To Santa With Love

by Janet Dailey

That meant they were alone. But she couldn’t just . . . she just couldn’t . . . She tried not to want him. It didn’t work.

  She reached out to him and he didn’t draw away. In fact, his strong arms enfolded her and half lifted her out of the bed. When he stopped, she was drawn close to him, her feet and legs tangled in the bedsheets.

  The strap of her pale blue shortie nightgown had slipped from her shoulder, revealing the rounded swell of one breast. The blocking grip of Choya’s hand kept the strap from sliding farther and revealing more.

  Deliberately he studied what the gown exposed, his gaze wandering to the pulsing vein in her neck, then on to the softness of her lips parted in surprise. His glittering eyes skimmed over the alluring disarray of her hair before he brushed a kiss on her temple.

  Jacquie’s hands rested on the solidness of his waist. Tangled as she was in the covers, she had no desire to struggle. The touch of her hands against him was more for support than any thought to resist him.

  This wasn’t the plan. It was against every one of the rules. She didn’t care.

  The male line of his mouth descended to play with her lips, teasing the way they trembled at his touch. It was an exquisite kind of torture for Jacquie, almost afraid to feel the branding hardness of a kiss of possession yet unable to make herself twist away to avoid it. The fresh-air scent of him enveloped her—he’d been outside to send off his son and come back in again to wake her up.

  “If you don’t get up and fix my breakfast,” his warm breath flowed over her skin as he spoke against her lips, “I may decide to have it in bed. With you.”

  “I can’t.” Her lips quivered against his teasing mouth.

  Motionless for an instant, Choya asked, “Why?”

  “Because”—Jacquie breathed shakily, his intense attraction almost more than she could cope with in this semilanguorous state—“I can’t get up until you let go of me.”

  Lazily he drew his head back, dark hair shining in the indoor light. Cat-soft eyes moved over her face, almost physically touching each feature before they glowed with a seductive light.

  With deliberate slowness, he laid her back on the bed. Then he bent over her, a hand resting on the sheeted mattress on either side of her.

  “You’re free,” he said. “You can get up and get dressed now.”

  She hesitated, uncertain that he meant what he said.

  “Don’t you want to . . .” Jacquie lifted her head from the pillow. Choya straightened and scooted back. He was fully clothed, she saw. No shirt buttons were being undone. Everything zipped. The triumphant look in his eyes was the last straw. “Oh. I guess not. Fooled again.” Temper flashed in her eyes that he should toy with her so, but Jacquie kept it under control.

  “Not yet,” he murmured. “I don’t want you saying I took advantage of you because you were half-asleep.”

  “You—” She grabbed a pillow and whacked him with it.

  Choya grabbed it from her. A few tiny feathers floated free. “I do want to, Jacquie. You know that.”

  “Get out of here.” She shoved past him and got up, moving swiftly from the bed, hurrying to her clothes on the straight chair.

  When she glanced over her shoulder, Choya was leaning against the door frame, his arms folded across his waist. He looked as though he planned to stay.

  “Will you please leave my room so I can dress?” Jacquie made the demand in a wary tone.

  “Don’t mind me,” Choya drawled. “Go right ahead.”

  Seething inwardly, she wanted to order him out at the top of her lungs, but something in the veiled alertness of his gaze said he was waiting for that. With a nonchalance she was far from feeling, she shrugged and turned her back to him.

  Without removing her nightgown, she slipped on the faded jeans. The action gave him an unlimited view of naked thigh and leg, but that was all. Quickly zipping up the jeans, Jacquie pulled the nightgown over her head.

  The cascading waves of her silvery blond hair covered her creamy shoulders as she kept her back squarely toward him. With an economy of movement she pulled on a strawberry-colored knit top and turned around.

  There was an arrogant arch to one of her eyebrows. He didn’t seem to notice it.

  “What would you like for breakfast?” she inquired, playing nice.

  There was a half smile on his mouth as he straightened away from the door. “Whatever you fix is fine.” And he walked from the room.

