Christmas Cowboy Duet

“So why do you think you need a cherry picker way out here?” Henry asked. He looked from Liam to Mick and then to Whitney.

“Because of that,” Liam answered, pointing to one of the trees along the basin.

“That tree?” Henry asked. “Why would you— Oh.” The cherry picker’s operator stopped abruptly as he took in the entire scene and finally saw the precariously perched vehicle. He laughed shortly as he shook his head in wonder. “You people sure don’t make things easy out here, do you?”

Anxious about the condition of her sports car, Whitney cut to the chase. “Do you think you can get it down?” she asked.

“Oh, I can get it down, all right. But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be fast,” Henry warned. “And it might not even be in one piece. But I can get it down,” he reasoned.

Getting the car piecemeal wasn’t going to do her any good. “How long would it take you if you took the proper precautions to get it down in one piece?” Whitney asked.

“Won’t know until I start,” Henry answered. “I’m also going to have to have someone working with me,” he added, giving the situation further thought. “This is not a one-man job.”

“What do you need?” Liam asked.

“I need someone in the basket,” Henry said, nodding at the extreme upper part of the cherry picker. “To secure the car,” he explained. “Otherwise, the damn thing’ll just come crashing down to the ground the second we try to move it.”

“Tell me what to do,” Liam told the operator, volunteering for the job.

Henry laughed softly to himself. “The first thing you need to do is back away from the cherry picker and let me call someone on-site,” the man said seriously. “No offense—and thanks for the offer—but this’ll go a whole lot better and faster if someone with experience is doing it.”

Liam took no offense at being turned down. “I get it. But in the interest of time, I thought I’d volunteer.” And then he felt compelled to add, “Securing a car isn’t rocket science.”

“Might not be rocket science,” Henry agreed, “but one wrong move and no car, either. Hey, it don’t matter to me one way or the other, but I think this little lady might have something to say about it.” Henry’s small, deep-set brown eyes darted toward her.

Whitney was still having trouble wrapping her mind around this rather strange turn of events: first she nearly drowned, and then her vehicle was thrown into a tree. It all felt like some sort of a bizarre nightmare. A small part of Whitney thought that she’d actually wake up at any moment.

The more practical side of her, however, knew that was not about to happen. Her car really was stuck in a tree—and would remain there unless drastic measures were taken.

“Do whatever it takes,” Whitney told the machine operator.

“Yes, ma’am,” Henry replied. He was on his cell phone in less than five seconds, calling for one of the other crew members to come out. “Need a hand here, Rick,” he said to the man who had answered his call. “You’re not going to believe this,” he added with a deep chuckle. “No, I’m not going to tell you. This you’ve got to come out and see for yourself. Boss lady okayed this job,” he added in case there were any questions about priorities. Henry rattled off the same directions to Rick that he had been given earlier.

With that part of it taken care of, Liam turned his attention to Mick. “Looks like it’s going to be a while before they have the car on solid ground,” Liam told the mechanic. “Why don’t you go back to the shop? I can call you once the car’s ready to be looked over,” Liam suggested.

Mick raised his rather wide shoulders and then let them drop again in a dismissive shrug. “Ain’t got no other place to be right now,” he confessed. “Mrs. Abernathy took her old Buick last night so there’s nothing for me to work on in the shop. I might as well stay here and watch history being made,” Mick said philosophically, his eyes all but glowing with fascination as he stared up at the treed vehicle.

“Suit yourself,” Liam said. “You don’t mind if I take her to the diner to get a bite to eat, do you?” he asked, indicating Whitney. Since he was the one who had put in the call to Mick in the first place, he felt a little guilty about leaving the man here more or less on call.

“Not as long as you bring me back somethin’,” Mick qualified.

“Like what?”

Mick began to slowly circle the tree, searching for the path of least resistance. “Surprise me,” Mick answered.

Having been privy to the entire exchange, Whitney frowned—deeply. Granted there was a part of her that longed for a strong, forceful man to take charge. However, the greater part of Whitney was wary of someone usurping her control over her life and that was exactly the part that was presently balking at what Liam had just told his mechanic friend.

