Merry Cowboy Christmas Read online

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  In memory of my grandfather,

  Herman Gray.

  Thank you for all the sweet memories and for your faith in me.

  Dear Readers,

  Sometimes a couple of characters come along who just steal an author’s heart. Jud and Fiona were like that for me. I loved Allie and Blake in Wild Cowboy Ways—who doesn’t love a wild cowboy with no intentions of being tamed? And I adored Lizzy and Toby—starting backward sometimes does have its reward. But Fiona, with her wanting to belong, and Jud, with his determination to put down roots, combined with all the magic of the Christmas spirit—it was a story I loved telling. I have to admit, they've become my favorite holiday couple.

  As always, there are many people who help me take a book from a two-paragraph idea all the way to the book in your hands. To those I owe my deepest gratitude. First I’m taking a deep bow to my editor, Leah Hultenschmidt. And then another one to the team at Forever—from cover guru Elizabeth Turner to marketing expert Jodi Rosoff and publicist extraordinaire Fareeda Bullert. And one more to Bob Levine and Raylan Davis from the sales team. I’m so blessed to have all these fabulous folks working on my team! Now that my head is dizzy from bobbing up and down, I’ll simply raise a cup of coffee to toast everyone at Grand Central. You are all totally amazing and I’m honored to be working with you.

  A curtsey to my agent, Erin Niumata, and my agency, Folio Management, Inc., for continuing to support me. And my thanks as well as my love to Mr. B, the man I’ve been married to for half a century. He’s always ready to drop whatever he’s doing and take a road trip with me to see the places that I write about. And to my readers, hugs to you all for being the best fans in the whole world.

  ’Tis the season right now to be jolly, so enjoy your visit in Dry Creek, Texas, over the holiday as you read Merry Cowboy Christmas.

  Here’s wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas.

  Until next time,

  Carolyn Brown

  Chapter One

  Jud Dawson tapped the brakes and slid a few feet before his big black truck came to a stop. The rusted out old bucket of bolts he’d been following on the slick road wasn’t quite so lucky, though. It kept going right through a barbed wire fence, taking out two steel posts before it finally came to a halt, kissing a big scrub oak tree about fifteen feet from the fence line.

  Jud had barely scrambled from the cab of his truck to see if the driver was unhurt when a redheaded woman dressed in tight jeans, boots, and a sweater hopped out of the truck, kicked the shit out of her blown-out tire, and tangled both her fists in her hair in anger.

  “Are you okay?” he yelled as he ran toward her, phone in hand ready to call 911 if he needed to.

  “Hell no! My truck is a wreck. I’m going to be late to dinner and I’m so mad I could spit tacks.” She shook her fist at the gray skies. “Damn tires only needed to run for another half a mile. Since when does this part of Texas get snow in November? I should thank you, but I’m too mad to be polite right this second.”

  “I can take you wherever you need to go,” Jud offered.

  She stopped ranting and shivered. “Do you know where Audrey’s Place is?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, that’s actually where I was headed. You must be…”

  He hesitated, trying to remember her name. Faith. Fancy. Something that started with an F, or was it a V? If she was headed to Audrey’s, then she had to be the youngest Logan sister, the married one from Houston who everyone said was giving Midas a run when it came to money. So what the hell was she doing driving a ratty old truck?

  “I’m Fiona Logan, and I do thank you for stopping and for offering. Let me just get my stuff. The suitcase and box can wait,” she said.

  Evidently she’d decided he wasn’t an ax murderer or a crazy ex-con because she smiled. “Just so you know”—she opened the passenger door of the truck and fished around in the glove compartment—“I do carry a weapon and I have a concealed permit and I can take the eyes out of a rattlesnake at twenty yards.”

  Damn, but she was cute with that curly red hair, a faint sprinkling of freckles across a pert little nose and all those curves. “Pleased to meet you, Fiona Logan. Good thing I’m not a rattlesnake.” Jud grinned. “I’m Jud Dawson, co-owner of the Lucky Penny.”

