A Cowboy for Christmas

by Stella Bagwell

  His brows shot up, then pulled into a disbelieving line above his eyes. How could she be scared of Troy? And why was she suddenly so defensive? This wasn’t the woman he was talking to a few minutes ago in the barn.

  “Troy scared you? That’s crazy!”

  Gritting her teeth, she jerked her arm free of his grasp. “Then I guess I’m crazy!”

  Not waiting around to be badgered with more questions, she ran into the house. Dee was at the kitchen sink, but Lucinda hurried on past Chance’s mother and down the hall to her bedroom.

  Once inside with the door shut, she tore off her coat and sank onto the edge of the bed. Her hands were shaking and her cheeks, which had been ice-cold a few moments ago were now flaming with heat.

  Pressing her palms to her face, she groaned out loud. What was the matter with her? She’d gotten upset over nothing. Now Chance was going to think she was crazy or worse!

  But the fear that Richard might have tracked her down and sent the sheriff after her had been so great she’d been frozen with it. By the time she’d learned differently, aftershock had taken over.

  “Lucy!”

  Chance’s roar was followed by a knock on the bedroom door. Before Lucinda could yell at him to go away, he strode into the room as if he owned it.

  Lucinda jumped up from the bed. “What do you want?”

  “I wasn’t through with you,” he said angrily.

  The authoritative tone of his words infuriated Lucinda. Richard had treated her as if he owned her. He considered her to be his object to be questioned, insulted or discarded whenever he chose. She’d be damned to hell before she’d allow another man to treat her that way.

  “Well, I was certainly through with you,” she retorted, then swiping her tousled hair away from her face, she turned and walked over to the armchair where she’d left her sketch pad. “Now I’d like to get back to work. If you don’t mind,” she added coldly.

  Chance didn’t understand her anger or where it was coming from. At least, he thought with some relief, it had brought some color back to her face. A few moments ago, she’d been so pale he’d fully expected her to keel over in a dead faint.

  “I do mind,” Chance told her. “I’d like to know why Troy set off such a scare in you. He wasn’t about to give you a ticket or anything like—”

  Whirling back around to him, Lucinda clutched the sketch pad to her breast. “I wasn’t worried about a ticket! I just don’t like policemen. They—” She glanced away from his searching eyes. “They frighten me,” she finished, her voice suddenly quiet and resigned.

  “Frighten you?” He echoed her question as though he weren’t certain he’d heard her right. “That doesn’t make sense. If you can’t trust a policeman, you’re living in a pretty scary place.”

  Lucinda had been living in a scary place. But Chance would never understand if she tried to explain about Richard. From what he’d just said, it was obvious he was like all the rest, she thought wearily. Richard would never harm her, he was a trusted law official. Was everyone blind, or was it she who wasn’t capable of seeing things clearly?

  Chance didn’t know what to think as he watched an array of emotions race across Lucinda’s face. There was sadness and resignation. But more than that, the look on her face said she was hiding something. Something that she didn’t want him or anyone to know about.

  “Lucy?” he began quietly. “Did you leave Chicago because you were in trouble with the law?”

  The fixed stare of her gaze suddenly jerked off the floor and up at him. Outrage widened her eyes and made her bottom lip quiver. “You think—I’ve broken the law? You think I’m a thief or a murderer, or—”

  Stepping forward, Chance grabbed her by the shoulders. “You see a sheriff and you nearly collapse with fright. What am I supposed to think?”

  She’d only known this man for little more than two days. It shouldn’t matter if he thought she was a fugitive, or worse. But it did. It cut her to the very bone. Less than an hour ago in the barn, she’d thought that he actually cared for her, that he believed in her as a person. God, how wrong could she have been!

  Hopeless tears burned her eyes and threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. Desperate to hide them from him, she twisted her head away and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “I guess you can think whatever you want to think,” she said, her voice wobbling around the lump in her throat.

