“While you are doing that, I’m going to try on a new pair of work boots,” Lucas said.
Natalie loved Western-wear stores. She liked the way they smelled, the rows and rows of cowboy boots, hats, and racks of shirts, belts, and jeans. Diane came from around the counter and pointed at a shelf with folded flannel shirts.
She picked out several things for the guys and asked Diane if she could please wrap them.
“And I want that dress…” She pointed to a mannequin. She wanted the boots. Hell, she needed the boots. “And the boots too. It’s fate that they and the dress are my size, so I should have them.”
“Oh, I agree,” Diane said. “I’ve got a fancy cape in the back that goes with that dress. It’s the softest suede you’ll ever throw around your shoulders and the buttons are covered in that same lace. Lady had it on layaway, but she changed her mind and I just haven’t gotten it back out on the rack yet.”
She brought it out and Natalie fell in love with it.
“Can you just put all of that in a separate bag than the presents?” she asked.
Diane winked. “You are planning on surprising Lucas, are you?”
“Yes, I am. We’re going to the Angus Christmas party.”
“Well, darlin’, you’d better take a big stick with you to beat off all the other ranchers who will try to beat his time. Jewelry?”
“No, I’ve got something that will be perfect, but I do like that pearl comb right there for my hair.”
“You go on and look at them boots Lucas is trying on, and I’ll get all this wrapped up real pretty for y’all,” Diane said.
Natalie found him in the back corner sitting on a wide wooden bench. He pointed at his feet. One boot was brown and one was black. She sat down beside him and jumped when she saw a movement to her side. The coon had snuck back in with another bunch of teenage customers.
It reared up on his haunches and looked at all three of them then ambled to the back door. Diane was right behind it with crackers in hand. “I’ve created a mess that’s going to get me fired.”
The coon followed her out the back door that time. She locked it and returned to her customers.
Lucas removed the boots. “I still got a month left in my old ones, so I’ll come back and get them after Christmas. Don’t want to have to break in new boots in this kind of weather. Why do you think we have this problem with animals anyway?”
“Henry says that they’re coming around to see you. Mama says that I’ve always drug in strays. Maybe it’s a combination of the two of us,” she said.
“Well, it’s plumb crazy. What do you want for Christmas, Natalie?”
“I want—” She blushed. She couldn’t tell him that she wanted to be a permanent part of Cedar Hill Ranch and that she wanted him to accept Joshua as a real son. Lord, that would be asking for more than Santa Claus could stuff in his sleigh.
“What?” he pressured. “For real, what do you want?”
“I’ll think about it and let you know later. What do you want?”
“You,” he said without taking his eyes off her. “I came home in one piece and you were waiting for me.”
***
The moon hung in a crystal-clear sky at the top of the windshield on their way home that evening. Stars glimmered around it like subjects before their king. Natalie remembered what Lucas had said about Drew being king in their barracks. She intended to paint that picture to Joshua when she told him all about his father.
“I figured he’d be sound asleep the way we’ve dragged him from one store to the other.” Lucas nodded toward the backseat. “But he’s talking to his fist and chewing on it like it’s chocolate.”
“It’s time for his bath and night bottle,” she said.
“You’ve got him on a pretty good schedule.”
“I didn’t do it. He did. From the day he was born he ate every four hours and he’s been a good baby. No colic or fussing other than when he’s hungry,” she said. “They’re not all like that, though. I’ve got some friends who have walked the floor with their kids.”
“Melody’s first one about split their marriage. I don’t think either she or her husband slept the first year. They got so cranky that we were all afraid they’d divorce over that baby. I wondered if they could even get a divorce on grounds of lack of sleep because the baby is so fussy. But after he was a year old, he did a complete turnaround and he’s been a good kid ever since.”
Natalie nodded slightly and looked out the side window. Since they were on the subject of babies, maybe it would be a good time to ask about the test results. She opened her mouth but words would not come out.
They drove through Savoy and he made a right-hand turn and then a left onto a dirt road. A quarter of a mile later he turned right again and drove down the lane to the house. The lights strung around the porch and house were on and the Christmas tree filled the window.
“I’ll carry Joshua and then come back for the bags that you can’t take,” Lucas offered.
Sometimes Fate did give her a decent hand. She’d worried about getting the baby and that big bag with her dress, cape, and boots into the house at the same time. She really, really wanted to surprise Lucas when she got all dolled up for the party.
The ground was as slippery as greased piglets, but she managed to keep her balance from truck to porch and then into the warm house. She rushed to her room, tossed the bag on the bed, and then hurried back out to the living room to take Joshua from Lucas.
***
He handed the baby off to her and went right back out to bring in the rest of the packages they’d bought. He slipped on the top step but with a lot of fancy footwork kept from falling on the presents. If he broke the ornament that said Baby’s First Christmas Natalie would never forgive him. She’d searched through four stores before she found just the right one. It was motion activated and played “Little Drummer Boy” as it revolved.