  At the breakfast table, a few soggy cornflakes in a kidsize bowl told her that Robbie had fueled up before school. She hoped Sam was enjoying his early-bird breakfast in town.

  Choya was devouring the eggs she scrambled for him, dousing them with hot sauce and washing it down with black coffee that he’d made himself. Jacquie nibbled at a piece of toast.

  “That was great. Thanks.” He got up and carried his plate to the sink. “Need anything before I head out? I’m going to pick up Sam around noon, maybe run a few errands,” he added.

  “Have fun. I guess I’ll get started on the cleaning.”

  Choya nodded and went to get his jacket, looking out the front window as he slid it on. “There’s not too much to do,” he said in a friendly voice. “Feel free to look around for whatever you need. There’s an old sheet in the laundry room that you can use for rags. Sam’s been saving it.” He gave her a wink but she wasn’t looking forward to an entire morning by herself on the isolated ranch.

  He left, closing the door quietly behind him. Jacquie waited until she heard him drive off before she got up and went looking for a pair of scissors first and then the sheet. She found it folded neatly on a shelf over the washing machine and she took it down, shaking it out. Absently, she snipped at the edges, then tore it into sections.

  If my friends could see me now, she thought, shaking her head. Jacquie was rather glad they couldn’t. Armed with a few rags and other cleaning supplies she tossed into a plastic bucket, she headed for the main rooms of the house.

  Bars of brilliant sunlight made the oak floors gleam, lending cozy warmth to the living room. The traces of frost in the corners of the windows were the only clue to how cold it was outside. For the moment, she was content to be indoors.

  Jacquie set down the bucket and took a spray bottle of multipurpose cleaner from it, reading the label to make sure it was safe for woodwork. Then she wadded up a rag and spritzed it, prepared to dust the bookshelves. Her first swipe brought up almost invisible grit—the desert dust was going to be a constant enemy, that was clear.

  But it wasn’t hard work and the cleaner had a nice lemony smell. She did several shelves at random, trying to remember if you were supposed to start at the bottom or the top, and deciding it didn’t matter. The bookcases weren’t quite as neat as they’d seemed at first. Someone, probably Sam, had a habit of saving newspaper and magazine articles that interested him between books. She stopped when she saw a thin manila folder and drew it out, curious as to what it contained.

  Jacquie put down the wadded rag and opened the folder to see clippings, mostly about Choya and all from a while ago—the kind of articles that every small-town newspaper ran about local kids. Awards for livestock raising, an appearance now and then on the honor roll. Junior rodeo competition and an award for a summer stint working for a wild-horse relocation program. He seemed to have been an all-around good kid. She touched a finger to Choya’s smooth, unlined face in one newspaper photo, charmed by his boyish, gap-toothed grin at the age of nine.

  The articles were in order by date. He’d grown into an “outstanding young fellow,” as one reporter put it, by eighteen. Jacquie studied that photo, catching a glimpse of the man he would become in his stronger, more mature features and the gleam in those eyes. She thought with an inward smile that he must have done some hell-raising by then—and after. But it wasn’t as if Sam would keep clippings from the Tombstone police blotter in his brag book.

  She leafed through the rest and came to a wedding announcement with a photo of Choya and Rosemary. How you
ng they looked—and how happy. They’d had everything to look forward to. After that, there was nothing. She realized she’d been expecting to find something about the accident that had claimed his first wife’s life and she was relieved that she hadn’t. Feeling a little sad, Jacquie closed the folder and tried to remember where it had been. She wanted to put it back exactly where she’d found it, just in case.

  The shelf was obvious, just not the place.

  Had it been next to the book on how to dance? She didn’t think so but she was curious about the book—it wasn’t new. Holding the folder under her arm, she took it from the shelf and examined the cover. The title was straightforward—Western Swing and Two-Step for Beginners. Jacquie opened it and saw a handwritten note on the flyleaf:

  To Choya from Dad on your twelfth birthday.

  Just to get you started.

