Cowboy Boots for Christmas (3 page)

Gladys tossed in a can of black pepper. “Had two boys. Both dead. One left three kids. The other one had four by three different women. Finn, have the Brennan women and the Gallagher gals come sniffin’ around Salt Draw?”

“Who?” He picked up two packages of chocolate cookies and added them to the cart. “You mean the feuding families? Why would they come to Salt Draw?”

Callie laughed nervously.

“What’s so funny?” Finn asked.

“Can I have bananas?” Martin asked.

Finn picked up a brown paper bag and filled it with bananas.

“Feuding families? Women? I’m wondering which one of us is going to be doing the protecting,” she said.

“Feud? I thought Verdie was teasing.” Finn’s hand brushed Callie’s as they both reached for the bread at the same time.

“I don’t think so,” Gladys said.

“Like the
Hatfields
and
McCoys
? Callie wouldn’t let me watch it. She said it was too violent,” Martin said.

“Something like that,” Gladys said. “The Gallaghers own the Wild Horse Ranch over to one side of my property. The Brennans own the River Bend over on the other side. Been feudin’ since right after Moses led the people to the Promised Land, and they jump on any chance to fan the flames of the old feud. Besides, they both tried to buy Salt Draw from Verdie and she wouldn’t sell to them. It’d be a feather in the feud cap if either one of them could get Finn to sell out to them, or better yet if they could get it with a marriage license. Y’all goin’ to church tomorrow?”

“Thought we might,” Callie said.

“Well, sit in the middle aisle. The Brennans sit on one side and the Gallaghers on the other. The middle is neutral and sittin’ on either of their sides means you’re takin’ up with that bunch against the other one,” Gladys said. “This store, church, and my sister-in-law Polly’s beer joint are the only places they are even civil to each other. They each got their own private school on their ranches, so they don’t send their kids to the little public school here in Burnt Boot.”

“Good grief, they really are modern-day Hatfields and McCoys.” Callie laughed.

“Oh, honey, they make the Hatfield and McCoy families look right tame. Story has it that, back in the twenties, times got real tough here in Burnt Boot. So old man Gallagher set up a moonshine still down close to the Red River. He was making a fair livin’, keepin’ his family alive and the bill paid here at the store. That was back when my husband’s daddy had the store and the ranch. Anyway, the feds showed up one night and smashed up his still, carried him off to prison, and made him serve a year for bootleggin’. The Brennans were a religious lot, what with old Grandpa Brennan preachin’ at church when the minister needed a fill-in.” Gladys stopped beside the meat counter. “Don’t suppose you need anything from here.”

Callie nodded. “Everything is frozen at the house. Give me a pound of hamburger, and I’ll make cowboy hash for supper.”

“Will do,” Gladys said and went on. “Now, the Gallaghers figured the Brennans ratted them out to the feds. And there’s been a feud goin’ on now for nigh on to a hundred years. The bootleggin’ thing just kind of put the icin’ on the cake. Story has it that they were already crossways with each other because right about the turn of the century Freddy Gallagher fell in love with Molly Brennan. Then the morning of the wedding, Freddy got cold feet and joined the army, leaving poor Molly in humiliation at the altar.”

“Where do you sit in church?” Callie asked.

Gladys wrapped a pound of hamburger and put it in Callie’s cart. “In the middle. Fiddle Creek, that’s the name of my ranch, is right between their spreads. Both of them has tried to buy me out, but I’ll leave my land to the coyotes before I’d let either of them have it. Don’t get me wrong, I like both families, but I’m not being a part of their fight.”

“Why wouldn’t Verdie sell Salt Draw to them?” Finn added a five-pound bag of apples to the cart as Callie pushed it toward the checkout counter. They didn’t always keep them in the little base store and Callie craved them worse than chocolate.

“Verdie hates the feud. She’s a pistol on wheels, and me and her and Polly decided years ago that we wasn’t going to get drug in the middle of the feud. We grew up together right here in Burnt Boot. It ain’t been easy, what with Polly’s cousin’s kid marryin’ into the Gallagher tribe and my cousin’s son marryin’ into the Brennans, but we all try to stay out of it best as we can.”

“Why is this place named Burnt Boot?” Martin asked.

