Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

  There’s something about those Wyoming men... New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer returns to the Cowboy State with a brand-new tale of desire and deception

  Cultivating his vast Wyoming ranch is all security expert J. C. Calhoun wants. His land is the only thing the betrayed rancher can trust in after discovering his fiancée was pregnant by another man. But all J.C. holds dear becomes compromised when a lost little girl leads him to Colie Jackson, the woman who destroyed his life.

  Colie stops at nothing to protect the people she loves. Years ago she left J.C. for his own good. Now, for the sake of her daughter, she must depend on a hard-hearted man who won’t forgive her. As a band of ruthless criminals tracks their every move through the frozen Wyoming winter, Colie and J.C. will be forced to confront the lies that separated them—and the startling truth that will bind them forever...

  Bonus book! In a classic Long, Tall Texans tale, a hard-hearted rancher falls for an innocent beauty under the mistletoe in Christmas Cowboy.

  Also available from Diana Palmer

  Long, Tall Texans

  Fearless

  Heartless

  Dangerous

  Merciless

  Courageous

  Protector

  Invincible

  Untamed

  Defender

  Undaunted

  Wyoming Men

  Wyoming Tough

  Wyoming Fierce

  Wyoming Bold

  Wyoming Strong

  Wyoming Rugged

  Wyoming Brave

  Morcai Battalion

  The Morcai Battalion

  The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

  The Morcai Battalion: Invictus

  The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue

  For a complete list of titles available by Diana Palmer,

  please visit www.dianapalmer.com.

  DIANA

  PALMER

  Wyoming Winter

  Table of Contents

  Wyoming Winter

  Christmas Cowboy

  Excerpt from All That Glitters by Diana Palmer

  Dear Reader,

  Some books start in awkward ways. This was one. I had a snow scene in my mind. A man and a little girl. She was hiding and crying. Her jacket had blood on it.

  From that scene came a whole book. This one is very character-driven. I did get caught up in the lives of the hero and heroine, and I felt equally sorry for both of them by the middle of the story. But it was fun to write, if something of a challenge.

  It’s dedicated to my niece, Betty, who died recently. She was an avid reader of my books, like her daughter, Amanda. My first sight of her was when our late nephew, Bobby, brought her by the house early one morning to meet us. They’d been swimming in the river, and her long, black hair was wet. She looked so young and so beautiful. I have kept that image of her all these years. She never looked older than that, to me, ever. She was kind and sweet and forgiving, and the whole family loved her. We will miss her very much.

  WYOMING WINTER

  In loving memory of Betty Patton Hansen,

  1956–2017, our niece. She leaves behind a daughter,

  Amanda; a son, Johnny; a sister, Gail Davis; and

  six grandchildren. She had a sweet and kind nature,

  and we all loved her. She will be missed.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  COLIE THOMPSON WAS in a mild panic. Her brother, Rodney, was bringing over his friend J.C. Calhoun. J.C. was thirty-two, pretty much at the end of his Army Reserve service—the cutoff age was thirty-two. He and Rodney had met in Iraq, almost four years ago. Both men were with the same Army unit. Rodney was serving his first tour of duty. J.C.’s Army Reserve unit had been called up for limited duty, and he was assigned to the same area as Rodney. In one of those wild coincidences, they started talking and discovered that they lived in the same Wyoming town, J.C. having taken a job with another Catelow resident, Ren Colter, whom he’d met during his first tour of duty. Rodney looked up to J.C., who was a little older. The older man had been a police officer before he went into the Army the first time, almost twelve years earlier.

  Rodney left the Army before his tour of duty was officially up, never saying why. He’d been home for several months. After J.C. finished his overseas duty, he came home with him sometimes, although they’d grown apart since Rodney started a new job. They still went around together, but not often. One memorable visit to the Thompson home was on Colie’s birthday, when J.C. had unexpectedly given her a cat. It was the high point of her recent life. She named the huge Siamese cat Big Tom and it slept on her bed every night.

  Even though he didn’t come home with Rodney much, Colie often saw J.C. around Catelow, which was a small and very clannish town. There were only a couple of restaurants, and Colie, whose real name was Colleen, worked as a receptionist and typist for a law firm downtown. Inevitably, she saw J.C. from time to time, occasionally with her brother. And since he was single, and handsome, and mostly avoided women, he was the subject of much gossip.

  He always made time to talk to Colie if he saw her. He was polite, teasing, friendly. He made her glow inside. Once, when he brought Rod home after his car had quit, J.C. had helped her into her jacket when she was going outside to get the mail. Just the touch of his hands was like an explosion of pleasure. The more she saw of him, the more she wanted him.

  Rodney had invited J.C. to come to supper before this, but he’d always had an excuse. This time, he accepted. It had been just after Colie had started walking back to the office, in the snow, and J.C. had stopped and given her a ride the rest of the way. Sitting with him, in the cozy warmth of the big black SUV he drove, she’d been hesitant to get out again. They’d talked about the upcoming presidential election, the state of the country, the beauty of Catelow in the snow. He’d teased her about wearing high heels to work instead of sensible boots, with snow already piling up, and she’d retorted that boots would hardly complement the pretty pantsuit she was wearing. He’d pursed his lips and looked at her, long and hard, and said Colie would look good in anything. She’d gone inside the law office, reluctantly, flushed and beaming after the unexpected pleasure of his company.

