A Cowboy for Christmas (4 page)

His advice sounded lame. How could he offer advice to a woman who'd lost her husband prematurely and violently and then just found out her child was going deaf? He could tell her that the boy would easily adapt to what she saw as a handicap. Guillermo considered his deafness no different from eye color. Just part of who he was. She needed time to grieve and let go of the image of what she thought her son might be, but Rafferty wouldn't tell her this. Eventually, she'd come to understand it for herself.

“I can't let you do that.” She stepped from the circle of his arms. “I'm so embarrassed I broke down like this in front of you.”

“Think nothing of it. I'm a stranger in town. You'll never see me again. You can pretend I was sent by your guardian angel to help you through a bad day.”

“I like that idea. Thank you.” She gave him a slight smile. She had gorgeous lips. Right out of a man's fantasy.

“Will you be okay to drive?”

“Yes.” She nodded, reached for her son.

He passed the boy to her. “You'll get through this and one day you'll be happy again.”

“Right now, that sounds like a pretty impossible promise.”

“Just hang in there.”

Platitudes.

He knew it as surely as she did, but now they were at the awkward stage. She'd shown him—a stranger—too much raw emotion. They'd touched in an intimate gesture saved for close family and friends. Plus she was probably feeling like she owed him gratitude she didn't want to owe. That would make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Get away from her as quickly as possible and leave her to her sorrow. She wasn't his responsibility. But Rafferty had a hard time walking away from anyone in need. Like it or not, it was just the way he was wired.

You can't save the whole world.

“Thanks,” she said. “For being so understanding. Usually, I'm not this high-strung.”

He got a glimpse of the steel magnolia in her as she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I believe you.”

Rafferty waited while she secured the boy into his car seat once more and settled herself behind the wheel. Hang those people tooting their horns at him to move his vehicle. Slowly, he sauntered back to his truck. He climbed in, started the engine and with a sharp screech of metal, backed up, separating his truck from hers.

She slid on sunglasses, hiding her weary eyes, and waved at him as she left the parking lot.

That was it. She was gone. Out of his life.

He should feel happy right? Instead of disquieted. Shrugging off the feeling, he took the parking spot she'd vacated and tried not to think about her, but his shirt was still damp from her tears and his collar smelled of her.

Pleasing. Sweet. Special.

The crowded store was packed with moms who'd just picked their kids up from school and were swinging by for groceries on their way home. Seeing those kids with their mothers made him think of Amelia and how he'd never had a normal childhood.

When he was small, before the other kids came along, Amelia called him her snoopy little bodyguard because he quizzed the men she dragged home. He wanted to know who they were, what they did for a living, and why they were with his mother.

Amelia would laugh, make excuses for him to the men, then give him two dollars and tell him to go down to the corner store to buy a Nutty Buddy for them both. He'd protest because they hadn't yet had dinner and Amelia would say in a high voice that tinkled like glass tapped with a spoon, “You can't count on anything in life, Rafferty, so eat dessert first.”

By the time he got back from the store, Amelia and the man of the day would be in her bedroom making thumping noises. He'd sit in a chair in the hallway licking his Nutty Buddy while hers melted. Eventually, the bedroom door would open, the man would leave, and Amelia would stagger out rumpled and smelling funny. She'd pick the melted chocolate and nuts off the puddle of ice cream and then lick her fingers. She'd wander into the kitchen, pour a glass of red wine, then collapse on the couch in her filmy pink housecoat, stare out the window, smoking Virginia Slims and reciting melancholy lines from her favorite movie,
Doctor Zhivago
.

To this day, Rafferty hated both Omar Sharif and Nutty Buddies. But Amelia was better now. Finally, one of the numerous rehabs he'd gotten her into had worked. She was taking her medication, staying sober, and doing well.

Family.

What could you do? They not only affected who you became, but the choices you made. Like it or not, you couldn't escape your DNA. Family marked you with indelible graffiti and weighted you with the freight of permanent memories. Good, bad, indifferent, and everything in between. Blood branded you. Claimed you. Broke you down to the most basic level.

