The Cowboy's Christmas Baby

by Carolyne Aarsen

  It was like his own life. The mess, the busyness, the chasing after things that didn’t satisfy.

  In the middle of all of that had come these words to calm and still him and turn him in the right direction.

  And now, as he felt as if his life was turned upside down yet again, he took these verses to heart.

  In quietness and trust was his strength.

  He had to let go of his pride and tell Erin what he needed to tell her. Not for his sake, but for hers. To give her a choice.

  He bowed his head and slowly let God’s peace wash over him. No matter what happened, he knew where his strength and peace lay.

  * * *

  Erin lay in bed, the morning light washing over her. She could only stare at the ceiling trying to absorb what had happened the last couple of days. On Sunday, Sam had showed up full of ridiculous hope that they could get back together again.

  Then yesterday they had gone to the lawyer. She was happy that Drake Neubauer could take them in right away and was only too willing to help her draft an agreement. They got it notarized and it was over.

  That shadow was removed from her life.

  Sam had wanted to give her money, but she refused. She didn’t want any connection to him in any way. The only thing she had wanted from him, he had given her reluctantly.

  Helen’s phone number.

  He had looked regretful when he left and had tried to kiss her goodbye, but Erin had turned away. It was over.

  She sat up slowly feeling a sense of emptiness in spite of the relief she felt at knowing that Sam was out of her and Caitlin’s life. Dean hadn’t come yesterday at all. Nor had he returned her calls from Sunday.

  She wanted to call him again, but every time she picked up her phone guilt held her back. She knew she had to tell him everything about her relationship with Sam and should have a while ago.

  Erin pushed herself out of bed and quickly got dressed. She would shower later. Once Caitlin was bathed and taken care of.

  “Hey, baby girl,” Erin whispered as she picked up her precious daughter. “It’s a new day.”

  Caitlin cooed softly, then broke into a smile that dove straight into Erin’s heart.

  As she fed the baby she choked down a light sob at the emptiness that yawned ahead of her.

  Why didn’t Dean call her?

  She shook off the questions and focused on feeding and bathing her daughter. Then dressing her in one of the many outfits her sisters and Aunt Laura kept buying for her. When she was finally done, she put Caitlin in her bouncy chair and sat down with her phone. One big thing needed to be done yet.

  She swallowed as she pulled out the piece of paper Sam had given her and stared at the phone number she insisted he write on it.

  Help me, Lord.

  Then she dialed the number.

  Helen answered on the first ring. As if she was anticipating her call.

  “Hello, Erin” was her quiet response. She knew who was calling.

  Erin swallowed at the reality that Helen could identify her number. Had she seen it on Sam’s phone when they were seeing each other?

  She fought down the shame once again and pressed on.

  “I felt like I needed to call you,” Erin said, glancing over at Caitlin, who was clean and fed and now so happy. How could such an adorable child have come from such perfidy?

  She shook that thought off. She couldn’t think of Caitlin that way. Her baby was a gift from God pure and simple.

  “I’m glad you called,” Helen said.

  Erin felt confused. She hunched over, clinging to the phone, bewildered by Helen’s response.

  “Why are you glad? I would think you should be angry with me.”

  “I was. For a while. But you need to know that I forgive you. I know the breakup of our marriage wasn’t your fault.”

  Erin sagged back against the couch, shocked at how easily Helen spoke those words.

  “I don’t feel like I deserve your forgiveness,” she said, her voice quiet with shame.

  “You do and you need to know that I should ask your forgiveness, as well. When I came to your place I was afraid. Clinging by the thinnest thread to a marriage that I should have known was over long before you came on the scene.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You weren’t the first one Sam was cheating on me with. I found out that even while he was supposedly with you, he was seeing someone else, as well.”

  Shame engulfed her but behind that rose an anger with the man who had so brazenly shown up on her doorstep claiming that he loved her. What hubris. What arrogance.

  “I’m so sorry” was all Erin could manage.

  “Don’t worry. You didn’t break up our marriage. Sam did. I finally saw the light and divorced his sorry self.”

  “But he came here to tell me—”

  “That he divorced me.” Helen released a heavy sigh. “He’s such a prideful idiot. I only wished I’d seen it sooner.”

  Erin was quiet as she grappled with what had just happened. The gentle promise of peace that lingered on the horizon. “Again. I’m sorry. Will you be okay?”

  “I hit him financially for all I could,” Helen said. “Every month when those withdrawals come out of his bank account he’ll remember me. I’ll be fine.”

  Erin didn’t know what to say after that.

  “Well, I don’t suppose we’ll be exchanging Christmas cards even though we have quite a bit in common,” Helen said. “You take care of yourself. Please don’t let what he did to you determine your self-worth. I know I had to struggle with it. I’m just glad I took control of my life. I hope you can do the same.”

  Erin let her comment settle in her soul. Helen seemed to know exactly what she was feeling.

  Then as they said goodbye, she realized that Helen probably, better than anyone, knew what she was dealing with. The shame. The sense of being less than.

