The Cowboy Who Saved Christmas Read online

  “No, he never was. I found the dress and the ring.”

  Trapper scrubbed his face. “You are not married. You were not in mourning?”

  “Right.”

  “Can we go back to sleep, Emery? I don’t want to think about this until morning.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been keeping my distance from you for this whole trip because I thought you were a widow wearing mourning black. I couldn’t tell you how I felt.”

  She laughed. “Start talking, cowboy. If we’re going to make babies, I need to hear the words.”

  He pulled her close and told her what he’d wanted to tell her. If she’d give him a chance he’d love her every day and every night for the rest of his life.

  The next morning everyone was up early for a Christmas breakfast.

  Everyone had gifts under the tree and the girls’ laughter filled the great room.

  After breakfast the colonel finally got the chance to talk with Trapper. He made Trapper tell him everything that had happened.

  Trapper swore the man’s chest swelled with pride when Trapper described how the girls saved him.

  When Trapper left the room, all five girls were standing outside the study.

  He watched them walk into their father’s study with determination in their eyes. Five closed the door.

  He went in search of Emery. Whatever the girls were saying to the colonel, it had nothing to do with him.

  Chapter 15

  Trapper found Emery sewing with the women, and she seemed in no hurry to leave, so he wandered onto the porch and relaxed.

  He had a great deal to think about but within five minutes he was asleep.

  The colonel’s booming voice woke him up.

  “Mr. Hawkins, I believe we have business to finish. I owe you five hundred dollars, sir.”

  Trapper straightened in his chair. He hadn’t given the money much thought. Getting the girls safely to the ranch had been his goal from the minute he’d seen them.

  The colonel offered him a whiskey in his study, then sat across from him. “On another matter, I’ve just finished talking to my daughters, and they’ve informed me that you need to marry the widow right away.”

  “Why?” Trapper hoped the girls hadn’t mentioned the pee gun again. A father might not think the conversation proper.

  “They told me you like to hug her.”

  “I do.” Trapper could not lie.

  The colonel raised an eyebrow. “Does she return your affection?”

  “She does,” he answered remembering that she’d crawled in his bed last night. “But, she’s a proper lady.” Trapper felt he had to add.

  “Then you’ve no objections to the idea of marriage?”

  “None,” Trapper looked down. “I don’t have anything to offer her. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

  “You’ll be a rich man with five hundred dollars in your pocket and I’m offering you a job. I’m in need of a smart man to be in charge of security. Nothing like this is ever going to happen again to my daughters. They said you risked your life to save them.”

  “Your daughters can take care of themselves.”

  “They will be able to do just that with your help, so what about taking the job?”

  Trapper studied the man. “Did your daughters talk you into hiring me?”

  “Of course not. No woman could ever run my life.” He smiled. “I did love my wives. All three of them. I acted like I wanted boys, but truth be told, I wouldn’t take ten sons for any one of the girls.”

  Trapper kept grinning. “They put some pressure on you?”

  “Of course. Anna tried reasoning with me. Catherine told me she wanted you for her foreman when she takes over running this place. But it was Sophia who settled the debate. She said she wouldn’t wear shoes ever, ever again if I didn’t try my best to keep her Tapper around. From what I see, she’s already halfway barefoot as it is.”

  Trapper leaned closer. “I’ll make you a deal, Colonel. If Emery says yes to marrying me, I’ll take you up on the job.”

  “Good. I’ll have the former foreman’s cabin cleaned out. It’s about the right size for newlyweds.”

  “What’s happened to the outlaws I brought in?”

  The colonel shrugged. “I had a man ride into Dallas to get a Texas Ranger. He’ll take them in as soon as their wounds heal, and I’ll send a dozen men to ride along to make sure they make it to a trial.”

  “You mind if I’m one of the men going along?”

  “It’ll be your first assignment.”

  The colonel stood, happy with the deal, but Trapper feared the hardest part was yet to come. He had to ask the little widow to marry him first. Since she was already thinking she’d like to have kids with him, he thought he knew what the answer would be.

  It was evening before he caught her alone in a big room the housekeeper called the great room. The fireplace was tall enough for a man to stand in, and tonight candles lined the windows. Garland climbed the staircase. The center table was covered with sweets for the neighbors and the employees and their families. It didn’t take long for Trapper to realize the ranch was a small town.

  When Emery entered, dressed in a dark-green dress with white lace, she took his breath away. He took her hand and pulled her into the empty study.

  “You’re beautiful.” He kissed her hand. “Almost as beautiful as you were that night in the rain.”

  “Thank you.”

  She seemed so shy now, as if they hadn’t spent three weeks together. As if he hadn’t touched her. As if she hadn’t slept in his arms.

  “I don’t know the words, Emery.”

  “What words?” Her shy whisper brushed his heart.

  “The ones to tell you how much you mean to me. I feel like I’ve been walking around holding my breath all my life and suddenly I’m can breathe. I’ve been half dead for years and you make me want to live forever.”

  When she didn’t answer, he looked away. “I don’t have anything to offer. I own a horse and a wagon.” He took a long breath and let it all out. “I do have enough money to buy a little place or the colonel offered me a job. But without you I don’t think I could settle down.”

