A Cowboy Christmas Miracle (Burnt Boot, Texas Book 4) (12 page)

It was a good thing she didn’t know Declan’s phone number, or she would have called him. She might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, and she did want to talk to him. His sister had handled exile with so much grace, but then Leah Brennan had always been a lady, something Betsy had never been in her whole life.

Before she finished eating and began to pack, she decided she was not going to her parent’s house, at least not right away. She threw her clothing into a suitcase until it was full and then peered downstairs. There were no boxes at the bottom, so evidently Granny had told her cousins they couldn’t even help with that much. She stormed down to the kitchen, gathered up an armful of plastic grocery sacks from the pantry, and stomped back through the dining room and foyer. A few boxes or lack of them would not stop her from plowing full speed ahead with her plan.

It took several trips, but not a single big, strong cowboy relative so much as opened a door for her. That was just fine. Paybacks could be painful. She was on her way to Gainesville when her phone rang.

She answered it on the fourth ring. “Yes, Mama?”

“You’ve had enough time to get home. Where are you?”

“On my way to the school.”

“What for?” her mother, Willa, asked.

“Give me that phone.” Betsy heard her father, Henry’s, voice.

“In a minute,” Willa said. “Why are you going to the school?”

“To talk to Leah O’Donnell about renting their bunkhouse and leasing some of their land to put my cows on,” Betsy said.

“I guess you’d best talk to your father.” Willa repeated what Betsy had said as she handed off the phone.

“I told you living with your grandmother would never work. You need to come home, not move off Wild Horse. That won’t help, and it’ll just make things worse,” Henry told her.

She braked and came to a stop in the bar parking lot. “Right now, I don’t care if it makes things worse. I’m near thirty years old, and this is ridiculous. I don’t want to go out with Angela’s brother.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t either. Mother had no right to do that to you,” Henry said.

Betsy’s anger began to cool down. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“And until you are welcome in the big house, then your mother and I won’t be going to Sunday dinner either. Your grandmother has gone too far this time.”

“You don’t have to do that. This is my fight,” Betsy said.

“No, this time it’s our fight. I’ll help you unload your things. Your mother is putting fresh sheets on your bed. She’s missed you being here.”

“Granny made me so mad when she told me I had a year to get married and then started pushing John at me,” Betsy said.

“Come on home and we’ll talk about it.”

“Okay, but I think it’s time for me to start looking for my own place,” she said.

“We’ll talk about that too.”

Declan arrived at the storage unit before Betsy, so he unloaded his stuff and wrote down the names of all the people who had donated on the slip of paper on his side of the big room. With its high ceilings and big floor space, the place would most likely still look empty when Kyle came to take everything away.

It was cold as an Alaskan well-digger’s belt buckle outside, and inside wasn’t a bit warmer. He sat down in one of the office chairs and drew his coat closer to his chest. Where was that global warming when a person needed it? He could remember playing football with his cousins on Christmas day when they were kids, but the past couple of years had been bad winters, and it looked like they were in for another one.

He heard the crunch of gravel and then a door slam. She was carrying two boxes that didn’t appear to be heavy, but they were tall enough she could barely see over them.

“Need some help?” he called out.

“Open the door?” she yelled. “I know you’re here because I saw your truck.”

“Yes, I’m here. I’m holding the door for you so the wind won’t whip it shut. You’d best pull around to the end, and we’ll open the garage door to get that shed thing inside. Who helped you load it?”

“Daddy did,” she said.

“Did you tell him what we’re doing?” Declan asked.

“Nope, told him it was a secret for the church that I was undertaking and that Elijah O’Riley had made it for me. Daddy might have an idea what’s happening, but I did not let the cat out of the bag,” she answered. “And Mama donated those two boxes of cedar garland. She used to string it around the windows, but here lately she’s just been using tinsel.”

Together they got everything situated on the right side of the duct-tape line, closed both doors, and plopped down into the office chairs.

“Want to talk about what happened at Wild Horse?” he asked.

