Long, Tall Christmas Read online

  More Christmas Romance from Janet Dailey

  Christmas in Cowboy Country

  Merry Christmas, Cowboy

  A Cowboy Under My Christmas Tree

  Mistletoe and Molly

  To Santa with Love

  Let’s Be Jolly

  Maybe This Christmas

  Happy Holidays

  Scrooge Wore Spurs

  Eve’s Christmas

  Searching for Santa

  Santa in Montana

  JANET DAILEY

  Long, Tall Christmas

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  More Christmas Romance from Janet Dailey

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  December 22

  “Ouch!” The hot cookie sheet slipped out of Kylie Wayne’s hand and clattered to the linoleum. Tears flooded her baby blue eyes—not so much for her seared thumb as for the Christmas cookies, which were not only broken and scattered, but also burned to a crisp.

  “Oh, dear!” Her great-aunt, Muriel, bustled into the kitchen. “What happened?”

  Kylie ran cold water over her thumb to ease the pain. “I smelled the cookies burning and grabbed them with that old brown oven mitt. There must’ve been a hole in it.”

  “Heavens, I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to mend that hole.” Aunt Muriel shook her silvery head. “Those poor cookies! They were so pretty! And you worked so hard on them!”

  Kylie sighed in silent agreement. She’d barely had time to unpack the car, but with Christmas less than three days off, and her two children moping like jailbirds, she’d felt the need to create some holiday spirit.

  She’d found some old cookie cutters and spent the past hour mixing, rolling, and cutting the dough into Christmas bells, angels, reindeer, and stars. They’d been perfect when she’d slid them into the oven to bake. But she had yet to master the workings of Aunt Muriel’s sixty-year-old electric stove.

  “I don’t understand it,” she muttered. “The recipe said fifteen minutes at three hundred seventy-five degrees. When I checked after ten minutes, they were already black and smoking.”

  “That old oven’s always cooked hot,” Aunt Muriel said. “I’ve gotten used to it over the years. You will, too, dearie.”

  “Yes, I suppose I’d better.” Kylie bent to pick up the mess. The offer of a home for herself and her children, in exchange for looking after her grandfather’s sister on her small Texas farm, had come as a godsend. At seventy-nine, Aunt Muriel was a sweetheart—a bit absentminded, but pretty much able to do for herself. It was the rest of it—coming home to Branding Iron, Texas, after fifteen years as an army wife—that weighed Kylie down. It was as if she’d come full circle, back to the place she’d been so glad to leave behind after high school. As for her children, she hadn’t seen a single smile since their loaded station wagon pulled away from their foreclosed house in San Diego.

  She swept the last of the blackened crumbs into the dustpan and dumped them into the trash. “I guess there’s nothing to do but start over from scratch. Maybe this time you can help me with the stove.”

  “The Shop Mart in town has cookies,” Aunt Muriel said. “You could just buy some.”

  “It’s not the same. The smell of fresh-baked sugar cookies, and the fun of helping ice them—that’s the kind of Christmas we used to have. I want to bring some of that back for Hunter and Amy. After last year . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. Last Christmas, the first after her husband Brad’s death in Afghanistan, Kylie had been in no mood for celebration. It had been all she could do to toss a few decorations on an artificial tree and wrap a few last-minute gifts for her son and daughter. But this year nothing would stop them from having a real Christmas. She would see to it.

  “I know it won’t be the same without their father,” she said. “But they’ve been through so much. Whatever it takes, I owe them a good Christmas.”

  “And what do you owe yourself, dear?” Muriel had a knack for asking odd questions—questions Kylie had no idea how to answer.

  This time she was saved by the distant thrum of a motorcycle speeding down the nearby road. The sound grew closer and louder, its masculine thunder roaring in her ears as it passed the house and faded away toward town. She’d heard it late yesterday afternoon, too, right after they’d arrived here. The sound was so loud and invasive that it seemed to shake the walls of the little farmhouse.

  “Good grief, that noise would wake the dead! How do you put up with it?” she asked.

  Muriel smiled. “I’ve rather grown to like it. It makes me feel safe, knowing the cowboy’s close by, looking out for me and for Henry.”

  Henry was Muriel’s longtime hired man, who lived in a trailer out back. He appeared to be about the same age as his employer. No doubt both of them could use looking after. But a cowboy on a motorcycle struck Kylie as an unlikely guardian angel.

  “I call him ‘Cowboy’ because I can never remember his name,” Muriel said. “It’s Sean or maybe Sam . . . something like that. But he says he doesn’t mind answering to Cowboy.”

  “So he lives around here?”

  “He owns the ranch to the west. Every few days, or whenever we need him, he drops by to check on us and help Henry with the heavy work. He won’t take any money for it, but he never turns down an invitation to a home-cooked supper.”

  Kylie was already feeling protective of her great-aunt. What if this so-called cowboy was trying to charm Muriel out of her farm, or maybe her life savings?

  “So when will I be meeting your cowboy?” she asked.

  “Oh, he’s bound to show up sometime soon. He’s about your age, dear, and—oh, my stars—what a man! Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark, curly hair and deep brown eyes . . .” Muriel sighed. “I can’t imagine why he’s not married. Goodness, if I were fifty years younger, I’d go after him myself!”

