Yuletide Cowboy (12 page)

L
ynn was frazzled by the time she made it to the church the next morning. As the secretary she was supposed to open the church office for the visiting preacher. She hadn't slept well and the boys were bouncing off the wall the second their eyes opened. Of course they'd been over-the-moon excited since Chance had brought her to pick them up the night before.

Chance
—she shouldn't have been surprised when he'd insisted on taking her to pick them up. Telling her he didn't mind and he would rather know that she and the boys were home safe and sound when he went home. Since there was room in his double-cab truck, she agreed. It was another gentlemanly trait that she wasn't used to…. How had she made such bad choices in her life?

Looking back, if she'd been reading a novel and a character she cared about was heading toward making the bad choices she'd made, as a reader she would have thrown the book across the room in frustration. But, she'd not had the good sense to see what she was doing. She'd been too close to the fire and the smoke
had blinded her. Or at least that was the kindest way she could describe her choices…. Life was about choices and she'd chosen badly.

She had had the best evening of her life and then the past had surged up and driven it all away with doubts about herself. How had she chosen to marry her ex-husband? It was humiliating to think love could have blind ed her to Drew's character.

Her mood didn't get any better when she walked in to the church office and played the message on the answering machine….

 

Chance drove into the church parking lot earlier than he'd planned. He'd had a restless night after dropping Lynn and her boys off. That he couldn't get Lynn off his mind was an understatement.

Lynn Perry amazed him. And she also confused him. He'd have sworn she'd expected him to be a jerk last night. She wasn't used to the cowboy way, as she'd put it when he'd walked around to open her door for her. What was she used to? His temper had flared in that instant and it had been all he could do not to voice his opinion about her ex-husband in a very ungodly way. Instead, God had held him true to his calling and he'd reacted with positive words for her. She did deserve all the good things in life and he was glad God had brought her through that bad time safely.

Kissing her temple hadn't been in the plan. Holding her had happened out of concern and encouragement…but not wanting to let her go had had nothing to do with either. That had strictly been the man in him.

It was that man in him that was heading toward the
church at eight-thirty when Sunday school didn't start until nine-thirty. Lynn would probably be there early because of the program. She might need more help.

“Chance, Chance!” The twins yelled, running toward him the instant they saw him pull into the parking lot. They'd been sitting on the front steps of the church looking slightly miserable…probably had been instructed not to get dirty, which for them was a real trial.

“What's wrong, fellas?”

“We ain't got no preacher for today,” Gavin burst out.

Jack nodded vigorously. “He done canceled and left the church high and dry.”

Despite the situation, a smile tugged at Chance's lips at the boy's word choice. App's truck was in the parking lot and he was pretty sure Jack was repeating something he'd heard.

Gavin took his arm. “You got to help us, Chance.”

“Yes sirree,” Jack quipped, planting his hands on Chance's hip and pushing him forward. “You gotta help us.”

This was not what he'd been expecting as he'd driven to the church, but then nothing since he'd arrived in Mule Hollow had gone as he'd expected.

“We brung him to ya, Momma,” Gavin said excitedly, ten feet before they reached Lynn, who'd come out of the church office to talk to App.

Lynn had her arms crossed and looked a little stressed out. Applegate's bushy brows were crinkled like crawling caterpillars above thoughtful eyes. “Our stand-in fer the day left us high and dry,” he grumbled. “Jest called in and said he wasn't comin'.”

“App, now, he said he was ill,” Lynn said firmly, giving Chance a look that said her patience was ebbing.

“I didn't miss a day of work in fifty years. You set yor mind to it and you feel better after ya fulfill yor commitments.”

“In
fifty
years!” Jack exclaimed. “What's fifty years?”

“It's a bunch, son.” App scowled deeper as he hit Chance with a glare. “So I guess it's up ta you, son.”

All eyes turned to him. The one thing he was thankful for was that they were the only ones at the church. He didn't expect that to be the case for too much longer though. “App, not so fast. What about Brady?”

