One Cowboy, One Christmas

“Someplace warm.” And no doubt having a good laugh. The dog and the boy had become a team over the summer, which had been part of the plan. Kevin Thunder Shield needed a loyal and true friend, and Baby needed a boy of her own. Ann just never knew with Kevin. Maybe he’d gotten a ride and she’d go out to the barn and find clean stalls. Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise? “My gargoyle’s broken, but other than that…”

There was something on the top step. A glove? Ann grabbed her parka off the hefty hook under the hat rack and plunged her arm into the sleeve.

“Sounds like a trespasser with good taste,” Sally said. “Maybe a wandering gnome.”

“He left a clue,” Ann reported as she opened the door. “Cover me. I’m going out there.” It was an old joke between them, but it used to be Sally stepping out in front. The idea of little Annie serving as a convincing backup for her once-mighty sister was almost laughable.

But times and conditions had changed. Stepping out had become Ann’s job, and what she found was hand in glove. Hand attached to arm attached to the rest of a man’s body draped facedown over her front-porch steps.

“Oh…dear God.”

“What is it, Annie?”

“Stay inside.” For what it was worth, Ann tossed the order over her shoulder as she stepped onto the porch. “It’s colder than…” Her nightclothes puddled around her thin slippers as she squatted close to the man’s head. She clutched the front of her parka together with one hand and gingerly lifted the brim of his black cowboy hat with the other. “Hey. Mister. Are you…” Oh. Dear. God. No. Way.

“Who’s out there, Annie?”

“Sally, please stay—”

Too late. Sally was standing in the doorway, leaning heavily on her cane. “Is he drunk?”

Ann leaned close to his face, took a sniff and shook her head. “He’d be better off if he were,” she decided. “I think he’s frozen.”

“Totally?”

He answered with a groan.

“I know him.” Sally suddenly had her sister’s back. “That’s—”

“Will you please get back in the house?” Ann knew him, too. Better than her sister did, she suspected, but it had been years. Eight and a half, to be about a month short of exact. “Hey.” She touched his shoulder. “Hey, mister, can you stand up? Or maybe just…”

“That’s Zach Beaudry,” Sally said. “He’s a bull rider. Used to be really good. I remember—”

The man groaned again and mumbled something about a pickup. Ann moved around to his side, down two steps, and tried to haul him up by his arm. Then by her two arms, an effort that nearly sent both of them down another two steps.

“Did something happen? Are you hurt?” His pilelined denim jacket didn’t look very warm, but it was clean. “I don’t see any blood.”

“He’s frozen,” Sally reminded her. “He must have walked from the road.”

“I’ll get you in the house, but you have to help me,” Ann told the cowboy hat, and then she warned her sister, “Not you! I’ll do it. You hold the door.” She sat him up against the railing. “Can you grab on here, and I’ll…That’s it, that’s it.” He almost fell over on her before he got his legs underneath him—railing under one arm, Ann under the other. “Okay, two steps up.” He managed one. “Now the left.”

“Left side…no good.”

“How about the right?”

“Solid.”

“Okay, so…hang on.” She moved around to his left side. “We’ll figure out a way to get you to a doctor.”

“Just thaw-awww…” He tried and failed to hold his own, took a moment to brace himself against his slimshouldered buttress, and tried again. Through her parka and his jacket, Ann could feel the violent quiver in his left hip. The cause was more than mere cold. “…thaw me out. Damn.”

“I’m afraid you’ve broken something.”

“Yeah.” He waved his free arm toward the pottery shards scattered across the porch. “Hadda…kill that…dog. S-sorry.”

“I’ll put him in Grandma’s room,” Ann told her sister, the doorstop. “No way can we get him up the stairs.”

Grandma had been dead for fifteen years, but the spare room in the back of the house was still Grandma’s. Sally had the master bedroom on the main floor, and the hired man had his own bunkhouse, so Ann had the second floor all to herself. If nothing else, there was no shortage of sleeping quarters at the Double D Ranch.

“We should put him in some warm water first.” Sally closed the front door and ducked under Zach’s free arm, where she’d been once before. Briefly. “Or tepid water. Can you handle yourself in the bathtub, Zach?”

“Handle my…self?”

“Get your blood circulating again,” Sally chirped. She’d been hurting and tired an hour ago, but cowboys—on TV or, better yet, in person—never failed to put some lift in her voice, which was music to momentarily dispel all Ann’s misgivings about the man. After so many years, why not?

“Hands f-frozen,” the cowboy muttered. “Can’t handle m-much.”

“How about your clothes? Can you take your clothes—oops.” Ann grabbed the newel post and redoubled her support. “Steady.”

“Blackin’ out a little.”

He was leaning a lot. The hard brim of that big hat clobbered her in the eye. That hat. She remembered trying to find the windows to his soul in the shadows, but from where she had lain, he’d been all succulent lips, chiseled nose and hat brim.

Aren’t you going to take off your hat?

That’s up to you.

Ann grabbed his hat and scored a ringer over the newel post as they started down the hall. She kept her eyes on the road and off the passenger as the threesome bounced off the walls a few times on their way to the bathroom, where Sally used the rubber end of her cane to push the door wide open. She took the lead but stepped aside with a nod toward the toilet. “Sit down. No, wait.” Again the cane extended her reach, and the toilet lid clattered over the seat.

Their guest gave a dry chuckle. “Up for b-boys, down for girls. I’m a…”

“Here.” While Sally started running the bathwater, Ann shouldered him into place over the toilet seat. Heave… “Sit right here, Zach.”

“No, I’m good. Boys can go…” ho “…outside. But don’t tell Ma.” He looked up at Ann and frowned as she unbuttoned his long-on-style, lean-on-insulation jacket. “Ma?”

Sally grabbed her arm. “You’d better let me handle that, Annie.”

“I don’t think so. He’s a big hunk of dead weight.” His pathetic excuse for a laugh turned into a feeble groan. Ann closed her eyes and tugged on his belt buckle. “I just hope he’s wearing some kind of underwear.” Not that she was prudish, really.

Well, maybe a little.

“Me, too,” he muttered.

“How’s the water, Sally?” Ann straddled his leg and started working on a boot. “Help me out, Zach. Wiggle your foot a little.”

“Can’t feel ‘em. Musta lost ‘em.”

“Just a little,” she coaxed, and felt a little movement, a little slippage. “That’s good.”