A Cowboy for Christmas (18 page)

Once he was through the door, he realized that beneath that frilly apron she was wearing a slinky blue dress with a very short hemline and four-inch stilettos that made her look like a gazelle. He stood there staring.

“Did you want to say something?” she asked.

He could scarcely clear his throat. She has the most gorgeous legs. “Nice dress,” he croaked.

“I bought it today.”

For him? Something unraveled in his stomach.

“Where's Kyle?” he asked.

“He's spending the weekend with my parents. They came by to get him this afternoon and they'll bring him home on Sunday.”

“So we've got the whole weekend alone?” He gulped.

Her grin turned saucy. “We do.”

“Is this . . . are you trying to seduce me, Lissy Moncrief?”

Coyly, she lowered her lashes. “Am I too bold?”

“Hell no, darlin',” he said, happiness lighting up his heart, and took her in his arms.

They kissed for a long time and then she pulled back. “I need to check on the meat loaf.”

“You sure know the way to a man's heart.” He cocked his head as she walked away, his gaze zeroing in on the hem of that dress.

They ate dinner by candlelight. Just the two of them, and it felt like a real date. Afterward, Lissy led him to the bathroom where all around the claw-foot tub scented candles sat. The room glowed romantically in the illumination from the flickering flames.

While she ran a hot bath, complete with bubbles, they did a slow striptease for each other. Lissy put her hair in a ponytail high atop her head and then got into the warm water. Rafferty slid in behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, held her against him, listening to the soft sounds of their tandem breathing as the smell of coconut scented the air. They could be on a tropical island, just the two of them. All alone and blissfully cut off from the rest of the world. It was a wonderful dream.

Lissy had gone quiet.

“What is it?” he asked, squeezing her tighter.

“I was thinking about Claudia. I haven't talked to her since that day in the park. I was going to try and call her and smooth things over, but I decided, you know what? I'm not the one in the wrong. She overreacted. She freaked out. I understand why she's upset, but this time, I'm not going to run in and try to make things all better. She's going to have to make the first overtures.”

“That's hard for you. Not making peace.”

Her head bobbed and her ponytail tickled his nose. “A fortune-teller once told me that it was my fatal flaw. So anxious to placate others that I lose sight of myself.”

“Do you think that's true?”

“Yes, but I'm trying to change. It's why I'm not calling Claudia even though this rift is killing me.”

He dipped his head to lightly kiss her neck. Her skin tasted of salt and soap, but she smelled of vanilla. “I'm the cause.”

“No,” she said. “I'm the cause. I've let people push me around for too long and now that I'm standing my ground, she's startled and doesn't know what to make of me. She'll come around as long as I don't make the first move. If I extend the olive branch when she was the one at fault, I'll be right back at square one, but it's hard for me to hold steady because I know how much she's hurting.”

“You really do love her, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“I could just . . .” He didn't want to say the word. “Go.”

“No,” she said. “Our time together is short enough. I only have you for a few more weeks. I've got Claudia for the rest of my life. We'll work it out, but I need for it to be on my terms.”

“You're feeling guilty. Being with me like this.”

“Yes. A little. But I don't want to feel guilty.”

“It's hard not to when you care about someone.”

“I want to thank you,” she said. “For last night. It was the loveliest night I've ever had.”

“Really?”

“Not just the sex.” She turned in his arms to look into his eyes. “But the hayride, the way you accepted my friends, how gentle you are with Kyle.” She slanted her head up to kiss his chin. “I know we probably took things too far and a psychologist would tell us that we can't trust what we're feeling considering our circumstances, but I can't regret what happened.”

“Me either,” he said gruffly.

“There's rough sailing ahead for us later,” she said.

“I know.”

“But for now? For the reminder of the time you're in Jubilee, I want to soak up every minute I have with you.”

“I feel the same way.”

They didn't say anything else for a long time. They just sat together in the tub, his arms wrapped tightly under her breasts. He loved the weight of them against his forearms.

“How did it go down when Jake showed up to meet you? Was he bitter like Claudia? Angry? I know you said he stayed for three months so you must have gotten past the initial barrier, but that must have been a weird conversation,” she said

Rafferty chuffed out a breath. If he told Lissy the story of how he and Jake first met, he'd be giving her a window into the dark side of his soul. “It's not a pleasant story.”

