1420135090 (R)

More Christmas Romance from Janet Dailey

Christmas in Cowboy Country
Merry Christmas, Cowboy
A Cowboy Under My Christmas Tree
Mistletoe and Molly
To Santa with Love
Let’s Be Jolly
Maybe This Christmas
Happy Holidays
Scrooge Wore Spurs
Eve’s Christmas
Searching for Santa
Santa in Montana

JANET DAILEY

Long, Tall Christmas

ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

More Christmas Romance from Janet Dailey
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
Teaser chapter
Copyright Page

Chapter One

December 22

“O
uch!”
The hot cookie sheet slipped out of Kylie Wayne’s hand and clattered to the linoleum. Tears flooded her baby blue eyes—not so much for her seared thumb as for the Christmas cookies, which were not only broken and scattered, but also burned to a crisp.

“Oh, dear!” Her great-aunt, Muriel, bustled into the kitchen. “What happened?”

Kylie ran cold water over her thumb to ease the pain. “I smelled the cookies burning and grabbed them with that old brown oven mitt. There must’ve been a hole in it.”

“Heavens, I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to mend that hole.” Aunt Muriel shook her silvery head. “Those poor cookies! They were so pretty! And you worked so hard on them!”

Kylie sighed in silent agreement. She’d barely had time to unpack the car, but with Christmas less than three days off, and her two children moping like jailbirds, she’d felt the need to create some holiday spirit.

She’d found some old cookie cutters and spent the past hour mixing, rolling, and cutting the dough into Christmas bells, angels, reindeer, and stars. They’d been perfect when she’d slid them into the oven to bake. But she had yet to master the workings of Aunt Muriel’s sixty-year-old electric stove.

“I don’t understand it,” she muttered. “The recipe said fifteen minutes at three hundred seventy-five degrees. When I checked after ten minutes, they were already black and smoking.”

“That old oven’s always cooked hot,” Aunt Muriel said. “I’ve gotten used to it over the years. You will, too, dearie.”

“Yes, I suppose I’d better.” Kylie bent to pick up the mess. The offer of a home for herself and her children, in exchange for looking after her grandfather’s sister on her small Texas farm, had come as a godsend. At seventy-nine, Aunt Muriel was a sweetheart—a bit absentminded, but pretty much able to do for herself. It was the rest of it—coming home to Branding Iron, Texas, after fifteen years as an army wife—that weighed Kylie down. It was as if she’d come full circle, back to the place she’d been so glad to leave behind after high school. As for her children, she hadn’t seen a single smile since their loaded station wagon pulled away from their foreclosed house in San Diego.

She swept the last of the blackened crumbs into the dustpan and dumped them into the trash. “I guess there’s nothing to do but start over from scratch. Maybe this time you can help me with the stove.”

“The Shop Mart in town has cookies,” Aunt Muriel said. “You could just buy some.”

“It’s not the same. The smell of fresh-baked sugar cookies, and the fun of helping ice them—that’s the kind of Christmas we used to have. I want to bring some of that back for Hunter and Amy. After last year . . .”

Her voice trailed off. Last Christmas, the first after her husband Brad’s death in Afghanistan, Kylie had been in no mood for celebration. It had been all she could do to toss a few decorations on an artificial tree and wrap a few last-minute gifts for her son and daughter. But this year nothing would stop them from having a
real
Christmas. She would see to it.

“I know it won’t be the same without their father,” she said. “But they’ve been through so much. Whatever it takes, I owe them a good Christmas.”

“And what do you owe yourself, dear?” Muriel had a knack for asking odd questions—questions Kylie had no idea how to answer.

This time she was saved by the distant
thrum
of a motorcycle speeding down the nearby road. The sound grew closer and louder, its masculine thunder roaring in her ears as it passed the house and faded away toward town. She’d heard it late yesterday afternoon, too, right after they’d arrived here. The sound was so loud and invasive that it seemed to shake the walls of the little farmhouse.

“Good grief, that noise would wake the dead! How do you put up with it?” she asked.

Muriel smiled. “I’ve rather grown to like it. It makes me feel safe, knowing the cowboy’s close by, looking out for me and for Henry.”

Henry was Muriel’s longtime hired man, who lived in a trailer out back. He appeared to be about the same age as his employer. No doubt both of them could use looking after. But a cowboy on a motorcycle struck Kylie as an unlikely guardian angel.

“I call him ‘Cowboy’ because I can never remember his name,” Muriel said. “It’s Sean or maybe Sam . . . something like that. But he says he doesn’t mind answering to Cowboy.”

“So he lives around here?”

