Merry Cowboy Christmas (Lucky Penny Ranch #3)(10)

“Well, rats. I had my mind set on a couple of those maple iced ones.” He carried the coffee to a yellow-topped chrome table at the back of the store and pulled out a chair.

“So did I,” she said. “We’ve got packaged pastries. Want one of those?”

“No, it wouldn’t be the same. What are you doing?”

“Moving some stuff and doing some cleaning.”

“Which is desperately needed.” Katy pushed back a floral curtain covering the doorway into the back room. “I called Lizzy from the phone back there. She says she’ll bring down her laptop. It’s already got a bookkeeping program on it and she hates to do anything with it, so she’s going to make a deal with us. We can have the computer if you’ll do her bookkeeping and her taxes this year. Can I tell her that it’s a deal?”

“Sure, but I would do all that for free.”

“Not without a computer. Hey, Jud. No doughnuts today but I’ll order half a dozen extra maple ones on Monday,” Katy said.

“Better make that a dozen.” Jud flashed a grin. “Fiona might eat that many before I can get morning chores done.”

“Well, would you look what the cat has done dragged in?” Herman Hudson stopped right inside the door and opened his arms.

Fiona walked right into them. Herman was the same age as her grandmother and had always been a friend of the family. He hugged her tightly with arms as big as hams and they matched his round belly and big square face.

“You are a sight for sore eyes, girl. How long are you home for this time?” Herman let her go and started for the coffeemaker. “Where’s the doughnuts?”

“Don’t get any today. Holiday, remember?” Fiona said. “But right here is a whole bunch of prepackaged things.”

Herman turned around and came back, picked out a variety of things, and carried them to the table. “Put them on a ticket, along with mine and Jud’s coffee. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know but I’m going to stick around and help Mama run the store. She’s got a lot going on and needs some help,” Fiona said.

“That’s good news. Real good news,” Herman said.

Was it? Would she finally put down roots or would she still feel like she was misplaced after a few weeks or even months?



After a buffet supper of more leftovers at Audrey’s Place, the guys retired to the living room to talk cattle, ranches, hay, and four-wheelers. The four women and the baby sat around the dining room table and talked about putting up the Christmas tree the next weekend.

“Promise me you’ll stay for Christmas,” Allie said.

“I wouldn’t miss the holidays for anything, not even Florida in the winter. Besides, it’s Audrey’s first Christmas,” Fiona said from the rocking chair in the corner where she was humming to Audrey.

“If you’d told me a week ago that Fiona would be home to stay indefinitely, I would have thought you were crazy,” Lizzy said.

“Times change,” Katy said.

Those last two words played through Fiona’s mind that evening when everyone had left. Times did change. Sometimes a person had to walk through fire to get to the nice cool lake water. Even though she wasn’t sure she would stay in Dry Creek for the rest of her life, it was home and it was good to be there.

Her apartment in Houston had been so tiny that she’d felt cooped up most of the time, so she’d spent a lot of time out on the balcony. It was barely big enough for a white plastic lawn chair but at least she had fresh air, could hear the constant motion of traffic, and could watch the lights of the airplanes coming in and going out. It beat feeling like the walls of the apartment were closing in on her.

That evening, she had a bout of the same claustrophobic feeling in her bedroom. She swung the drapes back and looked out at the stars in the sky, patches of white still dotting the landscape. There was no traffic noise, not a single plane in the sky; the only thing she could hear was the faint howling of a hungry coyote somewhere over on the Lucky Penny.

She opened her closet door and removed a quilt from the top shelf and carried it down the stairs. Fresh air! Just a breath of it, no matter how cold, would help. Her therapist would tell her that it was too much, too fast and she needed to step back from the forest for a little while.

A cold breeze rattled the bare mesquite tree limbs and shivers shook her from shoulders to toes, even though she’d remembered to put on a winter coat from her closet. Her breath created little puffs of smoky fog in front of her as she headed for the swing in the shadows of the porch.

“You feelin’ a little cramped tonight, too?” Jud asked.

How in the hell did he do that? She always knew when someone was approaching her or when they were looking at her even from across a room. “You scared me. What are you doing out here in the cold?”

“Same thing you are, I expect. Getting some fresh air even if it would freeze the spikes off the devil’s little red tail. I’ll share the swing if you’ll share that quilt. It’s colder out here than I thought it would be,” Jud answered.

Fiona sat down on the other end of the swing and spread the quilt out over both of their legs, pulling the corner of hers up to her chin. “I’ve lived simply for more than a year. This is all overwhelming. Most days I worked, went home to read a book from the library, and didn’t talk to anyone unless Lizzy or Allie called.”