Christmas in Cowboy Country Read online

  The women planned the excursion on Annie’s smartphone as they headed for the checkout register, the little girls beeping all the way.

  A day later, Annie found herself shepherding Jenny and Zoe through the lobby of the theater as they discussed the plot of the movie they’d just seen.

  There wasn’t much to it. A dastardly villain planned to steal all the lollipops in the world, but a gang of plucky kids stopped him in time, for a happy ending with candy for all. But they’d enjoyed it.

  Jenny turned to her. “Did you go to the movies when you were little, Annie?”

  “Sure. Lots of times. I used to wish I had a sister to go with because I had to sit next to my brothers. They didn’t behave very well. You two were great.”

  “Thanks for taking us,” Jenny said politely.

  “My pleasure.”

  The girls stopped to peer at the candy under the glass counter, but Annie steered them away.

  “What’s next for you two?” she asked as a distraction. “Are you ready for the holidays?”

  She was surprised that they didn’t launch into a breathless discussion of their Christmas lists or talk about how they couldn’t wait for Santa. Jenny didn’t even answer. Her baby sister took the lead.

  “We want to see our mommy,” Zoe mumbled.

  “She’s coming back,” Annie reassured her.

  “Sometimes we talk to her on Aunt Cilla’s computer,” Jenny said. “It’s nice to see her face, but it’s not the same.”

  Annie reached down and took their hands. “I know what you mean. We’re doing that with my brothers this year. They can’t be with us for Thanksgiving, so a computer is the next best thing.”

  “Is Mommy really coming back, Annie?” The younger girl looked up anxiously.

  “Of course she is.” Annie smiled. “Don’t you worry.”

  “It’s going to be just you and me, pal.” Marshall spoke to Rowdy, who jumped out of the dog bed at the sound of a grocery bag being unpacked and came over to the cabin’s kitchenette.

  The dog’s bright eyes tracked the items as they were removed. There was half of a precooked turkey breast encased in clear plastic. A can of cranberry sauce. A box of seasoned dry stuffing. Ajar of gravy. A frozen pie. Marshall put that and the turkey into the small refrigerator. With the basics, there was something green in the crisper to microwave and throw on the plate.

  “Don’t look so eager. What if I screw this up?”

  The dog barked once and grinned, as if it knew for sure that such a brilliant, warm-hearted guy couldn’t possibly screw anything up.

  Marshall went into his gear bag and pulled out a laptop. “There’s gotta be a football game on somewhere.” Rowdy wagged his tail.

  Up here in the high country, he couldn’t download the movie of his choice—he was thinking fistfights with robot combatants up against a heroine in a slinky outfit. Everything else on offer around Thanksgiving seemed to be mostly heartwarming fare. Bad enough he had to celebrate by himself.

  It’d been a long time since he’d celebrated the holiday with anyone. Since his parents had passed away years ago, he’d gotten in the habit of saying no to kind offers to join friends and distant relatives at their festive tables, and just got through the day as best he could.

  He wondered what Annie was doing. Besides celebrating with her family, of course. What he wanted to know was if she was thinking about him. The downside to telling her not to argue with him was that she hadn’t—and she’d stayed away. He hadn’t found out anything about the potential prowler. His contact at the police department said there’d been no break-ins or any other criminal activity anywhere in Velde. According to the officer, the little town was the same as always—peaceful and prosperous—and the inhabitants were going about their business just as usual and preparing for the Christmas season.

  So maybe he should take on Annie as his assistant. Except that would involve telling her who he actually was and what the investigation was all about. Forget it. She would drive him crazy in minutes and it had taken him months to get this far.

  Marshall scrolled through the sports networks that were available and found something worth watching.

  Rowdy looked longingly at the packaged foods on the counter, then settled down beside his new master on the floor.

  The Bennetts’ table was swathed in deep red damask and sparkling with the good china and crystal. Then there was the food.