Lynn's mouth fell open. “Seriously. You seriously just said that?”

“He did a great job—”

“There was a wreck at the county line that he is dealing with this morning,” she said, curtly. “May I speak with you in the office?” She didn't wait for his answer, just took his arm and pulled him along with her. Gavin and Jack fell into step with them. She looked around him. “You boys go play.”

“But you said we was in trouble if we got dirt on us,” Jack groaned.

“Yeah, that's what you said,” Gavin assured her.

Chance would have laughed at the entire situation had it not been hemming him into a corner.

“Boys. Go play, have a good time but please try to stay clean. Can you do that?”

They looked at each other then at their momma. It was clear they weren't really sure if they could do it or not.

“Sure we can,” Gavin said, giving his best shot to being positive. Jack didn't look near as sure. “Tell her, Jack.”

“What if we get a teensy-bitty little dirt on us?” he asked with a face that made Chance almost bust with laughter.

“Fine. Go play,” Lynn said and he knew he was in trouble if she was so zeroed in on talking to him that she'd give them the go-ahead to get dirty before the program.

Still holding on to his arm she marched him to the office and kicked the door shut with her heel. Startled, he half expected her to tell him to sit, as if he was in the principal's office. As soon as the door slammed shut she let go of him and looked up at him like a puppy that had lost its favorite toy. “You have to preach today.”

“No. I don't.”

The puppy disappeared in a blink. “Chance Turner. What are you doing? You were thanking God for what he did for me and my boys last night but today you still won't go back to preaching. I don't understand.”

She was right and he knew it. He hung his head and studied his boots before looking back at her. “You're right. I don't know what I was thinking.”

Her expression softened. “Chance, you lost someone you cared about as a person but, more importantly, as a soul you desperately wanted to see in Heaven one day. It affected you. It hurt. Even as the man of God that you are, it affected you. There is nothing wrong with that. It is actually a wonderful thing. I love it—I mean—well, yeah, I love that about you.”

He swallowed hard and his heart was thrumming in
his chest at her words. It was true he cared deeply but he'd never before felt like he'd failed on such a personal level. “I can't shake the feeling that I didn't do enough. I needed one more moment with him.”

“But who can gauge how many moments a person gets to hear about the Lord before their time is up? No one can. That's not your call. I don't know how to help you. But I have faith that God is in control and He knows your heart, Chance. He knows you wanted more opportunities to be a witness and that you regret not making more. But it's not all about you. It's about Randy. You couldn't make Randy's choices for him or any of your cowboys. You can only present them with God's enduring love for them—you know this.”

“I know it. But it's like I'm lost in the yaupon thicket.”

Lynn chuckled. “I'm so sorry, but I don't believe I've ever heard it put that way before. But you know that God can get you out of anything. Remember that God is light. If you walk with Him, He will lead you.”

“And I thought I was the preacher.” Looking at her his spirits lifted. He knew it all, had given advice, scripture and counsel to many, and yet he needed these words and comfort from Lynn. “Thank you.”

“So do you think you could bring a few words to the congregation as a prelude to the program? It doesn't need to be a full sermon even. Just whatever God leads you to say. What's it going to be?”

 

She was so proud of Chance. She sat with the kids on the front row as he stepped to the pulpit. She'd come to realize how much he cared for the bull riders though, and
he seemed out of place to her. He was a rodeo preacher, she saw that so clearly now.

He was better suited to his ministry. Or maybe it was simply that she knew his heart through his concern for Randy. But either way she knew the men he led in worship each week were blessed to have a man so heavy with concern for them. She hadn't seen him in action but she knew in her heart of hearts that he was as much a man of faith as any she'd ever been around.

“Good mornin',” he said, his Texas drawl reverberating across the room. “I've been straining against getting in this pulpit since I came home, but God pretty much laid the pathway clean this morning and roped me into it.”

