Cowboy Under the Mistletoe (3 page)

But she was as drawn to Jake Hamilton today as she had been in high school. He was her buddy, her first love, and foolish though she might be, she yearned to help him, to be his friend again, to repay a debt of love and loyalty.

If he’d revealed her secret nine years ago, maybe her family wouldn’t despise Jake so much. But he’d kept silent because she had begged him to. And he’d suffered for his loyalty.

He could walk off and leave her in the yard every time she visited, but she wouldn’t stop trying. He meant too much to her.

If that was pathetic, so be it.

Grabbing a small black suitcase Jake had left behind, she followed him into the house. Her stomach sank like a brick in a pond when she spotted Miss Pat in the big blue corduroy recliner. The once vital, high-energy woman had shriveled to child-size in the months since her hip surgery. She looked a hundred instead of in her early seventies.

“Hi, Miss Pat.”

“Look here, Ralph, it’s little Allison. Isn’t she pretty as a picture?”

Ralph? Who was Ralph? She looked to Jake for help but he’d moved around behind his grandmother and simply shook his head at her. Allison got the message and didn’t press the subject.

She pulled a worn leather ottoman close to the recliner and plopped down. “How you feeling, Miss Pat? Can I do anything for you?”

“You sure can, sweetie. I am useless as a newborn.” Her strong voice didn’t match her body. “Get my purse over there on the table where Jacob stuck it, and then find my Sudoku book in all that mess of sacks.”

“I can do that.” Allison hopped up, amused but pleased that Miss Pat’s personality hadn’t faded like her body, a good sign she had the grit to stage a fourth quarter comeback. “Would you like for me to unpack and put everything away? I’d be pleased to do it.”

“Now, there’s a fine idea. See, Jacob.” She tilted her head back to gaze up at her grandson. “Your grandpa said something would turn up and here she is. Allison will help get this place in order. Won’t you, Allison?”

“Well, sure I will, if that’s what you need.”

“Good. This house needs a cleaning from top to bottom.”

“I can do that.” Never mind that her brothers would go ballistic to know she was in the Hamilton house with Jake. She was here for Miss Pat. Helping a friend was the Buchanon way. And yes, she admitted, she wanted to get to know Jake again. He was a memory that wouldn’t go away. “I can’t tonight, but I’ll come by tomorrow after work. How’s that sound?”

“She’s a jewel, isn’t she, Jacob? Just like in high school when she was sweet on you.”

Jake looked as if he’d swallowed a bug. Allison’s face heated, but she grinned. Miss Pat never minced words.

“Come on,
Jacob,
” she said, teasing him about the seldom-used name. “Help me find that puzzle book.”

Reluctantly, and with his expression shuttered, he started crinkling plastic sacks. Allison fetched the handbag, handed it off to Miss Pat and joined Jake in the hunt for that all-important puzzle book.

Each time she looked up, their eyes met. Every bit as quickly, one of them would look away. She was acutely aware of his masculine presence, his cowboy swagger, his manly, outdoors scent. Aware in a way that disturbed her thinking.

She found the thick Sudoku pad in the bottom of an ugly brown plastic washbasin.

“Here’s your puzzle book, Miss Pat. Need a pencil?”

“Got one in my purse.” Miss Pat had already extracted a cell phone and was scrolling the contacts. “No, Ralph, it’s not time for my meds.”

Jake glanced at a square wall clock hanging next to an outdated calendar, a sad reminder that no one had lived here for several months. “Another hour, Granny.”

“That’s what I told Ralph. I’ve got to text Mae at the prison and let her know I survived the ride home.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Carson Convalescence was not a prison.”

“A lot you’d know about it.” Using an index finger, she tapped a message on the phone’s keyboard. “Ah, there we go. Poor Mae. Stuck in that prison through Christmas.”

With a resigned shake of his head, Jake grabbed two suitcases and lugged them through a doorway. Allison followed with an armful of crinkling Walmart sacks.

“Do you know where everything goes?” she asked.

“No.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Allison opened the closet and took out some empty hangers and then started unpacking the mishmash of belongings.

