Kelly opened the wrapping on the present. Then, she pulled off the top of the box.
“It’s a picture,” she said, taking out the photo in the plain black frame. “A picture,” she repeated with gallons of emotion in her voice.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Gabe thought they might be of the happy variety since she was smiling. She pressed her hand to her mouth, those tear-filled eyes pouring over the image.
“A picture?” Ross questioned, probably because he couldn’t imagine any picture getting that reaction from his sister.
Maybe Ross still didn’t get it even after he saw it.
But Kelly sure did.
It was a photo from the senior prom that Gabe had found in Herman’s stash. An ordinary group shot of couples slow dancing on the gym floor under the tacky handmade Midnight in Paris banner.
Well, it was almost ordinary.
Except the camera had managed to capture the odd couple on the far edge near the bleachers.
Gabe and Kelly.
She was a good foot shorter than he was and wearing a yellow cotton dress more suited for a picnic than the prom, but she was looking up at him as if he’d given her the moon and some stars. Gabe had been too young and stupid to see it that night, but he saw it now.
The love.
And maybe even Ross finally saw that, too, because he made a grunting sound. Not of anger. This one had some surprise in it.
“If you let me, Kelly, I can give you that,” Gabe told her, pointing to the fourteen-year-old image. “Because as much as you love me, I’m in love with you even more.”
And he held his breath, waiting to hear what she had to say about that.
It was a gamble. She could turn him down flat, claiming that love wasn’t enough, but Gabe figured this kind of love was enough to make just about anything right.
Kelly kept staring at the picture, kept swiping away tears, and she slowly lifted her gaze. Looking scared. At first. Then, just looking at him with that same expression she had in the picture.
She scrambled off the floor and ran toward him. Noel obviously thought it was a game because she laughed. Gabe laughed, too, and he shifted the baby enough so he could pull Kelly into the crook of his arm. It was more than close enough for him to kiss her.
And Kelly kissed him right back.
It was probably too hot of a kiss considering they were holding their baby, but then Kelly and he had always done things a little different. Her, falling in love with him when she was kid. Him, not falling in love with her sooner. He should have seen and felt this years ago.
Thankfully, it wasn’t too late, and it’d be plenty of fun making up all that lost time with Kelly.
If she’d let him.
“You love me,” Kelly said on a rise of breath.
“Yeah. A lot,” Gabe clarified. And in case she still hadn’t gotten it, he pulled her back for another kiss while trying to take the ring from the box.
Ross mumbled something under his breath. Mild profanity. “Hand me Noel so you can do this right.”
Gabe looked at his old friend and passed him the baby. By taking his niece, it wasn’t exactly Ross’s overwhelming endorsement, but it was a start.
And everything had to start somewhere.
Kelly and he had started at the prom fourteen years ago.
Now Gabe put the ring on her finger and pulled her back into his arms for another dance. There was no music, but Noel cooed, giving them the perfect sound to accompany the perfect dance.
“No more sleeping on it,” Gabe whispered to Kelly. “You’re marrying me because you love me. Right?”
“Yeah,” she repeated, her mouth bending into a smile before she returned the kiss. “And we’ll buy that house at whatever base you happen to be assigned.”
That froze them all. Well, not Noel. She continued to coo, but both Ross and Gabe stared at Kelly.
“I don’t have to be here for it still to be a home,” Kelly said. Not in a wimpy, I’m not certain about this tone, either. “I can make a home anywhere with you and Noel.”
Now it was Gabe’s turn to get misty-eyed, and his heart felt big enough to burst.
“Does this mean we won’t be getting out of the Air Force?” Ross asked.
“Yes,” Kelly and Gabe said in unison.
The breath that Ross blew out sure sounded like one of relief. “And you’re certain about marrying Gabe and moving off?” Ross pressed.
Kelly nodded. “More certain than I’ve ever been of anything.”
Gabe knew exactly how she felt.
All in all, it was a darn good unexpected gift, one they could sleep on for the rest of their lives.