  “You’re Blake and Toby’s cousin?” she asked as she shook his hand.

  “Yup, and turns out I’m staying at Audrey’s. Your mama didn’t want me to live in the travel trailer with winter coming on.”

  Jud removed an expensive monogrammed suitcase from the passenger seat. It looked as out of place in that old vehicle as a cowboy at an opera.

  She nodded toward the fence. “Sorry about the damage to your property.”

  “I’m just glad you’re safe. And I’m sure your family will be eager to see you,” he said as he hefted her suitcase into his truck. “What did you pack in this thing? Rocks?”

  “Everything I could. What wouldn’t fit in there is in the box.”

  “Lot to bring home for a four-day holiday,” he said.

  She ignored his remark with a shrug and a shiver.

  He whipped off his Sherpa-lined leather coat and handed it to her. “Why don’t you get inside the truck and warm up. This will only take a minute.”

  The box was only slightly lighter than that monster suitcase. As Jud was walking away from her vehicle, he heard a hiss and turned back to see steam escaping from under the hood. Either the steel fence post had punctured the radiator or barbed wire had ripped away hoses and belts.

  He shoved the box into the backseat beside the suitcase and slammed the door, circled around the front of the truck, and crawled inside. “Looks like you’ve made your last voyage in that thing.” He started the engine and eased down on the gas. Ice and gravel crunched under the truck’s tires as he slowly inched along at ten miles per hour.

  “I was hoping that it would get me all the way home.”

  “At least it got you pretty close.” He stole a glance at her. A little shorter than either of her sisters, she was definitely built with curves in all the right places. She sat ramrod straight in the seat in a no-nonsense, take-control posture, but her dark green eyes and the way she kept biting at her lower lip said that Fiona Logan wasn’t real sure of herself that Thanksgiving.

  Her obvious insecurity didn’t jive with the stories he’d been told about the third Logan sister, either. It was shaping up to be an interesting day.

  “So what are you doing out on these roads today?” she asked.

  “I was sent on an errand. It appears that giblet gravy cannot be made until there is a can of evaporated milk in the house and since Thanksgiving dinner can’t be put upon the table unless there is giblet gravy, someone had to go for milk,” he drawled.

  She nodded and became even more nervous when the old brothel known as Audrey’s Place came into view.

  So this was Jud, Fiona thought, the cowboy in the Dawson family that everyone said was the lucky one. His blond hair was a little shaggy, hanging down to the collar of his pearl-snap shirt. An errant strand or two peeked out from under his black cowboy hat and inche
d down his forehead toward his dark chocolate brown eyes. His face would make a sculptor swoon with all those perfect planes and contours, and his hard, muscular body could turn a holy woman into a hooker.

  She was glad that he’d been close by when that damn tire blew out. But sitting with him in the truck, traveling at a snail’s pace? The air in the black crew-cab truck was way too thin. She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly and was glad it was only half a mile to her home because his coat around her shoulders suddenly made her hotter than blue blazes.

  That he didn’t seem to be in a hurry was fine with her. She needed a few minutes to get a grip on her nerves and her racing heart before she arrived. It couldn’t be Jud Dawson with the sexy eyes and dreamy body causing her to sweat in the middle of a damn blizzard. It was the fact that she was back in Dry Creek, starting all over from scratch. But when she no longer had money for groceries and rent, she realized she had two choices: either go home or go homeless. And the former, even though she’d have to eat her pride, was better than living in a cardboard box and eating from Dumpsters.

  Jud parked beside another big fancy truck and she sat there, staring at the house. She wanted to go in and surprise her family, so why couldn’t she make herself open the damn door? Lights shining out through the windows threw rays of yellow onto the snow-covered yard and beckoned her to come on inside where there was comfort and unconditional love. First, she needed something, anything, to calm her shaky nerves. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap and waited.

