Yuletide Cowboy (9 page)

“I
f you'll hold this then I'll attach it,” Chance said several hours later.

Lynn was crouched beside him, shoulder to shoulder, on the now sturdy floor of the tree house. They were using a cordless drill to attach the walls to the floor with screws. Below them the boys and Tiny ran in circles playing cowboys with their popguns. They were thrilled with the tree house.

“I would hope you know I would never have gotten this done without you. My boys would have probably hurt themselves in what I could have built them.”

Chance pushed the power button and the screw ate through the wood in less than ten seconds. He sat back on his knees and let the drill rest on his thigh. “You were trying. That says something. And the best way to learn is to be taught. I'm a good teacher, if you haven't noticed.” He gave a cocky grin and it did crazy fluttery things to her insides.

This was a glimpse of Chance Turner, relaxed and not being so hard on himself. Until that moment she hadn't
realized exactly how difficult Randy's death had been for him.

But now she knew his unguarded side and realized that Chance Turner could be dangerous. She tried to look unaffected and casual. “You're a little cocky for a preacher, aren't you?” She laughed.

“Hey, God never said a preacher was supposed to be a passive, no-personality kind of guy.”

She was hyperaware of where her jean-clad knee was touching his. “I guess you have a point.”

“You're right, I do. Look at Peter. There was nothing about him that was passive. Passionate, yes. Passive—no way. Strong men can be Christians.”

“Hey, you sound a little defensive,” she teased, enjoying herself more than she could fathom. It was a beautiful, crisp winter day, the sun was sparkling, her children were playing and she was having an entertaining, enlightening conversation with a devastatingly hand some cowboy. It was lovely.

He crunched his straight black eyebrows. “Oh, believe me, there are some out there who think a preacher has to have a milkweed handshake and his chin to his chest. But God tells me and all His other kids to be bold. Courageous. Men of courage. Patient and kind, yes. But there is a balance.” He paused. “I guess that could sound arrogant. Believe me, I'm not. The Lord has forgiven me a lot. I'm no better than the lowest sinner out there. None of us are. But I try to be the man God would want me to be.” He took a deep breath and turned his head to the side, staring out at the cattle in the distance.

“You aren't preaching right now. Why is that?” she asked. “You are clearly called to it.”

He was passionate. It was obvious now. But he was deeply caring and compassionate to have been so affected by one from his congregation. She guessed that was what Randy had been. Having church in an arena didn't change that.

Chance pulled himself back from wherever his thoughts had gone and reached for another board. “I don't have it in me. I just feel like my well is empty.” He stood the board up and she grabbed it and held it like she'd done the other one. Their fingers brushed as hers re placed his, and the butterflies that had been dancing on and off all morning exploded into motion.

She tried to concentrate on what was being discussed and the importance of it and not this attraction she was feeling toward him. “When you talk just now you don't sound empty. You sound like a man with a lot to say and to offer. But I know what you mean. Not from a preacher's standpoint, but I know what you mean about feeling empty. I never thought about it exactly that way, but that's kind of how I feel about the thought of remarrying.” Why was she going there? It had just come out. “I know everyone sees me and my boys and they think it would be so lovely for me to find a good man—a cowboy—and remarry and live happily ever after.” She gave him an embarrassed smile. His eyes were serious and caring as he listened. “I've thought about it. But unlike Stacy, who is trying to get married, or Rose, who married Zane, I just don't think I have in me what it takes to be a wife again. I feel like I can be a good mother.”

“You are a good mother. A great mother.”

Her heart jumped at his soft words of reassurance.

“Thank you. But as far as a wife, I feel like my well
is dry, too.” She was totally embarrassed. Waving her hand, she huffed, “Ignore all of that. It isn't anything at all like what you are feeling. I shouldn't have even tried to make a comparison. It probably makes no sense at all.”

He set the drill down and grabbed her fluttering hand. “No. Stop. You make perfect sense. I don't know what all you went through, but you're a strong woman. I can tell that. You've come out on top here with your boys. No one can judge or even try to know someone else's heart. But God does know, and with time He'll heal even that dry well. One day you may be able to love again. Your time to heal is your own. No one else's.”

He was rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand and his words comforted her…as did his touch. Lifting her chin, she looked into his eyes and felt an overwhelming sense of…assurance. He was good at what God had called him to do.

“Thank you,” she said. “I was feeling some pressure from several sides.”

“They mean well.” He winked and gently laid her hand on her knee, patting the back of it once before picking up his drill again. It was almost as if he regretted letting her hand go.

She concentrated on placing the next board of the tree house in place. Her thoughts guiltily went to Stacy. She'd yet to ask him again to perform Stacy's wedding. Knowing what he was going through now, she was conflicted.

“So about you?” she said. She hadn't meant to sidetrack talking about him. “You were ministering to me just now. You do it naturally.”

