Darn Good Cowboy Christmas (4 page)

“See,” Dewar said, “I told you she was a mean old hussy.”

Liz shrugged. “I'd say she's protectin' her property. Woman can't be lettin' a man come along and steal her property, can she?”

“You got that right,” Jasmine said. “Me and you are going to get along just fine. So will you work for me?”

“Sure, I'll fill in until Lucy finds someone who needs a job.” Liz wished she could reach up and snatch the words back into her mouth the minute they were out in the air. She should have at least slept on the idea before she took the job. She didn't need the money. She had plenty in her bank account to live a year without lifting a finger. But on the other hand, she would meet the local people, get to know them, and carve out a place in Montague County, Texas. Or else by the time the carnival was ready for another season, she'd be ready to give up her roots, slap on her wings, and fly away.

“Could you come in Tuesday and work with Amber to get the feel of it?” Jasmine asked.

“Sure. Where is it?” Liz asked.

“Right up the road a couple of miles. Same side of the highway. Next to Gemma's beauty shop,” Jasmine said.

“Just waitress work, I hope. I don't cook worth a damn,” Liz said.

“I do the cookin'. That's why I bought the café. Just need someone to serve it up and run a cash register. You ever done any waitressing?” Jasmine asked.

“Little bit,” Liz answered. Well, running a concession wagon was the same thing. She took orders. She served them. She took money and made change. There couldn't be a whole lot of difference.

“So tell me about your family. You from Texas?” Dewar asked.

“My whole life. Momma was born out near Amarillo, little town named Claude. I was born over in Jefferson, Texas. I guess I'm truly a third generation Texan. Just never thought about it like that until now.”

“You didn't visit Haskell much, did you?” Dewar asked.

“He came to our winter place between Amarillo and Claude for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, and we saw him in the fall of the year when we came through these parts. Grandma died when I was a little girl, but my grandfather is still alive and he's out in west Texas. But y'all knew that because that's where Uncle Haskell has relocated to help with Poppa. How long have the O'Donnells been in Ringgold?” She changed the subject.

Raylen yelled over the din of voices all talking at once. “Daddy, how long has the family been in Ringgold?”

“Hell, I don't know. Grandpa used to say we squatted in this area and they built the town around us. I expect we've been somewhere up and down the Red River border for a hundred years or more,” Cash said.

“And the O'Malleys have been here every bit that long,” Grandma said. “And if y'all don't eat your dinner, we ain't never goin' to get out there and do some playin'. I been lookin' forward to music all week, and all y'all want to do is jaw around. I guarantee you it's goin' to come up cold here pretty soon, what with Thanksgiving in a little more than a month, and we won't be able to play outside. Remember that year back in about ninety-one or ninety-two when the whole area iced up on Thanksgiving? Well, it can happen again. And spring is a long way off if we get an early winter.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Dewar grinned.

“Who are the musicians?” Liz asked.

With a wave of her hand, Jasmine took in the whole family. “They all play something or sing.”

“Really? You?” She looked at Dewar.

“Dulcimer is my specialty, but I can fill in on an acoustic guitar if Rye gets tired, and I can play a little bit of fiddle,” he said.

Gemma raised a hand. “Dobro and guitar.”

“Colleen?” Liz asked.

“I'd be the banjo picker,” she said.

“Grandma plays the dulcimer and the Dobro, and sometimes she can talk Grandpa into singing for us,” Raylen said.

“Sounds like fun,” Liz said.

“It is, darlin',” Grandma said, “especially if you like country music and good old Irish toe-stompin' tunes.” She picked up her plate and headed for the kitchen with it. When she returned she walked right on past the dining room table and toward the door. “I'll just be warmin' up the dulcimer while y'all finish up,” she said.

“She's usually not in this big of a hurry,” Raylen said.

“I'm finished. I'm going on out there with her,” Liz said.

“Speakin' of Thanksgiving, where are you going for the holiday?” Dewar looked at Jasmine.

