Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

  “Thanks, Cody.”

  “No problem.”

  J.C. hung up. He walked into the children’s shop. The clerk, who knew about him from Lucy, who shopped there for her son, eyed him with shock.

  “I need some things for my daughter,” he said, and the words ran through him like liquid joy.

  The woman smiled. “Tell me what you want.”

  * * *

  IT WAS AN ADVENTURE, shopping for a little girl who was little more than a toddler. He had no idea of what size things to buy, so he just guessed. If some of the things didn’t fit, the saleslady assured him, he could bring them back and return them. He got pajamas and a couple of pair of pants and two shirts, plus some underthings and a new jacket with a hood. He didn’t like the idea of having his child in a bloodstained garment.

  He gave the woman his credit card and thanked her when she had it all packaged. He took it out to his big black SUV.

  There was a tearstained woman standing there, looking at him with fear and hope. “Colie,” Lucy said huskily. “How is she? Is Ludie okay?”

  “They’re both going to be fine,” he assured her. “Colie had a chest wound. Ludie was only traumatized. She got away in time.”

  “Who did it?” Lucy asked coldly. “It was that slimy friend of Rodney’s, wasn’t it? That Barry Todd!”

  “Colie identified him as the shooter. I still don’t know why he’d target her, just because her law firm was involved in court case over drugs.”

  “Neither do I,” Lucy agreed. “Colie said there was something more, a secret she’d kept for a long time. She wouldn’t even tell me, because she said it would put me at risk. But I’m pretty sure it’s why she’s stayed in Texas all this time. You know she’d have been here with her father, if there hadn’t been a good reason for her to keep away from Catelow.”

  He sighed. “I think it’s why Rodney and his friend Barry met me at the airport and told me Colie had cheated on me.” His face closed up. “I should have laid them both out on the floor and trusted Colie instead. I had issues,” he added, averting his eyes.

  “Sometimes we get second chances,” Lucy replied.

  He managed a smile. “Sometimes we hope we won’t mess those up, too. I’m just grateful that they’re both still alive. It was a close call.”

  “If Colie needs me to help her with Ludie, I’ll be glad to stay with her,” Lucy offered.

  “Thanks. I’ll tell her. But for the time being, Ludie’s staying with me at Skyhorn. In case that deranged drug lord finds out she’s alive and decides to try again.” His face hardened. “I’ll ask Banks to post a man at the hospital as well, to make sure Colie’s kept safe.” They both knew that since the crime had taken place outside the city limits, Banks would have jurisdiction. Not to mention that the hospital was located outside the city limits, as well.

  “Good idea. I’ll get back home,” Lucy said. “I heard about the shooting on the radio and I spotted your truck on my way to the hospital. I figured you’d know what happened.”

  “I do know. Colie’s in intensive care,” he added. “I doubt they’ll let you in. But the surgeon said that they may be able to move her into a room tomorrow. She came out from under the anesthetic while Ludie and I were in the recovery room with her. The surgeon made an exception for us.”

  “I’m so glad she’s going to be okay,” Lucy said huskily. “I don’t make friends easily. I’ve missed Colie since she’s lived in Texas.”

  “A lot of us have missed her,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get back to the ranch. Merrie’s giving her a bath for me.” He laughed softly. “I imagine I’ll get a crash course in child raising tonight.”

  Lucy studied him quietly. “She’s a precious little girl. She does have some very unusual skills, for such a young person.”

  “She sees things,” J.C. replied. “My grandmother had the same gift. It’s fairly rare.”

  “It amazes me. She amazes me. She’s very mature for a child who’s just over two years old.”

  He nodded. “Colie said that Ludie told her at the airport that her father was gone, before I spotted them on the concourse.”

  “An exceptional child,” Lucy said.

  “And very sweet, like Colie,” he replied. He sighed. “I’ve got so much to make up to them that I hardly know where to start.”

  “One day at a time,” she advised.

  He just nodded.

  * * *

  LUDIE WAS DELIGHTED with a toy J.C. had bought her in the little boutique in town. It was a fuzzy bear that repeated everything the child said.

  “He’s so cute!” Ludie enthused. She ran to J.C. to be swung up in his arms, bear and all. He kissed a rosy cheek. “Thanks, Daddy,” she said with twinkling eyes.

  He was still getting used to that word. It filled him with pleasure, every time she said it. He was beaming from ear to ear when he noticed the looks he was getting from Ren and Merrie and Delsey.

  He grimaced. “I suppose it’s an open secret already, right?” he asked with resignation.

  “Not much guesswork, you know,” Merrie commented. “Everybody knew that Colie would never have let another man touch her. She was so crazy about you.”

  His high cheekbones flushed. It reminded him that he hadn’t believed Colie. He’d preferred Rod’s lie to the truth. It was still hard to live with.

  “What about Colie?” Ren asked. “Barry Todd is still on the loose. If he knows she survived the shooting...”

  “Banks has a man stationed inside the hospital, near the ICU where she’s spending the night,” J.C. revealed. “I spoke to him just a few minutes ago. He was concerned, as well.”

  “I hope they can nail Barry Todd and Rodney Thompson to a big, hard wall,” Merrie muttered.