  All at once he couldn’t find the words. He’d lived from day to day, never dreaming for so long he was afraid to wish for more.

  She smiled. “What do you really want?”

  “I want you to be with me forever. I want to have a bunch of kids. I want to sleep next to you until I die.”

  “You have me,” she said so low he wasn’t sure he heard her. “You’ve had me since the day we left Jefferson and you couldn’t be stern with Four. You had me when you let Three be her own person and you let One become a leader. You watched over us all.

  “I know who you are, Trapper Hawkins. I saw the truth the first time I saw your blue eyes. You’re a good man. You have everything I want even without the money or the land or even the job. I want you.”

  “Any chance you’d marry me?”

  She smiled. “You can bet on it.”

  As he kissed her, Trapper swore he heard five little girls laughing just outside the window.

  “Look, One,” a four-year-old whispered, “Tapper got what he wanted for Christmas.”

  Read on for a preview of Jodi Thomas’s next book . . .

  PICNIC IN SOMEDAY VALLEY

  A Honey Creek Novel

  Available Spring 2021 wherever books are sold

  Chapter 1

  Fall in Someday Valley, Texas

  Marcie

  Marcie Latimer sat on a tall, wobbly stool in the corner of Bandit’s Bar. Her right leg, wrapped in a black leather boot, was anchored on the stage. Her left heel was hooked on the first rung of the stool so her knee could brace her guitar. With her prairie skirt and low-cut, lacy blouse, she was the picture of a country singer. Long, midnight hair and sad, hazel eyes completed the look.

  She played to an almost empty room, but it didn’t matter. She sang every
word as if it had to pass through her soul first. All her heartbreak drifted over the smoky room, whispering of a sorrow so deep it would never heal.

  When she finished her last song, her fingers still strummed out the beat slowly, as if dying.

  One couple, over by the pool table, clapped. The bartender, Wayne, brought Marcie a wineglass of ice water and said the same thing he did every night. “Great show, kid.”

  She wasn’t a kid. She was almost thirty, feeling like she was running toward fifty. Six months ago her future was looking up. She had a rich boyfriend. A maybe future with Boone Buchanan, a lawyer, who promised to take her out of this dirt-road town. He’d said they’d travel the world and go to fancy parties at the capital.

  Then, the boyfriend tried to burn down the city hall in a town thirty miles away and toast the mayor of Honey Creek, who he claimed was his ex-girlfriend. But that turned out to be a lie too. It seemed her smart, good-looking, someday husband was playing Russian roulette, and the gun went off not only on his life but hers as well.

  He’d written her twice from prison. She hadn’t answered.

  She’d tossed away the letters without opening them. Because of him, she couldn’t find any job but this one, and no man would get near enough to ask her out. She was poison, a small-town curiosity.

  Marcie hadn’t known anything about his plot to make the front page of every paper in the state, but most folks still looked at her as if she should have been locked away with Boone Buchanan. She was living with the guy; she must have known what he was planning.

  She shook off hopelessness like dust and walked across the empty dance floor. Her set was over; time to go home.

  A cowboy sat near the door in the shadows. He wore his hat low. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew who he was. Long, lean legs, wide shoulders, and hands rough and scarred from working hard. At six-feet-four, he was one of the few people in town she had to look up to.

  “Evening, Brand.”

  “Evening, Marcie,” he said, so low it seemed more a thought than a greeting.

  She usually didn’t talk to him, but tonight she thought she’d be civil. “Did you come to see me play?”

  “Nope. I’m here for the beer.”

  She laughed. One beer wasn’t worth the twenty-mile drive to Someday Valley. He’d had to pass two other bars to get to this run-down place.

  “You ever think of buying a six-pack and staying home for a month?”

  “Nope.”

  Marcie couldn’t decide if she disliked Brandon Rodgers or just found him dead boring. If they spoke, they had pretty much the same conversation every week. He was a Clydesdale of a man, bigger than most, but easy moving. She had no doubt he talked to his horses far more than he ever did people.

  It wasn’t like she didn’t know him. He was about three years older than her, owned a place north of here. Ran a few cattle and bred some kind of horses, she’d heard. Folks always commented that the Rodgers clan kept to themselves, but lately he was the only Rodgers around. His mother died and his sister married and moved off. He’d never dated anyone that she knew about. In his twenties he had gone off to the Marines for six years.

  “You want to sit down?” He dipped his worn Stetson toward the chair to his left.

  She almost jumped in surprise. He’d never asked her to join him. But Marcie didn’t want to make a scene. He never talked to anyone and no one talked to her, so they could sit at the same table in silence together.

  In a strange way they were made for each other, she decided. “Sure.”

  “You want a drink?” His words were so low they seemed faded by the time they reached her.

  “No.” Marcie folded her arms and stared at him. They’d run out of conversation, and with his hat on, she couldn’t see anything but the bottom half of his face. Strong jaw. A one-inch scar on the left of his chin was almost camouflaged by his week-old beard. He wasn’t handsome or homely.

  She decided to wait him out. She guessed he wasn’t a man to enjoy chatter.