“Back in the days of the cattle drives old Hiram Cleary got tired of lookin’ at the back end of cattle all day. He sat down right out there and pulled off his boot, threw it in the fire so he couldn’t go no further, and built a store to sell stuff to the people comin’ up the trail. He was an ancestor to my husband,” Gladys answered.

“Wow!” Martin said.

They said good-bye to Gladys and put their supplies in the backseat of the truck. When Finn was returning the cart to the store, Callie heard a pitiful whine. She ignored it at first, but when she heard it a second time, she stooped down and looked under the truck.

A little yellow kitten with big eyes stared back at her. She held out a hand and it limped over to her, sniffed her fingers, and meowed pitifully. She gathered it up and went back toward the store. Gladys opened the door before she even arrived.

“It ain’t mine and I don’t want it,” she said.

“I can’t leave it in the parking lot. It’ll get run over and killed. It’s already hurt and limping,” Callie said.

“You found it. It’s all yours,” Gladys said. “I got a whole barn full of cats and two that live in the house.”

“Can we keep it, please, Callie, can we?” Martin bailed out of the backseat of the truck and ran toward her and the cat.

“We’ve got a big house and Shotgun likes cats, so I don’t see why not,” Finn answered.

Martin held out his arms and Callie handed the kitten over to him. He tucked it inside his coat and carried it to the truck where he hummed to it the whole way home.

The first snowflakes drifted out of the sky as they pulled up to the back door. Finn grabbed two sacks from the bed of the truck. Callie picked up two more bags and followed him into the house, with Martin bringing up the rear, walking slow so he wouldn’t wake the sleeping kitten.

“Think it’ll really snow or is it just teasing us?” she asked.

Finn unloaded bags and set the groceries on the bar. “I hope that all we get is a flake to the acre. What did you think of the store?”

“Do you believe what Gladys said about the feud?” Callie asked.

“Well, I only met Gladys once before. Verdie took me to the store and to the bar to introduce me to her and Polly. They mentioned the feud, but I thought it was a joke. You might want to put all this away so you’ll know where it is, Callie.”

“What’s our mission in this, O’Donnell?” she asked.

The smile that covered his face brightened the room. “To make a success of this ranch, to be happy with our place here in Burnt Boot, and…” He paused.

“To stay out of the feud no matter how big it is,” she finished for him. “We lived in tension, worry, and tight quarters with very little privacy in Afghanistan. This should be a piece of cake.”

“I hope so.” He hugged her loosely. “I’m glad you are here. It got damn lonely with just me, Shotgun, and the television in the evenings.”

Every nerve in her body tingled, just like she knew it would if they’d ever had a relationship. But that wasn’t happening between partners, especially not a sniper and his spotter, and for sure not when Finn O’Donnell followed the rules without wavering. When Lala entered the picture, Callie had learned to be content with a close friendship.

The yellow kitten let out a downright pitiful meow. Martin came from a wooden rocker where he’d been treating it like a baby. “I think he’s hungry, Callie. I’m sure glad you found it. Its leg is hurt and it would have been killed on the road. Come on back inside and grab a can of food and a little bag of kitten food.”

Finn picked it up by the scruff of the neck and ran his hands down its legs and hip, then down its backbone. “Probably just bruised. I don’t feel any broken bones. Have you introduced her to Shotgun? He was raised with cats all around him. He won’t hurt it. We’ll make it a bed beside the fire. Poor little thing will have to eat dog food and milk until we can get her some proper cat food next week.”

“I picked up food before I left town,” Callie said.

“Wow!” Martin whispered softly. “A ranch. A dog. A cat. All in one day. It’s the best day ever, Callie.”

Finn rubbed the kitten’s ears and then handed it back to Martin. “You might want to pick out a girl name.”

Martin dark hair flopped down over rich chocolate-colored eyes as he nodded emphatically. “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl. I’m just glad it gets to stay in a warm house.”

Finn opened a cabinet door and removed a can of dog food. The minute he started the electric can opener, Shotgun came running from the rug in front of the fireplace. He picked up the dog’s feed dish and shook out the can’s contents. Then he chopped the dog food up, shoved a couple of tablespoons over to the side of the bowl, and set it down.

“Shotgun has been trained to eat with cats. Mama had a kitten not much bigger than that when the dog came to live with us. She trained him well. Put your cat beside the little portion and watch what happens,” Finn said.

“But I bought her cat food,” Callie said.

