Josh laughed out loud at the mobile going around in slow circles above his head.
“He likes it,” Lucas said. “And he’s got room to grow. That little old crib you brought was stunting his growth.”
“It’s beautiful, Lucas.” Tears streaked her cheeks. “I’m pregnant,” she blurted out.
He dropped down on one knee and took her hands in his. “Will you marry me, Natalie Clark? I never knew or understood happy until you came into my life.”
The tears dripped from her jawbone onto the bright yellow tank top. She shook her head. “No, I cannot marry you.”
“Why?” he gasped.
“Because you are only proposing to me because I’m pregnant. You don’t have to do this,” she said.
He handed her a folded piece of paper. “That would be a marriage license. It’s good through tomorrow. I bought it several days ago with hopes that you’d say yes when I proposed this morning. I’m not asking you to marry me because you are pregnant. I’m asking because I love you. I don’t want you to say yes because we are going to have another baby. I want you to say yes because you love me.”
She threw her arms around him and sobbed into his chest.
He hugged her close and said, “Josh is our firstborn. My dog tags are in that little chest on his dresser. I gave them to him this morning and let him chew on them. He will know about Drew, but I want him to be my son. I want him to be proud of me for serving my country and to grow up on this ranch, which will be his legacy as much as the rest of the children we produce, Natalie.”
She leaned back and looked into his soft brown eyes. The message there was clear. She could trust him with her heart, her son, and her love. “I love you, Lucas, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Does this mean we are getting married today or tomorrow?”
“That’s your gift to me, sweet cheeks, so you decide. Gramps is an ordained preacher and the little church on the ranch is decorated for Christmas. I reckon it could be in half an hour or tomorrow, or if you want to wait a year, I can always buy a new license every ten days.”
***
The church was decorated for Christmas with a small tree beside the old upright piano and poinsettias on either end of the altar. She wore the ivory lace dress that she’d worn to the Angus Christmas party. Lucas wore his black Wranglers, a white shirt, and carried Josh in his arms as they walked down the aisle together.
Grady, Jack, and Hazel sat on the front pew and Henry waited at the front of the church. When they were standing before him, he reached out and took Josh from Lucas.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join Natalie… what is your middle name, honey?”
“My full name is Natalie Joy Clark,” she whispered.
“Okay, to join Natalie Joy Clark and Justin Lucas Allen in holy matrimony and to make them a family with Josh… what’s his full name?” Henry asked.
“His name is Joshua Lucas Clark…”
A grin covered Henry’s face. “A family with Joshua Lucas Clark, soon to be Joshua Lucas Allen. Can I have the rings please, Lucas?”
“You didn’t tell me that you named him after me,” Lucas said.
“You didn’t ask. I named him for my best friend, Joshua Andrew Camp, and the cowboy who helped me get over his death, Justin Lucas Allen. He will also have your initials when you adopt him,” Natalie said.
“You’re not going to fight me on that?” Lucas asked.
“Hell, no! He’s going to sleep in your crib and you gave him your dog tags. I think Drew would be happy for him to have your name,” she answered.
Grady chuckled. “Is this a wedding or a discussion?”
“The rings?” Henry said.
Lucas fished them out of his pocket. She hadn’t expected him to have rings, but then the day had been full of surprises.
“These rings belonged first to me and my beloved wife, Ella Jo. We are glad to share them with this couple today and it is our hope that they will be as happy as we have been all these years,” Henry said.
Natalie swallowed hard as Henry blessed the rings. She hadn’t even gotten over the weepy sentimental emotional roller coaster of pregnancy with Josh and now it was starting all over again.
Henry asked them to repeat the traditional vows. She didn’t stutter once when she promised to love, honor, and respect Lucas until death parted them. No problem there except that even death couldn’t part them any more than it had parted Henry and Ella Jo. Lucas Allen was her soul mate.
“And now you may kiss the bride,” Henry said.