“He owns the ranch to the west. Every few days, or whenever we need him, he drops by to check on us and help Henry with the heavy work. He won’t take any money for it, but he never turns down an invitation to a home-cooked supper.”

Kylie was already feeling protective of her great-aunt. What if this so-called cowboy was trying to charm Muriel out of her farm, or maybe her life savings?

“So when will I be meeting your cowboy?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s bound to show up sometime soon. He’s about your age, dear, and—oh, my stars—what a man! Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark, curly hair and deep brown eyes . . .” Muriel sighed. “I can’t imagine why he’s not married. Goodness, if I were fifty years younger, I’d go after him myself!”

“Aunt Muriel!” Kylie was mildly shocked.

“Don’t look at me like that, girl! I may be old, but I’ve got eyes in my head. I appreciate a handsome man as much as the next woman, even if all I can do is look. And, believe me, that cowboy is an eyeful!” Muriel tilted her head, giving Kylie a glimpse of the spritely young woman she’d once been—a woman who’d devoted half a lifetime to caring for her invalid father, passing up any chance she might’ve had to marry.

“Now, with you it’s different,” she said. “A pretty thing like you could do a lot more than look if you set your mind to it.”

“Forget that.” Kylie put the broom back in the corner and began gathering ingredients for a new batch of cookies. “I’ve got my hands full with two growing children who miss their dad. The last thing I need is a new man in my life—especially some cowboy who goes roaring by on a noisy old motorcycle.”

“Well, dear, you won’t be hearing that noise much longer. He puts the motorcycle away once it starts snowing—and the weatherman on TV is predicting a big storm this weekend. An honest-to-goodness blue norther!”

“What?” Kylie’s gaze flew to the window with its view of dull gray skies and vast sweeps of yellow grass. This part of the high Texas plain didn’t get much snow. But storms had been known to happen here—the locals called them “blue northers” because they blew in from the north, and the cold air they left in their wake could turn a body blue. Kylie remembered a few times from her girlhood when blizzards had closed roads and schools and stranded livestock in the fields. This was no time to be low on supplies, especially with children in the house and Christmas around the corner. The cookies would have to wait while she made a run to town.

Brushing a dab of flour off her blouse, she slipped on a fleece jacket and grabbed her purse off the counter. “We’ll need to stock up before the storm gets here,” she said. “I’ll pick up the makings of Christmas dinner. Oh—and we’ll be wanting a Christmas tree. Does Hank Miller still sell them in that lot next to his feed store?”

“He does. But you might have to take leftovers. He’ll be out of the nicer trees by now.”

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No, dearie. Just get whatever you and the children will like. You know, it’s a shame you didn’t get here last week. The town had its little Christmas parade, complete with Santa in his sleigh and the high-school marching band. Abner Jenkins is still playing Santa—he’s perfect for the job, doesn’t even need any padding in his suit. Of course, with no snow, the sleigh had to be pulled on a trailer by those big draft horses of Abner’s, but it was still a nice way to get into the holiday spirit.”

The old woman turned away, then paused. “Oh, and you would have loved the Cowboy Christmas Ball last Saturday night. It’s like something right out of the Old West. The men wear cowboy gear, the ladies wear long skirts. We always have a live band, and the food . . . oh, my!” She gave Kylie a wink. “There’s many a romance that started at that dance. Too bad the next one’s a year away.”

“I do believe I can wait.” Kylie fumbled in her purse for her keys.

Muriel walked into the living room, turned on her favorite soap opera, and settled in the rocker with the gray wool sock she was knitting. The click of her needles blended with the sounds of the TV as Kylie stepped outside and closed the door.

The December air was calm but chilly. The smell and taste of coming snow awakened memories from Kylie’s childhood. Her family had lived in town then, and her father had taught math at the high school. Now her parents, like Brad, were gone, lost in a tragic car accident ten years ago. She was alone with no close family except her children and her great-aunt, Muriel.

Hunter and Amy had gone outside after lunch. As she rounded the house, Kylie could see them sitting on the corral fence, both of them hunched over their phones, most likely playing games or texting the friends they’d left behind in California.

Kylie waved to catch their attention. “Anybody up for a trip to town?” she called.

Hunter glanced up, shook his head, and returned to his phone. One day the boy would look a lot like his stocky, sandy-haired father. He might even have Brad’s easy smile and outgoing charm. But right now, he was going through a rough time, and being thirteen didn’t make it any easier. After Brad’s death, Hunter had withdrawn into a shell. With the move from California, that shell had all but closed around him.

“How about you, Amy?” Kylie asked her eleven-year-old daughter.

“Get real, Mom! We just spent four days from hell in that car! Anyway, there’s no place to hang out in town, not even a mall. It’s boring, boring, boring! I hate it here!”