The Cowboy's Christmas Lullaby

“No. They’re with their grandmother tonight. I didn’t want to overload Tessa with kids. They’ll be disappointed they missed seeing you.”

“I’m disappointed they’re not here,” he said.

His simple statement sounded so sincere, yet she told herself not to take it to heart. There were plenty of guys who pretended they liked kids. Until they were asked if they wanted to be a father, and then they stumbled backward, as if they’d just faced a rattlesnake.

With everyone in the house, the group quickly migrated to a dining room that was beautifully furnished with a carved oak table and chairs, along with a matching sideboard and massive china cabinet. Down the middle of the vast table, vases of orange and gold marigolds mixed with burgundy-colored mums alternated with flickering fat brown candles. Across the room, a row of arched windows revealed a starry night sky competing with the glow of lights illuminating a portion of the ranch yard.

The beauty of the Silver Horn never failed to impress Marcella, but tonight she wasn’t absorbing her surroundings as much as usual. Instead, every cell in her brain was focused on the tall, muscular rancher standing a few steps away.

“Ava and I didn’t bother assigning seats. So everyone just grab a chair,” Lilly announced. “Except for the end seat. That’s for Granddad Bart, of course.”

“You’re wasting your breath, Lilly girl,” Bart boomed out as he took his seat at the head of the table. “Everyone already knows this is my seat. When I’m dead and gone, my son gets it. After that, you grandsons can fight over it.”

Dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark slacks with his thick gray hair brushed neatly back from his rugged features, at eighty-eight, Bart looked as though he was still fit enough to wrestle a bear and ornery enough to try it.

Orin pulled out a chair to his father’s right. “Dad, we’re not going to discuss your passing tonight or any night for that matter. These beautiful women don’t want to hear such morbid talk.”

“Son, I’m eighty-eight years old. What the hell do you think is going to happen? That I’m going to live forever?”

“You’re mean enough to live forever, Granddad,” Bowie spoke up teasingly. “So I say you better not mess around and get nice on us. We might lose you.”

“Bowie! That’s awful,” Ava scolded her young husband.

With a wry shake of his head, Orin looked down the table. “Denver, would you help Marcella into her seat? I’m sure you won’t mind sitting next to our pretty guest tonight.”

“My pleasure,” Denver said.

He stepped over to the table and pulled out the chair nearest to Marcella. As she sank into the padded seat, she felt as though everyone in the room was watching the two of them. And suddenly she wondered if this whole evening had been a setup to throw her and Denver together.

But that was crazy thinking. She hadn’t voiced any interest to Lilly or Ava about the cowboy. Had Denver mentioned something about her to some of the Calhouns? She couldn’t imagine that. He didn’t seem the type to discuss private issues. Even with his friends.

Glancing up at him, she smiled faintly and murmured her thanks. “Sorry. Looks like you’re stuck with me for a dining companion tonight.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage to survive,” he said in a voice only she could hear.

Near the head of the table, Orin said, “Sorry, Colley. You just happened to be on the wrong side of the table tonight.”

“It’s okay, sir,” the horse trainer said. “I don’t think I’ll be getting lonely anytime soon.”

Marcella glanced over at the young man who’d taken a chair next to Bowie. From what Lilly told her a couple months ago, Colley’s wife had divorced him and left town with a man she’d worked with at a financial firm in Carson City. No doubt he was still seeing red whenever he looked at a female.

While the remainder of the group took their seats at the table, Denver had made himself comfortable in the chair next to Marcella, and she found it impossible to keep her attention away from him.

“Lilly told me this was going to be a small group tonight,” she said to him. “I was surprised to see you here—I mean, I’ve never seen you here for dinner before.”

He shrugged, and Marcella’s gaze was drawn to his broad shoulders and the faint movement of muscle beneath the finely woven fabric of his dark gray shirt. A leather bolo tie fashioned with a silver accent set with coral stones was pushed tight against his throat, while matching cuff links fastened the cuffs at his wrist. He looked dark and dangerous and oh so handsome.

“That’s because I don’t visit the big house that often. Rafe twisted my arm to get me here tonight.”

Marcella’s mind began to spin. No way would Lilly and Ava go to this much trouble to throw her and Denver together at the same dinner table. Or would they? For the Calhouns, this gathering was little more than a regular family dinner.

“Oh. Well, Lilly twisted mine. So looks like we’re in the same boat tonight.”

“I’m here to discuss a new feed program with Orin and Rafe. So far that hasn’t happened,” he said. “Why were you invited?”

“To catch Lilly and Ava up on hospital news. So far that hasn’t happened, either,” she added with an impish smile. “But no matter. Getting to eat Greta’s cooking is worth the drive out here.”

“As long as your battery doesn’t die again,” he added jokingly.

She felt her cheeks turning pink. If only he knew how much she’d been thinking of him since that night he’d welcomed her into his home. He’d probably want to have Colley trade chairs with him, she thought.

“I’m happy to say I haven’t had any more car trouble,” she told him.

Before he could make any sort of reply, Bowie caught Denver’s attention, and then Greta appeared with a loaded trolley and began to serve the first course. Marcella glanced down the table to Lilly, and the cunning little smile on her friend’s face left no doubts as to what this dinner party was all about.

The only thing that could save her from this embarrassing situation now, Marcella thought, was if Denver never discovered how the two of them had been pushed at each other.

Chapter Four (#ud6fd0b17-adf7-56c7-91d5-42c7deb71e50)

As usual, the food was mouthwatering, but Denver could have been eating hay and not noticed the difference. Having Marcella, looking like a dream and smelling like a meadow of wildflowers, sitting next to him throughout the long dinner had jangled his senses.

When she’d first appeared on the patio earlier this evening, he’d been shocked. Although on second thought, he shouldn’t have been all that surprised. She was good friends with Lilly and Ava. For all he knew, she might be a regular dinner guest.

However, during the past week, he’d been telling himself he’d never see the beautiful nurse again. Then she’d suddenly been standing in front of him. It was like his daydreams had suddenly come to life.

A few minutes ago he’d watched Marcella leave the room and so far she hadn’t returned. Damn it, why was he noticing her comings and goings, anyway? She was just a pretty friend of the Calhouns and certainly nothing to him.

“Denver, would you like more cake?”

He glanced up to see that Lilly had paused in front of the chair where he was sitting in the family room.

Smiling, he shook his head. “Thanks, Lilly. It was delicious, but I couldn’t hold another bite.”

She gestured toward the opposite end of the room, where a long bar stretched across one corner. At the moment Bowie was playing bartender to Clancy and Rafe. The brothers were joking and laughing and obviously enjoying the evening. Denver was glad to see the men so relaxed. To an outsider, it probably appeared that the Calhouns had an easy life. But Denver knew firsthand how tirelessly Orin and his sons worked to keep the ranch thriving.

“Bowie has been spiking his brothers’ coffee with apricot brandy,” Lilly said with an impish grin. “You might want to join them.”

His senses were already whirling enough, Denver thought. He didn’t need to make them worse. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stretch my legs a bit and walk out by the fire.”

“Great idea,” she said, then added, “If the fire needs more wood, there’s plenty stacked on the end of the patio.”

Denver thanked her, then left the chair and slipped through the glass doors and onto the dark patio.

The night air had turned very chilly, but the fire was still burning, warming the area around the fire pit to a comfortable temperature. Grabbing a chair from the shadows, he started to drag it closer to the fire when he heard a female voice off to his left.

“You must have needed some fresh air.”

He glanced around to see Marcella walking out of the shadows. Where had she come from, he wondered—another part of the house?