Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  “Very funny,” Missy said.

  She clenched the steering wheel of her mother’s hardy little hatchback, taking the mountain roads possibly a little too fast. That was the trouble with being a local. Because you knew the turns in the road, you figured they couldn’t hurt you.

  Missy blinked at that. Since when had she started considering herself a local again?

  She cleared her throat. “All I mean is, this seems like a lot of work for a bunch of people who are basically sitting around, waiting for the opportunity to gossip about you behind your back.”

  Her sister laughed. “Thank you for sharing your contagious Christmas spirit with me today. It really makes all the difference.”

  Missy pulled up in front of one of the houses on their route. She waited while Laurel threw open the door, charged up to the front stoop, and rang the doorbell. Her sister didn’t wait for anyone to come to the door. She started back down the path, waving behind her as the door swung open and there was exclaiming into the cold air.

  It was sweet. Missy couldn’t deny it.

  When Laurel got back in the car, she turned and studied Missy’s face. “You don’t have to like it here, you know. It’s not a requirement. But maybe you could admit that just because it’s not the place for you doesn’t mean it’s not a perfectly decent place.”

  Missy thought of Connor. She thought of the bright lights down Main Street. All the restaurants she’d been to this month, the activities. The shops and the boutiques and yes, the people.

  “I wouldn’t say I hate it,” she hedged. “I guess I don’t understand…”

  “Because you don’t want to understand,” her younger sister said with a certain matter-of-factness that took Missy’s breath away. “You always defined yourself as the one who got away. Maybe it’s time you ask yourself what would happen if you were one of the ones who stayed?”

  And she didn’t wait for Missy to respond to that. She cranked up the music, all peppy Christmas carols, of course, and insisted that everything remained festive during the rest of their deliveries.

  Later that evening, after the three of them had their family dinner—heavy on butter and mashed potatoes, and a lot of very old stories only they knew—Missy found herself alone in the living room. Her mother had gone off to wrap some last-minute gifts upstairs. Laurel had gone out with her friends. And Missy wasn’t in the hotel in Santa Fe. She couldn’t claim she had a million things to do. A million guest requests to handle.

  It was only her, standing in the living room with all the lights off, save for the blazing Christmas tree.

  And the tree was so bright it seemed to fill her up from the inside out. She stood by the mantel, staring at a picture of her father while her throat got tighter and tighter.

  “I miss you, Dad,” she whispered.

  And she let herself crumple a little, there in the dark with only the ornaments she’d made as a child to see her.

  But when the crumpling stopped, if she kept her eyes shut, she could almost believe that her father was sitting there in his favorite chair the way he always had. That the fire was crackling bright and his favorite music was playing. She was sure she could hear him breathing, or more likely laughing, as he had his drink and read his paper and somehow seem to always know exactly what was going on with each and every one of them.

  I don’t know what to do, she told him.

  You do, he replied. There in her heart.

  I made such a mess of things once already, she confessed to him, her eyes squeezed shut. Now it’s Christmas, you’re not here, and I’m afraid that if I choose something because it feels good right now, I’ll regret it later.

  Baby girl, Hank Minton boomed inside of her. All you ever have is right now. The future is what you make of it. The past is only as powerful as you let it become. Right here, right now—that’s all life ever is.

  And she was so sure he was there, then, that she whirled around. She was positive that she might catch a glimpse of him—

  But the chair was empty.

  It was her heart that was full.

  Right here. Right now.

  “What are you doing in here in the dark?” Marianne asked, bustling in with an armful of wrapped gifts and turning on the lamps as she came.

  “I don’t know,” Missy said, blinking at the burst of light. “I almost thought, if I closed my eyes and wished…”

  Her mother smiled at her as she straightened from placing her gifts beneath the tree. “I know. I feel him too. I like to think he’s sitting in that chair—”

  “Laughing at everything. Yet always having the best advice.”

  “Always.” Marianne sighed and settled herself on the couch, gazing at Missy. “I realize I’m not your father. But you never know. I might have some good advice myself.”

  Missy realized it had never occurred to her to ask her mother for advice. In fact, her head went blank as she gazed back at her. For so long that Marianne’s smile turned a bit strained.

  “I know, I know,” her mother said, and it wasn’t disappointment Missy heard then. It was something else. Wistfulness, maybe, and that made her heart hurt again. “You and your father were so much alike. He could simply read your mind. I always felt as if I needed a translator.”

  “Maybe it was my fault,” Missy said. She didn’t go sit in her father’s armchair. None of them did, and they all laughed when one or the other of them pointed it out. But that didn’t make any of them take their father’s chair. Hank was still here. Hank would always be here. She sat down on the other end of the couch instead. “Maybe I was born angry.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Marianne said. “But you did always have very definite ideas. Even when you were small. You couldn’t be told what to do.”

  “I like to think of that as an asset, personally.”

  “An admirable asset in a grown woman,” her mother agreed with a laugh. “But less adorable in a toddler.”

