Merry Cowboy Christmas (23 page)

“She already is,” Toby said.

“I need some advice and I reckon you three can keep a secret, can't you?” Truman blurted out.

“I don't know about these two”—Jud pointed in either direction—“but you can count on me.”

“Come on now,” Blake said. “I never did tattle on you, not one time.”

“You got to promise me you won't breathe a word,” Truman leaned in and whispered.

“Promise,” they said in unison.

“I'm tired of arguing with God. He wins. Dora June has stood beside me for fifty years, and I think she was serious about seeing the whole United States in an RV. So I'm thinkin' about buyin' her one for Christmas as a surprise.”

Jud came close to spewing tea across the table. “And you're going to live in it on your property until you get things sold?”

“Hell no! This is where I need you boys. I ain't got the time to get rid of my livestock, and that's all I got left on my place. I'm not even sure I want to sell the ranch until we see if we want to keep livin' like hoboes or if we want to come back home and rebuild.” He paused.

The silence at the table was so pronounced that it reverberated in Jud's ears. “When are you going to buy this thing?”

“One day next week when me and you is doin' our chores. She saw one up in Wichita, so we could go up that way and pick out a real nice one and pay for it. Then if one of y'all would help me, I'd—”

“Hey, y'all mind if I sit with you?” Deke asked.

“Drag up a chair,” Blake said.

“I reckon he'll have to know now,” Truman sighed.

“Know what?” Deke motioned for Sharlene to bring him a glass of sweet tea. “And I want the turkey and dressing special,” he said.

She nodded and brought the tea right over to the table.

“You want to tell him?” Blake asked.

Truman brought him up to speed.

Deke's eyes were about to pop out of his head when the old guy stopped talking. “You serious? If you are selling, I want first chance at your cattle.”

“Get in line behind these boys. You want my goats?” Truman asked.

“If you'll let me have first choice of the cattle, I'll take all those goats.”

“What do y'all think?” Truman asked the other three. “You want the goats to get the cattle?”

Blake shook his head. “Allie will want to bring every kid in the house in the springtime. I'll stand back and let Deke have the cattle if he'll take the goats.”

“I'll make you a deal on the whole lot of them and throw in all the hay in my barn as a bonus,” Truman said.

“You be sure about this before we shake on it, Truman,” Deke said. “I'll give you a couple of days to think about it.”

“I'll think about it until I go look at them RV things. If it don't seem right, then all bets are off. Since we got five of us, why don't we play poker this afternoon, instead of dominoes?”

“You as good at poker as you are at dominoes?” Jud asked.

“You'll have to play a few games to find out,” Truman answered.

“I'm in if it's poker. What time are we playin'?” Deke asked.

“Right after we get through eatin'. You got enough energy to play after chasin' women all night?” Truman asked.

“It's chasin' them women that has my blood pumpin', Truman. This might be the day that goes down in the history books as the day Deke Sullivan whipped Truman,” Deke answered.

“When pigs fly,” Truman growled.

“You better be duckin' because there's a possibility they've sprouted wings. Look around the table at who you are having Sunday dinner with. Bet you never thought that was possible, did you?”

“I was right about one thing. All y'all ain't nothing but a bunch of smartass kids,” Truman said.

L
aden with shopping bags, Fiona climbed the stairs, hoping that Jud would appear anytime and take part of the weight from her. She set all four bags on the floor in front of the credenza and plopped down in a wingback chair and kicked off her boots. Flipping around and throwing her legs over the chair arm, she sighed and wished that Jud were there to massage her aching feet.

She snuggled down into the curve of the chair back and shut her eyes, just to rest them for a couple of minutes. She fell asleep and dreamed of building a huge snowman with Jud. Two big yellow dogs and half a dozen kids, with hair that went from blond to every shade of red, romped in the snow around them.

In the dream, Jud leaned around the snowman and kissed her. She awoke with a start to find that in reality he was leaning around the edge of the chair and she could actually feel the heat from his lips as they came down on hers.

Visions of tangled sheets, his arms around her, and afterglow danced through her head as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Somewhere in the background she could hear Truman fussing about all the stuff Dora June brought home, but nothing mattered except Jud Dawson.

“I've missed you,” he said when the kiss ended, and he straightened up.

“Me too,” she said softly.

He was dressed in a long-sleeved thermal knit shirt, the three undone buttons at the neck revealing soft brown chest hair and a pair of red and green plaid pajama pants. He held out a hand and she was tempted—Lord help her but she was tempted—to forget what she'd figured out and go with him to the bedroom where the drawer full of glow-in-the-dark condoms awaited.