Jake edged around her, looking uncertain and a little thunderous. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?” He paused in hanging up a dress to stare at her across Miss Pat’s dusty dresser.

Every nerve ending reacted to that green gaze, but Allison refused to let her jumbled feelings show. “Because Ralph said I would.”

He grinned. Finally. He had a killer grin beneath olive eyes that had driven more than one girl to doodle his name on the edge of her spiral notebook. Including Allison. But that was in high school. That was before the insanity of a football-focused town had heaped so much condemnation and hurt onto a teenage boy that he’d run away with the rodeo.

“Ralph was my grandpa. She talks to him a lot.”

“Did the doctors say anything?” Allison folded a blue fleece throw into a neat square. “About her mental state, I mean?”

“No. I’m worried, though. I wonder if she’ll be able to live alone again.”

“You’re not planning to stay?”

“Not long. Maybe until after Christmas.” He jerked one shoulder. “I gotta make a living.”

A massive wave of disappointment drenched her good mood. A short stay was better, safer, sensible, but Allison didn’t like it.

A stack of nighties in her hand, she pondered her reaction. She was an adult now, not a dewy-eyed teenager in love with the only boy who’d ever kissed her.

Like that made one bit of difference when it came to Jake Hamilton.

* * *

Jake saw a range of emotions flicker across Allison’s face. Disappointment, worry, relief. He latched on to the last one. She wanted him gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Away from the town that revered Buchanons and loathed Jake Hamilton.

Then why was she here? Why did she insist on pushing past his caution when absolutely nothing good could come of it?

He zipped open a tired blue suitcase, a throwback to the sixties, to find a stack of underwear. Not his favorite thing to unpack with Allison in the room.

His brain had a sudden flashback, a suppressed memory of pink and lace he never should have seen.

He glanced at her. Did she remember, too?

Allison was beside him in a second. “Let me do that.”

She grabbed the stack from his hands as he crouched toward the opened drawer. They knocked heads.

“Ow!” Allison sat back on her haunches and laughed. “Hard head.”

“I was about to say the same thing.” In truth, her head was harder on the inside than on the outside. The woman never gave up, a trait that would leave her disappointed and hurt.

They were a foot apart in front of Granny Pat’s oak dresser, on their toes, both holding to a stack of ladies’ lingerie, and Jake wished for the thousandth time he could erase one terrible day from their lives. He was comfortable with Allison,
liked
her, a dangerous thing, then and now. She made him smile. She even made him believe in himself. Or she once had. With everything in him he wanted to know this grown-up Allison, a dangerous, troubling proposition.

“You’ve grown up.” Stupid thing to say, but better than yanking her into his arms—an errant, radical thought worthy of a beating from the Buchanon brothers.

She tilted her head, smile quizzical. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

For him? Very bad. But instead of admitting the truth, he tweaked her flyaway hair and pushed to a stand, distancing himself from the cute temptation of Quinn Buchanon’s sister. “I’ll drag in more of Granny Pat’s stuff while you put this away. Okay?”

As if he wasn’t already struggling not to touch her, Allison reached out a hand. What could he do except take hold and help her up?

A mistake, of course.

Her skin was a thousand times softer than he remembered and smooth as silk. His rough cowboy hand engulfed her small one. He was nowhere near as tall as her brothers, but he towered above Allison. What man wouldn’t understand this protective ferocity that roared in his veins?

Allison had definitely grown up.

And Jake Hamilton was in major trouble.

Chapter Three

M
onday morning, Jake drove the dusty graveled road past rows and rows of fence line leading to the Double M Ranch two miles and a world away from Gabriel’s Crossing. Multicolored Brahma brood cows grazed peacefully in this section of Manny Morales’s pasture land. Not one of them looked up as Jake roared by and pulled beneath the Double M crossbars.

In the near distance, a sprawling ranch house sat like a brick monument to the success of a Mexican immigrant whose work ethic and cattle smarts had created a well-respected bucking bull program. Jake knew. He’d worked for Manny before the Buchanons and the rodeo had given him reason to leave Gabriel’s Crossing.

Dust swirled around the truck tires as he parked and got out. Manny, short and stout and leathery, stood in the barn entrance, white Resistol shading his eyes.

