A Cowboy for Christmas

by Lori Wilde

  “Attention shoppers!” announced the store manager. “It’s Searcy’s five for five. For the next five minutes, any five items on the baking products aisle will sell for five cents. You have from three P.M. until three-o-five to get your purchases and check out. On your mark, get set, go!”

  Before the announcement finished, the baking goods aisle flooded with customers. A sea of shoppers pushed against her, tossing her farther from the flour as they snatched and grabbed at everything in sight.

  Okay, she’d go for the vanilla. It was right behind her. She spun her cart around, but a handholding young couple with matching facial piercings and tattoos halted right in front of her.

  Hands locked, they stared her down. The young man had a Mohawk. The girl’s hair was Barney-the-Dinosaur purple with glow-in-the-dark neon green streaks. Neither said a word, just glowered in simpatico, their gazes drilling a hole through Lissette. Apparently, they wanted her to move rather than force them to let go of each other’s hands so they could continue on their way undivided.

  Fine, Sid and Nancy. Let it never be said I stood in the way of punk love.

  Lissette tried to maneuver her cart off to one side, but people jostled each elbow and the cart wouldn’t roll. Some sticky crap stuck to the wheels. Flustered, she picked the cart up and tried to eke out a couple of inches.

  “Hey!” complained a woman she bumped against who was tossing a handful of garlic salt bottles into her cart. “Watch where you’re going.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lissette apologized.

  The amorous duo wrinkled their noses at her, turned, and stalked back the way they’d come, never letting go of each other in the about-face, even though they had to raise their coupled hands over the heads of other shoppers.

  Ah, true love. Once upon a time she’d been that young and dumb.

  Someone stumbled against her. Someone else smelled as if they’d taken a bath in L’Air du Temps. Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” trickled through the music system. The irony was not lost on Lissette.

  Claustrophobia wrapped around her throat, choked her. She broke out in a cold sweat. She stood frozen, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole so she didn’t have to deal with any of this. She would have unzipped her skin and stripped it off if she could have. Her hands shook. Panic clawed her chest.

  It took everything she had to curb the urge to abandon the grocery cart and sprint like a madwoman to her quaint Victorian home in the middle of town. Grab Kyle up, clutch him to her chest, tumble into the big, empty four-poster bed, and burrow underneath the double-wedding ring quilt that her mother-in-law, Claudia, had made.

  She ached to go to sleep and wake up to find this whole thing was just a wickedly bad dream—Jake’s death, the fact that he left his four-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy and his one-hundred-thousand-dollar military death gratuity benefits to a half brother she never knew existed, and now today’s striking blow of learning that Kyle was going deaf.

  Her son would never be a concert musician. Never speak three languages. Never hear the sound of his children’s voices.

  She’d been utterly shocked when she’d learned her husband had not named her his beneficiary. Then bone-deep anger. Followed by marrow-chilling dread when the government informed her that because she was not his beneficiary, she and Kyle were no longer eligible for Jake’s VA benefits. Nor would they be able to receive any monies under the Survivor Benefit Plan or Dependency and Indemnity compensation because, in violation of a direct order from his commanding officer, Jake had been killed while returning to a village trying to save orphans in the line of fire. Willful misconduct, the Army called it.

  She’d taken out the only health insurance she could afford—a catastrophic policy with a massive deductible. None of today’s medical expenses would be covered, or any further expenses, until she hit the ten-thousand-dollar annual threshold.

  The only thing she knew for certain was that the money she’d been anticipating to provide for her and Kyle would not be forthcoming. Beyond a tiny nest egg in an untouchable retirement account, Jake’s cutting horse, and her Queen Anne Victorian, she had only five thousand dollars left from the money the army had given her to bury Jake. If he hadn’t told her numerous times that he preferred cremation to burial, she wouldn’t have had even that small sum.

  In this real estate market her house was more liability than asset. The only thing she had of any worth to sell was Jake’s cutting horse and the accompanying horse trailer, but she just hadn’t made herself go through the motions yet. She had to do something and soon. Today she’d worked out a payment plan for the medical services Kyle had undergone, but this was only the beginning.