“We’ve got to have this,” she’d declared.
“Why that particular one?” he’d asked.
“Henry reads that to Joshua almost every day. He’ll get a big kick out of it.”
Lucas had gotten such a big kick out of shopping with her and the baby that for a whole evening he’d forgotten that they weren’t a family. It had been so easy to fall in love with Natalie after that first evening that he couldn’t even remember when it happened.
“Whoa!” he said.
She opened the door and stood to one side. “Did you trip? I thought I heard a thump. I slipped and almost fell on that top step. We probably need to salt it or do some serious scraping tomorrow morning. Henry could break a hip on it.”
“No, I just remembered that Gramps always uses the back door. I’ll take care of the steps tomorrow in case anyone does come to the house. I got all the presents in that load. We were only gone three hours. How did we buy so much?”
“We worked hard,” she said. “If you’ll take the wrapped ones out and put them under the tree, I’ll get this boy bathed and then fed so he can go to bed for the night.”
“Yes, ma’am. Your wish is my command,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. Well, do you want to do diaper duty?”
“No, ma’am!” he said quickly.
“Then my wish is not your command. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” She disappeared down the hallway.
He heard water running in the bathroom as he kicked off his boots and stretched out in his recliner. He leaned back, shut his eyes, and visualized him and Natalie taking a long, hot shower together: running his soapy hands all over her body, feeling her pressed against him, her wet lips on his as the water sprayed down over their naked bodies. He was suddenly in semi-arousal, so he pulled his shirt out of his jeans and let it hang on the outside.
Women didn’t have to worry about the whole world s
eeing things when they were aroused. They might get flushed or even kind of glazed eyes, but they didn’t have a bulge in their jeans.
“Love?” He flipped the switch to make the train run around the tracks. Lately he felt just like that little train—running in circles and going nowhere. He was in love with Natalie and he really did like Joshua. But did he like him enough to make him equal to any children they might have of their very own?
He looked at the packages in his hands and pictured his family on Christmas morning when they ripped them open.
“Hazel!” he said. “I’ve got to find something extra special for Hazel this year so she’ll stay on the ranch and not go back to Memphis.”
He placed the packages just right up under the tree and sat back on the floor and looked at them. “Love? For real?” he whispered.
Joshua was wrapped in one of those baby towels that had a hood when she brought him back to the living room. She laid him on the sofa and dried him while he fretted and gnawed at his fist.
“No smiles for Momma tonight?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t smile either if I was brought in from the cold and given a bath when all I wanted was my night snack,” Lucas said. “Want me to make the bottle while you dress him?”
“Yes, and thank you. The water and powder are in the kitchen above the…”
He held up a palm. “I know where you keep them and how to make a bottle. Hold on, Josh, we’ll get your chocolate cake and ice cream in a minute. Do you heat it in the microwave or in a pan?”
“Neither. Room temp is fine.”
***
She rubbed lotion all over the baby and bent down to kiss him on the cheek. “So tell me, what do you want people to call you? Is Josh more of a cowboy name than Joshua?”
He smiled at her and cooed.
She kissed the bottom of his feet before putting his warm footed pajamas on him. “You are a traitor. Living in this testosterone-filled man cave has changed you.”
“And here it is right on time.” Lucas handed her a bottle. “It’s chocolate cake and ice cream this time. Tomorrow morning it will be bacon and eggs, Josh.”
The baby flashed his biggest smile yet at Lucas. Little rascal was a traitor. She bet if he had a father that he’d say Daddy long before he ever said Mommy.
“Want me to feed him while you wrap those packages?” Lucas asked. “I’m all thumbs when it comes to wrapping. I only shop in stores that wrap the presents for me,” he said.
Joshua snuggled against Lucas’s chest and latched onto the bottle. Lucas eased down into a recliner and held baby and bottle both in one arm while he flipped the lever on the side. “Ah, boy, this is the life, isn’t it? A recliner and food. It don’t get no better than this. That shoppin’ business will flat take it out of a couple of hardworking cowboys. How them women folks can shop a whole day is pure magic.”
Natalie glanced at them as she wrapped the presents for Grady, Jack, and Henry and slipped them under the tree. All the guys now had presents under the tree, but there was nothing for Lucas. She made up her mind right then that she was going to buy the boots for him and a vibrating neck roll pillow for Josh to give him.
Good Lord! She’d just shortened Joshua’s name in her thoughts. Her brothers would roar with laughter if they knew she was even thinking the word Josh after the fit she’d thrown at the hospital when he was born.
Suddenly Christmas music filled the room and she looked up so fast that she tore the paper. “Well, shit!”
Lucas laughed. “You got to quit saying words like that when Josh gets old enough to talk. Paper cut?”
“No, that music scared the bejesus out of me. And Hazel cusses like a sailor and she raised you all right,” she said.
“You don’t like Christmas music?” he asked.
“Love it. It’s my favorite holiday of the year, but I was way off in la-la land thinking about something else when it came on. I can’t believe the baby is already asleep.”
