Christmas with the Rancher: The Rancher / Christmas Cowboy / A Man of Means

She felt his big, warm hands on her shoulders. “Don’t sweat it,” he said in a deep, soft tone. “Things happen.”

She swallowed and forced a smile. “Right.”

He turned her around, tipping her red face up to his eyes. He searched them in a silence punctuated with the screams and laughter of children. She was very pretty like that, her mouth swollen from his kisses, her face shy, timid. He was used to women who demanded. Aggressive women. Even Odalie, when he’d kissed her once, had been very outspoken about what she liked and didn’t like. Maddie simply…accepted.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said softly. “Everything’s all right. But we should probably go now. It’s getting late.”

She nodded. He took her small hand in his, curled his fingers into hers and drew her with him along the dirt path that led back up to the parking lot.

Two bedraggled parents were trying to put out food in plastic containers on a picnic table, fighting the wind, which was blowing like crazy in the sweltering heat. They glanced at the couple and grinned.

Cort grinned back. There were three children, all under school age, one in his father’s arms. They looked happy, even though they were driving a car that looked as if it wouldn’t make it out of the parking lot.

“Nice day for a picnic,” Cort remarked.

The father made a face. “Not so much, but we’ve got a long drive ahead of us and it’s hard to sit in a fast-food joint with this company.” He indicated the leaping, running toddlers. He laughed. “Tomorrow, they’ll be hijacking my car,” he added with an ear-to-ear smile, “so we’re enjoying it while we can.”

“Nothing like kids to make a home a home,” the mother commented.

“Nice looking kids, too,” Cort said.

“Very nice,” Maddie said, finally finding her voice.

“Thanks,” the mother said. “They’re a handful, but we don’t mind.”

She went back to her food containers, and the father went running after the toddlers, who were about to climb down the bank.

“Nice family,” Cort remarked as they reached his car.

“Yes. They seemed so happy.”

He glanced down at her as he stopped to open the passenger door. He was thoughtful. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were soft and full of secrets. “In you go.”

She got in, fastened her seat belt without any prompting and smiled all the way back home.

Things were going great, until they got out of the car in front of Maddie’s house. Pumpkin had found a way out of the hen enclosure. He spotted Cort and broke into a halting run, with his head down and his feathers ruffled.

“No!” Maddie yelled. “Pumpkin, no!”

She tried to head him off, but he jumped at her and she turned away just in time to avoid spurs in her face. “Cort, run! It’s okay, just run!” she called when he hesitated.

He threw his hands up and darted toward his car. “You have to do something about that damned rooster, Maddie!” he called back.

“I know,” she wailed. “I will, honest! I had fun. Thanks so much!”

He threw up his hands and dived into the car. He started it and drove off just before Pumpkin reached him.

“You stupid chicken! I’m going to let Ben eat you, I swear I am!” she raged.

But when he started toward her, she ran up the steps, into the house and slammed the door.

She opened her cell phone and called her foreman.

“Ben, can you please get Pumpkin back into the hen lot and try to see where he got out? Be sure to wear your chaps and carry a shield,” she added.

“Need to eat that rooster, Maddie,” he drawled.

“I know.” She groaned. “Please?”

There was a long sigh. “All right. One more time…” He hung up.

Great-Aunt Sadie gave her a long look. “Pumpkin got out again?”

“Yes. There must be a hole in the fence or something,” she moaned. “I don’t know how in the world he does it!”

“Ben will find a way to shut him in, don’t worry. But you are going to have to do something, you know. He’s dangerous.”

“I love him,” Maddie said miserably.

“Well, sometimes things we love don’t love us back and should be made into chicken and dumplings,” Sadie mused with pursed lips.

Maddie made a face at her. She opened her shoulder bag and pulled out a box. “I want to show you something. Cort bought it for me.”

“Cort’s buying you presents?” Sadie exclaimed.

“It’s some present, too,” Maddie said with a flushed smile.

She opened the box. There, inside, was the hand-painted cameo of the little Spanish lady, with a card that gave all the information about the woman, now deceased, who left it with the antiques dealer.