  “You going to get out or sit here and watch it snow all day?” Jud asked.

  She frowned, a smartass remark on her lips. But that little voice inside her head reminded her that Jud had been kind enough to help her out.

  “Thank you for helping me but don’t rush me.” She swung the truck door open, stepped out into the blowing snow, and grabbed the suitcase from the backseat. With the driving force of a north wind behind it, the snowflakes felt more like hard sleet pellets when they hit her face, so she walked a little faster, the suitcase thumping along like a miniature snowplow all the way to the porch, where she tugged it up the three steps with both hands. She opened the storm door and hesitated.

  “Go on inside and I’ll bring the suitcase and the box,” Jud said.

  He was right behind her, box in hand, with two cans of milk sitting on the top.

  She’d vowed she’d never come back to Dry Creek for anything more than a visit. Why would she have to? She’d gotten a fantastic job with a law firm in Houston when she graduated college. Married the son of the firm’s senior partner a year later. Her family had no idea he’d divorced her last year and made sure her name was ruined when it came to getting another job. She’d worked at a coffee shop until a week ago when the whole business closed down. Now she was back home. A failure.

  “You’ll freeze if you don’t go inside,” Jud said. “Besides, this damn box is heavy and this milk is going to freeze.”

  She looked over her shoulder. His warm smile melted a few snowflakes but didn’t do jack shit when it came to easing her nerves. She took a deep breath, wiped away a tear she hoped he didn’t see, and slung open the door.

  “Fiona!! Oh. My. God! Allie! Mama! Fiona is home.” Lizzy squealed and turned into a bright red blur as she ran from the kitchen. Fiona’s eyes barely had time to focus before she was engulfed in a hug that came close to knocking her square on her butt right there in the foyer. Before she could move, her mother and Allie were both there and it became a big group hug that kept them all steady and on their feet.

  “Surprise,” she said weakly.

  Jud stood inside the door, that wickedly sexy smile on his face as if he were Santa Claus and had just shimmied down the chimney with a big bag of toys. She frowned at him but he didn’t budge.

  “Jud, where’s the milk?” A tall dark-haired cowboy carrying a pink bundle stepped from the kitchen out into the foyer.

  “Right here along with the store keys.” He headed to the kitchen with both in his hand.

  Sweet Jesus!

  He’d told her that he lived at Audrey’s and that he was Jud Dawson, but it didn’t sink in for Fiona until that moment that she would be sharing a house with him.

  Chapter Two

  When everyone was seated around the table, Katy bowed her head and gave thanks. Fiona’s hands got clammy and she felt so faint that she popped her eyes wide open to keep from falling off her chair. The food was going to be stone cold if Katy didn’t stop thanking God for everything under the sun pretty soon, so Fiona swiped a hot roll from the bowl right in front of her, hid it in her lap, and ate two bites. She felt the touch of a hand sneaking across her thigh and pinching a corner of her bread and glanced toward Deke, the lifelong friend of the Logan family who had eaten Thanksgiving dinner with them for years. He popped a chunk of her hot roll into his mouth without even opening his eyes.

  Then a hand brushed her thigh from the other side and suddenly half the roll disappeared. When she looked up into Jud’s brown eyes, he’d already stuffed it into his mouth. Sparks danced around the room like embers from an open fire but Fiona chalked them up to being so damned hungry. Nothing had ever tasted as good to her as that hot bread fresh from her mother’s oven. Maybe she’d been a fool to ever leave Dry Creek in the first place.

  Finally, Katy finished the grace and handed the carving knife to Deke. Fiona had forgotten just how tall he was until he stood up. He looked down at her and one of his pretty hazel eyes slid shut in a wicked wink. Like she remembered, his sandy brown hair needed to be cut and his upper arms were almost as big as her waist. Deke was a couple of years younger than Fiona and had grown up right down the road. He was in and out of their house all the time. Nowadays he was Allie’s right-hand man.

