Henry pointed at a dappled donkey coming around the side of the house straight toward Lucas and Natalie.
“See there! You stole my donkey to keep the coyotes away. I heard that your new woman killed one right up in the backyard. Chester, he don’t like nobody but me. Onliest animal on my ranch that is mine. He can’t even stand the grandson, and you been tamin’ him since you been home so you could steal him,” Crankston said. “I’ve a mind to just shoot you this time for real.”
The donkey stopped a couple of feet from Lucas and shook his head. Joshua fought his way out of the blanket and cooed at the donkey.
“Ain’t nobody going to be shootin’ no one. We’re on our way to town to have supper. Your donkey should be safe right here in the yard fence until you bring over the decorations tomorrow. You can get him then,” Henry said.
“The hell I will. By then, he won’t let me near him. He’s a jackass that takes up with only one person at a time, I’m tellin’ you. By tomorrow he might decide to take up with one of y’all instead of me. Come on, Chester.” Crankston looped a rope around his neck and tied him to the back of the pickup truck. “Y’all go on ahead of me. I’m going to drive real slow and take him back home. It ain’t but a little over a mile back to my place.”
***
Joshua spit out his pacifier and cooed around it when Natalie reached over the seat and put it back in his mouth. She told him he was a good boy and that was the extent of their conversation on the twenty-minute drive from Savoy to Sherman.
“I wonder what all this is with the animals,” Natalie asked.
“Fluke or coincidence. Or all this weird weather. Take your pick,” Lucas answered.
He stole looks at her while he drove. She wore her jeans and boots like a woman who was comfortable with the ranching life. He could hardly believe that she’d given birth to Joshua just a couple of months before. Her waist nipped in above rounded hips and below a chest that filled out that shirt right well.
He parked, got out, and opened the door for Natalie and waited for her to unbuckle Josh from his seat. “You sure look pretty tonight.”
Her smile lit up the whole parking lot. “Thank you, so do you.”
“Pretty?” He cocked his head to one side.
“You know what I mean.”
“What exactly do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean that you are sexy as hell, look good in those jeans, and I like the shirt. It’s the same color as your eyes. Oh, and I like the way your butt looks too,” she said.
The grin got wider. “You don’t have any trouble saying what’s on your mind, do you?”
“I call it like I see it,” she said.
And all you said was pretty. You want to amend that? Drew was back visiting Lucas.
“Well, darlin’, there aren’t enough words in an unabridged dictionary to say how stunning you are tonight,” he said.
“There’s a lot of words in that dictionary I hope you aren’t thinking. Like fat, ugly, hateful…”
“Okay, okay. You take my breath away. When I stepped into the living room tonight, my mouth felt like it did in the middle of a sandstorm over there in Kuwait. If I’d have had to speak or drop dead, I’d have just crossed my arms over my chest and fell down graveyard dead.”
“Very, very good pickup line,” she said.
“It’s the God’s honest truth,” he protested.
“Then thank you.” She wrapped a blanket around Joshua and didn’t waste any time getting into the restaurant. Lucas was just glad she didn’t bring out that denim rag thing that she slung around her shoulder and carried him in at the ranch. That thing was just plain ugly.
Henry, Jack, and Grady waited for them right inside the door of the restaurant. Jack reached toward Natalie. “I’ll take the baby. I’m glad you left that bucket thing in the car. Babies need to be held, not toted around like a basket full of eggs.”
Joshua promptly spit out his pacifier and cooed at Jack.
Grady caught it before it hit the floor. “Good try, son. But I’m faster than you are.” He hooked it on his little finger and touched Joshua’s cheek. “Did you have a good ride? I bet those two didn’t give you nearly as much attention as we would have.”
“Y’all really are as bad as old women at church when a new baby is brought in for the first time,” Lucas said.
“We are not. Just wait until tomorrow morning and you’ll see that we can’t hold a candle for those old gals to go by,” Henry said.
Church! In Savoy the whole family went every Sunday and sat on the same pew. Natalie went to church with her family in Silverton, and even if she hadn’t, she’d have to come up with a damn good excuse, like death, to get out of going. Jack and Henry would insist on it. That meant Lucas, Natalie, and Joshua would drive to the little white church in town together. And they’d all sit on the same pew and the gossip vines would produce an abundant crop that week!
The waitress showed them to a table for six and Jack kept Joshua in his arms. He propped the baby up on his lap and said, “Next year you can eat with us. You’ll have teeth and I bet you will order a beefsteak as big as a platter,” he said.
Lucas seated Natalie and sat beside her. He picked up the menu and immediately the hair on his neck stood straight up. Someone was definitely staring at him or sneaking up on his blind side. That sensation never failed him and kept him out of trouble lots of times. He glanced sideways at Natalie, but she was busy looking at her menu. His gaze went one by one around the table. Jack was talking to the baby, and Henry and Grady were arguing over whether to choose the steak and shrimp special or to go for the lobster.
Jack stopped telling Josh how it wouldn’t be long until he could sit in one of those kiddie chairs and asked Natalie, “So how does Fannin County compare to your part of Texas?”
