Darn Good Cowboy Christmas (14 page)

“No, I'm going to call it a day and do some house cleaning. Got to get everything beautiful for my mother and aunt. We're planning a pre-Thanksgiving potluck dinner in the barn before they go on to Claude for the winter. Start spreading the word. Everyone is invited,” she said.

Ace unloaded two more boxes of stakes from the bed of his truck before he held the passenger's door open for Jasmine. They waved and drove off down the lane, honking when they reached the end. Dewar and Gemma got into his truck and fell in behind Ace's truck when they turned north toward Ringgold.

Raylen looked over at Liz and opened his arms. She walked into them and they closed around her. She looked up to find his eyes closed and his lips coming toward hers. She snapped her eyes shut and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. The kiss was hard and fiery and crackled the air around them.

“I can't stay. Momma and Daddy are expecting me to go over books with them tonight, but I had to kiss you. You ready to stand on the barn and tell everyone that we're dating?”

“But we aren't,” she said. “We haven't been on a single date.”

Raylen brushed soft kisses across her eyelids and forehead. “That can be fixed real quick. This is Wednesday. Tomorrow we'll finish this job. Friday, I've got to be in Wichita Falls for a horse meeting. So Miz Liz, would you have dinner with me on Saturday night? You don't have to work on Sunday so we won't have to be home early.”

“Yes, I would.”

“Then on Sunday afternoon, we'll go shopping for a tree and then have dinner or else have dinner and then shop for the tree. Monday we can put it up and get it decorated. If you want a real cedar one we'll go to the woods, but if you want a fake one then we'll go to the mall and find just the right size and style for you,” he said.

She leaned back and looked at him. “You
are
organized.”

“That's what they say, but I want you to have a perfect Christmas, even if it is the week before Thanksgiving.” He couldn't tell her that he was falling for her entirely too fast and he wanted her to have more than a perfect Christmas. She deserved a perfect life, not just one perfect day a year.

He kissed her one more time, and she swore she heard bells and whistles off in the distance. He didn't want to leave, but his brain was a ball of mush and he couldn't think of an excuse Maddie would buy.

“Now I really have to go. Momma said seven and it's five minutes 'til. See you tomorrow after work.”

Liz wished that Raylen wasn't so punctual or organized.

Jasmine had to make a grocery store run to Bowie for the café after work on Thursday so she couldn't go play Christmas with Liz. Gemma had three late appointments that would keep her tied up until dark. Dewar had promised Rye that he'd go with him to Breckenridge to look at a new longhorn bull he wanted to buy for rodeo stock, and they wouldn't be back until bedtime. Ace was up to his elbows in tractor repair and didn't even have time to come to the Chicken Fried for a hamburger.

That left Raylen and Liz to finish stringing lights.

He crawled out of his truck in her front yard and shook the legs of his dusty jeans down over his scuffed up cowboy boots. His chambray shirt was open down the front with a sweat-stained gauze muscle shirt underneath. He removed his straw cowboy hat, brim turned down deep in the back and front and curled up on the sides, and wiped sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. The hat looked like it had survived a Texas wildfire and been through a couple of cattle runs, all a hundred years before.

Liz had rushed home from work with intentions of taking a shower to get the grease smell from her hair, but she'd barely made it to the porch when Raylen's truck pulled up. Her work T-shirt was stained where grease had splattered on her, and her makeup had long since gone.

“Where's the rest of the crew? I knew Dewar was going with Rye, but we were supposed to have some help,” he said.

If he'd known he was working alone with Liz, he damn sure would've taken time for a quick shower and a change of clothes.

“Jasmine has to go buy groceries. Gemma had late appointments. Ace called Jasmine and said he didn't even have time to run by the café for a burger,” she explained.

“Well, I guess it's a two-man crew, then. You ready to get this job done? We've got a helluva lot of work to do, Mrs. Claus.”

She did not miss the way his sexier-than-hell blue eyes looked at her. What did they see? A messy waitress who'd just come from work? A neighbor in need? She'd love to be able to dive into those eyes like they were pretty blue ocean water and find the answers. With a slight nod, she led the way out to the cutouts. “It's even more than it looks like, Raylen. I want to have presents under the tree for everyone on the night of my party, so that means some shopping.”

“For everyone? How do you do that when you don't even know how many will be there or what they'd like?”

“Boxes of candy and tins of popcorn. Everyone likes that, and it's fun to have a present.”

He tucked her hand in his and paced his step to match hers. Hooter stretched and followed five feet behind them. Blister had a sudden burst of energy and bounded off the porch to run ahead of them.