  And maybe it was Christmas Eve. Maybe it was Hank. Maybe it was just time, but Missy found herself opening her mouth as if she’d been leaning on her mother all her life.

  “I don’t know what to do, Mom,” she said softly. “I have the kind of job offers I always wanted. You know, I never actually meant to stay in Santa Fe. It was only going to be a stepping-stone. To bigger, better resorts. But then Philip happened.” She laughed a little, forestalling whatever her mother might be about to say. “I know you never liked him. That’s okay.”

  “I think Philip appealed to the part of you that wanted to pretend you have no roots here,” Marianne said carefully. “In the same way that Connor Kittredge appealed to the part of you that never wanted anything but those roots. For the record, I don’t think a person needs to choose between the sky and the earth. The world is made of both, Missy. You can’t have one without the other.”

  Missy’s heart was beating so loudly she felt as if it might tip her over.

  “The future is what you make of it,” she whispered. “The past is only as powerful as you let it become.”

  “Something like that,” her mother said. And smiled. “That sounds like something your father used to say.”

  And all Missy could do was smile.

  Later, after Marianne had gone to bed and Missy had been telling herself to do the same for hours—while continuing to watch Christmas movies on repeat—she couldn’t seem to get sky and earth, past and present, out of her head.

  That was how she found herself in her mother’s hatchback, heading down the mountain to town and then out over the pass toward all that Kittredge land. And as she drove, she challenged herself not to think about all the things she’d felt as a kid here. Not to note each and every house she passed in terms of who had lived there, what stories she knew about them, and how glad she was that she hadn’t chosen to live here.

  That sounded a whole lot like Philip in her head, if she was honest.

  Instead, she thought about how pretty it was. This little town, tucked into the mount
ains, lit up with all these Christmas Eve lights. She saw friends and neighbors, folks who liked the land that kept them separate but gave back to the community that kept them connected.

  And as she drove out into the far reaches of the valley, up toward the foothills, she let the glorious sweep of this wild land roll into her. As if she were a part of it. The sky and the earth, she thought. The stars above, the fields beneath the cover of snow. The small roads that made their way in and around the mighty mountains looming above.

  This is home, she kept singing to herself, off-key and happy all the same. This has always been your home.

  She had only been to Connor’s cabin once. He had brought her there on the day they delivered his Christmas tree—and he hadn’t let her in.

  I don’t trust you with my virtue, he’d drawled at her.

  Tonight, she found her way deep into the part of Kittredge land that was far away from the stables and the horses and the big ranch house where his parents lived. He lived up from the river off a dirt road with no name, but she found the grooves in the snow that the tires from his truck had left and followed them. Carefully.

  And by the time she made it to his cabin and parked in front, she wasn’t sure if she regretted coming all this way or wished she’d done it sooner. She got out of the hatchback and stood there in the little clearing he’d made in the snow. She tipped her head back to look at the stars some more, and when she finished being dizzy from that great tapestry, she looked over to the front porch and found him standing there.

  In nothing but a pair of jeans buttoned low on his hips.

  God help her.

  “Merry Christmas Eve,” she managed to say. “To me.”

  “I expected it to be Santa and all his reindeer,” Connor drawled. “But instead, look. It’s the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  “Please. You never read that book. I doubt you know who wrote it.”

  “I’ve watched numerous versions of the movie, thank you.” But Connor didn’t move from where he leaned there in the open door. His smile faded. “And you’re a long way from where you ought to be tonight, Missy.”

  She started toward him, her boots loud against the snow. She climbed the front porch, though it felt perilous, and then she stood there. Right in front of him.

  Right here, she told herself. Right now.

  “It’s funny you should say that, Connor.” Nothing felt very funny, actually, but she kept going. “I’ve been thinking a lot about where I belong lately. A resort in Arizona seems to have almost everything I could need or want. A great job, great weather, and an excellent hotel to run with almost no corporate oversight.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “It has everything,” she agreed. She blew out a breath. “Except the one thing I think might be most crucial to my happiness.”

  He looked indulgent. And still, a little sad. “What’s that?”

  Like he completely didn’t get where she was going with this.

  And Missy could admit there was a part of her that was fully a coward. That part wanted to stop.

  Before she went too far. Before she showed her hand.

  Then again, it was coming up on midnight on Christmas Eve. She’d driven all the way out here without an invitation. Whether he saw it or not, she’d already showed … everything.

  So why not do what she wanted instead of not doing what she feared this time?

  “You,” she said, though it made her feel as if she’d tripped and fallen off the side of the world and would never, ever find her footing again. “You, Connor. I need you.”

  9

  Connor felt a roar inside of him, fire and need and a deep, beautiful kind of triumph.

  He wanted to haul her into his arms, claim her once and for all, and make like a caveman in every possible regard.

  He would never know how he resisted.

  Instead, he reached over and took one of her hands. She was already cold, though she’d only been outside for a few moments. Then he tugged her inside, closed the door against the night, and watched her as she walked into the main room.