She laid the menu to one side and bit her lower lip. It drew Lucas’s attention to her lips and he wanted to kiss them, which brought on a red-hot desire for more than a kiss. Now he had a full-fledged arousal and the hair on his neck was still prickling.
“Well,” she said slowly.
The waitress appeared at the table before she could say another word. “What are you folks having to drink?”
“Bud Light, please,” Natalie said.
“Same,” Lucas said.
“I’ll have sweet tea, but we also want a bottle of your best champagne and five of those fancy glasses,” Henry said. “Our boy has come home from Kuwait and we are celebrating with a toast before we have supper.”
“Congratulations on making it home in one piece and thanks for serving our country,” the waitress said. “Your son looks just like you. Bet you were glad to get home to see him while he’s still little. Y’all ready to order or do you want me to bring your drinks first?”
“We’re ready,” Henry beamed.
Something just flat out wasn’t right. The last time Lucas had been spooked so badly was the last morning Drew left the tent. Something hadn’t been right that morning either, but he couldn’t put his finger on it until he heard the explosion. He looked at Natalie again, but she was sipping her beer. Jack, Henry, and Grady all looked like the old proverbial cat that had found its way into the cream.
Was someone about to bomb the restaurant? Was there a terrorist sitting somewhere close? Something horrible was about to happen because his nerves were getting more uptight by the second.
They ordered and the waitress left and then he heard something like the scraping of a chair on tile floor. He looked at Natalie, and they both glanced over their shoulder just in time to see Sonia walking toward their table. Her high heels sounded like gunshots on the tile floor and he had to hold his hands tightly to keep from throwing them over his ears.
She stopped between Lucas and Jack and slung a hip against Lucas’s shoulder. “Well, hello! I�
��d forgotten that y’all always go out to eat on the night before the big party. Got everything all decorated? Remember that year that you and I strung the lights, Lucas? It was so warm that we were out there without jackets and in our shorts. This is more like Christmas, isn’t it?”
“Sonia, I’d like to introduce you to Natalie Clark. Natalie, this is Sonia,” Lucas said.
“It’s nice to meet you. You are engaged to Noah, right?”
“Yes, I am. We’re planning a big beautiful Christmas wedding.” Sonia barely glanced Natalie’s way.
“Oh, there are my girls!” She waved to a group of women coming toward her. “We’re having a girls’ night out to talk about what we are wearing to your party tomorrow night. It kicks off the whole season in Savoy, Miss Clampton, and even the hired help is invited. You’ll have a good time.”
Natalie smiled brightly. “I’m sure I will, and it’s Clark, not Clampton.”
She brushed a quick kiss across Lucas’s cheek. “Save me one dance for old time’s sake, Lucas.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Noah is my friend,” he said.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder and sashayed back to the table where her girls were gathered.
“Well, now you’ve met Sonia,” Henry whispered.
“Yes, I have. Now what do I want to order?” Natalie looked at the menu.
The heat radiating from Natalie’s back to his arm was about to burn holes in his skin. His brain flashed pictures of her long legs tangled up with his in soft sheets. “Blue Christmas” was playing in the restaurant and suddenly the bedsheets in his mind were the color of her eyes. He heard the words about her being gone and how that he’d have a blue Christmas without her, but he didn’t want to think about that.
“Would Noah be mad if you danced with her?” Natalie whispered.
“I just don’t think it would be right. You will dance the midnight dance with me, won’t you?”
“That’s a pretty important dance at any Texas party. You sure you want to fire up that gossip vine?”
Lucas dropped his hand from the back of the chair and wrapped his fingers around Natalie’s shoulder. He leaned toward her and whispered softly, “I’m very sure, and thank you.”
***
Lord, his breath was like pure fire on her skin and he smelled like heaven and hell mixed up together. If there ever was a devil in blue jeans, he was sitting beside her and his name was Lucas Allen. He wasn’t playing fair, touching her arm like that and whispering seductively in her ear.
Well, as her mother said, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
She reached under the table and laid a hand on his thigh. She felt his quick intake of breath and knew that he was feeling every bit of the heat that she was. She squeezed gently and ran her hand up another two inches.
“Now, before we were interrupted, I was askin’ about your county out there in the Panhandle,” Jack said.
“It’s a small world. Momma remembers Henry and his wife coming to her ranch over by Goodnight when she was just getting engaged to my dad,” she said.
Henry’s gray eyebrows drew down until they were a solid line. “What was her maiden name?”
“Adams. My grandparents are Dollie and Walter Adams,” Natalie said.
Henry’s eyebrows returned to their proper place and he chuckled. “Knew them well. Was in the same Angus Association with them for years until we split the state up so we all didn’t have to travel so far. Haven’t seen them since that time, probably because that was the year that Ella Jo died. That’d be out in Briscoe County, right?”
“Silverton is. We only have two towns in the whole county,” she said.
“That’s because your dad owns half the county,” Lucas said.