“Manny!” Jake broke into a long stride, eager to see his friend and mentor.

“Is that you, Jake boy?” The older man propped a shovel against the barn and came to meet him.

With back slaps and handshakes, they greeted one another. “Manny, it’s good to see you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you was coming?”

“Why? Would you have cooked for me?”

Manny laughed. He could wrangle a cow, ride a horse and haul a dozen bulls all around the region, but he couldn’t boil water. “Paulina will be crazy happy. She’ll want to cook
cabrito
and have a fiesta!”

Jake laughed for the first time since his arrival three days ago in Gabriel’s Crossing. “No need to kill the fatted goat. I’ll be satisfied with some frijoles and her homemade tortillas.”

“Sure. Sure.” Manny clapped him on the shoulder again. “But first you got to see your bulls.”

“How are they doing?”

Manny’s black eyes crinkled at the corners. “You see for yourself. They’re good.”

Together they made their way inside the enormous silver barn where Manny’s dark green Polaris ATV was parked. In minutes, they’d bumped across grassy yellowing fields to a pasture where a dozen bull calves grazed.

“I moved the big boys to the west pasture, closer to the house so I can keep an eye on them,” Manny said as he climbed out of the Polaris. “Mountain Man is cranky sometimes so he has his own lot. You saw him buck in San Antonio.”

Jake nodded. Chance meetings at rodeos were one of the perks of having a friend in the stock business. “He’s a good bull. Some of the cowboys are afraid of him.”

“Ah, he’s not so bad.”

Jake differed in opinion. Mountain Man, a white monster of a bull, was big and bad with the horns to end any discussion. He was also an athlete, hard to ride and keeping his owner in tamales. Manny hauled him to rodeos every week during the season.

“There are your sons,” Manny said as he propped a boot on an iron gate and pointed toward the herd.

His sons. Likely the only ones he’d have for a long time. Not that he wouldn’t love a family. A stray like him had dreams. A big ranch and plenty of money. Then a woman to love and a few kids. Maybe a lot of kids. If Allison Buchanon intruded on those dreams at times, he’d learned to shut her out and focus on the first part. A ranch. His bulls.

Over the past several years he’d searched out and bought the best young calves he could afford and partnered with Manny to finish and train them.

Their expense, along with the cost of the brood cows, meant a tight budget most of the time but eventually, he’d reap the benefits of his sacrifice. He’d start a ranch of his own and hopefully be able to retire from the circuit. The past couple of seasons had taken a toll on his body and his bank account. At twenty-seven, he was still fit, but a bull rider never knew how long before the constant pounding ended his career. Even now, his shoulder predicted rain before the meteorologists.

“How’s the training going?” he asked. “Is Big Country about ready for the circuit?”

Though Jake had borrowed heavily to buy him, Big Country was the animal Jake counted on to make his name in the stock contracting business.

“You’ll have to stick around Gabriel’s Crossing for a while and find out for yourself, my friend.”

“Can’t stay long, Manny.” He tried to keep the worry from his voice. “But I’m here until Granny Pat is better.” Even if it meant dealing with the Buchanons and dwindling cash flow.

“Maybe you stay for good this time. Gabriel’s Crossing is your home.”

Jake looked out over the cattle—his cattle—and thought of how often he’d longed to go back in time before he’d ruined everything. Before regret and rodeo were his daily companions. Back when he’d been a part of this town and the big Buchanon clan.

“Water under the bridge, Manny. The rodeo can’t get along without me.” Which wasn’t exactly true. Most seasons, he made a living, and arena dust got in a man’s blood. But he was sick and tired of the travel and the loneliness.

Manny’s dark gaze pierced him. “Still the bad blood?”

No point hiding from Manny. “Buchanons practically own this town. Coming back, even for a while, isn’t easy.”

Manny sighed and folded his brown, leathery hands on the iron railing. “The Buchanons are good people. By now, they will forgive you. Huh? You talk to them. Find out. Maybe you carry a burden for nothing.”

“I don’t think so, Manny. I talked to Allison.”