Which brought him back full circle to the reason he was here in Jubilee. Family pulling at him from both ends. He thought of the brown-sugar haired woman in the Ford pickup truck and hoped she had family to help her. She was going to need it.

Thank God, he hadn't gotten her name and phone number. Otherwise, he might have been tempted to call and check on her.

Rafferty fisted his hands. People often didn't want his help. He had a hard time wrapping his head around that one. He'd been accused of thinking he had the answers to everyone else's problems, but when you saw someone heading blindly off a cliff, didn't you have some kind of responsibility to stop them from taking the plunge? Did that make him a know-it-all?

He tucked the questions to the back of his mind, bought tuna and crackers and V–8 juice, and took it back to his truck. He sat there in the parking lot eating and practicing what he was going to say to the person he'd come to Jubilee to see.

Excuse me. You don't know me but . . .
No, that sounded lame. Hell, he'd had fourteen hundred miles to come up with a good intro and he still couldn't think of the right way to break the news.

He finished his meal, dusted off his hands, and consulted the map to his destination. He'd studied it a dozen times during the drive to Texas, but now that he was so close, he got a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach.

Just get it over with.

Mentally, he shook himself, started the pickup, and headed for the X spot on the map a mile away. He flipped on the radio. Barenaked Ladies were singing, “If I Had a Million Dollars.” Lighthearted. He could use a dose of that in spite of his situation.

The closer he got, the tighter anxiety's grip on his spinal column grew. His sense of honor prevented him from simply mailing what he needed to deliver, along with a letter of explanation. It's what most people would have done, but he couldn't do that. He'd made a promise. This deserved a face-to-face meeting. Even if it made his palms sweat.

He entered a tree-lined neighborhood filled with old homes built around the turn of the twentieth century. Lots of flowers and big sturdy oaks. White picket fences and window flower boxes. Two-acre lots. Roomy, welcoming, the whole damn works. Totally opposite of his arid horse ranch outside Los Angeles.

How different would his life have been if he'd grown up here? How different would he have been?

Useless. Such thoughts. He'd grown up on the streets of old Hollywood in a variety of squalid apartments. Amelia, who'd once been an extra in a couple of B movies, was convinced she'd make it as a star as long as she didn't let her kids get in the way of her ambitions. But booze, men, and drugs? Oh yeah, those came before anything—children, career, her health.

Self-medicating. She'd been self-medicating. Trying to ease the pain of her bipolar condition. He understood it now, but back then? He'd been one resentful kid.

He glanced at the map. The house he was looking for turned out to be a three-story Queen Anne Victorian with a gated archway on a corner lot. Rosebushes, devoid of flowers this late in the season, grew in wild profusion along the fence line.

Rafferty cut the engine and sat staring at the front of the house. An American flag fluttered from a holder that was positioned underneath the eaves. A toddler's Big Wheel in camouflage colors was parked to one side of the uneven cement driveway that meandered away from his view to the back of the house. A sack of horse oats lay propped up against the side of the house.

An odd swell of panic struck him and he blew out his breath. He felt as if he'd stumbled across a Norman Rockwell family blindsided by war.
Dammit, Jake, why did you have to go and get your stupid self killed and leave me behind to pick up the pieces? Messy shit, this.

Story of Rafferty's life. Cleaning up after everyone else. He hadn't even had time to grieve the brother he barely knew and now here he was about to face the Widow Moncrief.

What was he supposed to say? Sorry your husband left his money to me instead of you? It didn't matter. He was giving it back. He couldn't keep the money, no matter how much he could use it. Rafferty had never in his life taken something that didn't belong to him and he wasn't going to start now.

What would Jake's wife say to him? How would she react? Would she tell him stories about his brother? Would they become friends?

In your dreams, bastard boy. You don't belong here in Norman Rockwellville. Fractured or not.

Family loyalty. Why did it mean so much to him? Especially when it didn't seem to mean anything to anyone else. Maybe that was it. Maybe that's why family loyalty meant so much. He'd never really had it. He was searching for the glue that would finally make him stick.

