The Cowboy's Christmas Proposition

by Silver James

  Not knowing how Deacon planned to spend the day, she’d called ahead...only to learn he was at his mother’s place. With the whole family. Tates and Barrons. Double ugh.

  She had a plan. She would duck in, make sure the baby was happy and whole, and run. Because the last thing she wanted, after last Saturday and Sunday, was to be trapped in a house with all those people.

  A Mercedes blew past her. She automatically hit her lights and siren and charged after the speeder. Quin called in the vehicle description and license plate. The car came back clear, meaning it wasn’t reported stolen and the tag was up-to-date. Five miles later, the driver realized she was chasing behind. He pulled to the shoulder and the brake lights went off. Good. The driver had put the sedan in Park.

  Still, she approached cautiously. Like domestics, seemingly normal traffic stops could go south in a hurry. “Please turn off the ignition,” she called, easing up to the side of the car, one hand on the roof, the other on her pistol. The driver immediately complied. Quin leaned down to look in the window.

  A very sheepish man with gray hair and Clark Kent glasses offered an apologetic smile. “I am so sorry, officer. I fear I wasn’t paying attention.”

  She didn’t acknowledge the apology. “License, registration and proof of insurance, please.”

  The guy patted his jacket, doing his best to look bemused. Quin’s instincts kicked in. “Please step out of the car, sir.”

  She backed up to give him room. A second later, she had a fight on her hands. The guy erupted from the driver’s seat, fists swinging. She ducked the first punch but the follow-through caught her on the cheek and it hurt. Still the man was out of shape and she wasn’t. Quin had him subdued within a few short minutes, but she’d taken a few more licks in the process.

  “What is your problem, mister?” she asked as backup arrived and hoisted the man to his feet.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Quin closed her eyes, counted to ten and took a deep breath. “No. Because you decided to turn stupid before you handed me your driver’s license.” The man opened his mouth to tell her and she held up a hand. “Too late now and I don’t really care what your name is. You assaulted a state trooper. You are going to jail.”

  About to lose her cool again, she backed away and let the other officers deal with him. In short order, the driver was identified, Mirandized and stuffed in the back seat of another trooper’s cruiser. “You really should hit the ER, Quin,” one of the officers said.

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s just a bruise and a split lip. There’s another deal I have to take care of first. I’ll stop by University Hospital on my way home just for the paperwork. My LT is gonna be really unhappy. He was off today.”

  After a bit of commiseration from the other troopers who had responded, Quin was back in her cruiser driving to the last place in the world she wanted to be. After dealing with this ego-inflated, entitled jerk, she was headed into a nest of more just like him.

  * * *

  The celebration wasn’t quite in full swing yet. Deke was hanging out close to the front door. Not hovering exactly, but he wanted to be the one to answer when Quin arrived.

  The place was crawling with Tates and Barrons. As far as his mother was concerned, the more, the merrier. She and his late uncle Cyrus were as opposite as two siblings could get, except for one thing: when it came to family loyalty, they’d been peas in a pod.

  The sun was shining, the air chilly but comfortable and there would be football after lunch, but not on TV. Any shared holiday—Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, it didn’t matter—always ended in a game of pickup football between the Tates and the Barrons. This year, the game would be a little less cutthroat given that little CJ would be playing.

  When the doorbell rang, Deke just managed to beat Dillon to it. They scuffled and Deke had his little brother in a headlock when the door opened. Quin stood there, her uniform rumpled, a dark bruise on her cheek threatening to spread to her eye, her lip cut and swollen.

  “What the hell—” He pushed Dillon away and reached for Quin’s arm, drawing her into the room. “Who hit you?” Anger sat like a frozen lump of cornbread dressing in his gut.

  Dillon, standing beside him, sucked in air. “Dang, Deke.”

  “I’m fine,” Quin insisted, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I just had a small run-in with a speeder. Not a big deal.”

  “The hell you say.” Deke normally didn’t cuss. Katherine Tate had certain rules in her house and four-letter words were prohibited. At the moment, he really didn’t care. “If you could see your face, Quin, you’d say different.”