“You still sweet for that Buchanon girl?”

Jake felt a lot of things for Allison Buchanon that he couldn’t put a name to. Things he couldn’t allow into the conversation. Now or ever. “That was a long time ago. Before I ruined everything.”

If time healed wounds—and he prayed every night the Buchanons would heal—they didn’t need reminders of him to rip open the scab.

He swallowed the taste of regret. He didn’t like thinking about the accident, the worst day of his life, but the burden rode his back like a two-ton elephant. He could never forget it. Ever.

The accident
or
the girl.

* * *

Buchanon Construction was nothing more than a metal warehouse full of equipment with an office tacked on to one end. Inside that office at a U-shaped desk, Allison entered data for the Willow Creek project into her computer while blonde Jayla fielded phone calls and met with vendors selling ceramic tile or the latest eco-friendly appliances. The place was messy, practical and, other than the desk, bore little resemblance to a business office.

Not that she was thinking about business today with Jake Hamilton lurking in every thought.

Jake. The time at Miss Pat’s had been fun and eye-opening. She liked the handsome cowboy as much as ever. His gentle concern for his grandmother tugged at her, but more than that, being with him reminded her of what they’d had, of what might have been.

Jake was unfinished business.

Her twin brothers, Dawson and Sawyer, ambled in from the warehouse, smelling of sweat and doughnuts. “Mirror” twins, her brothers were lady magnets with black hair, blue eyes and bodies honed by years in the hands-on construction business.

Dawson’s dimple was on display because both men wore possum grins as if they knew a secret. Allison was relieved to see them smiling this morning. If they’d heard about Jake’s return, they wouldn’t be smiling.

“You can’t hide those from me. I have a nose for fresh-baked anything.” Allison held out a hand. “Gimme.”

“Greedy, isn’t she, Dawson?” Sawyer pulled a doughnut box from behind his back and held the white container above his head. At nearly a foot taller than Allison’s five-one, he had a distinct advantage.

“You want me to hop and jump and try to reach them while you laugh at me, don’t you?”

“Torment is our game. Hop, little sister.”

When she propped a hand on one hip and glared, he wiggled the box and said in a cajoling voice, “Come on. Hop. You know you want a hot, fresh doughnut from The Bakery.”

“Well, okay, if I must...” But instead of playing her brother’s ornery game, she poked a finger in his relaxed belly. His six-pack abs tightened, and when he curled inward with a “Hey!” Allison laughed and snatched the still-warm doughnut box.

“Greedy
and
sneaky,” she said as she popped open the box. “Yum. Maple with coconut. Did you bring milk?”

“Quinn’s supposed to be making fresh coffee in the back.”

“He’s so domestic.” She bit into the sweet dough and sighed, her mouth happy with the warm maple goodness.

“Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“Those things will give you a heart attack.” This from Jayla who held a palm over the telephone receiver. “I’m on hold about the Langley license.”

None of her three siblings paid Jayla any mind.

“Hey, Quinn,” Sawyer yelled toward the back of the warehouse. “What’s the holdup on that java?”

Quinn’s head appeared around the door leading into the warehouse. Golden haired and pretty, Allison thought he resembled a younger, bigger Brad Pitt.

“Some people work for a living.” He gave them all a scowling once over and disappeared again.

“I guess I’ll make the coffee.” Dawson headed into the warehouse, returning a short time later with a full carafe and a stack of disposable foam cups. “He’s in a happy mood today.”

“Which means he’s not,” Jayla said. “The Bartowskis asked for changes to the plans he finished over the weekend. Major changes.”

Sawyer snarled. “I hate when that happens.”

“He threatened to let Dawg bite them.”

“He
is
in a bad mood. Dawg wouldn’t bite a hot doughnut. Well, maybe he would, but you get the point.” Dawson leaned around the opened doorway. “Hey, Quinn, want a doughnut? Guaranteed to sweeten you up.”

A muffled reply about exactly what Dawson could do with his doughnuts had the siblings stifling snorts that would not be appreciated. They were loud enough, however, that Quinn stalked into the room, hazel eyes shooting sparks. “Something funny?”