“She’ll eat dog food. I promise.”

Callie inhaled sharply and Finn draped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t let him kill the kitten.”

Shotgun eyed the cat. The kitten kept a wary eye on the dog as she ate her part of the food.

“I’ll be damned. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that,” Callie said.

“The lion done laid down with the lamb, like they told us in church, Callie,” Martin said. “Is it time to do chores, Finn?”

Finn moved to the side and laid a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “It really is if we’re going to get done by dark. Shotgun will watch after the cat.”

“And I’ll cook supper.” Her shoulders were suddenly chilled without the warmth of his arm. She wished that she’d offered to help with the feeding that evening so she wouldn’t have to let Finn out of her sight.

Finn pulled out a chair for Callie before he sat down at the supper table. His big hands barely touched her shoulders and the whole room warmed by several degrees. When he’d settled into a chair he said, “I grew up in a house where the blessing was given before meals and we always took turns. Maybe Martin could take the first turn tonight.”

Martin dropped his chin onto his chest and shut his eyes tightly. “Dear Lord, thank you for today because it’s the best day of my life. Thank you for my favorite supper, cowboy hash, and for my very own room with bunk beds, and most of all, thank you for Finn and Shotgun lettin’ us live here. And for the new baby kitten. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

Callie quickly wiped a tear and busied herself with unfolding a blue napkin with snowflakes scattered over it. When she had it smoothed out in her lap, Finn had already dipped deeply into the hash and was handing it to her. She spooned some onto her plate and handed it off to Martin.

“Snowflakes on the napkins. Maybe we’ll have a white Christmas,” Finn said.

“Do you want a white Christmas?” Callie asked.

“Do you like corn, Finn? Here, I’ll start it around. I do and I really like it when Callie makes it like this with butter and that white cheese. Wait ’til you taste her chocolate cake over there. It’s the bestest in the world.”

Finn glanced over at the cake on the cabinet. “You really have learned to cook.”

“She’s a good cook, Finn. I can eat this stuffed in bread for breakfast. I did sometimes when she had to go to work early,” Martin said.

“Thank you for fixing it for us. We’ll be doing the dishes since you did the cooking,” Finn said.

“Aw, man! I’d rather muck out stables than do dishes,” Martin moaned.

“Well, if that’s your choice, then you can muck out three stables tomorrow morning before church and I’ll do the dishes. You big enough to lead the horses out and do a job like that?” Finn asked.

“Yes, sir. You got three horses on this place?”

Finn nodded. “I do.”

“Can I ride sometime?”

Callie touched Finn’s arm. “He loves horses, but he’s only ridden the ponies at carnivals.”

“No time like the present to learn.”

Callie dabbed her mouth with the napkin and said, “I’ll do the dishes and start straightening up that living room if you guys will get out of my way. I’m kind of possessive about my kitchen, never have liked to share it.”

“Yes!” Martin pumped a fist into the air. “Can I take the cat to my room and read her a bedtime story?”

“‘May I,’ not ‘can I.’ And, yes, you may, but then you have to get your bath or shower or whatever is in the bathroom over there.”

Finn caught her eye and their gaze held. “I’m going to help you with the dishes, Callie. Afterward, you need to decide which bedroom you want. You have two to choose from, and Martin has a choice of a shower or a bath. There’s both.”

Sparks sizzled right above them and fear struck a chord in her heart. It was too damn soon for her to be feeling like this. Sure, she’d had a major crush on him, maybe she’d have even fallen flat-out in love with him if circumstances had been different, but that was years ago. She had to get a grip on herself, her mind, and her heart.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

After supper was finished, Finn helped clear the table and dried the dishes as she washed them. She slipped the dishes into the drainboard; he scooped them up to wipe them dry. It seemed that more times than not, their hands touched, and sweet Jesus, the chemistry between them was hot.

“That really was a great meal. Now you need to unpack. Either bedroom is yours. One has twin beds. One has a queen size.”

He led her back to the hallway by the hand. She could hear Martin talking to the cat, but the buzz in her head kept her from hearing the words. Not in her wildest dreams had she thought she and Martin would get a reception like this. Like Martin, she was almost afraid to go to sleep for fear that she’d wake up in a WITSEC program in some remote city so big that she couldn’t find her way around.

“Bathroom.” Finn opened a door.