“I lost my place because I wouldn’t go out with Angela’s brother, John. It’s no big deal.”

“And you’re back in the house with your folks?”

“Temporarily. I’m looking for a place of my own that is not connected to Wild Horse. There’re a couple of small ranches for sale between us and Gainesville that I’m going to take a look at after the holidays. One has a house on it, but it’s small. The other is just land, so I’d have to build or move a trailer onto the place.”

Declan knew exactly which two places Betsy was talking about. He’d looked at both of them with the same idea. The one without a house butted up next to Finn and Callie’s ranch on the south. The other was another three miles down the road, and the white frame house was in need of a paint job and a new roof.

“I thought you Gallaghers were only interested in buying land connected to what you’ve got,” he said.

“Like the Brennans, right?”

He nodded.

“Maybe if a few of us disconnect from the ranch, then…”

“You dream big, don’t you?” He smiled. “Let’s go to my truck. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

She smiled back at him, their gazes catching in the space separating the two chairs. “I do like surprises, like the note in my seat yesterday morning.”

“We have to improvise, since the can is only available on Thursday.” He stood up and extended a hand.

She put hers in it.

He pulled her to his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I’m sorry you’ve had a rough time. With all the rumors flying around, I didn’t know what to believe.”

She leaned back and looked up into his eyes. “Thank you, Declan. It is what it is, and really, it wasn’t a big deal. Daddy told me when I moved into the big house that Granny and I were too much alike to live together. I should have listened.”

The way her green eyes looked right then, kind of sad and yet excited at the same time, seemed a lot more important than a bunch of words. Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips, and her eyes fluttered shut as he leaned forward. Then, his mouth was on hers, and they were in a vacuum, with no outside world, people, or feud to disturb them.

Her arms went from his chest to around his neck, one hand splayed out in his hair, holding his head steady. His rough hands left her soft cheeks and roamed down her back, clasping her closer and closer until he could feel her racing heart keeping time with his. Good! That meant she was as affected by his touch and kiss as much as he was by hers.

* * *

Betsy melted into the kiss, forgetting who she was and who Declan was. At that moment, she didn’t care about anything but putting out the fire that he was building with his fiery kisses. Her body wanted more and more. Her brain was screaming at her to take a step back, but she turned down the volume and ignored it.

Finally, Declan pulled away and brushed a soft kiss on her forehead. “My surprise won’t keep forever.”

Lucifer’s nightmare! She wasn’t interested in a surprise. She wanted more kisses and a bout of hot sex on the concrete floor.

Holy damnation, woman! What are you thinking? To leave Wild Horse and buy your own place is one thing; to have sex with Declan is taking it a step too far.
It was Tanner’s deep drawl in her head that jerked her back to reality.

Declan laced his fingers in hers and headed outside, turning out the overhead light and locking the door behind them. “I really was worried about you today.”

“The rumors must be horrible.” Her voice was still breathless from making out.

“The best one is that you’ve been seeing another O’Donnell and that he’s ten times worse than Rhett. They say you met him at one of those big O’Donnell affairs, like Thanksgiving or their end-of-summer picnic, and it’s all been on the sly. Naomi says she won’t even be shirttail related to the Brennans.”

“What?” Betsy stopped.

“Leah Brennan married Rhett O’Donnell. If you marry his cousin, then you’d be kin to the Brennans, right?”

A grin twitched the corners of her mouth. “If that is the worst rumor in the basket, I could blow them away with the truth. Hey, would you believe that Betsy Gallagher has been kissing Declan Brennan? My grandmother would drop graveyard dead of acute cardiac arrest and so would Mavis Brennan.”

Declan settled her into the passenger seat and rounded the back of the truck. “That would be so hot that it would fry the gossip vines, telephone lines, and maybe even give a few more old-timers heart attacks,” he said.

“I wonder what Mavis would think of that.”

“I saw smoke coming out her ears when she heard the news of you and an O’Donnell. She laughed and said it would be good enough for Naomi, after trying to take Leah from her last year. Remember when she sent Tanner to try to sweet-talk Leah into dating him just to get back at Naomi?” He reached over the seat, brought out a small cooler, and opened it to reveal a quart of ice cream.

