The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby (18 page)

“She says that she did. Who knows with that woman? I suppose she thought the cat was
out of the bag since we have Joshua, so she might as well ’fess up. She doesn’t carry
that gene for whatever her brother has either. You were both given a good bill of
genetic health according to what she told me at the church today,” Natalie said.

“I’d better go for another test, right?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Or anytime we have sex, we’ll have to use protection. Are there any
babies that might pop up from your Kuwait tour?”

“Hell, no! I could strangle Sonia! For the lie and for the fact that I don’t carry
protection in my hip pocket anymore.”

“Want to borrow my pink pistol? It’s loaded.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He swore under his breath.

“Kind of changes everything, doesn’t it?” she said.

“Gramps says never say never. Guess I’ll call the doctor tomorrow and see which time
she was lying. Dammit! I thought I knew that woman.”

She patted the bed. “Sit down. If the test says that she was lying to you from the
first, then it changes more than just us having sex, Lucas. The old guys can have
their own blood kin babies to play with.”

He plopped down so hard that the old metal springs squeaked in protest. “They already
love Joshua. More would just be another layer of icing on the cake.”

Another tear hung on Natalie’s thick lashes. Saying it didn’t make it so. Blood was
always thicker than water. She slipped her hand under his and he laced his fingers
with hers. Together they faced their demons for several minutes before either of them
spoke.

“We’d best be going,” he said finally. “You’ve got to see the church before we go
home. Please don’t tell them about this until I call the doctor tomorrow.”

She shook her head. “I won’t tell them anything. That’s your job, Lucas. And we saw
the church this morning, so we can just go on home, can’t we?”

Home!

Where did that come from? Home wasn’t on Cedar Hill. Home was in Silverton. Or was
it?

“That’s not the church I’m talking about. When Gramps and Granny bought this place,
they also bought the little country church on the land with it. It hasn’t been used
as a church for years, even though Gramps is an ordained minister. He preaches sometimes
when the minister of our church is gone. But every so often there’s a wedding in the
little church,” Lucas explained.

Words lightened the heavy fog hanging over their heads.

“That’s where Granny and Gramps got married, so that makes it a very special place,”
Lucas went on.

She stood up and put her coat on without his help. “I can’t wait to see it.”

She’d be willing to look at the snow falling outside or the grass growing to keep
from talking about what might have happened in the passion of the night before.

The church was tiny, with eight pews on each side of a center aisle and an old oak
pulpit in the front. In the days that it was built, the whole congregation sang together
and there was no choir. They didn’t need a baptismal because, come spring, all new
converts could be baptized in the creek or a pond.

It was cold inside but Natalie noticed an old potbellied stove in the corner. “So
is that thing operational?”

“Gramps fires it up if there’s going to be a winter wedding,” Lucas answered.

“Doesn’t the water freeze up?”

Lucas laughed. “No water in here. Bathrooms were out back in the days when services
were held here all the time. They did have two. The half-moon on the door was for
the men and the star was for the ladies.”

Natalie sat down on the front pew. “It would never pass code for a gathering today,
but it sure is peaceful.”

Lucas sat down beside her and took her hand in his. “Gramps says if you sit here real
quiet during Christmas that you can hear the ghosts of all the folks who used to attend
services here singing Christmas carols.”

“Shhh.” She shut her eyes.

Lucas began to hum “Silent Night.”

And she could imagine the church filled with people a hundred years before, all singing
that song. Little children’s innocent voices blended with old folks’ quivering voices.
She opened her eyes just as Lucas stopped humming. “If these walls could talk, they’d
tell us some interesting stories, I bet.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, yes, they could. You ready for the
rest of the tour?”

They drove past Henry’s place, a small white house with a wide front porch. Rocking
chairs set back in the shadows and pansies shot little purple flowers up through the
snow in the flower beds beside the walkway.

Jack’s place was bigger, but the porch wasn’t quite as wide. In the spring the roses
would be beautiful on each side of the house, but that evening they were just sticks
covered in ice and snow.

“When Dad built his own place, he wanted to make it a duplex and move Hazel into the
other side, but she wasn’t having any part of it. Said that she’d lived in the same
little frame house since she set foot on the ranch before Willa Ruth was even born
and that she wasn’t moving out of it. Besides, it’s only a little ways from Dad’s
place.” He drove down a path to a white house with a picket fence around it.

“Does she still drive?”

