“No, but all this has,” she answered.
“And to think, this, instead of Salt Draw, could be yours.” He chuckled.
“I’d live every day in fear I’d do something wrong.”
Tyrell was the first Gallagher to greet them, shaking hands with Finn and then bowing low to kiss Callie’s fingertips. “You wore our shade of green tonight. The Gallagher family suffered a severe loss when you stopped at Salt Draw instead of crossing the road to Wild Horse. Someone as lovely as you would wear our plaid so well.”
“Thank you for that compliment, but I was actually trying to match the green of the O’Donnell and the Brewster plaids when I bought this dress. They are bold and very similar.” She smiled.
“Ah, Finn, you’ve got yourself a spitfire Irish lass, I see.” Tanner laughed.
“She can hold her own,” Finn said.
Betsy swept across the floor in a lovely green velvet dress that hugged her curves like a glove. The glow of the chandeliers, the dress, and pure mischief put a sparkle in her dark green eyes. Her red hair was swept up in a nest of curls behind a diamond tiara.
“Hello, Finn. Save me a dance.” She ignored Callie and smiled at him before she moved on to the next guests.
Gladys touched Finn on the shoulder, and he whipped around. “Open bar here at this party. I’ll take Callie to get a drink, and you can talk to the menfolk.” She tucked Callie’s arm into hers and led her through the maze of people to the bar.
***
“You need to meet Naomi Gallagher, Callie. She’s the grand matron of the ranch, and she runs Wild Horse with an iron hand. Nothing gets past her,” Gladys said.
“Not even the feud stuff?”
“Not one thing. She probably instigates ninety percent of it. She married into the family more than fifty years ago. She dated a Brennan first back in the day, and they had a big fight. She went for a Gallagher next and, believe me, she’s made the Brennans pay and pay and pay. She might look like a prissy little old lady with dyed red hair, but believe me, there’s horns under that ratted hair,” Gladys whispered.
A bar stool served as Naomi’s throne. Her cowboy boots with lots of flashy rhinestones didn’t reach the first rungs. The brilliant diamonds on several of her fingers sparkled even brighter than the enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Even though she was a small woman, her dark green eyes left no doubt that she was the boss and everyone in the room would do well to respect that.
Her Southern voice was soft but demanded attention. “You’ll be Callie Brewster from Salt Draw. I’ve heard about you. I’m Naomi Gallagher. I understand Verdie has come back home to roost. I’m glad. She should have never left, but life takes us on some strange trips. What are you ladies drinking tonight?”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Miz Naomi,” Callie said.
“A Guinness and a shot of Jameson,” Gladys told the bartender.
Callie nodded.
“Looks like you’ve been raised right.” Naomi laughed. “I’m sorry to leave good Irish company, but I have to go mingle. Tell Verdie I missed her tonight and I envy her getting to stay home to play with the grandchildren.”
Gladys propped a hip on a bar stool and drank deeply of the dark beer. “Let’s take a case of this and run away to the barn with a couple of scorchin’ hot cowboys for an orgy.”
Callie had just tipped up the shot glass and had to swallow quickly to keep from spewing it all over the bar, the bartender, and Gladys. “Gladys!”
“I’m old, darlin’, but I’m not dead, and I still remember how to do it.” She laughed.
“Changing the subject on that note.” Callie blushed. “Is there a Brennan queen?”
“Oh, hell yeah. Didn’t you meet her? Mavis married the very Brennan who Naomi lost. About those cowboys?”
“Please tell me you were teasing.” Callie smiled.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t imagine you’d be willing to share a single inch of Finn with anyone, since you’ve already put Betsy and Honey in their places over him.”
A short brunette, wearing a crimson red satin dress that flowed from the waist down in a sweeping antebellum-type skirt, pulled out a bar stool. “Mind if I join you ladies? Lovely dress, Gladys.”
“Why, thank you, Ilene. You look like you belong in Gone with the Wind.”