“Momma would tack my scalp to the garage door if I didn't go home for the holidays. I'll close up the Chicken Fried for the day and go have dinner with the family,” Jasmine answered.

“You're welcome here if the weather gets bad,” Dewar said.

“Maddie already said I was part of the family and didn't need any invitations to anything going on here, but thank you anyway. That's who I'm missin'! Where is Ace today?” Jasmine looked around the room.

Dewar chuckled. “He's over at Wil and Pearl's. Is that old ugly cowboy going to beat my time with you?”

Liz was already standing, plate in hand, but she stopped.

“You, darlin', ain't got no time to beat, and neither does Ace. He's just my friend, like you,” she said.

Dewar threw a hand over his chest. “You break my heart, Jasmine.”

“Yeah, right! You are full of pure, old horse hockey. Finish your dinner or Grandma is going to fuss at you,” Jasmine said.

Raylen looked at Liz and explained, “Ace, Wil, and Rye were best friends. Rye and Austin got married last year in the summer, and Wil and Pearl were married in February.”

“And Ace?” she asked.

“Oh, that cowboy is too pretty to settle down with one woman the rest of his life. And besides, the woman that got him would have to train him. He's not even housebroke.” Jasmine laughed.

Liz smiled. That reminded her of what Aunt Tressa had said about Blaze.

He's too handsome to ever settle down. And your temper is too volatile to put up with women hanging on him and his flirting, so don't be thinking because you two aren't blood related that there could ever be a relationship there.

Raylen pushed back his chair, picked up his plate, and led the way to the kitchen. “I'm finished too. I'll go with you, Liz.”

Grandma was warming up with “Bill Bailey.” Liz sat down one of the two quilts that had been tossed out on the ground. Her skirt fluffed out around her, and Raylen sat down on the edge of it. When he tried to get up he stumbled and fell closer to her. Their feet tangled up together and both of them fell backwards with her landing in his arms up against his side like they'd been napping on the quilt.

“That was on purpose,” Dewar yelled from the back porch.

Raylen moved to a sitting position. “I'm so sorry. I was trying to get off your skirt and…”

Liz laughed. “Forgiven. Accidents happen. You don't play one of those instruments?”

Raylen nodded. “Yes, I do, but I was just going to sit down here and visit with you until they all get here.”

Grandma stopped playing the dulcimer and guffawed. “Don't be judgin' him too quick. He might be clumsy, but he can make a fiddle do everything but tell you a bedtime story.”

Liz raised a dark eyebrow. “Oh, really. Care for a contest?”

Raylen's blue eyes bulged. “You play the fiddle? Want to show me what you've got? You can play my fiddle and I'll go in the house and get an old one.”

She stood up. “Mine's in the truck. You told me if I played an instrument to bring it. You were serious, weren't you?”

“Hell, yeah, I was serious. That all you play?”

“Yep. How about you?”

Jasmine piped up from the edge of the quilt where she was settling down to listen. “Raylen is the one that can play all of them. I swear he could string up a stick with balin' wire and make it spit out a beautiful song. You sure you want to challenge him to a contest?”

“Yes, I'm sure.” Liz smiled.

Raylen lost his heart that very minute when she smiled. If it hadn't been for his competitive nature born from being the third child and trying to keep up with two older brothers, that smile might have convinced him to let her win. But he just couldn't do it.

Liz brought her fiddle out of the truck. By the time she got back, Rye had handed Rachel off to Austin and picked up the guitar. Raylen adjusted the strings on a fiddle. Colleen had a banjo strapped around her neck, Gemma picked at the Dobro, Dewar had a mandolin in his arms, and Maddie had a harmonica up to her mouth running up and down it to get the feel for the right sound.

Liz tightened the strings on her fiddle, positioned it on her shoulder, and ran the bow down across them. She shook her head, made a few adjustments, and tried again. That time she was ready to play. Grandma raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded.

Rye struck up a chord, and they all fell in to begin the backyard concert with “Red River Valley,” and followed that with “Bill Bailey.” In the latter, Raylen had the lead and made the fiddle whine the melody.

