Christmas at Blue Moon Ranch (23 page)

W
ILLA WASN’T
SURPRISED WHEN
Daniel
didn’t appear promptly at five o’clock. She’d told Lili and Rosa that he would
probably be late, because he needed some time to clean up and recover before he
came down to dinner. They’d agreed to postpone the final whipping of the mashed
potatoes and the carving of the turkey until five-thirty.

But Daniel
hadn’t arrived by five-thirty.

“When are we
gonna eat?” Toby leaned against the kitchen counter, rubbing his stomach and
looking pitiful. “I’m starved.”

“We’re waiting
for Major Trent.” Willa ruffled his hair as she walked by. “He should be here
any second.”

She continued on
to her bedroom, where she sat down on the bed, picked up the phone and dialed
the number she now knew by heart. After six rings, she heard the clatter of the
handset being fumbled, and a curse, which she took to mean he’d answered the
call.

“Daniel? It’s
Willa.”

After a long
time, he said, “Hi.” His voice sounded like a tape recording played at extra
slow speed.

“Are you asleep,
Daniel?”

“Uh…yeah. I
think so.”

Willa smiled.
“See you later, then. Sleep well.”

“Sure.” This
pause lasted so long, she started to hang up, when she heard him say, “Thanks,
Willa. ’Preciate it.”

“Any time,” she
said softly.

Although the
meal was delicious, as always, only Robbie truly enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner
that evening. The rest of the family had been looking forward to having Daniel
join them.

Lili sighed,
gazing at the end of the table where Daniel’s place remained empty. “He’s been
here so often for dinner in the last few weeks, the table doesn’t seem quite
right without him.”

“We made extra
potatoes and dressing, because he always enjoys his food.” Rosa shook her head.
“And he needs fattening up. He’s working too hard and losing weight.”

Willa winced
from the memory of watching Daniel go underwater in the creek that afternoon. “He
is working too hard. Maybe I’ll suggest he needs to hire a couple of extra
hands.”

“We could take
him some dinner,” Susannah suggested. “And keep him company while he ate. That
would be like having a second Thanksgiving dinner!”

“Oh, wow,”
Robbie said sarcastically. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“You’re a jerk,”
his sister replied. “You don’t have to come.”

“I wouldn’t come
if you asked.”

“So who’s
asking?” Toby stuck out his tongue at his brother. “Nobody wants you around,
anyway.”

“That’s enough.”
Willa used the voice that never failed to restore order. “All three of you are
behaving badly, especially for Thanksgiving dinner. Say something nice, or you
can go to your room without dessert.”

The rest of the
meal passed in almost total silence.

During cleanup,
though, Rosa said, “I think you should take Daniel some dinner, Willa. If he
fell asleep, he hasn’t had anything to eat all afternoon.”

“And he probably
didn’t eat much breakfast or lunch.” Lili took down a set of plastic
containers.

“I don’t want to
wake him up to eat.” Willa felt obligated to protest. But she welcomed the
excuse to check on Daniel. What she’d seen in his face this afternoon, as he’d
absorbed the loss of a few animals, needed to be dealt with.

Rosa quickly
brushed off that token objection. “He’ll rest better if he’s eaten.” Bringing
out a basket, she packed the containers Lili had filled, added a jug of
lemonade and a whole pumpkin pie, plus a spray can of whipped cream. “Not as
good as homemade but better than nothing.”

Toby and
Susannah came into the kitchen as Willa was shrugging into her raincoat. “We’re
ready to go,” Toby announced. “I’m bringing Trouble a new sock as his
Thanksgiving present.”

Susannah peeked
into the basket. “And I helped make the pies, so I’m bringing something, too.”

Willa gazed at
her son and daughter, half-inclined to take the easy way out and take them
along. Daniel enjoyed the kids, and their presence would ensure a nice, safe,
casual evening….