Laughter crackled across the sanctuary. Lynn smiled and caught Gavin and Jack completely enthralled watching him. Their little faces were upturned and their eyes bright and unblinking as they grinned at him. “Have you ever heard the saying, don't sweat the petty stuff, and don't pet the sweaty stuff?” He hiked a brow as the laughter rolled, then he sobered. “I told y'all I was a cowboy preacher. But seriously, what I've been dealing with since coming home isn't petty or sweaty, but it's been heavy on my heart. A very wise woman told me that God's got things under control for those who believe in Him.” He winked at her from the pulpit and her stomach dropped to her toes.

She listened as he gave a short sermon on 1 John 5-7,
God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
It was a good reminder that God sent His Son to walk beside all of his children as the light of their path. She loved the way he delivered the message and knew there were
many, herself included, who needed the reminder. He had a plainspoken way with words, of cutting to the heart of the matter and she knew that was exactly the kind of preaching cowboys would respond to. There were no flowery embellishments with Chance. He was a straight shooter for the Lord. She understood that was exactly why he wouldn't preach until he felt his own heart was right, or at least on the path to right.

“I'm going to get out of the way now and let these kids get up here and bless y'all with their Christmas pageant. But I want to encourage you that if you haven't saddled up with Christ—if you haven't accepted this very special gift—that you'll do it today, you won't regret it. And if you're like I've been, caught up in the yaupon thicket, tangled up in your problems, then I pray that God will be your light and open your eyes and He will lead you to clear pastures.”

The man was a preacher. Not conventional, but he'd touched her heart.

She leaned forward and motioned for the children to take their places as Chance headed toward them. Gavin started to go to his spot then came back to her. “Momma,” he whispered loudly. “Why is God gonna put us in a clean pasture?”

“T
hose little darlings did so wonderful yesterday!” Esther Mae said as she burst into the candy store with Norma Sue and Adela on her trail. The sleigh bells on the door jingled merrily.

“It was even cuter when Joshua—or should I say the baby sheep—wandered up on the stage and started waving at his momma and daddy and then told them his costume was itching him.”

Adela's eyes twinkled. “I thought my Sam was going to fall out of his seat when Joshua started to try and take it off and Gavin and Jack—sweet darlings—tried to talk him out of it. They were really taking on the responsibility of being the older boys of that group.”

Lynn could have been embarrassed that the play had ended up being more humorous entertainment than anything but she wasn't. That was part of the joy of getting small children involved in a program. You never knew what was going to happen. She'd loved it. “I hated to have to go up on stage and stop them but Joshua wanted that costume off and I was afraid my two boys were going to wrestle him to try and keep it on him.”

She'd tried to get their attention and get them all back into the lineup but they weren't listening. She'd finally looked at Chance, who was about to burst with held-in laughter—not helping her at all. She'd given him a teasing scowl, then walked up the two steps to where the boys were trying to manhandle three-year-old Joshua into keeping on the sheep costume. It was a towel they'd sewn pillow filler on so that it looked fluffy like a sheep. Fuzz was flying everywhere!

“I still haven't figured out what part of that outfit was causing him to itch. The towel was all that touched his neck.”

Stacy had been placing a tray of chocolate-covered nuts in the glass display case. She straightened, looking fresh. “I'm just glad Bryce didn't try and strip down to his training pants and join them.”

“Lynn stepped in just before everything hit the fan.” Norma Sue chuckled. “Anyway, we came by for a couple of things. First, we've got a lot to do this week if we are going to have a wedding Saturday. I'm so glad Chance agreed to do this. I think our boy is coming around. He did wonderful yesterday.”

“He sure did,” Esther Mae gushed. “Hank laughed all the way home. He said he wasn't going to sweat the petty stuff anymore or pet the sweaty stuff. Out of all that was said,
that
is what my Hank got the most out of.”