She paddled the water with a hand, skimming bubbles off the water. “Was he terrible to you?”

“No. Exactly the opposite.”

“You were terrible to him?”

Rafferty swallowed hard. “I've never told anyone the whole story.”

“It's okay,” she rushed to assure him. “You don't have to tell me.”

“No,” he said. “I want to tell you. It's just hard to talk about.”

She didn't speak again, let him have space, allowed him to tell the story at his own pace. It was easier, telling about it this way. Her facing forward, him at her back. This way, he didn't have to see the shock in her eyes.

“It was a hot night in June, just after my sixteenth birthday. My mother had been dating this low-level guy on the fringes of the movie industry. Mostly, he was a small-time dope dealer and I'd seen the way he'd been looking at my sister, Heather.” He clenched his jaw against the memory. He could see it as if it was playing out in his mind right now. As if he were back in that hellish place all over again.

“How old was Heather?”

“Eleven,” he said unable to keep the hard edge from his voice. “Amelia—that's my mother—she was blind to that sort of thing. Just plowing through life, oblivious. Swinging from manic highs to the depth of despair in the course of a day.”

Lissy's muscles tensed, but she remained silent.

“I came home from work around ten that night,” he said, not knowing why he was going into the dirty details except that once he started, he could not stop. In an instant, he was back in that darkened stairway, his sneakers, slick with fryer grease, slapping against the cement stairs. “I was working at a fried chicken joint and I would bring home the leftovers that they were going to throw away so we'd have something to eat for the next day. We ate so much damn fried chicken that summer that I hate fried chicken to this day.”

His knees were bent, drawn up on either side of Lissy's thighs. She rested her palms on his knees, squeezed gently. The candlelight threw shadows on the wall. The water had grown tepid. He'd never taken a bath with a woman before. It was real nice. A guy could get used to it, especially with a woman like Lissy.

“I came up the stairs of the shithole place where we were living,” he continued as matter-of-factly as he could. It was harder than he thought, talking about it. Even after all this time. “First thing I see is Amelia passed out on the couch in her housecoat. Dane was seven at the time and he was up way past his bedtime watching a horror movie on our busted-up old TV. It was all fuzzy but you could still see the guy with the chain saw. I made him turn off the TV and go to bed and that's when Heather screamed.”

“Oh no,” Lissy whispered.

“I threw that damn bucket of chicken, wings and drumsticks went flying everywhere. I ran to the back of the apartment, flung open her bedroom door.” He paused because he could see it so clearly. It was something no kid should have to see.

Lissy squeezed tighter. He could hear the water faucet drip into the tub.

“Amelia's boyfriend was ripping Heather's pajamas off of her and she was sobbing hysterically. He had his pants down around his ankles, his hairy butt sticking out, and the sixteen-year-old kid that I was immediately turned into a full-grown man.”

“I can't even begin to imagine what that was like.”

“Thank God for that. It felt as if a knife severed some kind of tether that kept me attached to my body. It was like the real me floated to the ceiling and I was above it all, watching myself pummel the guy.”

“I think it's called detachment,” she said. “I've heard it often happens to victims of violent crimes.”

He curled his lip. “The anger tasted like dirt and sweat and vomit. I'd never felt such rage. I grabbed that son of a bitch by the shoulders, and I spun him around.” Rafferty fisted a hand, rested it on the edge of the cool porcelain tub.

Lissy leaned over and pressed her lips to his fist, a healing kiss.

“The guy stumbled and fell because of his pants being around his ankles. Heather had stopped screaming, but I could still hear her whimpers. She was pressed into the corner of the bed and when I looked at her, I could see from the terror in her eyes that she was more afraid of me than she was of him.”

Rafferty paused again, took another deep breath, felt his muscles tense. His throat was dry. The dripping faucet underscored his narrative.

“You were a kid. Protecting your sister.”

“I was sixteen. I knew exactly what I was doing. I started punching him as hard as I could. I took out all my rage at my mother for all the men she'd allowed to come into our house. I beat him and I beat him and I beat him. Even after he stopped fighting back, I kept hitting.”

Lissy hissed in her breath. “Oh, Rafferty.”

