The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby (12 page)

“I’d say she’s callin’ it like it is,” Grady said from the doorway.

“It ain’t fair to the baby to have to watch us eat like that and all he gets is that
stuff that looks like wallpaper paste,” Henry said.

Natalie laughed again. “He thinks it tastes just like an Angus T-bone. He told me
so when I shoved it into his mouth.”

The sound of her voice and laughter stayed with Lucas all morning as he helped his
dad tighten every light bulb around the roof, fix the bunting where the goat had eaten
his dinner, and string lights down the fence on either side of the lane leading from
road to house. Snow fell steadily through the morning, leaving almost two inches on
the ground and settling on the brim of his old work hat.

A dusting of white covered the ice that had accumulated on the tree limbs, but the
gray skies didn’t let a glimmer of sun rays through. Unless something drastic changed,
the guys would drink too much and the women would flirt too much and there would be
rolling in the snow before the night was done. It didn’t sound like fun to Lucas.
He’d rather take a four-wheeler ride across the ranch with Natalie snuggled up against
his back.

Like that would happen! There was no way in hell that she’d leave Joshua and go for
a ride with him. Besides, he was the soldier home from the big bad war and he had
to stay at the party until the last dog went home. He fingered his dog tags. He should
take them off, but it didn’t seem right, not yet. Not when Drew had died over there.
Maybe his death wouldn’t have affected Lucas so much if there had been others or if
they hadn’t gotten to be such close friends, but until it felt right, he would wear
the dog tags to honor his fallen friend.

He checked the final four strands of lights around the porch posts.

“All done,” Jack said.

“We put up lights in our tent and several of the guys had a little fake tree, but
it wasn’t home. We saved our packages until Christmas morning and those that didn’t
have one, the rest of us shared with them. Hazel’s cookies were the biggest hit in
the tent,” Lucas said.

“I’m glad the boys enjoyed them. She got a big kick out of fixing boxes to send to
you. Was Drew there then?”

“He was there when we got there, then he went home for about six weeks over the holidays
and came right back. It was his third tour,” Lucas answered.

“And he was Natalie’s best friend. We haven’t had much time alone since you got home.
I know that baby was a big shock, but we thought you’d be excited. Seems like a blessing
after those tests,” Jack said.

Lucas removed his hat and shook a layer of snow from it. “I wanted my own kids, Dad.”

“Everything happens for a reason. Some women aren’t mother material. Your mother,
Marilyn, wasn’t. Your grandpa tried to make me see some light, but I had on blinders
where that woman was concerned. She was so pretty and had so much energy. I thought
she’d channel all that into raising you, but it didn’t work that way. Sonia is a lot
like her. Besides, that doctor didn’t say it was impossible. He said it would take
a miracle. I believe in miracles, especially at Christmas,” Jack said.

Lucas shoved his hat back down on his head. “I’m not sure that even God has a miracle
that big up His sleeve. Here comes the first truckload of stuff, and I smell chocolate
chip cookies coming from the house. Let’s get in out of the cold and grab them while
they are hot right out of the oven.”

***

Furniture, except for the kitchen table, had been carried out while Natalie was busy
baking. She was removing another dozen cookies from the pan to cool when a tall, blond-haired
cowboy reached out and grabbed one.

“I’m Noah Call and these look like some fine cookies, ma’am,” he said.

“I’m Natalie Clark and thank you.” She smiled.

“This’d be your baby, the one that everyone is talking about?” He nodded toward Joshua.

“Yes, it is. His name is Joshua.”

Noah reached for another cookie. “Good strong name. Momma says that a man needs a
good name. All her eight boys are named after boys in the Bible.”

Noah Call—if she’d gone to school with him, he would have sat between her and Drew
Camp when the teachers put them in alphabetical order. Would one little change like
that have put her life on a different course?

“So you from around here?” she asked.

“Yep, grew up right here on this ranch. My daddy was a hired hand until last year
when he and Momma retired and moved down to Waco to be around my oldest brother and
his wife. Lucas is two years older than me, but we went to school together. Played
a couple of games of basketball on the same team before he graduated. I hear you was
a coach for a while,” Noah said.

Mercy! The gossip vine had surely done its job.

The burst of cold wind brought Lucas, Jack, and a dozen more people into the living
room before she could reply to Noah’s comment. Lucas made a beeline for the table
and snagged two cookies.

“They’re every bit as good as Hazel’s,” Noah said. “You don’t want to keep her around,
kick her over the pasture fence and we’ll hire her out in the bunkhouse to cook for
us. Might be fun to have a baby boy out there.”

Lucas clapped a hand on the cowboy’s shoulder. “Noah, where have you been keepin’
yourself? I been home a whole week and you haven’t come by.”

