Cowboy Under the Mistletoe (2 page)

“How do you always know?”

Her mom pointed. “That little muscle between your eyebrows gives you up every time.”

Allison touched the spot.

She had been stewing. Since the moment Jake turned his back and walked away, a dark worry had flown in and now hovered like a vulture over a cow carcass. She’d told Faith, of course. Except for that one shuddery secret she never spoke of, she told her best friend since first grade everything. She’d even cried on Faith’s shoulder years ago when Jake had packed a weathered old pickup and left for good.

Allison gnawed on her bottom lip. She was over him. At least, she’d told herself as much for the past few years. But she remembered, too, the terrible injustice done to a heartbroken boy.

Mom would find out anyway sooner or later. The whole family would. Then the mud would hit the fan.

She averted her gaze, watched a blue butterfly kiss a lavender aster.

“Mama,” she said. “Jake’s back in town.”

For a full minute, the only sound was the bee-buzz of hummingbirds and the faint football noise from inside the house. Down the street someone fired up a lawn mower.

Allison could feel the blood surging in her veins—hot and anxious and so terribly sorry. Not for her family. For Jake. That was the problem, as the family, especially her brothers, saw it. Allison was a traitor to the Buchanon name. Back when the pain was rawest for everyone, she’d sided with Jake. They hadn’t understood her loyalty. And if she had shared her secret, that singular defining reason for remaining loyal to Jake Hamilton, she would have caused an explosion of a different sort.

“Jake Hamilton?” her mother finally asked, voice tight.

The tone made Allison ache. “I saw him yesterday at the Hamilton house on my way to Faith’s bridal shower.”

“Why have you waited until now to tell me?”

“I stayed late at Faith’s and then church this morning...” She lifted her palms, let them down again. In truth, she’d been a coward, putting off the inevitable unpleasant reaction and the feeling of betrayal that came along for the ride. “Faith said his grandma is coming home from the rehab center.”

“Oh, Allison.” Mom’s tone was heavy-hearted. “The boys will be upset.”

That was putting it mildly.

The
boys.
On the subject of Jake Hamilton, her sensible, caring, adult brothers behaved like children on a playground, the reason no one, even Quinn, had mentioned Jake in a very long time.

Mama pushed up from the swing and ran a hand over her mouth, a worry gesture Allison knew well. Karen Buchanon was the kindest heart in Gabriel’s Crossing. She drove shut-ins to doctors’ offices and sat up all night with the sick. She provided Christmas for needy families and fed stray dogs, but her children’s needs came first. Always.

“That was so long ago. My brothers are grown men now. Isn’t it time to forgive and forget?”

“Some things go too deep, honey. I wish we could put all of that behind us—” she clasped her hands together and gazed toward the back door as if she could see her children inside “—but wishing doesn’t change anything. Jake did what he did, and Quinn suffered for it. Still suffers and always will.”

“I know, Mama, and I hate what happened to Quinn as much as anyone. But Jake was seventeen. A boy. Teenagers do stupid things.” She, of all people, understood how one stupid decision could be catastrophic.

She went to her mother’s side, desperately wishing to tell everything about that one night at the river. But danger lurked in revelation and she didn’t. She and Jake had a made a pact, a decision to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. “I’m not asking them to be his best friend, but we’re supposed to be Christians. The holidays are coming up soon, the time for forgiveness and peace. Don’t you think the boys could find it in their hearts to forgive Jake and move on? Couldn’t we all?”

But Mama was already shaking her head. “Don’t do this, honey. Stirring up the past will only cause hurt and trouble. Jake may be back in town—and I pray his visit is short—but for everyone’s sake please don’t get involved with him again.”

Allison thought of the young Jake she’d known in grade school, though he’d been a whole year older and more mature, at least in her adoring eyes. Jake had been Quinn’s best friend, a nice boy with sad eyes and a needy heart. The first boy she’d ever kissed. The one who lingered in her heart and memory even now.

Then she thought of Quinn. Her moody, broody brother. Her blood. Buchanon blood. And blood always won.

So she gave Mama the only possible answer. “All right.”

But with sorrow born of experience, Allison knew this was one promise she wouldn’t keep.

