Darn Good Cowboy Christmas (7 page)

He was a pretty cowboy with his blond curls and blue eyes, almost as handsome as Slade, but his flirting eyes did nothing to heat up her insides like a glance from Raylen did.

“I'm Liz. Amber is leaving tomorrow and I'm taking her place. What can I get you?” she asked.

“Well, honey, how about dinner tomorrow night since Miz Ellen is too much woman for me to handle?” Ace said in a slow Texas drawl.

But it didn't make Liz's underpants start crawling down toward her ankles like Raylen's voice did.

“Darlin', you couldn't handle me either. You want the big breakfast or just coffee?” Liz asked.

“Girl after my heart.” Ellen giggled. “Reminds me of myself when I was young.”

“Hell, Ellen, you never did have black hair unless it come out of a bottle.”

“Now don't go givin' away the family secrets, Nellie.” Ellen giggled.

Jasmine came out to the table. “All Ace wants is coffee. Those fellows out in his bunkhouse cook a mean breakfast for him every morning, but he can't stay away from Chicken Fried because he likes to flirt.”

“Mornin', Jazzy. You want to go to dinner with me tomorrow night so my pride won't be wounded? Miz Ellen here is too fast for me and your new waitress is just downright mean,” Ace teased.

“Woman has to be mean around you. I saved you a slice of lemon pie. You want it now or later?” Jasmine asked.

“Right now. If I don't eat it in a hurry, Slade will talk you out of it,” Ace said.

Liz went to the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and put the last piece of lemon pie on a saucer. The place was full of good-natured cowboys, both bad boys and good guys, but not a one of them appealed to her. However, all she had to do was conjure up a vision of Raylen and they all disappeared. Was there really such a thing as love at first sight or even lust at first sight?

She carried the coffee and pie out to Ace and set it before him, deliberately brushing his shoulder. Not a single spark or ember fired up. Nothing. Nada!

“I heard that Haskell gave you his place. You want to sell it?” Ace asked.

“I do not! Why would you want it, anyway?” Liz asked.

“Raylen would pay me triple what I gave you for it. He wants that land so damn bad he'd drop down on one knee and propose to you to get it.” Ace laughed.

“Well, it's not for sale. I'm going to live there forever,” Liz said.

Her bubble popped with a loud cracking sound inside her head. While she'd been floating around in the land of passionate kisses, Raylen had been sweet-talking his way into buying her twenty acres. Well, it would take a hell of a lot more than one steamy hot kiss and a five o'clock good morning to get her land. Even if she had been in love with the man since she was a kid, he would squat and fall backwards before he worked that angle on her.

All
men
have
an
angle. They either want your money, they want to get in your underpants, or they want both.
Aunt Tressa's words echoed in her head as she fell to earth with a hard thump.

“Dammit!” she whispered as she followed Jasmine back to the kitchen.

“So what'd you think of Ace?” Jasmine asked.

“He's a bad boy lookin' for a woman with that disease Becca has got. I notice that she doesn't even look at him but flirts with every other man in the house,” Liz said.

Jasmine laughed out loud. “They dated some in high school. He went away to college, and the breakup was not a nice one.”

“Do you know everything about everybody?” Liz asked.

“Almost. I've been here since last February, and a small café is almost as good a gossip place as a beauty shop. What I don't hear, Gemma does, and we trade off,” Jasmine said.

Amber carried a pile of dirty dishes to the sink and started rinsing them before loading the dishwasher. “So what was it you did in the carnival?” she asked.

“I told fortunes and did some belly dancin',” Liz said.

“Well, I'll be damned. I'd have figured you for the one who tamed the lions,” Jasmine said.

“It's a carnival, Jasmine, not a circus.”

Amber giggled. “Y'all talkin' about this place? Well, it's a circus right now. Slade's aunt and granny are arguing as usual. Becca is flirting with the cowboy right next to her, and Raylen and Gemma are on their way in the door. It's fixin' to heat up out there.”

Liz waited until they were seated before she went back out to the dining room. “Good mornin'. What can I get you two?” she asked.

“Pancakes for me. Raylen didn't cook this mornin', and then I had to drag him off the tractor to get him to feed me. And it was his morning to cook,” Gemma said. “And coffee, black as sin and strong as hell.”