Don't believe for one second that you'll find it here.

The next few minutes were not going to be easy. Nothing to do but get through it.

Suppressing a sigh, Rafferty climbed from the truck and started up the steps, knowing in his heart that no matter what he did, there could be no mending the past.

He paced the porch, gathering his courage.
C'mon. Just do it.
Finally, he raised his hand, rapped on the door.

A long moment passed. The wait was killing him.

He knocked again.

From behind the door, he heard movement. He braced himself, but even so, he was not prepared for what he saw when the door opened.

Because he found himself staring into the pretty green eyes of the woman from Searcy's parking lot.

Chapter Three

A
panicky sensation twined around Lissette.

The cowboy she'd smashed into must have changed his mind about letting her off the hook over the fender bender because here he was on her front porch. Maybe he'd called his insurance company and they told him to hunt her down and hold her accountable. Beware of handsome cowboys making promises. She'd known his behavior had been too good to be true, but she couldn't blame him. She'd been in the wrong. Nothing to do but offer to make installment payments for the damage to his truck. Another pothole slowing her down on her journey of building her business to provide for her son.

Behind him, the clouds gathered darkly, smelling of rain. Thunder grumbled. A whisk of wind shook red leaves from the oaks in the front yard, sent them scraping across the porch. A cool draft rushed past her.

The cowboy was still dressed in those snug-fitting Levi's and scuffed cowboy boots and Stetson. His body was hard and lean. He worked outdoors, a real live cowboy, even though his license plates had identified him as being from California.

He was taller than she remembered. Not as tall as Jake, but close. Shadows fell across his face, making his beard-stubbled jaw look as if it had been chiseled from stone. His cheekbones were high, sharp, and in this light, foreboding. A shiver passed through her, stirring the prickly awareness lighting up her nerve endings.

A cowboy. Not another cowboy. Why did he have to be a cowboy?

You live in cowboy country. What do you expect?

Involuntarily, she took a step backward, then immediately regretted it. She didn't want him to think that he held the upper hand, even if he did.

His dark chocolate eyes narrowed. “You,” he said, sounding surprised. “It's you.”

“Me,” she confirmed, mildly amused. If he hadn't expected to find her here, then he hadn't come looking to make her pay for his dented pickup, but if he wasn't here about the fender bender, why was he on her front porch?

Silence stretched out long as a lonesome highway.

Their eyes hitched up like a truck to a trailer and they studied each other warily.

Lately, life had come at her in a hazy blur of pain. As a defense mechanism, she numbed herself against sensation, but right here, right now, everything dropped into distinct, pinpoint-focus. She could finally
see
again
.
What had before seemed unfathomable was now fraught with clarity and before he said another word, she suddenly knew exactly who he was.

Finally, he glanced at a note clipped to the papers in his hand that were an identical copy of the government papers she had tucked into a drawer. “
You're
Lissette Moncrief?”

An icy blade that had nothing to do with impending rain, knifed her. The haunted expression on his face, the throbbing at the hollow of her neck, her husband's insurance papers crumpled in his broad masculine fingers, the hairs rising on her forearm all fused into this crystal-clear moment.

She brought a hand to her chest. Words jammed up. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Finally stuttered, “Y-yes.”

In excruciating slow motion, he swept off his cowboy hat, held it over his heart like he was about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. His thick, whiskey-colored hair, creased from the mold of his Stetson, curled up along his scalp. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple pumping up, and then slowly drifting down. “My name is Rafferty Jones.”

Yes. Here he was at last. Jake's illegitimate half brother showing up three months too late.

Her hand grasped the side of the door and it was all she could do to keep from slamming it in his face. How screwed up was it that fate had sent her plowing into him in Searcy's parking lot? The clarity cracked into a mosaic of confusion. Nothing in the world made sense.

Ice slicked her from the inside out. A hundred unexpressed emotions locked up her throat, clicking closed a hundred tiny padlocks. She couldn't speak. This was the same man who'd stolen her money.