  J.C. worked full-time locally, but he went back overseas periodically to train troops in Iraq in police procedure. He was supposed to go back in a few months to do it all over again with a new group. J.C. worked as security chief for Ren Colter, who had a huge cattle ranch, Skyhorn, outside Catelow, Wyoming. Ren was ex-military as well, and he had somebody fill in for J.C. while he accommodated a former commander by drilling new recruits.

  Giving orders was something J.C. was very good at. He was also gorgeous. He had jet-black hair, cut short, and eyes so pale a gray that they glittered like silver. He was tall and muscular, but not like a bodybuilder. He had the physique of a rodeo cowboy, lithe and powerful. Colie liked to just sit and look at him when she had the opportunity. She’d never known
anybody quite like him. He had a unique background, about which he rarely spoke. Rodney had told her that J.C.’s father was a member of the Blackfoot nation up in Canada. His mother had been a little redheaded Irish woman. Quite an uncommon pairing, but it had produced a handsome child. J.C. never spoke of his father, Rodney added.

  Colie wanted a family of her own, badly. She and Rodney had lost their mother two years previously to bone cancer. It had taken her a long time to die, but even then, she’d been cheerful and upbeat around her children and her husband. Colie’s father was a Methodist minister, a pillar of the community. Everybody loved him, not just his own congregation. They’d loved Colie’s mother, too. The little woman, named Beth Louise but called Ludie, had always been the first to arrive if there was a sick person who needed caring for, or a child who needed a temporary home. She’d even fostered dogs that were picked up by the local no-kill animal shelter while they waited for an adoptive family.

  All that had passed, along with her. The house was suddenly empty. Jared Thompson, Colie’s father, had been almost suicidally depressed after his wife’s death, but his faith had pulled him through. It was, he told Colie, not right to mourn someone who had lived such a full life and had gone on to a happier, more wonderful place. Death was not the end for people of faith. They simply had to accept that people died for reasons that were, perhaps, not quite clear to those left behind.

  Colie and Rodney had grieved, too. Rodney had been overseas for almost four years, with only brief visits. He couldn’t come home for his mother’s funeral, although he Skyped with his father and sister after the services. He was a sweet, biddable boy until he went into the service. When he came home, he was...different. Colie couldn’t figure out why. He became fixated on fancy cars and designer clothes, neither of which fit in his small budget. He’d obtained a job at the local hardware store when he came home, because it was owned by a friend of the reverend Thompson. Rodney seemed to be a natural salesman. But he complained all the time about getting minimum wage. He wanted more. He was never satisfied with anything for long.

  The one thing that bothered Colie most was that her brother wasn’t quite lucid much of the time. He had red-rimmed eyes and sometimes he staggered. She worried that he might have been hurt overseas and wasn’t telling them. She knew it wasn’t from alcohol, because Rodney almost never took a drink. It was puzzling.

  During Rodney’s tour of duty in the Middle East, J.C. and Rodney hung out together when Rodney was off duty. Rod didn’t write often, but when he did, he mentioned things he and J.C. had done overseas during the time J.C. was there. They went out on the town when Rodney was on liberty. Odd thing about J.C., Rodney had commented. He never drank hard liquor. He’d have the occasional beer, but he didn’t touch the heavy stuff. Like Rodney. But the brother who used to tease her and bring her wildflowers and watch television with her seemed to have gone away. The man who came back from overseas was someone else. Someone with a darkness inside him, a lust for things, for material things.

  He’d been vocal about the old things in the house where he lived with his sister and father. It was primitive, he scoffed.

  Colie didn’t find it so. It looked lived-in. The small house was immaculate, Colie thought as she looked at her surroundings. The sofa had a new cover, a pretty burgundy floral pattern, and her father’s puffy armchair had a solid burgundy cover. The spotless wood floors had area rugs, which were beaten clean by Colie on a regular basis. There were no cobwebs anywhere. The marble-topped coffee table that her father had found at an antiques shop graced the living room, where an open fireplace crackled with orange flames and the smell of burning oak.

  Colie didn’t look too bad herself, she reflected, glancing in the hall mirror at her wavy collar-length dark brown hair. It never needed curling. It was naturally wavy. She had an oval face, sweet and pleasant, but not beautiful. Her eyes were large and dark green under thick lashes. Her mouth was a perfect bow. She had an hourglass figure, with long legs always clad in denim jeans. She had only a few dresses and a couple of nice pantsuits, which she wore to church and to work at the local attorney’s office where she was a receptionist and typist. Around the house, she wore jeans and boots and pullover sweaters. This one was a nice medium green, long-sleeved and V-necked. It showed off Colie’s small, firm breasts in a nice but flattering way. She never wore low-cut things or suggestive dresses. After all, her father was a minister. She didn’t want to do anything that would embarrass him in front of his congregation. She didn’t even curse.

