Catching Calhoun

by Tina Leonard

  “How do you know?” Calhoun asked, surprised.

  “We heard him telling the sheriff that he figured you weren’t as bad as he thought you were. And the sheriff said there were no finer men, once they found the right woman. No card cheating, no drinking, no whor—”

  “Whoa, that’s plenty,” Calhoun said. “Thanks. How long were you standing outside the door?”

  “Long enough to hear the sheriff go south of good manners,” Minnie said, “and that’s when we knew Grandpa had found a friend.”

  Suddenly, she stopped. Kenny stood beside her. “Calhoun, if you and Momma get married…will we live here, on the road, or in Kansas?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Which would you prefer?”

  “I don’t know, either,” she said. “This is nice, but I sort of miss the show. And Kansas is home. What do you think, Kenny?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t care. Long as I can keep Gypsy.”

  “Oh, Gypsy. Gypsy is…Gypsy is part of the family,” Calhoun said.

  “Momma would never get rid of Gypsy,” Minnie said to Kenny. “It’s catching and keeping Calhoun we gotta worry about.”

  “Exactly my thought,” Calhoun said.

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Calhoun had asked and received permission to propose to Olivia. It was, as the kids had said, the simple part.

  The hard part was taking care of the deal maker.

  “Which one?” he asked the children.

  Their eyes were huge, as was his, as they stared into the jeweler’s case. He could never have imagined that engagement rings came in so many styles. He had no idea what Olivia would want. Diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires. Big, little, solitaire, heart shaped, round or square? Flaws? The four Cs?

  He was totally confused.

  “That one,” Minnie said, her face wreathed in a big smile.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  She pointed to a ring that had three diamonds across. Kenny bobbed his head in agreement. The diamonds were a fair size, he thought, and feminine and deliciously round, reminding him somehow of Olivia’s nipples. How could that be? Was that a good thing? Would she be offended?

  He decided he wouldn’t tell her. Because, after all, he was a man who saw beauty in a woman’s body—and hers was the only body he ever cared to see for the rest of his life. So if he saw her body when he saw beautiful things, then that just meant his eyes would always be full of her.

  “We’ll take it,” he said. “Excellent choice, children. This one’s a keeper, I can tell.”

  “THIS HAS TO BE DONE just right,” Minnie told Calhoun. “Try to be a little more still.”

  She flattened his hair with water from the sink. “I’m not spit-combing you,” she told him.

  “Thank you,” he said dryly.

  Kenny beamed. “It works good, though.”

  Minnie had on a beautiful new dress. Lots of ruffles. A pretty cherry-fuchsia that complemented her skin and would be perfect to wear to church on Christmas Eve. Plus, she had pretty stockings and a pair of shiny black shoes with bows on top. Calhoun had worried about the bows—maybe Olivia would think they were too fancy—but Minnie had been so agog over the tiny heels and the bows he couldn’t say no.

  Kenny wore a pair of charcoal slacks, a white button-down shirt, a blue blazer and a tie he’d picked out himself. The tie was green and printed with red candy canes and holly, and it made Calhoun’s eyes twirl to look at it, but it was Kenny’s first tie, and Calhoun figured a boy’s tie ought to be a real positive experience. Kenny also had on black boots with gray pulls and toes, because Calhoun had told him he couldn’t have the ones with silver toes. That, he said, could come on his sixteenth birthday—wherever he was, he promised.

  It was a bit too fancy for Calhoun, but when Kenny chose the black-and-gray boots, he knew they’d come to the perfect compromise. Kenny looked so grown-up, and he knew it.

  Then Calhoun had taken the children to the Union Junction Salon, and let the ladies fuss over their hair. Lily had put so many ringlets in Minnie’s hair she looked like a princess.

  Kenny, for once, had a manly, clean style. Just like a prince, Calhoun figured.

  “All that’s missing now is Gypsy,” Minnie told him. “Let’s go before Momma starts looking for us.”

  They got Gypsy from the pasture and put a saddle on her. She seemed to know something was up because she began putting on her show airs, prancing her way over to the motor home.

  At the door, Calhoun gave her the command to tap.

  Gypsy went tap-tap-tap! with her hoof, the way she did on Grandpa’s barrels.

  Olivia came to the door with her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing a bathrobe. The minute she saw Calhoun with Minnie and Kenny in front of him on Gypsy, all dressed in their finery, she started to cry. And laugh.

