Christmas in Cowboy Country (2 page)

 

 

Annie saw her mother through the kitchen window as she hauled shopping bags filled with food out of the pickup's cab. Lou had the side door open before Annie reached for the knob.

“There you are. Thanks so much for doing the shopping.”

“No problem.”

Working quickly, they got everything put away. Her mother boiled water for herb tea while Annie opened a package of cookies and rinsed some grapes, which she put into a bowl on the table, along with mugs and small plates.

She looked up. “Where's Dad?” Normally her father came into the kitchen when he heard someone pull into the drive.

“He's gone up to bed.”

“Already? It's only eight.”

“I guess he was tired after giving that surveyor a hard time.” Lou laughed as she sat down. “What was Chuck Pfeffer thinking? But to hear your dad tell it, the fellow won't come back.”

Annie wouldn't mind if he did come back—just not here. She gave a shrug. “Maybe not onto our property. But he'll show up someplace else, that's for sure. There's a lot of new construction going on.”

Her mother shook her head with mild concern. “Tell me about it. I don't know anything about Chuck's plans, though. But other folks are thinking of selling up and moving out. It's a shame, really. Still, you can't stop change.” She nibbled thoughtfully on a grape.

“True enough.” The subject was depressing, so Annie changed it. “How's Cilla?”

“Same sweet tooth. Jelly Jam had those wonderful crumb-top muffins just out of the oven, so we ordered some and started talking. We kind of forgot about the time.”

“Dad didn't.”

“He had nothing to worry about.” Lou rolled her eyes. “It's not like I get into town that often. Anyway, Cilla is coping fairly well, under the circumstances.”

Annie gave her mother a questioning look over the rim of her mug. “What's up?”

“Well, you know she took in her cousin Bree's girls,” Lou began.

“You mentioned that.” Annie dunked a cookie and ate it. “How old are they again?”

“Three and six. Full of fun, but so mischievous. They turn her house upside down. Cilla loves them to pieces, but there are days when she feels a little upside down herself. She and Ed never had children, so of course she's not used to it.”

Annie let her mother ramble on about her best friend, whose kind heart meant people sometimes took advantage of her.

“Bree is divorced, right?”

“Yes. Her ex is totally out of the picture. He doesn't see the kids and doesn't pay a nickel of child support. Right now Bree is making good money, but she earns it the hard way.” Lou shook her head. “Fourteen-hour shifts at an oil field camp in North Dakota, cooking for hundreds of roughnecks. That's a tough job.”

“Yikes. I bet.” Annie had helped her mother cook for the ranch hands at haying time while she was growing up. But they were courteous and appreciative, and there had never been more than six or seven of them.

“Cilla says a camp like that is no place for children.”

“I'm sure she's right.”

“So she has the girls until January. Then their mom comes back. Bree's saving every penny so they can start a new life, just the three of them.” True to her nature, Lou finished the story with a happy ending.

Annie hoped it came true. “Good for her. And good for Cilla.”

“Just so long as she doesn't lose her mind,” Lou said wryly. “Of course, Ed helps. He got dinner on the table by five and Cilla took home a pie for dessert. So she got a break.”

“I'm glad you both escaped.”

Lou Bennett's blue eyes sparkled as she smoothed her pixie cut. “The hairdresser's next. That salon is full of runaway women.”

Annie laughed as she finished her tea, then took the mug to the sink, washing it and the few dishes that had been left from lunch. Her mother got busy with some paperwork she'd left on the kitchen table.

“Oh, here's my Christmas card list,” Lou said absently. “Shoot. I'm going to need at least two boxes this year. I like to get them mailed by December first.”

“That's four weeks away.” Annie concentrated on her task. “You could send out e-cards,” she said.

“I just can't. It's not the same. Some of the animated ones are cute, though. Hmm. Maybe I'll send e-cards to the kids and real cards to the grown-ups.”

Lou paused as Annie racked the plates in the dish drainer.

“I hope Sam and Zach come home for Christmas,” Lou said softly. “With them here plus Nicole and Paula, the house will be filled to bursting. Just thinking about it makes me happy.”

Annie suppressed a smile. “Wait until grandchildren are in the works. You might feel differently then.”

“I'd be even happier. But don't tell those four I said so. They're still newlyweds, after all. Well, Zach and Paula are. Not Sam and Nicole. They've been married for two years. Imagine that.”

