A Cowboy for Christmas

by Stella Bagwell

  Lucinda’s heart began to thud heavily beneath her breast. “Did you—” She broke off, swallowed, then started again. “Someone sent me flowers. Was it you?”

  As soon as the question was out, Lucinda knew there wasn’t any need for him to answer. The look of total surprise on his face assured Lucinda that he hadn’t been the anonymous sender.

  “Someone sent you flowers, but you don’t know who?”

  Her spirit plummeting to her feet, Lucinda shook her head. “The card wasn’t signed.”

  He grimaced. “Well, it wasn’t me,” he said, then his eyes gently probed her face. “Do you wish it had been?”

  Of course she did! That’s what made the whole thing even worse!

  “Don’t ask me that, Chance,” she said with an anguished groan.

  The tug of his hands urged her closer, until their bodies touched, their breaths mingled. “For whatever it’s worth, Lucy, I wish I had sent you those flowers. But right now a whole garden of them couldn’t begin to tell you what you’re doing to me.”

  “Chance, we’re ready to go doctor that bull,” a cowboy called from the other side of the barn. “You wanta take the Jeep?”

  Cursing under his breath, he glanced over Lucinda’s shoulder at his hired hand. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute or two, Tim.”

  Looking back down at Lucinda, he said, “There’s four-thousand acres on this ranch, but for some reason we always seem to have an audience.”

  Which was probably for the best, Lucinda thought. Otherwise, she might be tempted to give in to him. “It—doesn’t matter. I need to get back to the house and help your mother with supper anyway.”

  With a sigh of frustration, Chance caught her hand and began to lead her back outside to where Traveler stood tied at a fence post.

  As he loosened the girth on the saddle, Lucinda’s hand closed around the gift she’d slipped into her coat pocket before she’d left the house. She had brought it with her, thinking if she ran into him down here at the barn she would give it to him now, instead of waiting until Christmas Day, when the house would be full of family and friends. That day would be her last day here on the D Bar D. She didn’t think she would be in a gift-giving mood then.

  “Chance?”

  Glancing away from the breast harness he was unbuckling, he was stunned to see Lucinda extending a brightly wrapped package toward him. “What’s this?”

  She placed it in his hands. “My Christmas present to you.”

  “I didn’t expect one.”

  Lucinda hadn’t expected a lot of the things she’d gotten from him, either. Maybe when she was far away in California this gift would let him know that she really did care about him, that even though she was gone, he was the most special thing that had ever come into her life.

  Smiling gently up at him, she said, “I know you didn’t expect it. But I thought you deserved something for rescuing me.”

  A grin suddenly spread across his face and he tore into the paper like a kid who knew he was about to get what he’d always wanted.

  “Spurs!” he exclaimed, his voice conveying just how much she’d surprised him.

  She took the torn paper and box from him. “I thought all cowboys liked spurs. And the man at the tack store assured me these were a good sturdy pair. I started to get a pair with fancy silver on them, but then I figured you would only put them up and never use them. And I want you to wear these.”

  He ran his fingers over the basket-weave design on the leather strap, then twirled each of the small brass rowels.

  “You do wear spurs, don’t you, Chance?” she asked when he failed to say anything.

  Laughing, he grabbed her and hugged her to him. “I have about twenty pairs of spurs, Lucy. But not one pair are as special as these!”

  A lump suddenly collected in her throat. “You’re not just saying that to be nice?”

  Laughing again, he set her from him and quickly began to fasten the spurs around his boot heels. “I’m not a particularly nice man, Lucy. I thought you knew that by now.”

  Moving back a few steps, he grinned and asked, “How do I look?”

  He looked incredibly like the man she loved. But she couldn’t tell him that. Not now. Not ever. With a sad little ache in her heart, she smiled at him. “You look like a man with a new pair of spurs.”

  A few yards away from them, the hired hands pulled up in the Jeep. Ignoring their honk, Chance bent his head and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, Lucy.”