“Thank you. I wanted that look. White wine, please,” she told the bartender. “And there he is. I’d hoped he would be here tonight. Give me white zinfandel, please. That’s the only kind he drinks.”
She picked up the two glasses of wine and carried them across the floor.
“Well, hot damn!” Gladys said.
“What?”
“Look.” She nodded.
Callie hadn’t recognized Orville out of uniform. He wore a black Western-cut suit, boots, and a big silver belt buckle. When Ilene handed him the glass of wine, he smiled and said something that lit up her face brighter than the enormous Christmas tree in the corner.
“I didn’t recognize him without a box of doughnuts,” Callie whispered.
Gladys cackled and motioned for the bartender to bring her another shot. “Guess he just needed a wake-up call. Lord, the Brennans are going to shit little green apples. If the Gallaghers have the sheriff in their pocket, there’s no tellin’ what Naomi will try.”
Tyrell claimed the bar stool next to her and said, “I heard you and Finn were together in the army.”
“I was his spotter.”
Tyrell pointed toward a longneck bottle of beer and the bartender set it in front of him. “I didn’t know they let girls do that job.”
“They can do it if they outdo the smart little boys,” she said.
“Guess nobody much tangles with you, do they?”
“Not too many times,” Callie said.
The dinner bell rang.
“There’s my cue. Time to go. Nice visitin’ with you, Callie,” he said.
“That means we go rescue Finn from that group of men and find our seats. I already switched place cards. I’m sitting with y’all. If the Brennans decide to retaliate tonight, and I’m not sayin’ they are, then I want to be by the exit out of this place,” Gladys said.
“And they’ve put me and Finn out on the edge by the door?” Callie asked.
“Exactly,” Gladys answered.
“Why?”
“You haven’t been accepted. You are here because of Verdie. There’s an order to the seating. The head table where Naomi will reign like a queen is all the way to the back of the room beside that enormous wall of glass lookin’ out over River Bend. Importance starts there and ends up at the back table where we are sitting.”
Callie smiled. “Strangely enough, I like that idea.”
“Far away from Betsy as possible, right?” Gladys said. “She’ll be up there at the head table.”
“Where were you supposed to sit?” Callie asked.
“About middle of the room with Polly, but I’ve got a feelin’ she’s been spyin’ for the Gallaghers. She’s my friend and my sister-in-law, so I’d never ask, but still, they know things from the Brennan camp too quick sometimes,” Gladys said. “I just switched places with a hired hand. He’ll go home happy thinkin’ he’s the ranch glory child because he got to sit closer to the head table than the foreman.”
When they were seated, Tyrell gave the welcoming speech and the waiters started moving through the crowd with carts. Warming dishes held steaks, baked potatoes, fried sweet potatoes, and green beans. Salads were already on the table along with fancy crystal plates filled with stuffed olives, mushrooms, celery sticks, and radishes.
Callie heard the noise above the buzz of conversation, but surely to goodness there wasn’t a helicopter right above the ranch. Why would there be? Finn had his head cocked to one side, which meant he’d heard it, too.
“Is that what I think it is?” She squeezed Finn’s thigh under the table, more in fear than in flirtation.
“Sounds like it. Maybe it’s
a medical chopper headed to Dallas, but it’s definitely a helicopter,” he said.
“It’s hovering right outside the house,” Callie whispered and noticed two of the waiters quietly slip through the big double doors and run outside.
One second it was warm and everyone was bragging on steaks. The next, the big glass window was gone. It didn’t shatter to the inside or the out. Callie watched it rise up into the sky and fly off into the darkness. The room felt like the eye of a tornado and then the north wind shot through the open space, bringing cold, sleet, and snow with it.
“There’s going to be dead Brennans floating in the Red River come morning,” Naomi screamed above the din of people leaving food on the tables and trying to get out of the room.
