Christmas Cowboy: Will of Steel / Winter Roses

“The kid walked right into an enemy squad and froze in his tracks. It’s one thing to do that on a computer screen. Quite another to confront armed men in real life. They were aiming their weapons at him when Red led a squad in to recover him. Took about two minutes for them to eliminate the threat and get Commando Carl back to his own lines.” He shook his head. “In the excitement, the kid had, shall we say, needed access to a restroom and didn’t have one. So they hung a nickname on him that stuck.”

“Tell me!”

He chuckled. “Let’s just say that it suited him. He took it in his stride, sucked up his pride, learned to follow orders and became a real credit to the unit. He later became mayor of a small town somewhere up north, where he’s still known, to a favored few, as ‘Stinky.’”

She laughed out loud.

“Actually, he was in good company. I read in a book on World War II that one of our better known generals did the same thing when his convoy ran into a German attack. Poor guy. I’ll bet Stinky cringed every time he saw that other general’s book on a rack.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She sipped her iced tea and smiled. “This is really good food,” she said. “I’ve never had a steak that was so tender, not even from beef my uncle raised.”

“This is Kobe beef,” he pointed out. “Red gets it from Japan. God knows how,” he added.

“I read about those. Don’t they actually massage the beef cattle?”

“Pamper them,” he agreed. “You should try that sweet potato,” he advised. “It’s really a unique combination of spices they use.”

She frowned, picking at it with her fork. “I’ve only ever had a couple of sweet potatoes, and they were mostly tasteless.”

“Just try it.”

She put the fork into it, lifted it dubiously to her lips and suddenly caught her breath when the taste hit her tongue like dynamite. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “What do they call this?”

“Red calls it ‘the ultimate jalapeño-brown-sugar-sweet-potato delight.’”

“It’s heavenly!”

He chuckled. “It is, isn’t it? The jalapeño gives it a kick like a mule, but it’s not so hot that even tenderfeet wouldn’t eat it.”

“I would never have thought of such a combination. And I thought I was a good cook.”

“You are a good cook, Jake,” he said. “The best I ever knew.”

She blushed. “Thanks, Theodore.”

He cocked his head. “I guess it would kill you to shorten that.”

“Shorten what?”

“My name. Most people call me Ted.”

She hesitated with the fork in midair. She searched his black eyes for a long time. “Ted,” she said softly.

His jaw tautened. He hadn’t expected it to have that effect on him. She had a soft, sweet, sexy voice when she let herself relax with him. She made his name sound different; special. New.

“I like the way you say it,” he said, when she gave him a worried look. “It’s—” he searched for a word that wouldn’t intimidate her “—it’s stimulating.”

“Stimulating.” She didn’t understand.

He put down his fork with a long sigh. “Something happened to you,” he said quietly. “You don’t know me well enough to talk to me about it. Or maybe you’re afraid that I might go after the man who did it.”

She was astounded. She couldn’t even manage words. She just stared at him, shocked.

“I’m in law enforcement,” he reminded her. “After a few years, you read body language in a different way than most people do. Abused children have a look, a way of dressing and acting, one that’s obvious to a cop.”

She went white. She bit her lower lip and her fingers toyed with her fork as she stared at it, fighting tears.

His big hand curled around hers, gently. “I wish you could tell me. I think it would help you.”

She looked up into quiet, patient eyes. “You wouldn’t … think badly of me?”

“For God’s sake,” he groaned. “Are you nuts?”

She blinked.

He grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to put it that way. Nothing I found out about you would change the way I feel. If that’s why you’re reluctant.”

“You’re sure?”

He glared at her.

She lowered her eyes and curled her small hand into his big one, a trusting gesture that touched him in a new and different way.

“When I was fifteen, Uncle John had this young man he got to do odd jobs around here. He was a drifter, very intelligent. He seemed like a nice, trustworthy person to have around the house. Then one day Uncle John felt bad and went to bed, left me with the hired man in the kitchen.”

Her jaw clenched. “At first, he was real helpful. Wanted to put out the trash for me and sweep the floor. I thought it was so nice of him. Then all of a sudden, he asked what was my bra size and if I wore nylon panties.”

Theodore’s eyes began to flash.

She swallowed. “I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do or say. I thought it was some sick joke. Until he tried to take my clothes off, mumbling all the time that I needed somebody to teach me about men and he was the perfect person, because he’d had so many virgins.”

“Good God!”

“Uncle John was asleep. There was nobody to help me. But the Peales lived right down the road, and I knew a back way through the woods to their house. I hit him in a bad place and ran out the door as fast as my legs could carry me. I was almost naked by then.” She closed her eyes, shivering with the memory of the terror she’d felt, running and hearing him curse behind her as he crashed through the undergrowth in pursuit,

“I didn’t think what danger I might be placing Sassy Peale and her mother and stepsister in, I just knew they’d help me and I was terrified. I banged on the door and Sassy came to it. When she saw how I looked, she ran for the shotgun they kept in the hall closet. By the time the hired man got on the porch, Sassy had the shotgun loaded and aimed at his stomach. She told him if he moved she’d blow him up.”

She sipped tea while she calmed a little from the remembered fear. Her hand was shaking, but just a little. Her free hand was still clasped gently in Theodore’s.

“He tried to blame it on me, to say I’d flirted and tried to seduce him, but Sassy knew better. She held him at bay until her mother called the police. They took him away.” She drew in a breath. “There was a trial. It was horrible, but at least it was in closed session, in the judge’s chambers. The hired man plea-bargained. You see, he had priors, many of them. He drew a long jail sentence, but it did at least spare me a public trial.” She sipped tea again. “His sister lived over in Wyoming. She came to see me, after the trial.” Her eyes closed. “She said I was a slut who had no business putting a sweet, nice guy like him behind bars for years.” She managed a smile. “Sassy was in the kitchen when the woman came to the door. She marched into the living room and gave that woman hell. She told her about her innocent brother’s priors and how many young girls had suffered because of his inability to control his own desires. She was eloquent. The woman shut up and went away. I never heard from her again.” She looked over at him. “Sassy’s been my friend ever since. Not a close one, I’m sorry to say. I was so embarrassed at having her know about it that it inhibited me with her and everyone else. Everyone would believe the man’s sister, and that I’d asked for it.”

His fingers curled closer into hers. “No young woman asks for such abuse,” he said softly. “But abusers use that argument to defend themselves. It’s a lie, like all their other lies.”

“Sometimes,” she said, to be fair, “women do lie, and men, innocent men, go to jail for things they didn’t do.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But more often than not, such lies are found out, and the women themselves are punished for it.”