“Some things come naturally. That doesn't mean I'm not stuck on the sandbar in the middle of river. I'm sorry about your friend's wedding. I've been thinking about that ever since you asked me, but that's her special day and I just don't feel like I'm where I need to be to be involved in it.”

Looking at him no one would guess Chance Turner would ever get stranded. “I wish you were. She—” Lynn stopped. This was about him right now. “And this has to do with Randy's death.”

The pain instantly dulled his green eyes to a pale hue and his handsome features went slack with the weight of the burden he carried. Lynn's heart cracked seeing it. She leaned the board against the attached one and gave him her full attention. “Is it that you didn't realize he was on drugs?”

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly through tense lips. “Funny how I can counsel and give advice and can't get it in my own head and mind.”

A sharp stab of empathy sliced through Lynn. She got it. She understood exactly what he was saying. “I guess it's the eighteen-inch rule. Many people miss Heaven because of the eighteen inches between their brain and their heart. The two don't always connect.” She started to say,
Believe me, I know,
but held back. She couldn't keep bringing the conversation to herself.

This was about Chance.

“I'm just taking time off, trying to find my way. Giving God time to pull me off the sandbar. Helping you and the boys is a good thing.” He lifted the drill and pulled the trigger. Twice. “So put me to work,” he said over the whirring roar.

“Okay, anything I can do.”

“Momma, can we come up there yet?” Gavin skidded to a halt at the base of the ladder.

Jack was right behind him. “We ain't gonna fall.” He grabbed hold of the ladder and jumped on the bottom rung.

“What do you think, boss lady?” Chance's eyes twinkled. “Do you feel safe enough to let them come up and maybe start helping build this thing?”

She looked around at the two sides that were finished. “If they stay on that side I won't worry so much that they'll try to jump from the floor to the ground.”

“Nice way to not say they might fall.”

She laughed. “Knowing those two, they would jump intentionally just to see if they could do it.”

“Come on up, but careful,” Chance called. Jack scooted up the ladder like a squirrel up a tree.

Chance took him by the arms and helped him onto the deck of the tree house. “Dude, I thought you said you were scared of climbing a ladder?”

Jack's face blew up with a radiant smile. “I'm not scared of
this.
I'm scared of
that.
” He waved toward the house and the tall eaves. “That's e-
nor
-mous.

“It ain't enormous. Clint Matlock's barn, that's enormous,” Gavin declared, hot on the heels of his brother. Chance reached for him also. “And I'm not scared of any of it.” Gavin beamed, then looked at Lynn. “But I'm not gonna scare you again, Momma. Just like Chance told me.”

He was scaring her all right, just by his big talk! “What did Chance tell you?” she asked, her curiosity spiked.

“That boys can be daredevils but cal-cu-lated. They got to be prepared and trained up for dangerous stuff so's it balances the scale. But sometimes they just gotta think about their mommas.”

She laughed nervously. “Well, thank you for thinking of me. If you become a daredevil I'm going to grow old before my time.”

“And she's too pretty to grow old before her time. Don't you boys agree?”

Chance had just called her pretty. The compliment was just to tease with her boys and yet there was no denying the way it washed over her. It had been a very long time since a man had told her she was pretty.

She didn't look at him. Instead she looked at her grinning boys.

Gavin spoke first. “We ain't gonna do that to you, Momma. Are we, Jack?”

Jack shook his head. He turned serious. “You think my momma is pretty?”

Chance hiked a straight black brow charmingly and showed his even more charming half grin. “I think you've got a beautiful mom inside and out.”

Gavin and Jack stared at her with the excitement of two children who'd just won the Toys “R” Us lottery.

She laughed, self-conscious about the moment. “You don't really know me,” she said, teasing but serious.

He looked shocked. “So you're telling me you aren't nice?”

“Oh, she's nice,” Gavin said. “Except when we don't do what she says!”

“Oh, yeah.” Jack giggled when she shot them a teasing scowl. “She makes us sit in time-out forever!”

She knew he was playing, getting into the spirit of things. She poked him in the rib and he jumped away squealing. Chance caught him around the waist and poked him, too, as Jack wrapped his arms around Chance's neck. “Your momma is just teaching you right from wrong because she loves you.”

“We know,” Gavin said, launching himself toward Chance, wanting to be included in the hug. Lynn's heart caught—partly because they were up so high and partly because of how hungry her boys were for male affection.

Laughing, Chance caught him and pulled him close, keeping him safe.

Lynn took in the sweet picture. It sent an ache of longing through her like nothing she'd experienced…. Her boys were on the safe side of the tree house with Chance in between them and the edge. Looking at them, it was easy to see what they were missing. Her boys were missing the man in their life who was supposed to love them and protect them from the hard, dangerous things in life.

Her boys were missing that because she thought she was enough for them.