  She held up her plate for a thick slice of turkey and glanced across the table at her sister, Allie. Pretty Alora Raine, with her long dark hair and those dark eyes, had learned the carpentry business from their father. She’d married young the first time, and Fiona could have told her it wouldn’t work. But in those days she was just the sixteen-year-old younger sister, so what did she know?

  Allie sent the mashed potatoes around the table. “I still can’t believe you are home, Fiona. Having you here makes it special.”

  “Yes, it does.” Allie’s husband, Blake, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. He’d stolen Allie’s heart almost a year ago, and seeing them together, there was no doubt that Allie had gotten the right man this time around.

  “You might not think it’s so special when you have to fix your fence,” Fiona said. “I had a blowout and plowed right through the barbed wire.”

  “But”—Jud handed off the bowl of green beans to Katy—“no one was hurt and there are no cattle in that pasture, so we don’t have to rush out there and fix it right now.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay? Did you walk the rest of the way? Why didn’t you call us to come help you?” Lizzy spit out questions faster than bullets coming from an assault rifle.

  Fiona held up a finger and finished chewing a bite of turkey.

  Lizzy, the middle gorgeous sister with the height, the curves, the temper, and the fire, had been the apple of their grandfather’s eye and had inherited the family feed store business right out of high school.

  “I’m fine. I did not walk. Jud was driving right behind me and he brought me home. Are you going to hoard that giblet gravy forever, Deke?” Fiona asked.

  “He’s like that with good food. He’s even worse with dessert.” Irene giggled at the opposite end of the table from Katy.

  Fiona’s heart went out to her grandmother. Before the family had sat down, Katy had whispered to Fiona that today was a good day for her grandmother.

  Irene’s dementia had gotten worse in the past year and now she lived in a facility for people with Alzheimer’s in Wichita Falls. Today, though, she was home for the holiday and she was at least semi-lucid.

  Lipstick ran into the wrinkles around her mouth and her jet-bla
ck eyebrows penciled in a lopsided arch did not match her short, kinky gray hair. But her smile was bright and there was life in her eyes and Fiona thought she was beautiful.

  Deke handed the gravy boat to Fiona. “Go easy on that now. I like leftover sandwiches with a little of that poured between the turkey and dressing.”

  Fiona nudged him with an elbow. “I bet you had a big breakfast. All I had was a stale cheese cracker. Besides, you are not my boss, right, Granny?”

  “No, but I am. And cheese crackers are not a decent breakfast.” Irene pointed a long skinny finger at Fiona. “You might as well eat sawdust. I taught you better than that. I bet you ain’t been eatin’ right since you left. You’re too skinny, isn’t she, Jud?”

  Fiona raised an eyebrow at the sexy cowboy beside her.

  “Man, I wouldn’t touch that question with a ten-foot pole,” Toby chuckled.

  Lizzy put a piping hot yeast roll on her plate and sent the last item around the table. “Me neither. Darlin’, you’d better have two rolls right to start with.” She set a couple of rolls on the edge of his plate. “We might need to get you some sideboards.”

  “Maybe,” Toby said.

  Slightly taller than his brother, Blake, Toby looked at his wife sitting beside him, his blue eyes twinkling. Yes, they were every bit as in love as Blake and Allie. Brothers had married sisters. That made any of their children double cousins to Allie’s new baby, Audrey, who had inherited Fiona’s red hair.

  “Back to the ten-foot pole,” Fiona said.

  “She is too skinny, isn’t she, Jud?” Irene shot a look down the table at the newest Dawson cowboy, who’d come to the Lucky Penny a few weeks ago.

  “I believe that Miz Fiona looks real pretty today and so do you, Miz Irene. That blue shirt brings out your eyes. Would you like some more cranberry sauce, darlin’?” Jud asked.

  “You be careful around that one, Fiona. He’s a slick talker for sure,” Irene said, and went back to eating.