  “Aunt Muriel!” Kylie was mildly shocked.

  “Don’t look at me like that, girl! I may be old, but I’ve got eyes in my head. I appreciate a handsome man as much as the next woman, even if all I can do is look. And, believe me, that cowboy is an eyeful!” Muriel tilted her head, giving Kylie a glimpse of the spritely young woman she’d once been—a woman who’d devoted half a lifetime to caring for her invalid father, passing up any chance she might’ve had to marry.

  “Now, with you it’s different,” she said. “A pretty thing like you could do a lot more than look if you set your mind to it.”

  “Forget that.” Kylie put the broom back in the corner and began gathering ingredients for a new batch of cookies. “I’ve got my hands full with two growing children who miss their dad. The last thing I need is a new man in my life—especially some cowboy who goes roaring by on a noisy old motorcycle.”

  “Well, dear, you won’t be hearing that noise much longer. He puts the motorcycle away once it starts snowing—and the weatherman on TV is predicting a big storm this weekend. An honest-to-goodness blue norther!”

  “What?” Kylie’s gaze flew to the window with its view of dull gray skies and vast sweeps of yellow grass. This part of the high Texas plain di
dn’t get much snow. But storms had been known to happen here—the locals called them “blue northers” because they blew in from the north, and the cold air they left in their wake could turn a body blue. Kylie remembered a few times from her girlhood when blizzards had closed roads and schools and stranded livestock in the fields. This was no time to be low on supplies, especially with children in the house and Christmas around the corner. The cookies would have to wait while she made a run to town.

  Brushing a dab of flour off her blouse, she slipped on a fleece jacket and grabbed her purse off the counter. “We’ll need to stock up before the storm gets here,” she said. “I’ll pick up the makings of Christmas dinner. Oh—and we’ll be wanting a Christmas tree. Does Hank Miller still sell them in that lot next to his feed store?”

  “He does. But you might have to take leftovers. He’ll be out of the nicer trees by now.”

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “No, dearie. Just get whatever you and the children will like. You know, it’s a shame you didn’t get here last week. The town had its little Christmas parade, complete with Santa in his sleigh and the high-school marching band. Abner Jenkins is still playing Santa—he’s perfect for the job, doesn’t even need any padding in his suit. Of course, with no snow, the sleigh had to be pulled on a trailer by those big draft horses of Abner’s, but it was still a nice way to get into the holiday spirit.”

  The old woman turned away, then paused. “Oh, and you would have loved the Cowboy Christmas Ball last Saturday night. It’s like something right out of the Old West. The men wear cowboy gear, the ladies wear long skirts. We always have a live band, and the food . . . oh, my!” She gave Kylie a wink. “There’s many a romance that started at that dance. Too bad the next one’s a year away.”

  “I do believe I can wait.” Kylie fumbled in her purse for her keys.

  Muriel walked into the living room, turned on her favorite soap opera, and settled in the rocker with the gray wool sock she was knitting. The click of her needles blended with the sounds of the TV as Kylie stepped outside and closed the door.

  The December air was calm but chilly. The smell and taste of coming snow awakened memories from Kylie’s childhood. Her family had lived in town then, and her father had taught math at the high school. Now her parents, like Brad, were gone, lost in a tragic car accident ten years ago. She was alone with no close family except her children and her great-aunt, Muriel.

  Hunter and Amy had gone outside after lunch. As she rounded the house, Kylie could see them sitting on the corral fence, both of them hunched over their phones, most likely playing games or texting the friends they’d left behind in California.

  Kylie waved to catch their attention. “Anybody up for a trip to town?” she called.

  Hunter glanced up, shook his head, and returned to his phone. One day the boy would look a lot like his stocky, sandy-haired father. He might even have Brad’s easy smile and outgoing charm. But right now, he was going through a rough time, and being thirteen didn’t make it any easier. After Brad’s death, Hunter had withdrawn into a shell. With the move from California, that shell had all but closed around him.

  “How about you, Amy?” Kylie asked her eleven-year-old daughter.

  “Get real, Mom! We just spent four days from hell in that car! Anyway, there’s no place to hang out in town, not even a mall. It’s boring, boring, boring! I hate it here!”

  Amy, blond and pretty, was dealing with the changes in her own way. She’d always been a thoughtful, tenderhearted child. Was this onset of brattiness an attempt to hide her feelings, or was she just moving into her teen years a little early?

  Never mind, Kylie told herself. She needed a break, and her children would be fine here without her. She could see Henry over by the barn, staying close enough to keep an eye on them without getting in their faces. A good man, Henry Samuels. He’d been working on this little farm for as long as Kylie could remember. She knew she could count on him.

  Only as she settled into the driver’s seat and started the station wagon did Kylie realize how tired she was. For the past nineteen months, since Brad’s death, she’d done her best to put a brave face on things—dealing with her own grief and the children’s, struggling to make ends meet on her widow’s benefit, looking for a job and failing to find one, packing the station wagon and driving two grumpy youngsters all the way from California to Texas.

