A Cowboy for Christmas (12 page)

The Harley took off and Claudia gave a little squealing giggle at the surging acceleration. She hadn't giggled in years. It made her feel giddy, girlish, and foolish.

You're too old for this nonsense.

Maybe so, but she couldn't resist the thrill that buzzed through her system and she found herself resting her helmeted head against Stewart's shoulder.

Stewart drove them through the darkness, faster and faster, until Claudia's heart was riding in her throat.
You shouldn't be here with your best friend's husband.
But Linda was dead. Like Gordon and Jake.

Gone.

The past was past, the future, murky and uncertain. All she had was right now. Right this minute and she was clinging to the waist of a sexy, bald fireman, the sleeves of her sweater were flapping out behind her as they sped away into the night on a souped-up Harley.

If her neighbors saw them it would set off a gossip storm.

He drove around Jubilee Lake. It wasn't much of a lake as lakes went. Very small, filled mostly with cattails and water lilies. No good for swimming or boating. Mostly, it was a necking spot for young couples. What was it they called it now days? Canoodling? Or was that term passé too? Once you got beyond a certain age, it was hard to keep up. Time moved so swiftly.

The rising moon sent a shimmer of light reflecting across the water. Stewart pulled over to a spot underneath a large pecan tree. The pecans would be coming off soon. Next month. Maybe she'd come back and gather enough to make pecan sandies as a gift to Stewart to thank him for taking her motorcycle virginity.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked after he killed the engine.

He reached up to unsnap the strap from around her chin and lift the helmet off her head. “So I can do this.”

He dropped the helmet to the ground and she was so lost in his eyes she didn't even hear it fall. The next thing she knew she was in Stewart's arms and he was kissing her like tomorrow might never come.

Chapter Ten

R
afferty stayed for the pot roast. He shouldn't have stayed, but the thought of eating alone in the garage apartment was too solitary to bear. He was accustomed to taking his meals with his ranch hands, or when he was on a movie set, with the crew. Before Dane and Heather had gone off to college, he'd tried to have a family meal at least once a day, and he missed the ritual with his siblings. Shared mealtime had a way of drawing people closer. That was the danger of eating with Lissette and Kyle.

The three of them sat at the kitchen table just like a family.

Connecting.

It was a damn scary thought. He'd just raised his younger siblings to adulthood, finally gotten his mother straightened out. For the first time ever, his life was his own. He could be selfish for once. Discover what it was that
he
truly wanted. He'd dreamed of such freedom for years.

Why then did he feel the urge to take on the task of shepherding his dead brother's family? A brother he barely knew. He couldn't seem to break the caretaking habit.

Throughout the meal, Rafferty used baby sign language to communicate with Kyle. Focusing on signing the names of food to his nephew—roast, potatoes, carrots, rolls, milk. It helped to keep him from thinking about how his chest still burned from where Lissette's palm had touched his heart.

His nephew.

Rafferty smiled across the table in the cheery lighting, the taste of roasted rosemary potatoes lingering on his tongue.

His nephew.

Rafferty's smile was both rueful and strangely satisfying because “his” was an ownership word that he had no right to use in conjunction with the boy. He didn't want to use it and yet the truth of it wedged in his brain.

Biologically, Kyle
was
his nephew.

When the whip-smart toddler beamed at him, bewilderment punched Rafferty in the gut. How could he feel something so complicated for a kid he didn't even know?

Not just the kid—Rafferty's gaze shifted to Lissette—but for the mother as well.

She smiled back at him, soft and sweet and inviting. Sitting there, a threesome ringing the table, they were like an old Frank Capra black and white movie playing in an almost empty theater, a nostalgic echo of an idealized past.

It's a Wonderful Life. Meet John Doe. You Can't Take It with You.

Bullshit. Whimsical bullshit. He didn't know why he was thinking like this, except his eyes linked with Lissette's and he thought,
I can make a difference here.

Now that's just ego talking, Jones.

Lissette leaned over the back of her son's chair, a sheaf of brown-sugar hair falling over her neck as she reached around his shoulders to cut his roast into bite-sized pieces. She rested her chin on the top of his head as she worked. The root vegetables smelled earthy, fragrant of autumn harvest, and it seemed to Rafferty that Lissette fortified her son with riches of the heart, perpetuating a timeless ceremony of maternal communion.

Kyle tilted his head back and looked up into his mother's eyes. She kissed his forehead and they laughed together, bonded in their tight cocoon of love.

