“I want cake and she’s making one just for me. I’m special,” Henry said.
“Evidently, but I’m having pecan pie,” Jack told him.
“I’m glad the first one burned because I like chocolate cake when it’s still warm and the icing is all gooey,” Henry said.
“You old rascal. I bet you knew it was burnin’, didn’t you?” Grady said.
Henry smiled and tilted his chin up. “Me and Josh don’t tell everything we know.”
“You want tea or not?” Lucas asked.
“Yes, thank you. One for each of us,” Grady said.
Natalie was already putting ice in five glasses when he reached the kitchen. The aroma of burned cake mixed with simmering soup filled the kitchen, but the smell of coconut shampoo and some kind of floral perfume caused him to shove his hands in his pockets to keep from circling her waist from behind and sinking his face into her hair.
He’d been determined that first night not to like her, but the heart wanted what it wanted and his had wanted Natalie since the first time her bright blue eyes popped up on Drew Camp’s laptop screen.
She looked up at him. “I heard you ask. Henry must be hungry. I’ll put some cookies on a plate for them too.”
“You’re spoiling the whole bunch of them. This tree trimming business is hard work no matter which side you are on. Decoratin’ or watchin’, either one,” he said.
“But it’s so much fun. I love Christmas. I love the decorating, the cooking, the shopping, the presents, all of it. It’s my favorite holiday of the whole year,” she said.
“Gramps says that Granny did too. He says that her spirit comes home to roost every year during the month of December.” Lucas filled the glasses with tea. The ice cracked but the sparks between him and Natalie were making more noise than frozen cubes splitting apart as they melted. He wanted to kiss her again to see if every kiss would come close to dropping him to his knees like the first one had.
As if she could read his mind, her cold hands snaked up around his neck and she rolled up just slightly on her toes. Her blue eyes closed and their lips locked together in a flaming kiss that shot desire through him like an IV dripping hundred-proof moonshine.
She took a step backward. “I promised you a kiss when you got home. My promise is now paid in full.”
“Oh, no! You promised a kiss on the first day I got home, within minutes of getting home. The interest has accumulated on that debt and that little old kiss isn’t going to do the job. I will have another one to take care of the vig.”
“That sounded like loan shark talk,” she said.
“Interest is building even as we speak. It might take two or more to cover your promise,” he teased.
“I thought we didn’t have to like each other,” she said.
“We don’t have to like each other to like kissing each other, do we?”
“Don’t know about you, but I don’t go around kissing men that I don’t like,” she said.
“I can truthfully say that I’ve never kissed a man I didn’t like.” He chuckled.
A loud slurping noise made them both turn at the same time. A big black horse had stretched his head through the open window and was busy eating her pecan pie. Half of it was already gone.
She squealed and fanned a towel toward the horse, but he grabbed the rest of the pie in one big bite, tossed his head back, and chewed.
“What the hell is going on out here? It’s just a burned cake, for goodness… oh, my God! Where did that horse come from? We don’t own a black one!” Henry said.
He had Joshua in his arms. The horse stopped chewing, letting pieces of the sticky pie filling fall on the floor.
Natalie expected to see three puppies come wiggling through the window at any minute and gobble up the leftovers from the floor.
“Did I hear a horse?” Grady asked.
“That’s old man William’s horse. How’d it get on our ranch? That man lives two miles up the main road. I’d better call him and tell him to come get the animal,” Jack said.
“We could take it home,” Henry said.
“Hell, no! We’re decoratin’ our tree today,” Jack said. “He let the horse out. He can come get it.”
The horse neighed and stretched his neck out farther.
“You are a bad horse. You could have eaten the burned cake,” Natalie grumbled.
Joshua kicked and squirmed in Henry’s arms.
Henry took a step forward, and it was as if Joshua had control of his hands and movements. He reached out and touched the horse between the ears and the old boy lowered his head.
“It’s not Natalie that is the animal whisperer, it’s Josh.” Lucas laughed.
Jack said a few words into the phone, put it away, and said, “Tommy Williams said that he’d be here in about three minutes. He was transporting the horse from his place to his daughter’s, and the critter kicked his way out of the trailer when he stopped at a stop sign about a quarter of a mile up the road.”
Tommy drove up in the backyard, and the horse let him lead him right out to the truck. “Don’t know what got into him. Must’ve been a mouse in the trailer. I swear he’s scared of mice worse he is of snakes. Hope he didn’t ruin anything.”
“Everything is fine,” Henry called out. “He had himself a pecan pie, so if he goes to bloatin’, that’s the reason.”
Tommy chuckled. “I’ll bring one to the party to replace it.”
“You got a deal,” Henry yelled and then turned to whisper to his son, “Shut this window, Jack. That damned animal comes up here and eats my cake, Tommy will have a dead horse on his hands. Come on, Josh, we’ve got a tree to decorate.”
“We’ll bring tea and then I’ll get the second cake in the oven. The smell is pretty well cleared out,” Natalie said.
Her Aunt Leah wasn’t going to believe all the stories she had to tell next time they talked.
“You stir cake and I’ll take tea to the guys. Want me to make a glass for you and take it out there too?” Lucas asked.