Rosa stepped
forward and put a hand on the children’s shoulders. “I think—”

“You’re both
really sweet,” Willa said. “But I think Daniel’s had enough excitement for one
day, and three visitors might just be too many to handle.” Their faces fell,
and she felt a surge of guilt. “I’m going to take the food, warm it up for him,
maybe talk to him a little while he eats. Then he’s probably going to go
straight back to—to sleep. You two can visit tomorrow, or Saturday, when he’s
had some rest.”

They still
didn’t look too happy. “Besides, you wanted to watch the movie at eight
tonight. And it’s almost that now. Give me a kiss, because I might get back
after you go to bed.”

She leaned down
for a hug from each of them and then shooed them out of the kitchen. Lili
handed her the basket of food, and Rosa held out the keys to the truck.

“We won’t be
waiting up,” she said, with a wink. “But I’d try to be back before breakfast,
if I were you.”

Willa stared at
her aunt-in-law. “I—I—”

“Just go.” Lili
gave her a slight push toward the back door. “Now.”

W
ILLA’S WARM HAND
against his cheek, Willa’s soft
lips pressing a kiss on his forehead. Willa’s soft voice next to his ear. “Wake
up, cowboy. You need to eat.”

“Mmm.” Without
opening his eyes, Daniel stretched out an arm and found that he could arch it
naturally around Willa’s waist. “Maybe.” Shaping his hand over her hip, he
pulled her over to lean against him. “What’s on the menu?”

He heard Willa’s
deep breath. “Whatever you’re hungry for.”

Daniel opened
his eyes then, and found her gazing at him with a mixture of nerves and
laughter and desire in her face. Shifting his other arm out from underneath
him, he took her hand in his. “You, Willa. Only you.”

When he tugged
that hand, she bent toward him, and her rich black hair fell loosely around his
head and shoulders. With a twist of her hips, she straightened her legs out
along the length of his and lay down next to him, knee-to-knee, hip-to-hip,
face-to-face.

“Nice,” Daniel
whispered, running a hand along the slope of her back, from shoulder to thigh. “You
fit like you belong here.”

She smiled at
him, a full-fledged, nothing-held-back curve of those wide, sweet lips. “Maybe
I do. Make love to me, Daniel. Please?”

He grinned,
acknowledging the fact that she’d asked and what that meant for them both. “My
pleasure.”

She’d worn a
loose shirt, easy to draw over her head. Underneath, she was slim and smooth,
sexy as hell in a lacy white bra. He traced the edge of her rib cage with his
thumb, testing the border of that bra with his fingertips. “Café au lait,” he
whispered across her collarbone. “With lots of sugar.”

Willa bowed her
spine, bringing the swell of her breast to his attention. “Daniel…”

“Yes, ma’am.”
His rough skin snagged the strap at her shoulder as he slid it down her arm. A
lace cup sagged, and Willa’s breast slipped free. The perfume she wore
surrounded him, like a room full of flowers. He dragged in a deep breath.

And then he
claimed his own.

They made it
into the kitchen at midnight. Willa put the microwave to good use, and they
shared Thanksgiving dinner at the kitchen table with Trouble watching every
bite they took.

“This was
delicious.” Daniel finished the last of his second piece of pumpkin pie and sat
back with a groan. “You’re a great cook.”

“You know that’s
not true. You saw the extent of my culinary skills tonight—microwave magic. Lili
and Rosa have been the only kitchen talents at the Blue Moon since Jamie was
born, at least. I never even tried to learn.”

“Why would you?
You’ve got other skills and important work to do.” He set their plates on the
floor for Toby to lick clean and put the rest of the dishware in the sink. “My
specialty is cleaning up.”

“A truly vital
contribution.” She glanced at the clock on the stove and sighed. “I should go
home.”

He pulled her to
her feet and closed his arms around her. “You could stay a few more hours. The
kids are asleep by now.”

She rested her
head on the hollow in his shoulder made for that purpose. “I’d rather not sneak
in at dawn.” Looking up at him, she grinned. “I’ll just have to bring you
another meal sometime soon.”

