The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby (23 page)

Natalie worried that she might have overdone the whole dolled up issue as she got
dressed for the Red River Angus Association Christmas party that evening. Over on
her side of Texas, dolled up might mean something altogether different than it did
in the north central part of the state.

“But it’s what I bought and since it’s all I’ve got other than jeans and boots and
two Sunday dresses, it’s what I’ll have to wear,” she told Joshua as she put the finishing
touches on her hair and makeup.

Someone knocked softly on the door and then it opened just a crack. “The guys are
about to start a stampede back here to get Josh. Mind if I take him up front?” Lucas
asked.

She swung the door the rest of the way open, started at Lucas’s shiny black boots
and then let her eyes slowly travel upward. Jeans creased and stacked up over his
boot tops perfectly, white Western shirt starched and ironed without a single wrinkle,
dress jacket with a Western-cut yoke that hugged his frame, freshly shaven, and hair
long enough to slick back with a little mousse.

“Well, well, you sure do dress up real fine.” She was astonished that her voice sounded
normal. Her insides were humming so loudly that she figured it would affect her tone
for sure.

“And you, ma’am, look like you just walked off a model’s runway. God, Natalie, you
are absolutely stunning,” he said.

She turned around slowly. The lace dress had a high Victorian collar and long-fitted
sleeves but the back had a heart-shaped cutout that started at the collar and ended
with a point just above her bra. The hanky hem flounced over the tops of her boots
and when she moved the lace swayed to the sides showing off the brown crosses on her
boots.

“We can’t go,” he said hoarsely.

“What! I bought all this for the party and we can’t go? Why?”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “Because I will lose you. One of those
good-lookin’ cowboys will sweep you off your feet and I’ll be left with nothing but
a broken heart and a handful of beautiful memories.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. “Now that’s a lovely line
if I ever heard one.”

“Ain’t no line,” he said. “It’s the God’s honest solid truth. Promise you won’t leave
me stranded and run off with one of those rich cowboys.”

“Promise you won’t leave me and run off with one of those cheerleaders,” she shot
right back.

He stuck out his hand. “Shake on it.”

She put her hand in his and he pulled her to him. Her body molded against his and
he gently cupped her cheeks with his palms, leaned down just slightly, and kissed
her deeply, exploring her lips and her mouth.

“Keep that in mind all evening,” he whispered when he broke the kiss and stepped back.
“Josh, your momma will be the prettiest woman at the party. The only reason she’ll
come home with this ugly old cowboy is because she wouldn’t want to leave you behind.”

“Oh, hush. Ugly, my ass.” She blushed.

“Now you are telling lies. Your ass is not ugly. Matter-of-fact, I think it’s pretty
damn cute,” he teased.

“And yours looks so fine tonight that maybe I’d best take along my pistol to keep
the women from carryin’ you off to do wicked things to your body,” she flirted.

Lucas chuckled. “If that’s a compliment, then thank you.”

He crossed the room in a couple of long strides and picked up the baby. “Smells like
you’ve already had your bath, Josh. Don’t let those old farts spoil you too much,
and you tell them if you get tired of all that smothering.” He cradled the baby in
one arm and crooked the other one toward Natalie.

She slipped her arm through it and together they went up the hall and into the den
where Henry, Grady, and Jack all waited.

Grady whistled and said, “You two look like you’re goin’ to a weddin’, not a party.”

Henry chuckled. “And Natalie could be the bride in that dress. You better strap on
your six-gun so them other guys will know that you ain’t going to abide no funny business,
Lucas.”

Jack stood up and took the baby from Lucas. “Y’all have a good time and don’t hurry
home. We’ll have lots of fun takin’ care of Josh. And Natalie, you look like a million
dollars. Lucas, you’d best stick to her like glue, or you could lose her tonight.”

“Yes, sir,” Lucas said.

“Your coat?” Lucas looked at Natalie.

She nodded toward the back of the rocking chair. He picked up the cape and swung it
around her shoulders.

“Oh my Lord!” Henry gasped. “Now she looks like a queen. She needs one of them fancy
diamond things in her hair.”

“No, she needs a good-lookin’ buff-colored cowgirl hat,” Grady said.