She spun around and spontaneously hugged Finn, throwing both arms around his neck. “Hot damn, Finn! This is unbelievable. The women in our tent would have hunted down the terrorists on the deck of cards and killed them with nothing but their bare hands for a setup like this.”

Finn’s lips turned up at the corners. “Glad you like it. While Martin takes a shower or a bath, you can pick out your room.”

She backed up a step and called out, “Hey, Martin, bring your pajamas and your toothbrush. You want a shower or a bath?”

“Shower. I don’t want to leave the cat alone very long. She might get lonesome,” he answered.

She adjusted the knobs to get the water just right. Martin’s big brown eyes opened so wide, she could see the whites all around them when he crossed the hall. The bathroom was as big as the bedroom in their old apartment. A vanity stretched the length of one wall. Three mirrors hung above three separate sinks with plenty of storage underneath them. A huge claw-foot tub, a walk-in shower, and a toilet were on the other wall.

“Oh, Callie, this is huge. That tub looks like a swimming pool. Is one of them sinks all mine? I can put my toothbrush and toothpaste right there and my comb, and it’ll be mine?”

“That’s right. Choose the one you want, but you have to be responsible to keep the area all neat,” she said.

Heat radiated from the small of her back when Finn laid a hand there to show her the two bedrooms.

“Do you help him take a shower still?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He’s been taking care of himself for years. Long before I came on the scene.” Her voice came out an octave higher than usual, but Martin was so intrigued with the bathroom he didn’t notice.

“This one?” Finn opened a door into a room with twin beds and then led her across the hall to the room adjoining the bunk-bed room. “Or this one?”

“This one. A queen-sized bed all of my own. It’s heaven,” Callie said.

“I thought you might like it.” He sat down in a gold velvet overstuffed rocking chair. “Tell me about your sister. You talked about her and I remember you telling me that you worried about your nephew. You were always sending money home to them, right?”

She sat down on the edge of the bed. “She didn’t have a lick of sense when it came to men, but she was a good mother, Finn. Other than moving several times a year and never putting down roots for Martin, she adored that boy. When she had the car wreck and died, there was no family until I got home. It took a few weeks to get all the paperwork to go through so I could have him. Foster care turned him into a shy, frightened little boy, but kids are resilient. Now he’s probably too outgoing, but it’s better than before. My turn. What happened with Lala?”

“I asked her to marry me, but she gave me a song and dance about our cultures not mixing, so I brought a broken heart home with me and two weeks later got the news that she and her brother were killed by an IED on their way to the base. Last summer a friend with classified clearance told me their deaths had been staged because their cover had been blown at the base. They are really terrorist spies who are still alive and well to my knowledge. They don’t have their pictures on the deck of cards, but they work for someone who does. It took me a long time to process the idea that I’d been played.”

“I’m sorry, Finn.”

“That’s the past. Can’t redo it. Can’t undo it. Just got to put it in a box and bury the damn thing. I’ve still got some unpacking to do myself, so I’ll leave you to get yours done,” he said.

Emptiness set in the moment he left the room. A whirlwind of emotions had surrounded her since she stepped out of that van. Suddenly, she had no center of gravity. She flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Then she shifted her gaze to the nicest bedroom she’d ever had and the two bags on the floor inside the door where he’d brought them from the hallway. Maybe unpacking would make it all real and give her some sense of stability.

***

Finn laced his hands behind his head and watched the shadows move across the ceiling. The kid was a fast learner and took orders without fussing. He hefted a shovel full of wet hay pretty damn good for a scrawny little boy. By springtime, he’d be a pretty good hired hand, the way he’d taken to the work.

Callie could cook, so he wouldn’t have to live on frozen pizza and soup out of a can. The living room was all cleared out. Boxes she thought were personal had been marked and lined up in the spare bedroom next to his. Blankets, pillows, and the rest had been put away. The house didn’t seem nearly as empty that evening as it had the two days before.

But then how could a room, a house, even a whole base or a whole ranch be empty with Callie on it? She brought energy and warmth to every place she went. He’d been a fool not to act on the attraction he’d had for her that first year, but he’d vowed to follow orders. His had been a strange situation, what with having a woman for a spotter.

