Darn Good Cowboy Christmas (27 page)

She stepped right up into his space, her nose not six inches from his, and tiptoed so she could see right into his blue eyes. “You are an idiot if you think that. I was crying my eyes out and made up my mind that Ringgold is where I belong. So whether you are tired of me or not, I'm not leaving. You can just get used to having me for a neighbor, if that's all we are ever going to be to each other after tonight.”

Gemma pushed her way into the living room and stared at them. “I don't even want to know. See you two in the morning.” She went to her room, shut the door, and turned on the music loud enough that she couldn't hear them.

That two minutes gave them time enough to cool off.

Raylen reached out and pulled Liz to his wet chest. “I'm sorry. It was stupid.”

“I'm sorry too. It was ugly of me to talk like that about Colleen. You were right. If I had a brother, I'd be livid if I thought he was with Becca. And you've been so good about Colleen even after all that stuff you know about Blaze. Forgive me.”

“Of course I forgive you. I love you, Liz Hanson. I have since that day you were watching me ride. You were so beautiful leaning on the fence, but not as gorgeous as you are in that flannel gown. Lord, you are making me hot just holding you,” he said.

“I love you too, and I have my whole life, it seems like. I'd like to rip that towel off your hips, but I'm going to turn around and go home,” she said.

“Why? Gemma knows you are here.”

“Because when we have our makeup sex it's not going to be with your sister across the hall.”

He bookended her face with his big hands and kissed her hard. “I do love you.”

“Me too!” She turned around and walked outside.

All the way home she singsonged, “Raylen loves me. Raylen loves me.”

In Texas they call it football weather. Crisp enough for a jacket but not so cold that breath comes out in a fog every time a person exhales. Liz couldn't have asked for a better night for her party. The carnival folks had pulled the cinnamon bun wagon, the funnel cake wagon, and the gyro wagon off the flatbed and set them up inside the barn. Liz had made arrangements with Jasmine to cater in turkey and dressing and glazed ham. The rest was pure potluck. Bring whatever you like, put your name on the bottom of the dish, and go home with a full tummy and an empty dish.

“With all this food, why would you set up those wagons?” Gemma asked.

“Ovens. We needed more ovens,” Liz explained.

Raylen slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her back to his chest. “Hello, darlin'.”

“That sounded almost like Conway Twitty.” Liz laughed.

Raylen buried his face in her hair and inhaled. “You smell good. Bet you'd taste even better.”

She laughed again and turned around. “So do you on both counts.”

He kissed her quickly and nodded toward the corner of the barn where the musicians were tuning up their instruments. “I didn't know so many of your friends played. Does Blaze?”

“Blaze can dance the leather off a woman's boot soles. He can almost carry a tune, but he can't play anything. Not even a washboard because his rhythm is off,” she said.

Grandpa O'Malley's big booming voice sounded even louder coming from a microphone that had been set up in the musician's corner. “Franny tells me the food is ready so I'm announcing the party is officially open now. We are thankful for the opportunity for everyone to get to mingle and know each other. And whoever made those cinnamon rolls, would you hide one pan of them under the table for me to take home? Don't tell Franny. She and the doctor tell me I'm too fat, but those bathroom scales are the biggest damn liars in the world. Now load up your plates, and while you're doin' it Raylen and Liz are going to give us some fiddlin' to entertain us.”

Liz looked at Raylen who shrugged. “Grandpa is the oldest in the family. He takes over the emcee jobs for us at everything. Is it a problem?”

She tucked her hand in his. “Not at all. I just didn't know we were supposed to play right now.”

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Too nervous to eat,” she answered.

“Might as well play then, hadn't we?”

She led him to the corner and picked up her fiddle.

He did the same.

She pulled the bow across the strings to make sure it was still in tune.

So did he.

“Ready?” she asked.

He winked.

“Then let's give ʼem something to talk about,” she said.

They locked eyes and she started the Bonnie Raitt tune, “Let's Give Them Something to Talk About.” Liz stepped up to the microphone and sang as she played. The lyrics said that people were saying they were lovers kept under covers, that they laughed a little too loud, stood a little too close, stared a little too long. She sang that she was thinking about him every day and dreaming about him every night, and they were going to give them something to talk about and it was love, love, love.

Her voice was gravelly, sexy, and just listening to her shot desire through Raylen's body. When the last chords died, she whispered, “Is that yelling it from the rooftops?”

He nodded and mouthed, “My turn.”

