Merry Cowboy Christmas (2 page)

W
hen everyone was seated around the table, Katy bowed her head and gave thanks. Fiona's hands got clammy and she felt so faint that she popped her eyes wide open to keep from falling off her chair. The food was going to be stone cold if Katy didn't stop thanking God for everything under the sun pretty soon, so Fiona swiped a hot roll from the bowl right in front of her, hid it in her lap, and ate two bites. She felt the touch of a hand sneaking across her thigh and pinching a corner of her bread and glanced toward Deke, the lifelong friend of the Logan family who had eaten Thanksgiving dinner with them for years. He popped a chunk of her hot roll into his mouth without even opening his eyes.

Then a hand brushed her thigh from the other side and suddenly half the roll disappeared. When she looked up into Jud's brown eyes, he'd already stuffed it into his mouth. Sparks danced around the room like embers from an open fire but Fiona chalked them up to being so damned hungry. Nothing had ever tasted as good to her as that hot bread fresh from her mother's oven. Maybe she'd been a fool to ever leave Dry Creek in the first place.

Finally, Katy finished the grace and handed the carving knife to Deke. Fiona had forgotten just how tall he was until he stood up. He looked down at her and one of his pretty hazel eyes slid shut in a wicked wink. Like she remembered, his sandy brown hair needed to be cut and his upper arms were almost as big as her waist. Deke was a couple of years younger than Fiona and had grown up right down the road. He was in and out of their house all the time. Nowadays he was Allie's right-hand man.

She held up her plate for a thick slice of turkey and glanced across the table at her sister, Allie. Pretty Alora Raine, with her long dark hair and those dark eyes, had learned the carpentry business from their father. She'd married young the first time, and Fiona could have told her it wouldn't work. But in those days she was just the sixteen-year-old younger sister, so what did she know?

Allie sent the mashed potatoes around the table. “I still can't believe you are home, Fiona. Having you here makes it special.”

“Yes, it does.” Allie's husband, Blake, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. He'd stolen Allie's heart almost a year ago, and seeing them together, there was no doubt that Allie had gotten the right man this time around.

“You might not think it's so special when you have to fix your fence,” Fiona said. “I had a blowout and plowed right through the barbed wire.”

“But”—Jud handed off the bowl of green beans to Katy—“no one was hurt and there are no cattle in that pasture, so we don't have to rush out there and fix it right now.”

“Are you sure you're okay? Did you walk the rest of the way? Why didn't you call us to come help you?” Lizzy spit out questions faster than bullets coming from an assault rifle.

Fiona held up a finger and finished chewing a bite of turkey.

Lizzy, the middle gorgeous sister with the height, the curves, the temper, and the fire, had been the apple of their grandfather's eye and had inherited the family feed store business right out of high school.

“I'm fine. I did not walk. Jud was driving right behind me and he brought me home. Are you going to hoard that giblet gravy forever, Deke?” Fiona asked.

“He's like that with good food. He's even worse with dessert.” Irene giggled at the opposite end of the table from Katy.

Fiona's heart went out to her grandmother. Before the family had sat down, Katy had whispered to Fiona that today was a good day for her grandmother.

Irene's dementia had gotten worse in the past year and now she lived in a facility for people with Alzheimer's in Wichita Falls. Today, though, she was home for the holiday and she was at least semi-lucid.

Lipstick ran into the wrinkles around her mouth and her jet-black eyebrows penciled in a lopsided arch did not match her short, kinky gray hair. But her smile was bright and there was life in her eyes and Fiona thought she was beautiful.

Deke handed the gravy boat to Fiona. “Go easy on that now. I like leftover sandwiches with a little of that poured between the turkey and dressing.”

Fiona nudged him with an elbow. “I bet you had a big breakfast. All I had was a stale cheese cracker. Besides, you are not my boss, right, Granny?”

“No, but I am. And cheese crackers are not a decent breakfast.” Irene pointed a long skinny finger at Fiona. “You might as well eat sawdust. I taught you better than that. I bet you ain't been eatin' right since you left. You're too skinny, isn't she, Jud?”

