Her Last Cowboy Christmas

by Liz Isaacson

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” he said, picking up his plastic fork.

  “Me, too,” she said. “But there’s this amazing place to watch the sun go down in Denver….” Amber kept talking about the red rocks and the huge Rocky Mountains, and Lance enjoyed the enthusiasm and joy in her voice.

  But he couldn’t help feeling like the woman he’d said good-bye to eighteen days ago was not the same woman sitting across from him.

  And he had no idea what to do with that feeling.

  The next morning, Lance hopped the fence to the pasture where Cache and Karla would be getting married. Cache was already there, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a blue plaid shirt that looked like it had been run over by a baler.

  Ames and Cook stood nearby as well, and Sawyer joined Lance only a few seconds after he’d hopped the fence. “I can’t believe we’re dressing cows,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Hey,” Lance said. “It’s better than some weddings I’ve been to.”

  “Are you serious?” Sawyer asked. “What kind of friends do you have?”

  Lance chuckled. “My sister married a guy who loves hunting. There were literally antlers everywhere.” They both laughed, sobering as they approached Cache, who stood beside two cows lying on the ground. They barely looked up at the newcomers, and Lance thought he should probably give Cache’s cow cuddling a shot.

  “Morning,” Cache said to everyone. “There are ten tutus here. We just need to get ‘em on the cows.” He picked up one of the frilly pink pieces of clothing. “They Velcro,” he said. “But it’ll probably take two people to get it on a cow. My dairy cows aren’t skinny.” He grinned around at everyone. “Thanks so much for coming.”

  “I’m with you,” Lance said, stepping toward Cache.

  “Cook and Ames, grab a tutu,” he said. “Sawyer, you come with me and Lance.”

  Lance loved his bandmates, though he was about to become the only single member of Last Chance Cowboys. He lost himself inside those thoughts for a moment, only breaking out of them when Sawyer said, “Did Amber make it back?”

  “Yeah,” Lance said. “Yesterday afternoon. She should be here for the wedding.”

  “She’s here,” Cache said. “I saw her car parked behind Karla’s house this morning.”

  “You’ve already been to her house?” Sawyer asked. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”

  “I didn’t see her dress,” Cache said, rolling his eyes. “I had to pick up the tutus. Oh, there’s Hudson.”

  The other cowboy came walking across the pasture, carrying a huge white roll of canvas over his shoulder.

  “I’ll help with the tent,” Sawyer said, moving away from where Cache still stood next to the lazy cows.

  “All right.” Cache clapped his hands. “Stand up Cookie. Bluebell.” Neither cow moved, and Lance looked at Cache for his next step.

  “I’ve spent months training them to lay down,” he said with a smile. “Just pull on the rope.”

  Lance bent and collected the rope around one of the cow’s necks. He had no idea if it was Bluebell or Cookie, or even how to tell the difference. All cows looked the same to him. “Come on, girl,” he said, his voice gentle. To his surprise, the cow lumbered to her feet, a bit of annoyance in her gaze.

  “Great,” Cache said. “Let me get this around her….” He unclasped the tutu and threw it over the cow’s back. Working together, they looped the fabric around until they could press all the Velcro pieces together along the cow’s back.

  “There you go, Bluebell,” Cache said. “You look so pretty for the wedding.”

  Lance felt his laughter building in the back of his throat. Finally, he couldn’t hold it in anymore, and it came pouring from his mouth, filling the sky.

  Thankfully, Cache joined in. “Did I just tell a cow she looked pretty for the wedding?”

  “Yes, you did,” Lance said, dropping Bluebell’s rope and reaching for the next one.

  “This is ridiculous. I’m not wearing this shirt either.”

  Lance looked at him in surprise. “That’s the shirt you’re wearing? It looks like it lost a fight with a weed eater.” He pointed to a hole on the sleeve. “It literally has holes, Cache.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t get married in that.”

  “Karla said she wanted me to wear this blue shirt.”

  Lance frowned. “Why?”

  “She doesn’t want things to be too fancy.”

  “She’s wearing a dress, right?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not a great big fancy thing.” Cache slipped another tutu around Cookie’s midsection. “But I think I better wear my suit.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Lance said. “Do you want me to see if I can get Amber to tell me a little about the dress?”

  “No, I’ve seen it,” Cache said. “It’s definitely a wedding dress. It’s just not miles of lace or yards of sequins.”

  “Then you can’t wear a shirt full of holes.”

  “There’s one hole.”

  “That’s one too many,” Lance said as they grabbed a couple more tutus and moved toward the next cow. “I mean, it’s your wedding day.”

  “Yeah,” Cache said, growing serious. “How are you and Amber doing?”

  Lance squinted into the morning sunlight and exhaled. “Okay.”

  “Just okay?

  “Honestly? I think she’s about to break up with me.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t know,” Lance said, the weight that had been in his stomach since she’d left for Denver coming back with a vengeance. “It’s just how I feel.”

  Chapter 20

  Amber appreciated that Karla had not gone hog wild with the bridesmaid requirements. In fact, there was no special bridesmaid dress each woman had to wear. She wanted the wedding to be more casual, more fun, more lively.