“Grady sent me and Emmett to the old line shack for a few days. He was afraid the
storm was going to be worse than it was. Weatherman was talkin’ blizzard and a foot
of snow for a while there. We’re just glad to get back to the bunkhouse in time for
the party. Glad you are home, but I’m sorry to hear that Hazel is laid up for a few
weeks.” Noah picked up two more cookies. “I got to run. See y’all tomorrow night.
Natalie, honey, you got a real pretty little boy there, and I really do like his name.”

“Thank you.” Natalie smiled.

He settled his hat on his blond hair and disappeared out the back door. She looked
across the room at Lucas and asked, “Is the line shack the cabin that Henry and Ella
Jo lived in at first?”

Lucas shook his head, “No, it’s even smaller than the cabin. Dad and Grady built it
before I was born, and it’s at the very back side of the ranch.”

“Just how big is Cedar Hill?” she asked.

“Just under nine sections. Gramps started with one section and bought up land when
he could. The shack is four miles from here back into the woods. Only way to get to
it is by four-wheeler or a horse.”

She did the math in her head. Nine sections at six hundred forty acres per section
came up to about five and a half thousand acres. Pretty nice little spread they had
carved out of the mesquite and scrub oak.

“And your ranch?” he asked.

“Twenty acres,” she answered as she took more cookies from the oven.

“That’s not a ranch,” he said.

“You asked about my ranch. It’s twenty acres. I bought a corner of land from Daddy
and I have a trailer on it. That’s my ranch. If you want to know about Daddy’s ranch,
it’s about twice the size of Cedar Hill. We put in six thousand acres of cotton a
year and the rest we use for pasture to raise Angus.”

His smile was so bright that it lit up the whole kitchen. Hell, it might have run
the sun some competition if it had been out. For the life of her, Natalie couldn’t
think of a single reason the size of her dad’s place was so amusing.

Natalie dressed in her best designer jeans, Western shirt, and boots. She’d twisted
her brown hair up into what she called a messy French twist and held it with a big
crystal-encrusted clamp that matched her belt buckle. On most days she didn’t take
time to put on makeup, but that night she did. A little dark eyeliner and pale blue
eye shadow, some mascara, a touch of blush, and a bit of lip gloss.

“Don’t know why I bother with all this. No one will even see me anyway. You will be
the center of attention,” she told Joshua as she dressed him.

Natalie’s dad, Jimmy, declared from the day that they found out Natalie was having
a boy that his first grandson would leave the hospital in boots and jeans. The jeans
were soft denim and the legs had to be rolled that day. The boots were made of kid
leather with soft soles, but by golly, they had pointed toes and the tops were detailed.

Now Joshua’s feet fit into the boots like they should and the legs of his jeans didn’t
need to be rolled anymore. In another month both would be too small. She had already
bought the shadow box to frame them. It was made of rough cedar and had barbed wire
strung around the outside edge.

“If the basketball players can frame their jerseys, then we can do the same with your
first jeans and boots. Someday you are going to be a famous bull rider, yes, you are.”
She talked in a high-pitched voice that brought out Joshua’s biggest grins.

When he was dressed and his dark hair parted and combed to one side, she placed him
inside his car seat. “The ladies are all going to flock around you wanting to dance.
You be careful and don’t lead none of them on.”

His brown eyes sparkled.

“I’d love to know what you are thinking.” She picked the seat up and carried it to
the living room.

“Would you look at that?” Henry exclaimed. “There’s a rancher for sure. I didn’t even
know they made boots that little.”

Grady took the car seat from Natalie and the three older men flocked around it. “Look
at that hair. Now that’s a boy’s haircut. I hate it when the women folks put that
jelly stuff in a little boy’s hair and make it look like he stuck his fingers in a
light socket.”

Jack touched his hand. “All you need is a cowboy hat and you’ll be right up there
with the big boys, Josh.”

Henry chuckled. “See, I told you he was a Josh, just like I told all y’all that Lucas
was a Hoss.”

Natalie giggled.

“I hate nicknames,” Lucas said.

“Me too,” Natalie whispered.

“Are you old women about through carryin’ on?” Lucas asked.

“Don’t be callin’ us old women,” Jack said.

“You’ll embarrass Josh,” Lucas said.

“No, we won’t. He likes us,” Henry said.

Natalie was glad that they were doing all the talking and didn’t ask her anything
that required an answer, because she was totally speechless. Lucas wore starched jeans
that bunched up just right over the tops of shiny black boots, a tooled belt with
a silver buckle with what had to be the Cedar Hill brand engraved on it, and a brown
Western-cut shirt that matched his eyes perfectly. The top two snaps were undone and
his dog tags were tucked down inside. He held a black Stetson against his thigh, and
her eyes strayed in that direction. She quickly blinked and was looking toward the
dog tags when she opened her eyes again.

