Merry Cowboy Christmas

by Carolyn Brown

  They talked until midnight when Fiona made a joke about turning into a pumpkin and stood up, stretching from one side to the other with her hands over her head.

  “And now it’s time for Cinderella to rush away across the hall in her golden coach, right?”

  She giggled. “This Cinderella doesn’t even have a rusty old pickup anymore.”

  He popped the recliner down and walked her to the door. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “Ahhh,” she sighed theatrically. “My Prince Charming will race to my rescue in a big black club-cab truck.”

  “You bet your sweet little Southern ass he will.” Jud tipped up her chin with his fist. “He will even let you ride in the front seat.”

  She fought the desire to roll up on her toes for a good night kiss. “Thank you for that and for the conversation.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. His soft lips right above her eyes at that time of night when everything was so intimate anyway was almost more than her nerves could stand.

  She had to get out of his room or else drag him back to the bed, tear that shirt up over that muscled abdomen, and slip her hand beneath the elastic band of those Dallas Cowboy pajama pants.

  With that vision in her head, she backed out of his room and hurried to her own bedroom. She threw herself on the bed and stared at the dark ceiling. It was going to be a long, long winter.

  Chapter Seven

  Fiona awoke to the aroma of bacon and coffee blended with something sweet reaching her nose as she threw the covers back. Noises across the hall told her that her mother and Jud were getting around, too, so that meant Dora June was serious about taking over the kitchen. The sun wouldn’t be peeking over the horizon for another hour, but things had always started early in Dry Creek. The store was open by seven so the old guys could come for their morning coffee and discussion of politics.

  “Politics, aka town gossip,” she said to herself. She was used to getting up early because she’d had the early shift at the coffee shop. Folks who had to be at work by eight wanted time to drink the first cup in the shop and then take one with them to sip on throughout the morning.

  Fiona dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a soft dark green sweater and fished an old comfortable pair of cowboy boots from the back of the closet. Seven years she’d been gone and had only been home for a short while and yet old habits had come back as if she’d never left. Shaking the bugs out of her boots. Sitting on the step to put them on. Tucking the legs of her jeans down into them.

  Katy laid a hand on her shoulder. “Good morning. Ready to go to work again?”

  Fiona stood up and hugged her mother. “Good morning to you, too. Hey, I forgot to tell you that Lucy Hudson wants me to take over her books, too. She might come by and talk to me this morning.”

  “Ladies?” Jud stepped out of his room. “Books? What books?”

  “Fiona went to school to be an accountant. She’s always been good with figures,” Katy said.

  The pride in her mother’s voice made Fiona’s heart swell. She’d always known that her mother loved her but that morning she felt it down deep rather than just heard the spoken words.

  “We might need to talk about the Lucky Penny business, then,” Jud said.

  Fiona blinked and tried looking away, but it didn’t work. Wearing snug jeans, a dark blue thermal knit shirt with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and scuffed cowboy boots—well, that was definitely sex-on-a-stick right there. Then add in bedroom eyes that hadn’t had enough sleep and blond hair that curled when it was too long, and it was enough to make a saint sit up and take notice.

  “Mornin’, Jud,” she said. “I’d be glad to take on the accounting for the Lucky Penny.”

  He nodded slightly toward her and then turned his attention to Katy. “Smells like Dora June was serious.”

  “I love home cooking.” Fiona started down the stairs.

  “My girls have always had healthy appetites,” Katy giggled.

  Dora June was bustling around in the kitchen. She wore a red sweatshirt with a picture of Santa Claus on the front and green sweatpants that were rolled at the hem. “I know I must look crazy but I love the way this feels. All soft and Christmas like.” She pushed the sleeves up to her elbows. “Sit right down and have a nice cinnamon apple muffin while I fix y’all some eggs. I didn’t want to cook them until you were here because cold eggs are horrible.”

  “Dora June, you don’t have to wait on us.” Fiona buttered a warm muffin and rolled her eyes. “You should be baking for a fancy coffee shop. These would sell for five dollars each where I used to work.”