  “I’m not trying to pick you up, Marcie,” he finally said with the same emotion he’d use to read a fortune cookie.

  “I know. ‘You want to sit down’ is the worst pickup line ever.” She raised her voice slightly, as a half dozen good ol’ boys who smelled like they’d been fishing stumbled in. They all lived around Someday Valley, most with their folks, and even though they were near her age, not one had a full-time job.

  Joey Hattly, the shortest of the pack, bumped into Marcie’s chair. He must have heard her, because he grinned.

  “I got a line that never fails.” The stinky guy pushed out his chest as if performing to a crowd.

  Marcie smelled cheap liquor on his breath and fish bait on his clothes. She moved an inch closer to Brand. She wasn’t afraid of Joey, but she didn’t want her sins listed again. Some of the bar regulars liked to remind her that she was a jailbird’s girlfriend.

  Luckily, Joey was more interested in talking about himself tonight. “I can pick up any gal with just a few words. I walk up to a table of pretty gals and say, ‘Evening ladies. This is your lucky night. I’m single and here to dance. I’ve got a college education and I know my ABDs.’ ”

  He held up a finger to silence everyone before adding, “Wanta C what I can do?”

  The fishing buddies laughed. One slapped Joey on the back. “Don’t waste your lines on Marcie; she’s not interested. She’s sworn off all men since she slept with the bottom of the barrel.”

  She didn’t much like Brand, but right now he was the safest bet in the room. A pack of drunks was never good, and they all appeared to have more than a few bottles of courage in them.

  Another fisherman mumbled, “Yeah, she was shacking up with a killer. They say a man who thinks about burning folks alive is sick in the head. If you ask me, she knew what he was planning. She don’t deserve to just walk away free when that fire Boone set almost killed four people. Least we should do is give her a spanking.”

  The oldest of the group added, as he scratched his bald head, “Maybe we should strip her and paint an A on her chest, like they did in that old book Mrs. Warren made us read.”

  “They stripped a woman in The Scarlet Letter?” Joey’s squeaky voice chimed in. “Maybe I should have read that.”

  His buddy added, “There were no pictures, Joey.”

  The sound of the bartender racking a shotgun silenced the room. “Closing time. One more drink and I’m turning off the lights.”

  The gang turned their attention to the bar. Marcie had never seen the bartender fire the shotgun, but Wayne had slapped a few drunks senseless with the stock.

  The bald guy gave her a wicked look before he joined his buddies.

  Brand slid his half-empty beer across the table and stood. “Get your guitar. I’m taking you home.”

  Marcie managed to force a smile, proving she wasn’t afraid. “Brandon, that won’t be necessary. I live across the street in the trailer park. I can walk home.”

  “It’s not a suggestion, it’s a favor, and I told you, I’m not picking you up. That trailer park isn’t safe to walk through in daylight, much less after midnight.”

  She looked up, and for once she could see his coffee-brown eyes. He looked worried, almost as if he cared. “I’m not your problem.” Marcie laced her fingers without making any move to follow his orders. “I’m no one’s problem. I didn’t think you even liked me, so why act like you care now?”

  She’d slept with some truck driver a few months after Boone went to jail. He had bragged that she’d told him all kinds of things about what Wild Boone did in bed, and then claimed she’d said the driver was better than crazy Boone. He must have known she wouldn’t say anything. If she had, no one would believe her.

  She looked up at Brand Rodgers. He seemed to have turned into a six-foot-four tree wearing a Stetson. Silent. Waiting beside the table.

  “Oh, all right,” she said, as if they’d been arguing. “I’ll let you drive me home.”

>   The Mistletoe Promise

  SHARLA LOVELACE

  To all the women back then who made eye contact and wore pants. You made this possible.

  Chapter 1

  1904 (present day)

  Josephine

  I would prefer to be dragged behind my horse. Through manure. And then run over by what was left of our meager cattle herd.

  “Repeatedly,” I added through my teeth as I told all this to the only woman who would understand. “This party is—” I shook my head, making the stupid curls I hated bounce around my shoulders. “The most mortifyingly horrendous thing I’ve ever stooped to do.”

  Lila, a slight, elderly woman with sharp eyes and a quick mind that had kept me in line since I was a baby, pinned back a rebellious lock of my hair that refused to be manipulated. I felt its pain.

  “The most horrendous?” she asked, lifting a gray eyebrow as her gaze darted to mine. “I highly doubt that.”

  “Then you’d be wrong,” I said.

  “Josephine.”

  “Lila,” I retorted.

  “You will be fine,” she said, walking away from me to carefully unwrap something from yellowed paper. I hadn’t noticed it lying on my cedar chest when she came in.

  “I will be the laughing stock of the community,” I said. “Henry Bancroft’s society-scoffing, failure of a rancher, failure of a daughter. Still scandalously unmarried—”

  “Interesting that you listed that last,” Lila muttered.

  “—who never steps a foot on Mason Ranch property,” I continued, closing my eyes. “Ever. Now shows up begging with her tail between her legs.”

  “Honestly, Josie,” Lila said, looking up from her unwrapping, her brow furrowed in disapproval. “I realize you’re more comfortable on a horse than in a dress, but have some couth.”