Rafferty had never seen anything as special, as beautiful as that look from mother to son.

He felt like an interloper. He mumbled something about getting more sugar for his tea, got up, and walked into the kitchen, his heart suddenly pounding strangely. For what, he had no idea. Something rearranged inside him in the face of that unconditional love. He felt insignificant. Out of place. Unworthy.

And he realized a hard, inescapable truth. No one had ever loved him with that kind of pure, sweet fierceness.

O
n Sunday morning, Lissette went to church as usual, even though the last thing she wanted to do was go out among the community. So far she'd told only Mariah and Claudia about Kyle's condition. She didn't think either one of them would gossip about it, but she braced herself for sympathy and a barrage of questions just in case.

Nothing was different at the church, where most everyone wore Wranglers and boots and cowboy hats. The church was a plain wooden structure with a simple cross on the steeple. It was nondenominational, unless you counted the cowboy way of life as a religion.

But Claudia wasn't there. She usually sat with Lissette and Kyle and she never missed a church service unless she was ill. Had her mother-in-law been drinking again?

Lissette had thought about asking Rafferty to join them for church but had quickly dismissed the idea. For one thing, she didn't want to have to explain the relationship to the world at large. For another, she still didn't know how to tell Claudia about him. Besides, he'd left before dawn and he hadn't come into the house to tell her where he was going. To train Slate, she'd assumed.

When she got home from church, he was back. As she unloaded Kyle from the backseat, he appeared on the stairs leading to his apartment, clutching a big brown paper bag.

“My turn to pay you back for dinner last night,” he said.

“What?”

“I stopped by a place called the Mesquite Spit and picked up barbecue for lunch. I've also got a surprise.”

A surprise?

She felt at once both wary and excited. What kind of surprise?

“Let's eat first,” he said, and headed for the back door.

Intrigued, she followed him.

They ate in the kitchen. Lissette brought out the Sunday plates. When she was growing up, her mother used the good china for Sunday dinner, and she'd kept up the tradition, even though most of the time it was just she and Kyle.

Rafferty practiced sign language with Kyle again. Her son was picking it up amazingly fast. He remembered everything Rafferty had taught him from the day before. Maybe his deafness was not going to be as much of a hurdle as she'd thought. At least not from Kyle's angle. The audiologist had told her that children were resilient and adapted quickly. Much more so than adults.

They finished their meal and Rafferty insisted on helping with the dishes. Good-naturedly, he let Lissette tie one of her aprons around his waist so he wouldn't get his shirt wet. Instead of making him look domesticated, the dainty apron accentuated his craggy masculinity, calling attention to his muscular torso, strong sturdy legs, and hard, tight butt.

Lissette swallowed, hyperaware of him.

They stood side by side at the kitchen sink, Lissette washing the delicate china, Rafferty rinsing. On the floor behind them, Kyle sat stacking blocks.

Jake had never helped with the dishes. “Woman's work,” he'd bluster in a macho tone of voice and disappear to putter in the garage, hang out with his friends, or watch sports on TV.

On more than one occasion, Claudia had apologized for her son's attitude. “I spoiled him,” she'd confessed with a faint smile. “I wanted him to have a happy childhood, so I didn't make him do chores. I can see now where that was a mistake.”

Lissette honestly hadn't minded much. Jake was a big, tough guy, after all, a cowboy and a soldier. Besides, she considered the kitchen her domain. Her haven. She really hadn't wanted him mucking around in it and she was used to not having him around. Whenever he was on leave, it disrupted her routine.

But it felt surprisingly nice to have Rafferty by her side, and she was glad she had not refused his help. The clink of silverware against the plates made a reassuring clang, and this peacefulness comforted her. Rafferty soothed like a cool balm on a hot sunburn.

She passed him a plate, and his big tanned hand wrapped around the delicate ecru china. The dishware had been a wedding present from her parents. It had survived longer than her marriage. He held the plate gently, rubbed it in a circular motion until it squeeked. She couldn't seem to stop watching his hypnotic movements.

For one jolting second, she remembered what it had felt like when his work-roughened fingers had rubbed mud from her cheek. She was immediately, outrageously turned on.

“What are your plans for expanding your baked goods business?” he asked, snapping her out of her trance.

“If I'm going to do this right, I need to be very practical about it. I was doing the wedding cakes part-time, basically just to help out my friend Mariah, who runs her own wedding planning business, but it's time I stopped playing around and got serious. So, besides coming up with the recipes, which is the fun part, I've got to set up a home office.”

