The Last Christmas Cowboy Read online

  Because he had the feeling that his agreement now wasn’t so much to placate her, but was allowing him to edge closer to dangerous territory.

  Rose smiled at him. She had no idea what the hell was going on in his mind right now. Then it was for the best.

  If he hadn’t felt like a big enough bastard already, now it was even worse.

  It was too bad she hadn’t left him out here alone with the cows.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BY THE TIME Rose came in for dinner, she was cold and sticky with sweat. It was one of the worst things about working outside in the winter. She could still manage to fire herself up into a clammy sweat, then she ended up shivering.

  She could smell stew and fresh made bread, and she gave thanks for Iris and her amazing skills in the kitchen yet again.

  Stomach growling, she took her hat off and threw it on the couch, and the three farm dogs rushed into the room. Their Australian shepherd jumped up onto the couch and immediately pounced on the hat.

  “Hey,” Rose scolded. “Don’t do that.”

  Iris came into the room, making a shooing motion with her hands. The dogs ignored her. “I never wanted them to be in the house,” she groused as they ran rings around the couch.

  “Yeah, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Because now they are in the house. And they think it’s their house.”

  “I blame Sammy,” Iris said darkly. “That little hippie is too permissive.”

  Of course, Iris loved Sammy as much as Rose did, and she knew she wasn’t really mad at her. Well, maybe she was a little bit annoyed. But not seriously.

  “Well, we let her in, too. So it’s far too late to do anything about the dogs or Sammy and her permissiveness.”

  As if on cue, Sammy came down the stairs, her gait slightly unsteady, considering that she was currently six months pregnant. “I’m permissive of nothing right now,” she said.

  Ryder was close behind her. “She’s not kidding,” he said.

  “You did this to me,” she said, affecting a scowl. “I don’t have to be permissive to you.”

  “I don’t care. I like you stubborn,” he said. “I liked you stubborn when we were just friends, why would I not like you stubborn when you were my wife?”

  “True love,” Sammy said, making her way into the kitchen. “I’m starving. This stew smells like true love to me.”

  “If Sammy ends up leaving me for a loaf of bread, no one be surprised,” Ryder said.

  Rose rubbed her nose, trying to get rid of some of the chill, then slipped her jacket off, leaving it haphazardly on one of the kitchen stools.

  “Can you not?” Iris asked, picking it up and flinging it back at her.

  Rose caught it. “I probably have to go back outside after dinner,” she protested.

  “It will take you two seconds to go hang it up.”

  Rose muttered as she went back into the living room to go hang her coat up on the peg. As soon as she touched the hook by the door, it opened.

  And in walked Logan, looking as red-faced and cranky as she felt. “Fucking freezing out there,” he muttered.

  “No kidding.”

  They both quit moving, and suddenly, they were just standing there staring at each other. Very close together. The warm air in the room seemed to expand between them.

  And in that space it felt like their last conversation settled there and just stayed.

  You aren’t thinking about the fact you’re talking about someone being inside you, Rose.

  It’s physical.

  Hands.

  Mouths.

  Teeth.

  “There’s stew,” she said, the statement falling out of her mouth and sounding exceedingly lame.

  “Good,” he said, his voice rough, probably from the cold winter air. “I’m starving.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  Neither of them moved.

  Rose realized that she was going to have to eventually.

  But it felt like the air was made of molasses, and like the floor might be covered in a thick layer of muck—the kind that was mostly clay and sucked your boots down in deep, making it difficult to take a step. Something was holding her there.

  And she had the oddest sensation of her stomach turning over inside her body when something flashed in Logan’s blue eyes, and she had to ask herself if it was mud, molasses or that deep blue that reminded her of a summer sky holding her to the spot.

  His eyes were familiar. Much like the beauty of the ranch around her, she woke up and saw those eyes every day.

  She didn’t think about them, consequently.

  But she was considering them now. Deeply. As they considered her.

  And she wondered.

  What could he teach her?

  What would he teach her?

  “Dinner?” she squeaked.

  “Yep,” he said, his voice thick like the air, like the floor.

  She swallowed and turned away from him, making her way toward the dining room. She could hear the heavy footfalls of his boots behind her. Pansy, West, and West’s half brother Emmett had decided to join them for dinner. Which meant that it was a fairly full house. Rose liked it like this. It reminded her of being a kid. In spite of everything, it was a good memory for her. She had missed her parents terribly. But even then those years when the grief had been sharp and cutting, before it had dulled to an ache that just sort of sat there in her chest, before it had simply wrapped itself around her soul and become part of what she was, she hadn’t felt alone.

  She had missed her parents, but she had known that she wasn’t an orphan. Not really.

  Not in the way that those poor sad kids in that one movie were. Singing while they scrubbed the floors. She got to live in her house. She had her brother. Her sisters. Cousins.

  Logan.

  There had been a huge amount of security in that. Because something in her had felt confident that she would always have them. Yes, she had experienced loss. But this place was here. This house. These people.

  It was the thing that sustained her. Preserved her.