  “By the ears,” her husband agreed with a cold smile.

  “Barbarians,” J.C. scoffed.

  “Daddy, what’s a bar...bar...that thing?” Ludie asked him.

  The others smiled at her.

  “Barbarian,” J.C. replied. “And you need to grow a bit before you ask me for that answer. Okay?”

  She nodded solemnly. “Okay, Daddy,” she promised.

  He shifted her in his arms. “I’d better get her to bed. It’s been a long day.” He hesitated. “Thanks for bathing her and feeding her,” he added. “I had no idea what to buy.”

  “You’re just lucky that she’s on the same level of food that our son is, and that I always have extra jars of it,” Merrie chuckled. “But you’re very welcome.”

  “We’ll go and see Colie when she’s better,” Ren promised. “But right now, our only mandate is to keep her breathing.”

  “Amen,” J.C. added.

  * * *

  COLIE WAS BREATHING much better when J.C. went to see her at the hospital the next morning. They had her in a semiprivate room, propped up in bed in one of those strange-looking hospital gowns. She had a worn look on her pale face. Her hair was disheveled and she was bandaged on the left side of her chest, where the bullet had gone in.

  “Is Ludie all right?” she asked quickly.

  “She’s fine,” he said softly. “I borrowed a rollaway bed from one of the married cowboys and kept her right next to my bed all night. She only woke once.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I’m enjoying it,” he replied. “It’s not what I expected. Having a child around, I mean,” he added as he stood beside the bed. “I always thought of kids as a nuisance.”

  “It’s different when they’re...when you know them,” she amended.

  He knew that she meant “when they’re yours,” but she wasn’t admitting that just yet. He couldn’t blame her. He’d done nothing to earn her trust. He hoped he could manage that in time to keep her from going back to Texas when the
situation resolved itself.

  “Lucy was on her way to the hospital when she spotted me at the children’s boutique yesterday,” he added. “I told her how you were. She was worried. She’ll be over today.”

  “She’s the only real friend I have,” Colie confided. It was still difficult to talk. The wound was taking a toll on her. She winced as she moved. “It didn’t hurt so much...yesterday.”

  “You were numb and in shock yesterday,” he said. “The first few days after a wound are pretty bad. But you’ll get through it. Take your meds and do what they tell you.”

  “There’s a man in a uniform outside,” she remarked. “I got...a glimpse of him when the nurses came in.”

  “It’s one of Banks’s men,” he replied. “We’re taking no chances that Rod’s friend Barry might try again.”

  “He’s probably halfway around the world by now,” she said heavily.

  “There’s a BOLO, as well,” J.C. told her. “One for your brother, too. Although he’s the reason you’re probably still alive.”

  “What?”

  “He did a makeshift bandage,” he explained. “You had a sucking chest wound. It could have killed you very quickly if it had gone untreated for any length of time.”

  “Maybe Daddy was right,” Colie said. “Maybe Rod still has a little good in him.”

  “I read about a serial killer who carried an old woman’s groceries in the house for her and repaired a disabled man’s porch steps,” he commented.

  She just looked at him.

  “One trait doesn’t rule out another, worse, one,” he said simply. “Someone can do a good deed and go right out and commit murder. That’s hard for people to understand. It’s why some killers go free.”

  She frowned. “I see.”

  “I spoke to the surgeon on my way in here,” he said. “He thinks you’ll recover nicely. It will take time,” he added firmly. “That means, you won’t jump up and run back to Texas within a few days.”

  “I figured that. My job,” she said, and winced. “I’ll be letting them down.”

  “Have Lucy call them for you and explain what’s going on.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll take care of Ludie.”

  “How will you work?” she worried.

  He laughed softly. “Most of what I do is around the ranch. I’ll just take her with me. She’s fascinated by the horses and cows and dogs.”

  “She loves animals.”

  “You always did, too,” he replied. “Your father dreaded telling you when Big Tom died,” he added. “He said you took it hard.”

  “I loved him,” she said simply.

  “I remember.”

  She drew in a painful breath. “Pain’s coming back.” She touched a control and a painkiller was triggered to counteract it. “Modern technology is awesome.”

  “It truly is.”

  She looked up at him. “What if Barry comes back to finish the job?” she worried.

  “When you leave here, you’re coming to Skyhorn,” he said simply. “Merrie says they have two spare bedrooms. You and Ludie can have one until it’s safe for you to go home.”

  “Oh, that’s so kind of her!” Colie said, fighting tears.

  “I would have invited you to stay with me, but I’ve given Catelow enough reason to gossip about you and Ludie. Never again.”

  She searched his pale eyes, so much like Ludie’s.

  “I’ve made a mess of both our lives.” He paused. “Do you remember long ago, when we compared the fortunes we were told?”

  She thought back. “Yes.”

  “In hindsight, I think I could say they were eerily accurate.”

  “Too much so.”

  He reached down and brushed back her disheveled hair. “Yours had something about joy following sorrow, didn’t it?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Mine, as well.” He bent farther and brushed his mouth tenderly over hers. “So when you get out of here, we might consider going in search of some of that. Joy, I mean.”

