THE MAVERICK'S CHRISTMAS BABY

by Victoria Pade

  Certain enough that she had no compunctions about showing up at his doorstep unannounced to surprise him with the tree. And some ornaments and some lights and just a bit of Christmas cheer that her brother didn’t know she already had loaded into the rear of her SUV.

  “Yes, I’m sure Dallas went to all the trouble of saving me only to turn around and shoot me today,” she said facetiously in answer to her brother’s comment.

  “I don’t like it, Nina,” Nate said then, seriously, solemnly, showing genuine concern. “You know how things are with the Traubs—they’re the enemy.”

  “In what?” Nina challenged. “Some stupid generations-old family feud? They’re the Hatfields and we’re the McCoys? Or vice versa? I’m beginning to think that that’s just plain dumb.”

  “You might not think it was so dumb if it was you who just lost that race for mayor to a Traub.”

  Nathan couldn’t seem to say the name without rancor—actually no one in her family ever could—but still Nina thought maybe she was being insensitive to her brother. Nate had poured his heart and soul into the campaign for the office of Rust Creek’s mayor and then lost. To Collin Traub.

  “I understand, and I don’t blame you for having hard feelings about losing the run for mayor,” she assured Nathan. “But this is something just between Dallas and me. Separate from any family squabbles or defeats or any of the rest of it. After all, he did me a great kindness separate from everything. Or would you have rather he had looked at the situation on Wednesday and left me to fend for myself because I’m a Crawford?”

  “No...” Nate admitted with clear reluctance. “I just don’t think you owe him anything for it.”

  “If it had been someone else who did what he did, would you feel the same way?” Nina reasoned.

  Her brother scowled again but refused to answer.

  Nina knew why and said, “No, you wouldn’t feel the same way. You and Mom and Dad would have rushed into the hospital room and fallen all over yourselves thanking him. And right now you’d have that tree tied to my luggage rack and you’d probably be telling me to tell whoever how grateful you all are that he helped me out.”

  Nate didn’t respond to that but he did hoist the tall pine tree up onto her luggage rack and reach down for the bungee cords to hold it there.

  After securing the cords and yanking on the tree to make sure it was held tight, Nate got down off her running board and returned to her, still frowning his disapproval.

  “It’s a good thing we’ve had nothing but sunshine since Wednesday and the roads are clear or I wouldn’t let you do this,” he said.

  As if he could stop her.

  Nina refrained from saying that and instead said, “But the roads are clear, there isn’t another storm in sight and thanks for that.” She nodded toward the tree now fastened to the roof of her SUV.

  Nate would only accept her gratitude with a shrug, letting her know he still didn’t approve of what she was doing or of her having contact with any Traub.

  But Nina merely kissed her brother on the cheek and sent him on his way.

  So that she could be on her way, too.

  Even as she tried to contain the wave of excitement that flooded through her at the thought that she was on her way to seeing Dallas again....

  * * *

  Dallas’s house was a large two-story that sat not too far back from the side road that bordered the Traub’s Triple T ranch.

  Nina was glad to see the glow of lights on behind the curtained windows when she pulled up in front of it. On the drive from Rust Creek Falls proper it had occurred to her that he might be having Sunday dinner with his parents, who lived in the main house on the property. But if the lights were on, he was probably there. Which meant she was going to get to see him again after all, and that made her happier than she wanted to admit.

  Turning off her engine, she got out of her SUV and went up the four steps onto the porch, crossing it to get to the front door.

  There were butterflies in her stomach suddenly, as the thought flitted through her mind that Dallas might not be happy to see her. What if she’d merely been enjoying a temporary truce?

  Or what if his parents or his brothers were here for Sunday dinner?

  Even if things were still okay between her and Dallas, Nina had no doubt that his family’s response to her would be as bad as her family’s response to him had been. And the thought of that put a damper on what she had planned.

  But she’d come to do this and she couldn’t let these last-minute concerns stop her. She had to at least find out what was going on inside that house. She couldn’t just turn tail and run because things might be different than what she’d envisioned. So she raised a finger to the doorbell and rang it.

  Holding her breath.

  Then the door opened, and Dallas was standing there—somehow looking even taller, more broad-shouldered and even more handsome, too, despite the fact that he was obviously in stay-at-home clothes that included faded, ages-old jeans and a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed to midforearms.

  He also had a kitchen towel slung over one of those broad shoulders and a shadow of beard on the lower half of his face that gave him an extra-rugged appeal Nina tried not to notice. Instead, she focused on the fact that his expression showed shock, then pleased shock as his eyebrows arched and he gave her a glimpse of that lopsided smile of his.

  “Nina!”

  “Hi. I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

  His eyebrows arched higher, as if to ask, “A bad time for what?”

  She nodded over her shoulder at her car. “I was going to get you a fruit basket or something to say thanks, but after Friday I thought a Christmas tree, some decorations and a few other holiday things were a better idea. And if you’re up for it, I’d like to help you trim the tree and get some cheer going for your boys.”

  The arched eyebrows dipped into an almost-frown. “I can’t let you do all that,” he said.