  “I made too much,” Lou fretted, finding room for a bowl of cranberry-orange relish between a platter heaped with stuffing and the gravy boat.

  “Don’t say that, darling.” Tyrell was beaming with anticipation. “I bet I can eat about half of everything here. You and Annie outdid yourselves. Now sit down and let’s say grace.”

  They bowed their heads. Their three voices were joined by four others as they all murmured the familiar words of blessing. Smiling, the Bennetts paused for a few moments before serving up the feast.

  Tyrell turned to the open laptop at his side, offering a slice of turkey to the man on the screen. “White meat or dark, Sam?”

  His oldest son held up a well-browned drumstick in answer. “I’m good. Working on this.”

  “Looks good.”

  Lou peered at the screen. “Are you all there? Can you hear me?”

  There was a chorus of yeses from Sam and Nicole in Chicago, and Zach and Paula, patched in from somewhere in Oregon.

  “Well then,” the patriarch said. “Let’s eat.”

  “So how was your Thanksgiving?” Dr. Bert Lyon slipped Annie’s latest X-ray into the viewer. The overhead light of the examining room made his gray hair look almost as white as his office coat. He pushed up the glasses that rested on his beaky nose and studied the ghostly image.

  “It was really nice. We didn’t do anything special, though.”

  “Sometimes those are the best holidays.” He tapped the X-ray. “You’re making progress.”

  She would have cheered, if not for the expression on the orthopedist’s face when he turned to her. She didn’t see the usual twinkle in his eye, which was familiar to every Velde kid who’d ever fallen out of a tree or slipped on the ice.

  “But I wouldn’t say the bone is one hundred percent healed,” he added.

  Annie groaned theatrically. “Aarrgh. Will it ever be?”

  “Yes. You’ve got to give it a little more time, that’s all.”

  “I suppose I don’t really have a choice.”

  “Be patient. Now let’s have a look at that leg.”

  She rolled up one leg of her sweatpants and pushed down her sock when he settled himself on a wheeled stool and rolled over to the examining table.

  Dr. Lyon asked her to flex her foot as he ran his hand over her calf. “You haven’t lost much muscle. That’s a plus. Do you think you can stay off the slopes until January?”

  Annie made a face. “If you say I have to, then I can.”

  The orthopedist pushed away from the table and rolled toward the low counter where her file was. She covered up her leg and pulled up her sock. Dr. Lyon flipped open the manila file and leafed through it.

  “Don’t take chances,” he advised. “Agreed?”

  “I won’t. But it’s going to be a long December.”

  He chuckled as he took a pen out of the pocket of his white coat and jotted down a few notes. “You’ll get through it.”

  Annie brightened as she thought of a halfway measure. “I can ride the ski lift, can’t I?”

  The town boasted a decent slope that petered out where the main street began. It wasn’t a black diamond run and no hotdogger would give it a second look, but it was popular all the same, especially with the locals. The creaky but serviceable ski lift started up when the snow did, around the end of September, and kept going until March and sometimes into April.

  Dr. Lyon peered at her over his half-glasses. “Sure. In bedroom slippers. No skis. I mean it, Annie. Your mom and dad would skin me alive if they thought I encouraged you before
it was time.”

  “I won’t ski, I promise. I was only thinking of taking a friend with me. The view from the top is great.”

  “Can’t remember the last time I saw it. Guess it hasn’t changed much.” The orthopedist took a last look at her file as he capped his pen. “You going with someone from here?” he asked absentmindedly.

  “No. He’s from Wyoming.”

  The nurse poked her head in through the door. “Dr. Lyon, your next patient is in room three.”

  That spared her any more explaining. But the doctor’s question had been routine.

  “Thanks, Gina. We’re all done here.”

  Annie slid off the table and found her boots as the doctor exited. She walked through the narrow corridor to the front reception area to make an appointment for early January.

  The first month of the new year to come seemed like a long way off, but it was only a few weeks away. Marshall Stone would be long gone by then.