“I had no control. I couldn't stop. Then there were these arms going around me and I looked up and there was a man I'd never seen before. If he hadn't stopped me I might have killed my mother's boyfriend. Of that I have no doubt. I didn't know who this guy was or where he came from so I just started swinging at him. He raised his arms and said, ‘Don't hit me kid, I'm your brother.' ”

“It was Jake? Just in the nick of time?” Lissy's voice came out high and reedy.

Emotion burned Rafferty's throat, seized his chest. This was supposed to have been Lissy's seduction and he'd turned it into a confession. “That's how I met my older brother. While I was in the process of beating a man to death for attempting to rape my sister. That's the kind of life I had, Lissy.”

“I can't believe you've been living with that all these years.” Her breathing rasped harshly in the confines of the small bathroom. “What happened next?”

“Jake helped me get the guy out of the house. We took him to a hospital across town and dumped him out at the ER.”

“You didn't report it to the police?”

“No and neither did the guy. We never saw or heard from him again. That's why Jake decided to stay the summer. He knew how badly I needed him. He moved us out of the projects. Got us a better place to live. He took care of me and that's why I came here when I found out he died. I came to take care of you and Kyle. It's the only way I can repay him.”

Lissy squirmed around in the tub, maneuvering her body until she was facing him. Hands trailing bubbles, she threaded her fingers through his hair, held his head still, and stared deeply into his eyes. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share that with me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He held her tight, kissed her fiercely. After a few minutes, he climbed from the tub, scooped her into his arms, and carried her into the bedroom.

Chapter Sixteen

F
or two glorious days, she and Rafferty stayed in bed. They made love in as many positions as they could think of and as many times as they could manage. Voraciously, they pleased each other, giving and receiving in equal amounts. They memorized each other's bodies, delighted over finding erogenous zones. They laughed and cried. Talked and hugged. Slipped from the bed only to eat, shower, and go at it again. Neither of them held anything back. It was the best weekend of Lissy's life.

She woke on Sunday morning, exhausted and sweetly sore in every part of her body. Her eyes opened and she smiled up at the ceiling, feeling like she was keeping a most decadent secret. Rafferty Jones was one helluva lover.

A strong arm went around her waist and he pulled her against him. “Good morning, dandelion,” he whispered into her hair.

“Dandelion?”

“You weren't kidding when you said you were bendable. Last night . . . well, whew, let's just say flexibility is a very good thing.”

She closed her eyes, savoring the moment. It was all too beautiful to last. She knew it. Knew her vision was clouded by the way he made her feel. He'd swooped in and saved her, a stalwart cowboy coming to her rescue. In the past, she wouldn't have questioned it. Would have quietly accepted his help without qualms. But now she knew better. This was a fantasy. He was a fantasy. She could enjoy it without losing her direction.

Or her heart.

She wasn't going to make the same mistake with Rafferty that she'd made with his brother, believing that a man could solve all her problems.

At least that's what she told herself.

Eventually, he would leave and she'd be left to move on with her life. She accepted that. It was okay.

The fact that she didn't panic over the thought told her she'd already grown in significant ways. She could take care of herself and her son. She no longer had any doubt.

Her parents brought Kyle home that afternoon and Lissy was so happy to see him. While she'd enjoyed her wild weekend with Rafferty, Kyle was her anchor, the thing that kept her grounded in real life. She'd missed him so much.

“We enjoyed him,” her mother, Erin, exclaimed as her father brought in the diaper bag and playpen. “Thank you for letting us keep him.”

Lissette took Kyle from her mother and smothered him with kisses, then turned to introduce Rafferty, who'd been waiting in the background, to her parents.

“You're Jake's brother,” her mother said.

“I am.” Rafferty shook her head.

“The one he left all the money to?” Lissette's father, Charles, said.

“Yes sir.”

Lissy saw the tension in her father's shoulders as he hesitantly reached to shake Rafferty's hand. She'd already explained their relationship to her folks the week she'd stayed in Dallas going from specialist to specialist, but she worried her parents would sense something more between them. She didn't want to get into that. Especially since Rafferty would be leaving soon enough.

“Lissy tells me you manage the Hyatt Regency in Dallas,” Rafferty said to break the ice with her father.

“Yes.” Her father nodded. “And you train horses for the movies?”

The men moved deeper into the living room, engaged in conversation, leaving Lissy and her mother still standing in the foyer.

“So how is Claudia?” her mother asked.

“I don't know.”

Erin frowned. “You haven't made up with her yet?”