  “Damn you, Jake,” she whispered. “For treating us this way. Damn you for refusing to get help and killing what little love we had left.”

  It struck her then that she couldn’t really remember what Jake had looked like. Big guy. Strong. Muscled. Smelled like protein. John Wayne swagger. But that was it.

  They’d been married for four years, but he’d been in the Middle East for a big chunk of that time. If she broke it down into consecutive days, they probably hadn’t been together more than six months total. She’d had his child, but she’d known nothing about the secrets he kept tucked away under that Stetson. She never asked about the war. She believed in letting slumbering dogs alone. Besides, she hadn’t really wanted to know what horrors he’d seen. The things he’d done.

  Ostrich. Sticking her head in the sand.

  But now? She had to do something to stretch her budget.

  What bothered her most about losing the money was that the mysterious half brother had never shown up. He didn’t call, nor had he even written to express his condolences. You would think five hundred thousand dollars would at least earn a sorry-your-husband-got-blown-up-in-Afghanistan-thanks-for-the-money card.

  “I’ll help you as much as I can, Lissy,” Claudia said, but her mother-in-law was little better off than she was.

  Lissette’s own family was upper middle class, but their investments had gotten caught in the real estate crash and they were cash strapped as well. Besides, whenever her parents gave her money, there were always strings attached. So far, she’d been too proud to ask them to help, but she was going to have to get over her pride, and accept the strings. She had a part-time job making wedding cakes for Mariah’s wedding planning business, The Bride Wore Cowboy Boots, but her salary barely covered her mortgage.

  Which was why she was at the grocery store.

  Survival.

  On the way home from Fort Worth, an idea had occurred to her. Cowboys had been her downfall, but clearly she wasn’t the only one mesmerized by the fantasy. Why not take advantage of her infatuation? Do what you know, right? Add cowboy-themed baked goods to her repertoire to supplement her wedding cake business.

  Her mind had picked up the idea and run with it. Pastries straight from the heart of Texas made with indigenous ingredients. Velvet Mesquite Bean Napoleons. Giddy-up Pecan Pie. Lone Star Strudel. Bluebonnet Bread. Mockingbird Cake. Chocolate Jalapeño Cupcakes. Prickly Pear Jellyrolls. Frosted sugar cookie cutouts of cowboy boots and hats, cacti, longhorn cattle, spurs, and galloping horses.

  Even though it meant going out on a limb with her remaining five thousand dollars, she’d grasped at the idea. It gave her something to think about besides Kyle’s diagnosis. But now that she was here amid the five-minute-sale madness, the idea seemed stupid. Throwing away good money.

  What else was she going to do? Baking was all she knew. It wasn’t as if she possessed the skill set for anything else.

  Bake.

  It was an edict. She fixed on the word.

  Bake.

  Something comforting. Something sweet. Something lifesaving. Cookies and cakes, doughnuts and cream puffs, strudels and pies. Salvation in pastries.

  Bake.

  Kyle dropped his sippy cup, arched his back, let out a screech of frustration. One high b
ounce off the cement floor sent Goldfish splashing up and down the aisle.

  A woman behind Lissette let out an exasperated huff and pushed past her, crunching Goldfish underneath the wheels of her cart.

  Kyle wailed, made a grasping motion toward the scattered crackers.

  The gossiping women still hogging the flour shelf glared at her.

  Yes, I’m the villain.

  Finally, they turned and stalked away.

  About time.

  Kyle howled, tears dripping down his cheeks. Lissette snatched the sippy cup from the floor, and then thumbed through her purse for more Goldfish crackers, but the bag was empty.

  Get the ingredients and get out of here. He’ll calm down in a minute.

  Ignoring everyone else, she started grabbing what she needed. Let’s see. Cake flour, check. Pure cane sugar, check. Vanilla, vanilla. Real vanilla. Not that fake stuff. Where was the real vanilla?

