Wyoming Winter--A Small-Town Christmas Romance Read online

  “He’s a very nice cat,” she remarked.

  Rodney laughed. “J.C.’s not big on animals, although he likes them. He’s good with cattle. Even Willis’s wolf will let him pet him. That’s an accomplishment, believe me,” he added with a huff. “Damned thing nearly took my hand off when I tried it...”

  “Rodney!”

  He ground his teeth. “Oh, hell.”

  “Rodney!”

  He let out a breath. “Set up a jar,” he said with resignation, “and I’ll put a nickel in it every time I forget.”

  “If I do that, we can have a Tahiti vacation in a month,” she accused.

  He laughed. “Not nice.”

  “I’ll find a big jar,” she returned. “And you’ll put a quarter in. Every time.”

  He drew in a long breath and just smiled. “Okay, Joan of Arc.”

  She chuckled and walked back to the kitchen to check on her apple pie in the oven.

  * * *

  J.C. LOOKED INCREDIBLY handsome in a shepherd’s coat, jeans and boots, with snow dusting his thick, black, uncovered hair.

  “You never wear a hat,” Colie mused, trying not to let her hands tremble as she took the coat to hang up for him. He was so tall that she had to stand on her tiptoes to pull it back off his shoulders.

  “I hate hats,” he remarked. He glanced at her as she put the coat on the rack in the hall, his pale gray eyes narrow and appraising on her slender, sexy body. She dressed like a lady, but he knew all about women who put on their best behavior around company. She was just out of school; college, he was certain, because she had to be at least twenty-two or twenty-three. Catelow had several thousand people, and J.C. didn’t mix with them. He only knew what Rodney told him about his sister. And that wasn’t much.

  “I noticed,” Colie said as she turned, smiling.

  His eyes flickered down to her pert breasts and he fought down a raging hunger that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He had women, but this one stirred him in a different way. He couldn’t explain how, exactly. It irritated him and he scowled.

  “It wasn’t a complaint,” Colie added quickly, not understanding the scowl.

  He shrugged. “No problem. What are we eating?”

  “Leftover turkey with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, salad and apple pie.” She hesitated, insecure. “Is that okay?”

  He smiled, his perfect white teeth visible under chiseled, sensuous lips. “It’s great. I love turkey.” He chuckled. “I like chicken, too, although I usually get mine in a bucket.”

  Her eyes widened. “You put it in a pail, like you milk cows with?” she asked, shocked.

  He glowered at her. “There’s this chicken place. They sell you chicken and biscuits and sides...”

  She went red as fire. “Oh, gosh, sorry, wasn’t thinking,” she stammered. “Let’s go in! Daddy’s already at the table.”

  Rodney went ahead, but J.C. slid a long finger inside the back of Colie’s sweater and gently stopped her. He moved forward, so that she could feel the heat and power of him at her back in a way that made her heart run wild, her knees shiver. “I was teasing,” he whispered right next to her ear. His lips brushed it.

  Her intake of breath was visible. Her whole body felt shaky.

  His big hands caught her shoulders and held her there while his lips traveled down the side of her throat in a lazy, whispery caress that caused her to melt inside.

  “Do you like movies?” he whispered.

  “Well, yes...”

  “There’s a new comedy at the theater Saturday. Go with me. We’ll have supper at the fish place on the way.”

  She turned, shocked. “You...you want to go out with me?” she asked, her green eyes wide and full of delight.

  He smiled slowly. “Yes. I want to go out with you.”

  “Saturday?”

  He nodded.

  “What time?”

  “We’ll leave about five.”

  “That would be lovely,” she said, drowning in his eyes, on fire with the joy he’d just kindled in her with the unexpected invitation.

  “Lovely,” he murmured, but he was looking at her mouth.

  “Colie? Supper?” her father’s amused voice floated out from the dining room.

  “Supper.” She was dazed. “Oh. Supper! Yes! Coming!”

  J.C. followed close behind her, his smile as smug and arrogant as the look on his face. Colie wanted him. He knew it without a word being spoken.

  He seated Colie, to her amazement, and then pulled out a chair for himself.

  “Good to have you with us, J.C.,” the reverend said gently. “Say grace, Colie, if you please,” he added.

  J.C. felt stunned as the others bowed their heads and Colie mumbled a prayer. He wasn’t much on religion, but he did bow his head. When in Rome...

  * * *

  IT WAS A pleasant meal. Reverend Thompson seemed shocked at J.C.’s knowledge of biblical history as he mentioned a recent dig in Israel that had turned up some new relics of antiquity, and J.C. remarked on it with some authority.

  “My mother was from southern Ireland. Catholic,” he added quietly. “She was forever asking the local priest to loan her books on archaeology. It was a passion of his.”

  “She couldn’t get them off the internet?” Rodney queried.

  J.C. laughed. “We lived in the Yukon, Rod,” he told him with some amusement. “We didn’t have television or the internet.”

  “No TV?” Rodney exclaimed. “What did you do for fun?”

  “Hunted, fished, helped chop firewood, learned foreign languages from my neighbors. Read,” he added. “I still don’t watch television. I don’t own one.”