Natalie saw a quick movement at the table behind them and glanced over her shoulder. It would be asking too much for Sonia to fall out of her chair and die, but surely God could make her choke almost to death. Or even give her a bad stomachache so she’d have to go home early. But the woman’s expression said that she’d like to use that bottle of wine in the middle of the table as a weapon on her, instead of drinking it. Natalie smiled and wiggled her fingers in a girlish wave toward her.
“Not quite half but a big chunk.” Natalie looked back at the guys. “With what Momma owns, it might be more than half, though.”
“So what’s the other town?” Grady asked.
“Quitaque,” she said.
“I remember that place. It’s not spelled like it sounds. Thank goodness the way you say it, kit-a-key, is out there on the welcome sign or me and Ella Jo would have never figured it out.”
“How’s it spelled?” Lucas asked.
She said the letters slowly. “Most folks want to say quit-ick or quit-ache. Silverton is the county capitol and the courthouse is on the square. Not much town but we get by. We’ve got an implement company, a grain and gin company, and a place to buy gas and milk. The rest we drive into town for kind of like y’all do.”
“What’s the population?” Grady asked.
“Somewhere close to eight hundred last time they took count. Not much different than Savoy. Big enough to be a town and have a post office. Small enough that everyone knows their neighbor’s business.” She smiled.
Lucas’s hand on her arm got hotter and hotter. She wanted to pick up the menu and fan with it, but it was the middle of the winter and the restaurant wasn’t overly warm. She’d be glad when their food arrived so he’d have to remove his arm to cut up the steak he’d ordered.
“Y’all got coyotes out there? Look, the baby has gone to sleep.”
Natalie moved her hand on his thigh up another inch. Dammit! Touching his leg was making her every bit as hot as him touching her arm.
“I can hold him,” Natalie said. That would give her a logical reason to stand up and walk around the table to take the baby. That way she wouldn’t lose the fight.
Jack shook his head and made a cradle for Joshua by crossing one leg over the other. “See there, I can eat and take care of him. It’s like riding a bicycle, darlin’. I used to hold Lucas like this at meal times.”
“If he gets too heavy, I’ll hold him and yes, we do have trouble with coyotes. But we fight the lobo wolves too. A pack of them will take down a calf in seconds,” she answered.
“And that’s why you have a pink pistol?” Lucas squeezed her shoulder gently and then settled his hand closer to her neck. Bare skin against bare skin. Her insides were boiling hot. Another inch or two up his thigh and she’d know for sure if he was having problems too.
“I have a pink pistol because I wanted it and I have a license to carry it concealed. I have a twenty-two rifle that takes care of wolves and coyotes. Momma taught me two things. Shoot straight and don’t waste ammunition.”
“Your momma is a good woman,” Jack said.
Their drinks and the bottle of champagne arrived and Henry asked the waitress to pour the chilled champagne for them. He stood and raised his glass.
Lucas had to move his hand to hold the glass.
Natalie had to move hers for the same reason.
Tie, she thought. Neither of us backed down a bit, but thank God for champagne or who knows what might have happened.
“To Lucas for making it back home,” Henry said.
Five glasses clinked together and they all sipped the bubbly champagne.
Jack raised his glass and said, “To my son. Not a day went by that I didn’t worry about you, and I’m glad you are home. And to Natalie for being here to help us through this tough time without Hazel.”
“Thank you,” she said and held up her glass again when she saw Grady standing up.
Grady stood and held his glass out toward Lucas and Natalie. “Put them together, kids. This is to you both for
bringing a baby into our lives. We didn’t realize how much we were missing. And I’m sure glad you’re home too, Lucas.”
From the look on Sonia’s face, not one single word was wasted. If Fannin County was anything like Briscoe County, by tomorrow morning the whole place would think that Joshua belonged to Lucas. Just how that could have happened when he was in Kuwait and she was in Texas was a mystery. But hey, rumors could make miracles and perform magic, and they had wings that carried them faster than the wind in a tornado.
Chapter 9
Natalie checked everything one more time before she carried Joshua back to the bedroom to get him ready for the evening. Tables for six were set up along the walls in the living room, den, and dining room. Miniature Christmas trees decorated with flickering lights and tiny ornaments were set in the middle of the tables covered with red and green plaid tablecloths. Finger foods and festive desserts including pecan tarts and miniature cherry cheesecakes were displayed on long tables against the far wall in the dining room. The portable bar was right inside the den. A gray-haired bartender wearing a white shirt, black pants, and red vest waited to pour, shake, or blend whatever the guests wanted.
The catering staff would keep the tables refreshed and pass among the guests with pretty silver trays with flutes of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. On a much smaller scale, it reminded Natalie of the barn party that would be taking place on New Year’s Eve at the Clark ranch and suddenly she was homesick.
“We’ll probably be home for that party, Joshua.” She talked to the baby lying in the middle of her bed. “Your grandma might forgive us for Christmas, but never for the New Year’s party.”
Her phone set up a ring tone that said Debra was calling. “Hello, Momma. I was just telling Joshua about the New Year’s party. You must have ESP.”
“I’ve got more than ESP, Natalie. What’s wrong with that cowboy and all those men?”
“Momma, I’m getting ready for the Christmas open house party thing here at Cedar Hill. What are you talking about?”
The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby Page 12