Panic didn’t set in until the cattle arrived. An old bull led the stampede into the room, crushing the head table and knocking Ilene into Orville, both of them landing on the floor at the same time. Then he plowed his way into the room like he was hunting for a big green pasture right there in the middle of winter.
There were about twenty cows behind him, and the whole crowd started running when they jumped over the short wall that had held the glass window and plowed right into the ballroom. Callie figured the best she could do was get out of the way, especially when the old bull came at her with what looked like a medium rare steak hooked in his left horn. She backed up into a corner, and the bull ran past her. His eyes were wild as he threw back his head and bawled at the big crystal chandelier, pawed a couple of times, and charged the Christmas tree in the center of the room.
Trying to help the people would be like herding feral cats. Betsy, bless her heart, was doing her damnedest to get them all gathered up and out of the room right up until she slipped in a nice warm pile of bullshit right there on the carpet and fell backward. The table she hit on her way down dumped green beans and corn into her pretty red hair, and a heifer raised her tail high and pissed in her lap.
Callie couldn’t move from the corner. It all happened so fast and yet in slow motion at the same time. Betsy was screaming. Cows’ eyes were rolling in their heads like billiard balls on a pool table. Naomi’s cussing would have put blushes on sailors’ faces. Gladys finally grabbed Callie by the hand and pulled her out of the corner.
“Time to get out of here before things get really bad. Looks like the steaks on the hoof have ruined steaks on the fine china plates.” She slapped a cow on the flank to make room for them to escape through the doors.
“Where is Finn?” Callie yelled.
“I’m right here behind you, Callie. A cow got between us, but I was on the way to rescue you.” His big hand closed over hers.
“I should have strapped my gun to my leg under this dress. There would be a bunch of dead cattle if I’d had it with me,” she said.
“I knew I was right about not sitting up there at the front of the room,” Gladys yelled. “See y’all later.”
Polly passed Finn and Callie on the way to the pasture to get their truck. “Y’all might as well come on down to the bar. I reckon that’s where most folks will go now.”
“So?” Finn asked.
“I’ll be more comfortable there than here. Hell, they’ll probably blame us first because we’ve been in the military. I wonder how they did that,” Callie said.
Polly yelled over her shoulder. “Don’t know how, but it was slick. The Brennans had better watch their backs now. To leave Santa with shit on him is one thing, but Naomi will be out for blood now.”
“Want to stop by her bar for a couple of plain old Coors beers on the way home?” Finn asked Callie.
“Will you dance with just me? We won’t be at a to-do, so we don’t have to share each other. And please tell me we don’t have to go to these parties every year, Finn.”
“I hope to hell not,” he said.
“I’m going to make a deal with Verdie. We’ll take turns. She has to go every other year. She should have to get dressed up at least every two years,” Callie said.
He drove back to the main road and turned north. In a few minutes he nosed the truck into one of the few remaining parking places in front of an old weathered building that looked as if it had never seen a coat of paint. A hand-painted sign swinging from chains on the porch had once said Burnt Boot Bar, but the letters in the last word were faded.
“We had a hamburger here that one time, but I never noticed the sign. I thought this was Polly’s Place,” she said.
“That’s what everyone in town calls it. Her husband built it and ran it. She worked in Gainesville for the state department until he died, and then she retired and kept the bar. That’s what Verdie told me,” Finn said.
They’d just claimed two stools and ordered a couple of beers in Polly’s bar when Amanda, the caseworker for the kids, touched Callie on the shoulder. “We have a family who is willing to take all three of the O’Malley kids, but they won’t be able to take them until January tenth. This is a married couple over in Amarillo.”
Callie’s heart dropped to her knees. “Are they going to adopt the kids?”
“No, just foster them. If someone wanted to adopt them, then that would take precedence. Of course, it would have to be a couple. We seldom ever adopt kids out to single parents. And there’s no one willing to take on three kids their age. Just thought I’d give you the heads-up so you’d be aware of what’s going to happen.” Amanda turned and started back to the table where her friends waited.