It wasn't your money and he didn't steal it. It was Jake's life insurance and death gratuity to do with what he wished and apparently he wanted his brother to have it over you and Kyle. Honor that. Accept it. Move on. You don't need Jake's money. You can take care of yourself.

“May I come in?” he asked, his eyes somber. “I came to pay my condolences.”

“A bit late, don't you think?” Okay, that was bitchy. She didn't know anything about his circumstances or what was in his heart.

His eyes never strayed from her face. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had studied her so intently. These days most people—at a loss for the right words or afraid that widowhood might be contagious—avoided catching her eye. It would only get worse once Kyle's condition became general knowledge.

It was refreshing, his unrelenting stare. She held his gaze. Didn't waver.

“I'm sorry I couldn't have come sooner,” he said. “I've been in Australia for three months on business, and it wasn't until I got home last week that I found . . .” He tightened his grip on the papers. “This.”

“You didn't know Jake was dead?”

He shook his head. “Not until I opened this letter from the army upon my return home. Who around here would tell me?”

Lissette fingered her bottom lip. “The army didn't call? E-mail?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

His shoulders lifted. “I dunno. Must have slipped between the cracks. Government bureaucracy at its finest. My phone number is unlisted and I'd gotten a new e-mail address. Whatever the snafu, they simply sent this letter, a copy of Jake's papers, and the check.”

A doleful expression flickered across Rafferty's face so briefly she wondered if she'd imagined it.

It occurred to her then that his loss was fresher than hers. She had already come to terms with Jake's demise. Honestly, she'd been alone so much of their marriage that she scarcely missed him during the course of her day-to-day life. While she had mourned her husband and the tragedy of his passing, their marriage had been crippled for a long time, and it was only with his death that she'd begun to realize the extent of it.

But Rafferty was still adjusting to the news. Then again, how well had he even known Jake? Her husband had never mentioned his half brother to her. Claudia claimed never to have heard of him. If the brothers had any kind of a real bond, why hadn't Jake ever told her about Rafferty?

“I'm sorry,” she said sincerely. “That's a terrible way to find out.”

Neither Rafferty nor Lissette spoke. They stood breathing in the heaviness of the moment, more cloying than New Orleans humidity in August.

What to do? She could rise to the occasion, invite him in, and discover what he wanted, or she could give him some excuse and send him on his way. She twisted the doorknob in her hand. The urge to swing it closed was strong, but she could see the pain on his face, even as he struggled to hide it.

“Come in,” she said finally, stepping aside and wondering all the while what she was letting herself in for.

The stranger conscientiously grated his boots against the scraper before stepping inside.

“Please, come into the kitchen. Bad news goes down better with coffee and crumb cake,” Lissette called over her shoulder as she led the way.

Stetson still clutched in his hand, he followed her. “Where's your boy?”

“I put him down for a nap.”

Rafferty moved with the lanky, loose-limbed gait of a natural cowboy, as if he was more comfortable on horseback than on foot. His dark eyes scanned the room, the tight, masculine lines of his mouth at once both comforting and unnerving. A mouth that seemed to say,
I'm a man you can count on. Trust me
.

Lissette blinked, seeing the room through a stranger's eyes. The kitchen housed commercial-grade appliances, two large convection ovens, a state-of-the-art refrigerator, and dishwasher. Stainless steel glistened and everything smelled of organic cleaning products. Three wooden bar stools were tucked up to the backside of the marble-slab cooking island.

Her parents had paid for her kitchen renovations as a lavish Christmas present the previous year when Texas laws had changed to allow cottage-industry bakers to operate from their homes as long as certain conditions were met. Before the law passed, Lissette had been forced to lease space from a commercial bakery in the nearby town of Twilight, to make the wedding cakes she sold through Mariah's wedding planning business. The renovations were another reason she was reluctant to ask her parents for money. They were still paying off the loan for the project.

“Have a seat,” she invited.

Rafferty pulled out a bar stool. The wooden legs scraped against the terrazzo floor. He settled his cowboy hat on the seat of a second stool.

Lissette turned to grind coffee beans. Soon the rich smell of freshly crushed French roast filled the room and the only sound between them was the gurgle of the coffeemaker.