“What if I don’t want to go for ‘a bite’?” Whitney asked.

“I’m not about to force-feed you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Liam said, then asked, “You’re not hungry?”

She wanted to say no, she wasn’t. The problem was that she was hungry. Very.

As if to bear witness to that, her stomach suddenly rumbled—not quietly but all too loudly.

“If you’re not hungry,” Liam continued, “I think you should tell your stomach because I get the definite impression that your stomach seems to think it’s very hungry.”

She lifted one shoulder in a disinterested shrug. The jacket began to slip off and she made a grab for it, returning it to its place.

“I suppose it can’t hurt to go get something to eat,” she allowed.

“Well, maybe in some cases,” Liam told her in all honesty, “but not when it involves Miss Joan.”

Following him to where he had parked his truck, Whitney stopped walking and took hold of his elbow, turning him around to face her.

“Wait, are you taking me to someone’s house?” she asked, ready to put the skids on this venture before it got underway. She was in no mood to be friendly and exchange small talk with some stranger bearing the quaint name of “Miss Joan.” Right now, she wasn’t up to exchanging discomfort for a hot meal.

“No, we’re not going to someone’s house,” Liam assured her. “Although she’s there so much, there are times I think that the diner really could double for her home.”

Her head hurt and all these details that Liam kept tossing out were just making it that much worse. “‘She,’ who’s this ‘she’ you’re referring to?” Whitney asked.

A control freak for most of her life—she no longer saw the point in disputing her siblings’ accusations—it was hard for her to just hand over the reins to someone in matters that concerned her. But she had no idea when this person the cherry picker operator had called was going to get there. And she was hungry.

She supposed there was no harm in going along with this wandering Good Samaritan, she thought, slanting a look in Liam’s direction—at least until her car was back on solid ground.

“Miss Joan,” Liam said, answering her question. “She’s the ‘she’ I was referring to. It’s her diner.”

“Oh.”

The pieces started to fall into place, making some sort of sense. She supposed she was being too edgy. Whenever she felt the slightest bit insecure, she could be demanding, needing to know every detail of the future. This man who had rescued her—and was now trying to rescue her car—didn’t deserve to have her constantly challenging his every move.

“All right. As long as I get a call the minute my car is down and ready to go,” Whitney ordered. She was looking directly at Henry when she said it.

“You heard the lady,” Liam said, eyeing Mick. “Do me a favor and call me on my cell.”

“You got it,” Mick replied, then promised, “The second it’s down, I’ll give you a call.”

Henry nodded his agreement.

At which point Liam regarded Whitney. “Good enough?” he asked her.

It would have to be, Whitney decided.

“Let’s go,” she told Liam just as her stomach offered up another symphony of off-key, embarrassing growling noises.

Liam brought her over to his truck, opened the passenger door and stood by it, waiting for her to get in.

“Are you planning on strapping me in, too?” Whitney asked, wondering why he was just standing there like that instead of getting in on the driver’s side.

He grinned. “Just want to make sure you don’t need any help getting in,” he explained.

Buckling up, Whitney flashed him a look of irritation. “Why, do I look feeble to you? I’ve been getting into cars and sitting down rather successfully for more than a couple of decades now.”

He answered her truthfully. “You don’t look feeble but you do look pale.”

The last thing she needed was to be criticized by a cowboy.

“Good,” Whitney quipped. “I was going for a pale look,” she told him flippantly.

“Then I guess you’ve succeeded.” Liam started up his truck, then rolled down the window on his side before putting the truck into Drive. As he drove past Henry and Mick, he called out, “I’ll be back soon.”

Both men nodded in acknowledgment.

With that, Liam drove toward town.

* * *

THERE WAS SILENCE for the first few minutes of the drive. Not the comfortable kind of silence that two people who ended each other’s sentences might have slipped into, but the awkward kind of silence that became steadily deeper and more ominous as the seconds ticked into minutes, then hung around oppressively.

Enduring it for as long as possible, Liam decided that enough was enough.