  “You’re welcome, Chance.”

  Stepping away from her, he gathered up Traveler’s reins and started toward the barn and the waiting men. Halfway there, he looked over his shoulder and waved to her. “Wait till the guys see these,” he shouted to her. “They’re gonna be as jealous as hell.”

  She smiled and waved back at him. Yet the moment she turned and started toward the house, hot tears oozed from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  Giving Chance the spurs had been her way of saying goodbye to him. And nothing had ever hurt her so much.

  *

  Lucinda was setting the table for supper when the telephone rang. Dee, who was busy at the cookstove, asked Lucinda to answer it.

  “If it’s for me,” she said, “I’ll have to call them back. And if they want Sarah Jane, she’s gone to see James.”

  Lucinda hurried over to the ringing phone. “I’ll take care of it,” she told Dee, then to the receiver she said, “Hello. Delacroix’s residence.”

  “Well, isn’t that something. Just out of nowhere I call a ranch in West Texas and I hear your voice. I’d say that had to be pure fate, honey.”

  Her first instinct was to slam the phone down, but she knew she couldn’t. He would only ring the number again. Lucinda gripped the phone as the room began to whirl around her head. These past few days, she’d prayed night and day that she would never hear Richard’s voice again. Apparently God hadn’t heard her.

  “You sent the flowers, didn’t you?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

  A malicious laugh came back in her ear. “Why sure I did, baby. You know I couldn’t let Christmas go by without giving you something. And I plan to give you more than just flowers. A whole lot more.”

  Desperately Lucinda darted a glance at Dee and was thankful to see she was busy digging for something in the refrigerator and wasn’t listening.

  “How did you find me?” she murmured under her breath.

  “It wasn’t hard at all, once I put the fear of God into that friend of yours.”

  “Molly? What did you do to her?” she demanded, uncaring now if Dee heard her or not.

  “She’s fine,” Richard snorted. “But those kids of hers weren’t gonna be if she hadn’t spilled her guts and told me where you were!”

  My God, he’d threatened to harm Molly’s children, she thought sickly. The man was totally deranged!

  “What do you want, Richard?” she whispered fiercely.

  He made a tsking noise. “Lucinda, living among Texans must have warped your mind. You know what I want. You.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to stop the quaking that had started in her knees and had now spread to her hands. “Where are you?”

  “Close. Real close, baby.”

  She breathed in a ragged, shallow breath and turned her back to Dee, who’d returned to the cookstove. “You’re not to come near this ranch, Richard! Do you hear me?”

  He laughed mockingly. “Or what? You’ll sic some rednecked cowboy on me? The one you’ve been hanging around these past few days?”

  Surely he didn’t know Chance, she thought wildly. How could he? “No. I’ll have you arrested.”

  His laughter grew harsh. “That’s a good one, Lucinda. All I’ll have to do is show them my Chicago badge and those hick town lawmen will be falling over their feet to make me feel welcome.”

  Rage shook her body. “I’m not coming back to you, Richard.” She spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Then you better warn th
ose cowboy friends of yours to get ready for some fireworks. I’ve brought Sally with me. She’s strapped right to my heart, and you know, Lucinda, I’m not a bit afraid to use her.”

  Lucinda very well knew that Sally was the name Richard had given his .38 revolver. She also knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill with it if someone pushed him.

  “You’re sick!”

  “I’m giving you until morning to leave that ranch, Lucinda, and come back to me.”

  “I’d rather die first!”

  “You may just have to,” he drawled softly, then clicked the phone dead.

  Realizing he’d hung up on her, Lucinda placed the receiver back on its hook and took several deep breaths. It was nothing new for Richard to threaten to kill her, but it was something entirely different to draw Chance and his family into his demonic plans.

  “Who was it, Lucy?”

  Trying to collect herself as best she could, Lucinda went back to setting the table. Please God, she prayed, let her act normal. She couldn’t let Dee suspect that anything was wrong.