“Oh, yeah! Lord help the person who tries to take her license. That’s her truck sitting
in the driveway. She takes it to Savoy and drives to the women’s meetings at the church
and funeral dinners. We try to make sure one of us takes her any farther than that
when she wants to go,” he said.

“No wonder she’s so homesick. If I had a place back in the woods like this, I’d be
homesick too,” Natalie said.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Did she say she was homesick?”

“I haven’t talked to her since she went to Memphis, but I know she’s homesick because
I would be if I’d lived in one place all those years and then got yanked away from
it. She’ll be home, Lucas. There’s no doubt about that. But she’s too old to be takin’
on the whole house and cooking, too. You’ve got to hire her some help.”

“I did,” he said.

Natalie had thrown a load of towels into the washer and was in the process of cooking
breakfast when her phone rang. She fished it out of her hip pocket and held it to
one ear and stirred scrambled eggs with the other.

“Hello,” she said cautiously.

“Natalie, is that you? So you did stay? I was afraid you’d light a shuck out of there
after the reception Lucas gave you there at the first. Boy ought to be whipped coming
home like that before we had his surprise all ready,” Hazel said.

“I’m still here,” Natalie said.

“I’ve been meanin’ to call for days. I talk to Jack every night and he told me that
story about the chickens and the puppies, and those damn goats of Crankston’s gettin’
loose. I swear I’m missin’ all the fun. Oh, I’d have given my eyeteeth to have seen
that puppy lick on Sonia’s leg and when he hiked his leg on her… Shit! That was priceless.
I would have let them out of the pen myself to get to see that sight. I’m so homesick
I could just scream. Everything is going on there and I’m stuck out here until the
week of Christmas and I can’t wait to get home.”

Natalie waited for her to catch her breath.

“Well?” Hazel asked impatiently.

“I’m sorry. I was setting the eggs off to one side. Breakfast is nearly ready. They
are eating my cooking, but they miss you, Hazel.”

“Hummph!” she snorted. “With you and Joshua there I bet they don’t even remember what
I look like. Now tell me what happened after the play in the fellowship hall. Jack
said that you and Sonia had a little catfight.”

Holy shit! Did everyone in Savoy know? Or had Jack been close enough to hear?

“Talk, Natalie,” Hazel said.

Natalie told her what had happened at the church and that Lucas was calling the clinic
where he and Sonia had the tests done. “But you’ve got to swear to me that you won’t
tell anyone until we know the results and he tells his dad and Henry.”

“I ain’t sayin’ a word. I knew that woman was trouble the first time I met her. She’s
one of them,” she paused for several seconds, “bitches that have to have everything
in the world. She’s all sweet as sugar to folks that she likes and wants to please,
but believe me, underneath that sugar is some sour shit. Poor old Noah don’t have
no idea what he’s gettin’ himself into. What is it you youngun’s call that today?
High something or other?”

“High maintenance?” Natalie asked.

“That’s it. You got to have a special bank account just to keep her in shoes, hair
spray, and fingernail polish,” Hazel said.

“Kind of looks that way,” Natalie said.

“Noah has got a hard row to hoe if he vows to love her to the end of his days. Betcha
he prays for the end to come soon after he’s married to her a week.”

Natalie pulled the biscuits from the oven and slathered melted butter over the tops.
“They’re gettin’ married Christmas day. You should be here to see it happen. Maybe
you can talk him out of it.”

“I’m just glad she’s leavin’ my Lucas alone. If she comes near him again after the
stunt she pulled, I’ll kick her all the way to hell.”

Natalie giggled. “Your hip is hurt, Hazel. I don’t expect that you’ll be kicking anyone
very hard.”

“Honey, I could kick her skinny ass to hell with a busted hip if she makes trouble.
Since I can’t come home for a couple of more weeks, it’s your job to keep her away
from him and make Noah see the error of his ways, too. I don’t give a damn how you
do it. Make her mad, feed her to the coyotes, just don’t let her sneak her way back
into Lucas’s life. Promise?”

“But Hazel, what if Noah loves her down deep in his heart?” Natalie asked.

“Hmmph!” Hazel snorted. “He just thinks he loves her. Give that precious baby a hug
for me. Wilma’s got my breakfast ready. Damn, but I’m ready to be home.”

A burst of freezing air blew Henry into the kitchen. He slammed the door and stomped
the snow from his feet. “Damned storm! It’s been teasin’ us for a week and now I’ll
be damned if it ain’t got down to real business. Too cold for these bones to help
with chores. I’m stayin’ in this warm house and playin’ with Joshua. You can help
with chores this morning.”