“You look very nice,” he said.

“Thank you. You clean up pretty damn good yourself.” She was surprised that words
actually came forth when she opened her mouth. She figured she’d sputter and stutter
around like a teenager meeting Blake Shelton after a concert at the state fair.

“Can Josh ride with us?” Henry asked.

“I’d better take him,” Natalie said.

“Next time it’s our turn, right?” Henry said.

“Hazel says that time about is fair play,” Jack said.

“And we’d keep him so entertained that he wouldn’t cry,” Grady put in his two cents.

“Next time.” Natalie nodded.

She hadn’t thought about riding all the way to Sherman alone in a truck with Lucas.
She’d figured she and Joshua would go in her club cab truck and the guys would all
go together. Suddenly, she was as nervous as a virgin bride on her wedding night.

Grady handed the seat to Lucas. “You carry him out for Miz Natalie. This boy has been
puttin’ away some groceries. He’s too heavy for his momma to tote around when there’s
a bunch of us cowboys to help out.”

“No puppies,” Lucas whispered when they were on the porch. “I told you I’d make that
pen air tight after the goats.”

In the yard, she looked up to the roof. “No goats and no… huh, oh!”

Mr. Crankston’s old blue truck came to a sliding stop in front of the house and he
bailed out, shotgun in hand. “I tried to give you them damn goats and you wouldn’t
have them and now you steal my jackass. What’s the matter with you, Lucas Allen? Did
your brains get scrambled over there?”

Henry pointed at a dappled donkey coming around the side of the house straight toward
Lucas and Natalie.

“See there! You stole my donkey to keep the coyotes away. I heard that your new woman
killed one right up in the backyard. Chester, he don’t like nobody but me. Onliest
animal on my ranch that is mine. He can’t even stand the grandson, and you been tamin’
him since you been home so you could steal him,” Crankston said. “I’ve a mind to just
shoot you this time for real.”

The donkey stopped a couple of feet from Lucas and shook his head. Joshua fought his
way out of the blanket and cooed at the donkey.

“Ain’t nobody going to be shootin’ no one. We’re on our way to town to have supper.
Your donkey should be safe right here in the yard fence until you bring over the decorations
tomorrow. You can get him then,” Henry said.

“The hell I will. By then, he won’t let me near him. He’s a jackass that takes up
with only one person at a time, I’m tellin’ you. By tomorrow he might decide to take
up with one of y’all instead of me. Come on, Chester.” Crankston looped a rope around
his neck and tied him to the back of the pickup truck. “Y’all go on ahead of me. I’m
going to drive real slow and take him back home. It ain’t but a little over a mile
back to my place.”

***

Joshua spit out his pacifier and cooed around it when Natalie reached over the seat
and put it back in his mouth. She told him he was a good boy and that was the extent
of their conversation on the twenty-minute drive from Savoy to Sherman.

“I wonder what all this is with the animals,” Natalie asked.

“Fluke or coincidence. Or all this weird weather. Take your pick,” Lucas answered.

He stole looks at her while he drove. She wore her jeans and boots like a woman who
was comfortable with the ranching life. He could hardly believe that she’d given birth
to Joshua just a couple of months before. Her waist nipped in above rounded hips and
below a chest that filled out that shirt right well.

He parked, got out, and opened the door for Natalie and waited for her to unbuckle
Josh from his seat. “You sure look pretty tonight.”

Her smile lit up the whole parking lot. “Thank you, so do you.”

“Pretty?” He cocked his head to one side.

“You know what I mean.”

“What exactly do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that you are sexy as hell, look good in those jeans, and I like the shirt.
It’s the same color as your eyes. Oh, and I like the way your butt looks too,” she
said.

The grin got wider. “You don’t have any trouble saying what’s on your mind, do you?”

“I call it like I see it,” she said.

And
all
you
said
was
pretty. You want to amend that?
Drew was back visiting Lucas.

“Well, darlin’, there aren’t enough words in an unabridged dictionary to say how stunning
you are tonight,” he said.

“There’s a lot of words in that dictionary I hope you aren’t thinking. Like fat, ugly,
hateful…”

“Okay, okay. You take my breath away. When I stepped into the living room tonight,
my mouth felt like it did in the middle of a sandstorm over there in Kuwait. If I’d
have had to speak or drop dead, I’d have just crossed my arms over my chest and fell
down graveyard dead.”

“Very, very good pickup line,” she said.

“It’s the God’s honest truth,” he protested.

“Then thank you.” She wrapped a blanket around Joshua and didn’t waste any time getting
into the restaurant. Lucas was just glad she didn’t bring out that denim rag thing
that she slung around her shoulder and carried him in at the ranch. That thing was
just plain ugly.