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  “What do you want me to say?” she asked, defeat pouring through her, settling around her heart like a ring of cold rock. “Do you want me to tell you all about myself? What good would that do? You wouldn’t believe half of what I told you. And even if you would, I don’t want to tell you. Just like you don’t want to tell me about Jolene.”

  Anger swiftly set Chance’s jaw like a piece of concrete. “Why do you keep bringing Jolene into things? You think because I’ve lost my wife that I’ve lost my manhood, too?”

  Lucinda didn’t know where his thinking was coming from, but if he wanted to be insulting, she could, too. Raking a glare up and down his tall, muscular body, she said, “It’s obvious you lost your heart. As for your manhood, I’m not in any position to say.”

  The words were hardly past her lips before he yanked her up against him. “I can remedy that for you. Right now!”

  Before Lucinda could jerk away, his thumb and forefinger caught her chin and held it fast. She stared defiantly up at him. “You don’t want to kiss me, Chance! You think I’m a felon. Or—or something equally bad.”

  His mouth twisted into a mocking sneer. “Oh, you’re bad all right, Lucy. Very bad for me.”

  “And you’re—”

  Lucinda didn’t go on. She couldn’t. Suddenly his mouth was on hers, hard, hot and demanding. She squirmed against him and tried to wedge her hands between her and his broad chest, but he was holding her so tightly she doubted a piece of thread would slide between them.

  Seconds later, it didn’t matter. The pressure of his lips softened and the tight grip he had on her waist eased. His hands took a slow, spiraling path up her back until his fingers finally reached her hair. Once they did, they threaded themselves into the silky strands, pressed against her scalp and begged her to answer his hungry lips.

  Lucinda didn’t disappoint him. With a soft groan, her lips parted beneath his and her hands slid across his shoulders, then gripped the back of his neck.

  Kissing Chance was like stepping into a warm, mysterious cave. She knew it was dangerous to continue onward, but she wanted to see, to feel what the next step would bring. And when his tongue invaded her mouth, she savored its taste and texture, reveled in the heat that was pooling in the center of her body.

  Lucinda wanted to make love to him. It was that simple. She wanted to give her body to a man who doubted her character. A man whose heart was buried with another woman.

  That last thought was enough to give Lucinda the strength to tear her lips away from his. “I can’t—don’t do this to me,” she pleaded, twisting her head to one side and gulping in a deep breath.

  Chance released his hold on her, then slowly took a step back. He didn’t know how things between them had escalated to this point. But one thing was for sure, he didn’t want the passion to end. He wanted to lift her off her feet, pitch her backward onto the bed and see her arms reach out to him. He wanted to see a look of love in her eyes and know that it was only for him.

  As he studied her bent head, her slumped shoulders, her trembling hands, he wondered if he’d gone crazy. He didn’t know this woman! And from what she’d just told him, she didn’t want him to know her.

  “I wasn’t doing anything to you that you didn’t want,” he said finally, his voice low and rough.

  Lucinda’s head whipped around to him. “Well, I’ll not want it again! I may not have much in this world, Chance Delacroix, but I do have my pride and my independence. I won’t let you take those away. Not you or any man!”

  Did she honestly think
that’s what he wanted from her? And why would she? Shaking his head in confusion, Chance stepped toward her. “Lucy, you’re crazy if you think—”

  “Yes, I’m crazy all right,” she furiously interrupted him. “Damn crazy for thinking you might be different!”

  “Different from what? Who?”

  She looked at him, opened her mouth to answer, then just as quickly closed it. She wasn’t going to argue with him. She wasn’t going to look at him, and most of all she wasn’t going to want him. She was going to put an end to everything here and now. It was the smartest, safest thing she could do.

  Her lips compressed in a tight line, she pointed toward the door. “Get out!”

  Chance couldn’t ever remember a woman shouting at him. Nor could he think of a time he’d ever been more furious.

  “Gladly,” he yelled back at her, then turned and slammed out of the room.