Fiona raised an eyebrow at the sexy cowboy beside her.

“Man, I wouldn't touch that question with a ten-foot pole,” Toby chuckled.

Lizzy put a piping hot yeast roll on her plate and sent the last item around the table. “Me neither. Darlin', you'd better have two rolls right to start with.” She set a couple of rolls on the edge of his plate. “We might need to get you some sideboards.”

“Maybe,” Toby said.

Slightly taller than his brother, Blake, Toby looked at his wife sitting beside him, his blue eyes twinkling. Yes, they were every bit as in love as Blake and Allie. Brothers had married sisters. That made any of their children double cousins to Allie's new baby, Audrey, who had inherited Fiona's red hair.

“Back to the ten-foot pole,” Fiona said.

“She is too skinny, isn't she, Jud?” Irene shot a look down the table at the newest Dawson cowboy, who'd come to the Lucky Penny a few weeks ago.

“I believe that Miz Fiona looks real pretty today and so do you, Miz Irene. That blue shirt brings out your eyes. Would you like some more cranberry sauce, darlin'?” Jud asked.

“You be careful around that one, Fiona. He's a slick talker for sure,” Irene said, and went back to eating.

Deke poked her on the arm. “Was it snowing in Houston?”

She smiled. “It never snows in Houston.”

“That's why she left Dry Creek. She wanted to live where they never had a good hard winter,” Irene said. “I bet the roaches and flies are big as buzzards in that place without a good freeze to kill them off.”

“Granny! I don't want to hear about bugs at the dinner table.” Fiona smiled, despite her words. She'd forgotten how much she'd missed her family and their crazy ways. A peace settled over—a sense of belonging—that was every bit as important to her soul as the food was to her body.

Irene smiled. “There's my fiery girl.”

“Just how long are you staying?” Lizzy asked.

Before Fiona could answer, Allie chimed in with another question. “Can you stay all weekend?”

“Or a week?” Lizzy piped up.

“She's here for good,” Katy said. “She brought a cardboard box. That means she's moving back home and it's about damn time.”

Fiona's sense of peace fled as she took a drink of sweet tea and swallowed another huge chunk of her pride. She wouldn't tell them the part about being so hungry she was dizzy or how little money was in her billfold. If she did that, her mother might drop with a heart attack right there on the dining room floor.

She straightened her back, put her hands in her lap, and began. “There's something I need to tell you all.” She took a deep breath. “A little more than a year ago, Kyle and I divorced. There was a prenup, of course, so all I got was ten thousand dollars, which went fast while I looked for a job. It didn't take long to figure out that I'd been blackballed in my line of work.”

Time stood still.

Fiona was sure if she'd been outside, snowflakes would hang suspended in the air and the wind would cease to blow.

“Fiona Deann!” Katy finally gasped. “What have you been living on? And why would Kyle make trouble for you?”

One shoulder rose in a half shrug. “I guess it upset him when I punched his girlfriend and tried to yank out all her hair.”

“He cheated on you?” Lizzy asked indignantly.

“Don't know if he cheated, but she came with him when he told me he was divorcing me. Idiot.”

Admitting all that felt so good! Now she could eat dinner without a single worry.

“What did you do?” Allie asked.

“I used the last of my divorce settlement to buy that old truck after my car was repossessed. I put all my fancy clothes in a consignment shop, and some weeks I made enough for groceries from those sales but that ran out after six months. They closed the coffee shop where I worked and I couldn't find anything else and my money ran out. So here I am. Broke and needing a job. You need help at the feed store, Lizzy?”

That was about as short a version as she could make it, but it did the trick. The moment was pregnant with sheer awkwardness. Allie stared at her like she had an extra eye right in the middle of her forehead, but then Fiona remembered a time when she'd looked at her sister the same way when she moved back home after a divorce.

Katy shook her head. “I get first dibs on you. You are the answer to my prayer. I'm run ragged trying to take care of the convenience store by myself. So you, young lady, will go to work with me starting in the morning.”

“Mama, I'm happy to help at the store in exchange for room and board here, but I'm also going to need a job that pays me.”

