True-Blue Cowboy Christmas (22 page)

“I
love
Summer,” Kate replied, arranging the rocks into eyes and a smile on the snowman.

“So you'd be okay if she spent more time with us? And, um, more time with me, sometimes just Summer and me?”

Kate's head whipped around. “Like you guys would get married? Greta's mom just got married and now she has a stepdad, and if you and Summer got married, she would be my stepmom and—”

“Whoa. Hold on there, tiger.” Holy crap, he had not expected her to jump on
that
so fast. “Um, so, when you're old enough to get married you have to, um…” Sweet pickles, how to get himself out of this one? “You have to spend time together first, to make sure…that you can make that kind of promise to each other.”

“So, that's what you're going to do?”

“Well, um, we're going to spend some time together and—”

“And Summer can spend the nights and eat meals with us and take me to school and—”

“One step at a time, honey,” Thack replied quietly as Summer approached. “Afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” she replied with one of her warm smiles. “But you two don't mind me. Make your snowman. I'll go get lunch started. You come on in whenever.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, here.” She unwound the colorful fringy scarf from her neck and handed it to Kate. “He's missing a magic scarf.”

Kate squealed and took the scarf, happily fussing with getting it around the snowman's neck.

Summer winked at Thack and began walking past, but he couldn't resist taking her arm and pulling her a little closer, then brushing a quick kiss over her lips.

Her smile made him want to forget everything except her and find a way to repeat last night.

But his daughter was right there. Grinning from ear to ear, even as Summer gave a little wave and headed off for the house.

“It's like Eric and Ariel,” Kate said on a dreamy sigh.

“Let's hope without the evil octopus,” Thack muttered, feeling one hundred percent out of his depth. But since that was true of about ninety-five percent of his parenting experience, he knew to just roll with it.

“Can Summer stay and read me a book too?”

Summer knew she shouldn't eavesdrop, but Kate's loud voice made it nearly impossible not to. Summer had just finished the dinner dishes, and Thack and Kate had gone upstairs to call Kate's grandparents to confirm their Christmas visit.

Mr. Lane had gone out with Mrs. Bart, and though no one was saying anything to anyone else about it, Summer got the feeling that things were getting
quite
serious in that department.

Still, she had liked washing the dishes while listening to Thack and Kate thump around upstairs, the steady hum of deep and high voices going back and forth.

But now they were downstairs, and Kate was asking for Summer to be added into the evening routine. She all but held her breath waiting for Thack's response.

“I would say yes, but Summer has a job singing on Saturday nights.”

Oh right. She'd forgotten all about that. What had once been one of her favorite parts of the week was quickly becoming an annoyance. It meant she couldn't spend as much time here. She didn't want to leave here. Didn't want to spend the night at the Shaws. She wanted to insert herself into the Lanes' lives completely.

Which was probably too much, too fast. Overkill.

“But I want to
gooooooo
,” Kate whined.

“Sorry, Katie Pie, only grown-ups can go. But I'll read you an extra book. Okay?”

Kate groaned, but then she appeared in the kitchen, darting over to Summer and wrapping her arms around Summer's waist. Summer held her there, glancing up at Thack who was standing in the opening between the kitchen and the living room. He had a wistful smile on his face that made her heart ache, and she wasn't even sure why.

But then he glanced at the clock behind her. “Running a little late, aren't you?”

She looked at it too. Running a lot late, actually. No time to practice or change. If she wanted to be on time to start her set, she had to leave now.

“I guess I am.” She hadn't told him about the platform being overturned like Delia had wanted her to. But what could happen between now and her walking to her car and driving into town? Nothing, surely.

Even if it's Mom?
She felt cold at the thought. Quite honestly she'd rather face some crazy person or a burglar than her mother. A stranger was, well, random. Mom was…unpredictable. Overpowering.

Summer forced herself to release Kate and step toward Thack. “I can come by in the morning and make breakfast if it would help with Christmas Eve.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “You can come
help
with breakfast. Because we want you here.”

She wanted to cry. She wanted to burrow into him and tell him everything. And she would. Just…not yet. Her smile must have wobbled because concern crossed his features.

“You okay?”

She'd tell him after Christmas. She'd tell him everything, even that she was afraid it might be her mother. Day after Christmas. She forced a convincing smile. “Yes. Everything is fine. Wish I didn't have to go.”

Thack brushed his fingers down her cheek. “Me too.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, probably due to Kate's eager eyes following every movement.