Rafferty perched awkwardly on the stool, as if he were just waiting for an excuse to fly away. He tilted his head, studied her hands.

Feeling self-conscious, she tucked her arms behind her back. “So,” she began, searching for something to say. “You're Jake's half brother. I never knew about you.”

He nodded as if that did not surprise him. Strong, silent type. The cowboy type. Someone she should stay away from.

“But you knew about me?” she asked.

“Not much,” he admitted. “Just your name. Jake sent me your wedding announcement.”

“But not an invitation?”

“No.”

“Don't you find that strange?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “I'm the skeleton in the closet.”

“You're younger than Jake.”

“By four years.”

“That makes you twenty-nine.”

Another nod.

“Me too,” she said for no reason. “I'll be thirty in January.”

“You look much younger.” He spread his palms out on the island, the backs of his tanned hands startling against the white marble. His nails were clean and clipped short but his knuckles were crisscrossed with small nicks and scars.

Her face heated at his straightforward comment. “It's not just Jake. No one around here has ever talked about you. That fact in and of itself is quite odd in a small town where even the brand of laundry soap that people use is up for public discussion.”

Slowly, he drummed his fingers against the marble, producing the simple duple meter of a funeral march. The beat sent a shiver over her. He shrugged again, circumspect. Nothing at all like Jake.

She felt like a cotton shirt twisted dry by the old-fashioned wringer that decorated her mother-in-law's screened sun porch in retro country chic. Knotted up. Tense. “When did you learn who your real father was?”

“I always knew. My mother didn't hide the fact that my father was married with a family in Texas and he wanted nothing to do with us.” He kept up the drumming. “Who knows? Maybe that's why I became a cowboy. To impress him.”

Lissette tried to imagine what that was like. Knowing that your father wanted nothing to do with you. A rush of sympathy washed over her for the little kid that he'd been, growing up without a dad. It killed her soul to realize that her son would never know his father either. It wasn't fair. For Rafferty or Kyle.

“Did you ever meet your father?” she asked.

Rafferty shook his head.

“I never met him either.” She moved to pour up the coffee in matching blue earthenware mugs. “Gordon died before Jake and I met. Everyone says he was a die-hard cutting horse cowboy. Real alpha male.”

“So my mother tells me. I guess that's why she fell for him.”

“And the wedding ring on his finger didn't stop her?” She slid a mug in front of Rafferty, stepped back to lean against the kitchen counter, putting distance between them. “Sugar? Cream?”

He placed a hand over his cup, indicating black coffee was fine with him. Lissette stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into her mug.

“My mother is what she is,” he said evenly, no judgment in his voice.

“Why didn't she demand Gordon provide for you? She could have forced him to pay child support.”

“I don't know.”

Perplexed by his calmness, Lissette pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Didn't she ever think about what she was doing to you?”

“Good coffee,” Rafferty mused, and took a long sip.

To hell with the coffee. She settled her hands on her hips, unexpected fury digging into her. “I don't understand why your mother would do that to you.”

He shifted, said nothing for so long that she thought that he wasn't going to answer. It had been rude of her to ask. It was none of her business. She stared out the window, saw a sparrow perch on the rooster weathervane Jake had installed, and wished she could take the question back, because she understood all at once that her anger had nothing to do with Rafferty or his mother.

Finally, he said, “I love my mother, but she's bipolar. She's much better now, with the right medication, but when I was a kid . . .” He let his words trail off. His eyes stayed impassive, unreadable, giving no clue as to how he felt.

“I . . .” She swallowed, traced an index finger over the countertop. “I'm not going to say I'm sorry for what you've gone through because I know how wearing other people's pity can be. But you've done well for yourself in spite of your childhood.”

“I've done well
because
of it,” he corrected. “If my mother had been strong, I wouldn't have had to be. She made me who I am.”

How could he not be filled with rage and pain? How did a person get to such lofty acceptance? She bit down on her thumbnail. Why couldn't peace come in a powder that you could stir in your coffee like sugar and drink it up?