Buch lesen: «A Cowboy Christmas»

Chapter One

Caleb Girard didn’t believe in miracles. But he needed one.

With a frigid north wind ripping at him, Caleb kicked the wooden barn door closed and started toward his ranch house fifty yards away. The new calf shivered in his arms, a runt of a thing that wouldn’t survive till morning in this weather. But Caleb was a man who believed in giving things a chance. Long ago, a man had given him the only chance he’d ever had, and now that man was dying.

Yeah. They needed a miracle. If Caleb was a praying man, he’d ask for one. But he’d never found praying to do one bit of good.

Sometimes God or life or whatever was unfair. But Pops, a devout Christian, would be brokenhearted to hear Caleb say such a thing. So he wouldn’t. But he thought it. Every day since the terrifying diagnosis.

Chilled to the soul for more reasons than the arctic front, he stomped through the back door of the one-story house and placed the calf on a rug near the glowing fireplace. Ripley, his border collie, trotted in behind him and curled up beside the calf as if he knew the baby needed body heat.

Caleb gave the dog a gentle pat. “Take care of him, buddy.”

He tossed another log on the fire and hung his coat on a peg by the door, anticipating an afternoon in the cold. If his rancher’s intuition was right, snow would fall before Christmas. Or, worst-case scenario, ice. They got more of that in eastern Oklahoma than the fluffy stuff. Kids always hoped for snow. Realists and ranchers, of which he was both, appreciated the rain, but God could keep the rest.

He stopped at the kitchen sink to wash up. Maybe he’d put something in the Crock-Pot for supper. The old man’s stomach had been iffy since this madness began. Some days he barely ate enough to nourish a guppy.

Drying his hands on a worn dish towel, Caleb walked down the short hall to Pops’s bedroom.

Next to the bed, Pops lay kicked back in his recliner, the farm-ranch report blaring from the flat-screen TV Caleb had hung on the wall a month ago. The older rancher raised a hand, his glassy eyes smiling at the man he’d called “son” for nearly seventeen years.

Greg Girard, the closest thing to a father Caleb had ever known, wasn’t an old man. He was a sick one, a surprise that had knocked them both on their heels. How did a man go from seeming as fit as an Olympian to dying in two short months?

Caleb went to Pops’s chair, feeling helpless and oversize in the presence of the once-robust man. “Think you can tolerate chili for supper tonight?” Maybe a stew would be better, though he’d fixed stew two nights ago. He was a serviceable cook but not a creative one.

“Sure. Whatever we got is fine with me.”

“You say that every day.” Then he’d barely pick at his meal.

“How’s that cow? Calf here yet?”

“Had to pull the calf. Cow didn’t make it.”

Pops hissed through his teeth. “I knew we shouldn’t have bought a bred heifer. Never can tell what kind of mama she’ll make or what bull she’s bred to.”

But Pops was a soft touch and Billy Cloud had needed quick cash. Now the Girard ranch, which was only the two of them, was out the expense, the cow and maybe the calf.

“You’re getting the short end of the stick lately, son, me lollygagging around so much.”

“I got this, Pops. You take it easy.”

“If I liked easy, I wouldn’t have been a rancher.” Pops gestured toward the machine a medical supply van had delivered earlier that day. “When’re they coming to hook me up?”

“Didn’t say.”

Caleb went to the kitchen to mix up a bottle of colostrum replacer for the calf. Pops couldn’t work more than an hour before fatigue overwhelmed him. He was gray as a winter day, nauseated more often than not, his legs swollen and weak. And he still thought he should get up every morning and head to the cow pastures.

As Caleb filled the calf’s bottle, a knock at the door made him jump. He splashed liquid on his shirt.

With a growl of frustration, he went to the door, opened it.

And his belly dropped to the toes of his boots.

With frigid wind whipping her auburn ponytail like a wind sock, a woman stood on his porch. Kristen Andrews. Even bundled to her ears, he’d recognize her, though he hadn’t seen her in years. What was she doing here?

Breathe, man. Breathe.

“You lost?” His voice sounded amazingly normal.

“Hi, Caleb. I’m freezing. May I come in?”