“With a diamond hatband. That’d be a mighty fine Christmas present for her.” Henry
nodded.

***

“It worked,” Henry said the minute they were out of the door.

“What worked?” Jack asked.

“It’s the baby just like you thought and just like Hazel said and Ella Jo told me.
I made Lucas take me for a ride and them feisty hounds got out again and come runnin’
right in here and hid under my chair and Crankston’s goats got out of their pen and
came right over here. I made him take Joshua to see the animals and not a one got
out today, and Crankston’s old goats and jackass stayed home too. So Hazel and Ella
Jo was right. It’s this precious baby that was drawin’ the animals.”

“It was the storm,” Grady argued.

“You want to chase down dogs and goats, I can go with Lucas tomorrow and leave Joshua
at home.” Henry narrowed his eyes. “It’s a Christmas thing, and we was just too dense
to see it. We was given this special little boy to live on the ranch with us, and
now we got to make sure we make them two kids see that they was made for each other.”

“That much I’ll agree with.” Grady nodded.

***

Lucas settled Natalie into the passenger seat of his truck and whistled “I Only Want
You for Christmas” as he rounded the tailgate and opened the driver’s door. “Tie a
ribbon around yourself,” he singsonged as he started the engine.

“What color and where?” she asked.

They were flirting like teenagers and it felt even better than good—it felt right.

“Anywhere, but it really should be bright red.”

“How many folks will be at this party?”

“Maybe a hundred. There’s about fifty members, and the party is for member and guest.
Top is one hundred, low count would be around ninety. You’ll meet Colton, Greg, and
Mason. The four of us joined the association at the same time. Rest of the group is
quite a bit older than we are. Dad is a member, but he quit going to the social functions
when I joined. He hated them anyway. He’s a big voice in the association and goes
to all the meetings but not the parties. Anyway, we four guys formed a friendship.
Greg Adams is from over around Ravenna. Colton is the billionaire cowboy who lives
up close to Ambrose, and then Mason Harper is from out east of Whitewright.”

“All unmarried?”

“Until Colton married last spring. The women were chasin’ him for his money, so his
folks and his best friend cooked up the idea that a woman who worked on the ranch
would pretend to be his girlfriend. They even went so far as to get a big gaudy engagement
ring to make it look real. It backfired and he fell in love with her. I can’t wait
to meet her. Hazel says that she doesn’t give a damn about money and can run all the
equipment on the ranch as well as Colton.”

“And Greg?”

“Darlin’, it’ll take a helluva woman to bring him to the altar. That cowboy is gun-shy
when it comes to women. He lives, breathes, and eats ranchin’, and there ain’t many
women out there who’d put up with that.”

“My momma does,” Natalie said.

“And so do you. That’s why I intend to keep you as far away from Greg tonight as possible.”
He laughed.

“And who was the other one—Matthew?”

“Mason. He was married and his wife passed on when his girls were barely a year old.
He’s got twin girls, Lily and Gabby. I’m not sure he’ll ever find a woman who would
take on the raisin’ of those two. Lord, they could scale a glass wall on a rainy day.
What one can’t think of the other can, and it’s never any good. You can talk to him
all you want. I’m not a bit afraid of that cowboy taking you away because you’d never
trust those two little heathens around Josh.”

Natalie turned in her seat. “Are you telling me who and who not to talk to tonight,
Lucas Allen?”

He smiled. “I’m not that stupid. You might have that pistol strapped to the inside
of your leg.”

She giggled and turned back. “I’ll talk to whomever I so please, but rest assured
there won’t be a one of them that turns my insides to a boiling pot of hormones every
time they touch my skin like you do.”

He reached across the console and laid a hand on her thigh. “Like this.”

She picked it up and put it back on the steering wheel. “Just like that, but you keep
your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel. I didn’t buy this dress and boots
to get them all nasty helping you get a truck out of the ditch.”

***

The country club was already buzzing when Lucas and Natalie arrived. He removed her
cape and handed it to a coat lady behind a counter and ushered Natalie toward the
bar with his hand on the small of her back.

She was looking ahead and not paying a bit of attention to her surroundings when his
hand slipped around her waist and they came to a stop in the middle of a group of
people. He introduced her to Mason Harper and Greg Adams. Both did one of those traveling
looks that started at her boots and went to her face, hesitating just a second longer
at breast level.

