Darn Good Cowboy Christmas

by Carolyn Brown

  “I take care of that with a little shot a couple of times a year. Don’t worry.” She cuddled up next to him and felt as if she were sitting in the middle of a beautiful flame, the glow surrounding her without scorching her wings.

  Was it possible to have wings and have roots too?

  “It wasn’t that bad. Kind of like an appetizer to whet the appetite before the main course,” she whispered. “Raylen, I’m not…” She couldn’t find the words to tell him that she wasn’t like Becca who had that roundheelitis disease.

  “Not what?” he asked.

  “I’m not a slut. I don’t fall into bed with any man that winks at me.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I know that, Liz. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She searched his face and his eyes. “I believe you. Then, this is not a one-night stand?”

  “Hell, no!” He hugged her tighter. “Darlin’, it’s the beginning of something wonderful. But you can’t dance like that for another man. Promise me! I’m not bossy about a lot of things, but I couldn’t stand for another man to see you dance like that.”

  “I’ve danced for years, Raylen, but that was a special dance and I promise,” she said as she drifted off into a dreamy half sleep.

  Raylen pulled a sheet up over them and hoped that she felt the same way he did because he never wanted to let her go.

  Chapter 8

  Liz picked a clean apron from a drawer and wrapped it around her waist, bringing the ties back around to tie in the front. She loaded the pocket with an order pad and two pens, poured a cup of black coffee, and sat down at the table.

  Jasmine slipped a pink cap over her brown hair, pulled the ponytail out the back, and gave Liz a once-over. “You look like warmed over sin, girl. Did they keep you telling fortunes all night?”

  Liz covered a yawn with her hand. “Midnight.”

  “And then?” Jasmine asked.

  “And then I did a stupid, stupid thing,” Liz said.

  “Dewar or Raylen?” Jasmine asked.

  Liz swallowed fast to keep from spewing coffee across the kitchen. “What makes you ask that? It could have been one of Ace’s brothers or even Ace.”

  “No, it was either Dewar or Raylen, and I think it was Raylen. He’s the one that can’t keep his eyes off you. Dewar notices because he’s a man. Raylen’s looks go deeper. Only a blind man would have trouble seeing that.”

  Liz sipped the coffee. Maybe the clock hand would miraculously spin around ten times and she’d be saved by customers.

  It didn’t happen.

  “Well? You better talk fast because doors open in ten minutes.” Jasmine’s green eyes twinkled. “Dewar or Raylen?”

  “Raylen. It’s always been Raylen. Since I was fourteen, it’s been Raylen. I measured every boy and later every man by Raylen. He’s so high up on a pedestal that even God looks up to him,” Liz said.

  Jasmine sat down in one of the three chairs surrounding the small table in the center of the kitchen. It was a work station when she and Liz folded napkins, a resting station at the end of the day, and a place for her to set up shop for the business end of the café once a week.

  “Tell me about it. Raylen might be a sweetheart, but there ain’t a man livin’ who deserves to be on a pedestal that damn high,” Jasmine said.

  She took a sip of coffee and her phone rang.

  Jasmine pointed. “If it ain’t God, then get rid of them. I’m dying to hear what happened.”

  “Hello,” Liz said.

  “Okay, okay, you are forgiven for running away, but I still want you to come back to your real home,” Blaze said on the other end of the line.

  “Blaze, darlin’! I can’t wait to tell you everything that’s happened, but I’ve got to work in ten minutes.”

  Blaze’s deep laughter filled her ear and the empty hole in her heart. “I’m just crawling into my trailer. Last night’s woman was beautiful but turned out to be a whiner, so that won’t happen again. When I got home I had to call and tell you that. The rest can wait until I wake up. Call me in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Oh, I will, and I’ve got so much to tell you,” Liz said.

  “You know I love you,” he said.

  “And I love you. Good night, darlin’.”

  Jasmine’s expression was one of acute confusion. “You love Blaze but Raylen’s on a pedestal?”