  “Actually, it was for me. My—friend in Chicago decided to call and wish me a Merry Christmas.”

  Dee carried a bowl of salad over to the table. “That’s nice. But—” She frowned as she looked at Lucy fumbling with the cutlery. “Are you all right, Lucy? Your hands are shaking and you look pale!”

  Lucinda forced herself to give Dee a reassuring smile. “Oh, I’m fine. I just heard some disturbing news, that’s all. An old friend has been ill. But she’s going to get better.”

  “That’s good,” she said patting Lucinda’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to be worried. Especially here at Christmastime.”

  Lucinda nodded, then turned away from Dee as a tidal wave of fear roiled through every fiber of her body.

  Dear God, Richard had found her! What was she going to do? How was she going to protect Chance and his family now?

  Chapter Eleven

  Doctoring the bull turned out to be a bigger job than Chance had anticipated. By the time he and the other two hands got back to the ranch, it was well past dark and he was wet, cold and hungry. Most of all, he was eager to see Lucinda.

  Chance hardly thought of himself as an authority on women. But he did know a woman’s way of thinking was nothing like a man’s. They usually acted on their feelings instead of logic. At least that’s the way it was with the few women he’d know, including his mother and sister. So he could only believe that Lucinda wasn’t any different. He believed her giving him the gift was more than just a Christmas gift. Just like he believed the passionate way she responded to him was more than just sexual. And tonight he intended to find out how she really felt about him.

  “Have you and Lucy already eaten?” he asked a few minutes later as his mother placed a plate of warm food in front of him.

  Dee took a seat at her son’s elbow. “We gave up on you and ate about an hour ago.”

  He took up his fork and sliced into a cheese enchilada. “We would have been back earlier but that damn bull kicked down a panel and got away.”

  “I thought he was sick,” Dee said.

  “He is, but he decided he’d rather be sick than have us jabbing a needle of antibiotic into his neck.”

  “What did you do?”

  A wry twist to his face, he said, “Chased him down with the Jeep.”

  “Oh? You were going to run him to good health?”

  Dee poured him a cup of coffee and slid it over by his plate. Chance took a sip, then chuckled. “No. I got out on the front bumper and roped him. He jerked me off and dragged me for about twenty yards before he finally decided to give in and stop.”

  “Charles Delacroix! What possessed you to do such an idiotic thing? Why didn’t you let go of the rope?”

  He shook his head. “We were in the southeast pasture. It’s so big that if he’d gotten completely away, we probably wouldn’t have found him until the buzzards circled his carcass.”

  “Well, it’s a miracle you weren’t hurt,” Dee scolded. “I told Lucy something unusual must have happened for you to be out so late in this weather.”

  He glanced around the quiet room and had to admit he was disappointed because Lucinda wasn’t here sharing his supper and the day’s happenings with him.

  “Where is Lucy?”

  “I think she went to her room. She said she was tired.” Dee drummed her fingers against the tabletop. “Someone sent her flowers today.”

  Chance grimaced. “Yeah. She told me.”

  Dee studied her son’s face. “It wasn’t you?”

  Frowning, he shook his head. “No. Damn it!”

  “Well, there’s no need for you to get hot about it. I just asked.”

  “I’m not hot about it,” he muttered as he whacked off another bite of enchilada.

  “Sarah Jane thinks Troy sent them,” Dee went on.

  A shaft of jealousy stabbed deep into Chance. “Troy has women falling all over him. He doesn’t need to try to charm Lucy, too.”

  Dee’s smile was thoughtful. “Troy will marry someday. But until then I don’t think any young, beautiful woman like Lucinda is safe from him.”

  Like hell, Chance cursed inwardly. He loved his cousin, but he wasn’t going to step aside and let him, or any man, have a clear path to Lucinda. She was meant for him. Each time he looked at her, touched her, his heart told him they belonged together. Not just until Christmas. But together for always. Somehow he had to convince her of that.

