's going on here. They usually keep things pretty tidy."

  Cord's daddy was a neat freak who never let things look like this. His mama was worse. It was obvious nobody had been out to the spare bunkhouse in a long time.

  Hope waved her hand then coughed. "It's not a big deal. We'll make do."

  But it was a big deal to Cord. Something was wrong here. More than just him not being around for three years. Cord was going to find out what that was and fast. "I need to go up to the house to talk to Dean again anyway. You just get your stuff unloaded, and I'll be back in a little bit."

  "Um, Cord...maybe you should give him a little space? He didn't look too happy."

  Cord wasn't waiting. Dean was going to tell him what was going on.

  "I'll be back. Watch out for spiders," he warned as he walked back through the door and shut it behind him. Numb from more than the cold weather, Cord got back in his truck and drove toward the ranch house.

  A few minutes later, he had his answer, but not without a fight with Dean. Both of them lay on their backs on the living room floor, breathing hard. Cord was doing his best not to give in to the tears burning his eyes.

  "How long have you known?" he asked his brother gruffly.

  "Six months," Dean replied quietly, swallowing hard.

  "Is he getting treatment?"

  "He had one round, but after the tests, they only gave him a thirty percent chance of getting better. He doesn't think the odds are good enough to justify spending more money on the treatments. He said he'd go when the Good Lord says it's time and not grumble about it. Mama's a wreck, and trying to change his mind, but honestly," Dean said then looked at him, "they don't have the money for more treatments. They took out a mortgage for the first round and it will be due right after Christmas. I don't know how we're going to pay it."

  Around the knot in his throat, Cord asked, "How long does he have left?"

  "Few months according to the doctor, but daddy is tough," Dean replied. Cord could hear the denial in his brother's voice. He hadn't accepted that Silas Dixon was going to die yet. Cord could understand it because he couldn't face it either.

  His parents didn't have health insurance, Cord knew that. He'd been after them for years to get it, but his daddy said he didn't go to the doctor enough to justify it. He needed to go now and couldn't. Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

  "Yeah, he is." His daddy was one of the toughest men Cord knew. But cancer was tougher. Especially since he was refusing treatment for the inoperable brain tumor. And they had been dealing with this on their own because Cord wasn't around. No wonder his brother resented him so much. Leaving his family was the biggest mistake Cord had ever made in his life. "I'm sorry for being so selfish, Dean."

  "You did what you needed to do, Cord, but we needed you here."

  Cord didn't miss the accusation in Dean's voice. He deserved it, but dammit he would have come back if someone had seen fit to call and tell him his daddy was sick. "Why didn't you call me?" Cord asked gruffly then rolled to his side to stare his brother down.

  "Daddy didn't want me to call you. Made me swear I wouldn't. You know how stubborn he can be." That told Cord just how his family felt about him now.

  Anger, shame, and guilt mixed in his belly, and he put his hand there because he felt like he wanted to puke. "He still hates me, then?"

  "He doesn't hate you. He was disappointed you didn't stay. We were always the three amigos. Daddy thought he was leaving the ranch to both of us. That we would both follow in his footsteps because he built this ranch for us."

  "It doesn't mean much now, but I am sorry, Dean. I was a selfish ass," Cord said again, sitting up to run his hands through his hair.

  "The rodeoing was bad enough. You were gone half the year. When you left for good, it nearly killed him."

  "I didn't leave for good. I'm back now. What can I do to help?" Cord asked.

  "You're back for a photo shoot," Dean corrected with disgust. "Now that you found out daddy is dying, that's the only reason you're thinking about staying around. That's not the same as coming back because you want to come back. That's how daddy's gonna take it." Dean was right. His daddy was stubborn and that is exactly how he would see it. It was time for salting the crow he planned to eat. Time to come clean.

  "I got fired from Laramie," Cord admitted in a rush.

  "So you're coming back because you're in a fix?" Dean snorted. "That's even worse." Cord sighed because Dean was right again.

  How the hell was he going to get on the right footing with his family again? He would just have to take it slow and show them how sorry he was and how much they meant to him. And he’d have to apologize.

