Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance

by Diana Palmer

  “He has moods,” Willis chuckled. “Let me go in and see if he’s sociable today.”

  The man and the child waited on the porch. A minute later, the wolf came loping out from the back of the house to stand on his three legs near the screen. He sniffed Ludie and whined.

  “Please?” Ludie persisted.

  “Honey, it’s not safe...”

  “Please?!”

  “Colie’s going to kill me,” J.C. murmured under his breath, but he opened the screen door.

  Ludie ran in and caught the wolf around the neck and hugged him and hugged him. The wolf laid his big head on her little shoulder and sniffed her and whined softly. He made no sort of aggressive move toward her.

  “Pretty boy,” Ludie purred. “Sweet wolf.”

  The wolf whined some more. His gray eyes were closed and he was almost purring himself.

  “Not since Merrie came in here, and he did that, have I ever seen him so docile with another person except me,” Willis said, shaking his head.

  “She has...gifts,” J.C. said finally.

  “Oh, yes,” Willis agreed soulfully.

  * * *

  LATER, J.C. TOOK Ludie to the hospital to see her mother. Colie had just finished a light lunch. Her green eyes brightened with joy as her daughter ran up beside the bed.

  “Careful, honey,” J.C. cautioned. “Mommy’s sore.”

  “I know, Daddy,” she said, smiling up at him. “Mommy, I hugged the wolf! He liked me!” she exclaimed.

  J.C. grimaced and waited for the storm.

  But Colie didn’t jump at him. She just smiled. “She found a dog beside the road near Jacobsville, where we lived,” she explained. “It was big and known to be dangerous. I tried to stop her, but she ran right to it, sat down beside it and started talking to it. The dog stretched out, whining in pain, and didn’t even show his teeth. Cousin Ty helped us get it to the vet, and we adopted it. The vet said she had a gift. I’ve heard that Tank Kirk’s wife has one, as well. She picked up a rattlesnake and took it to a wildlife rehabilitator,” she laughed.

  J.C. let out a sigh of relief. “How do you feel, honey?” he asked Colie, his deep voice soft and caring.

  “Still hurts,” she told him. “But I’m getting better. Have you heard anything from the sheriff?”

  “Not yet. I left a message with dispatch...” His phone rang. He paused to answer it. Sure enough, it was Banks. He put it on speaker so Colie could hear, too.

  “We called in the feds and they tracked Barry Todd to the airport in Atlanta,” he told J.C. “He was apparently on his way to South America. They’ve sent federal marshals to transport him back to Denver for trial. We hear that Colie’s bosses in Jacobsville have enough to hang him.”

  “I have something to help hang him,” Colie said. “Hi, Sheriff.”

  “Hi, Colie. Getting better?”

  “Much.” She drew in a breath, aware of J.C.’s big hand linking with hers on the bed. “I saw Barry give my brother a whole suitcase of illegal drugs and I heard him instructing Rod in their distribution.”

  “Good God!” Banks exploded. “You actually saw it?”

  “Yes,” she said, noting J.C.’s thunderous expression. “I went away so that Barry would think I was going to keep my mouth shut. I stayed away, to protect my father and my child.”

  “I wish you’d come to me,” Banks said. “I’d have managed to get protection for you.”

  “I was afraid,” she said. She lowered her eyes. “Besides that, I’d just had a sort of traumatic personal experience. I was reeling from it, and not really thinking straight. I just ran.”

  J.C.’s eyes closed. He knew what she meant. He’d thrown her out of his life on the word of a thief and a drug lord. He’d have to live with the memory of his betrayal all his life.

  “I can understand that,” Banks was saying. “Would you be willing to testify to that in court?” he added. “I can assure your safety.”

  Colie knew that it was wind, air, that nobody could save her if Barry wanted retribution. But she was certain that J.C. would keep Ludie safe, whatever happened. And it was time to stop running. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll testify.”