  She looked around the house that she and Dean had spent time fixing up. The dreams she had woven around this home. Thinking that it would be a home for her and Dean and Caitlin.

  She thought of what Helen had said. That she was glad she took control of her life.

  Well, maybe it was time she did the same. Maybe it was time she faced down her fears. Realized she had much to give Dean. That Helen had forgiven her. That God had forgiven her. That in God’s eyes she was valuable and important.

  She needed to talk to Dean. To tell him the truth. To realize that she had made an innocent mistake.

  Knowing that Helen had forgiven her made it easier to think that Dean might understand.

  She packed up Caitlin’s diaper bag and just as she grabbed her car keys off the key ring she heard a knock on the door.

  Her heart jumped.

  Was Sam back after all?

  She hesitated, breathed a quick prayer, then slowly opened the door.

  Dean stood there. Hat in hand.

  But he wasn’t smiling. “Can I come in?”

  Erin simply nodded, then stood aside.

  * * *

  Dean looked around the house feeling a sense of pride in how good it looked.

  He had been a part of this.

  And, Lord willing, he still would.

  He laid his hat on the table and turned to Erin, who was looking at him, apprehension in her eyes.

  He wasn’t sure what she was about to tell him. He didn’t want to wait until she said that she and Sam were getting together. He needed to get this off his chest before he changed his mind.

  He needed her to know that she had options. If he could be considered one.

  “I need to tell you—

  “I have something you need to know—”

  They both spoke at the same time and at her w
ords Dean’s heart sunk. But he shook his head, swallowed his pride and held up his hand.

  “I’m going to be rude and ask if I can go first,” he said. He drew in a shaky breath and forced himself to look deep into her eyes. “I don’t know what’s happening in your life right now. I don’t know where you’re at. But I need to tell you where I am.” He paused as memories of Erin’s previous rejections skimmed too easily back into his mind.

  But he clung to the more recent memories. The kisses they’d shared. The work they had done together. He had to tell himself that what they’d had was real no matter what may happen in Erin’s life. And that he too had something to offer her, as Vic had said.

  “I want you to know that no matter what happens to you or has happened to you, I have always cared for you,” he told her, his heart pounding in his chest now, knowing what was at stake. “You’ve always been a part of my life. You’ve always been the one I’ve used as my standard for any woman I’ve ever dated. They all fell short.”

  Her cry of dismay nearly stopped him.

  “I love you,” he said, pushing on before nerves and fear kept him from what he wanted to say. “I love your daughter. I know that Caitlin’s father is back in her life and while I don’t know what that means for you, I need you to know that I am willing to go with whatever happens because I only want what’s best for you and for Caitlin. I know that you’ve lived without your father for many years and I know what it means for you to have an intact family. But I want you to know that I love you. I can’t let you go without you knowing that.”

  She wasn’t looking at him, but he could see tears running down her cheek. He wanted to grab her, pull her close, but he waited.

  “Please say something,” he finally asked, tossing his pride away yet one more time. “Tell me to leave. Ask me stay. Something.”

  “I want you to stay,” she whispered.

  As her quiet words registered his heart sang. But her tears confused him.

  “Why are you so sad?” he said, laying his hands on her shoulders, trying to find his way through this situation. “Is it Sam?”

  She shook her head, hard. “No. It’s not Sam. He’s gone. He’s out of my life and Caitlin’s.”

  Was that why she was crying?

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Dean said.

  “It’s not what you think.” Finally she looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed and brimming with tears. She put her hand on his chest, creating a small connection. “I sent him away. He didn’t want to have anything to do with Caitlin and I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He hasn’t meant anything to me since I walked away from him after I found out I was pregnant.”

  Each word she spoke created another surge of hope. He gently brushed a tear from her face, still puzzled. “Then why are you crying?”

  She swallowed, holding his gaze, her expression almost pleading. “Because you talk about me like I’m some wonderful person and I’m not.”

  “Erin, honey, you made a mistake. We all do. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person—”

  “He was married when I was dating him,” Erin said suddenly. “He was committed to someone else.”

  Dean could only stare, trying to absorb what she was saying.

  “He was married.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then it was hardly your fault.”

  Erin held his gaze, her features softening. “So that doesn’t matter to you?”

  “What matters to me is that you’re so upset.”

  Erin pressed her trembling lips together, looking away. “I thought you would be angry. I was so ashamed. Bad enough that I’d been intimate with a man as a single girl, worse that he was married. You always talk about me like I am such a good person, when I did this horrible thing.”

  “But you said you didn’t know so it’s not like you did this deliberately. It’s his fault for being such a jerk.”

  She was silent a moment and Dean couldn’t hold himself back. He pulled her into his arms, holding her close. “You are an amazing and wonderful and good person,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead, then curling her head against him. “You really are. Nothing you tell me changes that. I’ve told you before that you were always an example to me of goodness and kindness and you still are.”