Dawg low-crawled from behind Quinn and collapsed at Allison’s feet. “You’re scaring Brady’s dog. Where is Brady anyway?” She tossed the mutt a hunk of sweet roll. He snapped it in midair and tail-thumped in expectation of more.

“Open your mouth, Quinn,” she said, “and I’ll toss
you
a chunk.”

Quinn fisted a hand on his hip and allowed a grudging lip twitch. “You’d miss.”

“Can’t miss something that big.”

“Old joke, sis.” But with his better hand, he took a chocolate-covered pastry from the box. “Pour me a cup?”

Dawson obliged, handing the steaming brew to his brother. Quinn shifted the doughnut to his weaker right side to accept the coffee.

“Stinks about the plans.” Dawson lifted his ball cap and scratched at his unruly black waves.

“Part of the job.” As architect of Buchanon Construction, Quinn developed all their housing concepts, a recent turn of events, considering the slide into depression that had taken him away from home for too long. Even now, he wasn’t the most social Buchanon. “Those plans were exactly what they asked for. Now they want changes. I have a feeling this project may not be our favorite.”

“We could subcontract the entire project if the Bartowskis become a problem,” Dawson said.

“That would only make things worse. If a sub messes up, we’re responsible.”

“Put Charity on them.” Sawyer studied the Bavarian cream inside his doughnut. “This stuff is good.”

The oldest of the siblings at thirty-three, Charity was the real estate whiz, slick as a used car salesman, a trait Allison found out of sync with the sweet-faced wife of a deployed navy pilot and the mother of a six-and an eleven-year-old.

“Nah, I’ll make the changes. Once.” Quinn ripped off a piece of his chocolate doughnut and tossed it to Dawg. Pathetically grateful, dog sat at his feet, begging for more. “Where are we on the Willow Creek project? Any news on the permits?”

Jayla’s long hair swayed as she thumped the telephone receiver into its cradle and swung around to face them. “That was Brady. Permits are ready. He’s at the courthouse now, and says he will meet you two—” she pointed at Sawyer and Dawson “—at the job site. Bring Dawg.”

Quinn crossed the small space and kissed the top of her head. “You’re amazing.” He ripped off another piece of doughnut and held it in front of her nose. “Eat this.”

She made a horrified face and squeezed her eyes closed. “Death in a doughnut. I’ll pass.”

He laughed and popped the bite into his mouth. “Don’t know what you’re missing, baby sister.”

They were hassling Jayla about her rigid eating habits when the front door slammed open, and Brady strode inside.

“Weren’t you going to the job site?” Jayla’s question fell into the sizzling air and withered away, unanswered.

If a man could spit nails, Allison thought this might be the time to duck and run. With his warrior size, Brady was as dangerous as a rattler when stirred up. And something had definitely stirred him up this morning.

Allison was afraid she knew the cause.

The other siblings exchanged looks. The twins shrugged in unison. No one else had a clue to Brady’s fury.

With a dread heavier than a forklift, Allison put her half eaten doughnut on a skinny strip of napkin and waited for the ax to fall.

Voice tight and low, steam all but pumping from his ears, Brady asked, “You haven’t heard, have you?”

Quinn set his mug down. “Heard what?”

Blood rushed against Allison’s temples. Oh, yeah, here came trouble.

“Jake Hamilton is in town.”

Sawyer’s jaw hardened. “What?”

“You heard me right. Jake’s back.”

“Where did you hear that?” Quinn’s voice was quiet. Too quiet.

“Courthouse.” Brady fisted huge hands on his hips. “I saw the lowlife with my own eyes. Miss Pat’s out of the nursing home and Jake’s moved in, supposedly to take care of her.”

All eyes swung toward Quinn. Like the rest of them—except Allison—he looked stunned. A long beat passed while they absorbed the news. Then, without a word, Quinn spun on his steel-toed boots and left the room.

Chaos erupted.

As if the russet-haired Brady had announced an eminent asteroid collision with downtown Gabriel’s Crossing, everyone talked at once. The general consensus was outrage. Outrage that Jake Hamilton would strut into town years after the fact and behave as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t ruined a man’s life.