Chapter Two

H
e’d rather tangle with the meanest bull in the pasture than try to drive a wheelchair.

Jake yanked the folded bunch of canvas and metal from the bed of the pickup and shook it.

“How is this thing supposed to work anyway?” he said to exactly nobody.

Metal rattled against metal but the chair didn’t open. He wished he’d paid more attention when the nurse—a puny little ninety-pound woman no bigger than Allison—folded the chair and tossed it into the back of his truck with ease. Getting the thing open and functioning couldn’t be that difficult.

A hot summer sun roasted the back of his neck while Granny Pat waited patiently inside the cab with the AC running. She wasn’t happy because he’d driven the truck right up next to the porch. She had fussed and complained that he’d leave ruts
with those massive tires
and ruin her yard. As if that wasn’t enough, she’d been telling all this to Grandpa, a man who’d been dead for twenty years.

Jake’s day had been lousy, and his head hurt. Last night, he’d barely slept after the meeting with Allison. He kept seeing her smile, her bounce, her determined kindness.

He didn’t want to remember how much he’d missed her.

Then today, he’d made the trip to the convalescent center, a place that would depress Mary Poppins. If that and Granny’s running conversations with Grandpa weren’t enough to make his head pound, he’d stopped at Gabriel’s Crossing Pharmacy to fill an endless number of prescriptions, and who should he see crossing the street? Brady Buchanon. Big, hot-tempered Brady.

Seeing a Buchanon brother was inevitable, but he planned to put off the moment as long as possible. So like a shamefaced secret agent, he’d pulled his hat low and hustled inside the drugstore before Brady caught a glimpse of him.

He hated feeling like an outcast, like the nasty fly in the pleasant soup of Gabriel’s Crossing, but he was here, at least through the holidays, and the Buchanons would have to deal with it. So would everyone else who remembered the golden opportunity Jake had stolen from Quinn Buchanon and this small town with big dreams.

Then why did he feel like a criminal in his own hometown?

Granny Pat popped open the truck door and leaned out, her white hair as poufy as cotton candy. “Grandpa wants to know if you need help?”

Jake rolled his eyes heavenward. The sun nearly blinded him. “Be right there, Granny. Don’t fall out.”

At under five feet and shrinking, Granny Pat didn’t have the strength to pull the heavy truck door closed and it edged further and further open. She was slowly being stretched from the cab.

Jake dropped the wheelchair and sprinted to her side, catching her a second before she tumbled out onto the grass. “Easy there. That door is heavy.”

“I know it!” Fragile or not, she was still spit-and-vinegar Pat and clearly aggravated at her weakness. “I’m useless. Makes me so mad.”

“Let’s get you in the house. You’ll feel better there.”

“Get my wheelchair.”

“The chair can wait.” Forever as far as he was concerned.

With an ease that made him sad, Jake lifted his grandmother from the seat and carried her inside the house.

“Where to, madame?” he teased, though his heart ached. Granny Pat had been his mama, his daddy and his home all rolled into one strong, vital woman. She’d endured his wild teenage years and the scandal he’d caused that rocked Gabriel’s Crossing. For her body to fail all because of one broken bone was unfair.

But when had life ever been fair?

“Put me in the recliner.” She pointed toward one of two recliners in the living room—the blue one with a yellow-and-orange afghan tossed across the back.

He did as she asked.

Granny Pat tilted her head against the plush corduroy and gazed around the room with pleasure. “It’s good to finally be home. I’ll get my strength back here.”

Her pleasure erased the sorrow of seeing Brady Buchanon and the nagging worry over finances. Granny Pat needed this, needed him, and he’d find a way to deal with the Buchanons and his empty pockets.

“You want some water or anything before I unload the truck?”

“Nothing but fresh air. Open some windows, Jacob. This house stinks. I don’t know how you slept here in this must and dust.”

As he threw open windows, Jake noticed the dirt and dead insects piled on the windowsills. “Maybe I can find a housekeeper?” His wallet would scream, but he’d figure out a way.

“I don’t want some stranger in my house poking around.”

“Nobody’s a stranger in Gabriel’s Crossing, Granny.”

“Grandpa says something will turn up. Don’t worry.”

A bit of breeze drifted through the window, stirring dust in the sunlight.