“Give the phone to Henry. I need to talk to him,” Hazel said.

“You promised,” Natalie said.

“I won’t say a word until Lucas finds out, but I still need to talk to Henry. Either
hand him your phone or I’ll call him on his,” Hazel said.

Natalie laid the phone on the cabinet. “Hazel wants to talk to you.”

“Just a minute. Got to take my coat and hat off.” Henry hung his coat on the rack
beside the back door and his hat on a hook beside it. “I ain’t talkin’ very long.
I got a story I want to read to Joshua.”

He picked up the telephone and carried it to the den. “Is that hip going to ever get
well?”

He said a few more words and then his tone changed and Natalie realized that he was
talking to the baby, not to Hazel. She stepped to the door and peeked around the corner.
He’d taken Joshua out of the swing and they were sitting in a rocking chair close
to the fireplace. Henry had a book in his hands and he was reading to Joshua.

“Look, Natalie, he likes
Baby
Jesus
Is
Born
. And look what I found in Lucas’s old toy box up in the attic at my place.” He held
up a small camel stuffy. “It’s old and worn because it was Lucas’s favorite toy when
he was a toddler. He’d hold it when I read this book about baby Jesus to him. If this
damned weather ever lets up, I’ve got to drive into Sherman and get him some presents.
Boy needs to get up Christmas morning to presents under the tree. I’m going to look
for a brand-spanking-new camel for one of his presents.”

“He’ll only be three months old,” Natalie said.

“And when he’s a big boy and we show him the pictures of his first Christmas, what
will we tell him? You didn’t get no presents because you were only three months old
and wouldn’t know what they were? I don’t think so, young lady. This baby is going
to have a big, big first Christmas. Jack’s even talkin’ about a real pony. Just one
of them little ones. By this time next year he’ll be walkin’ and we can hold him while
he rides,” Henry said.

“Rides where?” Lucas and Jack said in unison as they brought another gust of cold
air into the kitchen.

Jack looked at Henry. “I didn’t think you’d get out in this weather.”

“I wanted to see Joshua. Natalie is going to take my place this morning with Lucas
in doin’ the feeding. I’ll watch the baby. My bones are too old to be out there in
a blizzard. Hell, I might break a hip like Hazel did.”

Lucas smiled at Henry. “Hazel did not break a hip, and she’s older than you. Mean
and ornery as you are, your bones would be afraid to break, Gramps.”

Henry shrugged. “I’m not going out to do chores. And Natalie is. Now let’s eat breakfast.
Ain’t nothing in the world worse than cold gravy, and I smelled bacon when I came
in the back door.”

He put Joshua back in the swing and sat down at the end of the table.

“Bossy old fart, isn’t he?” Lucas said.

Her mouth turned up in half a grin. “He’s definitely used to getting his way.”

“You don’t have to get out in the cold. We can feed without you, and I’ll gather the
eggs on the way back in at noon,” Lucas told her.

“Not according to Henry.”

“I’m sitting right here and I can damn sure hear both of you and Natalie is right.
She’s going out to help this morning and me and Josh are going to read books and I’m
going to tell him all about Ella Jo and how much she loved Christmas. And he’s going
to chew the ears off that old camel.”

***

Natalie picked up the hay hooks and sunk them deep in the ends of a small bale of
hay, tossed it over into the galvanized feeder, and used the wire cutters attached
to her belt loop to cut the baling wire loose. The cows were reaching around her to
nibble on it before she could scatter it for them. It took six times before the feeder
was completely full and by nightfall it would be empty. What little winter grass had
grown was covered in snow, so they’d use a lot of hay before the month was out.

Lucas yelled over the howling wind, “We’ll put out the big round bales in the far
pastures.”

“Henry still likes the small bales, doesn’t he?” she hollered back.

“Oh, yeah! We’d put it all up in big round bales, but he says it’s wasteful. Besides,
we’ve got several hay barns around the property, so we can store the little bales
without any trouble and it makes him happy,” Lucas answered.

Snow had settled on his hat brim and wide shoulders. Even his eyelashes were dusted
with white. If they didn’t get the chores done soon, he’d look like the abominable
snowman.

“We should have brought out the ski masks. Your nose looks like Rudolph’s,” Lucas
said.