“Same for me. Gemma is a big girl, and she didn't want to get up early, so if I had cooked, it would have been cold so she can't bitch,” Raylen said.

“You two live together?” Liz asked.

Gemma nodded. “Last year when I put in the shop the folks said I could live with them and I did for a couple of weeks. But then Raylen said I could use one of his spare bedrooms so I moved in with him. Momma is a better cook.”

“But Momma is a hell of a lot nosier, ain't she?” Raylen smiled.

“Yep, she is,” Ace said from the table behind them. “But you gotta love her ʼcause she's your momma.”

“See,” Ellen said. “It's the law. You got to love your momma, your granny, and your aunt who is a hell of a lot younger than your granny.”

Slade rolled his eyes. “How are things at the O'Donnell place? Y'all ready to sell Glorious Danny Boy yet? Jane would give you a blank check for that horse.”

Raylen shook his head. “Momma wouldn't sell Danny Boy for half the gold in Fort Knox. She raised him up from a colt. She'd sell Gemma before she would Danny Boy.”

Gemma slapped him on the shoulder. “No she wouldn't. I'm the baby daughter. She'd probably sell you though. You're just a worthless old third son.”

Liz had started back to the kitchen when Raylen reached out and touched her arm. “What are you doin' when you get off work?”

“I'm going back out to the barn and getting into more Christmas boxes so I'll know what I've got and what to buy.”

Gemma clapped her hands. “Can I come to your house and play? I love Christmas. Are they those old lights and ornaments?”

“They look like they belonged to Aunt Sara's grandma. She must've liked Christmas because there's boxes and boxes that I haven't even opened.”

“My last appointment is at three. I'll be over soon as I get her out the door,” Gemma said.

“Come right on. Soon as I take stock of what's out there, I intend to start putting up the lights. I want it all done before Thanksgiving. Momma and Aunt Tressa are coming the week before because they've got a gig in Bowie. I'll take all the help I can get. Raylen is coming too. We made a deal. He's going to help me do the Christmas stuff and then I'm going to exercise horses as payback.” Liz fought the urge to rub the spot where Raylen's hand had touched her wrist. It was hotter 'n a barbed wire fence at the front gates of hell, but she didn't touch it.

“What's that?” Becca crossed the floor in long strides.

“I'm putting up Christmas before Thanksgiving. Want to come help?” Liz asked icily.

“Hell, no! I've got better things to do and so do you.” Becca touched Raylen on the shoulder.

Raylen shrugged off her hand. “Maybe so, but I'm going to help out a neighbor and then the whole month of December when I'm busy as the devil she's going to be exercising horses.”

Becca pulled out a chair to sit at their table. “You are an idiot, my friend.”

“Be careful. You might not want to be friends with an idiot,” Raylen teased.

Liz left them to their bantering and took their order to Jasmine.

“That hussy better not steal my help this afternoon,” Liz mumbled.

“Help with what?” Jasmine asked.

“He said he'd help get my Christmas boxes down from the shelves in the barn and she's out there working her wiles on him,” Liz said.

Jasmine shook her head. “Don't pay any attention to her, Liz. The show is all for Ellen and Nellie's benefit. They'll play cards on Friday night with her great-aunt from down in Chico and tell that they saw her flirting with Raylen. Great-aunt will call Becca's daddy and tell him. He'll be happy that she's not seriously interested in his new foreman, who is that guy out there with the dark hair and the come-hither-to-bed look in his eyes. And all will be good on that ranch. Meanwhile, back at the soap opera, she'll be spending her nights in the bunkhouse with the hired help while Daddy entertains visions of merging two big ranches.”

“A female Blaze, only Aunt Tressa don't care who he marries or if he's a playboy the rest of his life,” Liz said.

“Who is Blaze?” Amber asked.

“He's a crack-jack mechanic who takes care of the carnival equipment. He's so sexy that he ought to be a carnival attraction. Women flock to him like flies on a fresh cow patty. And that's exactly what he is: a bunch of bullshit! But he's a nice piece of eye candy and he can charm the hair off a frog's ass, so women don't have much chance when he smiles at them. He's my best friend and when Blaze gets here, Miss Becca's liable to get an acute case of roundheelitis and fall into his bed.”

