A Christmas Cowboy

“Are you ready to tell me what really went down with you and your husband and Dr. Morris?”

Marisa spluttered in fury. “Nothing, I told you! I never heard of him until that day in Jackie Horton’s studio! Nicky’s adoption was handled by the Latimore Corporation attorneys, and it was all perfectly legal, Mr. Hotshot Reporter!”

Mac’s voice was quiet. “Then why did you run?”

“I did not—” She caught a shaky breath.

“This place wasn’t as far as you planned to go with the kid, was it? What were you thinking? Canada, maybe? Some Greek Island? Talk about parental kidnapping with a twist, jet-set-style.”

Hot color burned her cheeks, but she looked him in the eye and denied it. “Assumptions, Mahoney. You’ve got no facts, and no self-respecting journalist is going to run a story based merely on air. You used to be capable of better than this.”

“You’d do anything to protect the kid, wouldn’t you?”

“He’s my son. What do you think?”

“I think there’s a birth mother out there who’s owed some explanations.”

“Look, I feel for the women this Dr. Morris exploited, but that’s only one side of this story. There are families involved, families and lives that you’re disrupting, even destroying—hasn’t that occurred to you?”

“We find the truth, we get justice. It’s as simple as that.”

“God, it’s not!” She stood up, staring at him in sheer disbelief. “Why must it always be either black or white with you, Mac? The world has shades of gray, too.”

“All I want to do is shut down the baby mill.”

“At what cost?” she cried. “Do the ends always justify the means to you?”

“If it keeps the bastard from using other innocent women like he did the kid’s mother.”

“I’m his mother! And I’m just as innocent and undeserving of this mess that you’ve made of our lives! Can’t you for one minute see past your damned story to realize that?”

“The facts say otherwise. And you’re going to have to face up to them eventually, one way or the other.”

“I’ve told you, your facts are all wrong!” Marisa shoved him hard in the chest with both hands. “And the kid’s name is Nicholas!”

He nodded, barely rocked by her puny blow. “As in the saint, right? Which reminds me. You’ve got a problem. He thinks Santa Claus is bringing him a horse for Christmas.”

“A horse. For Christmas? That’s just—” she gulped “—four days?”

Mac nodded again.

Her expression was stricken with a horrible realization. “Oh, God. We won’t be able to drive out by then.”

He shook his head.

“Everything’s at home. All Nicky’s presents. I had everything on his list. I can’t even get to a store! I never thought...I never dreamed...” Feeling behind her, she sat down heavily on the boxes again. Her eyes filled. “Oh, no.”

Mac felt something hit him in the gut. “Hey, don’t do that.”

She wasn’t listening. A tear splashed over her lashes and trailed down her cheek. “He’s just a baby. He’ll be so disappointed. How will I explain?”

Mac was gruff. “You’ll think of something.”

“It’s all your fault.” Her eyes were indigo, swimming in liquid crystal. “If you hadn’t started this, he’d be safe at home where he belongs, sleeping in his own bed, waiting for Christmas morning. I’ll never forgive you for this, Mahoney.”

“Marisa...” He was beside her, cradling her tear-streaked face in his gloved palms, bending forward so that his forehead almost touched hers. His throat felt thick. “Lord, help me, you’re still such a baby yourself.”

“Because I believe in dreams, Mac?” She held on to his wrists, looking up at him in misery. “You never really understood, did you? You were always too much the cynic to realize that dreams are the most important things in life. Especially a little boy’s Christmas dreams.”

From deep in his memory came a vivid picture of a small dark-haired lad—Mac, himself—with his nose pressed to a store window, longing with every fiber of his six-year-old being for the magnificent red dragline with the Tonka name on its side. It was better than a dinosaur, better than a fire truck, and most certainly better than the pair of sturdy school shoes that had been the only present to appear that long-ago Christmas morning.

Mac swallowed. “That’s not true.”

Her lids dropped and more tears slid down her face. “What am I going to do?”

“Marisa, don’t.” Seeking to comfort, he nuzzled her temple, then the corner of her eye, tasted the salty essence, murmured soothing nonsense. Like a flower turning to face the sun, she raised her face to his. Mac’s gloved thumb caught at the corner of her mouth. Slowly her eyes opened and she searched his expression, wondering and wary. She did not pull away from his touch. “You’re trembling,” Mac said.

“It—it’s cold.”

“I know.” He looked at her mouth and groaned. “It’s been winter forever.” He couldn’t help himself. He had to see if her mouth was still the flavor of honey and spice. Lowering his lips to hers, he kissed her.