  Erin drew back, looking up at him, her face still holding shadows of sorrow. But in her eyes he saw a glimmer of hope.

  “I love you,” he said. “I think I always have.”

  Her smile brightened her face. “I love you, too. So much.”

  “I want to be a father to your little girl,” he said. “To Caitlin. I want to be in your life.”

  And then he sealed that promise with a kiss.

  Epilogue

  The mini lights sparkled in the rafters of Finn’s barn. Clusters of Christmas trees full of white lights and red balls were scattered along the hall. The tables covered with thick, white tablecloths held crystal vases filled with red balls. Red napkins tucked under plates carried out the color scheme Jodie had decided on as soon as she and Finn had settled on a winter wedding.

  All the plans had come together for a fairy-tale wedding for Finn and Jodie.

  Erin looked around the hall, but Dean was still gone.

  The past few weeks were a whirlwind of preparations and decorating and last-minute running around. Also, between his therapy and helping Vic get the corrals ready on the Rocking M and her increasing work load, she and Dean hadn’t spent much time together.

  She had been looking forward to today, but they had only managed to spend some time together between the ceremony and picture taking. The men had been gone the past twenty minutes while Abby Bannister, the photographer, took a number of photos of just the sisters.

  “Okay, girls,” she was saying now. “One last one of the three of you by the largest Christmas tree.”

  “Can we just be done?” Jodie groaned as she gathered up the yards of raw silk that made up her wedding dress. “My feet hurt and I heard Santa Claus is coming for a visit.”

  Christmas wasn’t for a couple of weeks yet, but that hadn’t stopped Jodie from going all-out with a Christmas-themed wedding.

  Or from getting someone to play Santa Claus for the kids that were in attendance.

  Lauren just tut-tutted as she arranged one of Jodie’s curls, then turned to Erin to help her, as well.

  “I’m fine,” Erin said, holding up her hand to forestall her sister’s attempts at taming her hair. Caitlin had gotten her sticky fingers entangled in the curls Brooke had sprayed to battle-ready stiffness, and they were askew, but she didn’t care. “And I’m with Jodie. I’m tired.”

  She was impatient to get the pictures done, as well. She wanted to find Dean.

  But Lauren ignored her and pinned one of her curls back, smoothed out her dress and gave a decisive nod. “You look beautiful. And just relax. You only have to do this one more time. For my wedding.”

  Erin forced a smile. The thought of doing this all over again wasn’t appealing.

  “And don’t look like I just asked you to help butcher chickens,” Lauren admonished her. “You’ll be glad to help out again. Just as I will be glad to help out when your time comes.”

  Her sister’s comment was encouraging, but while she and Dean had been dating for a couple of months now he hadn’t said much about their future and she wasn’t about to bring it up. She was still learning lessons in trust, she realized.

  The three girls obediently posed in front of the tree, gathering close, cheek to cheek, bouquets of red roses and white lilies close to their faces as cameras flashed all around them.

  Finally Abby was finished, and Jodie and Erin both heaved a sigh of relief.

  Erin
hurried over to Heather, who was playing with Caitlin and her stepdaughter Adana, her stomach just starting to protrude. It was baby central in Saddlebank these days.

  “So, she’s adorable,” Heather said, smiling up at Erin.

  In spite of being dressed up and made up and hair professionally done, Erin felt just a bit dowdy around Heather. The former model was stunning, even pregnant and with a three-year-old toddler leaning against her, holding up a stuffed rabbit for Caitlin, who wasn’t paying her any attention.

  “I’m glad she’s been good.”

  “She’s been a perfect baby. I can only hope mine is as well behaved,” Heather said.

  “That would depend who she takes after. You or John,” Abby joked as she joined them, then crouched down to snap a picture of Caitlin, who was grabbing at her satin shoes, gurgling and drooling all over the red silk dress Jodie had insisted on buying for her.

  Erin looked around with a tiny niggle of anxiety. She saw Lee standing by Vic, Finn was now with Jodie, but she couldn’t see Dean anywhere.

  Then the jingle of bells sounded and Adana’s head popped up as she heard a distinctive “Ho, Ho, Ho.”

  “Ith it Thanta Cwauth?” she lisped, eyes wide, staring past Erin to the entrance to the hall.

  Erin and everyone else in the hall turned around in time to see a man dressed up in a Santa Claus suit complete with fake beard, fake belly, and the faintest limp enter the room.

  “Merry Christmas,” he bellowed, jingling the string of sleigh bells and looking around the room.

  Erin just laughed.

  Dean. Of course. No wonder he’d been so secretive.

  He had a bag in his hand and he made his way to a large chair set aside and decorated for the occasion. The children in attendance crowded around him as he slowly sat down.

  “One at a time,” he bellowed in true Santa fashion. “One at a time.”

  Erin just smiled as she watched him with the children, her heart full of warmth and love for this man. He was such a natural. He took the time to talk to each child. To lean close and listen. He had a gift for each one as well and remembered who was who. No small feat considering there were about a dozen youngsters in attendance.