  “Joy.” She was staring up at him with her heart in her eyes.

  His lips teased hers gently in the long silence. “I never believed in miracles. Before.”

  “You didn’t...?” She was trying to lift closer to that hard, sensuous mouth. It had been so long! Even through layers of pain and painkiller, she was dying for him, all over again.

  “I didn’t,” he whispered as her lips parted. “But, now...”

  The door opened and he jerked erect, actually flushing as the nurse came in to check Colie’s vitals.

  “You look flushed. We’d better check your temp,” the nurse said gently.

  Colie looked past her to J.C. and they exchanged helplessly amused smiles. Colie actually felt the joy, pulsing through her veins like molten honey. J.C.’s eyes were promising heaven.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BY THE TIME the nurse was finished, Lucy had walked in the door. J.C. touched Colie’s cheek with his fingertips.

  “Do what the doctor says. I’ll bring Ludie to see you later, okay?”

  “Okay, J.C.,” she said with a sleepy smile.

  “I’ll phone you if she tries to escape,” Lucy promised him.

  He chuckled as he left. But this time, he turned at the door and looked back at Colie, his pale silver eyes alive with pleasure.

  “That’s a first,” Colie remarked when he was gone.

  “What is?” Lucy asked, putting down her purse and coat in the second of two chairs by the bedside.

  “He used to never look back,” she explained.

  Lucy smiled. “He’s not the same man he used to be, Colie. Not at all. Imagine the old J.C. shopping at a child’s boutique!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Honestly, neither can I.” She moved close to the bed. “How are you? I almost had a heart attack when I heard about the shooting on the news. I was rushing to the hospital when I saw J.C. outside the shop and pulled over. I figured he’d know more than the news about what happened.”

  “He always did,” Colie recalled with a wan smile.

  “What happened? It was that friend of Rod’s, wasn’t it?” the other woman asked belligerently.

  “Exactly,” she replied on a short breath. “I saw something three years ago that put him and Rod into a panic. Rod and his friend Barry had a suitcase of drugs. I went away partly to show Barry that I wasn’t going to tell what I knew. But he thinks I’ll do it, now that the law firm where I work is going after a distribution network. He said he could beat that rap, but what I knew could put him in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute illegal drugs. I was expendable. So was my child.” Her eyes closed and she shivered. “He was going to kill us both. He got us in Rod’s car at gunpoint and drove us to a lonely stretch of road. I opened the door and pushed Ludie out and told her to run, just as he pulled the trigger. God bless her, she did exactly what she was told, or she likely wouldn’t be alive now. If it hadn’t been for Rod, I imagine I’d be dead, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “J.C. said that someone put an emergency bandage on me that saved my life. Barry wouldn’t have cared, but Rod would, and he was in combat. He knew how to treat wounds.”

  “He ran and left you on the porch,” Lucy said icily. “I heard that from my coworker, whose cousin is one of the EMTs who went to your house after you were shot. They said you were barely coherent, but you knew you were in Rod’s car, and afterward it was gone. They put two and two together.”

  “How did they know to go there?” she wondered.

  Lucy hesitated. “I guess Rod called them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”


  “Rod may have good points, but there’s no way he’ll avoid jail time if he’s ever caught, you know,” Lucy said gently as she dropped into a chair. “At the least, they’ll get him for conspiracy to distribute drugs. That’s a tough sentence.”

  “I know.” Colie closed her eyes. “Rod was always so easily led. He never learned.”

  “That’s a shame,” Lucy said. “He’s the last living close relative you have.”

  Colie agreed. “We can’t choose our kinfolk.”

  Lucy’s lips pursed. “Pity.”

  Colie managed to laugh.

  * * *

  J.C. HAD TO help the men get the pregnant heifers to pastures close to the house. It could be dangerous work, but he took Ludie with him, cautioning her to stay in the SUV until he came to get her. She could watch through the window.

  Willis rode up on his sorrel mare and paused by the truck. “I see you have help today,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Wolf!” Ludie exclaimed, having powered the window down. “Wolf man. Can I see the wolf? Oh, please?”

  Two men stared at the child with changing expressions. “You told her?” Willis asked.

  J.C. shook his head. “No.”

  Willis whistled through his teeth. “You’ll have to tell Tank’s wife about that,” he said.

  J.C. smiled. “I will, as soon as they get back from that conference they went to.”

  “Yes, young lady, you can see the wolf. J.C., want to drive her up to my cabin? She can look at him through the screen. They’re sort of unpredictable,” he added warily. “I’ll ride up with you.”

  “We’ll go right now.” He phoned Ren, explained Ludie’s request and got a laughing affirmative for the trip.

  * * *

  WILLIS’S CABIN WAS set back in the woods, like J.C.’s. All of Ren’s huge ranch bordered on the Wapiti National Forest, so it was far away from Catelow.

  J.C. pulled up at the front door and lifted an excited Ludie down. “You can’t go inside,” he cautioned.

  She looked up at him with his own eyes. “Please, Daddy?” she asked.

  He felt the words all the way to his toes. Willis came up on the porch after tying his mount to one of the posts.