  “You can’t let me say thank you?”

  “You’ve said thank you. A couple of times.”

  He seemed kind of down tonight and that only made Nina more determined to do this.

  “Still, what you did was huge to me, and I want to do this for you to show you how much I appreciated it. For you and the boys...” She added the boys at the end because for some reason there seemed to be an undertone of intimacy in her voice that she wanted to dispel.

  “Are you even supposed to be out? Let alone carting Christmas trees around and decorating them for people?” Dallas asked then.

  “I was back at work yesterday and today without any limitations, and I feel great. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be this way this close to the end, but I have a ton of energy—some to spare—and I’d really like to do this.”

  “Decorate a tree for me?”

  “For you and the boys,” she said, qualifying this time because there was a hint of intimacy in his voice now, and regardless of how excited she was to be looking up into his oh-so-handsome face she was also warning herself to keep things in perspective.

  After a brief moment of seeming to consider what she was offering, Dallas shrugged in a way that made her think he was shrugging off some of his low spirits. Then he laughed a little and said, “Well, okay, I guess. If you’re up for it.”

  “I am. If you’ll get the tree off the car, I’ll get the stuff out of the back—I brought a tree stand so you can just plunk it into that and we can get going.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a wider smile at the take-charge attitude she was showing, the take-charge attitude that wasn’t too different than what he’d shown on Wednesday in the blizzard.

  Then he called over his shoulders for his sons to come and put on their coats while he removed the dish towel from his shoulder, slung it over the banister on the stai
rcase behind him and thrust his arms into the largest of the four coats hanging on hooks beside the door.

  “Lead the way...” he suggested to Nina as the boys came to the door like a tiny herd of elephants, their curiosity piqued, as well.

  “Coats!” Dallas ordered a second time, explaining what was happening as the boys put them on and they all joined Nina on the porch.

  “You brought us a Christmas tree?” Robbie exclaimed as they went out to the SUV.

  “I did,” Nina confirmed. “And a few other things that you can help me carry in while your dad and your brothers get the tree down.”

  “I been wantin’ a tree!” Robbie said as if it were a revelation.

  “Now you’ll have one,” Nina said with a laugh.

  Even the oldest boy—Ryder, who had been so solemn on Friday when they’d met—seemed to perk up at the prospect of decorating for Christmas. And the more childish side of middle-son, Jake—who Nina had already realized liked to play it tough—was revealed as the two older boys aided their father in getting the tree unlashed from the roof of the SUV.

  “Go on in and get out of the cold,” Dallas commanded Nina when she and Robbie had taken the sacks from her rear cargo compartment. “The family room is to the left—that’s where we put the tree.”

  Thinking more of the little boy than of herself, Nina did as she’d been told.

  Inside the house, Nina took off her coat and so did Robbie—dropping his on the floor in his excitement to take the sacks into the other room and see what was in them.

  Still in the entry, Nina picked up the child’s coat and replaced it on the hook it had come from. Then she draped her own jacket over the newel post at the foot of the wide staircase that led to the second level of the house rather than taking someone else’s hook.

  She was wearing a turtleneck fisherman’s-knit cable sweater that reached to midthigh of the skinny jeans she had on with her fur-lined, calf-high boots. After making sure the sweater wasn’t bunched up over her rear end, she took the dish towel from where Dallas had set it over the banister and went in the direction Robbie had gone—to the left of the staircase.

  The family room was a wide-open space paneled in a rustic wood, with man-sized leather furniture arranged around the entertainment center and the stone fireplace beside it.

  Nina took the dish towel into the kitchen that was in the rear portion of the same area, separated from it only by a big round table surrounded by eight ladder-backed chairs.

  On the counter beside the sink were four TV dinners with most of their contents left uneaten, and Nina wondered how often Dallas served frozen meals like that, hoping it wasn’t too often. And hoping, too, that the whole household hadn’t been feeling so sad tonight that none of them had felt like eating.

  She left the dish towel folded neatly on the other side of the double sink and went to Robbie to help unload the bags she’d brought, explaining as she took things out what they were intended for.

  “Dad! We have lights and tinsel and ornaments and these sparkly balls and candy canes, and Nina’s gonna make us apple cider to drink while we put the tree up!” Robbie announced when his father and brothers carried the evergreen into the family room.

  “I can see that,” Dallas answered as he leaned the tree against a wall.

  When the other boys were following Dallas’s instructions to take his coat and theirs to hang up, and Robbie was still engrossed in emptying the bags, Nina said in an aside to Dallas, “I brought a bunch of new ornaments in case you didn’t want memories raised with ones you used before....”

  “Good idea. We can decide later what we might want to add and what we might not.”

  The older boys returned then. At Nina’s suggestion Christmas music was turned on as she heated the cider and put it into mugs, and everyone got busy putting up the tree and decorating Dallas’s house.

  Nina half expected Dallas to merely sit on the sofa and watch her and the boys do the decorating, because in the four years she’d been with Leo, that was what he’d done. Christmas spirit seemed to have been something he’d outgrown, and while he’d assured her that he enjoyed the sight of a well-lit tree, he’d refused to exert the energy to actually decorate it.