Lucas tipped her chin up, looked into her blue eyes, and then kissed her with so much love and passion that her knees went weak. When the kiss ended he turned around and said, “Folks, welcome Mrs. Lucas Allen to Cedar Hill Ranch.”
Hazel dabbed at her eye. “And Josh. We welcome both of you.”
Henry handed the baby to Lucas and hugged Natalie. “Ella Jo is so happy that she’s got a granddaughter now and a great-grandson that she may stick around after Christmas.”
Jack was next. “You’ve given us the best Christmas ever.”
Grady was last in line. “Lucas sure got a good Christmas. Ain’t many cowboys get a bride and a baby both for Christmas. And the rest of us are mighty happy for him. He couldn’t have found a better woman to ride the river of life with.”
“Thank you, all,” Natalie said. “My momma says that you are all to come to Silverton with us on New Year’s where she’s planning a wedding reception. She’s not any too happy about not being here today, so you will be going with me. No is not an option.”
Hazel giggled. “I pass my bossin’ crown on to you right now. And we’ll all be ready to go to Silverton at whatever time you say.”
***
Lucas’s hand was around Natalie’s waist as they carefully laid Josh in his new bed that night. He spit out his pacifier and stuck his thumb in his mouth and they both smiled.
“Are you ready for bed, Mrs. Allen?”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Soon as I make a trip to the bathroom.”
“You are pregnant, sweet cheeks. I’m so happy about it I could scream it from the top of the barn. You don’t have to check it again,” he said.
She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll see you in the bedroom in a couple of minutes.”
He hurried down the hall, grabbed the CD and the candle that he’d given her, and carried them to their room. He lit the candle, turned out the lights, and put the CD in the player. When he heard the bathroom door shut he pushed the right button to start the music. Alan Jackson was singing “I Only Want You For Christmas” when she walked through the door, but Lucas couldn’t hear a single word of the song.
There she stood, strip stark naked, barefoot, hair all mussed up with a big red velvet bow tied around her waist and her pink pistol in her hand.
“Merry Christmas, cowboy,” she whispered.
He pulled the bow and led her to the bed. “Yes, ma’am, it surely is. You going to shoot me with that thing when I untie that ribbon?”
“No, I just keep it in the nightstand beside my bed. It goes with me. You got a problem with it?” She cocked a hip out to one side as she put the pistol in the drawer of the nightstand.
He reached out and pulled the ribbon and the bow came undone just as Alan sang that he only wanted her for Christmas, baby, that he didn’t need anything else. “I don’t have a problem with anything about you, sweet cheeks. Merry Christmas to me.”
Dear Readers,
Merry Christmas!
This is the second book in the Cowboys & Brides series, and Lucas and Natalie would sure like to welcome all y’all to Cedar Hill Ranch in Savoy, Texas. Population less than a thousand with friendly folks, ranches, sexy cowboys, sassy ladies, and a snowstorm promising the first
white Christmas in nearly twenty years.
Christmas is that time when love is in the air, as much or maybe even more than Valentine’s Day. It’s hustling about, cooking, and keeping secrets so that there can be surprises on Christmas day. It was the perfect time for Lucas to meet Natalie in person, the woman that he’d been visiting with via the Internet for almost a year.
He thought he’d surprise everyone when he arrived home two days early, but it was Lucas who got the surprise. Natalie had already arrived so that she and Hazel, Lucas’s elderly housekeeper, could surprise him when he came home. Imagine how he felt when he rounded the back of the house and there she stood, with a dead coyote at the toes of her boots, three bluetick hound puppies at her heels, a pink pistol in one hand, and a baby cradled in her other arm.
And poor old Lucas didn’t know a thing about a baby!
Folks have asked me if I plot for hours before I even start to write. This time I thought I had it all figured out, just what Natalie and Lucas would do after that first meeting—but I got the biggest surprise of all. They crawled into my head and told me exactly how to tell the story and what to say and if I did it my way, they even visited my dreams. So if you love the story, the credit goes to Natalie and Lucas and not to any plotting that I did.