  "I'm back because I want to be back. I'm not leaving again. Ya'll were right. This is where I belong. I'm going to use the money I make from this last photo shoot to help out here then I'm done with it." As soon as he could make his investments liquid, he would pay off the debt for the ranch too. But that would take some time. By the time he had the money, it could be too late.

  "How much is the mortgage payoff?" Cord asked, trying to calculate in his mind how much of a hit he was going to take cashing out early, and how much he'd have left.

  "We needed money to fund the ranch while daddy was sick too, so it's a quarter-million. Probably more with the interest," Dean admitted then his face turned a little green. "We haven't been able to pay the note in a few months. Beef prices are down so we just broke even at the auction. Daddy took the rest of the herd to Dallas and he's hoping it'll be better this time."

  Bile seesawed in Cord's stomach. He would maybe have a third of what they needed to pay off the mortgage. If he was lucky. And they were behind on the payments too. His daddy was dying and they were losing the ranch he'd worked all his life to build. The family's sole source of income.

  "Good god, Dean! Ya'll should have called me!" Cord growled and shoved his hand through his hair again.

  "Are you gonna take my picture too, Uncle Cord?" his nephew, Jeremy, asked from the doorway.

  Cord sucked in a breath and tried to smile. "Hey, buddy. Come over here and give me a hug." The last thing he wanted was to upset his nine-year-old nephew, a kid he loved and hadn't seen since he was six. Jeremy flew into his arms and hugged his waist tightly. "Man, you've grown," Cord said, ruffling his hair. "You're gonna be as tall as me and your daddy soon, kiddo!"

  Cord glanced at Dean. His brother's jaw tightened and he shook his head. So, Cindy hadn't come back either. She had left Dean and Jeremy right before Cord left for Dallas. Dean had been so hurt and shaken at Cindy's sudden decision to leave, Cord wondered if he'd ever recover from it. Thank god his son seemed to be doing okay. Cord wasn't so sure how his brother was doing though. His mood was darker, his attitude harder than Cord had ever seen it. There were new lines beside his eyes and mouth that Cord knew weren't from laughing. He was a changed man.

  What Cindy had done to his older brother made Cord hesitant to get into a relationship himself. If a woman could leave someone as goodhearted and hardworking as Dean, and the adorable kid in his arms, she would definitely
not think twice about leaving a hardheaded, self-centered bastard like himself.

  "I know. I got a mark on my closet door," Jeremy said excitedly then spread his hands about two feet apart. "I only got about this much to go!"

  "Well, if you eat your vegetables, you'll be there in no time, right?" Cord remembered that Jeremy hated eating vegetables. It had been an ongoing struggle until he hit upon the kid's desire to be as tall as his daddy and used it as incentive.

  "Yeah, that's what Grandma always tells me," he replied sullenly.

  "Well, she's smart, so you better listen." Cord should have remembered that three years ago when his mama begged him not to leave. But he hadn't listened to anyone who tried to talk sense into him. Now, he regretted it. He had lost three years that he could have spent with his dad, making memories that would have to last the rest of his life now.

  "Yes, sir," Jeremy agreed, rubbing the toe of his worn boots into the rug under his foot. "Unk, why are you and daddy fighting?" he asked. "I hate it when ya'll fight."

  Cord looked at Dean and their eyes held for a second. "We're not fighting, just wrestling. You and I used to wrestle too, remember?" Cord said, hoping the kid wouldn't press the issue.

  "I heard ya'll yelling on the porch earlier and now Daddy's nose is bleeding."

  Cord just noticed that Dean had evidently taken a blow to his nose during their fight. He ran his fingers over his own face, hoping he hadn't gotten banged up too much. His jaw was damned sore, but he hoped there weren't marks. Being a rough and tumble cowboy was one thing, being a cowboy who looked like he'd been on the losing end of a bar brawl was another. Hope would kill him.

  It was stupid of him to shove Dean back when he pushed him. When Cord did it, he knew what would happen. But he thought his brother needed the release, hoped maybe he could work out some of the frustration he had bottled up inside. Frustration that Cord had caused him. That's how they'd always settled things when they were kids. But they weren't kids anymore, and both of them could do some serious damage to each other. He needed to remember that in the future.