  His mother was suddenly at his other side, having pushed through the mass of people who’d rushed the door after hearing Deke’s raised voice. “Let the child in,” she insisted.

  “I’m not a child,” Quin said.

  “In my house, if you’re hurt, you’re a child. And you’re bleeding.”

  “But I’m not—”

  Deke brushed his index finger over her chin and held it up for her to see the bloodstained tip. “Yeah, darlin’, you are. Come in.”

  “Come with me,” his mom ordered.

  She and Quin, followed closely by Jolie, disappeared into the interior of the house. All the rest of the family stood around in stunned silence until CJ piped up. “She had a bad boo-boo, Cuncle Deke. You shoulda kissed it. That’s what Mommy and Daddy do for me.”

  Cuncle was a word CJ had coined to differentiate between his Barron uncles and his corresponding Tate cousins. Normally, Deke would have smiled at the kid but he was way too angry. Cord, CJ’s dad, shushed him and suggested that they go see what was on TV.

  Deke had to find out exactly what had happened and if Quin really was okay. He arrived at the door to the bathroom, standing just out of sight.

  “Yes, Mrs. Tate. I fully intend on going to the ER. It’s required by DPS.”

  His mother immediately scolded Quin. “You shouldn’t be driving, young lady.”

  “Mrs. Barron—” Quin began.

  “Call me Jolie.”

  “Will you please explain to her that I’m fine?” Quin sounded exasperated and frustrated.

  Deke settled on a plan. He’d have to make arrangements for Noelle but he would insist on driving Quin to the ER. She still had a chip on her shoulder where he and his family were concerned and he had a major hankering to knock off that chip. To take care of her. Not to mention kiss her. Again.

  Deke slipped out before he got caught eavesdropping and was sitting on a bar stool jostling Noelle on his knee when the three women returned. As he’d anticipated, his mother insisted Quin join them for lunch though it took the threat of calling her supervisor to get her to sit down and eat.

  The Barrons and their wives gathered on one side of the massive farm table. The Tates lined the other. Deke’s mom sat at one end and his oldest brother, Hunter, who served as chief of security for Clay Barron, sat at the other. Deke did his best to steer Quin away from Dillon, but his irritating little brother grabbed the chair next to her when Tucker distracted Deke.

  Taking matters into his own hands, Deke pulled out the empty chair on Quin’s other side, picked up her chair—with her sitting in it—and set it down in the empty spot. Then he hooked the empty chair with his booted foot, dragged it into place and sat. He smirked at Dillon before turning a sunny smile on Quin. She was working her lips to hide her smile.

  “Don’t you have brothers?” he asked, acting all innocent.

  “I do. Four of them.”

  “Then you should be used to stupid antics.”

  She raised an eyebrow over her uninjured eye and didn’t bother to hide her own smirk. “You could say that.”

  “So,” Dillon said, leaning around Deke, “did you get the license of the truck that hit you?” He oofed as Deke nailed him in the ribs with an elbow.

  Their mother cleared her throat and gave Dillon and him her “mother stare.” Then she smiled at Quin. “I suppose your brot
hers taught you lots of things growing up.”

  “Yes, ma’am, they did.”

  Dillon leaned over Deke again, still grinning. “Oh? Care to share?”

  She fixed Dillon with a regal expression that was almost as good as his mom’s. “They taught me what not to date.”

  Nine

  Deke, taking a sip of water at the time, spluttered and coughed. Dillon was all too happy to pound on his back. When he could breathe again, his mom fixed him with a stare. “I like this one.”

  Great. His mother had never been subtle and the few women he’d brought to family gatherings had never measured up to Katherine Tate’s strict standards for her boys. Now she put her seal of approval on a maddening cop who made him think very inappropriate thoughts about her and handcuffs. He managed to avoid looks from both women by keeping his head down and stuffing the traditional Thanksgiving meal into his mouth.