  She searched the shelves, going up on tiptoes and then squatting down low, pawing through extracts and flavorings. Almond, banana, butter, coconut. No real vanilla. Dammit. The budget-conscious shoppers had wiped it out like locusts. Now, she’d have to drive to Albertson’s on the other side of town.

  Couldn’t one simple thing go right today?

  C’mon, c’mon there had to be one bottle left.

  Without real vanilla, she couldn’t start her new baking project. Without her new baking project, she couldn’t afford to get Kyle the best deaf education. Without getting him the best education, her son’s future was indeed bleak.

  Oh, there was so much to think about! She had no idea where to start. The medical brochures and jargon only confused her more. She knew nothing about deafness. She’d never even met a deaf person. How could she help her child? The pressure of tears pushed against her sinuses and an instant headache bloomed, throbbing insistently at her temples.

  She couldn’t let her son’s life be destroyed. She had to get that damn real vanilla.

  But the cupboards were bare and Kyle was shrieking.

  “Ma’am, ma’am,” a pimple-faced stock boy in a Black Keys T-shirt came over. “Your baby is disturbing the other customers. Can you please take him outside?”

  Harried, Lissette looked up from where she crouched, the floor strewn with baking products and crushed Goldfish crackers. It was all she could do not to let loose with a string of well-chosen curse words. The mother inside her managed to restrain her tongue. She stood, wrapped her arms around her sobbing child, and tugged him from the cart.

  Head down, she rushed toward the front door.

  “Would you like a sample of Dixieland cinnamon rolls?” called a woman at the end of the row dishing out samples.

  Lissette spun to face her, Kyle clutched on her hip, his face buried against her bosom. “I bet it’s made with fake vanilla, isn’t it?”

  The woman looked taken aback. “I . . . I . . . don’t know.”

  “That’s what wrong with the world,” Lissette said. “Fake food. Nobody knows what they’re eating. We’re all getting artificial, prepackaged garbage dished out by corporate marketing departments—”

  Stop the rant, Lissette. This woman is not the enemy. Canned cinnamon rolls are not the enemy. Fake vanilla is not the enemy.

  Three months of anger and shock surged to a head. For three months she’d been at loose ends, not knowing where her future was headed, but there in Searcy’s Grocery, just weeks from Halloween, everything she’d ignored, tamped down, and shut off, erupted. She stormed from the store, leaving slack jaws hanging open in her wake.

  Her heart slammed against her chest with jackhammer force. Her negative energy flowed into Kyle. He fisted his little hand in her hair, yanked, his hopeless shrieks piercing her eardrums.

  Calm down, calm down.

  But she’d lost all ability to soothe herself.

  Bake. The no-fail solution to runaway emotions. Bake. How could she bake without real vanilla?

  Get real vanilla.

  It was a nonsensical edict. Of course it was, but the command stuck in her brain. She made it to Jake’s extended-cab pickup truck. She’d wanted a Prius and this was what she ended up with. The key fumbled at the lock, but she finally wrenched the door open and got Kyle buckled into his backward-facing car seat.

  By the time she slid behind the wheel she was only breathing from the top part of her lungs. Her diaphragm had shut down, paralyzed, seized. Puff, puff, puff. Short, fast pants swirled through her parted lips.

  Hyperventilating.

  Real vanilla, whispered her mammalian brain.

  Go home, commanded her last shred of logic.

  She started the engine, put the truck into reverse, and stamped her foot to the accelerator. Her worn leather purse rocketed to the floorboard, sending the contents scattering—makeup, hairbrush, wallet, plastic Happy Meal toys.

  Dammit! She reached down for her purse.

  Instantly, she felt a jolt, heard the jarring crunch of bending metal, tasted the wiry flavor of alarm. She lifted her head, saw a big red pickup truck filling her rearview mirror, and realized she’d just hit someone.

  Chapter Two

  Rafferty Jones had a simple goal. Find a certain woman. Deliver what he’d come to Texas to deliver, do what he’d promised, and then get out of Jubilee before things turned dicey. He wanted to be long gone when that happened.

  Because they would turn dicey, of that he had no doubt.