  Their chipped cups and plates, noisy get-togethers and animals running all around.

  That sweet nostalgic mist was a lot more comforting than that moment back in the entryway when Logan’s familiar eyes had become something else entirely.

  “Arrest any bad guys?” Rose asked, sitting in the empty seat next to Pansy.

  “No,” she said. “I did have to tell off a deer that got into Mrs. Niedermayer’s pond.”

  “I can’t believe she has the nerve to call you and ask you to help her out, after she actively tried to keep you from getting your job,” Rose said.

  Barbara Niedermayer was a whole problem. A city councilperson with too much attitude, in her opinion. She knew that Barbara’d had it hard, with her son struggling with addiction issues and her husband leaving her a few years earlier, but that wasn’t an excuse. She had tried to encourage Pansy to arrest West’s younger brother, who had been causing a bit of trouble, granted, but the poor kid was all alone in the world. Rose had endless sympathy for that kind of thing. Considering she hadn’t been alone because of the way her siblings had rallied around her.

  West and Emmett hadn’t been raised together, and they had a huge age difference, but of course once West had realized the situation that Emmett found himself in, he had taken the kid under his wing.

  At the same time, Pansy had been starting a relationship with West and had been up for the job of chief of police. Barbara had been opposed to both lenience for Emmett, and Pansy getting that job.

  Rose was still mad about it.

  “Oh, you know Barbara,” Pansy said. “I’m not supposed to take any of it personally. It was what she believed in, and she dug her heels in on it. But now things are different, and she is learning to adap
t.”

  “If I were you, I would leave her garden and her pond to the deer.”

  “Yes, but it’s better that Pansy is not as bloodthirsty as you are,” Sammy pointed out. “Considering her position.”

  Rose shrugged. “I’m not bloodthirsty. I just believe in listening to people when they tell you who they are with their actions.”

  “You’re suspicious,” Iris said. “Naturally.”

  “I’m not, either.”

  She was a little. But parts of their childhood had been marked by visits from Child Protective Services, who had some natural concerns about Ryder handling the stress and grief of losing his parents and taking care of all the children. Even though they’d always been on the Danielses’ side, Rose had always felt a little bit naturally suspicious. It was her deepest fear.

  The loss of this safety net.

  She had placed all of her trust in it. Even when she had discovered how harsh and cruel the world could be, losing her parents, her aunt and uncle, Logan’s mother... They had been left with each other. And she had been sure on every level but the deepest one that that meant they would always be together.

  But it was that core of her. That deepest part of her heart that feared losing this, too.

  So yeah, she always had a little bit of suspicion when it came to stern-faced older women. Particularly ones that had power within the community.

  Not fair, she knew. But it was that sense that they had power over her life that bothered her.

  “Maybe a bit,” she conceded. “But I just didn’t like the way she took after Pansy. Or Emmett.”

  Emmett shrugged. “She’s not so bad. I got to plant flowers for her a couple of times since then. At the community center, and at her house.”

  “We felt it was the right thing to do, considering he broke into her car,” West said.

  Emmett looked sheepish. “I did,” he muttered.

  “I still think she’s a battle-ax,” Rose said, reaching to the center of the table and taking a generous ladle of stew, pouring it into her bowl.

  That was when she realized that all the bowls matched.

  “What’s this?”

  “I bought new bowls,” Sammy said. “There’s this woman that comes down to the market on Sundays and—”

  “But what happened to the ones we always eat out of?”

  “The chipped ones that don’t match?” Sammy asked.

  “Yeah, those,” Rose said.

  “They’re in a box, in one of the barns. I thought you never know when we might need extra dishes, and I sincerely doubt anyone is going to want them.”

  “They’re fine,” Rose protested.

  “I wanted matching dishes,” Sammy said. “I live in the house now and...”

  Rose tuned out the rest of Sammy’s explanation, breaking off a piece of bread and biting into it angrily.

  She didn’t know why it bothered her. Unfamiliar bowls, and the familiar-unfamiliar blue of Logan’s eyes. It was a weird, strange thing to get worked up about.

  And if it wasn’t for that moment in the entry with Logan she might not have.

  Things were changing. That was the problem. Sammy and Ryder had found each other in a way that they hadn’t before, and Sammy lived here now. It was her house. She was the...the matriarch. Except, it was Iris’s kitchen, too. And Iris had never thought that the bowls needed to be changed out. Sammy hadn’t seemed to think so until they were married and she was having a baby.

  “What do you think of the new bowls?” she asked Iris, in spite of herself.

  “I love them,” Iris said. “I’m not attached to tableware that’s falling apart.”

  Rose didn’t know why she was.

  And she didn’t know why this was bothering her, considering that one of the things she was advocating for right now involved change. If Iris ended up with Elliott, things would change. She wanted Ryder and Sammy to be together—that was change. She was happy for West and Pansy, and that had brought about change, had brought new people into their lives.

  She didn’t know why something as stupid as bowls were bothering her.