“Bullshit!” Irene said loudly. “Living here is your right as family. The job at the store will give you minimum wage just like it would pay anyone else. Right, Katy?”

“Right,” Katy said. “How about it, Fiona? There aren't many jobs in Dry Creek. You could probably waitress at Nadine's new café, but I need you worse than she does.”

“That's settled,” Irene said.

Fiona wasn't sure that it was, but she wasn't going to argue at the Thanksgiving table. Later, when everyone had left, she and her mama would have a long talk and that's when Fiona would tell her that she was not planning to live in Dry Creek forever.

“Sounds like we all have a lot to be grateful for this year. I'm thankful that Toby and I finally found a sofa we could agree on and now our living room has one piece of decent furniture,” Lizzy said.

“I'd forgotten about our tradition,” Deke said. “I'm thankful for the Logan family and all the good times I've had in this house.”

Fiona hadn't forgotten, not on the way home, not in the awkward silence, not even with having to live with Jud Dawson in the house. After the prayer and while they were eating, everyone around the table shared something they were grateful for. She searched for a single thing that she could say because they'd be here until eternity dawned if she shared everything she was thankful for that cold winter day.

“I'm thankful beyond words that Fiona is home,” Katy said.

Allie nodded. “I'm grateful for my amazing husband and my daughter.”

“I'm thankful that this beautiful woman is both my best friend and my wife and that we have a gorgeous daughter,” Blake said.

“Hey, she can be your wife, but she's my best friend,” Deke argued. “Fiona, you are going to have to be my best friend since Allie has deserted me.”

“I'm thankful to be home and that Deke is my new best friend,” Fiona said with a smile.

“For the Lucky Penny and my wife.” Toby grinned at Lizzy.

“I'm thankful for Walter,” Irene giggled.

“Who?” Lizzy, Allie, and Fiona said in unison.

Katy sighed. “She's taking a trip into the past.”

“Hell, if I am,” Irene said. “I'm not going anywhere. I am thankful for Walter. He lived over on the Lucky Penny when Katy was getting married. I guess your grandpa got to feeling old since his daughter was old enough to get married, so he found himself a younger woman.”

“No!” Lizzy slapped a hand over her mouth.

Well, that damn sure had to hurt,
Fiona thought. Lizzy had always had the idea that Grandpa could walk on water.

“Oh, yes,” Irene said. “So I started flirting with Walter to get back at him.”

“Granny!” Allie said.

Why is Allie so surprised?
Fiona held her breath and hoped that Granny kept explaining because they'd all wanted to hear the story of Walter ever since Blake moved in next door. Granny's dementia was getting out of hand and she kept thinking that Blake was Walter.

“Why are you thankful for Walter?” Fiona asked.

“He made your grandpa realize that I wasn't an old shoe that he could toss in the garbage. He broke it off with that other woman and came home.”

“And you forgave him?” Katy asked.

“Course I did. I had no right to judge him when I'd done the same thing with Walter. Besides, Walter wasn't nearly as good in bed as your grandpa,” Irene said bluntly. “Now pass me those potatoes and, Deke, carve me off another piece of turkey. I'd like dark meat this time.”

And there it was, the truth according to Granny when she was lucid. Fiona was amazed that no one was asking a million questions.

“Where is Walter now?” She finally broke the awkward silence.

“Walter?” The light went out of Irene's eyes in an instant. “Is he a new boy in town? I'm ready for dessert.”

“I thought you wanted more potatoes,” Katy said gently.

“I want cherry pie with ice cream on top and then I want a piece of pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top. Then I want to go outside and play in the snow.” Irene crossed her bony arms over her chest and glared down the table. “I do not want potatoes.”

“Miz Irene, how old are you? You told me but I forgot,” Deke asked.

“I am thirteen,” she said defiantly.

“Well, I think you should have pie,” Fiona said. “I will bring it to the table and we won't wait for everyone to finish before we have dessert.”

Irene cocked her head to one side. “I like you. You can stay and talk to me after dinner, right? Is that new boy named Walter cute? Will I like him?”

“I don't know but I'll stay and we can talk about him,” Fiona said.