“Claudia started this rift. She's the one who should apologize.”

Her mother's eyebrows shot up. “You didn't make any overtures?”

“No,” Lissy said in a firm tone. This was between her and Claudia. It wasn't any of her mother's business.

“My, I'm surprised about that.”

“What's so surprising?”

“Usually . . . well, Sug, there is a reason we called you the peacemaker. You so hate for people to be mad at you that you apologize even when you're not in the wrong.”

“You can't be a successful business manager and do that,” her father called from the living room, putting his two cents into the conversation.

“I'm proud of you,” her mother said. “If Claudia's wrong, she should apologize. You're blooming.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

“I never thought you'd change. I thought you'd always be a bit of a pushover.”

“Gee, thanks for the backhanded compliment.”

Her mother's face colored. “That came out wrong.”

She was about to say,
That's okay
, but then decided against it and said instead, “I'm certain you didn't intend to hurt my feelings.”

“No, no.”

Kyle squirmed in her arms, used sign language to tell her he wanted some crackers and cheese.

Her mother reached out and folded her hands over Kyle's little ones. “No, no, sweetie. You need to speak up. Say what it is you want.” To Lissette she said, “We've been working all weekend to get him to stop with those crazy hand gestures.”

A wick of anger lit in her. “What?”

“You know the specialists you took him to said that if you really want to integrate Kyle into society that he has to learn how to speak and if he has sign language to fall back on, he's not going to do that.”

“Mom,” she said, as calmly and patiently as she could. Her mother was accustomed to running over her, but she was no longer the old Lissy who drifted along on life's crazy currents. Because of what she'd been through, she'd learned she had to take a stand if she didn't want to end up where other people thought she should go. “We talked about this. I haven't yet made up my mind how I want Kyle educated. I'd appreciate it if you'd honor my wishes.”

“My goodness, I had no idea you felt so strongly about this.”

“Well, now you do.”

A surprised expression crossed her mother's face, her smile uncertain. “I didn't mean to step on toes.”

“No, you're just used to doing what you like without paying any attention to what I want. It's okay. I'm not blaming you. It's my fault for allowing it to happen.”

“I . . . I . . .” Totally flummoxed, her mother moved past her to join the men in the living room.

Lissette took Kyle into the kitchen, got him cheese and crackers, and put him at the table to eat. A moment later, her mother wandered in.

“I am sorry, Lissy.”

“It's all right. Just honor my wishes from now on.”

“Okay.”

Honestly, Lissy was amazed at how simple that had been.

“Have you decided what to do about Thanksgiving? Will you be spending it with Claudia? Both your sisters and their families are coming to our house. I was hoping you'd come too, but I don't want to step on toes if you have other plans.”

Wow. That was a change. Normally, her mother would have just told her what time they were having Thanksgiving dinner and what to bring.

“I'll be there.”

Her mother cast a glanced over her shoulder. “Rafferty too?”

“It would be nice,” she said, “if you invited him.”

“Yes, of course.” Her mother turned and headed back to the living room. “Oh, Rafferty . . .”

Lissette couldn't help smiling. She felt as strong as Superwoman.

Kyle glanced up from his empty plate, cracker crumbs on his lips. He made the sign for cheese and in a hesitant, soft voice said, “Chee.”

It was such a joy hearing him say something besides “da” that she couldn't help wondering if her mother was right and Guillermo was wrong. If she wanted her son to be fully integrated into society, should she be discouraging sign language in favor of speech?

A
fter that weekend life settled into a happy rhythm. Lissette and Rafferty did not talk of the future. Both of them knew this time they had together was short and precious and they weren't going to waste it on regrets.

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were filled with activity. Rafferty trained Slate for three to four hours every morning, then he came home to help Lissette with her business. They cleared out a guest room and turned it into an office, painting, refinishing furniture, shopping for supplies. At one store, the clerk mistook them for a married couple and neither of them bothered to set the record straight. Rafferty got her Web site up and running. They passed out flyers and samples of her baked goods and within a few days, she had several orders.

In the evenings, they had dinner together. They Skyped with Guillermo a few more times, but he kept pushing Lissette to get Kyle involved with the Deaf community. She appreciated his input, but it escalated the pressure she was under to make up her mind on how best to educate her son. For now, Rafferty kept teaching Kyle to sign, while she worked on making sure Kyle could see her lips when she spoke to him.