  “I’ll tell the feds,” he replied. “You’ll also have to testify to the shooting. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said respectfully. “I’m just sorry that my brother got mixed up in this. Has he been found?”

  “No,” Banks said, his voice gruff. “But we’re tracking him. We have an investigator who’ll follow a suspect all the way to hell to get him. Your brother won’t escape. I’m sorry, Colie, but we break the law, we have to pay the price.”

  “I know that,” she said. “It’s just that he’s my only living relative. Besides Ludie.”

  “I had a cousin who went up for murder one,” Banks replied. “It hurt me, because we were best friends. But the law is the law.”

  “Yes. I’ve worked for lawyers for several years,” she reminded him. “You do get a good picture of the criminal justice system.”

  “Indeed so. I’ll be in touch when I learn more,” Banks promised.

  They thanked him. J.C. put the cell phone back in its holder.

  Ludie was looking from one parent to the other with soft, loving eyes. “Gonna be okay,” she said softly. “Bad man won’t hurt us ever again.”

  Colie looked up at J.C. “Oh, I hope you’re right, Ludie,” she said. She held out her arm and Ludie got as close as she could.

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you, too, honey.” Colie was fighting tears. The pain was still bad, and she was fighting nausea, as well.

  “We should go and let Mommy rest, okay?” J.C. asked, bending to lift the child with the strawberry curls into his arms. He kissed her little cheek. “My very own living Shirley Temple doll,” he teased.

  “Who’s Shirley Temple?” Ludie wanted to know.

  “I’ll find a movie on YouTube and you can watch it and see,” he promised.

  “J.C., thank you. For everything,” Colie said.

  He bent and kissed her softly. “I have to take care of my own,” he said in a husky whisper. His eyes said more than words.

  Colie reached up, grimacing as the action pulled the wound, and touched his hard face. “So many years,” she said.

  “After the cut, the kiss,” he replied. He smiled tenderly. “Think about it.”

  She understood. Life taught painful lessons, but they were almost always followed by periods of great joy. She had a feeling that she was headed for one.

  “Something else to tell you,” J.C. added with twinkling pale gray eyes. “I’ve been reading books!”

  “Books.” She stopped, looked at him, realized what he was telling her, and flushed.

  “Good books,” he added, and showed perfect white teeth as he grinned at her. “We can discuss that when you’re better.”

  “Well...” She grimaced. “My bosses!” she exclaimed. “They won’t know what’s going on...!”

  “I’ll call them today and explain. I need the number and the name of someone I can talk to,” he added.

  “It’s in my cell phone, in the drawer, in my purse.” She directed him to the chest next to the bed.

  He pulled the phone out of her purse and gave it to her.

  “It’s this one,” she said, pulling up a contact. “That’s Mr. Copeland. He’s head of the law firm, now that...now that Darby’s gone.” It was still hard to remember Darby without tears. He’d been so kind.

  “I’ll explain everything,” J.C. promised, copying the information and putting her phone and purse back in the drawer.

  “You be good for J.C.,” Colie told her little girl with a warm smile.

  “I’ll be good, Mommy. That nice lady drew us,”
she added suddenly.

  “Drew us?” Colie asked.

  “Merrie sketched us when I first brought Ludie over,” he replied. “She has a masterful touch. She’s doing a painting. It will be a revelation, I promise. She saved her own life by painting a mobster from back East,” he added, chuckling. “He actually gave her away when she married Ren.”

  “I like Merrie,” Colie said. “She’s always been kind to me.”

  “They’ve got your room ready, as soon as you’re able to come home,” J.C. assured her. “I’ll bring Ludie back tomorrow. We’re having another storm, so all the hands are working against the clock to get the pregnant heifers and cows close to the barn.”

  “You be careful,” she said.

  He smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

  She felt born anew as she looked at him. It was different than before. There was less violent physical attraction, more deep and tender affection. She couldn’t wait to see how things went.

  Then she remembered her brother and her face fell.

