Long, Tall Cowboy Christmas

by Carolyn Brown

“Don’t even go there,” she warned.

  “We’ll talk later,” he whispered.

  Jace and Nash pushed through the kitchen, both with boxes piled high on their arms. Jace was singing “White Christmas,” and Nash had that deer-in-the-headlights look when he passed through the path the four women made by standing to the side.

  “Don’t be singing that song to me,” Lila said. “I had enough of the white stuff when I lived up north. I’m hoping that it’s warm enough we can play a game of football outside on Christmas day.”

  “Not me,” Hope said. “I want enough pretty snow to cover the ground so the kids can build a snowman. I’ve even got the sticks put up for them to use to make his arms. Found the perfect ones under the pecan tree down at my place this past week.”

  “Hey, Jace, have y’all got it all in the house?” Valerie called out.

  “What comes into the house is here. The rest is outside decorations, and we put them on the porch,” Jace yelled back. “Can we eat now?”

  “After grace.” Hope raised her voice above the din. “Give us five minutes to finish putting things on the table.”

  When everything was in place, the family gathered around in a circle and Emma put one hand in Hope’s and reached for Nash’s with the other. He glanced over at Kasey.

  “We hold hands around the table. I’ll explain later,” she said as she slipped her free hand into Nash’s and bowed her head.

  Lord, don’t let my hand go all clammy and sweaty, she prayed silently.

  “Brody, you say the blessing,” Hope said.

  When Brody finished, Nash squeezed her hand gently and let go quickly. “I like that tradition.”

  “It started when Valerie was a little girl. I caught her putting her hand in a bowl of peaches while Wes said the prayer,” Hope explained. “So from then on I held her hand and then when she got married and had kids, she did the same thing. Now come on, Rustin, and I’ll help you get your plate. You kids can sit at the kitchen table with Nash and Kasey. The rest of us can find a place in the living room. Soon as the kids are finished, we’ll get this show on the road.”

  Emma tugged on Nash’s sleeve. “You can help me.”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to show me how. I’ve never done this job before,” Nash said.

  “Well.” Emma cut her eyes around to her mother. “I want tater chips and pickles.”

  “Emma!” Kasey scolded.

  “A sandmich and sweet beans then.” Emma sighed.

  “That’s a sandwich and baked beans, right?” Nash whispered.

  His warm breath on Kasey’s neck created another spark that made her shiver. Maybe her mother was right about her staying over at the Texas Star with him.

  “Yes,” Jace said. “She gets a few words crossways, but she’s talked plain since she started sayin’ words. She’s always been in competition with Rustin.”

  “I’m not ’petition with Rustin. He’s bossy,” Emma declared.

  “And you aren’t?” Brody asked.

  Emma shook her head. “I’m renorin’ you, Uncle Brody.”

  “If you ignore me, baby girl, there won’t be a bedtime story tonight,” Brody told her.

  “Okay.” Emma sighed. “I’m not renorin’ you.”

  Nash chuckled. “I always wanted a sister or a brother.”

  “You can have Silas and Rustin.” Emma led the way to the kitchen table and crawled up in a chair.

  * * *

  “Hey, I’ll call you when I need to go somewhere if you want to stay here. The kids don’t need their lives uprooted right here at Christmas,” Nash told Kasey when they were seated at the table with the children.

  “It’s an adventure to them,” she said. “Did you even read the papers that the doctors gave us when we left the hospital? Things that could happen with a head injury? Like seizures, relapse of memory, disorientation about where you are or where you’re going. What if you were going out to the back forty acres and suddenly forgot who you were or what you were doing? You could fall into the creek and freeze to death.”

  “No!” Emma slapped both hands on her cheeks. “Don’t let Mr. Nash get froze to death.”

  Nash laid a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t read the doctor’s orders. But that’s all a CYA for the doctors and hospitals. It’s not going to happen. I’ll be very careful, and please call me Nash instead of Mr. Nash, okay?”

  “But you are old and Mama says we got to call old people Mr. or Miz.” She went back to eating her sandwich.