“Peanut butter fudge. How did you know it’s my favorite?”

“I didn’t, but it is Leah’s, and she always made me eat it with her after she’d had a tough day.”

“So I’m like your sister?” She took a plastic spoon from his hand and dug into the ice cream.

“I don’t kiss my sister except on the cheek or the forehead.” He dipped as deep as the spoon would allow and brought up enough that he could lick it like an ice cream cone.

Suddenly, he leaned across the console and tipped her chin up, licked a drop of ice cream from the corner of her mouth, and then went back to eating. The sensation was surreal. Cold ice cream in her mouth, a cold tongue licking her lip, and heat chasing through her body like she’d just been hooked up to a moonshine IV.

“I’ve never done that with my sister either,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Declan, what happens after Christmas?” she asked.

“We celebrate with more ice cream. It can be used for good days as well as bad ones,” he answered.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“I reckon things will take care of themselves a day at a time,” he said.

Was that a hint of something sad in his voice?

“I guess it will.” She definitely recognized sadness in her own voice.

It would be over after the holidays, and all that would remain would be memories of the secret they’d shared. No one would ever know that, for a few weeks, a Gallagher and a Brennan had banded together for the betterment of the town—that they’d been responsible for bringing Christmas to the church. It would be something both of them would take to their graves, but it would definitely be something she would never forget.

“Do you realize that three weeks from tonight, the Christmas program will take place at the church? And the Wisemans will have done it all?”

Betsy smiled up at him. “Not all, Mr. Wiseman. We had lots of folks who donated their leftovers and some who donated precious items—like the angel for the top of the tree. Angela’s grandma made that. I realize we can’t give everyone credit for what they gave, but lots of folks will recognize the items and know that everyone in town came together for the program.”

“Gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, huh?” Declan said.

As quick as lightning, she smeared ice cream across his cheek, mouth, and all the way to his ear on the other side. “Don’t make fun of me,” she said.

“Now you have to lick it off,” he said.

“I do not,” she protested.

“Afraid to?” he asked.

She shoved her spoon back into the ice cream container, picked it up, and set it on the dashboard, threw the console back, and straddled his lap. “I’m not afraid of the devil. I’m not even afraid of his mother, who happens to be my grandmother. And I believe your grandmother is a cousin of his.”

She leaned forward and slurped up the ice cream on one side of his face and then the other. She felt him harden through his jeans, against her thighs, but didn’t stop. He groaned when she started on his mouth, teasing his lips by slowly tracing the outline with her tongue. When he tried to kiss her, she put a finger over his lips.

“You are killing me, woman,” he groaned again.

“I feel the evidence,” she said as she leaned back and checked his face by the light of the moon. “I think it’s all gone. The ice cream, not the evidence of you being killed.”

His hand was nothing more than a blur when he returned the favor. Ice cream suddenly swooped across her cheek and her lips. Instinctively, her hand went to wipe it away, but he pinned them to her sides.

“My turn,” he said as his tongue started on one side and followed the same pattern she had, landing on her lips last.

Her toes curled up inside her cowboy boots and her breath caught in her chest. Her insides tightened against the hot lava burning inside her body, and every nerve in her body ached. She couldn’t imagine sex with him if just touching turned her on this much.

“All done,” he finally said. “That was fun. Let’s do it again.”

She quickly moved to her side of the truck and popped the console back down. “I don’t think so, cowboy.”

“Why? It was just getting good.”

“And what happens when the truck catches on fire?” she asked.

He chuckled. “So you felt it too.”

“Yes, I did, and now I’m going to get in my truck and go home.”

“Good night, Betsy.” He ran his knuckles down her cheekbone. “Do we have a date for next Wednesday, right here?”

“We do,” she said as she crawled out of the truck and made her weak knees carry her to her vehicle.