Grandma stood up when they finished “Bill Bailey” and kissed Grandpa on the forehead. “Okay, honey. I'm goin' to sit this one out and we're goin' to have a fiddlin' contest. Liz, you know ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia'?”

Liz dragged the bow across the fiddle and the first chords of the song raised the hair on Raylen's arms. He could feel the fiery heat from hell's furnace in the chords and knew he'd met his match.

He moved closer to Liz and ran the bow across his strings. Their eyes met and the contest began with Gemma singing the song into the microphone as they fought it out without blinking. The sun held its place high in the sky, and nothing moved or breathed until the song was over and the applause began.

Liz had forgotten that there was anyone on the face of the earth but her and Raylen while she played. She'd gotten lost in his blue eyes as they played facing each other. For a minute, she wondered where the audience came from and why they were clapping, then she remembered and bowed gracefully as if she'd just finished a set on the Grand Ole Opry stage.

“You goin' to lay that fiddle on the ground since I'm better than you?” Raylen asked when the last of the notes settled.

“You lay your fiddle on the ground. I beat the devil out of you, cowboy,” she said.

His blue eyes danced. “The hell you did. Ain't no one ever beat me on the fiddle.”

She poked her bow at him. “Suck it up, cowboy. I beat you fair and square.”

“I want a rematch,” he said.

Grandma cackled. “I'd say it's a draw and we'll have a rematch next time. For now we're going to play some more. Don't be puttin' your fiddle down, girl. You're goin' to give him a run for his money the whole rest of the afternoon. Raylen, you don't get to play anything else today neither.”

Grandpa nodded seriously. “The queen she-coon of Montague County has spoken. You don't mind her, and I'll hear about it all week.”

Raylen shot a look at Liz.

She popped the fiddle on her shoulder and drug the bow across the strings in an old Irish song that put even a bigger smile on Grandma's face. “You sure you ain't Irish, darlin'?”

Liz winked at Grandma and kept playing.

Raylen raised an eyebrow at her and matched her note for note.

Rye picked up the tune on the guitar and Colleen did the same with the banjo. Grandma placed the dulcimer in her lap and began to strum. When that song ended Grandma went right into “Rye Whiskey,” and Liz didn't miss a beat. She glanced over at Raylen and graced him with her brightest smile. The ploy didn't work. He didn't mess up.

You
are
flirting, Lizelle.
She heard Aunt Tressa's voice and almost dropped her bow.
Less
than
twenty-four hours and you're letting a cowboy and a silly Christmas wish run your life, possibly even ruin it. You have the gift. I've told you that a million times, so why don't you stop fighting it and come back where you belong.

She argued as she played.
I'm going to work on Tuesday morning. That should keep me away from him. And I'm not flirting, and I don't have any gift. I just watched you from the time I was born and learned to read people's expressions and emotions. It only takes a couple of well-placed questions and a pack of cards. There's nothing to it.

Liz's shoulder ached by the time Granny finished the last fast tune and held up her hand. “I'm tired and ready for my Sunday nap now. You younguns can keep on playin' if you want to, but I'm retirin' to the bedroom for a rest.”

Grandpa slowly made his way over to her side and held out a hand.

She passed the dulcimer off to Colleen, brushed back her gray hair, and looked up into his eyes. “Thank you, darlin'.”

He looped her arm into his. “Anything for my sweetheart.”

Aunt
Tressa, where are you?
Did
you
see
that? That's what I want for Christmas: a love like theirs.

Before Aunt Tressa's voice could argue with her, Jasmine hollered from the quilt, “Hey, Liz. You want to follow me to the Chicken Fried? I'll show you around a little while it's empty, and you'll know where it is.”

“Love to.” Liz opened her fiddle case, loosened the strings, and put her instrument away.

Raylen could have strangled Jasmine King right there in front of Grandma, Dewar, and even God.