“Granny Pat, you know Grandpa—”

“Yes, Jacob, I know.” Her tone was patient as if he was the one with the mental lapses. “Now go on and bring in my belongings. I want my Sudoku book.”

Jake jogged out to the truck, eyeing the pain-in-the-neck wheelchair he’d left against the back bumper. Granny Pat needed wheels to be mobile, and as much as he wanted to haul the chair to the nearest landfill, he was a man and he was determined to make the thing work.

He was wrestling the wheels apart when a Camaro rumbled to the stop sign on the corner. Precisely what he did not need. Allison Buchanon. He refused to look in her direction, hoping she’d roll on down the street. She didn’t.

Allison, tenacious as a terrier, rolled down her window. “Having trouble?”

He looked up and his stomach tumbled down into his boots. The soft brown eyes he’d never forgotten snagged his. A sizzle of connection raised the hairs on his arms. “No.”

Go away.

As if he wasn’t the least interested in the wheelchair, he leaned the contraption against the truck and reached inside the bed for one of Granny Pat’s suitcases.

The Camaro engine still rumbled next to the curb. Why didn’t she mosey on down the road?

“You can’t fool me,” she hollered. “I remember.”

And that was nearly his undoing. He could never fool Allison. No matter what he said or how hard he tried to pretend not to care that he was the town pariah, Allison saw through him. She’d even called him her hero.

“Go home, Allison.” He didn’t want her to remember any more than he wanted her feeling sorry for him.

She gunned the engine but instead of leaving, she pulled into the driveway and hopped out.

Hands deep in her back jeans pockets, she wore a sweater the color of a pumpkin that set off her dark hair. He didn’t want to notice the changes in her, from the sweet-faced teenager to a beautiful woman, but he’d have to be dead not to.

Her fluffy, flyaway hair bounced as she approached the truck, took hold of the wheelchair and attempted to open it. When the chair didn’t budge, she scowled. “What’s wrong with this?”

Determined not to be friendly, Jake hefted a suitcase in each hand and started toward the house. He was here in Gabriel’s Crossing because of Granny Pat. No other reason. Allison Buchanon didn’t affect him in the least.

And bulls could fly.

Something pinged him in the back. A pebble thudded to the grass at his feet. He spun around. “Hey! Did you just hit me with a rock?”

She gave him a grin that was anything but friendly. “I figured out what’s wrong with the chair.”

He dropped the suitcases. “You did?”

“Come here and see for yourself. Unless you’re scared of a girl.”

He was scared of her all right. Allison Buchanon had the power to hurt him—or cause him to hurt himself. But intrigued by her claim, he went back to the chair.

A car chugged by the intersection going in the opposite direction. Across the street a dog barked, and down the block, some guy mowed his lawn, shooting the grassy smell all over the neighborhood. Normal activities in Gabriel’s Crossing, though there was nothing normal about him standing in Granny Pat’s yard with a Buchanon.

Man, his death wish must be worse than most.

He crossed his arms over his chest, careful not to get close enough to touch her. He didn’t need reminders of her soft skin and flowery scent. “What?”

She went into a crouch, one hand holding up the chair. Her shoes were open toed and someone had painted her toenails orange and green like tiny pumpkins.

“That piece is bent and caught on the gear. See?”

He had no choice but to crouch beside her. There it was. Her sweet scent. Honeysuckle, he thought. Exactly the same as she’d worn in high school. Sweet and clean and pure.

Jake cleared his throat and gripped the chair. He needed to get a grip, all right.

“I got it,” he said, thinking she’d leave now. She didn’t.

He reached in and straightened the metal piece with his fingers, using more effort than he’d expected. A deep rut whitened along his index finger.

“Pliers would have been easier,” she said. Then she grabbed the oversize wheels and popped open the stubborn wheelchair. “There. Ready to roll.”

Jake stepped around to take the handles. Allison climbed up on the truck bumper and started unloading Granny Pat’s belongings.

“I can get those.”

“I came to see Miss Pat.” She handed him a plastic sack of clothes. Granny had collected a dozen shopping bags filled with clothes along with her suitcases and medical supplies. Where a woman in a convalescent center acquired so much remained a puzzle. But then, women in general were a puzzle to most of the male species and Jake was no exception.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“Let her be the judge of that.”