  “Ouch!” Nash flashed a grin toward Kasey.

  “Don’t worry. Anything over ten years old is ancient to her.” She smiled back at him.

  “What’s CYA?” Rustin asked.

  “It’s short for cover your fanny,” Kasey explained to her son. Then she turned to Nash. “And we’re already moved in until Christmas. Are you going to kick us out?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t, but Kasey, it’s not fair…not after…”

  “Life’s not fair. If it were, neither of us would be where we are today,” she said.

  “Amen to that,” he said, glancing around the big open space that reminded him so much of the one in Louisiana where he’d grown up. The center of the place had probably been the original house and then it got added on to through the years.

  He liked the open space between the living room, dining room, and kitchen, but there was something about the individual rooms at the house over on Texas Star that appealed to him even more. Compartmentalize—keep things in the right space with doors and locks to secure them.

  Like your life and heart, right? The aggravating voice in his head sounded off loud and clear.

  That’s the way I’ve been trained, he argued.

  Only by your past profession. Now you’re a rancher, not a soldier, and if you ever want to have a family and a life, you have to be a helluva lot more open.

  I don’t need a therapist in my head. He frowned.

  “Who are you arguing with?” Kasey asked.

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Let’s just say you don’t have a very good poker face,” she told him. “So who was it?”

  “The devil himself,” Nash answered. “But I’m winning the battle.”

  “Where’s the devil?” Emma’s eyes grew huge. “I’ll shoot him.”

  “I bet you would, chère.” Nash laughed.

  “What’s one of them things? Is it like a monkey? Uncle Brody calls us monkeys,” she said.

  “It means ‘sweet girl’ in the Cajun language,” Nash explained.

  Emma tilted her head up and flashed a bright smile across the table toward her brother. “I’m a sweet girl.”

  “You’re just a bratty sister,” Rustin said. “I’m done, Mama. May I be excused?”

  “Am not!” Emma argued. “You’re a bratty brother.”

  “Am not!” Rustin declared.

  “Me not!” Silas chimed in.

  Both of the older kids looked his way and said in unison, “You’re just a baby.”

  “Me nots a baby.” He puffed out his chest.

  “Enough of that. Rustin, if you’re finished, go ask Uncle Jace what you need to do to help. Emma and Silas, you two finish your food,” Kasey scolded.

  “Hurry up, Emma,” Rustin said. “We got to get the work done so we can go to Grandma’s and have desserts. Do we get to help put up the tree at Nash’s house?”

  “Of course you can. A cowboy can never have too many ranch hands,” Nash said.

  “Me, too,” Emma piped up.

  “Me, too.” Silas joined in the conversation.

  “Guess we’ll have lots of help with the Christmas tree business.” It had been five years since he’d been a part of anything to do with decorating. Three of those he’d volunteered for extra duty work to allow other soldiers to be home with their families and children. The last two—well, he had managed to be gone when his grandmother did all the decorating. But now he was looking forward to everything about the holida
y.

  “Hey, y’all in the kitchen. You ready to get in here and help us out?” Jace asked from the living area.

  Nash pushed back his chair. “What can I do?”

  “Help Brody put up the tree while I unpack the lights,” Jace answered. “No matter how careful we are when we put them away, they always tangle.”

  Just like life, Nash thought as he opened the long box and started laying out the branches for the tree. Kasey was not five feet away from him, unpacking a box with tinsel written on the side. Nash’s chest tightened when she bent over and her jeans stretched across a perfectly rounded butt. Only a few hours ago, that sexy redhead was his wife, and now she was only his caretaker.

  Brody held the lights on his forearms and Lila fastened each one to the branches of the huge tree. To keep his eyes off Kasey, he watched the newlyweds and yearned for a relationship like they had. One where every nuance and gaze had a meaning or a memory, where the chemistry between them could be felt in the whole room. He’d had that for a little while, but it had all been fake, and he wanted the real deal.