  By the time lunch was over, Quin’s shiner was a doozy and her eye was swollen almost shut. He exchanged a look with his mother over pumpkin pie. He was formally excused from clean-up duty. His mother was as concerned about Quin’s injuries as he was and would back him up when he insisted on driving her into Oklahoma City to University Hospital to get checked out.

  The argument was brief when he told Quin the plan. He paused to grab an ice pack from the freezer before gathering her up and ushering her toward the door. His brothers were teaching CJ to do whipped-cream shots straight from the can as he closed the door behind them.

  Deke guided her to his truck, and she balked until he said, “Do you want me to drive your cruiser? Because, babe, I’ve always wanted to go code three.”

  “What about the baby?”

  Laughter rumbled in his throat and he didn’t even attempt to stop it. “Darlin’, my mother has seven sons. Not one of us is married, nor do we have any kids. She’s in hog heaven babysittin’ that little girl. Not to mention the Bee Dubyas.”

  “Bee what-yas?”

  He spelled out the words as he settled her into the passenger seat of his truck and buckled the seat belt before she could. Then he explained, “Bee Dubya. For Barron Wives. That’s what we call them when they’re runnin’ in a posse like they sometimes do.”

  He handed Quin the ice pack and she gingerly pressed it against her cheek. Deke didn’t miss the wince and found himself doing the same in sympathy.

  Neither of them spoke on the drive to the hospital. Walking in with an injured Highway Patrol trooper was a fast way to get in and out of the ER. Her X-rays were negative. The lip was already scabbing over. Thanks to the ice pack on the trip into town, the swelling around Quin’s eye was down but she had a heck of a shiner. The ER doc wanted her to go home to bed. Deke perked up at that instruction and grinned when Quin scowled.

  She was hurt. A tender part of him that didn’t often see the light of day just wanted to offer comfort. The tenderness he felt toward this feisty woman should have made him nervous. He wanted to ascribe the feeling to being around the baby, but he had been contemplating a home and family before any of this happened. Bottom line? He was all kinds of interested in Quincy.

  They ended up compromising, not that he was happy about it. He drove her back to his mom’s, then strapped Noelle, snugly asleep in her carrier, into the base of the car seat in his truck, and followed Quin, who was driving her cruiser, home. “Just in case,” he’d insisted. Of course, he hadn’t mentioned his ulterior motives—like finding out where she lived. The strain of the fight was settling in and her muscles were most likely stiff. She couldn’t take any of the super-duper pain pills the doctor prescribed until she was safely home.

  Deke was right on her bumper as she keyed in through the gate of her complex and he slipped through on her tail. His mom would have his head if he didn’t see Quin safely to her door. That explanation was on the tip of his tongue as she confronted him when he pulled up behind her cruiser.

  He rolled down the back window so he could hear the baby if she stirred and stepped out of the pickup, hands up in surrender. “Don’t care what you say, darlin’.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Okay, Trooper Darlin’. Whatever you say. But I’m tellin’ ya, my momma would have my head if she heard I’d just left you here and driven away. I’ll sit here until you’re safely inside.”

  She angled her head, and he could almost see the thoughts tumbling behind her calculating gaze. “You aren’t going to insist on coming in?”

  Deke gestured to the open window of his truck. “Little bit is sleepin’. I’m not gonna wake her, and I sure don’t plan on leavin’ her alone in the truck.”

  He reached out and gently traced the tip of a finger along the uninjured side of her jaw. “The man who did this deserves to spend a long time in jail,” he said, his voice quiet but threatening. She tensed at his words but he leaned in anyway and planted a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Go get some sleep, darlin’. I’ll see ya soon.”

  He gripped her shoulders, turned her around and gave her a nudge toward her condo. Deke waited until she’d unlocked the door before he climbed back into the truck. He didn’t stop the grin when he saw her raise her hand and touch the corner of her mouth where he’d kissed her. Yeah...he planned on seeing a lot more of Trooper Kincaid.

  * * *

  The day after Thanksgiving, Quin awoke stiff and achy, and the thought of getting out of bed filled her with dread. She poked at her bottom lip and winced.