“He said he would preach next Sunday, too.” Adela was watching Lynn, who wondered if she was picking up on her reluctance to talk about this. Adela was extremely perceptive. And Lynn had a major problem. As of yesterday she didn't believe that Chance would
ever belong in a traditional church setting. Although Mule Hollow was packed to the gills with cowboys and the entire town pretty much lived the cowboy way, it was still hard to think about him sitting in that office day in, day out.

A wide grin cracked across Norma Sue's face as she stared at Lynn. “We've decided to have a Christmas Ball the week before Christmas. So that means we've got a wedding to get ready for, a Christmas Ball and then Christmas. What do y'all think about that?”

“Norma Sue, that sounds like fun,” Nive said, coming out of the back. “Doesn't it, Lynn?”

Nive had been giving her a hard time all morning. “It sounds busy.”

“Well, sure it is. But we need to do everything we can to encourage Chance while he's here and keep him from staying out there on the property. Him agreeing to do our Stacy's wedding is a good sign. That boy has a heart as big as Texas and he needs to share that with a family. Don't you agree?”

Lynn agreed to come out and help decorate for the wed ding and she reluctantly agreed to attend the Christmas Ball, which had matchmaking written all over it! But she kept her mouth shut when it came to agreeing that Chance needed to be the new preacher at the Mule Hollow Church of Faith, or that he needed to share his big ol' heart with a family…namely her family. Maybe he was supposed to have a family but she—well, she might be tempted, but in the end she knew nothing would come of throwing the two of them together.

She wasn't interested in a husband. She guessed she was still tangled up in the yaupon thicket with her eyes
tightly shut, because she wasn't seeing any light leading her to a clear pasture. Where being ready for a husband was concerned she wasn't seeing clear pastures anywhere!

No matter how wonderful Chance Turner was.

 

“I'm tellin' ya it ain't country music,” App grunted. He slapped a red checker one spot forward and glanced at Chance and Wyatt as they walked into the diner.

“Mornin',” App and Stanley said in unison.

Chance and Wyatt echoed their greetings and took stools at the counter. Growing up, Chance and his cousins used to have races to see who could spin the cowhide-covered stools the fastest. Today he folded his hands on the counter and glanced toward the checker game.

Stanley grinned and made a double-jump move. “Yor right about it,” he continued as if his conversation hadn't been paused momentarily to greet the morning stragglers. “No complaints from me. I bet Alan Jackson and George Strait—and I know good and doggone well George Jones—are all wonderin' what's happenin' ta country.”

“
Rap
country,” App grumbled, so caught up in the discussion that losing two checker pieces didn't even bother him. “Whoever heard of such a thing? It was on every station when I drove into town this mornin'. Three different songs. How many of 'em are out thar?”

Stanley shook his balding head. “It ain't right. Before ya know it they'll be tradin' in thar belts and wearin' thar britches down around thar ankles.”

“So how do y'all really feel about it?” Chance teased.
He was feeling better about life in general today. God had helped him start finding his way. And he'd done it through a class act with dark hair and elusive eyes.

“We like yor preachin' a lot more than we like that garbage.”

Wyatt cleared his throat. “Well, that's not saying a whole lot by the sound of it. I might be insulted if I was you, cousin.”

Chance chuckled. “I'm a rodeo preacher, don't apologize.”

The conversation ensued about cowboy preaching and traditional preaching and the differences. He wasn't at all surprised that questions about him and Lynn were interspersed throughout the conversation. He'd not been able to get her off his mind.

He and Wyatt were heading to Pete's Feed and Seed when he saw her leaving the candy store.

“I'll catch up to you in a few,” he told Wyatt, drawing a knowing grin. He ignored it and strode across the street toward her. “Hey, Lynn,” he called, and as she looked his way he thought he saw a flash of excitement. The idea of her being excited to see him pleased him more than he could explain.

“How are you this morning?” she asked, digging in side her purse.

“I'm good. Hey, I was wondering if you'd like to go to dinner again. I thought we could take the boys out. You know, reward them for a good job yesterday.”

She stopped digging. “That's funny, Chance.”