  Dora June beamed. “Aah, honey, wait until you taste my orange cranberry. I like to make them in the holiday season. Speaking of that, I make cookies every Saturday during the season so I can have them for my Sunday school class. Y’all will have to eat the broken ones.”

  “Well, now, that is surely a chore I will look forward to.” Jud smiled. “Where’s Truman this morning?”

  “He eats at five every morning and goes out to do chores by six. I expect he’s over at the house trying to prove it was the Christmas tree that caused the fire. I cried and worried until after midnight, but finally a voice in my head had a talk with me and I’m fine with things this morning. I’m sixty-eight years old and…” She prattled on as she cracked eggs into a bowl and whipped them into a yellow froth. “I’ve been praying for two years that God would show Truman that it’s time for us to retire and do something else. I didn’t want the answer to be what it was, but who am I to question God?”

  Fiona buttered another muffin and got the message as loud and clear as if it had been delivered through the voices in her head. The old truck barely making it to Dry Creek, the way things were working out, they were all answers to the prayers that she’d had in her head those weeks when she ran out of food and had no money. She’d been led to Dry Creek for a reason.

  “Now Truman”—Dora June poured the eggs into a cast-iron skillet with melted butter in the bottom—“he’s got to make his own peace and God has a little harder time convincin’ him than he does me. He’ll be back in the middle of the morning and we’re going to Wichita Falls to buy clothing.”

  “Don’t worry about supper,” Fiona started.

  “Oh, we’ll be back by then. I’ve got a chicken in the slow cooker and plan on making dumplin’s tonight.”

  After he’d finished breakfast, Jud carried his dishes to the cabinet, rinsed them, and put them in the dishwasher. Fiona followed so close behind him that she caught a whiff of his aftershave with every breath.

  “Y’all been raised right,” Dora June said seriously. “Now get on out of here and go to work and I’ll busy myself with my jobs.”

  Fiona wanted to remind Dora June that she wasn’t the boss, that she might have taken on the job of chief cook and maid, but that didn’t give her any parental rights or even grandparent rights, but she kept her tongue.

  “You got that right, Miz Dora. I’m procrastinatin’ going out there in the cold wind to feed cows but I suppose it’s got to be done,” Jud said. “Thank you for the mighty fine breakfast. You mind if I tuck a couple of those muffins in my pockets for a midmorning snack?”

  Dora June beamed. “Let me get you a couple of them plastic bags to put them in. Don’t want crumbs in your pockets drawin’ ants. You want to take along one or two, Fiona? There’s plenty.”

  “I’d rather have two biscuits stuffed with leftover eggs and bacon. That would make a great lunch,” Fiona answered.

  “I’ll get the bags and, honey, around here it’s dinner and supper.”

  Fiona nodded and pasted on a smile.

  Katy parked beside a line of five pickup trucks with their engines still running and old ranchers huddled down over the steering wheel like a buzzard over roadkill.

  “Mercy, the old guys are here early today,” Fiona said.

  “They’re always waitin’ for me to open up on Monday
so they can talk about the whole weekend. Men gossip every bit as much as women,” Katy laughed.

  Doors slammed as the guys crawled out of their trucks and followed Katy and Fiona into the store. They’d barely gotten inside when the pastry man arrived bringing in the usual order of pastries. Katy flipped on the lights and adjusted the thermostat while the fellows headed for the table in the back corner. Before Fiona could get the coffee made, Herman Hudson yelled at her to bring a dozen doughnuts to the table.

  “I know Miz Lucy made you a good breakfast,” Fiona said.

  “That was two hours ago, darlin’. Man my size has to eat more often than three times a day. Besides, these old codgers here are going to help me out with the doughnuts,” Herman chuckled.

  Herman lived in bibbed overalls and always had a smile for anyone he met. He and his wife, Lucy, had been friends with Fiona’s grandmother, Irene, since long before Fiona was born. He’d always felt more like a surrogate grandfather than a customer and he’d fallen right back into that place that cold November morning.