“Just leave mine on the counter, and thank you,” she said.
He put four glasses on a tray and was glad that he hadn’t tucked his flannel shirt in that morning. Even after the horse incident, the ice tea would probably be put to better use if he poured it in his lap rather than down his throat.
***
Natalie had argued with her friends that things like weak knees, light-headedness, and trembling hands were all just propaganda generated by the romance book business. Women read that stuff and were disappointed when real life wasn’t just like it. Sure, she enjoyed romance books and she could fall into the world of happy-ever-after quite happily. But she was wise enough to know that it didn’t happen in reality.
At least until that morning. Both times that they’d kissed, her knees had gone weak and butterflies invaded her stomach. There was something between them that rocked the world right off the axis. His eyes said that he felt it too. But there was also a dark cloud hovering above them shouting that it would never work.
Lucas picked up the tray like a restaurant waiter and carried it to the guys in the living room. Natalie checked her reflection in the microwave door. Her lips didn’t look too bee-stung and her face wasn’t totally scarlet. She balanced a plate of cookies on top of her tea glass and carried it to the living room. It seemed like they’d been in the kitchen half an hour but the clock on the wall above Henry’s head testified that it had only been a few minutes since she’d remembered that there was a cake in the oven.
“Is it one of them flat cakes with icing as thick as the cake?” Henry asked.
She set the plate of cookies on the table beside Henry’s recliner and her tea on the coffee table.
“Yes, it is. Momma’s sister gave me the recipe. And your job is to watch the c
lock and tell me when thirty minutes is up.” Natalie’s voice was surprisingly calm. She figured it would sound like she’d sucked all the air from a helium balloon. Her insides surely felt all jittery like she had.
“I can do that, but why is it your aunt’s recipe? Don’t your momma cook?” Henry cocked his head to one side.
“Aunt Leah is the cook. Remember I told you about her,” Natalie said.
“Yep, you did. Ella Jo used to make that kind of cake and sometimes I can talk Hazel into making one. She says anything that takes three fourths of a pound of butter is too rich for my old heart.” Henry chuckled.
Natalie went back to putting tinsel on the tree. “Aunt Leah says the same thing. That’s why we don’t get it very often either. She used to live close to us but now she is in Conway, Arkansas. Momma married a rancher and raised me and my three younger brothers. Aunt Leah married a career.”
“I see. Looks like maybe you got the best of both worlds,” Henry said. “Damn, this tea is good. Ain’t nothin’ like sweet tea, don’t matter if it’s winter or summer. Unless it’s a shot of Jack Daniel’s after supper on a cold night. Don’t you give me that look, Lucas. The Bible says not to get drunk. It don’t say I can’t have a sip of Jack to warm my old bones.”
“Ain’t nothin’ like an icy cold beer in the summer when the day’s work is done,” Grady said.
Jack chuckled. “Or a bottle of cold watermelon wine chilled in a cold creek.”
“Guess there will be an open bar like always at the party?” Lucas asked.
“Oh, yes there will,” Jack said. “I even ordered a few bottles of watermelon wine and a couple of strawberry wine just for you.”
“Tell me about this party,” Natalie whispered to Lucas.
“Dad, tell Natalie about the Christmas open house,” Lucas said loudly.
“We always have a little get-together for the neighbors and our business friends at Christmas. You don’t have to do much. Caterers come in with the food, and the hired help moves the furniture out of the living room and helps set up the tables and all. Folks filter in and out from about six to midnight. Mostly they stay about an hour and go on to the next party and then some more come in. Usually ain’t no more than thirty or forty in here at one time. Y’all probably have something like it out there in Silverton, right?” Jack asked.
She nodded. “Lawton Pierce has a big Christmas party down in the Palo Duro Canyon every year. Last year it had to be postponed a couple of weeks because of that snowstorm we got out there. We began to think it wasn’t going to stop until it filled the whole canyon. Momma has a New Year’s party in the big sale barn and everyone in the whole county is invited. Unless the weather is bad, we have a barn full.”
They’d finished the second roll of tinsel and the tree was beginning to look decorated. Lucas stood back and eyed it, walking all the way around to the back before he nodded. “I believe we’ve got it. It’s ready for the ornaments. You guys have to do those since we did the hard part. And we get to sit in the chairs and boss you.”
“Josh here is nodding off. I’d better sit right here and hold him,” Jack said.
Natalie shook her head. “No, sir! It’s your turn, and besides, I’m thirsty. So I’m going to hold Joshua and enjoy that glass of tea before it gets so watered down that it’s tasteless.”
“Sassy bit of baggage, ain’t you?” Jack smiled.
“That’s the understatement of the whole year. I’m sassy. I’m bossy. I pitch fits. And I’m more stubborn than a cross-eyed mule. I see the sun is trying to peek through the clouds out there”—she pointed out the window—“which means it’ll be thawing in a couple of days. You sure you want me to stay on until Hazel comes back?”
“Yes, he’s sure. I’m not about to eat his cookin’ for a whole month. I’d rather spend eternity on the backside of hell sittin’ on a barbed wire fence. And honey, you got a long, long way to go before you ever get as bossy as Hazel,” Henry said.