  “Do you hear that?” Reverend Thompson interjected, pointing to J.C. “That’s how people become intelligent, not from watching people take off their clothing and use foul language on television!”

  “It’s his soapbox,” Rodney said complacently. “He only lets me have satellite because I help pay for it.”

  “The world is wicked,” the reverend said heavily. “So much immorality. It’s like fighting a tsunami.”

  “There, there, Daddy, you do your part to stop it,” Colie said gently, and smiled.

  He smiled back. “You’re my legacy, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re so like your mother. She was a gentle woman. She never went with the crowd.”

  “I hate crowds,” Colie said.

  “Me, too,” Rodney added.

  J.C. just stared into space. “I hate people. The best of them will turn on you, given the opportunity.”

  “Son, that’s a very harsh attitude,” the reverend said gently.

  J.C. finished his turkey and sipped black coffee. “Sorry. We’re the products of our environment, as much as our genetics.” He glanced at the older man with dead eyes. “I’ve been sold out by the people I loved most. It doesn’t encourage trust.”

  “You have to consider that we all have a purpose,” the reverend said solemnly. “I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives when they do, for a reason. Some bring out good qualities in us, some bring out bad. Life is a test.”

  “If it is, I’ve sure failed it already.” Rodney sighed. He nodded toward Colie. “She’s got a big jar. Every time I swear, I have to put in a nickel. I’ll be bankrupt in days!” he moaned.

  Reverend Thompson laughed wholeheartedly. “Now, that’s creative thinking, my girl!”

  “I’d take a bow, but the pie would get cold,” she teased, as she served it up.

  She noticed that J.C. seemed to love his. He glanced at her, saw her watching him and grinned. She flushed and fumbled with her fork.

  The reverend watched the byplay with amusement and concern. Colie was an innocent. He knew things about J.C., who was vocal about
his distaste for family life and children. Colie would want marriage and kids. J.C. wouldn’t. It was a mismatch that could lead to tragedy for his daughter. He saw the danger ahead and wished he could stop it.

  They had relatives in Comanche Wells, Texas, a small town in Jacobs County. He could send Colie there. She’d be away from J.C...

  Even as he thought it, he realized how impractical it was. Colie had a good job. She loved Catelow. And if her continual sighing over J.C. Calhoun was any indication, she was already halfway in love. She’d never dated much, except for an occasional double date with an older girlfriend who’d later married and moved to Billings. She didn’t go out these days. She worked and cooked and cleaned and read books. Even the reverend realized it wasn’t much of a life for a young woman, who should be out learning about life.

  It was just that she was going to learn things that he disapproved of. He looked at J.C., saw the way the man was watching Colie, and something inside him tightened like a rope around his throat. He averted his eyes. He didn’t know what to do. He only knew that Colie was headed for disaster.

  * * *

  COLIE WALKED J.C. out onto the porch, where a small light burned overhead. Snow was falling softly.

  “They say we’re looking at six inches of snow,” she remarked with a long sigh.

  He smiled. “I can drive in six feet of snow,” he mused. “If the theater is open, we’ll get there. If it isn’t, you can come home with me and I’ll teach you how to play chess.”

  Her lips parted on a rush of excitement. He really wanted to be with her. He wasn’t teasing. She looked up into narrow, pale silver eyes and wanted nothing more in the world than to be in his arms.

  He saw the look. It amused him. She had her act down pat. Playing innocent, showing all the right sort of excitement for a woman headed for her first love affair. He didn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d had too many experienced women tease him with displays of innocence, only to become wildcats once he had them in bed. It was a trust issue, he supposed. He didn’t trust women. He had good reason not to.

  But he was willing to play along. In fact, he knew tricks that Colie might not know. He moved closer, taking her gently by the waist and holding her away from him just a little.

  “You’ll get cold,” he whispered, bending his head so that his mouth was just above hers, not touching, but taunting.

  “It’s not that cold,” she whispered back, her voice unsteady as she looked up at his mouth, focused on it with all the pent-up hunger she’d been saving for the right man, the right time, the right place.

  “Isn’t it?” His voice was deep, dark velvet. He brushed his nose against hers, while his big hands smoothed up and down her rib cage, almost brushing her taut breasts—but not touching.

  Her lips parted. They felt swollen. She felt swollen all over. She didn’t know enough about men to understand what he was doing to her. It was a game. A very old game. Tease and retreat, to make a woman hungry for more.

  “I have to go,” he whispered, his breath mingling with hers, he was so close.

  “Do you?” She was standing on her tiptoes now, almost begging for the hard, chiseled mouth so close to hers. She could almost taste the coffee on it.

  “I do.” He brushed his nose against hers again, teased her mouth without touching it, and suddenly put her away from him. “Don’t stay out here. You’ll catch cold.”

  “O...kay,” she said. She was disappointed, frustrated.

  He saw that. It delighted him. He smiled at her. “I’ll see you Saturday. Five sharp.”

  She nodded. “Five sharp.”

  “Good night, Colie.”

  He went down the steps before she could reply and back to his black SUV. He got in, started the engine, backed out and drove away. He didn’t look back. Not once.