  His eyes shifted over to Kasey, and the world stopped turning for a moment. She was the one he wanted, the one he’d always wanted from the first time he saw those green eyes in the picture with Rustin and Emma. Or maybe it wasn’t Kasey at all but that feeling that he got in his heart when Adam had talked about his wife. Surely that was what he craved and not another man’s wife.

  When Lila and Brody finished, Kasey held up the garland. “We’re next. You want to hold or drape?”

  “Hold. I’m not sure I’d be good at the draping business,” he answered.

  “Okay, then come over here and hold out your arms.”

  He crossed the room and she slid the gold tinsel from the cardboard over onto his outstretched arms. Her feathery touch set his heart to doing double-time. “We do it just like Lila and Brody, right?”

  “Don’t tell me this is your first time to do this.” Kasey laughed.

  “I usually got to put on a few of those icicles when I was a kid, but Mama did most of the other work with a lot of help from Addy. She came down to Louisiana every year for Thanksgiving, and it was a family tradition to get the tree up before she went home to Texas,” Nash said as he followed her to the tree.

  Other than the past couple of days when he really thought he was a married man, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d said more than two sentences. And it had been two years since he’d talked to anyone about his family or memories. His grandmother accused him of losing his ability to speak while he was in the hospital those many weeks after he hit his head on that last mission.

  “That’s my job,” Emma said from the corner where she already had a fist full of silver and gold icicles in her hands. “Granny let me do that. But not Silas.”

  Silas raised his head and glared at his sister. “Cookies!”

  * * *

  Kasey tried to hurry with the garland, but either Lila or Hope thought one was stretched too tight or else needed to be looped down farther. She caught a whiff of Nash’s shaving lotion every time he moved, and every time he uttered a word in that deep Cajun drawl, she wanted throw the garland out in the yard and drag him off to the barn or the willow tree at the springs for a make-out session.

  Good lord! Adam would be so disappointed in her lusting after another man. She’d vowed to love him forever, and here she was with three kids, her mother, grandmother, and brothers, as well as her new sister-in-law right there in the room with her while she wished she was tangled up under a quilt having sex with Nash.

  Until death parts us, that was the vow, not all the way through eternity, that pesky voice in her head reminded her. Adam told you more than once that if he didn’t come home that you should move on.

  Easier said than done, especially since he was my first and only love, she argued.

  “Just a tad bit lower on that one and I believe it’s perfect,” Hope said. “Then Valerie and I get to hang the ornaments.”

  “And then it’s my turn,” Emma said.

  “That was fun,” Nash said. “I never was over at Texas Star during the holidays. I wonder if the decorations there are a lot like these.”

  “Minnie liked the big lights and she always hosted a Christmas dinner for her Sunday school class. I remember her tree very well,” Hope said. “Your uncle Henry complained about having to put the lights up around the house when he retired from the military and came home, but I think down deep he really liked the holiday.”

  “Well, I guess Kasey and I’ll see what’s in the boxes in the attic tomorrow. It should be fun,” Nash said.

  Rustin puffed out his chest. “Yes, and I’m goin’ to help.”

  “And me, too,” Emma said.

  “Me, cookies!” Silas tapped his chest.

  “That’s right.” Nash settled into the corner of the sofa and Emma sat down as close as she could get beside him. Silas toddled over and held up his arms. Nash picked him up and set him on his lap.

  “See!” Silas pointed toward the tree as Valerie and Hope hung the pretty ornaments.

  “Yes, sir, I do see and they are sparkly and shiny.” Nash grinned.

  They need a father. Move on! Move on! Move on! The words tumbled over each other in Kasey’s head.

  Maybe they do, she admitted. But I’m not so sure that I could ever be happy with another husband.

  Chapter Eight

  Uncomfortable was an understatement when they arrived at Prairie Rose Ranch for desserts and to see all of Valerie’s decorations. Nash carried Silas inside the house, and Adam’s mother, Gracie, immediately took him from Nash’s arms.

  “Hey, Gracie, have you and Paul met Nash?” Kasey asked.

  “We have,” Gracie said curtly and carried Silas to the kitchen.