Betsy flipped on the light in the back hallway, but the church was still cold and dark that Thursday night. The emptiness was eerie, and every time the old frame building groaned against the wind, a shiver tiptoed down her spine. Who would have thought a church could be scarier than a horror movie?

She found the door to the office swung wide open, which added to the weirdness of the evening. Kyle never left it unlocked, and she stood outside for a full minute trying to decide whether to prop the envelope on the doorjamb and run or to go inside and put it on his desk.

Kyle probably only has one key and left the door open for John. It’s a church, for God’s sake. Nothing can happen in a church
, a strange inner voice said. That the voice didn’t have her grandmother’s demanding tone or Tanner’s warning drawl was even more eerie than the dimly lit building.

She took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold into the room, laid the envelope on the desk, and noticed that several papers were fluttering. Her first thought was that someone had turned on the ceiling fan, but when she looked up, it was barely moving. A hard north wind swept through an open window and cut right through her coat. She took a step in that direction and stumbled over a chair leg, tried to right herself, but couldn’t get a grip on anything but icy air. Then two strong arms caught her from behind, and before she could blink, she was sitting in Declan’s lap in the swivel chair behind Kyle’s desk.

“Good thing the chair was here, or we might have both ended up on the floor,” he drawled.

“You scared me,” she said breathlessly.

Declan shifted her weight so she was facing him. “I wanted to surprise you, not scare you. I didn’t want to set off the gossip alarm by turning on a light, so I waited in the dark. I noticed the window wasn’t locked the last time I was in here so I came in through there.”

“What would you have done if it had been John coming into the church?” she asked.

“Never thought of that. Guess I’m a lucky man that it wasn’t.” He grinned.

Half his face was in dark shadows; the other half lit by a full moon that hung outside the window like a big, translucent beach ball. A five-o’clock shadow darkened his strong chin, and although she couldn’t see the glimmer in his eyes, she could feel it as he looked down into her face.

“Guess I didn’t think things through very well,” he said huskily.

“Why…” she started.

He put a finger over her lips. “I wanted to see you, so I parked at the bar and walked to the church, staying away from the road as much as possible.”

“Are you…”

He cupped her chin in his hand and brushed a sweet kiss across her lips. “I’m sure no one saw me. Didn’t pass a single car or truck on the way.”

Her arms had a mind of their own as they snaked their way around his neck. Conversation stopped when her mouth found his, and suddenly, the north wind wasn’t even cold anymore.

Declan’s hands found their way past her coat and slipped up under her snug knit shirt to clasp her ribs. The sensation was surreal—warm skin, cold hands, a melting quiver down deep in her insides that shot desire through her veins. For the first time in her life, Betsy was powerless, and she didn’t even give a damn. She wanted satisfaction and Declan was the only person who could deliver it.

Not in the church!
She could visualize her inner voice shaking its finger at her, but she ignored it. She’d gladly have sex with Declan right there on the desk, or under it, either one, with the freezing wind blowing over her naked body, if it would put out the aching fire inside her body.

His fingertips massaged her ribs ever so gently as his hands moved from waist level upward, his thumbs finding their way under the band of her bra. When they inched up to gently tease her nipples into hardened peaks, she groaned, and without her lips leaving his, she shed the coat. She’d been sitting on the tail of it, so now it hung from her butt to the floor as Declan pulled the knit shirt up and over her head, tossing it on the preacher’s desk. With a couple of deft movements, her bra joined it, and then he pulled her coat back up and helped her slip her arms into it.

“You’ll freeze without it,” he whispered as he found her lips again and his hands played up and down her back, across her breasts, and around to her belly button. Lord love a duck! When did a belly button become such a sexually stimulating zone?

Her hands itched to touch him in the same way, so she pulled his shirt free from his belt and went exploring. His belly was ripped with muscles and his chest covered in soft, fine hair. He gasped when her fingertips brushed against his nipples and groaned when she dug her fingertips into the area between his shoulders.

“Please go home with me and stay forever. I will hide you in my closet and take you out at night, and I promise to be gentle,” he said between kisses.