“You always have this chip on your shoulder, or is this something new for you?” he asked Whitney.

“I don’t have a chip,” she informed Liam indignantly, sitting up stiffly as her entire body became completely rigid.

“Yes, you do,” Liam contradicted. “From where I’m sitting, that chip is pretty damn big and very nearly impenetrable. In case you haven’t noticed, these people are just trying to help you.”

“I noticed,” she said a bit too defensively.

Whitney paused, pressing her lips together. She was searching for a way to get her point across without sounding as if she had an ax to grind. She really didn’t; it was just that because of this setback, she had gone into overdrive. Whenever that happened, she wound up having the kind of personality that put people off. All except for the people she signed to recording contracts. That group would have been willing to cut the devil some slack as long as they got what they were after: a shot at the big time. And because of what she did for a living and the label she was associated with, she was their first step in the right direction.

“But they’re not trying to help me out of the goodness of their hearts, it’s just business. Everyone’s going to get paid for their services,” she told Liam, wondering why he thought that was so altruistic.

“Mick’s hanging around, waiting for your car to be brought down from its perch. A savvy businessman would have gone back to the shop—and charged you just for coming out,” Liam pointed out.

“This way he gets to charge me for his downtime,” she countered.

Liam shook his head. “That’s not the way Mick operates,” he disagreed, then said with emphasis, “That’s not how any of us operate around here.”

She wasn’t ready to believe that. After all, this was just some tiny Texas town, not Oz. However, in the interest of not starting an argument, she merely said, “If you say so.”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean anything. I guess you’ll just have to see for yourself. There it is,” he said abruptly.

She sat up a little straighter, as if she’d just been put on notice.

“There ‘what’ is?” Whitney asked, her green eyes sweeping up and down the muddy road ahead of her. From where she was sitting, it just looked like open country—and more of the same.

“Miss Joan’s,” Liam elaborated, gesturing up ahead and to the left.

As Whitney looked, the diner came into view more clearly. It looked like a long, silver tube on wheels and it was completely unimpressive in her opinion.

It was also rather blinding.

The sun, which had decided to come out in full regalia now that all the water had been purged out of the sky, seemed to be literally bouncing off the sides of the diner. It made it rather difficult to see, if anyone wanted to drive past the establishment.

But Liam had no intentions of driving past the diner. For him, the diner was journey’s end.

He pulled his truck up to the informal area that was the diner’s unofficial parking lot.

When Liam turned off the engine, she looked at him. The diner made her think of a third-rate, greasy-spoon establishment that played fast and loose with sanitary conditions. It definitely didn’t inspire confidence.

“Isn’t there another restaurant we could go to?” she asked as he began to open the door on his side.

Liam paused, his hand on the door handle. “Not without driving fifty miles.”

There it was again, she thought. That fifty-mile separation from everything civilized. Was everything of any worth in this region automatically fifty miles away?

Whitney looked grudgingly at the diner. Maybe she would be lucky and not get ptomaine poisoning.

“Seems to me that this town would do a whole lot better if it just picked itself up and moved fifty miles away,” she said cynically.

“We like Forever just where it is and the way it is,” Liam informed her.

Yeah, backward and hopelessly behind the times, she thought to herself. Out loud, Whitney offered up another, less hostile description. “Old-fashioned and impossibly quaint?”

“Honest and straightforward,” he contradicted.

“Well, I guess that really puts me in my place,” she quipped.

He laughed, shaking his head. “I really doubt if anything could ever put you in your place—unless you wanted to be there,” he qualified.

Getting out of his truck, he rounded the hood and came around to her side. Opening the door for Whitney, he put his hand out as if to help her get out.

She looked down at it for a moment as if debating whether or not she should take it. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt anything to act graciously, she wrapped her fingers around his.

“I’m sorry,” she told him.

He looked surprised by this unusual turn of events. “For?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Wasn’t that what her mother used to say before she ran off? Whitney decided that she might as well say it.