“She’s lovely,” Sadie said, tracing the face with a forefinger very gently.

“Read the card.” Maddie showed it to her.

When Sadie finished reading it, she was almost in tears. “How sad, to be the last one in your family.”

“Yes. But this will be handed down someday.” She was remembering the family at the picnic tables and Cort’s strange smile, holding hands with him, kissing him. “Someday,” she said again, and she sounded as breathless as she felt.

Sadie didn’t ask any questions. But she didn’t have to. Maddie’s bemused expression told her everything she needed to know. Apparently Maddie and Cort were getting along very well, all of a sudden.

Cort walked into the house muttering about the rooster.

“Trouble again?” Shelby asked. She was curled up on the sofa watching the news, but she turned off the television when she saw her son. She smiled, dark-eyed and still beautiful.

“The rooster,” he sighed. He tossed his hat into a chair and dropped down into his father’s big recliner. “I bought us a bull. He’s very nice.”

“From Cy Parks?”

He nodded. “He’s quite a character.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I bought Maddie a cameo,” he added. “In that tearoom halfway between here and Jacobsville. It’s got an antiques store in with it.” He shook his head. “Beautiful thing. It’s hand-painted…a pretty Spanish lady with a fan, enameled. She had a fit over it. The seller died recently and had no family.”

“Sad. But it was nice of you to buy it for Maddie.”

He pursed his lips. “When you met Dad, you said you didn’t get along.”

She shivered dramatically. “That’s putting it mildly. He hated me. Or he seemed to. But when my mother, your grandmother, died, I was alone in a media circus. They think she committed suicide and she was a big-name movie star, you see. So there was a lot of publicity. I was almost in hysterics when your father showed up out of nowhere and managed everything.”

“Well!”

“I was shocked. He’d sent me home, told me he had a girlfriend and broke me up with Danny. Not that I needed breaking-up, Danny was only pretending to be engaged to me to make King face how he really felt. But it was fireworks from the start.” She peered at him through her thick black eyelashes. “Sort of the way it was with you and Maddie, I think.”

“It’s fireworks, now, too. But of a different sort,” he added very slowly.

“Oh?” She didn’t want to pry, but she was curious.

“I’m confused. Maddie isn’t pretty. She can’t sing or play anything. But she can paint and sculpt and she’s sharp about people.” He grimaced. “Odalie is beautiful, like the rising sun, and she can play any instrument and sing like an angel.”

“Accomplishments and education don’t matter as much as personality and character,” his mother replied quietly. “I’m not an educated person, although I’ve taken online courses. I made my living modeling. Do you think I’m less valuable to your father than a woman with a college degree and greater beauty?”

“Goodness, no!” he exclaimed at once.

She smiled gently. “See what I mean?”

“I think I’m beginning to.” He leaned back. “It was a good day.”

“I’m glad.”

“Except for that damned rooster,” he muttered. “One of these days…!”

She laughed.

He was about to call Maddie, just to talk, when his cell phone rang.

He didn’t recognize the number. He put it up to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hello, Cort,” Odalie’s voice purred in his ear. “Guess what, I’m home! Want to come over for supper tonight?”

He hesitated. Things had just gotten complicated.

Maddie half expected Cort to phone her, after their lovely day together, but he didn’t. The next morning, she heard a car pull up in the driveway and went running out. But it wasn’t Cort. It was John Everett.

She tried not to let her disappointment show. “Hi!” she said. “Would you like a cup of very nice European coffee from a fancy European coffeemaker?” she added, grinning.

He burst out laughing. “I would. Thanks. It’s been a hectic day and night.”

“Has it? Why?” she asked as they walked up the steps.

“I had to drive up to Dallas-Fort Worth airport to pick up Odalie yesterday.”

Her heart did a nosedive. She’d hoped against hope that the other woman would stay in Italy, marry her voice teacher, get a job at the opera house, anything but come home, and especially right now! She and Cort were only just beginning to get to know each other. It wasn’t fair!

“How is she?” she asked, her heart shattering.

“Good,” he said heavily. “She and the voice teacher disagreed, so she’s going to find someone in this country to take over from him.” He grimaced. “I don’t know who. Since she knows more than the voice trainers do, I don’t really see the point in it. She can’t take criticism.”