  Chapter Eight

  After the windows quit rattling and she was certain he wasn’t coming back, Lucinda walked on shaky legs to the closet and quickly pulled out her suitcases. She couldn’t stay here now. The mere idea that Chance believed she was a—a what? she asked herself. He hadn’t accused her of doing or being one certain thing. But he’d certainly doubted her innocence and that was enough to convince Lucinda it was time to leave. That and her melting all over him as if he were her long-lost lover.

  What had she been thinking? Why had she goaded him like that about Jolene? It was clear that he didn’t want to share anything personal with her. But that hadn’t stopped her from wanting him to. Nor had it stopped her from wanting to kiss him. So she’d taunted him.

  Well, she’d had her foolish, reckless moment with him and now it was over. Now it was time to get back to the real world where she belonged. Chance, his mother and his sister were beginning to matter to her, she realized, and that was a mistake. She couldn’t let herself get attached to people. Attachments only meant pain further down the line.

  She was tossing undergarments into a suitcase when the bedroom door suddenly flew open and Dee burst into the room.

  “Lucy! What in the world is going on? I could hear you and Chance shouting all the way down to the kitchen. Now he’s slammed out of the house in a black temper.”

  Keeping her head bent, Lucinda wiped frantically at the tears on her face. She’d never been a crier. She’d learned long ago it was useless to shed tears. But this time they continued to pour down her face in spite of her determination to stop them.

  “Chance and I—had a disagreement,” she said to Dee. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

  “Upset me?” Dee asked, incredulous that Lucinda was putting her feelings first. “Don’t worry about me. I want to know what my son has done to you. Why are you crying? And why are you packing?”

  Lucinda swallowed, then said, “I can’t stay here any longer, Dee. It would be too uncomfortable for me and your son.”

  Her forehead puckered with concern, Dee studied Lucinda’s tear-blotched face. “But why? Did my son make a pass at you?”

  Lucinda groaned miserably. Dear Lord, what would Dee think if she knew just how far things had gone between her and her son? She would probably think Lucinda was just a gold digger, roaming across the country in search of a gullible man. Chance certainly believed she was a no-good.

  Rising up from the suitcase, Lucinda wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “It’s nothing like that—”

  “Well, it should’ve been!” Dee swiftly interrupted. “My son needs his head turned by a woman. I thought you’d be pretty enough to do it.”

  Surprised and touched by Dee’s words, Lucinda shook her head. “Pretty isn’t enough to turn Chance’s head. I’m afraid your son is a closed book, Dee. I pity any woman who tries to read him.”

  Moving closer, Dee placed her hand on Lucinda’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Then what were you two going on about? Surely it wasn’t important enough to make you leave.”

  Drawing in a shaky breath, Lucinda closed her burning eyes. It wasn’t right to shut Dee out. The woman had been too kind to her. She deserved some sort of explanation. “Chance believes I left Chicago because—well, because I did something wrong and I’m running from the law.”

  For a moment there was dead silence. Lucinda opened her eyes just in time to see Dee tilting her head back and roaring with laughter.

  “Oh, my!” she said after a moment. “That’s a good one. I didn’t realize my son had such a wild imagination.”

  Lucinda looked at her skeptically. “You don’t believe him?”

  Dee began laughing again. “Of course not! Chance is a good judge of horseflesh, but people?” Shaking her head, she tapped her chest with her forefinger. “I’m the one who knows people. And I knew the moment I looked at you that you were someone I’d be proud to know.”

  “But Chance—”

  Dee interrupted with a wave of her hand. “Chance is—I wouldn’t say he’s a suspicious person. But he is very cautious. I guess that comes from losing Jolene and—well, it’s made him overprotective, I think.”

  Lucinda was still trying to digest the older woman’s words when Dee reached around her and flipped over the half-packed suitcase.

  “You put all those things back where they belong and forget about Chance.”

  “But he—” Lucinda tried again, only to have Dee quickly intervene with a firm shake of her head.

  “If Chance questioned you, Lucy, it’s because deep down he wants to know you better. And subtlety never was one of my son’s virtues.” She patted Lucinda’s cheek, then started toward the door. “Now dry those tears,” she tossed over her shoulder. “I don’t allow crying in the Delacroix house at Christmastime.”

