by Pamela Tracy
Three years ago Robby had changed her life. Three months ago Lucky had swooped in, done the same thing, and also started changing her heart.
Looking Henry in the eye, she said, “I thank you for not telling Lucky, but I intend to tell him.”
Because if she didn’t, she was just like Henry Welch.
“I’m not like you,” she whispered.
His cheeks reddened, and for the first time, she saw where Lucky got his looks. They were the same. Maybe at one time Henry had even owned a killer half smile. It might explain why Betsy married him.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned toward the motel. “Good, because I wouldn’t wish being like me on anybody.”
Chapter Thirteen
“W hat did you say to my dad?” Lucky couldn’t believe the change. Not only had Henry agreed to take Betsy to Bernice’s, but also he’d decided to stay on an extra day at Bernice’s, as well. In all their years, he’d never stayed at Bernice’s, preferring a motel, or even preferring to go home while Betsy stayed.
Henry Welch claimed he wanted to get to know Natalie and Robby. Robby didn’t seem to mind. Betsy was overjoyed. Lucky was speechless. And Natalie, well, she turned pale, fidgety, and Lucky could tell the main thing on her mind was escape. She and Robby stayed at the motel for a while, but didn’t seem inclined to stick around or head to Bernice’s.
Tuesday, Natalie dropped Robby off for a whole day with Lucky and his parents. She’d begged off staying, mentioning work and some chores. Lucky, sensing something was amiss, especially since she wouldn’t look at him or his father, let her go. He’d get to the bottom of whatever was bothering her—and he sure hoped it wasn’t his father—after his parents left.
Yesterday, his parents had taken Robby Christmas shopping and then picked him up again to attend Wednesday night services at the church. They left Thursday morning, and the first thing Lucky did was call Natalie and remind her of their Christmas tree date.
She might have begged off again, but Robby caught enough of the conversation to get excited. In the background, he could hear Robby wanting to see Lucky, wanting to see Grandma, wanting to see Henry.
It wasn’t lost on Lucky that Robby referred to Henry Welch as Henry instead of Grandpa. When Natalie told Lucky to hold on and reminded Robby that Grandma and Henry were gone, wails erupted.
So here they were in the middle of a winter wonderland, Robby all smiles, chopping down their own tree. Lucky was having trouble getting Natalie to tell him what was bothering her, and something sure was.
“So, what did you say to my dad?” Lucky repeated. “He not only held my mom’s hand yesterday—and I’ve never seen that—but also he turned his cell phone off for a whole afternoon.”
She bit her lip, not something he’d seen her do before, and not something he really wanted to see. It took away from the joy of the day together.
“I guess the real question is, ‘What did my dad say to you?’ Come on, you can tell me.”
The tears spilling from her eyes made him back off. Whatever happened had really upset her.
Anger, pure and hot and white, much more intense than Lucky had felt in years, caused him to step back and let the ax fall to the ground. The snow, as if sensing the intensity of the moment, fell even more heavily.
“What did my dad say?”
She looked at him, and he was reminded of a deer in headlights. He recognized the look from the day at the courthouse. She’d had the look again on the church steps the first day his mother met Robby. Now, she had it again.
He’d take the blame for the first time only.
“Tell me what my father did.”
“Nothing. Your father is not the problem. I am.”
She busied herself with helping, making sure she was not looking at him, and also that she was as far away as possible. If he ventured near, she immediately acted as if Robby needed something.
It was a strange dance and not one Lucky was used to. He preferred to deal with things head-on. You draw a bull, you consider the bull’s history and you ride the bull. You either win or lose. To Lucky’s way of thinking, he’d drawn Natalie; he just needed to get past her connection with his brother. He knew Natalie’s history, where she lived, went to school and who she dated, but every time he thought they were a team, something came between them. This time it wasn’t a rodeo clown. This time it looked like it was his father.
What he needed was to get Natalie alone on a real date and woo her.
Together, the three of them carted the tree—Robby more a hindrance than a help, but an oh-so-enthusiastic hindrance—to Lucky’s truck.
Lucky looked at her. The cold had rosied her cheeks. Her parka only intensified her curves.
This draw was for life. Please, God, let it be for life.
“I accepted the church in Delaney,” he said. “This time next week, I’ll be done with Cowboy Christmas Week. Then I’m also done being a bull rider. I can’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be than with my own church, close to you and Robby.”
He hoisted the tree in the back of the truck, secured it and then hopped down next to her. “Please tell me what my dad said.”
“Nothing I didn’t need to hear,” Natalie said, walking to the passenger side and helping Robby into the back of the extended cab. It already looked like a dad’s truck. The child seat was permanent, toys littered the floor and fish-shaped crackers were smashed into the seat. Natalie brushed some crumbs off Robby’s knees before admitting, “Your dad didn’t do anything but talk about Robby. Let’s drop it. Today is for Robby.”
“For me!” Robby echoed.
“No, today is for all of us,” Lucky said as he started the engine.