* * * * *
Callen Laramie left Coldwater, Texas, and never looked back. Now, with the only father he’s ever known getting married, Callen finds himself returning for the talk-of-the-town Christmas wedding. But there’s more to this visit than Callen ever expected—especially once he’s reunited with the once off-limits Shelby McCall…
Read on for a sneak peak of Delores Fossen’s HQN book, LONE STAR CHRISTMAS
CHAPTER ONE
DEAD STUFFED THINGS just didn’t scream Christmas wedding invitation for Callen Laramie. Even when the dead stuffed thing—an armadillo named Billy—was draped with gold tinsel, a bridal veil and was holding a bouquet of what appeared to be tiny poinsettias in his little armadillo hands.
Then again, when the bride-to-be, Rosy Muldoon, was a taxidermist, Callen supposed a photo like that hit the more normal range of possibilities for invitation choices.
Well, normal-ish anyway.
No one had ever accused Rosy of being conventional, and even though he hadn’t seen her in close to fourteen years, Billy’s bridal picture was proof that her nonnormalcy hadn’t changed during that time.
Dragging in a long breath that Callen figured he might need, he opened the invitation. What was printed inside wasn’t completely unexpected, not really, but he was glad he’d taken that breath. Like most invitations, it meant he’d have to do something, and doing something like this often meant trudging through the past.
Y’all are invited to the wedding of Buck McCall and Rosy Muldoon. Christmas Eve at Noon in the Lightning Bug Inn on Main Street, Coldwater, Texas. Reception to follow.
So, Buck had finally popped the question, and Rosy had accepted. Again, no surprise. Not on the surface anyway, since Buck had started “courting” Rosy several years after both of them had lost their spouses about a decade and a half ago.
But Callen still got a bad feeling about this.
The bad feeling went up a notch when he saw that the printed RSVP at the bottom had been lined through and the words handwritten there. “Please come. Buck needs to see you. Rosy.”
Yes, this would require him to do something.
She’d underlined the please and the needs, and it was just as effective as a heavyweight’s punch to Callen’s gut. One that knocked him into a time machine and took him back eighteen years. To that time when he’d first laid eyes on Buck and then on Rosy shortly thereafter.
Oh man.
Callen had just turned fourteen, and the raw anger and bad memories had been eating holes in him. Sometimes, they still did. Buck had helped with that. Heck, maybe Rosy had, too, but the four mostly good years he’d spent with Buck couldn’t erase the fourteen shitty ones that came before them.
He dropped the invitation back on his desk and steeled himself up when he heard the woodpecker taps of the high heels coming toward his office. Several taps later, his assistant, Havana Mayfield, stuck her head in the open doorway.
Today, her hair was pumpkin orange with streaks of golden brown, the color of a roasted turkey. Probably to coordinate with Thanksgiving since it’d been just the day before.
Callen wasn’t sure what coordination goal Havana had been going for with
the lime-green pants and top or the lipstick-red stilettos, but as he had done with Rosy and just about everyone else from his past, he’d long since given up trying to figure out his assistant’s life choices. Havana was an efficient workaholic, like him, which meant he overlooked her wardrobe, her biting sarcasm and the occasional judgmental observations about him—even if they weren’t any of her business.
“Your two o’clock is here,” Havana said, setting some contracts and more mail in his in-box. Then, she promptly took the stack from his out-box. “George Niedermeyer,” she added, and bobbled her eyebrows. “He brought his mother with him. She wants to tell you about her granddaughter, the lawyer.”
Great.
Callen silently groaned. George was in his sixties and was looking for a good deal on some Angus. Which Callen could and would give him. George’s mother, Myrtle, was nearing ninety, and despite her advanced age, she was someone Callen would classify as a woman with too much time on her hands. Myrtle would try to do some matchmaking with her lawyer granddaughter, gossip about things that Callen didn’t want to hear and prolong what should be a half-hour meeting into an hour or more.