A picture of the first Christmas he and Callie spent in canvas tents stuck in his mind. She’d ordered a fake Christmas tree that was about six feet tall. They didn’t have real decorations, and by the time the tree arrived what few were available on base had long since been sold out. The only thing left was one ornament—a real leather cowboy boot about three inches tall and stuffed full of tiny little fake presents. He’d bought the thing and they’d hung it on their tree.

“But you couldn’t see it for all the paper.” He chuckled.

They had colored birds, ornaments, and even icicles she’d drawn on copy paper to hang on the tree with jute twine. And then they’d created yards of paper chain to use for garland. It was the ugliest damn thing he’d ever seen, but she’d loved it. On Christmas morning she’d burned a candle that smelled like pine trees and snow all mixed up together and they’d opened their presents. She’d given him Rudolph antlers with red blinking lights, Rudolph socks, and a Frosty the Snowman mug full of instant coffee packets. He’d given her a long scarf with jingle bells hanging from the ends, a bottle of some kind of perfume that she’d mentioned liking, and a box of chocolates. She was still squealing over her presents when they got the news to suit up for a mission in ten minutes.

The Rudolph antlers and socks were packed in one of the boxes over there against the far wall. The mug was still in its wrapper with coffee inside and sitting on the end of his dresser.

A movement near the fireplace caught his eye, and he slowly reached for the pistol in his nightstand. Then Shotgun yawned loudly, whimpered, and ambled across the floor to lay his head on the other side of the bed.

“You want to make one last trip outside, do you?” Finn put the gun back into the nightstand and slung his feet out from under the covers.

Shotgun’s tail thumped on the floor.

When he reached the living room, Callie was curled up on the end of the sofa with a quilt over her. He hurried across the cold floor and opened the door for the dog and then came back to the sofa to tuck his feet up under the edge of the quilt, his cold toes touching her warm ones and heating up far more than his feet.

“I should have put on socks. The floor feels like an ice-skating rink,” he said.

She moved her feet over to warm his. “I took the chill off mine by the fire after I figured out the same thing.”

“Mmmm, that feels wonderful.” He wiggled his toes in closer to hers, and then something furry settled itself around their feet.

“Please tell me the cat is under there and a mouse hasn’t joined us,” he said.

“Her name is Angel and she likes me. And, honey, if that was a rat, I would be plastered to the ceiling,” Callie said.

“I said mouse, not rat.”

“There is no such thing as a mouse. They’re all rats and they grow big as raccoons or sometimes as big as baby calves, depending on how much they scare me,” she said.

Callie was so damn cute snuggled up in the curve of the sofa with her black hair flowing past her shoulders and the dim light putting highlights in her eyes. The book she’d laid to the side had a man with a lasso over his shoulder on the cover, and the title had the word “cowboy” in it.

“So you still read Western romance? Never quite understood that when you hate ranchin’ so bad that you joined the army to get away from it.” He pulled the quilt a little more his way.

“I like to read about cowboys. The ones in the books are like you, Finn. They’re trustworthy and steady. But for the most part, men are men, whether they’re in boots or flip-flops. My sister damn sure taught me by example that not many of them can be trusted as far as they can be thrown,” she said.

“Trustworthy and steady…that’s a pretty tall order to live up to,” Finn said. “Why are you in the living room this late?”

“Nightmares again. I thought maybe the flickering fire would help calm my nerves. You ever get the nightmares?”

He stretched out, his legs plastered against hers all the way to the curve of her butt, where his toes rested. Even with two layers of flannel separating his skin from hers, it still put him into semi-arousal. “Of course I do. What we did scarred us, Callie. Nightmares are normal for us. I was remembering our Christmas over there in Afghanistan.”

She smiled and the whole room warmed by several degrees. “That was a hoot, wasn’t it? I still have the perfume bottle. It’s empty, but I kept it to remind me of the good times, and the candy box holds my jewelry. When I look at them, the ugly stuff we had to live through kind of fades away and I remember that Christmas.”

“And the argument? Do you remember it, too?”

“Oh, yes.” She nodded. “I really was mad at the army for sending us out on that mission and I was right; the ham was all gone when we got back.”

“Well, I was right, too. We took out the insurgents who were hell-bent on blowing up that girls’ school. Those kids might not have celebrated Christmas in their world, but at least they woke up the next morning,” he said.

“If you still remember that hellacious fight, then why did you let me and Martin stay? I’m surprised you didn’t tell Otis to take me to Siberia,” she said.