She smiled and pushed back from him a little, the chill of the room settling on her naked torso and sending a chill down her back. She quickly leaned forward to draw from his warmth again. “Declan, this is all wrong. We can’t do this.”

“You mean in a church? I know where there’s a fine motel,” he said.

“We’ve both forgotten who we really are,” she said.

“You are Betsy. I am Declan. Unless it’s Sunday morning, we don’t have last names.” His hands laced with hers, and he lowered his head to claim her mouth again.

She arched against him, feeling his hardness against her thigh. She reached for his belt and started undoing it. She’d barely gotten the buckle undone and had her fingers on the top button of his jeans when she heard whistling. Thinking it was more bells and whistles joining the steamy-hot sparks dancing around in the pastor’s study like a band of colorful gypsies doing a dance around a bonfire, she ignored it. She tugged the button free and felt around until she had the zipper tab in her hand.

Then, a deep voice floated through the darkness, saying something about it being cold. “Someone is in here,” she whispered.

She and Declan were on their feet in a split second, her coat gaping open, the tail of his belt hanging down like a frayed flag, and the cold wind howling through the window in chastisement.

“I hope the pipes haven’t frozen. If they do, we won’t have bathrooms for Sunday.” The voice penetrated the darkness.

“Hide behind the door,” Betsy said as she quickly zipped her coat and threw her bra and shirt at Declan.

He caught them and disappeared just as John flipped on the light.

“Who are you?” John asked.

She turned away from the front of the desk and held up the envelope of programs. “I don’t imagine you’d remember me from Angela’s wedding. I’m Betsy, Jody’s cousin. I deliver the programs on Thursdays for Kyle, since that’s his normal night to visit the sick folks and the elderly.”

“Why would you open a window?” He started across the room to close it.

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

Declan needed that window to stay open, so he could make his escape. There was no way he could get from behind the door and down the hall without being discovered, and he was holding Betsy’s bra and shirt in his hands. She needed a diversion, and it had to be quick, so she quickly took a step in front of John and purposely stumbled right into his arms.

When he caught her, she spun him around in the fracas, so his back was to the window and the door. “I’m so sorry. I must’ve tripped on the leg of a chair.”

She looked up with as pitiful of an expression as she could fake and was surprised to see John’s eyes fluttering shut as his lips came down on hers. Hers eyes stayed wide open as she watched Declan cross the small room in a couple of long strides and crawl out the window. Her bra strap hung on the ledge, and her breath caught in her chest. He couldn’t leave it there, but then it popped and must’ve hurt like hell when those hooks hit, because she heard him swear under his breath.

She pushed away from John and took a step backward. “What was that all about?”

“I should apologize, but I’m not sorry.” He removed a black felt cowboy hat, laid it on the desk, and hiked a hip on the edge. “I do remember you, Betsy, very well. I wanted to kiss you from the moment I laid eyes on you. Do you remember the first time we met?”

“The night that Jody and Angela married,” she answered.

“That’s right and now here it is, two years later, and my prayers have been answered, all because you fell into my arms in church. I’d say that’s an omen.”

“I’d say it was a moment and that I should leave. Folks will talk if they see a light in here and my truck outside. I’m sure yours is there also,” she answered.

“Can we have dinner or go out while I’m here?” he asked.

“Not this time. I’ve got lots of things going on this week.”

“Betsy, I might be a preacher, but I’m also a man, and I felt chemistry between us when I kissed you,” he said.

“Good night, John,” she said and left the room. Halfway down the hall, she heard the window pop shut and the whistling start up again. She’d started the engine of her truck when her shirt and bra sailed over the seat, the shirt landing on the passenger seat and the bra on the dash.

“You might need to put those back on,” a deep drawl said from the backseat. “I thought we were caught for sure when that damn bra got caught on a splinter in the window frame.”

“How—”

“Your truck wasn’t locked, so I waited. Seems like I’ve been here forever. Did the preacher’s kiss lead to something more?” Declan asked.

She backed the truck up under a big shade tree, removed her coat, and hurriedly put the bra and shirt back on. “I thought lightning had come to strike us both dead when he flipped the switch.”