  “That’s right. I told you about Blaze. He’s my best friend, kind of like Pearl is to you. We were the only two kids on the carnival rounds since I was thirteen and he was fourteen. And he’s my confidant like Gemma is yours, and then he’s like my brother and my cousin. Blaze wears lots of different hats. But he’s not Raylen.”

  Jasmine poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “Did Raylen spend the night?”

  “Not quite all of it.” Liz blushed.

  “I watched you telling fortunes last night, girl. You miss that life. Your eyes were all glittery and you loved what you were doing. I can get a new waitress when you get bored in Montague County. Raylen’s heart is a different matter,” Jasmine said.

  “I told you it was a stupid, stupid thing,” Liz said.

  “It could be, or it could be a brilliant thing,” Jasmine said. “Like Ellen says, it’s all in how you look at it and what comes out of it in the end. It’s time to unlock the door. You ready?”

  Liz nodded. “I reckon I’d better be.”

  There was a steady stream of regular morning coffee drinkers before Gemma showed up at eight o’clock. She snagged the last table in the corner and ordered biscuits and sausage gravy with a side order of hash browns. She wore her usual tight jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt with her beauty shop logo on the back. Her dark hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and her makeup did little to cover the dark circles under her eyes.

  “It ought to be a sin to look like you do after last night,” Gemma told Liz when she brought her food.

  “Oh?” Liz fought down the high color creeping up on her neck.

  “I danced and flirted. You told fortunes. Both of which would tire a woman out, and what did we get for our efforts? Not a damn thing. We both slept alone and I don’t know about you, but I got up cranky as hell. It ain’t fair, I tell you. And then of all the things, you tell me I got to wait a whole year before my knight-in-shining-new-Chevrolet-truck is going to come carry me off. Hell, you could have shuffled them damn cards different and he could be on his way right now to drop down on one knee and propose to me,” Gemma said.

  “Can’t manipulate the cards.” Liz giggled.

  Gemma picked up her fork and started eating. “Can’t manipulate my brother either. You could have told him that if he didn’t cook my breakfast every day between now and next Christmas you were going to put an evil spell on him, but oh, no, you didn’t even lay the cards out for him. That sorry sucker was still snoring when I left a while ago. He put a note on the kitchen table that said he was sleeping in and then going to work on the barn when he woke up.”

  Liz pointed toward a group of deer hunters dressed in camouflage and made her escape toward them. “I’ll be over after work to help you with cleanup,” she told Gemma.

  “I’ve got appointments until six. It’ll be you and Raylen and maybe Dewar if you can rope him into helping until I get there,” Gemma hollered across the room.

  ***

  Raylen carefully removed the fake cobwebs from the walls and ceiling and packed it between layers of tissue in the cardboard boxes where it belonged. He’d almost finished that part of the job when Dewar showed up close to noon.

  “Hungry?” he hollered. His voice echoed in the enormous barn where they held annual horse sales. The atmosphere was all different then with the horses prancing around in the circle, and the buyers all lined up around the top balconies.

  Raylen stopped what he was doing and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Starving. Want to go up to Chicken Fried?”

  “No, Momma sent me to get you. She made dumplin’s and pumpkin pies.”
r />   Raylen nodded and headed for the barn door. Part of him was damn glad that his momma had chosen that day to make his favorite dinner; that was the sensible part that needed more time to process the night before. The other part, the section that controlled his heart, longed to see Liz again, to make sure an awkwardness had not sprung up between them that would send her scooting back to her carnival.

  “Good party last night. Lots of people. That Liz was a hit with her fortunes,” Dewar said as they walked side-by-side a quarter of a mile back to the house.

  “Yep,” Raylen answered.

  “She looked like that woman in I Dream of Jeannie. Remember when we used to watch those reruns when we were kids?”

  “Yep.”

  “If she’d had blond hair instead of black, she’d have looked like her.”

  “Yep.”

  “You stuck on that word or do you know another one?” Dewar asked.

  “Liz ain’t as tall as that actress was and she’s prettier. That enough words for you?”

  “You got a thing for her?” Dewar asked.

  “Why are you askin’?”

  “Remember when we all went out to Wil’s and took him coon huntin’ with us?” Dewar asked.