Annie didn't respond. It was a lot harder to imagine herself in a relationship, let alone being married.

Her mother reached into her tote bag for a file folder. “Oh, no,” Lou groaned.

Annie turned, flipping the dish towel over her shoulder. “What's the matter?”

“I promised Nell Dighton that I'd bring her these forms for the Christmas fund-raiser and I completely forgot. She needs them tonight.”

“I'll take them to her,” Annie offered.

“But you already drove to the big supermarket and back.”

“It felt good to get out. Besides, Velde is a lot closer. And I don't feel like watching TV or reading.”

“Are you sure?”

Annie hung up the dish towel neatly. “Hand 'em over. Be back in a flash.”

 

 

Annie switched off the radio in the truck before the sad song was over and clambered out as soon as she'd parked. The neon sign that marked the town's vintage saloon glowed a cheerful red. The odd mood she'd fallen into on the short drive vanished.

Annie pushed open the swinging doors, enjoying the authentic creak. Her boot heels clunked pleasantly on the old plank floor of the entryway, which led to the saloon's real doors. Handsomely framed and made of weatherized glass, they offered a glimpse of the climate-controlled interior, which she knew was nice and cozy.

Old and new. That was her little hometown all over. The proprietress, Nell Dighton, had been her high-school English teacher before she'd retired and bought the saloon several years ago. Which was why Annie never met any of her dates here. But she loved the place.

Annie still hesitated to call Nell by her first name. In Annie's mind, she was still Mrs. Dighton and would always be Mrs. Dighton, a widow and pillar of the community, plus a real stickler for good grammar and proper language. Though that seemed to be changing. Maybe the influence of her grown son Harold had done that. The two of them were close and he liked to tease her when she lost her temper in public and burst out in not-so-proper language.

Like right now.

Nell seemed to be locked in the storage closet, judging by the unladylike curses issuing from behind its closed door.

Annie walked that way and put a hand on the doorknob, noticing the door wasn't really shut just as Nell backed out of it, her arms piled high with miscellaneous boxes marked
Xmas
and
Fragile
and
Don't Peek
. On the very top of the pile was a small box with a big question mark on the side.

“Let me help you,” Annie said, laughing.

“Oh, goodness. Thanks.” Nell blew the dust off the top box. “There's just so much stuff. Decorations, garlands, ornaments—I didn't sort it out before I put it away in January. But I do know that bottom one has the lights. I wanted to test them.”

“Good idea to get an early start.” Annie relieved Nell of some of her burden, settling several boxes on a round table by the piano.

“Well, yes. Whew. But if I don't have everything I need and have to shop for something, the sales start before Thanksgiving nowadays. I do want to be ready.” Nell looked curiously at her, as if she'd just realized that Annie didn't often come in at night. “What brings you here at this hour?”

“My mom forgot to give you the fund-raising forms. And—oh, heck. I just forgot to bring them in. They're out in my truck.”

Annie wasn't usually so absentminded. Brooding about her nonexistent love life on a lonely road with country music on the radio was never a good idea. But Nell Dighton was the forgiving type.

“That's great. I was about to call her.”

“Well, before I bring them home again, let me go get 'em.”

“You do that. Thanks, honey.”

When Annie came back in, Nell was still checking out the various boxes. She lifted a half-crushed lid and peered inside. “There are the lights. Got a minute to help me straighten them out?”

“Sure.”

Annie reached in and drew out a complicated tangle of dark green wires and big fat Christmas bulbs, the traditional kind. The bulbs' colors were flat and dull. She smiled at Nell. “I always love it when they're all laid out in a dark room and get plugged in. Can we close the blinds?”

Even though it was dark out, the street lamps poured golden light in through the windows.

Nell chuckled, looking into some other boxes without removing them. “Go right ahead. Just so long as I don't have to get down on my knees. You don't even have to untangle them.”

Annie set the tangle of bulbs and wire on a table, and went to the windows, letting the wooden-slat blinds rattle down. Then she switched off all the interior lights. There was enough light coming in from the street for her to find her way back.

“Show time,” she said to Nell, grinning like a kid as the older woman handed her the plug to the string of lights.

Annie kneeled by the outlet, positioning the prongs, then turning her head as she pushed in the plug. All of the bulbs blazed with glorious color in the darkened saloon.