The spark was definitely still there. It hadn't died overnight. Two days of fantastic sex and then a day without. But the old adage “out of sight, out of mind” must not apply to sexual attractions. The sizzling tingle was as strong as ever, and even though she smelled like grease and onions, he wanted to kiss her.

She wasn't a bit amazed at the gushy warmth spreading all over her body when he took her hand. It was there every time he touched her. He didn't even have to touch her; just catching him staring at her from across the yard or the room made her hotter'n a drop of water on the café griddle.

He squeezed her hand and swung her around to face him. “I've been putting hay in the barn all day and…”

She took two steps forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I've been working around food all day but I want to kiss you.”

Her lips were like water to a man who'd walked thirty miles in the desert without a canteen. He couldn't get enough of them. One long, steaming hot kiss led to another and then a dozen, fueling a sexual bonfire before Raylen pulled back.

“Another minute like that and these lights aren't going to be working when your carnival gets here, darlin',” he whispered into her hair.

“Right now I'm all for instant gratification and working until midnight a few nights,” she said.

“Me too, but when your family and friends arrive I want everything to be perfect. I think it'd be great if they took pictures to Haskell and showed him that all his artwork is on display this year,” Raylen said.

They'd barely begun putting the lights on a piece when Liz's phone rang. She checked Caller ID and answered it. “Hi, Blaze! You just wakin' up? I've already put in a day at the… oh my God! What is it? Blister just ran down a field mouse and she's eating it from the nose, yuk, to the tail and I can hear the bones crunching.”

Raylen looked up with a quizzical expression, removed his hat, and hung it on a snowman as he wiped away sweat again. That time he wasn't sure if it was from the weather or the inward heat.

“It's Blaze,” she said as if that was all the explanation he needed.

Liz sat down on the ground beside the eight-foot-tall wooden Christmas tree. “Yes, I live in the country and yes, I really have a cat. I just told you that she's eating a mouse right now. So how did your day go?”

Raylen couldn't hear what Blaze said and didn't want to. A surge of jealousy shot through him and brought blistering angry steam out of his ears. It's a good thing he'd taken his favorite hat off or it would have been scorched. She could have said that she was working, that her brand new boyfriend had come over to help her and that she'd talk to him later, but oh, no, she just sat down like she was going to talk for a whole hour and ignored Raylen.

“That is so funny! You almost got yourself in a bind. You'd better check IDs before you go to flirtin' anymore. That was jailbait and could have landed your sorry ass in jail,” she said.

Raylen finished stringing the lights on the tree, fastening them down with clips so the wind wouldn't blow them halfway to the coast. He went on to the snowman display and opened the box of lights for them. According to the positioning of the clips, they were to be strung all around the outside perimeter of each of the three snowmen.

“So you're on the way to Denton for the next-to-last gig of the year. Are you getting excited about sitting still for the winter?” she asked.

Raylen didn't give a damn about Blaze. He'd looked forward to spending time alone with Liz all day, and his Irish temper was only a notch below the boiling stage.

You
are
being
a
big
baby. She misses him like a brother, and if you were in her shoes and Gemma called, you damn sure wouldn't tell her to hang up and call back later,
his conscience scolded him.

Yes, I would. If she cared as much about me as I do her, then she'd want to spend what precious time she could with me. And if that was Becca, she'd be as mad as I am,
he argued.

“You are kidding me. Tell me what happened and don't leave out a single detail,” Liz said.

Raylen
is
working
by
himself,
her conscience said bluntly.
Hang
up!

But
I
haven't talked to Blaze in two days and he's telling me about Tressa being sick,
she argued.

She looked up to tell Raylen that she'd be finished in a minute and saw anger shooting out his eyes, his mouth set in a firm line, and the slight cleft in his chin deepening in a frown.

“What?” she mouthed.

His jaws worked like he was chewing gum, but nothing came out. Finally, he turned around and took two steps toward the house.

“Gotta go. Call you later,” she told Blaze and snapped the phone shut.

“Raylen, dammit, turn around.”

He kept walking.

She grabbed his hat and threw it at him. “Then go!”

The hat sailed over his head and hit the ground in front of him. He picked it up, slapped the dirt and grass from it, and settled it on his head before he turned around and said with gritted teeth, “Do not ever treat my hat like that.”

She jogged to him, grabbed his hat off the top of his head, slammed it down on the ground, and stomped on it. “There's what I think of your damned hat.”

He was too mad to speak so he picked up the hat, punched it back into shape, crammed it on his head, and kept walking. She took a deep breath and watched him go. His eyes were set straight ahead when he drove down the lane.

“Dammit! I wasn't through with this fight!” she said.

The phone rang, and hoping it was Raylen, she answered before she looked at the ID. “You pompous bastard. Don't you walk away from me when we are fighting.”