“You know what I mean, Allison. Don’t be muleheaded.”

She hopped off the bumper, plopped a bag of plastic medical supplies into the wheelchair and went back for another. When he saw she wasn’t leaving no matter what he said, he joined her, unloading the items, much of which fit in the wheelchair.

“So, how have you been?” she asked, her tone all spunky and cute as if no bad blood ran between her brothers and him.

“Good.”

“What does that mean?”

He squinted at her over the tailgate. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“We were friends once, Jake. I believe in second chances.”

Friends? Yes, they’d been friends, but toward the end, he’d been falling in love with his best friend’s sister.

He shook off the random thought. Whatever had been budding between two teenagers was long dead and buried.

“How’s Quinn?”

He hadn’t meant to ask, hadn’t intended to open that door, but he held his breath, praying for something he couldn’t name.

“He’s the architect for Buchanon Construction now.”

“Granny Pat told me he went to Tech with Brady.” He didn’t say the other; that Quinn’s full-ride football scholarship had disappeared on a bloody October morning. “Does he ever talk about—”

“No, and I don’t want to either.” She glanced away, toward a pair of puppies galloping around the neighbor’s front yard, her eyebrows drawn together in a worried frown. “Quinn has a decent life here in Gabriel’s Crossing. Maybe the path wasn’t the one he’d expected to take, but he survived.”

Jake slowly exhaled. “That’s good. Real good.”

Quinn was okay. The accident happened long ago. Maybe Jake was no longer the hated pariah. People moved on. Everyone except him and he’d been stuck in the past so long, he didn’t know how to move off high-center. “What about you? Why aren’t you married with a house full of kids?”

He hadn’t meant to ask that either.

She shrugged. The pumpkin sweater bunched up around her white neck. “I’ve had my chances.”

He was sure she had, and he wondered why she hadn’t taken them. “Still working for your dad?”

“In the offices with Jayla.”

“Little sister grew up?”

“We all do, Jake.” She smiled a little. “I keep the books, do payroll, billing. All the fun numbers stuff.”

“Put that high school accounting award to good use, didn’t you?”

Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “You remember that?”

He remembered everything about her, his cheerleader and champion when life had been too difficult to live. “Hard to forget. You wore that medal around your neck for months.”

“Fun times.”

Yes, they were. Before he’d destroyed everything with one stupid decision.

“Faith’s getting married,” she said.

Faith Evans, her sidekick. The long and the short, as the guys had called them. Faith had grown to nearly six feet tall by sixth grade, and Allison had barely been tall enough to reach the gas pedal when she’d turned sixteen. “Yeah? Who’s the lucky guy?”

“They met in college. Derrick Cantelli. I’m coordinating her wedding.” She tilted back on the heels of her sandals, her warm brown eyes searching his. “Granny Pat told me you live in Stephenville now.”

“Land of the rodeo cowboys.”

“Do you like it there?”

“Sure.” He glanced away, afraid she’d read the truth in his eyes. “We better get this in the house before Granny Pat starts hollering.”

He gave the wheels a nudge with his boot.

“Unlock it,” Allison said.

“It has a lock?” He poked around and found the lever, released the device with a snap, and incredibly, the chair rolled a few inches. “How did you know that?”

“Brady had knee surgery his last year at Tech.”

Just that quick, the elephant was back in the room. “I watched him play on TV a few times. He was good.”

But not as good as Quinn. No one in the state had been as good at football as Quinn Buchanon. Quinn, with the golden arm that had turned to blood.

He gave the wheelchair a shove and rolled toward the front door.

* * *

He’d gone quiet on her again. When Allison thought they’d moved past that awkward stage, past his determination to be the rude, don’t-care cowboy, he had clammed up again. Between his reluctance and her brothers’ animosity, she wondered why she kept trying.

But she knew why. Though she was a Buchanon with every cell in her body, her brothers were wrong to hold a grudge. Anger would not restore Quinn’s arm to normal. Anger would not regain his chance at an NFL career. All bitterness had ever done was make them miserable.

Like now. If they knew she was here, her brothers would have a fit. Just as they would have a fit if they’d known about the other thing. They’d have done something crazy.