“How about your bed? Raylen going to warm it up?” Amber asked as she loaded a tray of dishes into the dishwasher.

“What in the hell made you ask that?” Liz asked.

“A blind person could see the vibes between you two.” Amber giggled. “And not every man in Montague County would offer to haul old boxes down off a shelf. You might be the fortune-teller, but you can't see what's right in front of your face.”

“You want a job with a traveling carnival? With that kind of imagination, Aunt Tressa could turn you into a fortune-teller in no time.” Liz teased.

Amber shook her head. “No thank you. I'm goin' home.”

Liz turned slowly and sure enough, Raylen was leaning against the doorjamb leading into the tack room. Her sixth sense hadn't failed her, or maybe she should call it her lust sense because every time he was anywhere near, a warm liquid feeling oozed down into her stomach. Smudges of dirt were smeared across his forehead, he had hat hair and a band on his forehead where his straw cowboy hat had rested all day, and his jeans were dusty and his chambray shirt sweaty. And her pulse still quickened at the sight of him.

“Gemma said to tell you she's sorry. Ellen and Nellie walked in just as she was finishin' up with her last old gal and asked if she had time to cut Nellie's hair and style Ellen's, so she won't be here for another couple of hours,” Raylen drawled. “I'm also supposed to tell you we're havin' a party next Monday night in my barn. We do it every year for Halloween. Gemma loves the holidays. We have Halloween at my place. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas is at the folks'.”

His deep voice sent that lust sense into overdrive. She raised a dark eyebrow and flirted a little. “Is that an invitation?”

“Yes, it is, and Gemma seems to believe you about that fortune telling stuff, so she's going to ask you to tell fortunes for everyone so bring your crystal ball or your cards or whatever other hocus-pocus you need,” he said.

“You want me to dance, too?” she asked.

“Sure I do.” He grinned. “How about a demonstration right here and now just for me? You got a skimpy little outfit to put on? Can I tell Gemma you said yes?”

“Yes, I'd love to tell fortunes, and yes, I'd love to go to a Halloween party. Never been to one. Is it dress up? I'll wear my belly dancing costume and you can stop doubting me, Raylen O'Donnell.”

A gray cobweb had circled around the top of her hair like a filmy halo. But Lizelle didn't remind Raylen of an angel, more like a devil woman haunting his dreams and firing up his desire. She wore the same jeans and shirt she'd worn at work all day and still smelled like a mixture of food and leftover exotic perfume. The combination was so heady that all he wanted to do right then was kiss her again and see where it could or would lead.

“Yes, ma'am, it is dress up. I'm going as a cowboy, and you sure can come as a belly dancer.” He rocked forward on his tiptoes and reached for a box on the third shelf.

“I can do that.” She smiled.

“I don't think so. I can barely reach it without a ladder.”

She giggled. “I'm not talking about getting to that box up there. I'm talking about wearing one of my costumes to the party. Should I wear orange, turquoise, or hot pink?”

He set the box on the table and pointed toward the ceiling. “Whichever one you want to wear, and I'll believe it when I see it. This isn't all of the decorations. The loft is full of stuff. Your Aunt Sara loved Christmas, and every year Haskell made her one thing new to go out in the yard. Even after she was gone, he kept on making a new piece every year. He kept them up there, all covered up with tarps. Want to go take a look? There's probably enough to reach from here to the road.”

Liz forgot all about the costumes. “Are you serious? Uncle Haskell mentioned more stuff, but I figured it was like this.”

“Yes, I am serious. After she died he didn't put the stuff out in the yard, but he kept making one thing a year. I found him up there once when I was a teenager painting a funny lookin' wagon pulled by four horses. It was all painted in wild colors, but it had Santa sitting on the driver's seat and the top was covered with toys. I asked him what he was making and he explained to me about how Sara had always liked for him to make her one wooden cutout a year and the wagon was his gift to her that year. Come on. I'll show you. There's got to be thirty or more of them up there,” Raylen said.

The wooden ladder went straight up with only room for one person at a time. Raylen stood to one side and let her go before he did, waited until she was more than halfway up, and then put his boot on the bottom rung. His eyes naturally went to her well-rounded fanny, and his thoughts to something a helluva lot more fun than uncovering wooden Christmas lawn decorations.