“You'll need a Web site, too.”

“How do you know I don't already have a Web site?”

“I Googled you.”

“You Googled me?” She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

“It was before I ever came to Jubilee,” he said. “I wanted to get some idea what I was getting into, but you didn't turn up in a Google search. Which is good for privacy, but bad for business.”

“I never had a need to advertise and besides, with Texas law you can't accept orders and payment over the Internet for goods baked in your home.”

“But people could call you up to place orders. Or mail in an order form and payment.”

“I think so. I'd have to look into the law.”

“Plus you want to expand and open a storefront some day. You need a Web site.”

“Great. One more thing on my to-do list.”

Rafferty leaned over, reaching for a plate to dry, and his elbow accidentally brushed against her breast.

He froze at the same moment she sucked in a quick, sharp breath. The contact was not intentional. She knew that, but her body responded as if it had been a very deliberate attempt to arouse. Her nipples hardened and her stomach went sloppy soft and she forgot to breathe.

Rafferty backed up fast and looked like he was about to sputter an apology, but then he said nothing.

Ah, he was going to pretend it never happened. Good move. So would she. “Thank you,” she murmured.

His eyes widened. “For what? The boob graze?” An unexpected sly grin played across his mouth and an impish spark lit his eyes. “My distinct pleasure.”

She loved how he could surprise her, being so sweet one minute, a total guy the next. “Not the boob graze. I'm overlooking the boob graze. Unless you did it on purpose. Did you do it on purpose?”

“Depends,” he quipped.

“On what?”

“Whether you liked it or not.” The impish light turned sultry. This man possessed raw sexual power that he was purposely keeping sheathed. His gaze swept over her and he curled his fingers into his palms. Struggling, she realized with a start, to keep his physical urges in check.

Heat blistered her cheeks. She decided to ignore that comment and the hungry expression on his face. She wasn't adept at flirtation. Had never been good at it. She tossed her head. “I was thanking you for giving Kyle some attention.”

His shoulders relaxed and he pressed his palms against his outer thighs. He'd won whatever internal battle had been going on in his head.

“It's no big deal,” he said.

She squeezed the damp dishcloth she hadn't even realized she was clutching in her right hand. “Yes,” she said. “Yes it is. You're teaching him sign language. That's huge.”

“What kind of guy would I be if I didn't pass on what I know about sign language?”

“It's your ranch foreman that's deaf, correct?” she asked, steering the conversation far away from boob grazes and whether she liked them or not.

He rested his back against the counter, legs splayed and arms crossed. “That's right. Guillermo Santo. In fact, he's the surprise I was telling you about. I've set up a Skype session with him for one o'clock our time.”

“Really?” How truly wonderful it would be to have a discussion with a deaf person. Hopefully, Rafferty's foreman could offer her insight into what life was like for the hearing impaired. She had so many questions. “That's so kind of him to agree and you for setting it up.”

“Guillermo's a great guy.”

“How does that work?”

“Skype or talking to Guillermo?”

“Speaking with Guillermo.”

“Sign language. I translate. He prefers not to speak. He grew up in the Deaf community where oralism is discouraged.”

“Oralism? Is that a real thing or are you just being dirty.” She surprised herself by teasing him.

“Not that I can't be dirty under the right circumstances.” He winked mischievously. “But in this case, I'm being serious. Oralism is the education of deaf students through the spoken word and lipreading. As opposed to manualism that advocates sign language.”

“You were teaching Kyle both methods, weren't you?”

He nodded. “It's just a stopgap measure until you can decide which way you want to educate your son. I can't make that decision for you, but I wanted to communicate with him more effectively. Before we get hip deep into this, there's a lot to consider.”

She dropped the dishrag into the sink, dried her hands on a cup towel, and turned to face him. “Like what?”

“Whether you want Kyle to learn sign language or not.”

“Of course I want him to sign. Anything to help my son communicate.”

“It's not as simple as that.”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Read those books I gave you. There's a lot to consider on how you want to raise Kyle. Guillermo was brought up in the Deaf community. He had a deaf mother. Most deaf children are raised in hearing families where no one else is deaf. The Deaf community historically has preferred sign language, but deaf children who are raised more integrated with society are taught to prefer lipreading. People have very strong opinions on both sides of the fence.”

She kneaded her temple against a forming headache. “I've got so much to learn.”

“You can handle it.”

Lissette wished she were as confident in her abilities. “Is he . . .” She swallowed. “Does Guillermo lead a normal life?”