  Rodney did. She was constantly chastising him about it.

  Just as she thought it, he walked in the door, stomping snow off his big boots on the front porch as he stood in the open doorway, letting in a flurry. He closed it quickly behind him.

  “Damn, it’s cold out!” he swore. “Snowing like a son of a...”

  She interrupted him. “Will you stop that? Daddy’s a minister,” she groaned. “Rodney, you’re such a pain!”

  He had her dark green eyes, but his hair was straight and thick and a shade lighter than hers. He was tall, with perfect teeth and a rakish smile. No choirboy, Rodney, he was always in trouble throughout high school. Presumably, he’d been better behaved in the military, since he was discharged early.

  “Daddy can curse,” he retorted. “Haven’t you heard him?”

  “Yes, Rodney, he says ‘chicken feathers!’ That’s how he curses.” She glowered at him. “That’s not what you’re saying when you lose your temper.” He lost it a lot lately, too.

  He shrugged her off. “I have issues,” he said easily. “I’m working on it. You have to remember that I’ve been around soldiers for several years, and in combat.”

  “I try to take that into account,” she said. “But couldn’t you tone it down, just a little bit? For Daddy’s sake?”

  He made a face at her. “God, you’re hard to live up to, do you know that?” He sighed, exasperated. “You’ve never put a foot out of line. Never had a parking ticket, never had a speeding ticket, never even jaywalked! What a paragon to try to live up to!”

  She grimaced. “I just behave the way Mama taught me.” The thought made her sad. “Don’t you miss her?”

  He nodded. “She was the kindest woman I’ve ever known. Well, besides you.” He chuckled and hugged her, and just for a minute, he was the big brother she’d adored. “You’re just the best, sis.”

  She hugged him back. “I love you, too.” She sniffed and her nose wrinkled as she drew back. “Rodney, what’s that smell?” she asked, frowning as she sniffed him again. “It’s like tobacco, but not.”

  He let her go and averted his eyes. “Just cigarette smoke. Some of that imported stuff. I have a friend who gets them.”

  “Not J.C. He doesn’t smoke,” she said, curious.

  “Not J.C.,” he agreed. “This is a guy I know from Jackson Hole. He and I pal around sometimes.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry. I thought it was marijuana.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “If I smoked marijuana in this house, Daddy would call Sheriff Cody Banks and have him lock me up in the county detention center in a heartbeat! You know that!”

  “Well, yes, I do.” She didn’t add that plenty of men did smoke that awful stuff, and managed to keep their parents from suspecting. She’d had a girlfriend in high school who even bragged about it.

  Colie had never used drugs of any sort, especially not any kind that had to be smoked. She had weak lungs. She didn’t smoke, period.

  “Didn’t you say J.C. was coming to supper?” she asked after a minute, trying not to sound as excited as she felt.

  “He is,” Rodney said, pursing his lips as he saw the excitement she was trying so hard to hide. She was an open book, especially about his best friend. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. He had to run an errand for Ren.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’ve still got left
over turkey from Thanksgiving that we have to eat, and mashed potatoes and a green salad, with apple pie for dessert. He does like turkey, doesn’t he?” she added worriedly.

  “He’s not fussy about food,” he said, smiling down at her. “Actually, he said snake wasn’t bad if you had enough pepper...”

  “Yuck!” she burst out.

  “He was spec ops, back when he was in the Army,” he laughed. “Those guys can eat anything, and have, when they’re out on a mission. Bugs, snakes, whatever they can catch. There was this guy attached to his and Ren’s unit overseas, years ago, who cooked an old cat for them when they couldn’t find anything else.”

  “Oh, that’s heartless,” she said, wincing.

  “It was a very old cat,” he replied. “They were starving.” He hesitated. “He said it tasted awful, and they got sick.”

  “Good!” she returned enthusiastically.

  He laughed and hugged her again. “You softy,” he mused. “You’re just like Mama. She loved her cats.” He frowned, looking around. “Where’s Big Tom?”

  “Out back, chasing rabbits,” she said. The big seal point Siamese cat loved the outdoors. He slept inside at night, because there were predators all around, including bears and foxes and wolves. The Thompsons’ home was outside Catelow, nestled in a forest of lodgepole pines, with no really close neighbors except Ren Colter. Ren’s ranch ran right up to the Thompson property line, but he didn’t run cattle close enough to worry any of the residents.

  “Funny,” Rodney mused, thinking about Big Tom.

  “What is?”

  “J.C. giving you a cat,” he remarked.

  It had touched Colie, that unusual gift from J.C. It had been a birthday present, the cat he’d found wandering around near his cabin. He’d had the vet clean him up and give him his shots, and he’d brought him over to Colie, who was a sucker for stray animals. Big Tom turned out to be housebroken and he never used his claws on the furniture. He was a lot of company for Colie while her father was visiting his congregation, which he did often. Rodney had been away in the military, so there was just Colie in the small house. Well, Colie and Big Tom.