“We heard that you brought a woman and a son home from the war. We didn’t expect her
to be so tall or so…” Harper paused.

“Or so Texan?” Lucas finished for him.

“Where are you from, darlin’?” Greg asked.

“Silverton. Out in the Panhandle.”

“Natalie Clark. Kin to Isaac Clark?”

“That would be my brother.” Natalie smiled at Greg. Lucas had been right. He was a
cowboy from his boots to his drawl.

“Met him at the statewide Angus meeting last fall,” Greg said. “Small world. You’ll
have to meet my grandmother, Clarice, before the night is done.”

“I’d love to,” Natalie said.

“So what do you think of our part of the state?” Mason asked.

“Texas is Texas. Land changes. People, not so much. Ranchers, never,” she answered.

“They ought to put that on a bumper sticker,” a woman said as she and another cowboy
joined the group.

“Y’all meet my wife, Laura. I’m Colton Nelson from over around Ambrose,” he said.

Laura extended her hand. “I heard that Lucas brought home a bride and a baby.”

Natalie shook and fought a blush. “Rumors do travel fast.”

“We’ll have to get together and have a visit when this weather clears off. You can
bring your son. Joshua, right?”

Natalie nodded.

“We’re having a baby in May. You can give me some pointers. I’ve never been around
little babies in my whole life, but I’m looking forward to being a mother,” Laura
said.

“We’re on our way to the bar. Can we get anyone anything?” Lucas asked.

Mason held up a beer. Greg nodded toward a glass holding whiskey sitting on the table.
Colton shook his head. “We’ll be drinking club soda this evening or sweet tea. Since
Laura can’t drink until the baby is born, I’ve given it up too.”

“It was nice meeting y’all,” Natalie said as Lucas led her away.

They had both claimed a bar stool before she realized that she’d sat down beside Sonia.
That night her blond hair was twisted up into a crown of curls with red baby rose
buds worked into the curls. The hem of her skintight red satin dress stopped at her
ankle but the slit went all the way to her hip. The material fell to the side to reveal
a muscular leg and her signature four-inch red platform high heels.

“Hello, Lucas, darlin’. Noah just left to make a trip to the little boys’ room. He’ll
be back in a few minutes.”

“What are you drinking?” the bartender asked Natalie.

“We’ll have two Coors. Longneck, in the bottle please,” Lucas said.

“How’s the wedding coming along?” Natalie asked Sonia.

“Just fine and dandy. It’s going to be the biggest thing Savoy has ever seen. All
the girls from my old cheerleading squad are my bridesmaids and there will be six
flower girls and six little boys to carry my train. Noah is going to be speechless,”
she said. “Bartender, I’ll have another chocolate martini, pronto.”

The bartender set two beers on paper coasters in front of Natalie and Lucas then started
making Sonia’s martini. Natalie took a long swig and turned her back to Sonia.

“Good and cold, just the way I like them,” she said.

Lucas flashed a brilliant grin. “We talkin’ beers or…”

Sonia leaned forward and looked past Natalie at Lucas. “I heard a rumor that you two
were married already. Is that true?”

Lucas shrugged.

“When?” Sonia asked.

Noah sat down on the stool beside her and asked, “When what?”

“Nothing, Noah. I was just telling Lucas and his new wife about our wedding and how
it’s going to be the talk of the whole state.”

“Wife?” Noah raised both eyebrows.

Lucas raised his left shoulder again. “Dance, Natalie?”

“Love to,” she said.

He led her to the middle of the floor and drew her close, wrapping his arms loosely
around her waist. They were the only couple, but Colton and Laura joined them when
Alan Jackson hit the first guitar licks at the beginning of “When Somebody Loves You.”

Lucas was so smooth that Natalie felt as if her new boots were floating. Alan sang
that they should put aside their foolish pride because when somebody loves you, it’s
easy to get through those hard times.

“I love you, Natalie Clark,” Lucas whispered in her ear when Alan delivered the last
words of the song.

She leaned away from him and stared into his eyes. His eyes said that he was not joking.
“Are you sure about that?”