But she shook her head and pointed to the other chair. “We've got to talk.”

He dropped his hand. “Uh-oh. Nothing good has ever come from those four words.”

“I don't know. That will be up to you when we get finished. I figured you'd be really mad at me for not returning your calls and texts.” She twisted around until she was sitting in the chair with her feet on the floor. “If this is more than casual sex, then you should be storming around in anger, demanding where I've been and what I've been doing.”

He combed back his damp hair with his fingers. “Is this where you're going to tell me exactly why you didn't come home last night?”

Fiona shrugged. “Are you mad at me?”

Jud shrugged.

“So you don't even care? Were you just leading me on by saying this is more than sex? You aren't even angry. God bless, Jud! Dora June was right after all and I never thought I'd say those words, not to you.”

Jud's eyes narrowed. “Right about what?”

“That all along you just tell women what they want to hear so you can get them into bed with you.”

Jud's jaw worked in anger. When he finally spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “Jesus, woman, I was ready to call out half the country and all the Dawsons to go looking for you.”

“Just how many Dawsons is that?” she asked.

“A hell of a lot.” He took a breath and settled down, his expression softening. He scooted his chair over and took her hand in his. “Now are you going to tell me what happened to make you run and where you were all night?”

“Is this our first fight?” she asked.

“No, this is a bump in the road. A fight will include some of that storming around you talked about.” He scooted his chair closer to hers, picked up her hand, and held it on the arm of his chair.

There was comfort in the touch of his hand but he still had a worried expression on his face. She opened her mouth and told the story, all of it, not leaving out anything from start to finish. With more detail than she'd told her sisters and Dora June, she told him every emotion she'd felt through the whole experience.

“I'm not sure what tomorrow holds but I'm not in a hurry to leave Dry Creek.” She squeezed his fingers. “My heart and my mind are at peace with each other and I'm not making five- or even one-year plans anymore. That gets in the way of living, and I'm enjoying the life I've got right here at home.” She hesitated. Maybe she'd already said enough but she couldn't stop. “Call it a Christmas miracle or karma or fate kicking me in the butt, but I'm happy and I'm not throwing that away just to prove that I can make a plan work.”

“And us?” he asked as he squeezed her hand ever so tenderly.

“Is there an us? Or just booty calls?”

“I'd like for there to be an us,” he said.

“Then”—she paused, trying to find the words—“we should slow down.”

“What does that mean?” he asked. “Are you saying date without sex?”

She nodded slowly. “I want to know if what I missed was Jud these past two nights or the hot sex.”

“That's fair enough.”

“So now you talk. And I mean seriously,” she said.

“I want there to be an us, Fiona. I want to see where this goes. Knowing that you're happy here and not planning on leaving anytime soon makes me more than just happy. I'm a man and we don't express feelings too well. Living with Truman should teach you that.” He paused.

The silence was deafening for a few seconds. Then he went on. “I'm glad you are home and that you found peace in your heart. I'm having trouble here, but…”

She removed her hand from his, cupped his cheeks in her palms, and kissed him. A brand-new feeling joined desire and heat, one that held the promise of a future in the kiss. “I can feel what you feel and that's enough for now.”

“I'll gladly move back into the trailer if you want to announce it to the world right now because I sure want to crawl up on the rooftop and tell everyone,” he offered.

She shook her head. “Let's keep it under wraps until Dora June and Truman move out. But I do intend to tell Mama about what happened.”

“Then that means I can tell my sister?”

“Of course. Now tell me how in the hell you got Truman to go to the Lucky Penny and to go to dinner at Nadine's today with Blake and Toby.” She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

As Jud embellished the story with facial expressions that were so like Truman's, her laughter seemed to make him give her even more details about the whole day. By the time he wound down the story, her sides ached and she had the hiccups.

“How about a beer to cure those hiccups?” he asked.

“We've still got beer in the cooler? I thought it was all gone. Some boyfriend you are,” she said.

“Those are all gone. But Deke brought them to the poker game and Truman said that if Dora June found out and he got into trouble, then he would never play with us again, so I snuck the last two up here in a plastic bag of ice. They're in my room. Shall we have one before we head off to bed?”

A loud hiccup and a nod sent him toward the bathroom. He returned with two icy cold beers, the caps off both, and handed one to her. She tilted it back and let the cold liquid slide down her throat. Lord, that tasted good and it was an instant cure of the hiccups.