And if you love the story, credit also goes a wonderful staff at Sourcebooks and my awesome editor, Deb Werksman! Writing for Sourcebooks is an amazing experience and I can’t thank them enough for continuing to buy my books.
Thanks again to my agent, Erin Niumata, at Folio Literary Management, who’s been steering my career for more than a decade. And thanks to Husband, bless his heart, who has lived with a loud-mouthed Rebel for more than forty years now.
And always, always big, big thanks to my readers who love my books, talk about them, pass them on to their family and friends, and continue to buy them. Y’all are simply great!
Keep your boots on because next spring, you can come back to Fannin County and read Greg and Emily’s story in The Cowboy’s Mail Order Bride. And after that, Mason Harper’s twin girls get their birthday wish in How to Marry a Cowboy.
Happy Reading,
Carolyn Brown
Read on for a sneak peek of
The Cowboy’s Mail Order Bride
Coming February 2014 from Sourcebooks Casablanca
Emily took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
The cold February wind swept across the wide porch of the ranch house and cut right through her lightweight denim jacket. Her heavy coat was in the pickup, but this job wouldn’t take long. Hand the box of letters over to Clarice Barton and she’d be back in her truck and on her way. Then her grandfather’s spirit would rest in peace. He’d said that it wouldn’t until the box was put in Clarice’s hands.
She heard footsteps on hardwood floors, and then something brushed against her leg. She looked down just as a big yellow cat laid a dead mouse on her boots. There were two things that Emily hated and mice were both of them. Live ones topped out the list above dead ones, but only slightly.
She kicked her foot just as the door opened and the mouse flew up like a baseball. The woman who slung open the screen door caught the animal mid-air, realized what she had in her hand, and threw it back toward Emily. She sidestepped the thing and the cat jumped up, snagged it with a paw, quickly flipped it into its mouth, and ran off the porch.
“Dammit!” The lady wiped her hand on the side of her jeans. “God almighty, I hate them things, and that damned cat keeps bringing them up to the porch like she’s haulin’ gold into the house.”
The woman’s black hair was sprinkled with white. Bright red lipstick had run into the wrinkles around her mouth and disappeared from the middle. When she smiled, her brown eyes twinkled brightly. Sure enough, the hardwood floor to the big two-story house was so shiny that Emily could see the reflection of the woman’s worn athletic shoes in it.
“I’m sorry,” Emily gasped. “It was a reflex action.”
The woman giggled. “Well, now that we’ve both decided that we hate mice, what can I do for you, honey? You lost or something?” she asked.
“Is this Lightning Ridge Ranch? Are you Clarice Barton?” Emily shivered against the cold and the idea of a mouse touching her favorite boots.
“Yes, it’s Lightning Ridge, but I’m not Clarice. She’s making a run out to the henhouse. We’re making a chocolate cake later on and I used up all the eggs makin’ hot rolls. It’s cold. You better come on inside and wait for her. I’m Dotty, Clarice’s best friend and helper around here. I’m going to have to wash my hands a dozen times to get the feel of dead mouse off.” The lady stepped aside. “What do you need Clarice for?”
“I’m here to deliver this box.”
“Your nose is red and you look chilled. Come on in the living room. We got a little blaze going in the fireplace. It’ll warm you right up. This weather is plumb crazy these days. February ain’t supposed to be this damned cold. Spring ain’t that far away. Winter needs to step aside. What’d you say your name was?” Dotty motioned her into the living room with a flick of her wrist.
“I’m Emily, and thank you. The warmth feels good,” she said.
“Well, you just wait right here. She won’t be long. Go on and sit down, honey. Take that rockin’ chair and pull it up next to the fireplace. Can I get you a cup of coffee or hot chocolate?”
“No, ma’am. I’m fine,” Emily answered. She would have loved a cup of anything hot just to wrap her chilled fingers around, but she didn’t want to stick around long enough to drink a whole cup.