  Paul stepped out from behind Jace and Brody with a hand outstretched. “Good to see you again, Nash. I hear that something clicked in your head and you’re back to normal. That’s good. How are things at the Texas Star?”

  “Going well. Sheep are content. And I like it here in Happy,” Nash answered.

  “And we’re putting up a Christmas tree over at Nash’s tomorrow, Gramps.” Rustin stretched up on his tiptoes to hang his coat on the rack inside the front door. “And I get to help. Emma can do icicles, but I get to do more.”

  Emma tipped up her chin. “My ’cicles will be pretty.”

  Silas came out of the kitchen as fast as his chubby legs would allow with a sugar cookie in his hand. “Nashie want one?”

  “Yes, I would love one.” Nash grinned.

  Silas took him by the hand and led him to the dining room. Kasey followed right behind them. That Gracie was angry wasn’t even a doubt, and if she went off on Nash, it could throw him right back into a world where he thought they were married. She had to protect her own interests as well as Nash’s in this battle.

  “Mama makes the best sugar cookies in the whole area.” Kasey raised her voice so that Valerie and Gracie would both know she and Nash were close by.

  “Kasey, would you please come in here and help me carry out a few things?” Valerie called out.

  The decision was made in a split second. She could put off listening to Gracie and her mother’s opinion by taking Nash with her or she could ask him to watch Silas and go on and take her dose of bitter medicine. She chose the latter.

  “Looks like they need my expert advice in the kitchen. Will you watch Silas while I’m in there? He can slip away in the blink of an eye, so keep him close.”

  “Sure thing.” Nash took Silas by the hand and led him back into the living room.

  Silas took a bite of his cookie and pointed to Nash, who did the same. Then his finger shot over to the Christmas tree, all lit up and sparkly. Kasey inhaled deeply and let it out, then did it again before she marched into the kitchen, ready for war.

  The moment she cleared the doorway, Valerie led with the first round. “Gracie and I’ve talked about this and we’ve decided that since Nash
has his mind right again that you shouldn’t live over there. We’ll send Brody or Jace to drive him when he needs to go to town or to the doctor’s office.”

  “It’s not right, and besides, that whole family was a little odd. Minnie Thomas, his great-grandma, was the only one who wasn’t, well, slightly off. His great-grandfather, Henry’s dad, was strange. Didn’t leave the ranch very often and never went to church with Minnie and the kids. Everyone will be talkin’ about you, and Adam would not be pleased.” Gracie fired the second shot.

  “Are y’all finished?” Kasey’s tone was downright chilly.

  “Not by a long shot, but we don’t want to ruin the evening,” Valerie said.

  “We’re only lookin’ out for your best interests,” Gracie chimed in. “Adam might want you to move on, but not with that man. He would not be happy about this.”

  Kasey folded her arms across her chest. “Mama, if you’ve got anything else to say, then do it and then I don’t want to hear another word from either of you.”

  “You’re making a horrible mistake,” Valerie’s whisper came out more like a hiss.

  “If I am, it’s my mistake to make,” Kasey said. “I gave that doctor my word that I’d take care of Nash until he could drive again, and you, Mama.” She pointed at Valerie. “You told the kids that Santa was bringing their things to the Texas Star for Christmas. Besides, I actually owe it to Adam.”

  “You do not!” Grace gasped.

  “Yes, I do. If he’d lived, and if he’d been in Nash’s shoes, wouldn’t you want someone to take care of him if he wasn’t allowed to drive? Or what about if he slipped back into a make-believe world and thought he was in a third world country on a mission or if he went out to do chores and couldn’t even find his way back to the house?” When she finished she turned around and marched out of the kitchen and straight to the living room.

  She stopped in the dining room, put both palms on the table filled with desserts, and inhaled half a dozen times. She hadn’t been sure about the whole situation either, but she was damn tired of other people, even family with good intentions, telling her what to do.

  You better be right about this or your mama will never let you live it down, Princess. Her father’s voice in her head was loud and clear.