“Yeah!” she said happily.

“Looks like they're all working,” Nell said on a more practical note.

Annie rose, dusting off her knees and walking back to the table. She stopped in her tracks when the saloon door swung open.

It framed a broad-shouldered, lean man in a checked flannel shirt and denim jacket. No ball cap this time. Just a lot of thick, dark hair, ruffled by the wind. She recognized him immediately. The glowing light from the tangle of Christmas bulbs didn't soften his rugged features that much.

“Hello again,” said the stranger.

A
nnie stared at him. “Ah—hello.” There was no reason he shouldn't be in the saloon, but seeing him there took her aback. He looked taller indoors.

She managed an awkward smile and went back toward the table where the Christmas boxes were haphazardly piled, stopping for a second to flip the wall switch. Then she bent to unplug the lights and picked them up, stuffing them back into their container.

Nell bustled over and moved behind the bar as the stranger stepped inside the saloon and took a stool. “Welcome. What'll you have?”

“A beer, thanks. Anything on draft is fine.”

She offered him a choice of three and he selected the darker ale. Nell chatted him up as she filled the tall glass, setting it carefully in front of him.

He didn't drink it right away, half glancing at Annie.

She caught his gaze for a second, then looked down, into a clear plastic container that held pinecone birds. They seemed to be stuck together. They could use organizing. She popped off the lid and reached in, then put the lid back on when she realized that they were glued to each other. So much for that big idea.

“Would you like some peanuts?” Nell wiped her hands on a bar towel, smiling at him.

“Sure.”

She took a small bowl from under the counter and poured shelled peanuts from a paper sack into it, sliding it over to him.

Hmm.
His very own bowl,
Annie thought. And fresh peanuts. Nothing was too good. Nell's brown eyes looked awfully bright.

“Mind if I ask why you said hello
again
to Annie?”

As a lifelong resident of a small town, Nell had pretty good instincts for sizing up outsiders. Clearly, she had decided on the spot that this one could be trusted. It didn't hurt that he was chiseled and handsome.

“Not at all,” the man replied.

A bit belatedly, Nell thought to look Annie's way to make sure that she didn't mind the question either and received an almost invisible nod in reply.

Let the stranger do the explaining,
Annie thought. She was interested to hear how he would describe the encounter on their ranch.

He took a long swallow of his beer. Nell forged on with an even brighter smile. “Have you two met?”

“Yes indeed. Not long ago. Today, in fact. I would say it was around noon.”

“Oh my. High noon?”

Annie knew her former English teacher was being a little flirty, but only because she was interested in extracting information.

“Could have been.”

“Sounds like a showdown,” Nell teased.

“You might say that.” He was nice enough to flirt right back at a plump, graying lady who was old enough to be his mother, Annie thought.

He took another sip of his beer. “By the way, thank you for telling me her name. Mr. Bennett didn't seem inclined to introduce us.”

“Oh.” Nell clink-clanked the glassware that was upside down on a draining rack, just for something to do. Annie gave her a
please-shut-up
look, but the older woman didn't seem to pick up on it. “So what's your name? I'm Nell Dighton.”

“Marshall Stone. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise. Now, I know you're not from around here,” she continued. “So let me take an educated guess—”

“Wyoming,” came the laconic answer.

“And what brings you to Colorado?”

“I'm a surveyor. As to how I met Annie”—he seemed a little reluctant to get into it—“I was out on Chuck Pfeffer's property when I ran into Mr. Bennett. Apparently I went a step too far. He didn't take kindly to my presence on his land.”

“Hmm,” Nell said pleasantly.

Annie knew her ex-teacher would have the whole story out of her mother before Annie got home, unless Marshall Stone stayed at the bar longer than that. There wasn't anyone to keep him company and Annie wasn't going to linger. She did want to talk to him. But she didn't like the idea of looking like she was waiting for him to ask if he could buy her a beer.

And if he did, her mother would hear about that too. And her father. There were definite drawbacks to moving home, and the lack of privacy was one.

Not that she'd cared about it particularly until now.

Nell walked around the bar and over to the free jukebox. “How about a musical interlude?”

Annie caught the flicker of amusement in Stone's dark gaze. “Okay.”

The older woman took a small metal disc out of a dish next to the jukebox and awaited his reply.