She swallowed, hard, as she went to work at the coffee machine. “Has Cort seen her?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, sitting down at the little kitchen table. “He came over for supper last night. They went driving.”

She froze at the counter. She didn’t let him see her face, but her stiff back was a good indication of how she’d received the news.

“I’m really sorry,” he said gently. “But I thought you should know before you heard gossip.”

She nodded. Tears were stinging her eyes, but she hid them. “Thanks, John.”

He drew in a long breath. “She doesn’t love him,” he said. “He’s just a habit she can’t give up. I don’t think he loves her, either, really. It’s like those crushes we get on movie stars. Odalie is an image, not someone real who wants to settle down and have kids and live on a ranch. She can’t stand cattle!”

She started the coffee machine, collected herself, smiled and turned around. “Good thing your parents don’t mind them,” she said.

“And I’ve told her so. Repeatedly.” He studied her through narrowed eyes. His thick blond hair shone like pale yellow diamonds in the overhead light. He was so good-looking, she thought. She wished she could feel for him what she felt for Cort.

“People can’t help being who they are,” she replied quietly.

“You’re wise for your years,” he teased.

She laughed. “Not so wise, or I’d get out of the cattle business.” She chuckled. “After we have coffee, want to have another go at explaining genetics to me? I’m a lost cause, but we can try.”

“You’re not a lost cause, and I’d love to try.”

Odalie was irritable and not trying to hide it. “What’s the matter with you?” she snapped at Cort. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

He glanced at her and grimaced. “Sorry. We’ve got a new bull coming. I’m distracted.”

Her pale blue eyes narrowed. “More than distracted, I think. What’s this I hear about you taking that Lane girl with you to buy the new bull?”

He gave her a long look and didn’t reply.

She cleared her throat. Cort was usually running after her, doing everything he could to make her happy, make her smile. She’d come home to find a stranger, a man she didn’t know. Her beauty hadn’t interested the voice trainer; her voice hadn’t really impressed him. She’d come home with a damaged ego and wanted Cort to fix it by catering to her. That hadn’t happened. She’d invited him over today for lunch and he’d eaten it in a fog. He actually seemed to not want to be with her, and that was new and scary.

“Well, she’s plain as toast,” Odalie said haughtily. “She has no talent and she’s not educated.”

He cocked his head. “And you think those are the most important character traits?”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. “None of my friends had anything to do with her in school,” she muttered.

“You had plenty to do with that, didn’t you?” Cort asked with a cold smile. “I believe attorneys were involved…?”

“Cort!” She went flaming red. She turned her head. “That was a terrible misunderstanding. And it was Millie who put me up to it. That’s the truth. I didn’t like Maddie, but I’d never have done it if I’d realized what that boy might do.” She bit her lip. She’d thought about that a lot in recent weeks, she didn’t know why. “He could have killed her. I’d have had it on my conscience forever,” she added in a strange, absent tone.

Cort was not impressed. This was the first time he’d heard Odalie say anything about the other woman that didn’t have a barb in it, and even this comment was self-centered. Though it was small, he still took her words as a sign that maybe she was changing and becoming more tolerant…

“Deep thoughts,” he told her.

She glanced at him and smiled. “Yes. I’ve become introspective. Enjoy it while it lasts.” She laughed, and she was so beautiful that he was really confused.

“I love your car,” she said, glancing out the window. “Would you let me drive it?”

He hesitated. She was the worst driver he’d ever known. “As long as I’m in it,” he said firmly.

She laughed. “I didn’t mean I wanted to go alone,” she teased.

She knew where she wanted to drive it, too. Right past Maddie Lane’s house, so that she’d see Odalie with Cort. So she’d know that he was no longer available. Odalie seemed to have lost her chance at a career in opera, but here was Cort, who’d always loved her. Maybe she’d settle down, maybe she wouldn’t, but Cort was hers. She wanted Maddie to know it.

She’d never driven a Jaguar before. This was a very fast, very powerful, very expensive two-seater. Cort handed her the key.