Henry, Jack, and Grady waited for them right inside the door of the restaurant. Jack
reached toward Natalie. “I’ll take the baby. I’m glad you left that bucket thing in
the car. Babies need to be held, not toted around like a basket full of eggs.”

Joshua promptly spit out his pacifier and cooed at Jack.

Grady caught it before it hit the floor. “Good try, son. But I’m faster than you are.”
He hooked it on his little finger and touched Joshua’s cheek. “Did you have a good
ride? I bet those two didn’t give you nearly as much attention as we would have.”

“Y’all really are as bad as old women at church when a new baby is brought in for
the first time,” Lucas said.

“We are not. Just wait until tomorrow morning and you’ll see that we can’t hold a
candle for those old gals to go by,” Henry said.

Church! In Savoy the whole family went every Sunday and sat on the same pew. Natalie
went to church with her family in Silverton, and even if she hadn’t, she’d have to
come up with a damn good excuse, like death, to get out of going. Jack and Henry would
insist on it. That meant Lucas, Natalie, and Joshua would drive to the little white
church in town together. And they’d all sit on the same pew and the gossip vines would
produce an abundant crop that week!

The waitress showed them to a table for six and Jack kept Joshua in his arms. He propped
the baby up on his lap and said, “Next year you can eat with us. You’ll have teeth
and I bet you will order a beefsteak as big as a platter,” he said.

Lucas seated Natalie and sat beside her. He picked up the menu and immediately the
hair on his neck stood straight up. Someone was definitely staring at him or sneaking
up on his blind side. That sensation never failed him and kept him out of trouble
lots of times. He glanced sideways at Natalie, but she was busy looking at her menu.
His gaze went one by one around the table. Jack was talking to the baby, and Henry
and Grady were arguing over whether to choose the steak and shrimp special or to go
for the lobster.

Jack stopped telling Josh how it wouldn’t be long until he could sit in one of those
kiddie chairs and asked Natalie, “So how does Fannin County compare to your part of
Texas?”

She laid the menu to one side and bit her lower lip. It drew Lucas’s attention to
her lips and he wanted to kiss them, which brought on a red-hot desire for more than
a kiss. Now he had a full-fledged arousal and the hair on his neck was still prickling.

“Well,” she said slowly.

The waitress appeared at the table before she could say another word. “What are you
folks having to drink?”

“Bud Light, please,” Natalie said.

“Same,” Lucas said.

“I’ll have sweet tea, but we also want a bottle of your best champagne and five of
those fancy glasses,” Henry said. “Our boy has come home from Kuwait and we are celebrating
with a toast before we have supper.”

“Congratulations on making it home in one piece and thanks for serving our country,”
the waitress said. “Your son looks just like you. Bet you were glad to get home to
see him while he’s still little. Y’all ready to order or do you want me to bring your
drinks first?”

“We’re ready,” Henry beamed.

Something just flat out wasn’t right. The last time Lucas had been spooked so badly
was the last morning Drew left the tent. Something hadn’t been right that morning
either, but he couldn’t put his finger on it until he heard the explosion. He looked
at Natalie again, but she was sipping her beer. Jack, Henry, and Grady all looked
like the old proverbial cat that had found its way into the cream.

Was someone about to bomb the restaurant? Was there a terrorist sitting somewhere
close? Something horrible was about to happen because his nerves were getting more
uptight by the second.

They ordered and the waitress left and then he heard something like the scraping of
a chair on tile floor. He looked at Natalie, and they both glanced over their shoulder
just in time to see Sonia walking toward their table. Her high heels sounded like
gunshots on the tile floor and he had to hold his hands tightly to keep from throwing
them over his ears.

She stopped between Lucas and Jack and slung a hip against Lucas’s shoulder. “Well,
hello! I’d forgotten that y’all always go out to eat on the night before the big party.
Got everything all decorated? Remember that year that you and I strung the lights,
Lucas? It was so warm that we were out there without jackets and in our shorts. This
is more like Christmas, isn’t it?”

“Sonia, I’d like to introduce you to Natalie Clark. Natalie, this is Sonia,” Lucas
said.

“It’s nice to meet you. You are engaged to Noah, right?”

“Yes, I am. We’re planning a big beautiful Christmas wedding.” Sonia barely glanced
Natalie’s way.

“Oh, there are my girls!” She waved to a group of women coming toward her. “We’re
having a girls’ night out to talk about what we are wearing to your party tomorrow
night. It kicks off the whole season in Savoy, Miss Clampton, and even the hired help
is invited. You’ll have a good time.”

Natalie smiled brightly. “I’m sure I will, and it’s Clark, not Clampton.”

She brushed a quick kiss across Lucas’s cheek. “Save me one dance for old time’s sake,
Lucas.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Noah is my friend,” he said.