“Well, I’m in the middle of stirrin’ up some hot rolls. Just make yourself at home until Clarice gets here.”
Dotty disappeared, leaving Emily alone in the living room. She held the ancient boot box in her lap. Her grandfather had worn out the boots that came in the box and now it held letters from a woman who was not her grandmother. His passing and her two promises to him in his final days seemed surreal, especially sitting in the house of the woman who’d written the letters more than sixty years before.
Warmth radiated out from the fireplace as she took stock of her surroundings. The room was a perfect square with furniture arranged facing the fireplace to give it a cozy feel. A framed picture of a cowboy took center stage on the mantel. She set the box on the coffee table and stepped in closer to look at the photograph. He had dark brown hair and green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. It had been taken in the summer because there were wildflowers in the background. One shiny black boot was propped on a rail fence, and he held a Stetson in his right hand. His left thumb was tucked into the pocket of his tight jeans, leaving the rest of his hand to draw attention to the zipper. And right there in the corner of the frame was a yellow sticky note with the words, “Miss you, Nana!” stuck to it.
The crimson flushing her cheeks had nothing to do with the heat rising from the fireplace and everything to do with the way she’d mentally undressed this man she’d never even seen in real life. Get a grip, Em, she thought to herself. She backed away quickly and stood by the door, but when she looked over her shoulder, the cowboy was staring at her. She moved to the other side of the room and shivers shot down her spine when she realized he was still looking at her. She tried another corner and behold, those green eyes had followed her.
She was tired. It had been a long emotional week and this was the final thing she had to do before she could really mourn for her grandfather. She’d driven since daybreak that morning, and her eyes were playing tricks on her. That must be it. Her dark brows knit together as she glanced at the picture from across the room. Did he have a wedding ring on that left hand? Determined not to let a picture intimidate her, she circled the room so she could see the photograph better, and his hand was ring free.
How old was he, and when was the picture taken? Not one thing gave away a year or a time other than it
was spring or summer. He might be a fifty-year-old man with gray hair nowadays and bowed legs from riding too many horses through the years. Or he could be a lot younger than he looked in the photograph and still be in college, just coming home to work on the ranch in the summertime like she had when she was getting her degree.
Unless he came looking for a warm spot to take the chill off, she’d never meet him anyway. Her mission was to deliver letters, and studying the picture was just a diversion while she waited on Clarice.
“My grandson, Greg Adams,” a woman said from the doorway.
“Fine-lookin’ cowboy, isn’t he? His daddy and momma wanted him to be a businessman in a big old office in Houston, but he’s got his grandpa’s ranchin’ savvy. He’s down in southern Texas at a cattle sale. Cute little sticker he left there, isn’t it?”
Emily swallowed hard at the mention of a grandpa. She fought even harder to keep from blushing again. “Yes, ma’am, he is surely handsome. I’m Emily Cooper, and you are Clarice Barton?” She quickly crossed the room and held out her right hand.
Clarice’s handshake was firm and her smile sincere. “Do I know you? Dotty said you had a box or something to give to me.”
Her thick gray hair was cut short to frame her round face. She wore jeans and a Western-cut shirt, boots, and no makeup, and she had the same green eyes as the cowboy in the picture.
“No, ma’am, you do not know me. You are Clarice Barton, aren’t you?”
“No, honey, I’m Clarice Adams. I haven’t been Clarice Barton in more than sixty years, but I was before I got married. Let’s sit down while we talk. Dotty is bringing us some hot coffee in a few minutes.”
Just out of curiosity, Emily glanced at the picture and sure enough, the cowboy followed her as she crossed the room and sat down.
She picked up the box from the coffee table and held it out to Clarice. “Marvin Cooper was my grandfather. He made me promise I’d bring these to you. They are the letters that you wrote to him when he was in Korea during the war.”
The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby Page 28