She clicked it to open the door. She frowned. “Where’s the key?” she asked.

“You don’t need a key. It’s a smart key. You just keep it in your pocket or lay it in the cup holder.”

“Oh.”

She climbed into the car and put the smart key in the cup holder.

“Seat belt,” he emphasized.

She glared at him. “It will wrinkle my dress,” she said fussily, because it was delicate silk, pink and very pretty.

“Seat belt or the car doesn’t move,” he repeated.

She sighed. He was very forceful. She liked that. She smiled at him prettily. “Okay.”

She put it on, grimacing as it wrinkled the delicate fabric. Oh, well, the dry cleaners could fix it. She didn’t want to make Cort mad. She pushed the button Cort showed her, the button that would start the car, but nothing happened.

“Brake,” he said.

She glared at him. “I’m not going fast enough to brake!”

“You have to put your foot on the brake or it won’t start,” he explained patiently.

“Oh.”

She put her foot on the brake and it started. The air vents opened and the touch screen came on. “It’s like something out of a science-fiction movie,” she said, impressed.

“Isn’t it, though?” He chuckled.

She glanced at him, her face radiant. “I have got to have Daddy get me one of these!” she exclaimed.

Cort hoped her father wouldn’t murder him when he saw what they cost.

Odalie pulled the car out of the driveway in short jerks. She grimaced. “I haven’t driven in a while, but it will come back to me, honest.”

“Okay. I’m not worried.” He was petrified, but he wasn’t showing it. He hoped he could grab the wheel if he had to.

She smoothed out the motions when she got onto the highway. “There, better?” she teased, looking at him.

“Eyes on the road,” he cautioned.

She sighed. “Cort, you’re no fun.”

“It’s a powerful machine. You have to respect it. That means keeping your eyes on the road and paying attention to your surroundings.”

“I’m doing that,” she argued, looking at him again.

He prayed silently that they’d get home again.

She pulled off on a side road and he began to worry.

“Why are we going this way?” he asked suspiciously.

“Isn’t this the way to Catelow?” she asked in all innocence.

“No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s the road that leads to the Lane ranch.”

“Oh, dear, I don’t want to go there. But there’s no place to turn off,” she worried. “Anyway, the ranch is just ahead, I’ll turn around there.”

Cort had to bite his lip to keep from saying something.

Maddie was out in the yard with her garbage can lid. This time Pumpkin had gotten out of the pen when she was looking. He’d jumped a seven-foot-high fence. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d never have believed it.

“Pumpkin, you fool!” she yelled at him. “Why can’t you stay where I put you? Get back in there!”

But he ran around her. This time he wasn’t even trying to spur her. He ran toward the road. It was his favorite place, for some reason, despite the heat that made the ribbon of black asphalt hotter than a frying pan.

“You come back here!” she yelled.

Just as she started after him, Odalie’s foot hit the accelerator pedal too hard, Cort called out, Odalie looked at him instead of the road…

Maddie heard screaming. She was numb. She opened her eyes and there was Cort, his face contorted with horror. Beside him, Odalie was screaming and crying.

“Just lie still,” Cort said hoarsely. “The ambulance is on the way. Just lie still, baby.”

“I hit her, I hit her!” Odalie screamed. “I didn’t see her until it was too late! I hit her!”

“Odalie, you have to calm down. You’re not helping!” Cort snapped at her. “Find something to cover her. Hurry!”

“Yes…there’s a blanket…in the backseat, isn’t there…?”

Odalie fetched it with cold, shaking hands. She drew it over Maddie’s prone body. There was blood. So much blood. She felt as if she were going to faint, or throw up. Then she saw Maddie’s face and tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Maddie,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry!”

“Find something to prop her head, in case her spine is injured,” Cort gritted. He was terrified. He brushed back Maddie’s blond hair, listened to her ragged breathing, saw her face go even paler. “Please hurry!” he groaned.

There wasn’t anything. Odalie put her beautiful white leather purse on one side of Maddie’s head without a single word, knowing it would ruin the leather and not caring at all. She put her knit overblouse on the other, crumpled up. She knelt in the dirt road beside Maddie and sat down, tears in her eyes. She touched Maddie’s arm. “Help is coming,” she whispered brokenly. “You hold on, Maddie. Hold on!”