His cell phone rang just as he hit the edge of Selena. His mother’s excited voice, too excited for a greeting, immediately jumped into the middle of what she was trying to say “…And there’s going to be a Santa Claus, and a Christmas village, and presents for the little ones, and crafts. Your father’s the one who saw the sign. We were just driving through Delaney for old time’s sake. He said we could stay one more day.”
Lucky glanced at Natalie as his mother rambled on. Natalie remained tense.
“I’ll call you right back, Mom.” He hit the off button and laid the phone in his lap. “Do you know about the Christmas village in Delaney?”
“No,” Robby said.
“Yes,” Natalie said. “We took Robby last year. He had a great time.”
“My parents were driving through Delaney for old time’s sake and saw the advertisement. My dad suggested they stay one more day and take Robby.”
“Your dad?”
“Yes, I think we’re all surprised.”
“Another family gathering?”
“Yes!” Robby called from the backseat. Lucky checked the rearview mirror. The little boy understood way too much. Lucky needed to train himself to watch what he said.
“No,” Lucky said. “This would be a grandparents’ night out with grandson. Which would leave tonight open for us.”
“For us?”
“Yes, a date. A real date. You and me.”
She didn’t look nearly as excited as he wanted her to look. Usually, when he asked a woman out, she started talking about time, what to wear and what to do.
Natalie just looked at him as if she was terrified.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said quickly. “We’ll pretend it’s a first date.”
“What?”
“You can thank Mary for the idea. When we were kids, she’d make Marcus and me play this stupid thing called the ‘dating game.’ She’d get three chairs. Marcus would sit in one. I’d sit in one. She’d usually put a stuffed animal or a cat in the third. Then, she’d ask us questions before she’d pick who got to date her. Come to think of it—” his words dropped off “—I always got picked.”
“I’d have picked you,” Natalie said, thawing a little.
Lucky chuckled. “Glad to hear it. Back then, our pretend date was
always at a restaurant, and Mary made Marcus be the waiter. I remember being served empty cups of tea and lots of plastic food.”
He looked at her, wanting so much and afraid of losing it all. “If we go out tonight, we can pretend it’s our first date. We’ll act as if we’re just getting to know each other because…Well, because you picked me.”
Yes, she’d picked him, all right, Natalie thought, staring into her closet. Unfortunately, he believed that she’d picked Marcus first.
Tell him tonight. Tell him you never even met Marcus.
Only that wasn’t the most important thing to tell him. She had to tell him that although she was Robby’s mother, she hadn’t borne him.
She had quite an agenda for a first date.
First things first. Natalie pushed aside some cotton shirts. She’d worn her best outfit that Sunday she’d met them for lunch after service. Everything else added up to Mommy clothes, and there was no time to go shopping.
Great, tonight might be the worst first date of her life and she was worried about what to wear.
She pulled out the outfit she’d worn to church, tossed it on the bed and headed for the shower.
An hour later, she woke Robby from his nap, dressed him warmly, gave him a banana, and together they sat on the swing on the front porch and waited for their dates. A light snow fell. Robby would only make it a minute, but there was something magical about sitting on the swing in a winter wonderland.
Last December, there’d been strings of lights, sparkling reindeer with movable parts and a helium-filled snowman in their front yard.
This year, only the snow signaled Christmas.
“Where going, Mama?” Robby’s words came out in white puffs.
“You want to go back inside and wait? Are you cold?”
“I fine. Where going, Mama?”
“You’re going to Delaney with Grandma and Henry, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Mama go, too.”
“No, your uncle Lucky and I are going somewhere else.”
“I go with you?”
“No, you go with Grandma and Henry.”
“I wanna go with you.”
Music to her ears. Unfortunately, at that moment, Grandma and Henry arrived. Robby flew from the swing and into his grandmother’s arms.
Natalie switched the car seat to their car and gave Robby a big hug as she strapped him in.
“Is there anything he shouldn’t eat?” Betsy asked.
“No, he can eat just about anything.”
Mundane words, and the type of back-and-forth she could now expect, no, that she prayed she’d be using for years, until Robby grew up and no longer needed Mommy.
Henry got behind the wheel and Robby waved, but still Betsy Welch stood alongside the car, looking at Natalie. Then, as if someone had given her a push, she ran around the car and came at Natalie, crushing her in a tight embrace. “Talk about an answered prayer. Oh, thank you for all this. Thank you.”
Natalie felt the tears swell. She swallowed them back and nodded.
He had no idea where to take her.
Usually, on first dates, it was dinner and a movie. But this really wasn’t a first date, and this date deserved to be set apart from all others.
The other first dates were with women he might want to get to know. This first date was with a woman he already loved.
Dinner and a movie weren’t good enough.
But he absolutely could not come up with any other ideas.
His parents and Robby waved as they drove down the driveway.
Was that a smile on his dad’s face?
No, definitely not. Couldn’t be, could it? Lucky grinned.
Coming around a curve, he saw Natalie sitting on the porch swing. She had on brown boots, black pants and a sky-blue parka with white edging. Her hair was covered with a matching blue hat.
Imagine coming home every night to this.
He parked and walked toward her, wishing she’d raise her head, look at him and smile.
But she was looking at her hands. He made it all the way to the third step on the porch before she looked up.