“For acting like an ungrateful brat.” She flushed as her own label hit home. “I guess I’m a little out of my element. I’m usually the one on the receiving end of gratitude, not on the giving side.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what she was trying to say, but he knew contrition when he saw it and he had never been the kind who enjoyed making people squirm. “Hey, you just went through a harrowing experience. You’re allowed to act out a little.”

His forgiving attitude made her feel even guiltier than she already did.

Their hands were still linked and he tugged on hers just a little. “C’mon,” he coaxed. “Everything will seem a lot better after you eat something. Angel will whip up something that’ll make you feel as if you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“Angel?” she repeated a little uncertainly.

“Miss Joan’s head cook. Woman could make a mud pie taste appetizing,” he told her with enthusiasm.

“I think I’ll pass on the mud pie, but I could go for a cheeseburger and fries.”

“Great,” he responded, drawing her into the diner. “Get ready to have the best cheeseburger and fries you’ve ever had.”

She sincerely doubted that, but she decided to play along. After all, she owed him.

Chapter Four

“So this is the little lady you saved from a watery grave, eh?”

The rather unusual greeting came from Miss Joan less than a heartbeat after Liam had walked into the diner with Whitney at his side.

As was her habit, Miss Joan, ever on top of things, seemed to appear out of nowhere and was right next to them.

Amber eyes took measure of the young stranger quickly, sweeping over her from top to toe in record time, even for Miss Joan. She noted that the young woman was struggling very hard to keep from trembling. Small wonder, Miss Joan assessed.

“You look pretty good for someone who’d just cheated death less than a few hours ago. Wet, but good,” she amended for the sake of precision.

Stunned, Whitney held on to the ends of the sheepskin jacket, unconsciously using it as a barrier between herself and the older woman. She slanted an uneasy look at Liam.

“Did you just call and tell her about the flash flood—and everything?” she added vaguely. How else could the woman have known that she almost drowned unless Liam had told her?

“Nobody has to call and tell Miss Joan anything,” Liam assured her. “She’s always just seemed to know things, usually right after they happen.”

“How?” Whitney asked. Did the woman claim to be clairvoyant?

The smile on the redheaded owner’s face was enigmatic and Whitney found it irritatingly unreadable. “I’ve got my ways,” was all Miss Joan said.

“She’s kidding, right?” Whitney asked in a hushed whisper.

Because she had turned her head away from Miss Joan and whispered her question to him, Liam felt Whitney’s warm breath feathering along the side of his neck. It caused various internal parts of him to go temporarily haywire before he was able to summon a greater degree of control. When he finally did, it allowed him to shut down the momentary aberration and function normally again.

But for just a second, it had been touch and go.

“You’ll know when Miss Joan is kidding,” he promised Whitney.

“Let me show you to a table,” Miss Joan offered. The words stopped short of being an order.

Miss Joan brought them over to a table on the side that was relatively out of the way of general foot traffic.

Once they were seated, the owner of the diner looked from Liam to his companion, as if to make a further assessment, and then asked, “So, what can I get for the hero and the rescuee?”

“I’m not a hero, Miss Joan.”

“No point in denying what everybody’s thinking, boy,” Miss Joan said. Then, looking at the young woman at the table, she confided, “He’s always been a little on the shy side, downplaying things he’s done.” Her thin lips stretched out in a smile. “But you’ll get to see that for yourself if you stay around here long enough.”

“I’m sure I would,” Whitney replied, thinking she might as well be polite and play along with what this woman was saying. “If I were staying, but I’m not. I’m just killing a little time here before I get back on the road.”

Miss Joan smiled knowingly. “You go right ahead and do that, dear. You do that.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she knew more about the situation than either the young woman or Liam. Amber eyes shifted to Liam. “Want your usual?”

Liam grinned and nodded. He viewed the meal as comfort food. He was about due for some comfort, he thought. “Yes, please.”

“And you, honey?” Miss Joan asked, turning her gaze to Whitney.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries,” she told the older woman.

“Coming right up,” Miss Joan promised as she withdrew from the table.

Whitney noted that the woman hadn’t written down either order. Lowering her voice, Whitney leaned in closer to the man who had brought her here in the first place.