On Guillermo's advice, they wore earplugs and noise-canceling headphones, trying to approximate Kyle's hearing loss to better understand what he was going through. It provided Lissy with a whole new level of understanding. When they watched television, they turned the volume down and watched closed captioning. It taught Lissette to pay closer attention to visual images and helped teach her how Kyle processed his world.

There were times when Lissy would stop in the course of her day and hug herself, unable to believe how things had turned around in just a few short weeks and it was all because of Rafferty. He'd taught her so much about herself.

One evening, Rafferty came home with an armful of tactile picture books for Kyle. The minute he opened the door, he said, “I love walking in here every day. Your baking makes a house smell like a home.”

Lissette smiled at him from behind the stove, spatula in hand. “It smells like a workplace to me.”

After dinner was over, Lissette gave Kyle his bath while Rafferty insisted on cleaning the kitchen. Later, they converged in Kyle's bedroom for story time.

“How do I read to him?” she asked Rafferty.

“Just read like you normally would, but put his fingers on your lips so he can feel you forming the words.”

His suggestion made sense and she felt silly for not having thought of it herself. She took Kyle's hand and put it on her lips. His little eyes widened when she started reading, his gaze fixed on her face.

“Pat the bunny.” She enunciated slowly, and then shifted his hand from her lips to the tactile storybook where he could run his hand over the material that replicated rabbit fur.

Kyle grinned, put one hand on her mouth and the other on the storybook.

“That boy is a quick learner,” Rafferty said. “He's not going to have a lick of trouble.” Then Rafferty signed,
Pat the bunny
.

She ended up reading the book to him three times. Rafferty played his role as well as or better than any biological father, but he kept staring at Lissette. She could feel the heat of his gaze. From time to time she'd glance over and he'd offer her a bright smile of encouragement. What was it about this man that made her feel more confident and secure than she'd ever felt in her life?

Don't get used to it. He won't be here forever. He'll be going back to California after the futurity. Just enjoy it for what it is.
She had to constantly remind herself.

Kyle's head weighed heavily in the crook of her elbow.

“He's asleep.” Rafferty got up and crossed the room. He reached down to ease Kyle from her arms.

Regret stabbed her. Jake should be here, putting his son to bed, but even when Jake had been alive, he hadn't taken much interest in domestic life. When Lissette had read to Kyle in the past, Jake had restlessly prowled the house, and then finally unable to stand being confined, he would grab his cowboy cap off the peg in the hallway and call out, “Going out to the Silver Horseshoe. Just for one beer.”

Except it had never been just one beer. He'd come staggering home, singing at the top of his lungs, and then get angry when she didn't want to have sex. He hadn't been like that before the Middle East. War had changed him until he was no longer the man she married and sometimes, oh God, sometimes, she'd been happy when his leave was over and he had to go back.

She shoved those thoughts into the trunk of her mind and locked them up tight. Rafferty settled Kyle into his bed and covered him up.

“Did your mother read stories to you when you were little?” she asked him.

“Do gossip articles from the tabloids count? Or the stories in confession magazines?”

“You're serious?” She flicked off the light, leaving only the Elmo nightlight glowing in the room. Together, they tiptoed out, leaving the bedroom door slightly ajar.

“I think she was simply reading out loud to herself, but I'd curl up on the end of her bed and stay real still so she wouldn't make me go get in my own bed,” he said as they walked into the living room.

“That must have been rough.”

He shrugged. “Wasn't so bad. It was all I knew.”

She smiled so he wouldn't think she was feeling sorry for him.

“Did your parents read to you?” he asked.

“Oh yes, all the usual upper-middle-class things.”

“Let me guess. Princess stories.”

“But of course.”

“And your favorite was . . .” He snapped his fingers. “Sleeping Beauty.”

“How did you guess?”

“You married Jake.”

“What does that mean?” She sank her hands on her hips.

“Um . . . I shouldn't have opened this can of worms.”

“No, I want to know.”

Rafferty scratched the back of his head. “Really, it's nothing.”

“Then why did you say it?”

He blew out his breath. “You sure you want to hear my analysis?”

“Absolutely.” She crossed her arms.

“Jake was the kind of guy who went in for agreeable women.”

“Are you saying I'm too agreeable?”