“You should be wearing mittens.” He took the space next to her and reached for her hands.
She let him.
They were red, cold and felt like heaven.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Robby just drove off with your parents, and I’m feeling a little blue.”
“It’s good for him to be with other people. And you need some adult company. Feel like dinner and a movie?”
She looked at her hands, only this time they were still encased in his. He tightened his grip. No, this was not a first date. First dates didn’t feel this good.
“I don’t know. I think I’ve lost my appetite, and I don’t know if I’d be focused enough to stay with a movie.”
“Okay,” he said. “What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey, that’s the guy’s line,” he protested.
She smiled, thawing a bit, and took her hands from his and stuck them in her parka pockets.
“So, what is there to do in Selena on a Thursday night?”
She laughed, thawing even more. “Dinner and a movie.”
He shifted, stretching his legs out and looking at the land. It was gorgeous. Snow, glistening and perfect, pelted the front yard and stretched across the empty grazing land.
“Last year at this time, what were you doing?”
“Decorating for Christmas.”
“Why aren’t you doing it this year?”
“With Dad gone…”
Of course, Lucky felt like slapping himself on the forehead. He’d have done it, too, if he had been with a riding buddy or church friend. He was falling in love with Natalie, but he kept forgetting, or at least he was trying to forget, her past. In his defense, he still had trouble thinking of her with Marcus.
“What kind of decorating did you do?”
“Since Robby turned one, we’ve had lots of stuff in the yard, a big tree. We used to do a little tree. I have singing Santas and sparkly reindeer with movable parts, and I have a blow-up snowman.”
“Well,” Lucky said. “I didn’t really feel like dinner and a movie, either.”
She looked at him. The deer-in-the-headlights look gone.
“Robby would be really impressed if the house was all lit up when my parents dropped him back home.”
Her face lit up.
He wished it were more from the idea of decorating with him than the idea of pleasing her son, but he’d take what he could get.
Then, her face fell. “He’ll be asleep.”
“This would definitely be a good reason to accidentally wake him.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“I have to leave at eleven tonight, and I’ll be gone all weekend. I’d like to say goodbye. Waking him up would mean a lot to me.”
“Another rodeo?”
“In Odessa.”
“The weather’s bad,” she argued.
“So…”
Finally, she laughed and affectionately muttered, “Cowboys.”
The Christmas stuff was stored in the barn where the horses should be. It took him about ten trips to cart the plastic bins—all labeled—either to the front porch or inside the house.
“You do the labeling?” Lucky asked.
“Yeah. Dad had a bad habit of throwing stuff wherever it would fit. Ornaments stayed on the tree, candles melted and when the treetop angel lost her halo, I took over the packing up.”
Whatever her father had used to secure the Christmas lights to the rafters was now missing in action. Lucky wound up driving in nails while Natalie handed up oversize paper clips. Thanks to her heavy mittens, she dropped more than she handed. Thanks to cold, bare hands, it took him a lot longer than it should have. Finally, she ran in and got him a pair of her father’s gloves. Except for when he also dropped the paper clips, things speeded up. There was some daylight when they fin
ished the porch.
He’d do the roof when he came back.
Because he intended to come back again and again.
By the time the movable reindeer were nodding their heads, it was almost dark. Fifteen minutes later, the inflatable snowman became a glowing beacon in blackness.
It was time to move inside.
Natalie had already positioned the tree in a stand close to the front window. She had it in water. Lucky checked to see if it was near a heat register. It wasn’t.
“Robby should be here for this.” Natalie opened a box of ornaments.
Outside, they’d been moving, laughing and tossing an occasional snowball at each other.
Inside, their fingers ached from the cold, and if Lucky guessed correctly, Natalie was suddenly remembering other Christmases—Christmases that involved Robby, her father—and Robby’s father? He shook the thought away.
“Do you want to stop?”
She didn’t answer.
“I am hungry.” He gave her an out.
“Oh!” She looked up, chagrined. “You’re right. We needed to eat hours ago.” She closed the box of ornaments.
Lucky felt oddly disappointed. He hadn’t decorated a tree in years. His mother still did, but if he made it home for Christmas it was just that one day. He really no longer even noticed the tree.
He noticed this one because he noticed the woman it belonged to.
She moved to the kitchen, and he watched her walk. No limp. No stress?
“How about grilled cheese and tomato soup?” she called.
He looked out the window, the one somewhat blocked by a tree waiting for decorations. Snow was starting to fall; the Christmas lights blinked away the darkness. On the wall next to the tree was a photo of Natalie and Robby.
“Perfect.”
He wasn’t talking about the meal choice.
“Good, give me a minute,” she called.
He had no intention of sitting alone in the living room. He moved to the kitchen and watched her.
“Want me to set the table?” he asked.
She looked at him. A few strands of hair fell in her eyes, and she blew them away. “Sure.”
It was a nice meal. Just Lucky and Natalie, sitting at the kitchen table, staring out the window at a tiny winter wonderland they’d created. Then they’d stare at each other. Each time Lucky tried to turn the look into something more than innocent appraisal, she looked away.