  Raylen remembered the night very well. True, they’d gone coon hunting that night, but it was more than that. They went to railroad Wil into admitting that he had feelings for Pearl and it had worked.

  “Yep.”

  “Well?” Dewar stopped at the back porch.

  “Deep subject.” Raylen grinned and hurried inside the house.

  Dinner was on the table with Maddie, Cash, Colleen, and the grandparents already seated and waiting. Grandpa said the blessing as soon as Dewar and Raylen sat down and Cash began to pass the dishes.

  “Got to go wash up,” Raylen said. “Didn’t want to hold up dinner since you were all already sittin’ down. Colleen, you leave me some chicken!”

  Colleen threw her deep red hair over her shoulder and grinned at her brother. “Yeah, right!”

  He washed his hands and face and took time to comb his dark hair straight back. The man looking at him in the mirror didn’t look any different than the one who’d looked at him the morning before, but he damn sure felt different. How could having sex one time with a woman change a man so much, and yet no one else could even see it?

  When he returned to the table everyone was talking, mostly about the party the night before. Grandpa looked up and winked as if he knew something, and Raylen felt a slow heat crawling up his neck. Then Grandpa pointed to Colleen’s plate and Raylen saw the all the extra chicken beside her dumplings.

  Raylen sat down beside her and loaded his plate with dumplings and then deftly, while his sister was talking to Grandma, forked the chicken from her plate and raked part of his dumplings over it.

  “Hey, where’s my chicken?” she said when she looked down. “Raylen!”

  “Don’t look at me. I was in the bathroom. Dewar probably stole it.”

  Dewar threw up both palms defensively. “I’m innocent.”

  Colleen narrowed her dark green eyes and looked from one brother to the other. “Raylen, you did it. You can’t hide nothing.”

  Raylen grinned and shoved food into his mouth.

  “He’s got the hots for our new neighbor and he’s hidin’ that pretty dang good,” Dewar said.

  The grin vanished and he shot his brother a dirty look.

  “She’s a pretty woman, but you’d best be careful,” Grandma said. “She’s like a butterfly. They look so pretty flittin’ around out there among the roses, but if you catch one and put it in a jar, it’ll die.”

  “She’ll get tired of plain livin’. She’s a…” Colleen said.

  “A carnie,” Raylen finished for her. “Once a rancher, always a rancher. Maybe that don’t hold true for a carnie.”

  “I’ll bet you it does,” Dewar put in his two cents.

  “I’ll take that bet. Ten bucks says she stays,” Raylen said.

  “Ten says she goes before Christmas.” Dewar stuck out his hand and they shook over the table.

  “Twenty says she’s gone by December fifteenth,” Colleen said.

  Raylen looked at Colleen. “You don’t think anyone can change?”

  “Person is raised one way, chances are they’ll stay that way. Am I going to get your twenty or not? I won’t ever marry anyone but a rancher. It’s in my blood.”

  “I’ll put twenty on it.” Raylen sipped his iced tea. “So you’re sayin’ if a man walked up on our porch, say, sellin’ Bibles, and you looked at him and fell in love in an instant like Rye did when he looked at Austin, that you wouldn’t be happy sellin’ Bibles with him?”

  Colleen giggled, then laughed aloud, then grabbed her napkin to wipe the tears. “Me sellin’ Bibles? That ain’t never goin’ to happen, Brother. I’m marryin’ a cowboy when I get around to fallin’ in love. One who lives on a big ranch.”

  “Good girl,” Maddie said.

  “Never say never,” Raylen said. “Gets a person in trouble every time.”

  Chapter 9

  Liz sat in the truck for a full five minutes just looking at the barn. It was a big, square, metal building with enormous sliding doors on the east side. One of them was open about three feet, and she had no doubt that Raylen was cleaning up after last night’s party. She had her hand on the door handle when her cell phone rang and she jerked back as if she’d been burned. She answered it without even checking ID, figuring that Raylen was calling to give her a hard time about dragging her feet.

  “I just woke up. I miss you. Come home,” Blaze said.