  She flipped through the pages, shaking her head at the confusing diagrams of footsteps and dotted lines. Choya must have been mystified. Had he learned? Every Texas guy she’d ever gone out two-steppin’ with had told her that his momma taught him how. But Choya hadn’t had that privilege. Still, Sam had obviously tried. She wondered if Choya ever went dancing now. Somehow he didn’t seem like the type.

  Jacquie put the book and folder back, and wandered into the small room that Choya had told her he used for a study. It was spare and utilitarian, with a masculine air, like the rest of the house. There was an old desk with deep drawers, a swivel chair made of oak, and a laptop. Closed.

  She still hadn’t seen a satellite dish anywhere outside. Maybe he relied on picking up a stray wi-fi signal or maybe he took it into town if he wanted to go online. The subject hadn’t come up. She spotted the landline phone she’d been looking for on the desk, thinking that she would have found it sooner if it ever rang. There wasn’t an answering machine.

  So.

  Choya hadn’t told her where the phone was, but he hadn’t not told her either. She supposed he would have if she’d asked.

  She rested her palm on the back of the receiver without picking it up, feeling the curved black plastic grow warm against her skin. She wasn’t ready to call home, though she couldn’t put it off indefinitely. Jacquie knew she would quickly end the call without saying a word if her father picked up. And he usually did.

  Jacquie hesitated, then lifted the receiver, pressing it to her ear to listen to the dial tone. She even dialed her parents’ number—then pressed the button to disconnect the call before the first ring. Carefully, she put the receiver back in its cradle and went back to dusting.

  Choya was right about there not being very much cleaning to do. She found a few small things, the kind that men tended to leave around—a bolt missing a nut, a matchbook from the restaurant in town—and pulled open a drawer on a side table to drop them into it.

  The drawer was empty and the stray bolt rattled around in it. She opened another drawer beneath it. Nothing in that either. Giving in to feminine curiosity, she poked around a little. There was no sign of Choya’s social life outside of the matchbook and that didn’t count. There were no souvenir coasters or ticket stubs or anything like that. But he had to have dated since his wife’s death—it had been five years. She wondered about it but not for too long.

  What he did and who he did it with was none of her business. She grabbed the handle of the bucket and straightened, heading for the bedrooms upstairs and telling herself not to snoop. Once there, Jacquie stuck to her task. But she couldn’t help noticing that there were no signs that a woman had ever lived there, besides the photo of Robbie’s mother in his room.

  She dusted the windowsills, stopping halfway through when the spray bottle gave up on her. Nearly empty—it felt light when she shook it. Jacquie hesitated, then went to a narrow closet she’d spotted in the hall, figuring it had to hold linens and, she hoped, more cleaning supplies. Her guess was correct—the Barnetts believed in stocking up and no wonder, considering how far they lived from town.

  Jacquie paused before picking up another bottle of the same cleaner, her gaze fixed on the shelf above it, attracted by the bright colors of tablecloths and other household linens folded neatly and stacked. There was no musty smell, but she would guess they hadn’t been used for years. She left them there, unwilling to disturb the memories of Rosemary they must hold. If she wanted to pretty up the place, she could buy something new in town for the kitchen table.

  The checked vinyl cloth that decorated it was looking more than a little worn, though it was clean. She spotted something that looked like it under all the others and tugged it out. It was a tablecloth but it had been used to wrap something else. She felt around the corners of the folds, guessing that it was a photograph album. Taking it out would definitely count as snooping. Jacquie lifted the stack of tablecloths and put the wrapped album back underneath.

  Chapter 7

  The next day dawned bright and clear and even colder. After the Barnetts left and went about their daily lives, she thought of going into town or rather, she wished she could. She didn’t even get as far as the ranch yard. The low temperature and strong wind kept her inside until early in the afternoon, dawdling through a couple of books she’d chosen at random from the shelves, then flipping through a magazine.

  Bored, Jacquie stood at a window, studying the scenery. She’d learned plenty about the surrounding land, thanks to Sam. To the north was the virtually impregnable stronghold of Cochise. Beyond it was Apache Pass. To the southwest lay Tombstone. The nearest neighboring ranch was to the south. Everywhere Jacquie looked, she saw the savage beauty of the Sonoran Desert.