She hooked another bale and carried it to the next feeder. “I hate those things. I
can’t breathe in them. I’d rather be cold. We’ll get warmed up in the truck on the
way to the next feedlot.”

The wind howled through the bare limbs, creating all kinds of different sounds. Snow
had begun to drift against the fence posts. If it kept up all day, they’d be doing
some shoveling to get the pickup trucks out to go anywhere.

When they finished, she hopped into the truck, jerked off her leather gloves, and
rubbed her hands briskly in front of the heater vents. Her nose and cheeks prickled
as the cold left them.

“Bet you are wishing you’d stayed in Kuwait until spring,” she said when Lucas hurried
into the passenger seat.

“It crossed my mind this morning when we were out feeding the chickens and dogs. Even
the pups had enough sense to stay inside the doghouse. Guess they don’t want to chase
coyotes if it’s cold. I called that clinic first thing this morning, but they weren’t
open yet. I left a message, but I figure I might have to drive down there if they
can’t tell me the results over the phone,” Lucas said.

Natalie shrugged. “I don’t know about all that privacy stuff, but I sure wouldn’t
trust Sonia to tell the truth after she’s lied to you. Hey, Hazel called this morning
and I don’t think her hip is nearly as bad as we thought. I think she’s playing matchmaker
right along with those three wise men.”

She wanted to know what the test results were, but knowing would definitely change
things and she hated change.

“Probably so. But we’re going to do things our way,” he said.

She shrugged because she wasn’t sure what the answer was.

They finished up an hour later and Lucas drove the work truck back into the barn.
He bailed out and slid the door shut before more snow could blow inside. Natalie didn’t
need anyone to help her open a door or hold her hand while she crawled out of a truck,
so she was already out and staring at a basketball hoop when he finished.

“Dad installed that for me when I was in junior high so I could practice.” He slipped
into the tack room and came out with two wide brooms. “If we sweep the hay stubble
away we could shoot some hoops.”

She took one of the brooms and started cleaning the concrete floor in a long flowing
motion that matched his. They uncovered the circle for free throws and then the wider
one for three-pointers. He took the broom from her and set both his and hers against
a stall.

“Basketballs are in the box beside the goal. We’ll take ten minutes to warm up and
then I’m going to whip your ass at a game of horse,” he said.

“Best two out of three has to do the dinner dishes. And be warned, I’m frying chicken,
and you know how many dishes that messes up,” she said.

“You are on.” He winked.

The ball was at home in her hands and she had full command of it. But then so did
Lucas. She watched him dribble, getting the feel of the weight, and then he put up
the prettiest three-point shot she’d ever seen. Lord, if she could have gotten her
girls to sink a ball like that, she would have thought she’d died and gone to coaches’
heaven. She could fall in love with him just because he could make a three-point basket
look as easy as breathing.

She shot and missed.

“Hands still cold?” Lucas asked.

“Hell, no! Look up there.” She pointed.

A ball of mistletoe tied with a red ribbon hung on the edge of the backboard.

“Where did that come from?” she asked.

“Three wise men.” He laughed. “Ready to play ball? Hey, new rules. We can’t knock
that mistletoe down. If we do, it’s a forfeit of that game.”

“You are on!” She tossed the ball she’d been using to one side. Playing in a bulky
coat wouldn’t be as easy as baggy sweats, but she could whip a cowboy’s sexy little
ass any day of the week when it came to basketball.

“Catch.” He tossed the ball at her.

“We can flip for first,” she said.

“Give it your best shot.”

She bounced the ball on the concrete at the free throw line and it cleared the net
without even wiggling the threads. The mistletoe swayed slightly, but it didn’t fall.

“Not bad.” He caught the ball on the rebound and dribbled all the way back to where
she stood.

She moved to her next position and watched him match her shot.

They were even until the last shot and she decided to do a running layup that ended
in a dunk. She did just fine until she slapped the ball into the net where it rolled
around the rim three times and bounced right back out onto the floor. His grin got
wider as he mimicked her shot, only his dunk slammed through the net like it had been
greased.

He threw both arms into the air. “I win!”

“You win round one,” she said.

“First one usually tells the tale.”

But it didn’t. She won the second and the third.

“You do the dishes.” She giggled.

He tossed the ball to the side and ran toward her. She looked over her shoulder to
see if someone had come into the barn and didn’t even realize he’d scooped her up
into his arms until he had fallen into a pile of hay with her on top of him.