“Gramps!” Lucas said.
“Well, I would. Jack can barely make a pot of coffee. His momma never could teach him the ways of the kitchen. I’m putting the ornaments in the middle. I’m too old to bend and too mean to stretch,” Henry declared.
Jack handed Joshua off to Natalie, and the three old men talked about every ornament they picked up. This one was from the first years that Henry was married to Ella Jo; that one was what Lucas made in school in the second grade. It sounded like home, which reminded her that she had to call her mother.
When every one of the ornaments was dangling from a tree branch, Henry stood back like Lucas had earlier and cocked his head to one side. “It’s time to put the top up there. Josh is the youngest, so he gets to do it.”
“Good grief! He’s two months old and he just learned to smile. There’s no way he can put the top on the tree,” Natalie said.
“Sure he can if we help him. Lucas, you hold this and I’ll hold the baby up there. Grady, you got the camera?”
“Right here,” Grady said.
Lucas reached up and set the angel on top of the tree and Jack braced Joshua with one hand under his bottom and one at his back. “Right now, snap it while he’s got a hold of one of her wings.”
“He thinks it’s edible.” Henry laughed.
“If he wants to slobber on it, that’s just fine. Angels love babies as much as we do.” Grady chuckled.
After half a dozen pictures were taken, Jack handed Joshua back to Natalie and said, “Turn that baby boy around here, Natalie. He’s got to see his first Christmas tree the minute that it lights up.”
Sharp guilt hit Natalie in the heart. It should have been her momma’s tree that he saw first or even hers, not one that he’d probably never see again. Two steaming hot scorching kisses did not mean there was something permanent at Cedar Hill for her and Joshua. It just meant that her hormones were out of control and that Lucas Allen was one very sexy cowboy.
She turned him around and propped him upright in her lap, and Jack kept his eyes on Joshua while he stuck the lights into the plug.
“Look at his eyes!” Henry said. “They’re big as cow patties.”
“He’s smiling and it ain’t none of that gas stuff,” Grady said.
Jack stood up, folding his arms over his chest. A smile tickled the corners of his mouth. “I knew he’d like it. Wait until Saturday night when all the neighbors come. He’s going to be the star of the show.”
***
Natalie figured the rest of the decorations would be a few candles, maybe some extra lights to go around the window behind the tree, and a wreath for the door.
Boy, was she wrong! Just when she thought they couldn’t get another box stacked in the living room, they brought in a dozen more.
“Well, that does it for the house decorations,” Henry said. “Grady, you can have the hired help get all the yard stuff out of the barn and put it out there close to the porch. Lucas can decide how he wants it put up, but the blow-up things are going up close to the house so Josh can see them when I hold him up to the window.”
Lucas winked at Natalie. “You want me to go outside or put up stuff inside first, Gramps?”
“I want that train put up around the bottom of the tree. I want to see the baby’s face when he sees and hears that train,” Henry said.
“We haven’t put that up in years,” Lucas said.
Jack slit the packing tape on a big box that had TRAIN written on the side in three-inch letters. “Not since you was a kid. But we got a baby in the house now, and he’s going to love it just like you did when you were little. That was your favorite part of Christmas.”
Natalie had seen Lionel trains in pictures but never had seen one in action. She had trouble keeping her eyes off of those tight jeans stretched across Lucas’s butt while he crawled around and obeyed the orders that all th
ree of the older guys barked at him. She needed a long walk outside in the freezing cold weather by the time he got that blasted train running in circles around the tree.
Joshua blessed them with his biggest smile of the day when Henry propped him on his knee and the train whistled.
“See, I knew he’d love it,” Henry said. “We’ll sit right here in this big old recliner and watch it go round and round a few times.”
“It’s going to take days to empty all these boxes y’all have brought inside,” Natalie said.
“Naw, honey. We’ll have it done by the time we go to bed tonight with your help,” Jack said. “We got a system. First, we’ll do the tinsel around the walls. I’ll have to get out the ladder for that. Even Lucas can’t reach the ceiling.”
By midafternoon tinsel was looped around the top of the walls with a Christmas ornament hanging in the middle of each loop. A Nativity scene was set up on a table at the far end of the living room and a Santa scene on a table on the other end. Family pictures had been cleared off the mantel and replaced with an assortment of beautiful angels in cut crystal, china, and even a gorgeous one carved from wood.
“Look at Josh,” Henry beamed. “He likes the shiny angel with the gold wings the best. That was Lucas’s favorite one when he was a little boy.”
“I like the wooden one,” Natalie said.
“Gramps, tell her about that one,” Lucas said.
Henry picked up the figurine from the mantel. “Well, when me and Ella Jo was first married, we had bought the ranch and we was living in the little cabin. It was tough those first years until we got on our feet, so we made each other a Christmas present. That first year I got a good warm wool scarf and hat that she knitted special for me. And I carved that angel out of an old cedar stump for her because she was my own special angel. Look at this, Josh.” Henry held the angel out to him. “When you get to be a grown man, you find someone who just takes your breath away and looks just like an angel to you. When you do, you chase her until she says that she’ll be yours forever.”
The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby Page 8