“Did you hear that?” Callie asked Finn.
“Marry me,” he said.
Callie was stunned into silence. “What did you say?”
“I asked you to marry me.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No, but I figure if you marry me, I might save you from a life of alcoholism,” he said.
“Finn, you can’t tease me out of this. I’m going to drink until you have to carry me into the house tonight like you did that New Year’s Eve over there in the war when we put away all that whiskey your cousin sent to us in mouthwash bottles. And I’m going to make you tell the kids, because I can’t tell, but you aren’t doing it until after their trip with Verdie. She’s liable to have a heart attack or else run away with the whole lot of them, and she’s got the money to stay gone until they’re all grown,” Callie said.
“Marry me, and we’ll adopt them, and Verdie will be safe, and the kids will have a home,” he said.
“I’m not sure that’s a good reason to get married,” she said. “But it is tempting.”
“We wouldn’t have to tell anyone we’re married. As long as it’s legal on paper, then Amanda can’t turn us down. She said that a married couple wanting to adopt took precedence over foster care, didn’t she?”
Callie’s heart did a backward flip. He would be marrying her just for the kids, not out of love and commitment. He did say that one time that he loved her, and they did have a pretty damn good relationship in and out of the bedroom, but still, she wanted the whole thing. A wedding with the dress and flowers in a church, not a twenty-minute trip to the courthouse in Gainesville to be kept a secret. She wanted to stand on the front lawn with Christmas lights all around her and yell that Finn O’Donnell was her new husband.
“Why do we have to keep it a secret?” she asked.
“I thought you might want to keep it under wraps, since we’ve only been together three weeks.”
“When I marry, the only thing that’ll be a secret will be what goes on in our bedroom.”
“So will you think about it?” he asked. “I’ve kind of grown attached to that old gal and those kids being underfoot. And I don’t imagine those new people will let them bring all the animals with them, either, so there’s that to think about.”
It was a piss-poor reason to get married.
“Don’t give me an answer right now. Just think about it until after the New Year, and then we’ll decide,” Finn said. “And, Callie, you’re not like your sister. You are probably like your father. What was his name?”
“A cowboy, I take it.”
“Yes, he was a cowboy. Grew up on a ranch in the little town where they both lived in east Texas. Place called Jefferson right on the Louisiana border. With my background, you should be runnin’ from me, not proposin’ to me,” Callie said.
“My offer still stands. Secret. No secret. Any way you want to call it,” Finn said.
“I need a beer or two or ten after this night, and I need time to think about callin’ it.” She kicked the shoes off and yelled, “Hey, Polly, I’ll have a Coors.”
“Make that two,” Finn said.
“Two Coors comin’ right up. A helicopter took that glass, didn’t it? I heard a whirring noise but didn’t pay any mind to it. Figured it was one of them medical things and hoped no one in Burnt Boot needed it. Brennans were behind it. Everyone knows it, but they won’t be able to prove it. I’m just wonderin’ how in the hell they ripped it out so clean.” She asked as she set the mugs in front of Callie and Finn.
“Someone cut the glass and put heavy-duty suction cups on it,” Finn said.
“They’ll find it floatin’ in the Red River most likely,” Callie said.
“Sounds like something out of a military movie to me,” Polly said. “There’s Gladys. I called her to come on down here and help me tonight. With this kind of news, everyone will be coming to the bar to talk about it. Y’all need some change for the jukebox? It still plays three songs for a quarter if you like Merle Haggard and George Jones. I’ve got a new one ordered all digital and costing more. This one ain’t got no Christmas music on it.”
“Yes, please. Finn promised to dance with me.” Callie fished out a five-dollar bill from her purse and handed it across the bar.
Polly gave her three dollars and eight quarters. “That should be enough to dance some leather off his fancy boots.”
Finn ran a finger up under Callie’s shawl from elbow to shoulder. “You were, hands down, the prettiest girl at the party.”
Cowboy Boots for Christmas Page 25