The loft was half as big as the barn and swept clean. Buckets of paint were arranged on shelves on the north side with brushes standing, handle down, in Mason jars. Everything was organized and very clean.

“This reminds me of our barn in west Texas. Grandpa does that. Keeps his paint all lined up by color and his brushes cleaned and in jars ready to use. He works hard from the first of December to the first of March every year redoing our wagons. I love to watch him paint. His hands are so steady and his combination of colors is breathtaking.” Her voice had a faraway sound as if she were homesick.

“You miss it, don't you?” Raylen whispered.

“Miss what?”

“Being a carnie.”

“Of course I miss it. Would you miss ranchin' if suddenly you lived in the middle of Dallas?”

His expression changed to dead serious. “I couldn't survive without ranchin' and horses and tractors. Missin' it wouldn't even cover the feelings. I'd probably wither up and die in the big city. Is that what you're going to do here, Liz? Wither up and die?”

Liz turned around and met his eyes in a determined stare. “No, I am not. I've wanted this forever and I'm going to grow roots. But I'll always miss a portion of carnie life. It's what my family is, not just what they do. Uncle Haskell was the only one who ever quit the business and even then when he came home for the holidays at Christmas, he helped Grandpa paint.”

Raylen heard the freedom in her voice. It was an elusive thing that he couldn't put into words, but it was there. There wasn't enough good rich Red River dirt to grow roots on Liz's heart. Like she said, the carnival and constant movement is what her family was, not just what they did. And Hanson blood flowed in her veins. It was what she was and that involved wings that flew from one place to the other.

He removed the tarp from the first wooden cutout and revealed a dark-haired woman in a bright orange harem-looking outfit sitting in the fork of a Saguaro cactus. She was barefoot and had a Santa stocking on her head. The cactus had Christmas garland wrapped around it and holes drilled in it for lights.

“Guess this year's decoration is in celebration of you taking over the house. I hadn't seen it before but that is you, Liz. You look like a dark-haired
I Dream of Jeannie
. Evidently, I was wrong about the dancing costumes. Is that the one you are going to wear to the party?”

His heart did a nose-dive into his boots. Every cowboy in the whole damn county would be panting after her like a bull in the springtime. He wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a date with her and he'd taunted her into wearing that skimpy thing.

“Yes, it is, Raylen. It's my orange belly dancing outfit, and I think I will wear it to the Halloween party. Orange goes with Halloween, doesn't it?”

Liz folded her arms across her chest and studied the piece of art. It was definitely a rendition of her in her orange belly dancing outfit. Uncle Haskell had always liked it better than the pink or the turquoise. But why did he place her on a cactus and not on a wagon pulled by reindeer, or sitting beside Santa?

“There's holes in the cactus for Christmas lights.” Raylen couldn't take his eyes off the costume.

“Well, that does make it a little more Christmas-like. Let's look at the rest.” She'd think about the significance of the cactus later. A prickly old cactus had nothing to do with Christmas.

“Present to past or past to present?”

“You mean they're organized?”

Raylen pointed to the bits of paper thumbtacked on the wall above the tarps around the room. Each one had five years penciled on it beginning with 1975–1979.

“Past to present,” she said.

Raylen moved past her and dropped a dusty tarp from a group of flat wooden cutouts. The first one was Santa Claus in a cowboy hat and boots, and Mrs. Claus in an apron holding up her dress tail to reveal bright red cowboy boots.

Liz moved closer and held the other end as she peered behind it. “Look, there's a date on the back that says 1975, and what's this?”

She peeled off a thick envelope that had been stapled to the backside of the cutout. “It's got my name on the front,” she said.

“Then I guess you can open it.” Raylen would have rather been holding her than propping up Mr. and Mrs. Claus on the only wall of the loft that wasn't filled with tarp covered ornaments.

She plopped down on the floor, sitting cross-legged like a little girl, and opened the letter. “He says that he doesn't have time to tell me all about each piece over the phone and if he writes it all down I can keep it and think about it later. This piece is the first Christmas he and Sara were together on the ranch and he was working at Nocona for a boot company and he made her a pair of red boots and this thing as a funny joke to put out in the yard. She loved it so much that she said he had to build one every year of something that happened in their lives.”

