Lucinda screamed as he pointed the .38 at Chance.
“No! Get back, Chance! He’s crazy, he’ll kill you!”
“You better listen to her, cowboy. I’d sooner shoot you than her. But if I have to, I’ll kill you both.”
“You’re not going to shoot anybody,” Chance growled. His face dark with rage, he continued walking toward Lucinda and her captor. “You’re going to let Lucy go and then you’re going to throw down that gun.”
Richard cocked the pistol and began to laugh. “Like hell!”
Sobbing now, Lucinda looked frantically around her, searching for anything to divert Richard’s attention. Like a miracle from heaven, she saw a sheriff’s patrol car pulling off the highway and heading toward them.
“Here comes Troy!” she shouted.
Richard twisted his head to look at the approaching car. The moment he did, Chance pounced. Grabbing the arm holding the gun, he whammed it across his raised knee.
The blow knocked the gun loose from Richard’s hand. Without the weapon, he was no match for Chance’s physical strength. With a right fist in his eye, Richard staggered backward and released his grip on Lucinda. Another blow from Chance’s left fist and Richard toppled into the ditch.
As he lay there groaning and helpless, Chance turned to Lucinda. Sobbing, she fell into his arms. He gathered her tightly against him, buried his face in the side of her neck and stroked his hand down the back of her hair.
“It’s all right, Lucy. Don’t cry, darling. Everything is going to be all right now.”
“But Richard will get away! He’ll come back and—”
“No! He’ll never come back here, Lucy. He’ll never hurt you again. I promise you that.”
Troy pulled Richard from the ditch and handcuffed him. As the young sheriff prodded his prisoner back to the patrol car, Chance found the .38 where it had fallen and gave it to his cousin. Dazed and shivering, Lucinda clung to Chance’s arm as the four of them headed to the patrol car.
“He was threatening to kill us,” Chance told Troy.
“I know. I saw the three of you when I drove up. Who is he anyway? Do you two know him?”
Lucinda nodded and spoke as best she could through chattering teeth. “He’s Richard Winthrop from Chicago. And he’s been stalking me for the past several months.”
“You don’t have anything on me,” Richard snarled. “I never stalked this woman! She’s lying!”
“Sure, buddy,” Troy said, “that’s why you were trying to kill her.”
“I’m warning you, I’m a homicide detective on the Chicago police force,” he threatened the sheriff. “I’ll have your head for this!”
Troy shoved him into the patrol car. “Well, Mr. Homicide Detective, you did the wrong thing when you came to Parmer County. I can assure you of that. I’m gonna see that you’re put away for a long time.”
He slammed the door shut, then turned back to Chance and Lucinda. “Are you two going to be okay?”
Chance nodded soberly as his arm came around Lucinda’s shoulders. “We are now. Do we need to come in and give statements?”
“You can do that later,” Troy said, seeing the way Lucinda was still shaking and clinging to his cousin. “When Lucy feels up to it will be soon enough.”
As Troy drove away, Chance gently led Lucinda back to his pickup. Once they were inside on the bench seat, he didn’t say anything, he simply wrapped his jacket around her and held her tightly to him.
Finally, after several minutes had passed and the quaking of her body began to subside, she said, “I’m so sorry, Chance. So very sorry.”
Pressing his cheek against the top of her head, he asked, “What is there for you to be sorry about?”
She brought her head up to look at him, her eyes begging him for forgiveness. “I nearly got you killed! Last night Richard called and—he threatened to kill you and your family if I didn’t leave! I should have never stayed at your ranch. I led him here and he almost—”
“Shh! Don’t do this, Lucy. Don’t blame yourself for anything. The man is obviously deranged.”
Shaking her head, she cupped her hands around the sides of his face. “You know why I had to leave you now, don’t you? You know why I couldn’t accept your proposal?”
He shook his head with regret. “I know you were afraid. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t confide in me. I love you, Lucy. Don’t you know I’d fight any demon for you?”
Tears began to roll down her face. After the heartache of leaving Chance this morning and then experiencing the wild fear that he was going to be killed in front of her very eyes, she couldn’t believe that he was really holding her, telling her that he loved her.
“That’s what I was afraid of. I knew if I told you about Richard, you’d go after him. And I knew he carried a gun and I didn’t want you to put yourself in that kind of danger. I’d rather he killed me first than for you to be hurt.”
Lucinda shuddered as she relived the fear that had paralyzed her when she’d looked up to see Richard standing outside her car door. “I’ve been afraid for a long time now, Chance. For months and months I’ve lived in fear. I tried getting protection from the police, but that turned out to be a joke. Richard was the police. I couldn’t get any help there, and since I had no family, my last hope was to leave Chicago and find a new place to make my home.”
“You found it, Lucy. With me. Are you still going to say that you don’t love me?”
She wiped at the tears that continued to streak down her face. “Forgive me for lying to you, Chance. But I did it because I do love you. More than my life.”