  She waited until she’d left the office and was warming up her car to try and reach him. The call went straight to voice mail.

  Disappointed, Annie didn’t leave a message, deciding to send a text instead. Meet me on the mountain? She suggested a date and time and a few other details just in case he needed them.

  He texted back immediately. Can’t make it then. Some other time, okay? Thanks.

  She bit her lip. His terse reply could be interpreted in a lot of ways. Maybe he really was busy, because he’d replied to the text just a few seconds after he’d let her call go to voice mail.

  But why had he refused so quickly when she’d used the words how about so he wouldn’t have to commit to a specific date and time?

  And to think she had once been so inundated with male attention that she never analyzed phone calls or texts on a molecular level, she thought ruefully.

  The more she thought about it, the more his reply seemed like a brush-off, one she had never expected.

  And she’d been so sure, briefly, that she’d known how he felt about her. Maybe it was all in her imagination.

  Annie tapped the screen to make the text go away, silently chiding herself for trying to read between the lines of such a short message.

  She had arrived at the ranch and was parked in the driveway before she texted someone else. Darla would do.

  She could ski and Annie could—well, she could bird-watch from the top of the mountain. That was about it. She wasn’t much of a bird-watcher, but she did have binoculars somewhere. Then they could talk over coffee in the small lodge. Annie knew for sure that Lou wouldn’t be there. Her mother hated heights.

  Chapter 9

  Bundled up against the cold, Annie settled herself on the attached bench of an outdoor picnic table and took in the glorious view. The day was incredibly clear and the mountains seemed much closer at this elevation. The dark pines dominated now that the aspens were leafless, dusted with snow that also lay in deep drifts within ravines no longer hidden.

  She’d somehow forgotten that most birds went elsewhere in winter. The binoculars went back into her pocket once she’d watched Darla hurtle downhill a few times and wave from the ski lift on the way up again. Annie pulled the drawstring of her hood to tighten it around her chilly cheeks and lifted her sunglasses to see what the white world looked like without them.

  The intense sunlight made her squint. Annie put the sunglasses back in place and turned to look in a different direction.

  Velde had gotten at least two inches of snow overnight. Still, it wasn’t much for early December. Snow machines were providing an acceptable depth on the trail. But the town at the foot of the mountain sparkled.

  Annie played the game of identifying local landmarks for a while. There was Jelly Jam Café, her mother’s favorite hangout. And there was Albert’s Mercantile, where you could still buy everything from overalls to canned ravioli. And there was Nell’s saloon at the center of town.

  She took out the binoculars again to check out the decorations affixed to the old-fashioned lamp posts. There were tall candy canes tied with giant red bows on every one. She could just make out garlands of lights hanging high over the streets that would add a delicate touch of sparkle at night. Nice. It was beginning to look like Christmas. She just wished she were more in the mood for the holiday.

  With nothing to do, she peered through the binoculars. They weren’t that powerful and she was too high up to recognize any individual on the streets. But it was fun to watch everyone bustling about below.

  Her gaze moved to the outskirts of town, stopping on the new development she’d noticed before. The raw lots were visible under the light snow, rectangles of flat dirt and nothing more. No structures of any kind were in evidence, not even a construction-site trailer. Just the same winding street lined with lamp posts, which were, oddly, also adorned with candy canes and red bows, even though there wasn’t a stick of lumber in sight, let alone finished houses.

  But there was a truck parked out there. She adjusted the focus knob.

  It was a big black truck, so new that the bright light hit it like a diamond. She knew whom it belonged to.

  Marshall Stone must be inside it. Unless he’d just parked it and was walking around somewhere out of sight. She swept the field of vision with the binoculars, seeing no one. Maybe he was finishing up a survey with the gear he stashed in the cab.

  Was it a point in his favor or not that he was actually working at the time he’d told her he couldn’t make it? Yes, she decided. If he was working.