“I'll see you both tomorrow.” Summer forced herself to be casual, to grab her things and keep a smile on her face and pep in her step, even as she stepped into the dark and dread filled her again.

Why couldn't Delia and Caleb have blown the whole thing off this morning? Why'd they have to think it was something? And why did she have to have that stupid, horrible, terrifying suspicion filling her soul and weighing her down?

She drove to Pioneer Spirit feeling anxious and out of sorts. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was sing in front of a bunch of drunk people. But this was her job, and sometimes you had to do things you didn't particularly want to do.

Or you could run. Far, far away.

She could do it. She could leave behind the Shaws, the Lanes, the love and belonging and hope she'd found here. She knew she
could
do it. Instead of pulling into the Pioneer Spirit lot, she could keep driving. Out of Blue Valley, out of Montana. She could make it all the way to the East Coast if she wanted to.

But what would be waiting for her there? Maybe a new kind of freedom, but was that worth the loneliness and emptiness? Was it worth leaving all this behind?

She dropped her forehead to the steering wheel once she was parked. “You are being so damn overdramatic,” she muttered into the quiet of her car. But she'd been following her gut all along, and now her gut wouldn't let the idea go. That her mother might have followed her here.

If that was true, then she had put the Shaws in Mom's path, and she didn't want to be the one who'd brought her here. Mel and Caleb had moved on from that betrayal. They had families of their own now, and Summer wanted to protect them from all the damage their mother could inflict.

But she had to know first, didn't she? That it was Mom. She had to be able to prove to herself and then to others that there was no mistake, that this wasn't a random event. That her mother had actually followed her from California and was causing trouble for Summer on purpose.

It was so hard to believe and so hard to ignore. She could be going crazy. She could be paranoid. This could all be a figment of what Mom had always called her overactive imagination.

Or it could all make sense. She was finally feeling at peace. Happy. And Mom sensed it. Like a carrier pigeon had sent her a message—
Summer is happy. You have to ruin it.

The worst part was, as much as she wanted to fight, when it came to Mom, Summer didn't think she'd win. But if it meant protecting the family who had come to accept her and fold her into their lives, then she'd lose. She'd accept her loss.

Of course, where that left Thack and Kate, where that left her, she wasn't sure.

* * *

It had taken ten books to get Kate to fall asleep. Thack was trying hard not to be irritated by that or the emptiness that seemed to cloak the house. It wasn't empty. His daughter was tucked into her bed safe and sound.

But Dad was off with someone, possibly for the night. Summer was at the bar, singing, and he was alone.

There wasn't even work to do. Summer had cleaned up and helped to ensure the house was completely Christmas-ed, Dad had paperwork caught up and had been working with the company to fix the porch, and Thack couldn't leave Kate alone in the house, so any ranch work was out.

He could go to bed. He
should
go to bed, but somehow he knew he wouldn't sleep. He'd think of Summer. He'd go over every possible way Stan and Marjorie coming for Christmas could blow up in his face. But they had agreed. They'd
told
Kate they were coming. He had to have faith in that.

He'd try to, anyway.

He stood in the middle of his living room, illuminated only by the colorful lights of the Christmas trees—the big fake one in the corner and a small real one Summer had arranged by the entryway to the kitchen.

His life was changing, and it felt a little like this. Familiar, a living room he'd known his entire life, and yet different in the glow of Christmas lights, with the clear stamp of Summer's influence.

He knew for certain he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Despite the changes and the murky future in front of him, the past few months had brought him out of a dark period. A probably necessary period, one marked by selfless survival. But Kate was safe and happy and healthy. She was ever his cheerful, strong-willed, loud girl, a bright light always.

And here he was, alone and without too heavy a weight on his shoulders for the first time in… It felt like forever. Long enough, he supposed. Long enough to know he needed to summon the courage to keep moving forward. To not let himself go back to that place where he couldn't find this peace.

As if God was listening in on his thoughts, a knock sounded at the door, interrupting that momentary peace. He frowned at the door. Dad had a key, and even if he'd forgotten it, he wouldn't knock that loud. It could be Summer—his heart kicked a little at the thought—but surely she would have texted first. He doubted she would have left her set early two nights in a row. That wouldn't be like her. She took her responsibilities to people very seriously.

Still, Summer was who his heart hoped for. For a second when he opened the door, he thought for sure it was her. But then the woman stepped into the warm glow of the porch light, not Summer at all.