Lucas held out his arms. “I’m good with kids. Want me to put him in his little crib thing in your room?”
“That would be great, and pick up the baby monitor from the nightstand on your way back out here,” she said.
CMT was playing old Christmas videos when she looked around the Christmas tree at the television. Dolly Parton was singing “Hard Candy Christmas” and every line spoke to Natalie. Most lines in the song started with the word “maybe.” Natalie could relate to that so well that evening. After Hazel came back maybe she’d drive so far that everyone would forget all about her and Joshua. Or maybe if she’d fooled around and gotten pregnant again, she’d really run far, far away and never look back. Because there was no maybe to it; she was not telling her mother that she was having another baby without a father around to help raise him or her.
The song ended and Rascal Flatts sang “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Tears welled up in Natalie’s eyes. Where was home? She’d thought it was in Silverton, Texas. She’d been born there and she’d die there after a long life with some old cowboy who loved ranching as much as she did. But lately when the word came to mind she related it to Cedar Hill.
“He’s down for the count. You know how they kinda sigh when they’re really asleep. When I put him in the crib, he did that,” Lucas whispered as he crossed the room and sat on the floor beside her.
“How did you know that?”
“I don’t have nieces or nephews, but I’ve been around babies. Lots of my friends have families already,” he answered.
She put all the wrapping supplies in a sack and pushed it back. “Think the guys will be happy to see presents?”
“Oh, yeah! They’re just little boys in big boy jeans.” He laughed.
Scotty McCreery had just begun to sing “First Noel” in his deep Southern voice when Lucas picked her up and sat her down in his lap. She leaned into the kiss and parted her lips. His tongue made sweet love to her mouth and the room temperature rose twenty degrees.
She wrapped both arms around his neck and toyed with the penny chain still holding his dog tags. He groaned and inched his hands up under her shirt, traveling slowly toward her breasts. They ached for his touch but he took his time, massaging, teasing, and kissing her until she was panting.
She’d never before felt like her insides were filled with molten lava about to explode any second. She ran her hands up under his shirt and touched his bare skin. Taut muscles rippled from his waist to his shoulders. She found the chain again and slipped under it to touch his neck.
He groaned. “God, that feels so good. I love your hands on my body.”
“Ditto.” She panted.
He broke the kiss and leaned back. “I can see the Christmas tree lights in your blue eyes.”
“Your brown eyes are shot with gold from the reflection of the dying embers in the fireplace,” she whispered.
She scooted away enough that she could unfasten the buttons on his shirt. “Tell me right now if we have to stop because by the time I get to the bottom button, you are going to be in big trouble if we do.”
He reached up and pulled a condom from his shirt pocket. “I ain’t got a word to say.”
“We need that?” she asked.
“We do,” he said with a big grin on his face.
The moon didn’t fall out of the sky. The Christmas tree didn’t catch on fire. Tomorrow she’d think about all the maybes in her life. Right then she wanted satisfaction and the only person who could deliver it was Lucas Allen.
“You can unbutton faster than that,” he said.
“Probably, but I’m not going to. I’m going to make you every bit as hot as I am.”
His lips found hers in another sizzling kiss that jacked up her inward temperature to the boiling stage.
“Oh, honey, you don’t even know what hot is but you
are about to find out,” he whispered seductively in her ear.
She finally undid the last button and threw his shirt back to look her fill of that broad chest, ripped abdomen, and taut nipples. She kissed each one and then reached for his belt buckle.
“Oh, no!” He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips to kiss each fingertip.
Mercy! When did fingertips become an erotic zone? They washed dishes. They scrubbed floors and did laundry. They even wrapped Christmas presents, so how in the hell could he turn her on by kissing each one?
He took just as much time undoing her buttons as she did his. When he threw back her shirt and saw the bright red lace bra, he gasped.
“Like what you see?” she asked.
“Christmas has come early in the Allen house,” he answered.
His hands were like coals of fire when he reached around her rib cage and unfastened her bra. She pulled his lips to hers for another hard, steamy kiss, this time not holding back a single thing. She wiggled her shoulders to help him take the shirt off and when the bra slipped over her shoulders, she leaned backward to give him better access to her breasts.
“Oh my God!” she said when his lips and tongue toyed with each one, giving them equal attention before he returned to her lips.
“I don’t think God has much to do with this,” he whispered as he strung a trail of slow steamy kisses down her long, slender neck before settling back on her mouth.
“You are stunning, Natalie Clark,” he said.
His eyes, his hands, his kiss all made her feel like she was the most beautiful woman on the whole planet. Being the tall, gangly kid her whole life, she’d never known such a feeling.
“Listen,” he mumbled.
“To what?”
“The song that’s playing,” he said.
Alan Jackson was singing “I Only Want You for Christmas.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
What about after Christmas?
The thought was a blur as it passed through her mind. She’d worry about after Christmas later. Right then she only wanted Lucas.
The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby Page 20