  “Old! Who you callin’ old?” one of the other men said. “And where in the hell is Truman this mornin’? I wanted to talk to him about that fire.”

  “Lickin’ his wounds, I imagine,” Herman said. “Katy took him and Dora June in over at Audrey’s Place. He didn’t want to go, but Dora June…well, let’s just say she stood up to him and he don’t mess with her when she takes a stand. She’ll put up with a lot of shit but when she sets her mind, he’d better go on and do what she says.”

  “I’ll be damned,” another old guy said.

  “He’ll get over his snit, I expect, and we’ll see him right here tomorrow mornin’,” Herman said.

  “Hey, I heard that them boys has got half the land cleared at the Lucky Penny. I swear they’re going to make that ranch something to sit up and notice for sure. They ain’t afraid of hard work or long hours neither one.”

  While her mother took a couple of doughnuts up the street to Lizzy’s feed store, Fiona refilled the coffee cups and went back to dusting shelves. Besides, she could hear what those old codgers were saying a lot better from that vantage point than she could back behind the counter.

  A blast of warm air greeted Jud when he pushed his way into the feed store that morning. Lizzy looked up from the counter and licked the chocolate frosting from the second doughnut from her fingers. It was the eyebrows and the shape of the faces that proved the Logan ladies were sisters. And maybe the attitude and that hip-swaying walk that made men take a second look and drool.

  “Gettin’ colder. Feels like snow out there,” he said.

  Lizzy laid a catalog to one side. “Weatherman says we’re in for another cold blast. I can’t believe we’re getting hit two years in a row. How’s things with Truman in the house?”

  “Haven’t seen him. He was gone at breakfast. According to Dora June, he leaves earlier than we do. I feel sorry for them. It can’t be easy losing everything like that, but Dora has accepted it.”

  Lizzy poured a mug full of coffee and handed it to him. “She surprised me last night. I thought he always ran the show but it sounds to me like whenever she digs in her heels, he’d better obey.”

  Jud sipped the coffee. “They’ve been married a long time. I guess she picks her battles. This is so good after being out in the cold all morning.”

  Lizzy motioned the last chocolate doughnut. “Help yourself if you want.”

  “No, I just ate two big muffins that Miz Dora gave me this morning.”

  “What are you in town for?” Lizzy hopped up on the counter and crossed one leg over the other.

  “About ten bags of cattle feed,” he answered.

  “I heard that Lucy Hudson is going to talk to Fiona about doing bookkeeping for their ranch. We should get her to take care of the Lucky Penny.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing all morning. We all hate to do the paperwork and there’s lots of it with a ranch.”

  “I worry about her, Jud. She thinks she won’t be happy here.”

  “Do I hear a but in there?” Jud asked.

  Lizzy nodded. “But I’m not sure what it is. We’ve always wanted her to come back, but it has to be her decision or she will never be content.”

  “Why did she leave?” Jud asked.

  “All I know is that she wasn’t happy here.”

  “Here’s my credit card. I’ll go load up the feed and run back through here to sign the bill. And, Lizzy, you and your older sister are wise to love her enough to give her wings to fly and not try to hold her down.”

  “Thanks.” Lizzy smiled.

  Jud didn’t actually need a thing from the convenience store that morning, but he wanted to see Fiona.

  Tell a man he can’t have something or that he can’t do something and that will give him incentive to go after either with a full head of steam. The voice in his head sounded remarkably like his grandfather’s.

  A few flakes of snow fell from the sky as he stepped out of his truck at the convenience store. It was shaping up to be a second hard winter in Dry Creek. Last year Blake had to run things by himself. At least this year there were three of them to share the work load, plus two women who were absolutely the best rancher’s wives in the whole state of Texas.

  “I’m in the back room at the table trying to make heads and tails of Mama’s books. Holler when you get ready to check out,” Fiona yelled.

  He stopped long enough to pour a cup of coffee and carried it to the door where a floral curtain had been pulled to one side. “Looks like you aren’t going to get any moss on you today.”

  She looked up and frowned.