“Hey, they were only trying to help out and you have to remember they were shepherds watching out
for their flock. They just went and tried to gather up their stray.”

She laughed, making him smile at the bubbly sound of it.

“I keep thinking about that. It was just so cute. But it really was not the program I had envisioned.”

“But you know what,” he offered, realizing as he spoke that he'd moved mere inches from her. “God was smiling, I'm sure. Little children please Him just like they please us.”

“I know.” She pulled her keys from her bag. “I need to go pick them up now.”

“Hey,” he said, not wanting to let her go. “So how about that dinner and a movie?”

She looked like she was going to say no, then she hesitated—and his heart started pounding unevenly with hope. He wanted to spend time with Lynn. He wanted to see that shadow of wariness, of uncertainty, disappear from her eyes. He wanted her to trust him…but was that all?

“The boys, too?”

“Yeah.” He grinned, feeling great. “Let's load 'em up and go find an early movie, then grab some pizza.”

“You're sure?”

He wanted to run his fingertips across her jaw in a gentle caress. “Absolutely.”

She smiled sweetly and her eyes lit up like candles on a birthday cake. “You are so good to my boys. That means so much to me.”

His throat had seized up on him at that look. It dug in deep and snuggled into nooks and crannies of his heart. He grinned—it was all he could do for a couple
of seconds. He'd almost tried to tell her that she meant so much to him….

“Three.”

“Three?”

“I'll pick you up at three. Unless that's too early,” he said, as shaken as if he'd just been dragged from beneath the hooves of the biggest, baddest bull of all time.

“That sounds great.” She opened her car door. “If you're sure.”

Oh, he wasn't sure about anything in that moment except that he had just stepped over a line into a world he had never been in before. “I love your boys, sure I'm sure. It'll be fun.”

 

She was having enough trouble keeping her head out of the yaupon thicket without accepting another date with him! But he'd offered to take her boys. How could she refuse that? And there was absolutely no denying that his offer thrilled her.
He loved her boys.
Those words had melted her.

It was scary. And for a gal who thought she'd gotten her act together, who thought she was seeing life in clear terms—she wasn't. And if God was out there trying to light the way to a clear path she wasn't seeing the light!

Her heart was getting involved in a big way. And with her heart and her emotions involved…she was trying to fight against making any emotional decision where a man was concerned, ever again.

But, a few hours later, it was hard to think straight when the man was buying popcorn for her boys!

Gavin and Jack were jumping up and down with
excitement over the animated movie they were about to see. The fact that they were seeing it with their hero skyrocketed the experience to the moon and back.

“Here you go,” Chance said, turning to hand her a tub of popcorn. “If you'll carry this, I'll carry the drinks.”

She barely heard him over the blood rushing through her veins at lightning speed. “Got it,” she squeaked, when his fingers brushed hers in the handoff. Her stomach was in knots—a combination of thrill and disaster mixed together.

“You boys ready for this?” he asked, handing each one a small drink and leading the way toward the theater.

“I am,” Gavin said, carrying his drink very carefully. Lynn knew he was trying to impress Chance by not spilling anything.

“Me, too.” Jack practically sang he was so excited.

“I want to see that dog fly!”

Chance chuckled. “I think he does a good job of it, from what I heard.”

They reached the designated theater along the long hallway and Chance held the door as they entered. As she passed by he leaned close. “Are you having fun?” he asked. His warm breath sent tingles down her neck and racing along her spine.

She turned, startled, and found herself so close that they were practically kissing. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. She was embarrassed. His eyes were twinkling.

“Me, too.”

His gaze dropped to her lips and for a mere second she thought—

“Y'all comin' or ya just gonna stand there?” Gavin called from the front of the theater.

Thankfully a wall hid them from the people in the seats. She bolted and strode to her boys with Chance right behind her.

It was a great movie. Then again she only came to that conclusion from the boys' delighted reactions to it. They oohed and ahhed all through it. She'd had the storm of the century battling away inside her and the sinking feeling that her boat was about to capsize!