“Myrtle said you’re better looking than a litter of fat spotted pups,” Havana added, clearly enjoying this. “That’s what you get for being a hotshot cattle broker with a pretty face.” She poked her tongue against her cheek. “Women just can’t resist you and want to spend time with you. The older ones want to fix you up with their offspring.”
“You’ve had no trouble resisting,” he pointed out—though he’d never made a play for her. And wouldn’t. Havana and anyone else who worked for him was genderless as far as Callen was concerned.
“Because I know the depths of your cold, cold heart. Plus, you pay me too much to screw this up for sex with a hotshot cattle broker with a pretty face.”
Callen didn’t even waste a glare on that. The pretty face was questionable, but he was indeed a hotshot cattle broker. That wasn’t ego. He had the bank account, the inventory and the willing buyers to prove it.
Head `em up, move `em out.
Callen had built Laramie Cattle on that motto. That and plenty of ninety-hour workweeks. And since his business wasn’t broke, it didn’t require fixing. Even if it would mean having to listen to Myrtle for the next hour.
“What the heck is that?” Havana asked, tipping her head to his desk.
Callen followed her gaze to the invitation. “Billy, the Armadillo. Years ago, he was roadkill.”
Every part of Havana’s face went aghast. “Ewww.”
He agreed, even though he would have gone for something more manly sounding like maybe a grunt. “The bride’s a taxidermist,” he added. Along with being Buck’s housekeeper and cook.
Still in the aghast mode, Havana shifted the files to her left arm so she could pick up the invitation and open it. He pushed away another greasy smear of those old memories while she read it.
“Buck McCall,” Havana muttered when she’d finished.
She didn’t ask who he was. No need. Havana had sent Buck Christmas gifts during the six years that she’d worked for Callen. Considering those were the only personal gifts he’d ever asked her to buy and send to anyone, she knew who Buck was. Or rather she knew that he was important to Callen.
Of course, that “important” label needed to be judged on a curve because Callen hadn’t actually visited Buck or gone back to Coldwater since he’d hightailed it out of there on his eighteenth birthday. Now he was here in Dallas, nearly three hundred miles away, and sometimes it still didn’t feel nearly far enough. There were times when the moon would have been too close.
Havana just kept on staring at him, maybe waiting for him to bare his soul or something. He wouldn’t. No reason for it, either. Because she was smart and efficient, she had almost certainly done internet searches on Buck. There were plenty of articles about him being a foster father.
Correction: the hotshot of foster fathers.
It wouldn’t have taken much for Havana to piece together that Buck had fostered not only Callen but his three brothers, as well. Hell, for that matter Havana could have pieced together the rest, too. The shit that’d happened before Callen and his brothers had gotten to Buck’s. Too much shit for him to stay, though his brothers had had no trouble putting down those proverbial roots in Coldwater.
“Christmas Eve, huh?” Havana questioned. “You’ve already got plans to go to that ski lodge in Aspen with a couple of your clients. Heck, you scheduled a business meeting for Christmas morning, one that you insisted I attend. Say, is Bah humbug your middle name?”
“The meeting will finish in plenty of time for you to get in some skiing and spend your Christmas bonus,” he grumbled. Then, he rethought that. “Do you ski?”
She lifted her shoulder. “No, but there are worse things than sitting around a lodge during the holidays while the interest on my bonus accumulates in my investment account.”
Yes, there were worse things. And Callen had some firsthand experience with that.
“Are you actually thinking about going back to Coldwater for this wedding?” Havana pressed.
“No.” But he was sure thinking about the wedding itself and that note Rosy had added to the invitation.
Please.
That wasn’t a good word to have repeating in his head.
Havana shrugged and dropped the invitation back on his desk. “Want me to send them a wedding gift? Maybe they’ve registered on the Taxidermists-R-Us site.” Her tongue went in her cheek again.
Callen wasted another glare on her and shook his head. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll send them something.”
She staggered back, pressed her folder-filled hand to her chest. “I think the earth just tilted on its axis. Or maybe that was hell freezing over.” Havana paused, looked at him. “Is something wrong?” she came out and asked, her tone no longer drenched with sarcasm.