  Conversation shifted and changed around her—sometimes five or six times in ten minutes—and she just sat in silence. If anyone noticed that it was angry or uncharacteristic they didn’t comment.

  “Now, when I was shooing the deer out of her pond I did talk to Barbara about the upcoming Christmas parade.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s involved in that,” Rose said.

  “Yes,” Pansy said patiently. “She is. It’s my first Christmas as police chief, and this is one of the largest events that we hold in the town. I want it to be special. And I want to help in any way I can. Keeping it safe, keeping it organized... Just everything. And if my lovely family could find it in them to get involved, that would be great.”

  “Why do we have to get involved?” Ryder asked. “Doesn’t what’s his face Dodge always do a bunch of stuff for this?”

  “Yes,” Pansy said. “Wyatt Dodge does a hell of a lot every year for this. But I don’t see why we can’t contribute, as well.”

  The steel in her sister’s tone made it very apparent that this was not a suggestion. Pansy was going to enforce the involvement of her family if it was the last thing she did.

  “What is it you had in mind?” Rose asked.

  “Well, I’m glad that you wondered. Because what I would like is for Sammy to do a jewelry-making demonstration—which is also going to be a great opportunity for you to sell your work—I would like Iris to bake some goodies, and the rest of you need to help with float assembly and other manual labor.”

  “I don’t get a special job?” Rose asked.

  She had gone from feeling mildly peevish to being outright annoyed.

  “Do you want a special job?”

  “Well, Iris and Sammy get special jobs. The girls get special jobs. Except for me.”

  “If it makes you feel any better my job is basically a manual labor one, too.”

  “It doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “Do you want to help bake?” Iris asked.

  “Spare me your pity bread,” Rose said. “Fine. It’s fine. I’ll help with assembly and general lifting of things.” She lifted up her arm and flexed, showing the evidence of all the hard work that she did around the ranch. “I guess that’s what I get for spending all my time outside.”

  “Well, now,” Logan said. “There’s something to that. We could give a demonstration.”

  Rose’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t believe Logan had volunteered to be part of this. Not at all. He didn’t do Christmas. While the Danielses had never skipped a Christmas, Ryder doing his best to carry on normalcy even in the face of grief, Logan withdrew every year.

  He didn’t open gifts. He didn’t exchange them. He didn’t go to Christmas parades.

  “Why?” she asked, the question sounding exceedingly dumb.

  “Because you want to do something. So, I say we do something.”

  “What? Castrating pigs in traffic cones?” A lesser appreciated skill, she was sure.

  “No, I was thinking maybe not castration. But what if we did a basic blacksmith demonstration?”

  They weren’t pros exactly, but they had basic ironworking skills and all the tools for it. Her cousin Jake was the one who did real accomplished blacksmithing stuff—it was what his dad had done on the side. But they had everything they needed for it at the ranch. “Do you think people would like that?”

  “Sure,” Logan said. “It’ll be a cold day. We’ll do stuff with fire and hot iron. Basic stuff. Let’s make some horseshoes.”

  “Okay,” Rose said.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Pansy said. “And no one has done it at the parade before. We can set you up far enough away from the booths that you won’t light anythin
g on fire, but close enough that people can meander down once they get cider and chili and all that.”

  “Great,” Logan said.

  “Now we just need to get all the other details finalized. Barbara wanted to have the parade at night this year. But I kindly pointed out the people might not want to stand out in weather that cold. Plus, we don’t want it to be past the Girl Scouts’ bedtime. So we’re going to keep it separate from the tree lighting.”

  “Does she just change things for the sake of changing them?” Rose asked.

  Again, she wasn’t sure why this was bothering her so much. Except perhaps that it underlined the way things were moving and shifting in their family.

  Moving on.

  “I’m sure if you asked her that she would say no. Though sometimes it feels like it.” Pansy sighed. “But you know, she does a lot for the community, and I’m grateful for her. I’m really not mad.”

  Rose was unmoved. “I’ll be mad for you.”

  She took another piece of bread, and shot Iris a sly glance. “You made sourdough. Is that the same recipe you shared with Elliott?”

  Ryder frowned. “You shared a recipe with Elliott?”

  “She did,” Rose said, giving her brother a furiously triumphant look.

  “I did,” Iris said, measured. “He’s nice.”

  Again, her sister’s tone sounded imbued with faint praise, but whatever. Iris was like that. She was cautious. Not one to show a great, outward display of... Well, much of anything. In Rose’s opinion, her sister was one of the most delightful people in the world. But she did do her best to keep that information a secret that could only be given to a privileged few.

  Iris was just reserved. It was how she was. It wasn’t because she was snobby or anything like that. Iris had been forced to grow up far too early. Again, a sliver of guilt worked its way between Rose’s ribs, and made it difficult to breathe.

  Pansy was more even-tempered than Rose, but Pansy was stubborn and tough and couldn’t have faded into the background if she’d made an effort. Rose had a bad habit of speaking and acting before she thought, and found that she rather enjoyed making the comment nobody else would. It seemed like a little bit of piss and vinegar ran in the family.