Maddie couldn’t believe it. Her worst enemy was sitting beside her in a vision of a horrifically expensive pink silk dress that was going to be absolutely ruined, and apparently didn’t mind at all.

She tried to speak. “Pum… Pumpkin?” she rasped.

Cort looked past her and grimaced. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

Maddie started to cry, great heaving sobs.

“We’ll get you another rooster,” Cort said at once. “I’ll train him to attack me. Anything. You just have to…hold on, baby,” he pleaded. “Hold on!”

She couldn’t breathe. “Hurts,” she whispered as sensation rushed back in and she began to shudder.

Cort was in hell. There was no other word that would express what he felt as he saw her lying there in bloody clothing, maybe dying, and he couldn’t do one damned thing to help her. He was sick to his soul.

He brushed back her hair, trying to remember anything else, anything that would help her until the ambulance arrived.

“Call them again!” Odalie said firmly.

He did. The operator assured them that the ambulance was almost there. She began asking questions, which Cort did his best to answer.

“Where’s your great-aunt?” he asked Maddie softly.

“Store,” she choked out.

“It’s okay, I’ll call her,” he said when she looked upset.

Odalie had come out of her stupor and she was checking for injuries while Cort talked to the 911 operator. “I don’t see anything that looks dangerous, but I’m afraid to move her,” she said, ignoring the blood in her efforts to give aid. “There are some abrasions, pretty raw ones. Maddie, can you move your arms and legs?” she asked in a voice so tender that Maddie thought maybe she really was just dreaming all this.

She moved. “Yes,” she said. “But…it hurts…”

“Move your ankles.”

“Okay.”

Odalie looked at Cort with horror.

“I moved…them,” Maddie said, wincing. “Hurts!”

“Please, ask them to hurry,” Cort groaned into the phone.

“No need,” Odalie said, noting the red-and-white vehicle that was speeding toward them.

“No sirens?” Cort asked blankly.

“They don’t run the sirens or lights unless they have to,” the operator explained kindly. “It scares people to death and can cause wrecks. They’ll use them to get the victim to the hospital, though, you bet,” she reassured him.

“Thanks so much,” Cort said.

“I hope she does well.”

“Me, too,” he replied huskily and hung up.

Odalie took one of the EMTs aside. “She can’t move her feet,” she whispered.

He nodded. “We won’t let her know.”

They went to the patient.

Maddie wasn’t aware of anything after they loaded her into the ambulance on a backboard. They talked to someone on the radio and stuck a needle into her arm. She slept.

When she woke again, she was in a hospital bed with two people hovering. Cort and Odalie. Odalie’s dress was dirty and bloodstained.

“Your…beautiful dress,” Maddie whispered, wincing.

Odalie went to the bed. She felt very strange. Her whole life she’d lived as if there was nobody else around. She’d never been in the position of nursing anybody—her parents and brother had never even sprained a hand. She’d been petted, spoiled, praised, but never depended upon.

Now here was this woman, this enemy, whom her actions had placed almost at death’s door. And suddenly she was needed. Really needed.

Maddie’s great-aunt had been called. She was in the waiting room, but in no condition to be let near the patient. The hospital staff had to calm her down, she was so terrified.

They hadn’t told Maddie yet. When Sadie was calmer, they’d let her in to see the injured woman.

“Your great-aunt is here, too,” Odalie said gently. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Fine.” Maddie felt tears run down her cheeks. “So much…to be done at the ranch, and I’m stove up…!”

“I’ll handle it,” Cort said firmly. “No worries there.”

“Pumpkin,” she sobbed. “He was horrible. Just horrible. But I loved him.” She cried harder.

Odalie leaned down and kissed her unkempt hair. “We’ll find you another horrible rooster. Honest.”

Maddie sobbed. “You hate me.”

“No,” Odalie said softly. “No, I don’t. And I’m so sorry that I put you in here. I was driving.” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t watching the road,” she said stiffly. “God, I’m sorry!”

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