Callen dismissed it by motioning toward the door. “Tell the Niedermeyers that I need a few minutes. I have to do something first.”
As expected, that caused Havana to raise an eyebrow again, and before she left, Callen didn’t bother to tell her that her concern wasn’t warranted. He could clear this up with a phone call and get back to work.
But who should he call?
Buck was out because if there was actually something wrong, then his former foster father would be at the center of it. That Please come. Buck needs to see you. clued him into that.
He scrolled through his contacts, one by one. He no longer had close friends in Coldwater, but every now and then he ran into someone in his business circles who passed along some of that gossip he didn’t want to hear. So the most obvious contacts were his brothers.
Kace, the oldest, was the town’s sheriff. Callen dismissed talking to him because the last time they’d spoken—four or five years ago—Kace had tried to lecture Callen about cutting himself off from the family. Damn right, he’d cut himself off, and since he would continue to do that and hated lectures from big brothers, he went to the next one.
Judd. Another big brother who was only a year older than Callen. Judd had been a cop in Austin. Or maybe San Antonio. He was a deputy now in Coldwater, but not once had he ever bitched about Callen leaving the “fold.” He kept Judd as a possibility for the call he needed to make and continued down the very short list to consider the rest of his choices.
Nico. The youngest brother, who Callen almost immediately discounted. He was on the rodeo circuit—a bull rider of all things—and was gone a lot. He might not have a clue if something was wrong.
Callen got to Rosy’s name next. The only reason she was in his contacts was because Buck had wanted him to have her number in case there was an emergency. A please on a wedding invitation probably didn’t qualify as one, but since he hated eating up time by waffling, Callen pressed her number. After a couple of rings, he got her voice mail.
“Knock knock,” Rosy’s perky voice greeted, and she giggled like a loon. “Who�
�s there? Well, obviously not me, and since Billy can’t answer the phone, ha-ha, you gotta leave me a message. Talk sweet to me, and I’ll talk sweet back.” More giggling as if it were a fine joke.
Callen didn’t leave a message because a) he wanted an answer now and b) he didn’t want anyone interrupting his day by calling him back.
He scrolled back through the contacts and pressed Judd’s number. Last he’d heard Judd had moved into the cabin right next to Buck’s house so he would know what was going on.
“Yes, it came from a chicken’s butt,” Judd growled the moment he answered. “Now, get over it and pick it up.”
In the background Callen thought he heard someone make an ewww sound eerily similar to the one Havana had made earlier. Since a chicken’s butt didn’t have anything to do with a phone call or wedding invitation, it made Callen think his brother wasn’t talking to him.
“What the heck do you want?” Judd growled that, too, and this time Callen did believe he was on the receiving end of the question.
The bad grouchy attitude didn’t bother Callen because he thought it might speed along the conversation. Maybe. Judd didn’t like long personal chats, which explained why they rarely talked.
“Can somebody else gather the eggs?” a girl asked. Callen suspected it might be the same one who’d ewww’ed. Her voice was high-pitched and whiny. “These have poop on them.”
“This is a working ranch,” Judd barked. “There’s poop everywhere. If you’ve got a gripe with your chores, talk to Buck or Rosy.”
“They’re not here,” the whiner whined.
“There’s Shelby,” Judd countered. “Tell her all about it and quit bellyaching to me.”
Just like that, Callen got another ass-first knock back into the time machine. Shelby McCall. Buck’s daughter. And the cause of nearly every lustful thought and unplanned hard-on that Callen had had from age fifteen all the way through to age eighteen.
Plenty of ones afterward, too.
Forbidden fruit could do that to a teenager, and as Buck’s daughter, Shelby had been as forbidden as it got. Callen remembered that Buck had had plenty of rules, but at the top of the list was one he gave to the boys he fostered. Touch Shelby, and I’ll castrate you. It had been simple and extremely effective.
Unexpected Gift Page 9