He lifted her palm to his lips, then grimaced as his lips tasted the salty blood of her scraped and cut skin. He knew it would be a long, long time before he’d be able to forget the image of Lucinda being manhandled by that maniac, the sight of her helpless and weeping and begging Chance to save himself rather than try to help her.
“You just proved that to me, Lucy. Now if you’ll say you’re going to marry me, I’ll forgive you anything.”
He smiled at her, and the warm, loving light in his eyes made all the terror of the past few minutes fade away like a bad dream.
“Then forgive me,” she whispered. “Because I am going to marry you. I’m going to give you children. And I’m going to love you with all my heart for the rest of our lives.”
His sigh was full of elation and contentment as he leaned his head toward hers and gently kissed her lips. “Then living on a ranch with a cowboy isn’t going to be a problem for you? I know your career is—”
With a shake of her head, she quickly pressed her lips back to his and kissed him with all the fervor of her love. “My career will be just fine,” she murmured against his cheek. “I’ll find some way to get my designs on the market. In fact, your sister had a great idea about that. But you and our children will always come first in my life. Just remember that.”
“Well, one thing is for sure, Lucy,” he said, rubbing his nose against hers. “You’ll never have to be afraid of anything or anyone again. I’ll always be around to rescue you if you need it.”
At this moment he couldn’t have said anything that would have made her feel more safe and secure and loved. Her heart was fairly bursting with it as she smiled and sighed with utter contentment.
“If you’ll go get Caesar, I’ll be ready to go home,” she told him, then in afterthought, she asked, “What about my car?”
“I’ll send a couple of the hands for it,” Chance assured her.
He went after the kitten, who was still safely ensconced in his box on the front seat of Lucinda’s car.
Once Chance was back at the pickup and had settled the animal in the crook of Lucinda’s arm, he started the engine, then winked at her and grinned. “You know what tonight is. It’s Christmas Eve. And on Christmas Eve, Santa always comes to the Delacroix’s house.”
“Does he really?” Lucinda asked as she did her best to look skeptical.
“I
promise.”
Her expression suddenly turned very provocative. “I believe you.”
“You do?” he asked, his brows lifted with surprise.
Her face wreathed with joy, she laughed. “Well, he is going to give me a cowboy for Christmas, isn’t he?”
Chance’s eyes were bright, shining with the love he promised to give her tonight and always.
“He is,” he said with certainty. Then leaning over, he murmured against her lips, “Merry Christmas, darling.”
*
A month later, Lucinda was in the kitchen trying her hand at making piecrust when her husband came in carrying the mail.
Stomping the snow off his boots, he tossed a stack of letters onto the breakfast counter, then carried a single envelope over to Lucinda. “You know,” he said, glancing around the kitchen. “It’s still hard to believe we have the house to ourselves. With Mother and Doc leaving for their honeymoon yesterday and Sarah Jane gone on a skiing trip with her friends, we won’t know what to do with ourselves.”
Lucinda slanted her husband a provocative look. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Chuckling softly, he grinned sexily at her. “I’ll try my best. But I’ll let you read your letter first.”
Before Lucinda took the envelope from him, she kissed him, then handed him a cup of hot coffee.
“Oh, it’s from Molly,” Lucinda said as she glanced at the return address.
“Open it and see what she has to say,” Chance urged.
Lucinda ripped open the envelope. Inside it there was a short note with a newspaper clipping attached to it.
Dear Lucy, I was so happy to hear about your marriage and the happy life you’ve found out there in Texas.
I found this clipping in the newspaper yesterday and thought you might like to read it. Take care and I promise to write more next time.
Love, your friend, Molly
Smiling, Lucinda turned her attention to the scrap of newspaper. It was small, but as far as Lucinda was concerned, the significance of what it said couldn’t be measured.
“What is it, honey?” Chance asked as he watched a myriad of emotions cross his wife’s face.
Smiling as though a thousand angels had suddenly descended on the kitchen, she handed the piece of paper to Chance.
“It’s about Richard. Molly found it in a Chicago newspaper. I’m glad that his friends and fellow policemen up there finally know that he’s serving time in a Texas jail and is undergoing psychiatric therapy. And not only that, after some internal investigations back in Chicago, the state has found Richard guilty of taking bribes from criminals. So after his jail time is up here in Texas, he’ll be locked up in Illinois for a long time to come.”
Chance shook his head with disbelief. “Too bad it couldn’t have happened sooner. When you needed their help, they all believed Richard and pegged you for a scorned woman out for revenge because of your broken engagement. I can’t begin to imagine the terror you must have lived through back then.”
Yes, her life had once been one long nightmare. But now, surrounded by Chance’s love, she was putting it all behind her. “It was like being condemned to hell with no way out. But thank God, that’s all in the past now and Richard has been put away where he can’t harm anyone else. And he’ll be there for many long years.”
“The man got exactly what he deserved,” Chance said with conviction.
Lucinda tossed the clipping into a nearby trash basket, then curling her arms around her husband’s neck, she whispered, “And we got just what we deserved, too, my darling. We got each other.”
*
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8755-6
A Cowboy for Christmas
Copyright © 1994 by Stella Bagwell
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