The buffet at the café in Bowie was filled from one end to the other with comfort food. It was a very different café than the Chicken Fried where she and Jasmine had gone the day before. This was a buffet; Jasmine's place was an old-fashioned plate lunch type of café where people sat down, ordered from a menu, and waited for their food to be served.

Liz was hungry enough that the pinto beans cooked with ham, fried okra and crispy brown squash, hash brown casserole, corn bread, and roast beef all looked good. Marva Jo called it comfort food. Aunt Tressa called it sin on a plate. Uncle Haskell called it down home cooking.

When she placed her tray on a corner table for two people, she couldn't believe that she'd put so much food on it. There was enough there for her, Tressa, Marva, and even Blaze. And Blaze could eat a small cow when he was hungry. Thank goodness she'd paid at the door and it was all-you-can-eat, but still she blushed slightly when she unloaded the bowls and plates from the tray.

“Mind if I join you?” Raylen asked.

He was close enough that she could smell his aftershave and feel the warmth of his breath against the soft part of her neck right below her earlobe. She jerked her head around and looked right into his blue eyes, not a foot away.

“Raylen?”

“I'm not stalking you,” he stammered.

She eased into her chair and motioned for him to sit across from her. “I didn't think you were.”

He set his plate and bowls off the tray and reached to take hers. Their hands brushed in the transfer and she got that same feeling she'd had on Saturday night when he was close enough to kiss her, and on Sunday when he guided her through the O'Donnell house with his hand on her back. It was tingly enough to put butterflies in her stomach. And had enough electricity to paste a silly grin on her face that even biting her lip couldn't erase.

Raylen set the trays on a nearby cart and pulled out a chair across from her. He was twenty-eight years old and no one had ever affected him like Liz did. He'd dated a lot of drop-dead gorgeous cowgirls, and a few pretty ladies who didn't know the back end of a horse from the front end of a tractor. He'd even fancied himself in love a few times, but a jolt of pure desire had never heated him up when he touched one of those women's fingertips like it did when he just brushed against Liz.

“I was down here loading up on seed and fertilizer. What are you doing in Bowie?” he asked.

“I've got to stock up at Walmart,” she said. “Basics like cleansers, and I'm going to buy five books today because I can put them on my bookcase and not have to donate them to the next library,” she said.

“Why couldn't you keep them before now?”

“I've lived with my mother in a fifth wheel trailer my whole life. We don't have room except for the necessities. I was twenty-five this past August and was thinking about getting my own trailer. I already have a truck big enough to pull it, and I can have a riggin' put in the bed to hook up to with no problem. But Uncle Haskell left me his land, and I'm talking too much.” She blushed.

“I'll still buy that land anytime you want to sell,” Raylen said.

“It's not for sale,” she said.

“Okay, but just remember to call me if you change your mind and decide to buy that trailer. So what did you think of the café? Are you going to really take a waitress job?” He changed the subject.

She nodded.

“It's tough work,” he said.

“I'm a tough woman,” she said.

Raylen chuckled.

“What's so funny?”

“You don't look so tough.”

“Oh? What can you tell about me just by lookin'?”

He started at her forehead and scanned all the way to where the table top met her breasts, then leaned back, looked under the table, and let his eyes travel down the length of her legs to her black high-heeled shoes. It might be rude by any other standard, but she'd challenged him and that made it legal for him to look his fill.

He picked up her hands and turned them over to look at the palms. Touching her hands proved that the air around them did sizzle when they touched. He took his time studying them so he didn't have to let go.

Finally, he said, “Okay, you don't work with your hands. They don't have calluses like someone who works hard for a living. They're also not dry and wrinkled like someone who's done a job that involved lots of water like dishwashing. You are fit, so that means you either work out at an expensive gym or do some kind of exercising. I'd say you come from a wealthy background and don't know jack shit about keeping house or taking care of twenty acres of land. How'd I do?”

He still had her hands in his when someone stopped at their table and laid her hand possessively on Raylen's shoulder. “Well, hello…” She drew both words out in a long southern drawl. “…Raylen O'Donnell. Where have you been keeping yourself, darlin'? I haven't seen you in weeks.”