“Whatever you like, ma'am,” he said gravely.

“All right.” Nell popped the disc into the slot and chose a few tunes, then sauntered back to Annie, who was trying not to look at the way Stone sat on the bar stool. He was now surveying himself in the antique mirror behind the stacked rows of liquor bottles.

He had changed into clean dark jeans and traded his dusty work boots for black cowboy boots, the hand-tooled, expensively simple kind.

The real deal, she thought. They looked like he'd had them since forever. One heel was hooked over the bottom rung of the stool and one was set solidly on the floor. Since he wasn't looking at her, she studied the rest of him discreetly while Nell restocked the lemon and lime wedges in a compartmented holder, slicing the fruits with a sharp knife and humming along with the jukebox.

Those legs were long and lean, but muscled through the thigh. No showy buckle for him. His was just plain silver—probably real silver, she thought suddenly—and the belt was simple black leather with a chased silver tip.

Nice butt. Narrow. He shifted, getting comfortable on the bar stool. He had serious shoulders that filled out the back yoke of his flannel shirt. His dark hair just reached his collar, where a few locks curled. As if he sensed her gaze, he ran his right hand over his hair in back.

Whoa,
she told herself.
Time for a ring check.
Trying to be invisible, Annie craned her neck to peek at his other hand, the left, which he'd just rested on the bar. He seemed to be about to use it to pivot himself around.

She saw nothing, not even the white shadow of a ring. She smiled to herself, then pressed her lips together hard when his eyes met hers in the antique mirror.

A long, lazy, mocking look made heat come into her cheeks.

“Oh, dear. I cut myself. Not too badly.”

Saved by the Nell. Annie jumped up to go help her.

“Now don't get excited, everyone,” the older woman admonished them both. “It's just a tiny cut.”

Marshall Stone slid off his seat and stood. “Ma'am—”

“I don't need rescuing,” Nell said with a wink. “You stay there.”

“But—”

She already had a paper towel wrapped around her finger when Annie got behind the bar.

“Where's the first aid kit?” Annie bent to look under the bar, not familiar with the layout of items.

“In the corner. Next to the baseball bat.” Nell pointed.

Chatting to Marshall Stone the whole time, Nell unwrapped the paper towel and let Annie dab the cut with disinfectant and bandage it. He looked on, seeming to approve of Annie's technique while fielding a few more personal questions from Nell.

“There. That should heal up quickly.” Annie crumpled the bandage wrapper and tossed it and the paper towel away.

“Thanks, honey.” Nell patted her cheek.

Which, Annie realized, was still flaming. Marshall Stone's steady gaze on her had a lot to do with that.

A mixed group of young guys and their girlfriends came through the door, calling out hellos to Nell and Annie while they slung their jackets and down vests over the hooks on the booth posts, sliding into two adjoining booths.

“Here comes everybody. Can you manage?” Annie asked.

“Yes. My son should be here in five minutes.”

“All right. Then if you're okay, I guess I'll run on home,” Annie said quickly.

“Of course I'm okay. I appreciate you bringing in those forms. You tell your mother I said hello.”

“I sure will.”

Marshall Stone stepped aside as Annie went around the bar. His expression didn't change from neutral friendliness as she made every effort not to brush against his sleeve. In fact, she went in a half circle around him.

“So long,” she murmured.

He inclined his head in a polite nod. “Nice to see you again. Take care now.” His reply was deep voiced and unexpectedly intimate.

At least Nell hadn't heard the exchange. The saloon owner was taking orders from the first booth as the second booth began to swap stories of the day's jaunt on a scenic mountain railroad.

Annie headed for the door.

Nell hurried over with her order pad in hand. “Wait. I almost forgot.” She flipped through the pages until she got to a blank one and jotted down a note. “Would you give this to Lou? Just in case I don't get a chance to call her tonight.”

Annie looked down at the piece of paper when Nell tore it off and gave it to her. “Town meeting tomorrow. Eight
P.M.
,” she read. “Oh, okay. Will do.”

“You should come too,” Nell said.

Annie shook her head. “No, thanks. Not my thing.”

“It's your civic duty.”

Annie only smiled as she pushed the door open. She could think of about a thousand other things she'd rather do than sit through a long, dull meeting.

Like go out on a date with Marshall Stone. But at the moment, she couldn't think of a way to make that happen.