  So Amber got to wear what she wanted, as long as she didn’t upstage the cows. She wasn’t sure how anyone could outdo a cow wearing a tutu, but she had a pale pink dress that made her eyes stand out. It had wide straps across her shoulders, and she’d swept her hair up into a knot on the top of her head.

  She loved being in Karla’s small cabin with her and the other women, but she felt out of place now too. Jeri, Adele, Sissy and Scarlett had brought their babies, though they lay in playpens, asleep amid the ruckus the women made.

  After all, it took a lot of chatter to put on makeup and get up-dos done, and make sure every piece of jewelry was in the proper place.

  Amber felt like she was on the other side of a window, when she’d used to be inside with everyone else. She’d been gone for two and a half weeks, and she’d missed some things around the ranch. Babies grew by leaps and bounds in two and a half weeks, and motherhood or the wedding was all anyone seemed to be able to talk about.

  Amber wasn’t a mother. She wasn’t getting married. And she didn’t know when either of those would happen for her.

  A feeling moved through her that she couldn’t quite name, and she felt more strongly about going to Colorado permanently after Christmas. Oh, how she loved Christmas on this ranch. Scarlett decorated Prime with wreaths and bells and lights, changing his attire every few days.

  She and Hudson had all the regulars to the homestead on Christmas Eve, where they’d hung a stocking for each person earlier in the months. Gifts were exchanged. Ham eaten. Prayers said.

  Amber had come to the ranch just before Christmas a few years ago, and the celebration and sense of family love she’d felt at that meal had literally saved her life. How could she leave this ranch behind, even for a new facility and a better job?

  What about Lance?

  They’d had a fun lunch yesterday, but about halfway through, she’d sensed him pulling away from her. True, she’d talked and talked about Denver, but when she’d stopped that, it almost seemed like they had nothing else to talk about.

  Lance had never been a man of many words
, and Amber hadn’t worried about it. He still kissed her like he sure did like her, and she’d really missed him. He’d finally said his mother wasn’t feeling well again, but that she’d be at the wedding tomorrow.

  Amber had said nothing about her possible move to Denver. She had a feeling Jewel had asked her to go to the facility and sit in on the meetings in the hopes that Amber would feel exactly the way she did—that she’d want to be part of the good things happening at this new place.

  And she did.

  But she wanted Lance too.

  She pulled up short at the thought. Yes, she liked Lance, and she enjoyed spending time with him. But she’d literally never had a man she actually wanted to be with long-term. The very idea scared her, and she turned toward Adele and asked, “How did you decide to come back to Last Chance Ranch after you’d gone to New York?”

  Adele blinked a few times, obviously not expecting the question. Amber wasn’t even sure where it had come from.

  “I came back for Scarlett’s wedding,” she said, recovering nicely and turning back to the mirror on the counter in front of her. “And Carson did too, and it was just…magic.” She shrugged, her dress a bright blue that made her hair look blonder and her freckles stand out. “I knew then that a restaurant job wasn’t more important than him.”

  “But you did go to New York in the first place,” Amber said.

  “Sure,” Adele said. “It had been a dream of mine for years and years.” She teased up one last piece of hair. “And I wouldn’t have become the person I am today without that experience. It was hard in a lot of ways, but I learned a lot too.”

  “Adele,” Scarlett said. “James spit up a little.”

  Adele got right up and hurried over to the playpen where her baby had been sleeping with one of Scarlett’s. Amber watched them coo to and cuddle their babies, an extreme pang of longing ripping through her.

  She did want to be a mother.

  Her phone rang, startling her from her stare-fest. “Hey, JJ,” she said after she’d opened the call. “What’s up?”

  “You’ll never believe what’s happened,” her sister said. She didn’t even wait for Amber to ask what before she continued. “The venue made a mistake. They double-booked us with another couple, and they booked first, and now I can’t have the date I want.”

  Amber closed her eyes and prayed for patience. “I’m sorry, Jay. What are you going to do?”

  “They can put me on the twenty-seventh.”

  Amber waited, because she wasn’t sure what month her sister was talking about. “What day of the week is that?” she asked when JJ remained silent. “Isn’t Thanksgiving near there?”

  “Of December.” JJ started crying softly. “I don’t want to get married at Christmas,” she said.

  Amber didn’t see why not, but she said, “Oh, December,” as if it were the worst month to get married. Maybe in Montana or Maine, but December in California was nothing to cry over. Usually.

  “That’s like six weeks later,” Amber said.

  “It’s all they have,” JJ said. “So I either book that, or I find somewhere else. And you know everywhere good is going to be booked too.”

  Amber didn’t know that, but she hadn’t spent much time thinking about or planning her wedding.

  “Then book it, JJ,” Amber said, letting a little of her impatience seep into her voice. “You love that reception center, and so what if it’s near Christmas? It’s really three-hundred-and-sixty-three days away from Christmas.”

  “Will you come if it’s at Christmas?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you’d be in Denver by then.”

  “I’m not moving to Denver permanently,” Amber said, slip of misery moving through her. “I mean, I might be there, but of course I’ll come back for the wedding.”

  Her sister sniffled through a few more details, and Amber hung up.