Jud did the same as he sat back down. “Fiona, I like that you called me your boyfriend. And FYI, I know for a fact that Truman and Dora June will be gone by Christmas Day. You have to keep this under your hat and not even tell your sisters because if Truman found out I told you, he'd probably shoot me.” Jud went on to tell her all about the RV plans.

Fiona hugged herself and giggled. “That is amazing news. You really did turn Scrooge around. So Christmas Day? That sounds like a perfect time for you to announce that I'm your new girlfriend.”

“It does, doesn't it?” He set their two empties on the floor and pulled her up into his arms. One brief kiss was all he gave her before he headed off to his bedroom and gently shut the door behind him.

Dammit! She wanted more than a peck on the lips. She wanted the big kahuna, the tsunami, the class-five wild Texas tornado, all of it rolled into one big kiss and then a long bout of amazing sex. What in the hell was she thinking when she said they should go slow?

You are an idiot!
she thought as she picked up her boots in one hand and the beer bottles in the other and crossed the landing. Her room looked different, not nearly as confining and more inviting. She tossed the bottles into the trash, making a mental note to get rid of them the next morning and set her boots in the closet where they belonged.

After she got comfortable on the bed, with pillows propped behind her back, she hit the button on her phone to call her mother. Katy answered on the first ring with laughter in her voice.

“Hello, Fiona. I just hung up from an hour-long conversation with Allie. Y'all deserve special things in your Christmas stockings for the way you've turned Truman around. I didn't expect anything but hoped for at least some kind of reconciliation between him and my sons-in-law before I came home. Looks like we're getting a lot more with him talking about a big RV and taking Dora June to see the whole country.” Katy stopped for a breath.

“Well, dammit! Do Allie and Lizzy both know? I wanted to tell you the story. I laughed until I got the hiccups at the way Jud told it.”

Katy's tone changed and suddenly Fiona could hear the sound of the ocean in the background. “Blake and Toby can't keep a secret one bit better than Jud can, evidently. Now, I want to know your story. Lizzy just had the highlights. I want the details. What is going on in your heart, Fiona Deann Logan?”

“You just triple named me. Am I in trouble?”

“No, but I want you to know that I'm serious and I want the whole story,” Katy said.

“Jud and I are dating, but we don't want to tell anyone until after Dora June and Truman are gone or they'll think it's improper for us to live together in this house. Do you have a problem with that?”

All Fiona could hear were the waves coming into shore for several seconds. “Mama, are you still there? Please don't faint or die of a heart attack.”

“I'm still here. Took a minute to process what you just said. I wasn't expecting that right here at the first of the conversation. Can't say I'm surprised, but it still shocked me,” Katy said breathlessly.

“Do you want him to move out into his travel trailer?”

“You are both grown adults. What you do or how you handle this relationship has nothing to do with where you sleep at night. Now that that's out of the way, tell me why you thought you had to run away and not let anyone know where you were for a whole night?”

Fiona repeated the whole story, even adding in how every song on the radio seemed to be talking straight to her, from the first one that made her leave to the last one that told her to go home.

“I'm wiping tears from my cheeks,” Katy said at the end with a sniffle. “My biggest prayer has been answered. Not that you would come home. Not that you'd find someone to date. But that you'd finally find yourself and happiness.”

“And now you've got me crying. I never can let anyone weep alone,” Fiona said.

“I can't wait to come home.”

“Are you homesick?” Fiona asked.

“Not for Dry Creek but for you girls. I'm really settling in to a life with no responsibilities and liking it. I didn't know how tense I was until I started to relax but I wouldn't want to live here forever. Texas is where my heart and soul is.”

“Mama, there won't be a problem with me staying here at the house and working in the back room at the store for a long time, will there?” Fiona asked softly.

“Not at all but I've got some things I want to talk to you about when I get home. It's not something to discuss on the phone so we'll wait. You just go enjoy your newfound happiness and we'll have a long visit. But don't worry, you are welcome to the back room as long as you want it and I love that you are in the house. Now I'm going inside and having a margarita with the girls. Good night, Fiona, and, darlin', you've given me the best Christmas present in the world tonight.”

“I think it's me that got the Christmas miracle this year, Mama. Good night, and have an extra margarita for me.” Fiona pushed the
END
button.

She draped her clothing over the back of a chair and pulled a nightshirt over her head, slid beneath the covers, and wiggled into a comfortable spot. It sure beat the hell out of sleeping in her car the night before.