Suzannah Davis - A Christmas Cowboy

She paused before the garage door, chewing her lip, a small frown pleating her brow. “Yes, I could do that.”

“Hey, we’ll cut a tree, string popcorn. It’ll be straight out of Norman Rockwell.”

Marisa gave a shaky smile, bemused by the picture he was painting. “It’s a solution, but this doesn’t seem quite up your alley, Mahoney. What’s the catch?”

On the point of pushing open the door, Mac sobered. He was amazing himself with this cracked idea, but what the hell! He did feel partly responsible for ruining Nicky’s Christmas. And there was that memory of the Tonka dragline. Slowly he offered Marisa his hand. “No catch. Just a Christmas cease-fire. For the kid’s sake.”

She studied his face for a long moment, her expression mingling distrust, uncertainty and hope. Then, wordlessly, she placed her hand in his. Squeezing her fingers, Mac pulled her into the shelter of his body, and they prepared to cross the stormy, snowswept wasteland together.

Mac sprawled on the sofa, full of Marisa’s tasty stew and pleasantly tired from splitting firewood. The unfamiliar sensation of peace and a strange contentment made his eyelids droop as he inspected the pair seated cross-legged in front of the hearth. Their fair heads bent over their work, Marisa and Nicky sat surrounded by a growing mountain of colorful paper chains. The Christmas cease-fire—fought to a diplomatic solution within the confines of a frigid garage only hours ago—appeared in full force. Mac wondered how long it would last.

“This’ll be just like the pioneers’ Christmas trees, huh, Mommy?”

Busy with tape and scissors, Marisa nodded. “Absolutely. Homemade decorations are really the prettiest. And we can string some popcorn and bake sugar cookies to hang, too.”

“Are we really going to cut down our tree right out of the woods, Mac?”

“Sure thing, Tex.”

Bobbing to his feet, Nicky leaned on the sofa arm, his eyes bright with eagerness. “When? Now?”

Mac chuckled. “Could we wait until the wind dies down a bit? I just got warm again.”

“You’re a good chopper. Mommy said so.”

“It’s nice to be appreciated.” Mac’s tone was dry. His gaze caressed the supple curve of Marisa’s back, and she stiffened as though he’d actually touched her under her sweater.

“We’ve got lots to do before we’re ready for the actual tree, Nicky,” she said, rising with a rainbow of paper chains in her arms. She wouldn’t meet Mac’s eyes. “I’ll put these up and get started on that cookie dough, okay?”

“Can Mac help us make ‘em?”

She hesitated, looking back over her shoulder, then shrugged. “Sure. If he wants.”

As Marisa disappeared into the kitchen, Nicky fixed Mac with his bright blue gaze. “You ever made cookies?”

“Not that I recall,” Mac admitted. Cookie baking had not been high on his mother’s list of priorities.

Laying his small hand on Mac’s muscular forearm, Nicky said kindly, “Don’t worry, it’s easy. I’ll help you.”

Deep down in a place Mac hadn’t realized still existed, something melted at the boy’s generous spirit. Small wonder Marisa was so proud of the kid. Mac tousled Nicky’s hair. “Thanks, partner. I’ll count on it.”

“Mac...” Nicky chewed his lip, looking uncertain.

Cocking an eyebrow, Mac gathered the boy to his side. “Something eating you, cowpoke?”

“Mommy ‘splained about getting stuck in the snow, and how Santa Claus might have trouble finding us and all, and that’s okay—I’m a big boy—but...”

“But what?”

“But I forgot the Christmas present Gwen helped me pick out at home, and now I don’t have nothing to give Mommy!” Nicky finished in a rush.

“She’ll understand—”

“No, I gotta give her a present. I gotta!”

Feeling helpless, Mac lifted the agitated child onto his lap and tried to soothe him. “Well, we’ll just have to think about that, won’t we?”

“I’ve thought and thought,” Nicky said in a mournful voice. “I could build her a box to keep things in, but she won’t let me have a hammer.”

“Smart mommy,” Mac muttered. But Nicky looked so doleful Mac knew he couldn’t let it go at that. “I wonder...does she still like fancy earrings?”

“Uh-huh. How’d you know?”

Mac shifted uncomfortably. “I, uh, your mom and I were good friends a long time ago. First time I saw her, she was wearing these weird earrings that looked like giant comets.”

“Now she’s even got some that have snakes on them! They’re cool.”

Mac looked down into the boy’s expectant face. “That’s the answer then. I saw some fine wire out in the garage. We’ll make some hooks and then glue something interesting on them like feathers or baby pinecones. We’ll keep it a secret and she’ll really be surprised.”

A skeptical frown pleated Nicky’s brow. “I don’t know.”

“Trust me, she’ll love them. Especially if they come from you.”

Satisfied, Nicky settled more comfortably against Mac’s chest, prattling on about what odds and ends he might find for the planned earrings. Mac hardly heard him. His own unthinking reassurance had caused something painful to resonate in his memory and the past rose to taunt him.

* * *

The beach had been their magic place in those early days, where they basked in the sun, the gulls crying overhead, and felt the cool silk of the water and the harsh grit of the warm sand against their bodies. And he was teasing her, laughing at her mock complaints.

“I hate my mouth,” she’d said.

“I love your mouth.”

“It’s too big.”

“It’s just right.”

“My nose is too small.”

“Your nose is perfect.”

“And my eyes...”

He’d growled, “What about your gorgeous eyes?”

“They’re just plain old blue!”

“And you’re plainly fishing for a compliment! So why don’t you try catching this instead?”

He’d tossed the box into her lap and flopped down on the towel beside her, an arm thrown over his face to show how unconcerned he was. But it was a sham, for he’d been tense with expectancy and doing his damnedest not to show it.

“What is it?” she asked, dusting sand from her legs.

“Open it and see.”

He heard her peeling away the brown paper wrapping and her swift indrawn breath. “Oh, Mac, they’re lovely.”

Taking a chance, he glanced at the dainty set of earrings made from a pair of Bolivian pesos left over from his last foreign assignment, and then up into her face. The pleasure he saw reflected there made him relax again. “Yeah, well, I owed you, right? For making you lose that earring the other night.”

She blushed at the reminder of the passionate encounter that had left them both breathless and her minus a lot more than mere jewelry. And they never found the missing earring, even though he searched the interior of his old Buick for a long time. But she was fair. “That wasn’t all your fault. Besides, I lose them all the time!”

He rose up on an elbow, squinting up at her, his belly tightening at the sight of her slenderness in her minuscule bikini. “Well, they’re nothing much—”

Marisa touched his mouth with her index finger to silence his excuses. He was sensitive about her affluent background and the fact that his mother had raised him alone on just a waitress’s earnings. And a struggling reporter’s salary—even if he’d landed a teaching position for a semester—didn’t run to expensive gifts. He was casually offhand because down deep he feared she’d find him somehow lacking, that a girl who’d had all of wealth’s advantages would realize she had made a terrible mistake falling for a guy from his street-tough background. But he underestimated her intuitive understanding of him.