  But Dallas pitched in and did every bit as much as she did until the room was decorated—not quite as elaborately as Nina’s apartment, but enough so that it looked very festive.

  When all the work was done, Robbie demanded that all the lights be turned off except for the tree lights, and that they all stand back to see how the tree looked in the dark. It looked beautiful, and Nina had the sense that the activity and the addition of the holiday cheer had lifted some of the cloud from the household. If not permanently, then at least for the time being.

  Then Dallas said, “Tomorrow is a school day and you guys are late getting to sleep. Tell Nina thank-you for all of this and then upstairs to showers and pajamas and bed.”

  Ryder and Jake thanked her perfunctorily, but Robbie gave her an impromptu hug around the middle to accompany his expression of gratitude. Then the boys went up the stairs in a thunderous retreat that seemed louder than a mere three kids could cause, and Nina and Dallas were suddenly alone.

  “This was a really, really nice thing you did,” Dallas said when the noise had dwindled to thumps and bumps overhead. He seemed inordinately grateful. As grateful as she’d been for his help during the blizzard. As grateful as if she’d done something for him that he just hadn’t had it in him to do on his own.

  “I wanted to do it,” Nina assured him.

  “Now sit and catch your breath,” he insisted. “I’ll reheat the cider and have another cup with you.”

  Better judgment told Nina to decline, to just head for home. She’d done what she’d come to do and she should just leave.

  But she couldn’t deny herself a few minutes alone with Dallas now that the work was finished and the boys were elsewhere.

  So she sat on the big overstuffed leather sofa across from the Christmas tree that they’d set beside the fireplace.

  She enjoyed the view of her handiwork and how much more cheerful the room looked while Dallas microwaved refills of cider for just the two of them. Then he brought the mugs and joined her.

  Nina was at one end of the long couch, and after handing her the mug he sat on the opposite end. Far, far away.

  Or, at least, that was how it seemed.

  But it was good, Nina told herself. Because even if she was liking that scruff of beard on his face a little too much and thinking that it was sooo sexy, sitting at a distance from each other proved that there was nothing more to this than two relatively new acquaintances sharing a friendly evening together topped off by a cup of cider.

  She took a sip of hers and said, “I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d find when I came out here. You know, a Crawford setting foot on the Traub’s Triple T ranch...”

  “You thought you might be shot on sight?” Dallas joked, gazing at her over his own mug just before he took a drink, too.

  “That’s what Nate thought—he loaded the tree onto the car for me. I gave him grief for saying such a dumb thing, but I have to admit that I was glad when I found someone at the store today who could tell me which place out here was yours so I didn’t have to go to the main house and ask. I sort of figured if I did I’d run into the same kind of wrath from your family that you got from mine.”

  “At least the hospital was a public place—that probably made it a little safer.”

  “But obviously not much,” Nina said.

  “I can’t imagine Nathan was any too happy to load up a Christmas tree for you to bring to me,” Dallas said then.

  Nina shrugged her concession to that. “Losing the election to your brother has riled up my family all over again. I’m sure you know how that goes.”

  “Oh, I know. T
he slightest thing that happens with a Crawford and everyone on my side is up in arms.”

  “But it’s gotten me to thinking...” Nina mused. “And it occurred to me that I don’t even know for sure what started the Crawfords and the Traubs hating each other in the first place. Do you know?” she asked, having wondered a great deal about that since Wednesday when she’d discovered that she couldn’t find a single thing wrong with Dallas. When, in fact, she could only find things more right than she wanted them to be.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too,” Dallas admitted. “Here you are, a nice person, great to be around—” and if the warmth in his gaze meant anything, he didn’t hate the way she looked, either “—and I keep wondering why I’m supposed to think you’re the devil incarnate just because you’re a Crawford. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know, either.”

  “I know there’s been a history of Crawfords and Traubs competing for the same public positions—like this last election for mayor,” Nina said.

  “Right. There have been Traubs and Crawfords vying for the sheriff’s job and city council seats along the way—I remember our fathers both running for an empty seat on the city council when I was a teenager.”

  “And that time my dad won—I’d forgotten that he sat on the city council for a while back then,” Nina said.

  “But there’s always a winner and a loser in those things—sometimes in favor of a Traub, sometimes in favor of a Crawford—”

  “And then there are hard feelings on the part of whichever side loses,” Nina finished for him.

  “Sure,” Dallas agreed. “Plus I think I remember hearing something about a romance—a long, long time ago, when Rust Creek was nothing but cowboys and farmers. I think there was a story about a Traub and a Crawford both wanting the same woman, or something. And when neither of them got her they blamed each other....”

  “I hadn’t even heard that one,” Nina said, laughing again. “I did hear one once about a business deal gone wrong, but all I know for sure is that whenever I’ve asked why the Crawfords and the Traubs hate each other it’s started a tirade against the Traubs without any real answer. But it sounds like it’s a matter of the Traubs and the Crawfords being too much alike and wanting the same things over and over again.”