  She ran out the door and flung her arms around Gypsy’s neck. Calhoun got off the horse and went down on bended knee. Olivia hugged his neck, and Gypsy stuck her nose over his shoulder.

  “Olivia, I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. I love you. I love your children. I love the way you laugh. And I love the way you argue your point. I want you to marry me, and I want to be your husband. I’ll do my best to be the best husband I know how to do. And when I mess up, I know you’ll keep me straight. Olivia Spinlove, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” he asked.

  Olivia was so happy she had tears pouring down her face.

  “Give her the ring, Calhoun,” Minnie whispered, and Gypsy gave him a nudge with her nose.

  So he pulled out the ring box and handed it to Olivia.

  She took it, her eyes on his, and at the last second, he snatched it back.

  She looked at him.

  “I’m not handing you a box,” he said, “I’m handing you my heart.” Taking the ring out, he slid it onto her finger himself. “Now you can decide if you like it, Olivia. Please say you’ll have me.”

  The diamonds splashed fiery white ice at her. Olivia gasped. “It’s the most beautiful ring I ever saw,” she murmured. “Calhoun, I, it’s too—”

  “If you say yes, the cost was not too great,” he said. “You and your family are worth more than any diamonds I could give you, Olivia. Three diamonds. You, and your two children. That’s what I want.”

  She started to cry. “I love you, Calhoun. Yes. I would love to be your wife. I really would. I’m so happy, I think I’m going to cry!”

  Minnie and Kenny began clapping their hands; Gypsy blew a loud nee-eeee! over Calhoun’s shoulder. He pulled Olivia to her feet, and they went to stand beside the children, looking up at them so that Olivia could show the ring now that it was on her finger, and Grandpa sneaked up to take a few pictures of them as one big happy family.

  It was the picture Calhoun and Olivia had dreamed of.

  THREE WEEKS LATER, Christmas was a time of joy for the Jefferson family. Many blessings were showered on them, though they had felt near disaster not too many weeks before. When Frisco Joe, Laredo, Ranger, Tex and Fannin came home for Christmas that year, they were anxious to see the newest addition to the family, Annette.

  They wanted to see Mason, back from his journey.

  The sheriff felt better and was able to join them at the fireplace in the Jefferson’s main house. Helga had decorated the tree beautifully, so that it was the best it had ever been. She had a way with making things lovely, and she worked her magic on her special Santa gifts for the brothers once again.

  The brothers’ plaid stockings hung down the stair-case, as usual, only this year there was a difference: Helga had made new stockings for Frisco Joe and Annabelle’s new baby, as well as little Emmie, Annette, Nanette, Minnie and Kenny. The new stockings, Minnie and Kenny were quick to note, were a bit larger and had their names in fancy glitter glue and embroidery.

  They felt very much a part of the family.

  Valentine was feeling well, and she had a permanent job offer waiting for her at the bake
ry in town.

  Last’s rebellious phase seemed to be gone, either from holding Annette or from having all twelve of the brothers back home and around the ranch once again.

  The Lonely Hearts Salon and the Union Junction Salon stylists converged on the house on Christmas Eve night, invited by the Jeffersons, as was customary, but really with a mission that had all the women giggling upstairs, much to the curiosity of the men gathered downstairs.

  Only Calhoun and Barley seemed to know what was afoot. The twinkle in Calhoun’s eyes and the fine charcoal suit he was wearing should have been a giveaway to the brothers, but they were busy enjoying watching their wives getting to know each other and relaxing in the aura of being home once again.

  But when Helga gathered everyone at the foot of the stairs, and Barley put on his best cowboy hat as he sat in a chair by the warmly glowing fireplace, and Lily began lightly playing a song that sounded familiar on a guitar, the brothers gathered around with smiles on their faces.

  Minnie walked down the stairs, darling in a lace burgundy gown, a crown of baby’s breath and shiny ribbons on her head. She tossed pink rose petals as she walked, and Calhoun’s eyes glimmered with tears.

  Kenny shyly made his way down the stairs, staring at Calhoun, in a suit and boots that matched Calhoun’s. He looked quite serious, but he held the satin pillow with the rings on it quite firmly, and he stood beside the man who planned on adopting him and his sister.