  Right now, all she wanted was to crawl into a warm, safe bed, burrow under the quilts, and then sleep around the clock. But she couldn’t even think about resting—not with Christmas almost here and so much to be done.

  At least she wouldn’t have to shop for gifts. She’d ordered everything online from a company that guaranteed Christmas delivery. Since she’d used Muriel’s address, the packages should be arriving any day now. She had sweaters, computer games, and new phones for the children, as well as a warm cashmere shawl for Muriel and new leather gloves for Henry.

  The seven-mile road to town cut a straight line across flat pastureland, dotted here and there with clustered trees and buildings that marked farms or small ranches. Beef cattle, more black Anguses these days than the red-coated Herefords Kylie remembered, grazed in the fields. Aside from that, not much appeared to have changed. Driving down Main Street, on her way to Aunt Muriel’s, she’d noticed the new strip mall with a supermarket, a craft shop, and a chain pizza parlor. But the bones of the town—the schools, churches, and modest homes—were much the same as when she’d left for college, where she’d met Brad and married him at nineteen.

  But just because she’d come home didn’t mean she had to live in the past. Turning on the car radio, she fiddled with the dial until she found the only clear station, which played country-music oldies—one more thing that hadn’t changed.

  Hank Miller’s feed store was on the way into town. She would buy the Christmas tree first. If it wouldn’t fit in the back of the station wagon, maybe Hank could tie it on the top. She’d wanted a nice, fresh bushy pine, but she would settle for whatever she could get. When she’d packed for the move, she’d boxed the precious decorations that went back to the children’s babyhood, one for each year of their lives. Putting them on the tree again would make Aunt Muriel’s two-story clapboard house seem more like home.

  Singing along with Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” she pulled up to the tree lot.

  The song died in her throat.

  The makeshift fence was still rigged around the tree lot. Pine needles and a few broken branches littered the ground. Aside from that, the lot was empty. A sign on one of the posts read, SOLD OUT.

  Kylie struggled to ignore the dark knot in her stomach. She couldn’t just give up. The tree was too important. Maybe the market would have a few. They might be more expensive, but she was desperate enough to pay any price.

  Still hopeful, she pulled into the crowded Shop Mart parking lot. The place was busy this afternoon—most likely with folks stocking up for the storm or buying extra food for Christmas. Kylie drove along the rows of parked cars, SUVs, and pickups, looking for an empty spot. Every space was filled. But on her second time through, she saw a woman loading groceries into the back of a van. With impatient drivers honking behind her, Kylie waited. When the van pulled out, she swung into the parking place. So far, so good. She grabbed her purse and climbed out of the station wagon. Maybe luck would be with her this time.

  But she saw no Christmas trees in front of the store. If they’d ever been here, they were gone. As a last resort, Kylie asked a clerk about boxed artificial trees. There were none. For a moment, she weighed the wisdom of driving to the next big town, sixty miles to the north. But there was no guarantee she’d find a tree there, either. And with the sky already darkening, she didn’t want to be caught on the road when the storm swept in.

  At least the store had plenty of provisions. Kylie found a hickory-smoked ham and some potatoes and carrots to save for Christmas dinner. She also stocked up on the children’s favorite cereals a
nd the mac-and-cheese mix they liked. They’d need all the basics—including milk, eggs, butter, sugar, juice, bread, pancake mix, syrup, and bacon, as well as tuna, mayonnaise, lettuce, and pickles for sandwiches. As an afterthought, she slipped some Christmas candy and small trinkets in with the essentials. Aunt Muriel had offered free rent, but that didn’t include free groceries. Kylie would provide the food, and she planned to do most of the cooking—if she could figure out that blasted stove.

  With her cart piled high, she headed for checkout. The efficient cashier was too young to remember her. All to the good. Kylie wasn’t in the mood to chat about the old days. All she wanted was to get out of here and get home. Maybe Henry or Muriel would have some idea where to get a tree.

  By the time she’d loaded the back of the station wagon, a line of cars had formed behind the pickup driver who’d stopped to wait for her parking place. Horns were honking; tempers were flaring. Kylie did her best to hurry as she shut the tailgate and piled into the driver’s seat. Only as she shifted into reverse and checked the side mirror did she see the problem. The pickup driver, a flustered-looking old man, had gone a few inches too far before stopping. If she backed straight out, her wagon would hit his front bumper.

  With vehicles jammed in close behind him, there was no room for the old man to back up. The sensible thing would have been for him to drive ahead and give the spot to the next car. But either he hadn’t thought of that or he wasn’t willing to give up. He sat there with his hands on the wheel and his jaw set in a stubborn line.

  The honking had risen to a clamoring din. Kylie willed herself to stay calm. Maybe if she swung the wagon’s rear end hard to the right, she could back out of the parking space without hitting the truck.

  Twisting the steering wheel, she eased down on the gas pedal. Hallelujah, it was working! The wagon inched backward, missing the truck’s bumper by a finger’s breadth. Sweating beneath her fleece jacket, she pulled out of the parking place. But she was still in trouble. Her vehicle was cross-blocking the way between two rows of parked cars. To get clear, she would need to make a sharp quarter-turn, and there was barely any room.