A Cowgirl's Christmas (5 page)

“It’s your legal right to challenge the will, if you choose. But I’d say it’s solid. Some might argue that you girls got the better deal, considering your assets are liquid, while the ranch...”

“The ranch is Callan’s life,” Mattie replied bluntly. “She could care less about the cash. When did Hawksley write this will, anyway? If it was a spur of the moment thing—”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t.” Ren’s voice was gentle. “Your father had this will drawn up shortly after your mother died. I wasn’t even the original attorney he worked with. Daniel Berrington is retired and living in Arizona now.”

That news seemed to take some of the steam out of the Carrigan girls.

Once more, Court felt for them. He felt for the lawyer, too. Ren Fletcher had known what he had to say would be difficult for them. But, like him, he’d probably hoped the good news about the money would cushion the blow about the ranch.

Obviously, for Callan, it hadn’t.

Meeting the youngest of the Carrigan girls had been a shock. He’d expected someone tough and hard, based on Hawksley’s description. But Callan was petite and extremely pretty. The color of her eyes reminded him of the colorful bluebirds that nested on their land every spring.

The meeting fizzled out at that point. A baby cried and Dani, the tall, beautiful professor daughter who lived in Seattle, went rushing upstairs. Sage, the former barrel-racer with the gorgeous red hair, removed the chocolate from the table and put it in the fridge.

Damn, that chocolate had looked delicious, too, but the atmosphere had been too fraught for him to feel right taking a piece. So instead he polished off the bourbon and left his glass on the kitchen counter.

Mattie, the eldest daughter, the one who raised Tennessee Walking Horses in the Flathead Valley, was left to escort them to the door. She didn’t offer to shake hands, just gave them each a nod. “Thanks for driving out here.” She hesitated, then her sense of fairness made her add, “Ren, I know it wasn’t easy. But thank you for representing our father’s wishes today. And Court...”

She gazed into his eyes and he found the guilt rising up in him again. “I don’t understand why our father left the Circle C to you. But you do. In a while, after the dust settles, I’d appreciate if you’d tell us. It would be helpful. Especially to Callan.”

He found himself liking this eldest of the Carrigan girls, responding to her decency and kindness. “I’d tell her now, but I suspect she’d either slug me in the face or run, if I tried.”

“Yes. Better let her cool down for a few days first.”

A slight smile hovered on Mattie’s pretty face. A face, he realized suddenly, that was very similar to Callan’s. Of all the sisters these two were physically the most similar, though he wouldn’t say the same about their personalities.

Now that he’d met Callan, Court wasn’t so sure she ever would cool down.

And she’d probably be even more angry if she knew the rest of it. That as far as biology went, he and the Carrigan girls truly were strangers to each other.

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C
ourt had every intention of giving Callan some breathing room. He needed some, too. After a dinner at Ren Fletcher’s house, where the lawyer’s newly pregnant wife, Tully, served him pot roast and huckleberry pie, he felt restless. He couldn’t imagine settling down at the movies or reading a book in his hotel room at the Graff. It was too late to go to the gym, and his stomach was too full for a run.

So Court walked up and down the streets of Marietta until he came to the sort of bar he didn’t see often in St. Paul, Minnesota. Grey’s Saloon looked like the rough-edged place a city slicker ought to think twice about entering without back-up.

But he wasn’t going to be a city slicker much longer.

Court placed his hand on the door handle, which pulsed with the rhythm of the music inside. As he pulled, the music became louder, a song about someplace, sometime, sung by a man whose voice sounded vaguely familiar. Other sounds chased the music around the darkened room, sounds of laughing and challenging, flirting and teasing. The air smelled like hot deep-fryer oil, spicy chicken wings and wood that had been soaked in beer, with a top-note of desperation cologne.

Court went to the bar and ordered a beer.

The place was busy and he expected to be able to sit, unbothered, and soak in the atmosphere.

He was wrong. Ten minutes into his first beer, an attractive lady with generous curves packed into a pair of jeans and t-shirt at least two sizes too small asked him to dance. “I’m Shelli-Ann. I haven’t seen you here before.”

She took his hand, clearly intending to lead him to the crowded dance floor.

“I’m from out of town. And I’m sorry but I don’t know how to dance to this music.”

She looked perplexed. “Well, what kind of music
do
you dance to? I can change the juke box.”

“I’m not really up for dancing tonight. Sorry.” He had to pull his hand surprisingly hard to wrest it from her. She stood there as if she didn’t want to leave, but thankfully the seats on either side of him were occupied and eventually she took the hint.

The bartender, a tough-looking guy who showed no interest in small talk, was speedy at bringing him a second beer. “Shelli-Ann’s got a good heart. Don’t mess with her.”

Whoa. He’d just been sitting here, minding his own business. Clearly he had to watch his every step in this place. Court took a long drink of the second beer and when it was gone, ordered a third. He was trying to relax, to wash away the drama of meeting the Carrigan girls and the reading of the will.

But no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t feel right in this bar with the loud country music and the cowboys with their hats and sun-darkened faces. Even the sexy girls, curves displayed to advantage by low-cut jeans and lacy tank-tops, didn’t seem like his type.

It bothered him that he couldn’t make himself like this place.