  “You might be in Denver at Christmas?”

  Amber looked up at Scarlett, who had a baby over one shoulder, swaying as she swatted his bottom.

  “I mean, maybe,” Amber said evasively.

  “Why?”

  Amber looked at her boss, her friend. “Forever Friends has offered me a big promotion at a facility in Denver that’s opening soon.”

  Scarlett’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” Amber said, fully miserable now. “Oh.” Before she could say more, Karla came out of the back bedroom with her sister and mother flanking her, and a general cry went up, stealing Scarlett’s attention.

  Amber rode the interruption, because she didn’t want to talk about the job. Or Lance. Or anything about herself. She oohed and aahed with the other women, and she hugged Karla tight in her very simple wedding dress.

  It dipped and fell in all the right places, but it wasn’t huge, or frilly, or immaculate with bead work or sequins. Somehow it was exactly what Karla should wear to her wedding on the ranch, and soon enough, someone opened the front door with the words, “We better get over to the pasture, or we’ll all be late.”

  Amber went with them, once again noticing that she didn’t have anyone to walk with. Karla had her family here. The other women had babies and families and new worries in their lives. They probably weren’t sleeping through the night.

  But Amber was, and she also couldn’t help wondering how she was going to tell Lance she might want the job after all.

  A big tent had been set up in the pasture across the street from the homestead, and all the cows wore bright pink tutus. There seemed to be some excitement over that, and many of the wedding guests were getting their pictures taken with the dairy cows. Amber wanted one too, and she had Gina, the large animal vet, take one for her on her cell phone.

  The bell at the homestead started ringing, the same way it did for all special occasions here on the ranch. People started filing into their seats from various places around the ranch, and it seemed like there would be guests wearing plaid shirts and jeans, their work gloves stuck in their back pockets.

  Lance better be wearing something nicer than that, and she looked around for him. He stood with the rest of the men in Last Chance Cowboys, a guitar in his hands that he handed to Cache a moment later.

  He positioned himself behind the drums, and a slow wedding march started to play. They went through it several times before the wedding party assembled, and then Carson and Adele led the way down the aisle to the temporary altar that had been erected.

  Amber walked down the aisle with a bouquet of wildflowers in her hands, Sissy and baby Evelyn as her partners. Once everyone was in place, the band finished up, and the members came down to their spots in the wedding.

  Cache glowed like the Northern Lights, and he swept a kiss across Karla’s cheek, pausing to whisper something in her ear before Pastor Williams began talking.

  “What a lovely occasion,” he said. “Weddings are such great events to feel the love of the Lord. Funerals too. Anything that brings us together and reminds us of those we love, and that love us.”

  He paused to smile at Karla and Cache. “Now, I want to give a word of advice to the happy couple today before we get the job done. And it’s this—don’t be afraid to talk to one another. Rely on each other and God before other people. And you can’t do that if you aren’t communicating.” He nodded at Cache, who nodded back. “Pray together. Pray separately. Confide in each other your fears, struggles, joys, and triumphs, and you’ll be blessed.”

  Amber smiled at her friends, her heart full and her spirit singing. What Pastor Williams had said was absolutely true. She’d wanted someone to confide in for a very long time, and Lance was the first man she’d had in her life where she felt safe doing so.

  She looked at him through her tears, unsure as to why her heart was beating so erratically. She didn’t hear the rest of the nuptials, only realizing things were over when a cheer went up. She blinked, a tear running down her perfectly made up face, and saw Cache and Karla kissing. When
they broke apart, they looked absolutely joyful, and Amber wanted that feeling in her life too.

  The moment she could, she navigated over to Lance and slipped her arm through his. “Hey,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, peering down into her face.

  “I don’t know how to say this.” But she needed to say it. She wanted to confide in him. Talk to him. “But I think I should take that job in Denver.”

  Chapter 21

  I think I should take that job in Denver.

  The words taunted him for the rest of the wedding. All night long. Through the next day. Forever. They’d haunt him forever, especially the ones he’d said right after Amber’s.

  Then you should take it.

  He said the words under his breath as he locked up enclosure eight for the day. Amber hadn’t broken up with him, but if she was really going to take that job in Denver, she might as well say good-bye now.

  It would probably be less painful for both of them. Sure, they’d been dating for six months, which was a very long time for her. For him, too, truth be told. He was already in love with her, and what would six more months do?

  Torture him, that was what six more months would do. Show him a life he couldn’t have. One that would be ripped away from him right after the holidays.

  Determined now, he kept his pace brisk as he walked toward the volunteer house. The cross-country team was coming for the last time to get the dogs for their combined run, so Amber would be outside with everyone.

  Sure enough, she was, her curls hanging over her shoulders in delicious waves. Lance’s fingers curled into a fist, and he arrived just as the volunteers from the Canine Club did, bringing dogs with them.

  Everyone got the rules again, and the leashes were passed out. The runners left with the dogs, and Lance ducked into the volunteer house, where there’d at least be air conditioning.

  Amber entered a few seconds later, and she stilled when she saw Lance. Fear danced across her face, but she said, “Hey, cowboy,” as if nothing between them had changed.