Raylen dropped Liz's hands. “Been busy, Becca.”

Liz looked up at the hussy who'd just wrecked her palm reading. She'd liked the way her small hands fit into Raylen's big old rough cowboy hands, and she'd damn sure liked the sparks that shot every which way when he touched her. Liz wished that Becca, whoever the hell she was, would drop dead right there in the café.

The woman pushed back her blond hair but didn't take her hand off Raylen's shoulder. Dammit! Liz had asked if he was married and he'd stuttered like a ten-year-old who'd got caught with a
Playboy
magazine. But she hadn't asked if he was engaged or had a girlfriend. Dammit! Dammit!

Liz took better stock of the tall woman. Her blond hair was cut short, and she wore designer jeans, fancy cowboy boots, and an orange Western blouse that looked custom-made. Not a working cowgirl but a fancy one that would take a cowboy's eye. Double dammit!

The look Becca gave Liz said the war was on.

“Who's this?” Becca asked.

“I'm sorry,” Raylen said. “This is my neighbor, Haskell's niece, Liz. She's moved into his place.”

“Well, well, well,” Becca said. “Has Raylen offered you market price on the place?”

“It's nice to meet you, and my place isn't for sale at any price,” Liz said.

Becca leaned down and put her other hand, the one that wasn't on Raylen's shoulder, on the table in front of Liz. “I'll give you three times what the going price is for that land.”

“Why? Is there gold or oil under the topsoil?” Liz asked.

Becca stood up straight and laughed aloud. “It's not what's under the dirt or even on top of the dirt that I'm interested in. It's what lives next door. See you around, Raylen.” She blew Raylen a kiss as she left, hips swaying and hand-tooled boots tapping on the wood floor.

Liz looked across the table at Raylen.

“What?” Raylen asked.

Liz shrugged. “Guess I'm sitting on a gold mine since
you
live next door. If I sold, would I owe you a commission?”

Raylen's face registered shock. “Me?”

“Who else lives next door?”

“Dewar,” Raylen said.

“So is Becca interested in Dewar? Does Jasmine know?”

Raylen threw both hands up. “Jasmine isn't Dewar's girlfriend. Becca has been my best friend since grade school. We're just good friends. She's a handful and speaks her mind, but she's just my friend.”

“So then it's not a love triangle?”

Raylen stuttered and stammered, “A what?”

“Never mind. So why does she want my land?”

“She lives down close to Stoneburg on a cattle ranch. And since we're friends, I guess she wants to live close to my family. Hell, I didn't even know she was interested in buying land in Ringgold. Her daddy owns three fourths of Stoneburg,” he said.

“I see,” Liz said.

Becca didn't really love Raylen. She put on a show for some strange reason, but she didn't love him. Her hand had rested possessively on his shoulder, but her eyes did not glitter when she looked at him. They did not say that she could stretch him out on a plate like a Christmas ham and devour him like Liz could.

The image of Raylen without jeans, boots, and a shirt that strained at the arm seams made Liz so hot that her insides went all gushy and warm. She sipped ice cold sweet tea, but it didn't help much when she shut her eyes and caught an imaginary glimpse of him from behind wearing nothing but his sweat-stained straw work hat. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed him to turn around in her vision, but he broke the spell when he spoke.

“Becca is my friend and she never likes…” he stopped himself before he said, “any of my girlfriends,” then he took a long sip of tea and said, “any of my other girl type friends. Tell me about you. So you grew up in a travel trailer. Why?”

Her eyes snapped open and she was only slightly amazed to see him still dressed and pushing back his dinner plate. “I was born a carnie. My grandparents were carnies. My mother and her sister are carnies even yet. Didn't Uncle Haskell tell you?”

“Carnie? That a family name?”

Liz laughed. “Carnie as in carnival. Did you ever go to the carnival when it was in Bowie?”

Raylen cocked his head to one side. “Are you serious?”