  “I am home. I love it here and I can’t wait for you to see this. It’s as big as the winter place and I’ve got a barn and a dog and cat and enough Christmas decorations to light up half of Texas. And Raylen is next door and he’s not married, Blaze. And I’m sitting here in my truck looking at the barn where we had a dress-up Halloween party last night, and I’m going to help Raylen with cleaning it all up this afternoon. I have a job and I love it.”

  Blaze laughed. “That sounds like you are trying to convince yourself. What did you say you did last night?”

  “There was a party at the neighbors’. A Halloween party with a live band and open bar and I told fortunes,” she said.

  “Did you wear the turquoise?”

  “No, orange.”

  “And?” Blaze pressed.

  “And Raylen took me home afterwards,” she said.

  “Damn, Lizelle. Tell me what happened. I feel like I’m pulling teeth,” he said.

  For the first time Liz couldn’t tell Blaze what had happened. It was too personal, too intimate. “I set earth, wind, and fire, and it was so easy because they had cauldrons with dry ice in them so they were smokin’ and that made the wind, and fire came from a candle, and Raylen went outside and got me some dirt on a paper Halloween plate and I set all three around me. Then I either did their palm or laid out the cards or both. You showed up in one of the readings.”

  He took the bait. “Oh, tell me who you were reading for.”

  Liz bit back a giggle. “Her name is Colleen and she’s Irish to the bone. She’s got strange colored red hair that is almost burgundy and deep green eyes. You’ll meet her when you come to visit at the Bowie gig. She’s Raylen’s sister and she works as a blackjack dealer at a casino over the border in Oklahoma.”

  “And what card did you see?” Blaze’s voice said that he was wide awake.

  “Oh, no! I don’t kiss and tell, not even to you, when it comes to cards. It was her personal future. If you want me to read the cards for you then come see me,” Liz teased.

  “Tressa can do it anytime I want.” His tone said he was pouting.

  “Yes, she can. I don’t think you’d like Colleen anyway. She’s independent as hell and doesn’t stutter when she speaks her mind. And she wouldn’t put up with one minute of your bullshit. The first time you looked at another woman she’d tie your carcass to an altar and cut
off your balls. The cards must’ve been wrong to even suggest that you’d meet her in the future, or else they were right and you’d better go on down to the funeral home in Claude and get fitted for a casket.”

  “That’s morbid, but you’ve got my curiosity roused. Besides, you know I like red hair. Are you just tellin’ me this crock of bull to keep from talkin’ more about you and Raylen?”

  “I am not doing any such thing. And just to prove it I will introduce you, but rest assured it would never, ever work between you two. If she caught you flirting, I’m serious, she’d cut your balls off, deep-fry them, and feed them to her cat.”

  “Shit! That made shivers up my back. Did you turn over the card that says I’m to run from her?”

  “I told you, I don’t kiss and tell,” Liz said. “And now I’ve got to go help clean up the mess. It’s a neighbor thing. I’m helping them today, and starting tomorrow they’re going to help me put up all my decorations so it will be all pretty when y’all get here.”

  “Lizelle, don’t get too involved with Raylen. He’s just a kid you met briefly and built into a superhero. He’s a real person, sweetheart, and real people aren’t gods or heroes. Your heart will always be a wanderer. You know that old sayin’ in the church about giving them a child until they are six and they’ll never change. It works the same in lots of things.”

  Liz sighed. “You were fourteen.”

  “Yes, but my mother was a flower child and I loved the carnival my whole life, even if I didn’t get to join it until I was fourteen. I’d stand by the fence and watch y’all leave in the spring, and my heart would hurt to go with you. We’re carnies at heart, sweetheart. We’ll never change.”

  “Gotta run. Time to go earn my help puttin’ up decorations,” she said.

  “Did you sleep with him already?” Blaze asked bluntly.

  “Losing connection. Tell Momma hi,” Liz said and flipped the phone shut.

  Liz was halfway to the barn when Raylen stepped out.

  “Already done?” she called out.

  “You ain’t that lucky. I’ve got the cobwebs down and part of the tables cleared off.” He grinned.