  And as Lily’s guitar played in the background, Olivia came down the stairway, so much like an angel that Calhoun’s Adam’s apple jumped and his hands trembled. He couldn’t believe that this woman was going to be his wife. She was so beautiful, and so right for him, that he could only thank heaven that her children had chosen him. Her long pink gown and delicate veil were the stuff of fairy tales. He was glad he’d insisted that she have this lovely dress, as he knew she’d had nothing like it before. This wedding, he’d told her, was going to be the wedding of her dreams.

  And it was.

  He looked down into Olivia’s eyes and smiled. “I will love you all my life,” he told her.

  “I will love you all mine,” she replied, her eyes sparkling at him.

  When the sheriff proclaimed them married, Calhoun gathered Olivia to him, and then the children, and he cried for the treasure he’d been given. His father, Maverick, had said that the treasure was within; these three people would be within his heart for the rest of his life.

  Bursting with happiness, Calhoun swept Olivia out the front door amid a shower of rose petals. They jumped into a carriage, pulled by a beribboned Gypsy, and they rode off into the evening under a big top of stars. The magically romantic night needed no applause.

  Though Calhoun had started out with the goal of painting wonderful nudes and testing his manhood on a bounty bull, deep inside his heart he knew something else mattered more: family. No matter its shape or size, a family’s happiness grew as each member changed themselves and therefore each other. The real treasure of family was within the bonds of love, despite the changes that came to every family.

  So Calhoun, more than his brothers before him, embraced those changes when they happened. He just didn’t know that the changes would be in the form of his new children.

  Calhoun loved being a father.

  Kenny and Minnie adored going to school in Union Junction. This is not to say that they didn’t get into the occasional mischief, or sometimes forget their homework. In fact, they savored being the school-age children of the Jeffersons, whose reputation was well remembered. Kenny and Minnie best enjoyed snagging a ride into school on the back of Last’s bike—very illegal, Last said, but they wore helmets he had made just for them. Or they rode in the truck of whichever brother was going into town. Most of all, they loved having all the houses to run between, as they visited the brothers, Helga, Mimi, the dog and the horses, where Gypsy fit right in. Calhoun threatened to put a satellite tracking device on the kids, but Olivia laughed and told him to relax. Malfunction Junction, she said, was a great place to be a kid.

  Olivia’s world was made complete by the fact that her father and Calhoun really did get along. Barley loved chatting with the sheriff, and Mimi’s father enjoyed having a fellow “old-timer” around to play cards with. They compared their ailments and discussed the joys of being single fathers who raised strong-willed daughters. They even, on the sly, took to making bets on which brother would marry next. Barley used his flair for the dramatic and his way with words to become the spokesperson/sign-maker for Mimi’s eventual run for sheriff. Barley sold his old farm with the windmill in Kansas, but Calhoun couldn’t bear for his children not to have the one reminder of their Kansas home that they treasured.

  He and his brothers went to Kansas and claimed the small windmill. He put it behind his and Olivia’s new home, a gently turning backdrop that would always remind the children of their old home. Small mementos, Calhoun said, mattered most.

  Best of all, Barley taught Calhoun everything he knew about being a rodeo clown, so twice a year the family went on the road performing. The kids had been right: Calhoun could run very fast. They loved this special time as a family, and Olivia was always grateful that, this time, she’d found a cowboy who understood that the glitter and glue of performing was nothing in her heart compared to the color he brought to her life.

  Calhoun never did give up painting totally. He just turned his joy in the art to other mediums and styles and left the nudes behind. He finished the original portrait he’d painted of Kenny and Minnie and hung it in their bedroom, just for them to enjoy. They were, to Calhoun, much more beautiful in person, and that’s how he preferred them.

  The pictures Grandpa had snapped of them during Calhoun’s proposal turned out to be the inspiration for Calhoun’s greatest work of art. It was, he said, his Sistine chapel. He painted jeans and a pretty shirt on Olivia, and her hair as it normally was and not in a towel, but those were the only adjustments he made to the photograph of his favorite moment in time. The portrait of the four of them and Gypsy resided in the hallway of the home they made in Union Junction, just south of the three original homes at Malfunction Junction ranch. And every day when he came home and walked inside the house, the portrait brought him pride and peace.

  But the original picture of the four of them with Gypsy, the one with Olivia’s hair in a towel, Calhoun put in a picture frame and kept on his desk, because that was how he loved his wife best—simply Olivia.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5857-4

  CATCHING CALHOUN

  Copyright © 2004 by Tina Leonard.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.eHarlequin.com

  †Cowboys by the Dozen

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