“Sounds good.”
He kissed her, celebrating the freedom to do so, the luxury of being able to
relax and simply enjoy touching the woman he loved. “I’ll walk you to your
truck.”

Outside, a dry
wind had started pushing the storm toward the eastern coast. Stars peeked out
occasionally, only to be hidden again by the next patch of clouds.

“Now the rain
stops.” Daniel blew a frustrated breath as he thought, yet again, about the
day’s disasters.

Willa rubbed a
hand up and down his arm. “You’ll recover, Daniel. You have to, if you’re going
to survive in the cattle business.”

That’s just
the point. Maybe I won’t survive.
Not a possibility he wanted to share with her tonight.

Before he could
think of what to say instead, she glanced in the direction of the barn. He
followed her gaze, thinking she’d seen something unusual, then realized what
had caught her attention—the green glow of monitor buttons and screens through
the window of the office.

Willa looked
back at him. “What is all that high-tech stuff? You didn’t get a chance to
explain earlier.”

He cleared his
throat. “I set up a monitoring system on my fences.”

“What kind of
system? Motion detectors? Wouldn’t that catch any kind of activity—like a
lizard crossing the fence line?”

“Right.” He ran
a hand over his face. “This system doesn’t detect motion. It senses when the
fence line has been broken. Or cut.”

Her eyes
narrowed as she thought through what he’d said. “In other words, you’ve set it
up to warn you when the rustlers cut the fence. You plan to sneak up on them
while they’re in the middle of stealing cattle.”

“Yeah.”

Hands on her
hips, she faced him. “Don’t you want to correct me on that? Don’t you want to
tell me that your plan is to call Hobbs Sutton so
he and his deputies
can sneak up and catch the rustlers before they get away?”

“I will call the
sheriff as soon as I get an alarm. But, Willa, you know how long it would take
them to come this far out from town. That’s part of the problem. Sutton can’t
post deputies indefinitely, but the only way to catch these thieves is to have
someone right here, ready to spring the trap.” Daniel shrugged. “That someone
has got to be me.”

“You and Nate? You
and at least one other hand? Do you know how dangerous those men are?”

“This isn’t
Nate’s ranch. The hands don’t have twenty-four/seven responsibility. And most
of them have families, people who care about them. I can’t ask them to risk
their lives.”

“You’ll just
risk your own.” He’d never heard such deadly cold in her voice, not even that
very first day. “And to top it all off, you weren’t going to tell me, were you?
You figured you’d just show up at breakfast one morning and announce it? ‘Oh,
by the way, I had this neat gadget installed and I caught all the rustlers
single-handed last night. Don’t have a scratch on me and they’re all in jail.’ Something
like that?”

“Something like
that.”

“Damn it,
Daniel!” She walked an agitated circle in front of him, then stopped to glare
at him again. “You’re going to do whatever
you
think is best, without
consulting me, without giving me a chance to express my opinion or change your
mind.”

“I do depend on
you, Willa. I couldn’t have gotten through this afternoon without you. But—”

“I could help
with this, you know. I’m a damn good shot.”

“You’ve got
three children who depend on
you
to take care of them.”

“You made
me
depend on
you!
You led me to believe I could trust you to be here, that
I would be safe being with you. And all the time you’re setting up this plot
that’s more than likely going to get you killed and leave me grieving again.”

“Willa—”

He reached for
her, but she brushed him off. “You do whatever you have to—though I can assure
you, no piece of beef is worth the kind of risk you’re prepared to take. But
stay away from me, and stay away from my family. We’ve been hurt enough. Just
go your own way, and we’ll go ours.”

She jumped into
her truck, spraying gravel as she turned around and headed down the hill toward
the Blue Moon.

Daniel stood for
a long time staring blindly into the darkness. Then he went back into his
house, got dressed and spent the rest of the night monitoring his fences from
the barn.