But was she?

Meeting Chance's eyes, she smiled back at him and tried to enjoy the moment and not make more of this than she should.

She and her boys were doing great. And if she looked at it from Chance's point of view, this was good for him, too. This moment was a way to relieve some of the strain he was feeling from Randy's death. That's what this was. A great moment for her boys and for Chance.

She didn't need to complicate it with all this other stuff suddenly rolling around in her head. Like the realization that Chance Turner was a man she could trust. He was a man she could trust with all the shattered pieces hidden inside her heart.

A shattered piece of glass wasn't fixable. There were too many pieces crushed to dust particles that were irreparable. It was the same with her heart. Some women at the shelter with worse stories than hers were moving on. Stacy was one of them. But as hard as she'd tried to encourage others to take the step, she'd realized that her heart was too shattered. She couldn't and wouldn't put herself through believing in someone again.

But seeing her boys with Chance told her that they were going to suffer in the long run because she couldn't let go of her past.

Chance was wrong. She wasn't pretty on the inside or she'd be able to forgive and forget and move on.

Her ex had been manipulative and mind controlling. And though she'd finally gotten out, it was a struggle. She'd come to realize deep in her heart that he still controlled her, even though she hadn't seen or talked to him in over three years. It made her feel weak.

She didn't like knowing this about herself, but as much as she tried she couldn't get past it. Some people could trust again. She couldn't. And it seemed nothing or no one could change that.

L
ynn pulled herself out of the dumps by the next morning and headed over to the shelter. Dottie had called and asked her to talk to a new resident, Sandra, who she thought Lynn could help. Though Lynn was able to help others, she often felt like a hypocrite because she still had her own hang-ups. But she never refused to share her experience or to listen to a new resident pour out her heartache. Lynn never omitted that she still had struggles—a hang-up where trust was concerned.

When it came to trust, each person had to work that out on her own timetable. It was much like grief. One person's time to grieve the loss of a loved one was not charted on the same schedule as someone else.

She did know and recognize that God had brought her through and she had a great life! She
did.

Sandra was a nervous wreck. She was a small woman with a kind face that wore the bright purple marks of a fresh beating and a swollen eye full of blood. In her eyes, behind everything, Lynn saw the struggle. She'd seen this over and over again and every time it made her sick to her stomach. But unlike the way she'd almost
lost it at the bachelor auction, here she always was able to hold on to her emotions. When she was talking to women like Sandra it was all about helping free them.

Dottie, tall and willowy with a slight limp left over from a near fatal meeting with a hurricane, had hugged Lynn the minute she arrived, and had introduced her to Sandra. Dottie was a Godsend for the shelter. They stood in an awkward moment as the boys raced each other to the large swing set the men of Mule Hollow had built them. A little girl sat on a swing hugging her doll.

“This is Margaret,” Dottie said. “She's seven and loves babies.”

“Hi, Margaret, it's good to meet you,” Lynn said. She never asked a child how she was doing when she'd just arrived. Poor children were disoriented, afraid, usually confused and scared. But putting that into words right off the bat to a total stranger was hard. Lynn knew from her own boys' experience that it was best to let them acclimate slowly. Margaret didn't say anything, just hugged her doll closer and looked at her mother. Lynn's heart went out to the child, just for having to look into her mother's bruised and swollen face.

Overwhelmed with compassion and the desire to help, Lynn smiled at Sandra. “Let's go talk. If you want to?”

Sandra nodded.

“I'll watch the children.” Dottie patted her five-month-old's padded bottom. “You take all the time you need. Margaret can help me babysit. How does that sound?” Dottie held her hand out to Margaret. The little girl glanced at her mother. Sandra nodded and Margaret reached out and took Dottie's hand.

Lynn led the way to the parlor that they used for group sessions and one-on-one meetings. Brady's parents had dreamed of having a huge family and had built this giant ranch home in anticipation. But God hadn't had it in His plan and they'd only been blessed late in life with Brady. Brady had turned the house into No Place Like Home. And this parlor, which had been used little in the years before the shelter, had become a room where much heartache was shared and much healing begun. Brady loved to say that his parents had had a dream for the house, but God had had a bigger dream.

As she led Sandra into the pretty pale blue room, Lynn prayed that she could be God's facilitator of the beginning of Sandra's healing process.

To her surprise she didn't have to coax anything out of Sandra. She was ready to speak. Ready to try and find answers. Like Lynn had been when she'd finally left her husband, Sandra was seeking a way to stop the cycle. She was just trying to get her mind around how to do it. She opened up and everything flooded out…. She was so upset that trust wasn't an issue. She just needed someone. And she was worried that her abuse was her fault.