“I am very serious. My grandparents owned the carnival. When Nanna died, Poppa, that's my grandfather, bought a small trailer to live in and gave it to his daughters since Uncle Haskell didn't want any part of that kind of life. He parked it on their land out in west Texas, not far from Amarillo, but he refuses to take the wheels off or skirt the thing. It's where we winter from the end of November until the first of March. We do maintenance, paint, grease, and whatever else is needed to put the show back on the road in the spring. Each year there's evidence that's Grandpa is growing roots, but he'll never admit it. The carnival was doing a gig in Jefferson, Texas, when Mother had me, so I've truly been a carnie all my life. If you came to the carnival in Bowie when you were a little boy, our paths have probably crossed in the past.”

Raylen nodded. He'd thought his older brother, Rye, was crazy when he fell hard and fast for Austin, a big city girl with a big city job. There was no way Austin would ever leave everything she'd worked toward her entire life and move to tiny little Terral, Oklahoma, to run a watermelon farm. But Austin had roots. Liz had never had any at all, so chances of her falling for a deeply rooted rancher were slim and none.

“Haskell never showed interest in the carnival?” Raylen asked.

Liz smiled. “It was a sore spot between him and his sisters. One is my mother and the other is my aunt.”

“Why?” Raylen asked.

“Uncle Haskell wanted to settle down when he met Aunt Sara. He left the carnival and bought that piece of property, then worked for a company in Nocona until they could make the ranch pay its way. They wanted a house full of kids, but Aunt Sara couldn't have any. I barely remember her. She died when I was about five, but she always came to the carnival in Bowie and brought me homemade cookies.”

Raylen finished his dinner and sipped sweet tea. “I was eight when Miss Sara died. It was one of the first funerals I went to. I don't remember seeing you there.”

“Aunt Tressa and Poppa came. Mother kept the carnival going.”

“How did you go to school?” he asked.

“I didn't. Aunt Tressa and Momma homeschooled me just like their momma did them. I got my associate's degree in business online before my sixteenth birthday. Momma said I could stay off the carnival rounds a couple of years and get my bachelor's degree, but I didn't want to.”

“So you ran the business end of the carnival?”

Liz shook her head. “I'm not strong enough to wrestle that from Aunt Tressa. She's the financial head. I'm Madam Lizelle, The Great Drabami.”

“The great what?”

“Drabami. It's a gypsy word for fortune-teller. I tell fortunes, read your palm, lay out the cards, or look into the big crystal ball, and…” She took a deep breath. Might was well spit it all out and hold nothing back.

“And what?” Raylen asked.

“I belly dance,” she said.

Raylen kept eating and didn't answer.

Liz wondered if he hadn't heard her before he finally said something.

“You are waiting for me to bite. I'm not going to. You're not going to catch me with that story.” He grinned.

“It's the truth. Throw your palm out here.”

Raylen wiped his hand on his jean leg and flipped it out on the table. She picked it up with her left hand and cradled it in her right. She'd held men's hands in hers since she was sixteen when she did her first reading, but nothing prepared her for the sparks that danced around the café when she traced the curve of his lifeline from the middle of his wrist around his thumb.

“You will have a long and productive life, Raylen O'Donnell. You will have one successful marriage and fate will play a big part in your choice of a partner.” She almost stopped there because her mother had read her palm with the same words not a week before, but she gently traced another line and said, “You let your head rule and not your heart, but that will change. Don't be afraid. It's in your future and you will fear giving up control, but in the end you will see the wisdom in allowing love to come into your heart.”

He pulled his hand back with a jerk. “That sounds like a bunch of hocus-pocus to me. So are you puttin' in a fortune tellin' shop in Ringgold?”

“Hell, no! I'm going to work for Jasmine starting tomorrow mornin',” she said.

He was careful to look at her full lips and not her black eyes. “I still think you are pulling my leg about that fortune tellin' business, but I do believe you about going to work for Jasmine. I'm glad. She needs help and she's my friend. You'll like working with her. Well, I've got to get back to work. See you around.”