  “Uncle Rod coming back,” Ludie piped up. “Gonna tell on bad man, Mommy.”

  Colie looked at J.C. If Ludie was right this time, things might work out well. At least, Rodney might be able to make a deal for a lesser sentence. Only time would tell.

  “Get better,” J.C. told her. “I’ll take care of Ludie.”

  She smiled drowsily. “I know that.”

  “Bye, Mommy,” Ludie called back from the doorway.

  Colie was asleep before they got to the elevator.

  * * *

  COLIE WAS WELL enough to leave the hospital three days later. J.C. and Ludie went to get her.

  “They were good to me, but I’m happy to get back to normal,” Colie said as they drove away. Ludie was in her car seat in the back seat, while Colie was strapped into the passenger seat beside J.C.

  “Still feeling okay?” he asked as they drove off.

  “A little sore,” she said. “The doctor said that was normal.” She was holding a sheaf of papers in a folder in her lap.

  “We’ll stop by the pharmacy and give those prescriptions to the pharmacist on the way home,” he told Colie. “I’ll go back and pick them up when they’re ready.”

  “Medicine is so expensive,” she began.

  “Honey, I can afford most anything you want,” he said gently. He smiled at her as he glanced in her direction when they came to a stoplight. “Anything at all.”

  “Can you buy me a peaceful life without any wild-eyed drug lords roaming around it?” she wondered.

  He chuckled. “The criminal justice system will take care of that.”

  “It doesn’t always work,” she replied. “Juries cut people loose sometimes.”

  “You do something bad, something bad happens to you,” J.C. said simply. He shrugged. “Your father rubbed off on me,” he added quietly.

  She fought tears. It was so much. Her father’s death, the anguish over Rodney, the shooting...

  She felt J.C.’s big hand clasp her own. “Something else he taught me. You have to have faith, Colie,” he said softly.

  She could almost hear her father saying the same thing. She returned the soft pressure of his hand. “Okay,” she said simply.

  * * *

  SHE WAS SURPRISED when J.C. pulled up at his own cabin instead of Ren’s big house.

  “But...” she began.

  He put a soft velvet-covered box in her hands. “Story’s in the newspaper already. I expect when you check your cell phone, you’ll have a lot of messages.” He grimaced. “Probably the first one will be from Lucy, raising Cain because you didn’t tell her first.”

  “Lucy...?”

  She pulled her cell phone out of her purse while J.C. was getting the luggage into his cabin. There was a message from Lucy. Congrats! And why in the world didn’t you tell me?!

  She looked up as J.C. was getting Ludie out of the back seat. “Why didn’t I tell Lucy what?” she asked.

  “Open the box,” he said simply.

  She did. Inside were a diamond-and-emerald engagement ring, and an emerald-studded gold band that matched it exactly. The stones were inlaid. It was a very expensive set.

  He deposited Ludie inside and came back to get Colie. She just stared at him.

  “I bought those three years ago,” he said quietly. “They were in my pocket when your brother and his friend met me at the airport.”

  She bit her lower lip. J.C. had never made any declaration of love, any hint of what he had in mind for the future. This was a revelation. If. If. If!

  Tears ran down her cheeks.

  He picked her up gently in his arms. “I screwed up, Colie,” he said softly. “I was running scared. I wanted you, but my own home life was the pattern I judged the world by. I didn’t have a normal childhood. Mine was violent and tragic.” He drew in a breath as he carried her to the cabin. “I’ve kicked myself mentally a dozen times for ever listening to Rod in the first place. But we can’t go back, honey. We have to try to move ahead.”

  He put her down inside the cabin and looked into her soft green eyes. “Can you forgive so much hurt?” he asked. “Can you move past what I did to you?”

  She drew in a breath. Tears were still threatening. “I can,” she said.

  “You won’t ever have a reason to distrust me again,” he promised.

  “Daddy, want cheese,” Ludie piped up, looking at him with his own pale gray eyes.