Because it made him doubt the rest of it, the plan to give up his job at his father’s accounting firm to become a full-time rancher. Hawksley, and his father, had assured him that he would love it. Maybe he didn’t know much about ranching, but he was a natural around horses, had been riding since he was six. Plus, he’d have an experienced foreman working for him, and if Hawksley was right, after she’d cooled down, he’d have Callan on the payroll, too.

“I know that girl better than anyone,” Hawksley had told him. “She’ll be spitting mad, but she’ll come around once she has time to think about. It’s not like she has much choice. She isn’t the type to live a life of leisure, no matter how much money she has. And ranching is all she knows.”

Court pulled out the money for his beer. Time to retreat to the Graff. This had been a bad idea. He felt more stressed now than he had when he’d walked in.  He was almost to the door when, in a lull between songs, a woman’s voice shot out from the back of the long room.

“That’s right, Dillon, walk away. You know you can’t beat me.”

It was Callan.

Court pivoted, considered leaving quietly, then decided he had to check this out. A crowd had gathered around one of the pool tables, and he had to push in to see the man and woman holding the pool cues. The man who must be Dillon was a big, muscular guy. But he seemed to be almost cowering as Callan pointed her cue at him. Next to him, Callan looked like a peanut. A hot and sexy peanut, Court amended. She was small but she had curves, and her jeans and tank top fit them exactly right.

“Like hell, Callan,” the tough guy said. “The stakes are too high, that’s all. Who the hell gambles five thousand dollars on a pool game?”

“I do. Because I’m rich.” Callan picked up a glass from the table and finished off a good two inches of amber liquid. Probably bourbon. Most likely not her first of the night. While she drank, she jabbed the cue stick toward Dillon, causing the man to jump back and the crowd to gasp.

“You’re smashed is what you are.” Court hadn’t meant to step in. But this was killing him, because he could see the pain in her eyes and hear it, too, behind her brash words. “Put down that cue stick before you hurt yourself.”

He’d surprised her, otherwise the maneuver he pulled never would have worked. But he managed to get right up to her and snatch the stick out of her hand before she could defend herself.

Her face contorted with anger and she came at him with her fists, pummeling him rather than punching, an attack that was easy to neutralize. Court grabbed her wrists then swung one arm over her head, as if they were dancing. She ended up with her back pressed to his chest, arms crossed at her waist.

“What the hell? Help me Dillon!”

Court locked his gaze on the bigger and undoubtedly stronger man. “I’m Court McAllister, Hawksley’s cousin’s son. She’s had a few bad days and I just want her to calm down and not hurt herself.”

For a minute he thought it was going to be lights out. Then Dillon surprised him by laughing. “Good luck with that, Court McAllister.”

Callan stamped her feet. “Dillon? Don’t you walk away from me, you low down piece of—”

“He’s gone, Callan,” Court said, stating the obvious. Dillon had walked off to a booth at the other end of the bar and the rest of their audience had scattered, as well. “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air.”

“Let
go
of me.”

He did it.

Once she was free, she rubbed her arms as if trying to remove stains from the skin. Her eyes blazed angrily at him. “How dare you touch me like that?”

He looked away, feeling guiltily aware of how great she’d felt in his arms. Never had he suspected that he’d be attracted to Hawksley’s youngest daughter. But it seemed he was. “You were out of control,” he replied calmly. “I was defusing the situation.”

“Like hell. You’ve only made me angrier.” She stuck out her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Since you’ve scared away all my friends, I suppose I might as well go home.” She pulled out a set of keys, but then gave a harsh laugh. “Hang on a minute. I don’t have a home anymore, do I? I have a house, I guess. But it sits on a ranch that no longer belongs to me.”

“Maybe so, but it’s still your home and always will be.”

Callan’s dark blue eyes were pretty, even when unfocused. “You think I’m going to wake up every morning and look out my window at a piece of property that isn’t mine?” She pressed her finger into his chest, which was an improvement from her fist. “You don’t know me very well, if you believe I would ever tolerate that.”

“I may not know you well yet, but one day I will.”

She narrowed her eyes angrily. “Not ever. Once my sisters leave, I’m moving out of that house, too. I’ll be damned if I’ll gnaw on an old bone my dad decided to toss me.”

With that, she flung her keys toward a group of cowboys at a nearby table. One of them, a young, bright-eyed guy in his early twenties, caught them.

“Good reflexes, Garry,” Callan said. “You been drinking tonight?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then you, lucky boy, can drive me back to the Circle C.”

Court was surprised when Garry jumped out of his seat, clearly prepared to do Callan’s bidding.

Who
was
this woman? Court couldn’t help but suspect Hawksley had seriously underestimated her.

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T
he headache Callan woke up with the next morning seemed the least of her problems. Lying in bed, she stared out her bedroom window and watched—for one of the few times in her life from this vantage point—the beauty of the sunrise. For as long as she could remember that sunrise had been her seasonal alarm clock, the signal that it was time to jump out of bed and get busy with chores.

But she would be damned before she’d work at the Circle C now that it belonged to Court McAllister. She couldn’t believe his nerve last night, wrestling her down,
humiliating her,
in a place where she should have had home town advantage. There had been something especially appalling about the way she’d felt when he’d pinned her close to his body. Whatever that feeling had been...she didn’t like it. Damn Dillon and all the other guys for not stepping up in her defense.

Most of all, damn her father. She’d been so sure not just that he loved her but that he respected her. When her sisters had complained about his bad moods and surly nature, she’d stayed quiet, certain that she was the one who truly knew and understood him.