  He was not usually a procrastinator, but now that he’d driven the streets of Jubilee, which were overrun with horse trailers and dually pickup trucks like the one he drove, he was suddenly uncertain about his mission.

  It felt too familiar here. People in Stetsons and Wranglers and cowboy boots were the majority not the minority. In L.A. he was the oddity. In Jubilee, he was part of the scenery. Country music played from shops on the square instead of rap or hip-hop. The air smelled of fresh harvest. Folks waved and smiled as if they knew him.

  As if he belonged.

  Instead of driving straight to the address clipped to the papers on the seat beside him, Rafferty decided to stop at the grocery store. He knew he was stalling, but he hadn’t eaten anything since Tucumcari except a small bag of peppered beef jerky. He wasn’t a big fan of greasy truck stop fare or fast food. A can of tuna and crackers washed down with V–8 juice sounded just about right to him. Throw in a couple of bananas for dessert and he was good to go.

  Searcy’s Grocery looked homegrown. It should do the trick.

  He pulled his old Dodge Ram diesel into the lot and out of nowhere—wham—a late-model Ford extended-cab pickup truck bulleted backward out of a parking space and clipped his left front fender.

  Dammit.

  He put his aging Dodge into park, and swung his gaze to the driver of the Ford.

  She was a pretty woman with an agitated expression on her thin face. Not beautiful, but nice-looking.

  She turned her head and their gazes met.

  He saw it then. That haunting vulnerability he seemed fatally attracted to. Her skin was pale, her eyes wide, her pink bottom lip pulled up between straight white teeth.

  Unexpected fear seized him. He couldn’t express why or in what way, but his gut sensed she could do him serious harm.

  Blow off the damage, back up, and drive away. Now.

  Too late.

  She was opening her door, and swinging to the ground. She wore a long-sleeved white cotton shirt over a blue denim skirt that made her look all of eighteen. The hem swished against the top of black knee-high boots. A mass of wavy, brown-sugar hair tumbled down her back. He couldn’t help noticing the wedding band on her left hand. She was married.

  Disappointment arrowed through him.

  Why the hell did he care? His romantic relationships always seemed to end in a messy tangle. Besides, he was only in town for one day.

  All you’d need is one night with her.

  But something told him that one taste of this woman would never be enough and damn if he didn’t
have an urge to run his fingers through that cascade of thick hair. It looked incredibly soft. Good thing he’d noticed the ring before he said something glib and flirty. The last thing Rafferty needed was an angry husband punching his lights out for lusting after his woman.

  “I am so sorry.” She kneaded her forehead. Distress glazed her green eyes and the worry lines creasing her brow furrowed deeper than a crunched fender.

  That was his first clue that she was having a really bad day.

  Watch it. No sympathy. Don’t cut her any slack. Pretend she’s a hairy, knuckle-draggin’ steelworker.

  “It’s my fault. I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was backing.”

  He wasn’t going to argue. She had plowed into him. “No, you weren’t.”

  Okay, he was being unrelenting, but it was his only defense against her wide-eyed upset. Rafferty hardened his jaw. He wouldn’t be feeling forgiving if she were a six-foot, two-hundred-pound guy.

  But she wasn’t.

  The woman moved forward, spied the damage to his truck, and groaned. She splayed her palms against her lower back. “I’ll pay. Let me just get my insurance information.”

  “Hold up a minute.” He reached out and rested a hand on her slender shoulder. Big mistake. His body reacted instantly. Lightning-quick, he dropped his hand. Think of something else besides how good she smells. Horses. Think about horses.

  “What? What?” She blinked as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Are you okay?” Rafferty asked, unable to stop his dumbass self from caring.

  “Fine, fine.” She looked harried, distracted . . . fractured.

  Do not go there. It’s not your duty to fix her life.

  A thin wail came from the backseat of the Ford. There was a kid in the truck. Double damn.

  “What about your baby?” Rafferty arched an eyebrow.

  Her mouth formed a startled O. She pivoted and rushed to her child.

  Rafferty followed, even though he had no idea why.