  But what could he be doing out there? The subdivision had to have been professionally surveyed before ground was broken or permits wouldn’t have been issued. The site had been parceled out with mathematical precision. The development company didn’t need a freelancer to second-guess their measurements.

  Although he didn’t freelance. Stone worked for a company he hadn’t named. Hmm.

  She peered at the truck from several angles without seeing him, but noting that his tire tracks were the only marks in the snow. After a while, she stuffed the binoculars back into her pocket. It felt weird to be spying on Stone and she didn’t want to do it.

  A muffled clomping made her turn around. Darla was approaching, wearing abominable-snowman boots that looked awful, but comfortable.

  “Hey, Annie. Whatcha doing?” she called. Her face was flushed with the exhilaration of her swift downhill runs.

  Annie fought back a pang of envy. “Soaking up the sun.”

  “You must be freezing, sitting there like a lump,” Darla said cheerfully. Darla had never been particularly tactful, but she meant well.

  “I’m a little cold,” Annie said.

  “I say we treat ourselves to hot cocoa and to hell with the calories.” Darla turned, stumbling in the huge boots but quickly righting herself with a skier’s honed sense of balance. She pushed open the sliding glass door to the lodge interior.

  Annie allowed herself one last look below. The truck was in the same place.

  They had to shed a few layers of outerwear shortly after they got inside the lodge. Darla tossed her jacket over a sofa positioned in front of a stone fireplace, and Annie did the same. Blazing birch logs were piled high and would burn for hours, radiating heat throughout the great room.

  Darla led the way when they returned with two cups of marshmallow cocoa, which Annie carried. She set hers down on the low table in front of the fireplace and gave the other to her friend.

  “Ahh.” Darla’s hands curled around her cup as she sipped it slowly. “Bliss.”

  There weren’t very many people in the lodge on a weekday and Annie was fine with that. She listened absentmindedly to Darla, getting in a soft-voiced question or comment now and then.

  Darla was as talkative as ever, but not as nosy as Annie remembered. Still, she seemed to think it was her obligation to get Annie caught up on everything and everyone in Velde.

  “So what was it like being the queen of Aspen and Vail?”

  Annie gave a low laugh. “Some que
en. I worked really hard. But I had a great time.”

  “We were wondering about you coming back home to this little town.”

  Those would be the friends Annie still kept up with online, who had scattered all over the West. Only a few had stayed on in Velde. Facebook was better than nothing, but she didn’t check her page too often. After the initial flurry of get-well wishes and concern, the news tended to be about the same and she wasn’t into posting her every thought and what she had for lunch.

  “Are you going to keep on being a ski instructor?”

  The direct question rattled her a little. “That’s what I do,” Annie answered vaguely.

  “Aspen and Vail are so pricey. I’ve been to both, but I had to stay in some funky places. Still and all, I pretty much had a blast.”

  “It’s not any less expensive when you work there.”

  “Do you think you’ll go back?”

  Annie gave herself a few seconds to respond. Even though Darla had mellowed some, she was still a talker. Annie didn’t want her plan for the future broadcast all over town. Mostly because she didn’t have one.

  More and more, she felt like one part of her life had ended and the next part had yet to begin. She didn’t know what she would do next or where she would go.

  “I haven’t decided,” she replied. That was true enough and Darla seemed content with the simple answer. She returned to her favorite subject: herself.

  Warmed by the fire and the hot drink, Annie paid minimal attention—until she heard Darla mention Marshall Stone.

  “You should check him out. What a hot guy. He’s, like, a surveyor or something.”

  “I know who you mean.” Annie’s answer was nonchalant. “He was at the town meeting. I went with my parents.”

  “Oh. I didn’t go. Too boring. But I would have showed up with bells on if I’d known he was going to be there.”

  Annie breathed an inward sigh of relief. Now she knew with absolute certainty that no one had seen her and Marshall kissing in the doorway. That was something Darla would have brought up right away.