“Okay, ready for 1976?” Raylen set Mr. and Mrs. Santa to one side to reveal the next one.

It was a four-by-eight-foot nativity scene so realistic that she reached up to touch the woolly lamb beside the shepherd. She had to stare at baby Jesus in the manger a full minute before she was convinced his little chest wasn't moving with each breath. Haskell had captured the love in Mary's and Joseph's eyes, as they looked down on the newborn so well that Liz wondered why he hadn't taken up professional portrait painting.

“He's even better with a paintbrush than I remembered,” she said. “This is because Aunt Sara wanted something that represented the reason for the season, as she said.”

“He's an artist, alright,” Raylen agreed.

“He doesn't say what kind of reaction she had to his gifts. I would love to know if she got excited and clapped her hands or if she hugged him and danced around the living room because she was so happy,” Liz said.

Raylen moved the nativity over and revealed the next piece. “I suppose that was private and he doesn't want to share those memories.”

Liz laid the letter down and pointed. “That's a pumper. But I didn't see oil wells on the property. Look closely, Raylen. There are elves peeking out from the bottom.”

“There aren't any oil wells on his land,” Raylen said.

Liz read a while before she looked up to find Raylen staring at her. “Aunt Sara inherited land that year from a great-aunt down near Beaumont. It had oil wells on it and she had a share of the royalties. That was the year Uncle Haskell quit the factory and started ranchin' full time. Look, there's holes for lights in the pumper. No wonder there are boxes and boxes of lights in the tack room.”

Two hours later the sun was going down and they weren't even halfway through uncovering the beautiful artwork or reading about it.

“So,” Raylen held out a hand to help her up off the floor, “if you put all this stuff up it's going to look like one of those Christmas light drives.”

“Won't that be wonderful! Every year when we are in a town that has a light exhibit, Momma and I take a drive through it. Is there one around here?”

“The prettiest one is up in Chickasha, Oklahoma. But if you put up all this, you can bet folks will come from miles around to drive down your lane,” he said.

“I'll sit on the porch in the evening and hand out candy canes when they turn around.” She remembered the time that they'd gone through one in east Texas and there had been a donation booth at the end for a charity. The lady there had worn a Mrs. Claus suit and gave out candy canes. Did she have time to buy a costume like that? What would she look like in a white wig?

“You goin' to wear a belly dancin' outfit while you hand out candy canes?” Raylen teased as he pulled her up to her feet.

“Of course, and if anyone wants to put ten dollars in my jar, I'll do a dance out in the yard for them,” she shot back.

His face went as still as stone, but he didn't let go of her hand once she was standing. “You can't do that. This is a small town, Liz, but that would draw idiots from everywhere and you might get hurt. Promise me you won't do that, or if you do that I can come over to protect you.”

“I was teasing. I was thinking about a Mrs. Claus costume. You want to be Santa?” she said quickly.

“Thank God and no, thank you.”

He drew her closer, looking down into her dark eyes, trying to find the faint glimmer of something stationary that would not fly away. But he couldn't see anything but a reflection of his own immediate wants and needs—and that was to kiss her.

His mouth lowered to hers, and she rolled up on her toes to meet him halfway. Lips devoured lips when they met in a clash of passion. She wrapped her arms around his back, her fingers digging into the tight muscles and broad shoulders. He pulled her shirt loose from her jeans and ran his hands up her back to the bra level, his fingers enjoying the softness of her bare flesh. The raw heat that flowed between them was intoxicating and addictive. Liz had never experienced anything like it before, and she instantly wanted more.

“Hey, anyone here?” Gemma's voice came from the doorway.

Liz stepped out of Raylen's embrace and blushed.

“We're in the loft. Be down in a minute,” Raylen called down.

“I've got food,” Gemma singsonged back up.

Raylen pulled Liz back into his embrace and brushed a feathery soft kiss across her mouth. “You have the sweetest lips,” he whispered.

“You say that to all the girls?”

He hugged her tightly and traced her jawline with his forefinger. “Only the belly dancers. You are so beautiful, Liz.”

“You say that to all the girls, too?”

He sighed. “Only the ones who can walk the fence better than me.”