  Left to her own devices for the third time in two days—it wasn’t as if Choya left her a list of things to do—she’d run out of housework. Her natural restlessness was surfacing and she asked herself wryly why it had taken this long. Going into town, she supposed, would alleviate it, but hitchhiking was not an option.

  Sighing a second time, she hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of her black jeans. The metal of the silver concho belt she wore was warm against her fingers. A horse whinnied near the barn and she decided to brave the cold. Jacquie found her jacket and borrowed a scarf that she knew was Choya’s, wrapping it thickly around her neck. It smelled like his aftershave. She buried her nose in it for a minute, then, without thinking, pressed it to her lips.

  The horse whinnied again and she wandered toward the sound.

  At the corral, she rested her forearms on the upper bar and the toe of her shoe on the lowest. Three horses were in the enclosure. At the sight of Jacquie, they snorted and trotted nervously to the far end.

  “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I’m not going to try and escape or anything.”

  As if. The first problem would be catching a horse; the second would be saddling it. She didn’t have the vaguest notion of how to go about doing either. At the riding stable in Dallas, the horses had always been saddled and tied to a post.

  The horses pricked their ears and faced the rutted track leading to the ranch yard. Jacquie turned, stepping away from the corral when she recognized the school bus bringing Robbie home. It was later than she thought. She looked around for Sam Barnett—had he come back from town, dropped off by his friend? She hadn’t heard the car if so. He’d told her that meeting his grandson every day was important to him. She hadn’t accompanied him, remaining in the house but watching from a window yesterday. Their ritual was long-established and she saw no reason to intrude.

  Well, if he was in the house, he wasn’t aware of the bus’s arrival and there was no time to go get him. She would have to do the honors. Feeling a little awkward, she walked forward to meet Robbie as the bus stopped.

  When the doors swished open, Robbie greeted her silently with a wide grin. He paused at the steps to glance over his shoulder at the other children in the bus, school papers half-falling out of a folder tucked under his arm.

  “See?” Jacquie heard him call. “I told you!”

  Some childish argument had been won or lo
st. It sounded like he’d gotten in the last word.

  He maneuvered down the bus steps, a little unsteady on his feet. The cast had been removed yesterday and the muscles of the leg he’d broken were not on a par with the healthy leg. Plus, his feet had grown, according to Choya, during the weeks the cast had been on. The new sneakers he’d bought his son didn’t fit quite right and it occurred to her that they could trip him up. Either way, Robbie seemed more concerned that he would drop his school papers than that he might fall.

  “Let me carry that stuff,” Jacquie offered when he was safely on the ground.

  As Robbie handed the folder to her, she noticed the bus driver give her a curious look and nod. Then the doors were closing and the bus was turning to leave. There had been something more than mere surprise in the driver’s expression. Jacquie glanced warily at Robbie.

  “What was all that about in the bus?” she asked.

  “Nobody believed me when I told them you were living with us,” he answered, starting toward the house.

  “The school kids have never seen me, that’s why.” She ruffled his hair, then smoothed it. “Or the bus driver either. I came into Tombstone on a weekend, remember?”

  “Yeah, kinda. Anyway, now they know I was telling the truth.”

  Oh, great, Jacquie thought to herself. The whole town would discover she’d moved out here within a few days of crashing into Choya and the gossip would start. She wished she had the nerve to call Mrs. Chase and ask her what people were saying.

  Nothing doing. She barely knew the woman.

  “What did you tell them about me?” she questioned.

  Robbie seemed to hesitate. “Just that you were staying with us.”

  Her finger encountered the smooth finish of a stiff paper among the other plain papers in her hand. Curious, Jacquie separated it from the others and found herself looking at an enlarged photograph of a smiling young woman with short, cornsilk-colored hair—Robbie’s mother. He must have taken it out of the frame that sat on a table by his bed.