  *

  Atop a gentle rise, Chance reined Traveler to a stop and slowly scanned the snow-laden plains. He didn’t know where the hell that cow was. Back at the feed troughs, he’d counted forty-nine head. Three times. In this particular pasture there were supposed to be fifty head. None of which were due to calve for at least two more months.

  Muttering a curse under his breath, he turned the horse back toward the feeding grounds and jammed his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat.

  The sun was rapidly falling and the temperature along with it. He’d been riding for at least two hours now and his feet had long ago gone numb from the cold. There was no use in staying out longer, he realized. Soon it would be too dark to see his way home, much less find a downed cow. When he got back to the house, he’d call his neighbor, Jim Freeman. If Chance was lucky, she’d gotten through the fence somehow and had taken up with his holsteins.

  It took thirty more minutes for Chance to ride his way back to the feeding grounds. The herd of black Angus was still there, feeding on several round bales of hay that he and Tim had hauled out here earlier in the day.

  Should he count again? Maybe she had walked in from the west side of the pasture while he’d been searching the east side. Deciding to give it one last try, Chance reined his mount to a stop several yards away from the milling herd and quickly began to count in twos.

  Fifty! He counted again. Then again. All fifty cows were there and from what Chance could see in the falling twilight, they all looked healthy. Had he simply miscounted earlier?

  Hell, it wouldn’t surprise him if he had, he thought as he nudged Traveler into a fast walk. He hadn’t been thinking straight at all since Lucinda had arrived on the ranch. And after this afternoon, he wasn’t able to think, period.

  That’s what a woman did to a man, Chance mused as he miserably ducked his face against the cold north wind. It wasn’t enough for a woman to tie a man’s body into frustrated knots. No, they had to go for the heart and the mind, too. Right now Chance didn’t know which of the three was giving him the most problems. Worse than that, he didn’t know how to fix any of them.

  *

  “Chance, I was about to get on a horse and come looking for you myself!” Dee scolded him, when more than a half
hour later he walked into the kitchen. “It’s been dark for ages!”

  Leaning down, Chance kissed his mother’s cheek, then tiredly pulled off his hat. “If I’d known you were about to get up enough nerve to ride, I’d have stayed out later.”

  Shaking her head at him, she hurried over to the stove where she was frying pork steak in a huge iron skillet. “Where have you been anyway? The hands have been gone for at least an hour or more.”

  “A cow was missing over in the east pasture. I was looking for her.”

  Dee glanced up from the frying meat to see her son swipe a weary hand over his face. “Did you find her?”

  He nodded. “Finally. Is supper ready?”

  “By the time you wash, it will be,” Dee told him.

  Down the hallway, in his bedroom, Chance sluiced his face with hot water, cleaned his hands, then changed his muddy denim shirt for a plaid flannel. His jeans were also muddy and splotched with manure, but he didn’t have time to change them or his boots. He’d do that later when he got ready for bed. And the way he felt at the moment, that wouldn’t be too long from now.

  “Tea or coffee, Chance?” Sarah Jane asked as he took a seat at the dining table.

  “Coffee. I need something to unthaw me.”

  She poured him a cup and passed it down to him. Dee joined them at the table with a platter of biscuits.

  Chance glanced from his mother and sister, then to Lucinda’s empty chair. When he’d passed her bedroom in the hallway, he’d noticed a light coming from under the door, but he’d figured she’d simply left it on.

  “Lucinda isn’t coming to eat?” Dee asked Sarah Jane.

  Sarah Jane shook her head glumly, then slanted an accusing look at her brother.

  “No. She said she wasn’t hungry.”

  “The child has to be hungry,” Dee reasoned with a frown. “She didn’t eat but a few bites at lunch.”

  “I tried my best,” Sarah Jane said. “She doesn’t want to join us. She says she wants to finish that pantsuit pattern she’s been working on all evening.”