A stranger's presence here was a complete and utter anomaly, because they were too far from the main road to get passersby. Something about the woman standing on his porch struck him as familiar. He couldn't put a finger on how or why. “Can I help you?” he asked cautiously when she said nothing.

“Oh, I hope so.”

Something about her smile—and the weirdness of a random stranger popping up on his porch—made him hold the doorknob harder and keep the open space slim so she couldn't see beyond him.

“My car broke down, and I've been walking I don't know how long trying to find someone.” She pulled an old and battered-looking cell phone out of the pocket of her vibrant red coat—something that should have looked Christmassy, but just made this all seem very…threatening. “Thing's useless.”

“Where'd you break down?”

She inclined her head, and if it weren't for Kate upstairs, he might have chastised himself for being so damn suspicious of a middle-aged woman.

But his daughter
was
upstairs, and his gut feeling about this woman was not a good one.

“Oh, along the main road. Goodness, I don't know how far back. I'm not from around here.”

“So, what are you doing here?”

She blinked and he knew he was being an asshole, but he couldn't get himself to loosen up. She
was
familiar somehow, but it was hard to make out how in the dark around them. Maybe an old relative from years ago? A lot of Mom's family was from Virginia, people he'd met maybe once as a kid and that was about it.

It didn't get him to open the door any farther.

“You're alone?” the woman asked, ignoring his question.

“If you wait here, I'll get you a phone you can borrow.”

“It's awful cold, and I've been walking for a while. You don't think I could come in?”

“No.” Thack shut the door in her face and locked it. If Dad were here, he'd be getting an ass-chewing, but he couldn't shake the feeling this woman was trouble. He didn't even want to give her his phone, but he supposed that was a reasonable compromise between being a dick and being so helpful he let a strange woman into his house late at night.

He grabbed his cell off the kitchen counter and returned to the door, unlocking and opening it—only to find the porch empty.

He was tempted to step out and look around, make sure she wasn't messing with something on the property, but though he avoided them like the plague, he'd still seen enough horror movies and police procedurals over Dad's shoulder to know that would be a dumb move.

He closed the door, locked it, went through the house checking every window, every door, and dialed the number of the Valley County Sheriff's Department.

He glanced out the front window as he related the incident to the dispatcher. She seemed bored, but she agreed to send one of the deputies to check for any broken-down cars.

He clicked End, wondering if he'd be able to sleep at all now, when a little flash of something near the tree line made his heart feel as though it had stopped.

The tree line. The property line between his sturdy house with a foundation and locks, and Summer's unmoored little caravan.

He couldn't go running out there, not when he was on his own, but he couldn't let Summer head back there tonight. What if this was some crazy woman or a thief looking for an easy mark?

He might love Summer, but she would be one
hell
of an easy mark.

Wait.

Love
Summer.

“Come on, brain, give me a break here,” he muttered. He had to deal with one thing at a time, and love was going to be there no matter what he did. The rest? He needed to act.

You're an overreacting idiot
. But better to overreact than live with the guilt if something went wrong. He had a hard enough time dealing with the guilt he already had. He looked up the number for Pioneer Spirit and asked if he could speak to Summer when Rose answered.

He could hear her yell over the din of a bar on a Saturday night, something about
your man
being on the phone. Funny that it could make him feel a certain amount of pride. Pride without the crushing sense of responsibility that sat at the foundation of so many of his relationships.

Love. Yes. Well.
Sweet pickles
.

“Thack?”

“Hey. Sorry to bother you at work, but something weird happened here. A woman stopped by. She wanted to use my phone, but then she disappeared. Anyway, I called the cops to come check it out, but…I don't like the idea of you being out in your caravan if she's wandering around. If you want, you can come stay with us, or maybe stay up at the Shaw house tonight. Something wasn't right with that lady.”

A buzzing silence followed, and if he couldn't hear the din of the bar in the background, he might have thought they'd lost the connection. “Summer?”

“Yeah. Hi. Um, wow, that's weird. A woman.”

“I know it's a little creepy,” he said, hoping to soothe the freaked-out note in her voice, “but we'll figure it out once it's daylight. I just want you to be careful.”

“Right. Careful. Um…” Again a long stretch where he only heard the sounds of the bar.

“You don't have to be worried.”

She made a weird sound, one he couldn't quite make out. It almost sounded bitter, but that must have had something to do with all the background noise.