Blaze laughed loudly in her ear. “I've been called pompous and my parents weren't married so I guess that part is right. But I didn't walk away from you. I do believe you hung up on me so I don't think this is about me. I called back to make sure you are all right.”

“Hell no! I'm pissed. I'm not all right and I'm going to fix it right now. Tell me the rest about Tressa and make it quick because I'm so damned mad my cussin' is liable to fry out my cell phone.”

Blaze barely kept the laughter down enough to say, “It's just a cold. She got a shot, some antibiotics, and Marva Jo ran the fortune-telling wagon one night. Tressa about went crazy, though. It was the first time since I've been with the carnival that she was too sick to work. She says she's well enough to take over the fortunes in Denton and that, by damn, you are coming back to do them in Bowie.”

“Okay, okay,” Liz said. “I'll be there every night after I get off work, but right now I've got to go see what the hell put a burr in Raylen's saddle.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Blaze asked.

“Damn straight, and he's not getting mad at me for throwing his hat on the ground,” she said.

“Whoa! You threw a cowboy's hat on the ground? Darlin', that's a sin worse than coveting your neighbor's ass. Did you pick it up and hand it back to him nicely?”

“Hell no! I stomped it flat. So I guess I don't get to go to heaven today. Call me later.” She flipped the phone shut. Covet her neighbor's ass! Well, she'd already done that more times than she could count since she'd come to Ringgold, so throwing Raylen's hat in the dirt could just be written down on the list with her other sins.

***

Raylen felt really stupid by the time he got home. He was glad that Gemma wasn't there so he could wallow in his self-proclaimed pity pool as long as he wanted. Liz missed her carnie life. She missed her friend, Blaze, who she probably belonged with more than she did with an old cowboy like Raylen. And she'd proven every bit of it by stomping on his hat. God Almighty! That was the ultimate insult.

He hung his poor, abused hat on the rack beside the door along with his black felt dress hat and his good straw hat, shucked out of his jeans in the living room, threw his dirty shirt over a rocking chair, and kicked his boots off in the hallway. When he reached the bathroom, he was wearing nothing but his socks. He wadded those up in a ball and slung them at the far wall.

“Damn women anyway,” he muttered as he turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm.

“Nobody falls in love with their soul mate when they are kids. I don't give a damn if she could have walked a barbed wire fence instead of a rail one in her damned bare feet. I've been a fool to think that she was the one for me. Shit, any other woman wouldn't leave me standing cold while they talked to their best friend. How would she feel if I left her sitting there while I talked to Ace about coon huntin'? Hell, I wouldn't do that to her. I like her too damn much to talk coon huntin' when I could be spending time with her. And I would never, ever throw her favorite hat in the dirt and then step on it.” He fumed as he got into the shower and soaped up his body.

She didn't even knock on his door but plowed right inside without an invitation, then took a look at the string of clothes leading down the hallway and the hats on the rack beside the door. She grabbed the one she'd stomped on and crammed it down on her head. It was too big, so she adjusted it to fit on the back of her head and then followed the noise of the shower. She might as well take the damn thing with her to the next fight since she'd offended it in the first one.

One minute Raylen was mumbling about women. The next the shower curtain flew open and there was Liz, her hands on her hips, anger flashing from her dark eyes, and his hat on her head. That shut up the tirade instantly.

“What the hell was that all about?” she asked.

“What the hell are you doing in my house and why are you wearing my hat?”

“Having a fight with you, you mule-headed jackass! The door was open and I followed the trail of clothes. And evidently this damn hat means more to you than I do, and since it started the fight, I figured it should be here for the next one. Now answer me.” She raised her voice two notches.

“Don't you treat me like shit and then yell at me. I didn't cause this problem, lady. You did when you'd rather talk to your carnie boyfriend as me! And you can damn well go put my hat back on the rack. This steam will get it all out of shape.”

“You are a jealous horse's ass. I wasn't talking to a boyfriend. That was Blaze. I told you that he is my friend, and Tressa's been sick. And this hat is so damned ugly it would take more than a stomping or steam to get it out of shape. It already looks like shit,” she said.

“Oh, sure. Make an excuse. I heard you talking about him almost going out with a teenager. What kind of friends do you have that would be attracted to a little girl? And don't talk about my hat like that.”

Liz narrowed her eyes. “The girl was seventeen, not a little girl. And she didn't look like a child, either. And don't be hateful! This is your fault, Raylen O'Donnell. Your Irish temper put you in this pot of boiling water.”

“You put me in this pot, not my temper. You'd rather talk to your carnie friend than me? Well, go on and talk to him. And put my hat back and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”