  “Not too bright, dummy,” she chided herself. Her lip was still swollen, as was that whole side of her face.

  Quin brushed the tip of her index finger over the spot where Deacon’s lips had brushed her mouth last night. She hadn’t expected the kiss—or maybe she had, but not the sweetness of it, or the tenderness of his touch.

  How could she be so stupid? There was no way she was getting involved with Deacon. No. Just no. It was all kinds of wrong on more levels than she could comprehend this morning. First, he was part of a case she was working on. Second, he was bad news and she didn’t trust him. She needed the DNA proof from the paternity test. The results were slowed down by the holiday but she held out hope they’d arrive within the next couple of weeks. Discovering whether he was the father would answer a lot of her questions.

  Did they have chemistry? Well, she was human. And female. And he was Deacon Tate. His fame put her off more than it attracted her, but she had to admit, he was sexier than all get-out when he was up on stage singing. She made a mental note to never use her computer at Troop A to watch his YouTube videos again.

  So she was attracted to him. No big deal since she had no intention of ever stepping over the professional line again. And so what if he flirted with her. He was a man who lived for the adoration of his female fans. Obviously. He was charming. Handsome. Talented. Sexy.

  Quin groaned. This line of thought was taking her nowhere. She rolled out of bed with as few movements as possible. A long, hot shower would ease some of the pain and would definitely help with the stiffness. Then she’d check in at Troop A to see if any new information about Noelle’s mother had arrived. She was tugging on every string she had looking for a lead. Then she’d face the drive to Deacon’s ranch.

  An hour later, she walked into the briefing at Troop A to the sound of whistles and catcalls. She kept her cop face in place, ignoring them as she took a seat. Staff meetings only happened once a week. The rest of the time, troopers checked in with Dispatch and hit the highway—or other assigned duties—running. Just her luck, the briefing had been scheduled for today.

  The lieutenant walked to the podium, stared around the room making a head count, then launched into the game plan for the holiday weekend. It seemed everyone but Quin would be back out on the highways for the travel rush. It rankled that the lieutenant singled her out to come to his office as they broke up.

  As soon as he closed his office door behind her, she opened her mouth to complain but he interrupted with a brusque “How’s the face?”

 
; “Sore.”

  “I want you to go home.” He shook his head at her. “No arguments. You still need to check on the kid, then you can work from home, where you’ll be comfortable. You can follow up leads from there.”

  If she had any. Still, the idea of a long, hot bath, flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers appealed.

  “Rest up because I need you back on patrol duty tomorrow. And trust me, I’d be saying this to any trooper whose face looked like yours. You can arrange your check on Deacon Tate around the patrol schedule. Okay?” He flashed her a droll smile. “I know you’ve been chewing your leash, Kincaid. Get over it. You’re very much in the public eye. We need to find the mother then turn this whole mess over to those with more political clout than we have.”

  “No kidding, sir.”

  “Then get to work.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  * * *

  When her cruiser rolled to a stop in front of Deacon’s house, there were no other vehicles around. Weird. Every other time she’d been here, the place had seemed like traffic central. Did he have a garage? She got out and looked around. No movement anywhere. She strode up the walk and climbed the steps to the front porch. Still nothing. She knocked, then walked around the house peeking in windows. No movement. No sound.

  Her emotions seesawed between worry and anger. On her second circuit of the house, movement down at one of the outbuildings caught her eye. She went back to her cruiser and drove to what turned out to be the barn. A man she’d never seen before was in the process of releasing several horses into a corral.

  “Can I help ya?” the man called.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Tate.”

  The man pushed his ball cap up and scratched at the thatch of hair that spilled across his forehead. “Well now, I probably need t’know why you’re lookin’ for the boss.”

  Quin approached the fence. “And you are?”

  He walked over and stuck out his hand. “Matt McConaughey.” He patted his ample middle and laughed at her skeptical expression. “I know. I get that reaction a lot. I manage the place for Deke when he’s outta town. Now, why would an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper be lookin’ for my boss?”