  * * *

  COLIE WENT BACK INSIDE, frustrated and cold. Why hadn’t he kissed her? She knew he wanted to. His eyes had been hungry as they stared at her parted lips. But he’d pushed her away. Why?

  She wished she had a really close girlfriend, somebody she could trust, to talk to about men and their reactions. Well, there was Lucy, at work, the closest thing she had to a friend. But she’d be too embarrassed to ask Lucy, who was married, questions about men and sensual techniques. Lucy would know why she wanted to know, and she’d tease Colie, who was too shy to invite the attention. Still, she wondered why J.C. had been so hesitant to kiss her, when she knew he wanted to. Muffled gossip, movies and explicit television shows hadn’t really educated her about how men felt and why they behaved in odd ways.

  She started clearing the dining room table.

  “J.C. get off all right?” her father asked.

  She nodded and smiled. “It’s snowing again.”

  “I noticed.” He was still sitting at the table, with his second cup of black coffee. He took a breath. “Colie, I know how you feel about J.C.,” he said unexpectedly. “But you have to remember that he’s not a marrying man.”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. Her expression made him wince.

  “You’ve never really been exposed to anybody like him,” her father continued quietly. “Most of the boys you dated were like you, innocent and out of touch with the modern world. J.C. has seen the elephant, as the old-time cowboys used to say. He’s well-traveled and he’s lived among violent men...”

  “I know all that, Daddy,” she said softly. “It’s just that...” She bit her lower lip. “I’ve never felt like this.”

  “You’re nineteen,” he replied. “Such feelings are natural. But you should also remember that despite what you see in social media, people of faith live by certain rules. Ours teaches that we get married, then we have children. We don’t encourage intimacy outside marriage.”

  “I remember.”

  “It’s natural to feel such things. We’re human, after all. But just because a lot of people do something immoral, that doesn’t make it right. Any man who truly loves you will want to marry you, Colie, have kids with you, go to church with you. If you interact with a man who has no faith, you risk falling into the same trap that many young women do. I’ve seen the result of broken relationships where illegitimate children were involved. It is not something I want my daughter to experience.”

  She wanted to mention that there was such a thing as birth control, but she bit her lip. Her father, like many of his congregation, saw things in a different light than the rest of the world. He was out of touch with what was natural for young women today.

  She wanted J.C. Why was it so wrong to sleep with someone you loved? It was as natural as breathing. At least, she imagined it was. She’d never been intimate with anyone. One date had fumbled under her blouse, but his efforts to undress her had been interrupted and Colie hadn’t been sorry. She was curious, but the boy hadn’t stirred her with his kisses.

  J.C., on the other hand, made her wild for something she’d never had. She wanted him. Her body burned, for the first time. He felt the same thing for her, she was sure of it. Except she didn’t understand why he’d drawn back so suddenly, why he hadn’t kissed her. It was disturbing.

  “Think of your mother,” the reverend added, when he saw that his arguments were having no effect.

  She lifted her eyes. “Mama?”

  “She was the most moral human being I ever knew,” he said. “She waited for marriage. So did I, Colie,” he added surprisingly. “I loved her almost beyond bearing.” He lowered his eyes. “Life without her would be empty, except for my faith and my work. I carry on, because that’s what she’d want me to do.” He looked up. “She’d expect you to live a moral life.”

  Yes, she would, Colie agreed silently. But perhaps her mother hadn’t been as hungry as Colie was, as much in love. Her parents had been together in a different time, when things were less permissive
in small towns. Goodness, half the young people in town were in relationships. Few of them actually married.

  “If you live with someone, you get to know them and you find out if you’re suited enough to get married,” she ventured without looking at him.

  He drew in a slow breath and sipped his coffee. “It’s your life, Colie,” he said gently. “You’re a grown woman. I can’t tell you how to live. I can only tell you that many people who live in an open relationship don’t eventually marry. There’s no real commitment. Not like there is in marriage, where you bring children into the world and raise them. J.C. doesn’t want children.”

  “He could change his mind,” she said.

  “He could. But I doubt he will. He’s how old, thirty-two? If he still feels that way, at his age, he’s unlikely to change. There’s something else,” he added quietly. “You can’t involve yourself with someone with the idea that you can change things about them that you don’t like. People don’t change. Bad habits only grow worse.”

  “Not liking children,” she began, moving silverware around on an empty plate. “That might change, if he had a child.”

  He closed his eyes and winced.

  Colie saw that. It wounded her. “Daddy, I can’t help how I feel,” she ground out. “I’m crazy about him!”

  He drew in a long breath. “I know.” He looked up at her and saw her stubborn resolve. He finished his coffee and got to his feet. He brushed a kiss against her cheek. “I’ll always be here for you. Always. No matter what you do. I’m your father. I will always love you.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She put down the plates and hugged him, tears bleeding from her eyes.

  He patted her on the back and kissed her hair, as he had when she was very small, and hurt, and she ran to him for comfort. It had always been like that. She loved her mother very much, but she was Daddy’s girl.

  “It will all work out,” he said, trying to reassure both of them.