  *

  Two hours later, Lucinda was still shaking. Even though she kept telling herself that once she left in the morning, Chance and his family would be safe, she couldn’t put the horror of hearing Richard’s voice out of her mind.

  Lucinda was thankful she’d worked so hard on the designs she’d made for Dee and Sarah Jane. They were all completed, except for a few details on Dee’s dress. If she could ever get her hands to quit trembling, she could finish those tonight. In the morning, she’d be able to hand over the sketches, measurements, pattern pieces and fabric to Sarah Jane and feel confident that a good seamstress could complete the clothing.

  She was attempting to mark a piece of pattern spread out over the bed when a knock sounded on the door. Before she could say to come in, Chance strode into the room.

  Stepping away from the bed, Lucinda turned to face him. Immediately her gaze was drawn to the front of his jeans, which were caked with half-dried mud. His boots and the spurs she’d given him weren’t in much better shape. But the sight of him was precious to her. So precious that tears stung the back of her eyes.

  More than anything she longed to go to him, hold him close to her heart and pour out all her fears. But she couldn’t take that risk. There was little doubt in her mind that if she didn’t leave the ranch, Richard would carry out his threat. And she loved Chance too much to put his life in jeopardy.

  “It looks like you’ve been in a wreck,” she said.

  “I was. With a bull.”

  Taking one step closer, she suddenly noticed a long scratch down the side of his face. “I hope you won.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “I did. This time.”

  He didn’t say more and Lucinda wondered why he’d come to her room like this. To tempt her and make her more crazy than she already was?

  “Did you—want to tell me something?”

  Only about a thousand things, Chance thought as he closed the few small steps between them.

  “I missed you at supper.”

  His words were like fingers clutching her heart. Glancing away from him, she said, “It was getting late and I had work to do.”

  She sounded so cool and aloof, nothing like the woman who’d squealed with pleasure at the sight of the newborn twin calves.

  Raking his hand through the side of his hair, he said, “I know we talked today, Lucy. But I didn’t get to say any of the things I wanted to say. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Chance, if this is about last night,” she said q
uickly, “I think it would be best if we forgot that completely.”

  His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. “You mean forget that we nearly made love?”

  She nodded, then finding it unbearable to keep looking up at his face, her gaze dropped to the toes of his boots. “We were—behaving recklessly, Chance.”

  “No. We were behaving naturally.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes questioning.

  A brief smile touched his face. “Don’t you think it’s natural for a man and woman to be physically attracted to one another?”

  “Yes, but—” Unable to explain the turmoil inside her, she turned away from him and went to stand next to the armchair by the window.

  Chance stayed where he was and drank in the picture she made dressed in the same leggings and sweater he’d first found her in. But this time he didn’t tell his eyes to stop their looking. Instead, he let them linger on her eyes and lips, her throat and breast, then on to the curvy line of her hips and legs. She was the most sensual woman he’d ever known and it turned him inside out just to look at her. But she was also much more. Like him, she was a survivor, a fighter, and he wanted her to be his wife, the mother of his children.

  The certainty of his feelings compelled Chance to cross the room and place his hands upon her shoulders.

  “You wanted me last night,” he whispered. “Just as much as I wanted you.”

  The touch of his hands, the raw emotion on his face left a yearning so deep within Lucinda she wanted to weep.

  “Yes, I did,” she said, her voice solemn.

  A light glinting in his gray eyes, he slid his hands up her throat, then cupped them both around her chin and jaws. “Then why are you saying we should forget it?”

  Her heart banging against her ribs, she whispered, “Because it was just sex.”

  His face inched down toward hers until the curve of his lips was just a breath away from hers.

  “You know that isn’t true.”

  Her knees were beginning to feel like jelly and she wondered how much longer she could resist. If he didn’t get out of here soon, she was afraid she was going to fall apart, tell him the truth about Richard’s stalking and beg him to love her and keep her safe.