She recognized the Gene Watson tune “Love in a Hot Afternoon” from the first note and their fiddles became one as the instruments talked louder than the words if they had been singing. She hummed the lyrics about a lady sleeping like a baby in damp tangled sheets after love in a hot afternoon.

It brought memories of a blanket in a horse stall, and she smiled as their music blended perfectly and floated out over the barn.

“Give us some ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia,'” Grandpa yelled when they'd finished that one.

Liz and Raylen's bows hit the fiddles at the same time and the whole barn went silent as they watched the show. Raylen stepped up to the microphone and sang as he played. Liz played into the song with her body language, and at the end the applause was deafening.

“Ready to give me that fiddle?” he asked Liz.

“You ready to give me yours?”

“I beat you that time. I sang and didn't miss a beat.”

“I didn't either. Granny, who won?”

Franny stood up at the table where she and Tilman had settled in. “I'm callin' it a second tie. You two belong together, both with the fiddle and when you lay it down.”

Raylen pulled the microphone to his mouth. “Yes, we do. Liz and I are together so all you other cowboys out there are out of luck.”

“Well, praise the Lord! It's been announced to the whole county. Dewar, you'd better get your lazy ass in gear,” Gemma yelled from across the barn. She was sitting at a table with Ace and Jasmine, Pearl and Wil, Blaze and Colleen, and Austin and Rye.

“I'm goin' to be the old bachelor uncle who raises Gypsy Vanners,” he said.

He'd been close to Tressa all evening, the two of them discussing horses. He'd spent more than half the afternoon in the round pen with them and was more determined than ever to start a herd of his own.

“We're hungry so we're takin' a break. Rest of you can play when you want and maybe we'll join you later,” Raylen said.

“You ain't goin' to do ‘Earl's Breakdown' before you go?” Blaze asked.

“Maybe later. I've got something better to hold right now.” Raylen slung his arm around Liz's shoulders. She fit there like God had taken his height, weight, and arm length into consideration before he made Liz. She was having her Christmas right there, even if it was before Thanksgiving. To him, every day was Christmas now that Liz had come into his life. He looked up where miles and miles of garland had been looped and hundreds of ornaments dangled in the air like the beads on her dancing costumes.

Whoa, boy, don't go there. Think about mistletoe, not toe rings.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Mistletoe.”

She led him to the doorway and pointed up to a ball of mistletoe attached to a beam with a red velvet ribbon. He grinned and gave her a kiss that curled her toenails and had her panting.

“It's beautiful,” he said when he broke away.

“What?”

“You first. The barn, second.”

“Yes, it is. I love it and all the fun we had making it look like this. Christmas at Thanksgiving time.”

Red cloths covered all the tables, and cedar centerpieces with red candles and gold bows graced each one. The tree was a huge conversation piece, but not any more than all the other decorations, including an archway with cedar branches, lights, and garland woven into it, white wrought iron benches from Maddie's flower garden beside it, and Cash dressed as Santa Claus in a rocking chair in front of it.

Christmas music played in the background when the musicians weren't fired up, and the spirit in the barn was as jolly as if it were Christmas Eve instead of the month before.

Raylen led Liz to the food table where they fixed plates and carried them to the table that still had a few empty chairs. Blaze and Colleen sat side by side, their heads together in whispered tones most of the time. Slade and Jane, Pearl and Wil, Austin and Rye, Gemma, Dewar, and Ace were all scattered around the rest of the table.

As soon as they sat down Blaze stood up.

“I've got a toast to give here in front of all these witnesses.” Blaze held up his beer bottle. “I was wrong.”

“Wow! Never heard that before,” Liz said.

“Never was wrong before,” Blaze grinned and went on, “I was wrong about you, sweetheart. You belong right here. Roots look good on you.”

“Hear, hear.” Colleen clinked her beer bottle with Blaze's.

“Raylen, be aware, she's got a temper,” Blaze said.

“Oh, I've done seen that.” Raylen laughed.

Colleen leaned over and whispered in Liz's ear, “You get ready to sell those wings of yours, I'll give you top dollar for them.”

Pearl held up a glass of iced tea but kept her chair. “We're all here, so Wil and I have an announcement. It's twins and they're due in July. If they're girls they can have red hair but they're going to get Colleen's skin and no freckles. I don't care if we aren't blood kin, I'm claimin' shirttail kin.”

Everyone started talking at once and didn't even see Marva Jo pulling out a chair at the end of the long table. “Sounds like you all have been doing a lot of toasting over here. Congratulations, Pearl. I can't imagine having two kids at once.”

“I can't imagine having one.” Pearl smiled. “But then I couldn't imagine being married to Wil the first time he came into my motel. He was cocky as hell, and the next morning the cops arrested him for murder.”