“No, Sandra, it's not your fault. You can't think about how long you stayed. You're out now,” Lynn said, not too long into the conversation. “From this point on you have to look forward. God led me out of my abusive marriage, but I did the same thing as you. I let myself stay in that situation far longer than I should have. I was mixed up and I'd heard so many lies, and so many situations had been twisted, and over time I was turned inside out and unable to see clearly. Distance helps us
see more clearly. Each passing day helps…. There may be emotional scars that take far longer to heal than those marks on your face. But life can be better for you and Margaret. I promise.”

Sandra wrung her hands together in her lap. “But my mother despises that I've done this. She says that God hates divorce and that I'll reap the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life.”

Good, well-meaning—and not so well-meaning—Christian folks could be so judgmental, so clueless some times. “You were living in a dangerous situation for you and your child. Yes, God wants marriages to last, but I don't believe God wants us to stay in a situation like that. I have to answer for leaving my marriage one day and, Sandra, I am proud to say that I kept my boys safe. You and I both have no one to be accountable to for our action except God.”

Sandra contemplated that before nodding. “I understand.”

“No one understands like those of us who have been down this road. For me, leaving was hard to do. Despite the pain and the fear I lived with and as unhealthy as my situation was, it was still hard to make myself leave.” Drew had hit her during his drunken, emotional rages, and his infidelities, followed by contrite apologies, were always the same. And always painful.

She finally realized they were merely his way of manipulating her into doing exactly what he wanted her to do—abusive in so many ways.

“But maybe I could have done something different,” Sandra said. “Margaret loves her daddy.”

“It's not your fault, no matter what, when a man hits you.”

Drew had always managed to make it Lynn's fault. Toward the end he'd grown more and more physically abusive, as if the more he hit her the easier it was. And she'd allowed it, believing the lie that somehow it was her fault. “We do things we shouldn't because we love our spouses—so we put up with things and believe the one we love when he says it's our fault. Sandra, God gave you Margaret to love and protect. You have taken the first step toward doing just that.”

Lynn totally understood where Sandra was coming from. She'd started out as a strong person but somehow she'd lost her way. At some point her mind told her this was the way she was supposed to live. And the way it had happened…she'd lost herself and her path because of the worst part—how much she'd loved Drew and trust ed him.

She was so ashamed to admit to herself or anyone that she'd loved a man who could do that to her. If it hadn't been for her boys she would have stayed there. It was humiliating to realize that about herself. With distance she'd understood that any love she'd ever had for Drew had been wiped out by the bad things he'd done. And that gave her freedom. But the issue remained that she'd misjudged him and loved him in the first place. How, how, she asked herself, had she ever loved a man like that? Was her judgment that bad?

She and Sandra talked for over an hour and Sandra seemed to feel better and stronger about what she'd done when they finished. A long road lay ahead, but at least Sandra was on the path to freedom and healing.

Lynn hoped she'd helped Sandra. But she was thinking about herself as she drove away. She would never allow herself to become embroiled in a bad marriage again. She feared it more than anything in life. It would not happen. God had helped her over the last few years to know what a great life she had now. And to believe that she and her boys would and could be okay. It was just that lately niggling doubts and worries had started in on her. Why now, when everything was going so well?

 

Chance's tires crushed the gravel of Lynn's drive as he pulled to a stop. It had rained but he'd noticed Lynn didn't have a Christmas tree. So what did he do? He asked her if he could take her and the boys to cut one. He'd come over two straight days and worked on the tree house and it was now finished. He could have disappeared and gone out to the stagecoach house for the solitude he needed, but the boys really wanted a tree.

He'd picked up some wood to repair Lynn's front porch. Lifting the lumber from the truck, he carried it around the back of the house to the barn. Tiny sloshed around in the mud, dashing all around Chance, and before he made it to the back door it flew open and the boys raced out. They wore rubber boots and coats that could repel the wet, cold weather. He felt good seeing them. “Hey, buckaroos!”

“Merry Christmas, Chance,” Gavin yelled, jumping in a puddle.

“No, Gavin,” Jack exclaimed. “Momma said don't get wet. We're goin' ta get a tree. Now.”

“Gavin,” Lynn said, coming to a halt on the back step. “Your brother is right. What did I tell you?”

Chance hid a laugh as Gavin reluctantly stepped out of the puddle and looked up at his mother.

“Don't get wet,” Gavin said. “I'll be too cold to go get a tree.”

The kid was funny. “Then load up,” Chance said. “Let's get us a tree.”

The boys whooped and raced off around the corner, sloshing through shallow puddles as they went.

“Hi.” Lynn sighed. “All I can do is try.”

Chance instinctively gave her a one-armed hug as he met her twinkling eyes. “It's all good.”

“Yes it is.” She looked up at him. “Are you ready for this?”

His heart felt as if it were being pumped up like a balloon. Goodness, she took his breath away. “I was born ready.”

But looking at her, holding her close and wanting to hold her closer, he knew he wasn't ready at all.