  “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” he explained.

  That netted him half a smile.

  She laid her books aside. “Well, there won’t be a bit of moss on me if that’s the truth. I’ll be here until eternity dawns getting Mama’s books in order. If she’d ever been audited, they’d have never found their way through the maze.”

  “I heard Lucy Hudson is bringing her things to you, too.”

  Fiona rolled the kinks from her neck. “That’s probably fifty years’ worth of work.”

  Jud removed his coat and hat and tossed them on the table in the corner, set the coffee on the end of the desk, and rounded the end. He stopped behind her chair and massaged her shoulders and neck muscles, his fingers digging in the knots that had been there far longer than the four days he’d known Fiona.

  “Why are you a rancher?” she asked.

  “Because I love the job,” he answered.

  “Women would pay big bucks for you to do this for them. If you did it naked from the waist up, you could charge double,” she teased.

  “And if I did it totally naked?”

  “Oh, honey, the sky would be the limit.”

  “Want me to close that curtain and take off my clothes?”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’m just sayin’, not askin’.”

  “You need a break. Come up front and have a cup of coffee with me,” he said.

  “After that massage, I’d follow you to the moon and back.” She stood up, got her foot tangled in a cord, and stumbled right into his arms.

  “Whoa, there, darlin’. I know I worked the kinks out of your neck, but I didn’t touch your legs,” he teased.

  One second she was straightening up; the next he was looking down into her green eyes and then his lips closed on hers. The kiss set off bells and whistles so loud that he couldn’t hear a damn thing but ringing in his ears. Her lips were soft and the way her hands pressed against his chest sent bursts of heat right through his shirt to his skin. Dammit! Dammit! He’d never been so attracted to a woman in his whole life. It wasn’t fair that fate had put her in his pathway and then said he couldn’t have her.

  “Hey, Katy, where are you?” Sharlene yelled. “I need a cup of coffee. Okay if I pour it?”

  Fiona took a step back and frantically licked her lips. Jud picked up his hat and coat from the table.
r />   “I didn’t even hear the bell,” she whispered.

  “I thought it was just more of those going off in my head after that hot kiss.” He quickly settled the hat on his head and put the coat on, more to cover up the bulge in his jeans than for warmth.

  “I’m in the back, Sharlene! Be there in a minute. Mama ran over to Nadine’s,” Fiona called out as she started from the back room into the store.

  “Fiona, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” Fiona said. “I’m helping Mama through the winter. You must have lost your touch, girl. I remember when you had all the gossip firsthand.”

  Sharlene, one of the biggest gossips in town, flipped her shoulder-length blond hair over her shoulder and ran her hand up Jud’s arm. “Hey, handsome. Fiona, I haven’t lost my touch at all. I was in Abilene for the holiday with my boyfriend and I just got back today. I’ll be catchin’ up on all the news soon as I get to Nadine’s for lunch, but I wanted to run by and get a cup of coffee and visit with Katy first.”

  Jud waved and started for the front door.

  “I’ve got a boyfriend or I would simply have to sample the goods you bring to the table,” Sharlene teased.

  “Your boyfriend is one lucky feller.” Jud flashed a brilliant smile and took two steps away from her.

  “Oh, honey, as sexy as you are, just say the word and I won’t have a boyfriend in thirty minutes.”

  “I might change my mind in that length of time.”

  Sharlene laughed. “Poor baby! I don’t cheat when I’m in a relationship and my boyfriend is out of cell phone reception for thirty more minutes, so it can’t happen today. But don’t give up hope.”

  “Never,” Jud drawled. “See you at home this evening, Fiona. I’ve got to get the feed out to the ranch.” He tipped his hat but his eyes were on Fiona. “Ladies…”

  Sharlene watched Jud until he was in the truck and then turned back to Fiona. “I heard about Dora June and Truman’s place burning.”

  “They’re staying with us at Audrey’s,” Fiona said. She couldn’t fault Sharlene for flirting or for watching that cute little tight-hipped swagger because she was doing the exact same thing.