“And?” Marva Jo asked.

“Mistaken identity,” Wil said. “But she came to my rescue in her vintage Caddy, and I swear I was in love from that day.”

“You were not! It took a shot contest to make you see you'd met your match,” Pearl said.

Wil smacked a kiss on her cheek. “Red, darlin', that's just when I sort of admitted it to myself. My heart knew the first time your devil cat and Digger got into it.”

“Red?” Marva Jo asked.

“Pearl to everyone else, believe me.” Jasmine laughed. “But she lets Wil call her Red.”

Marva Jo nodded. No wonder her child loved the area. They'd accepted her into their fold as tight as any carnie family. All but Colleen, and it looked like she was coming around, thanks going to Blaze.

Marva Jo looked at Blaze. “I heard your toast. After the way you carried on when Liz left, I know what that one cost you to deliver. But I agree. Roots look good on her. Y'all finish up your dinner and get Liz to introduce you to all our friends. Truth is, Raylen, I think you beat her on the fiddlin' contest, but I think the only way you'll get her fiddle is to take the woman that goes with it. That's goin' to take some doin'. Good luck, son. ”

Liz blushed. Raylen had said that he loved her that one time but he hadn't mentioned it again. He said they were together and that was enough for tonight. In a few months, maybe he'd be ready to take the fiddle and the girl. She'd been ready to take the man with or without a fiddle for a very long time.

Marva Jo went on to the next table where Franny and Tilman were entertaining a table full of carnies with stories about the O'Donnells. She stayed there a while before moving to the next one, where Maddie and Cash were laughing at something Tressa was telling about the year it snowed at their first gig.

Two families were blending very well. She couldn't ask for a better man than Raylen for her daughter. They were a perfect pair, and even if it did cost her more than it had cost Blaze to make his toast, she sincerely hoped that things worked out for them.

Thanksgiving was much, much better than she'd ever thought it could be that year. Only Liz could come up with such an idea as having a Christmas party at Thanksgiving. She looked up at the angel on the top of the tree and a tear formed on her eyelash. Her baby girl had given up her wings for love. She hoped that she was never disappointed.

***

Liz curled up in Raylen's lap in front of the fireplace. The clock above the mantel said that it was midnight. The party had begun to break up at eleven, but Liz had stayed until the last guest left. Tomorrow they'd reload the cinnamon roll, funnel cake, and gyro wagons back on the flatbed, and at two o'clock, all of them planned to start the final leg of their journey to Claude. They might have started earlier, but Liz had begged her mother and Tressa to stay until she finished her work day.

The trip would be over by six and the next day they'd winterize the travel trailers, unload the wagons in a long row beside the barn, and park the trucks. One by one, Poppa would use his little tractor to pull the wooden wagons inside for renovations throughout the winter months.

And all the people would be gone. A majority of the vendors lived within two hours of Amarillo. They'd unhook their trailers from their trucks and the exodus would begin by noon as they headed for their winter homes. One couple lived in Destin, Florida, and another in Willets, California. Marva would take them to the airport. Then the last week in February, they'd come driving in, a few each day, or making arrangements for Marva Jo to come get them. Everyone would be excited, and the new year would begin the same way the previous one ended with Poppa standing on the porch waving at everyone.

“It was a wonderful party,” Raylen said.

She nodded. “But it's over.”

He hugged her tightly. “Memories last forever. I remember this little girl who could stay on the fence longer than me. And one who watched me ride, and I wanted to show off for her but I was afraid Momma would kill me if I hurt her horse. Those memories were etched into my mind for years before she came back.”

“Don't be sweet to me. Fight with me. I want to kick something or pitch a fit. It's like when the winter ended and it was time to go on the road. I was happy because everyone was so excited about a new year, but a little bit of me was angry because I didn't want to leave the horses and Poppa. It always made me cry to see him waving good-bye from the porch. I felt like I do now. Happy and sad at the same time,” she said.

His cell phone rang in his shirt pocket so close to Liz's face that she jumped.

“It's Becca,” he said.

Liz had found the perfect person to fight with even if she had to do it by phone.

“Hello. Why weren't you at Liz's party tonight? We missed you,” he said.

Liz reached out and Raylen put the phone in her hand.

“This was a big thing for me and Raylen both tonight. If you were really Raylen's best friend then you should've been there instead of staying home pouting. Blaze came and Raylen wasn't too fond of him but you stayed home. Are you mad because I told you what the cards said? You knew that I wouldn't lie when I laid those cards out, and besides…”