  He chuckled. “Cheese fanatic,” he murmured. “My fridge is full of it, every kind under the sun. She discovered it and now it’s cheese every meal.”

  “I like it, too,” Colie remarked, moving slowly toward the kitchen. “Honestly, I’m so tired of gelatin!”

  J.C. laughed out loud. “I’ve been in the hospital a time or two. I know exactly what you mean.”

  He got out dishes and started slicing cheese. He put crackers of all sorts out with them and poured milk for Ludie and soft drinks for himself and Colie. He remembered the cold ginger ale she liked.

  She smiled as she sipped it. “This was my favorite.”

  “I know,” he replied. He leaned back in the chair, his eyes on his child. “She’s very bright,” he remarked.

  “Almost too bright,” Colie laughed. “She scares people sometimes with those things she blurts out.”

  “She’d be right at home here in Catelow, with Tank Kirk’s wife not too far away.”

  “The clairvoyant,” Colie recalled. “I’d love to meet her.”

  “I’ll make a point of introducing you. Ren bought some livestock from him just recently. Tank’s a good guy. He was border patrol a few years back. Got shot up pretty badly. But he recovered. And his brother Mallory is married to a Texas girl—King Brannt’s daughter.”

  “Goodness, I know about her from cousin Annie,” Colie told him. “She knows everybody in South Texas. Or sometimes it seems so.”

  He cocked his head and studied her. “Could you live here, Colie?” he asked.

  She paused with her ginger ale halfway to her mouth. It was a profound question. It went with the set of rings she still had, clutched tightly in her free hand. She looked at the only man she’d ever loved, and felt the old hunger burning deep down inside her. Except that this time, it wasn’t raw passion. It was deeper. Sweeter. He was offering her a new life. If she had the will to take it.

  “Yes,” she said finally, and watched his face light up with the words. “Yes, I could live here, J.C.”

  “John Calvin,” Ludie corrected as she munched cheese.

  J.C.’s high cheekbones colored.

  “You told her?” Colie asked.

  “No,” he said flatly. “I’ve never told anyone. My mother was Irish, but her parents were from Scotland. They were staunch
Presbyterians who revered John Calvin, one of the founders of the Protestant faith. I was named for him. My mother converted to Roman Catholicism when she married my father.”

  “It’s a noble sort of way to name someone,” she remarked. “I was named Colleen Mary, for a great-aunt who was a pioneer newspaperwoman in Wyoming.”

  “I never knew your real name,” he remarked with a smile.

  “We didn’t talk much. Not really,” she said.

  “We have all the time in the world to talk now,” he told her. “But first,” he added heavily, “there’s a sad duty to perform, for both of us. I talked with the assistant minister and he agreed that Saturday would be a good day for the service. He thought it would give you enough time to get out of the hospital and rest for a day or so.”

  She nodded. “He’s a good man. Daddy loved him.” She looked up. “He and his wife came by to see me last night, after you left. They’re a cute couple.”

  “She plays tennis,” he said. He laughed. “Beats her husband every single match.”

  “I know. He thought it was awesome.”

  He sighed. “But you should always let the man win, you know,” he said with pursed lips. “It feeds his ego and makes him feel important.”

  “Bull.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Okay, no more propaganda. Do you still like the new Sherlock series?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed.

  “In that case, when little bit goes to sleep, I’ll play the instant video shows for you.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Who’s little bit, Daddy?” Ludie wanted to know.

  He bent over and kissed her little nose. “That’s you, tidbit.”

  She laughed. “Oh, you’re funny, Daddy!”

  “I’m happy,” he said. He touched her strawberry curls. “My sweet girl. Daddy’s girl,” he added proudly.

  She linked her little arms around his neck and held on tight. “I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you, too. Time for bed very soon.”

  “I’ll go get into my jammies,” she said, climbing down from the chair.

  “I never knew a child her age could dress herself, until she came along,” J.C. remarked.