  It occurred to him to worry about how she might react to this cabin of his. After all, his sister had been less than complimentary.

  But Missy turned around in a circle, then turned back to him, her eyes shining. “I have to say, this is exactly where I pictured you would live.”

  “That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

  “It’s very masculine, Connor. It looks like there’s never been a woman inside these walls.”

  “How dare you.” But he grinned. “My mother, my sister, and my grandmother have all been here, thank you very much.”

  She looked even more beautiful than usual. Her eyes were so big, and her dark hair was coming out from beneath that cute hat of hers with the pink pom-pom that he found himself dreaming about, crazily enough. Her cheeks were red, and she’d stood there on his porch and said exactly what he most wanted to hear.

  But this was Missy Minton.

  “The thing about Arizona,” he made himself say. “I love that you said that to me, Missy. Really, I do. But we both know that what you really want is that fancy hotel. As for me? I can’t tell you how flattered I am, but I’m sure you’ll find a dozen like me.”

  She looked at him for so long he started to feel … uncomfortable.

  “One of the things I love about you is that you never, ever stand up for yourself,” she said, her voice even and her gaze intense. “Not because you couldn’t, but because you don’t see the point. You let your brothers treat you like you’re dumb. You let me act like you hadn’t read a Dickens book we literally read together in a class where you got a higher grade than I did. You stand in front of me, right here, acting like there’s anyone in this whole wide world anything like you, Connor.”

  “A cowboy is a cowboy,” he managed to get out.

  “That’s not true. There’s only one you, and I know this to be a fact because I’m the one who’s been out there. I’ve gone places you’ll never go, met people you’ll never meet. And the whole time, no one held a candle to you.” She shook her head emphatically. “I’m never going to find a dozen just like you. There’s only one.”

  He cleared his throat, not sure what to do with that.

  “My brothers don’t treat me like I’m dumb,” he said. Stiffly. Awkwardly, maybe. “It’s their job to poke at me.”

  “You let them,” she said, and he wasn’t sure anyone had ever talked to him like this before. As if she saw exactly who he was. It made him feel bigger than his own Christmas tree. “Because you’re the youngest, and that helps keep the peace. You never copied off of my paper in high school. You didn’t need to. And I would think it was just an act you put on if you hadn’t stood here two seconds ago and told me you were easily replaceable.”

  They were getting sidetracked. Especially when she pulled that hat off her head and ran her fingers through her hair. Then shoved the hat in one pocket, unzipped that puffy little parka, and tossed it on his couch.

  Because now the only thing he could think about was getting his hands on her, the way he always did when there weren’t enough layers between them. And he’d promised himself that he would treat Missy like a gentleman on all these dates he’d taken her on. The gentleman he sure hadn’t been as a teenager.

  But his body reminded him that this wasn’t a date. And more, that he knew exactly how many steps it took to get to his bed in the back room.

  Focus, he ordered himself.

  “You need to follow your heart,” he told her. “You and I both know that your heart isn’t here.”

  “That’s why I came over,” she whispered. “Because I think it has been all along.”

  She moved closer to him. She slid her hands over his chest, making him deeply glad that he hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt when he’d gotten out of the shower earlier. He would much rather have her hands on him.

  “I think Christmas is getting to you,” he said, though it was beg
inning to cause him pain to argue against his own interests here. “You’re not going to feel the same in a few weeks. Let’s not even talk about what might happen in spring when it snows again, just to be mean. Which it will.”

  “I remember high school,” Missy said, completely ignoring him. “The more intense it got, the more in love with you I was. The more in love with you I was, the more I was afraid that I would stay here. I had told everyone I was leaving, Connor. I had to go. I didn’t want to be stuck here.”

  He started to say something, but she put her fingers over his mouth. And then kept them there.

  “Now it’s the only place I want to be,” she told him solemnly. “And I know that because this is where I ran when I was done with that big, fancy life I’d built out there. This was the only place I wanted to come to feel better. And I do.”

  “You need to go right back out there, then,” he managed to say, moving her fingers from his mouth, but not letting go of them. He could only do so much. “You should.”

  “Connor. Stop trying to be noble.” She laughed. At him, he was pretty sure. “I’m going to take the job at the Grand Hotel. I’m going to stay in town. I guess what I’d like you to tell me is whether you want to keep dating me while I do that.”

  “Missy…”

  “You’re going to have to think about it pretty carefully,” she told him, smiling up at him as if she already knew what his answer would be. As if she could see straight through him. And he found he loved that she could. “Because I can’t guarantee that when I’m feeling a little wicked down the road, I won’t pull out a low-cut shirt and march right into church again. I have that in me.”

  “Amen to that,” he managed to say.

  “Well?” she asked. And he saw, then, that she wasn’t as confident as she was pretending to be. Her eyes were a little too bright. And he could see her pulse in her neck, beating wildly. “Have you decided?”

  Connor took his time. He ran his hands up her arms, then down her back, pulling her close to him and holding her there. Letting her feel exactly how much he wanted her, and how much he’d been holding himself back.