She tasted even better than he’d remembered—a lush, soft sweetness, intoxicating, addicting. Mac sensed the little sighing breath she gave and opened his mouth to inhale it, to breathe her. Her hands tightened on his wrists. Forgetting himself, the past, the cold, he drew his tongue along the seam of her lips and was rewarded when they parted. Deepening the kiss, he drank deep of her, making love to her with just his mouth until neither of them could bear any more and they drew apart.

Mac dropped his hands and stepped back. Dazed, Marisa touched her lips, and he watched as the light in her eyes faded and changed into a look of dismay. “That shouldn’t have happened,” she said, her voice unsteady.

“No.” Mac felt as stunned and rocky as she looked.

For a moment, neither of them could say anything else. Then Marisa stood and moved toward the door, brushing non-existent dust from her slacks. “I’ve got to get back to Nicky.”

“Marisa, wait.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, about this Christmas thing...I’ve been thinking.”

She hesitated. “Yes?”

“We’re two reasonably intelligent, imaginative people. Surely somewhere around this place we can come up with a treasure or two that would please your little cowpoke come Christmas morning—until you can get to the store-bought stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Well...” Scanning the dim interior, Mac spotted a likely item and hauled it down. “How about this sled? I could fix the runner, splash a little paint on it—there’s bound to be some paint around. And what would be more perfect for his first white Christmas?”

“You—you’d do that?”

“Sure.” He set the rickety sled aside. “And you were always pretty good with a needle. Maybe you could whip something up that would appeal to him.”

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.

Three

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.

“I love them. Especially since they come from you.” She bent and pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to wear them in public or anything—”

“Will you stop? They’re perfect!” Laughter bubbled from her throat. “And only an uncouth lout would criticize his own gift!”

Faster than a thought, Mac caught her wrists and rolled her onto her back, their legs tangling. “A lout, am I? Those are fighting words where I come from, lady!”

Lowering her lashes, she gave him a sultry smile. “You’re not so tough.”

“No?” Desire blazed at her challenge.

Marisa reached up to pull his head down. “No.”

And then Mac was kissing her, kisses salty sweet and wonderful, teaching her about herself and him, about what loving a man truly meant. They’d had so many dreams then. Damp and replete from their loving, they’d talked about them, whispering secrets in the warm California nights, then turning to each other again, so hungry, so eager to fill each other, even though in the end their dreams hadn’t been the same at all....

“I’ll take him now, Mac. Mac?”

He jumped at the sound of Marisa’s soft voice, and looked up into the azure depths of her eyes to find past and present mingling in an instant of confused arousal. Then reality returned, and she was there, reaching not for her lover, but for her son, who’d fallen sound asleep against Mac’s flannel-covered chest. “Leave him,” Mac said, his tone gruff. “He’s not hurting anything.”

“I can take him.” Though still soft, her voice took on a defensive edge. “Besides, I’m sure you aren’t comfortable.”

Bending, she scooped Nicky into her arms. Her hair brushed Mac’s cheek, and her scent, flowery and female, enveloped him. His body leapt in response, but she was already turning away to settle Nicky into a nest of blankets near the hearth to finish his nap.

Mac rose and made a job of poking at the fire, piling in new logs—anything to spare himself the embarrassment of her noticing how easily she could stir him. His involuntary response angered him. Remembered kisses were eternally golden because they were the ideal, he told himself, explaining away the moment of weakness, ignoring the fact that the kiss they’d shared that morning outshone even that unforgettable ideal like a star gone nova beside a sputtering candle.

Putting down the poker, Mac frowned into the flames, his mouth set. Marisa was dangerous, all right, and he’d better not forget it. He had learned the hard way once before, and Mac Mahoney had no intention of getting burned again, especially at the expense of the story of his career. He hadn’t missed the frightened light in Marisa’s eyes when she found him holding her son. No matter what they had shared in the past, she still saw Mac as a threat. And that told him she was hiding something.

Truce or not, sooner or later he’d find out what.

* * *

It wasn’t until the next afternoon that the storm died down enough for a Christmas tree-hunting expedition, but by that time Marisa’s nerves were so overstretched she was ready to scream. Cabin fever took on a whole new meaning when she was forced to spend it in close company with a man who despised her.

Marisa paused on the trail Mac’s boots had cut through the snow and raised hands high over her head to take a deep cleansing breath of the icy air. Leaden clouds lay low over the distant peaks, and the wind was already picking up again with the promise of more dangerous weather within the hour. In his hooded parka and with an ax slung over his broad shoulder, Mac plowed a path through the drifts toward a thicket of young firs, followed by Nicky, who looked round as a barrel in his bright red ski jacket and knit cap.