“Is she always like that?” she asked once Miss Joan had withdrawn.

“Like what?” Liam asked, curious. As far as he was concerned, it was business as usual for the owner of the diner.

“Invasive,” Whitney finally said after spending a moment hunting for the right word to describe what she’d felt.

Liam turned the word over in his head, then shrugged. “I suppose so. That’s just Miss Joan being Miss Joan,” he said, then assured her, “I’ll tell you one thing. There’s nobody better to have on your side when you’ve got a problem or need a friend than Miss Joan.”

Whitney glanced over her shoulder toward the older woman. The latter was behind the counter, engaging one of her customers in conversation as she refilled his coffee cup.

Aside from the fact that the woman seemed nosy, Whitney saw nothing overly remarkable about Miss Joan. The woman certainly didn’t strike her as someone people would turn to in an emergency.

“Her? Really?” she asked Liam.

“Her. Really,” he confirmed with a hint of an amused grin.

Whitney shook her head. “I’m afraid I just can’t see it.”

“Well, you’re still an outsider so that’s understandable. You’ll have to experience it for yourself.”

Whitney laughed shortly, waving the idea away.

“I’ll pass on that, thanks. The second my car is back on solid ground, I’m out of here.” She glanced at her watch and frowned. She was really behind schedule. “I should already be on my way.”

“Maybe you should call whoever you’re going to see and let them know that you’re being held up,” Liam suggested.

Her eyes widened as she looked at him warily. “Held up?”

“Delayed,” Liam amended.

“Oh.”

Whitney chewed on her lower lip, thinking. She really didn’t want to call to say she’d be late, but she had to grudgingly admit that the cowboy had a point. With that, she shrugged his jacket off, letting it rest against the back of her chair, and dug into her pocket for her phone.

Pulling it out, she began to tap out the phone number of the band she was on her way to audition. When nothing happened, she tried the number again—with the same result. Frustrated, she took a closer look at her phone and realized that it was completely dormant. The light hadn’t really come on.

Why was it acting as if it was drained? “I just charged the battery,” she complained.

Liam leaned over and placed his hand over hers, turning her phone so that he could get a better look at it. The diagnosis was quick and succinct.

“I think it’s dead.”

“Dead?” Whitney echoed. “How can it be dead?” she challenged.

He had an answer for that, as well. “That’s not a waterproof case, is it?” He’d phrased it in the form of a question, but he already knew the answer.

“No,” Whitney snapped. And then she remembered something. “But you dived in to pull me out of the water and you had your phone in your pocket,” she recalled. “I saw you take it out to call that mechanic and whoever sent over that cherry picker.”

Rather than say anything, Liam took out his phone and held it up to let her see the difference between his and the one she had in her hand.

“Mine’s sealed in a waterproof case,” he told her. She looked as if she was about to protest, so he explained rather matter-of-factly, “Things happen out here. All you can do is try to stay as prepared as possible.”

Of course, he thought, he definitely wasn’t prepared to be as strongly attracted to this woman as he was. But then, he’d never saved anyone from drowning before and maybe that had a lot to do with it.

Whitney was torn between actually liking the fact that he was this prepared and resenting the fact that he was taking charge like this while she couldn’t. What was even worse was that she was having all sorts of feelings about this man that had absolutely nothing to do with any of this—except that he had saved her.

“Like a Boy Scout,” she commented.

“Something like that, I guess. Want to borrow my phone to make that call?” he offered, holding it out to her.

“I guess I’m going to have to,” she muttered, less than thrilled about this turn of events. She glared at her unresponsive phone. “I guess this is just an expensive paperweight now.”

“Not necessarily,” Miss Joan said.

Whitney nearly jumped out of her skin. The woman had seemingly materialized out of nowhere again. Didn’t anyone else find that annoying? she couldn’t help wondering.

Taking a breath to steady nerves that were becoming increasingly jumpier, Whitney turned in her seat and focused on what the older woman had just said rather than the fact that she was beginning to view Miss Joan as some sort of a resident witch.