“Did you really fall into his arms?” Declan asked, but she couldn’t even see anything by peeking into the rearview mirror.

“I faked it so you’d have time to get out.” She shivered as she slipped her arms back into the sleeves of her coat. “Thank God this thing zips and doesn’t button.”

“So did you fake it with me too?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you. Just lie there and be quiet. I’m going to the bar for a shot of Jameson to get this taste out of my mouth. I deserve it after that business. You said your truck is parked there, right?”

“Which taste out of your mouth? Mine or his?” Declan asked.

“You are not being quiet.”

Declan chuckled. “He isn’t a Brennan.”

And he isn’t you
, she thought.

“But he is a preacher. Can’t you just see me in the role of a preacher’s wife?” she said.

The chuckling quickly developed into a guffaw that bounced around the cab of the truck. “Maybe I’ll change my heathen ways and become a preacher. Would you be interested in marrying a preacher then?” he said when he could catch his breath.

“Are you proposing to me, Declan Brennan?”

“I’m not the marryin’ type any more than you are,” he answered. “I just had a vision of the two of us hellions being a preacher and a wife.”

“So we’re just in this for a little instant gratification, are we?”

“You tell me what we’re in this for, or better yet, Miz Betsy, you tell me, what is it possible for us to be in this for? Are you ready to step inside the bar with me, sit at a table with me, and go tell your mama and daddy that we are dating?”

She slammed on the brakes, left black marks for a good fifty feet, and made a loud squeal that probably brought out the gossipmongers in at least half of Burnt Boot. “Get out,” she said.

“Are we at the bar?”

“We are not. We’re about a block away, but you can walk the rest of the way.”

“Got a little too close to the truth, did I?” The door slammed, making as much noise as the squealing tires, and he quickly blended in with the shadows of the naked trees. She had no illusions that she and Declan would ever fall in love and get married. It would take a miracle for that to happen, but the truth bit into her heart deeply when she realized that, somewhere, she’d been entertaining that very notion. In that moment, she realized how stupid she’d been in letting things go as far as they had.

* * *

“Hey, Betsy, where have you been keeping yourself? Haven’t seen you in days,” Rosalie called out from behind the bar when Betsy parked on an empty stool at the far end. “What can I get for you? Beer?”

“A shot of Jameson. No beer.”

“Where have you been? You look all flustered.” Tanner claimed the stool on her left. “Your mama said you’d gone to take the programs into the church when I stopped by your place a while ago. Something happen there?”

“John spooked me by turning on a light when I wasn’t expecting it, but other than that, everything is fine.”

“You don’t usually order a Jameson unless—”

“Hello, Tanner,” Declan said as he slid onto the stool on Betsy’s right. “Cold enough for you? How are you, Betsy?”

“What happened to your face?” Tanner asked.

Declan glanced up at their reflections in the mirror above the bar and chuckled at the scratch across his cheek where the bra hooks had hit him. “Rest assured, she was pulling me on rather than fighting me off.”

Betsy sipped the Jameson, but neither the grin on Declan’s face nor the ashen expression on Tanner’s got past her. She thought about spilling her beer in either her cousin’s lap or Declan’s, maybe both, to get rid of them.

Tanner glanced around her back and glared at Declan. “Want to elaborate on exactly how you did get that scratch across your cheek?”

“A Brennan does not kiss and tell.”

Betsy’s senses kicked into overtime. “What’s going on between you two? Y’all fightin’ over the same woman?”

“I wouldn’t have anything he would want,” Tanner said curtly. “If you need a ride home after all that”—Tanner nodded at her drink—“just let me know, and I’ll drive you back to the ranch.”

“Come on, Cousin, I’m only having a single shot.” She unzipped her coat part of the way and realized she had her shirt on backward and inside out and quickly zipped it back up.

“Just sayin’.” Tanner nodded toward a table where Eli waited. “Join us. We’ve got extra chairs.”

“I’ll be there soon,” she said.