Before he’d barely stepped aside, she limped past him in a boot cast and entered his living room. He caught her fragrance, a mix of cold wind and coconut. She’d always smelled good, even when he’d worked so hard pretending not to notice.

Slim and pretty as ever, she shrugged out of a puffy white coat, draped it over the back of his favorite recliner and leveled a soft-eyed gaze in his direction. “How are you, Caleb?”

“Fine.” Except that my heart is trying to escape my rib cage. “Yourself?”

“Great. Other than this broken leg.” She motioned to the black boot.

He wanted to ask what had happened. Was that too nosy? Too intrusive? But she already knew he was an uncouth country bumpkin, so he asked anyway. “What happened?”

“Skiing accident a few weeks ago.” She made a cute face that got his pulse pinging like a pinball. “I’m on the mend now that I’m home again.”

She was back in Refuge? For good? He didn’t know whether to shout hallelujah or break down and cry. It was so much easier to ignore her when he didn’t run into her on the streets of small-town Oklahoma.

“Thought you were in Colorado.”

“I was.” Something shadowed her green eyes. She turned her head, swallowed, as if Colorado was a bad subject. He shouldn’t have asked. “Where’s our patient?”

It hit him then, right in the thick head. Blue scrubs. Medical bag. The nurse they were expecting was Kristen Andrews. He was going to be seeing her often. As in almost every day.

He hoped his heart could bear it.

* * *

It was ridiculous, really, Kristen mused as she and her cumbersome boot stumped behind Caleb to Greg Girard’s bedroom.

She hadn’t thought about Caleb in a long time, but as soon she’d received the doctor’s orders to set up a care plan and home dialysis for Greg, Kristen had gone all fluttery. She’d told herself Caleb wouldn’t be as attractive to an adult as he had been to a starry-eyed teenager. She’d been wrong.

She was practically engaged, but her pulse thudded like it had the first time she’d performed CPR in a code blue. The same as it had that one lovely day she’d spent alone with this particular cowboy years ago when she’d been convinced he was her forever and always. But after that one evening and one sizzling teenage kiss, he’d spent the rest of his senior year ignoring her. So she’d moved on, moved away and had almost forgotten the quiet boy with the sketchy background.

Intentionally putting aside thoughts of Caleb, she entered the sickroom. With a trained nose, she caught the scents of illness and identified them. Though shocked at the change in Greg Girard, she greeted him with her usual cheerful professionalism and kept her observations to herself.

As she directed Greg through his new care plan, emphasizing diet and fluid intake, Caleb hovered nearby, asking astute questions. Worry emanated from him. And, oddly, she was overly aware of his presence, of his outdoorsy scent, his wide shoulders, his trim form in old jeans. When their eyes collided, she locked in on the color. Gray and turbulent, like a winter’s day.

“Doc says you can fix me up here at home,” Greg was saying.

She tuned back in. Weird to be so aware of Caleb. “That’s the plan. It will take several weeks, but you and Caleb can learn to use the machine yourselves.”

“I don’t know...” Caleb stepped closer to his dad’s chair. “You sure about this, Pops? What if I mess up—”

Greg waved him off. “You won’t.”

“It’s only natural to be anxious at first,” Kristen assured him. “I’ll work with you until you’re confident.”

Caleb looked as if the idea gave him indigestion. “Great.”

Was that a “good” great or a sarcastic one?

He spun on his cowboy boots. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She turned her attention to Greg, but Caleb’s unfriendly behavior stung.

Yet the teenage Caleb had barely given her the time of day. Why would she expect the adult version to be any different? He was her brothers’ pal, and she was the annoying little sister. If she really knew him, he’d probably be as big a disappointment as Dr. Dud.

The sore spot in her heart throbbed. James Dudley, a bright, charming and successful cardiologist who loved outdoors and her—she’d thought. He was everything she was looking for in a man. Until the ski trip. She kept expecting him to call, apologize and pick up where they’d left off. He hadn’t.

Kristen turned her focus to Greg’s vital signs and physical assessment, jotting notes as she worked.

When she finished, she returned the blood pressure monitor to her nursing bag.

“How’s it sound?” Greg asked with a crooked half smile.

“A little out of whack.” She winked. “Let’s get that machine fired up and get your dialysis going. Then everything will look better.”

“That’s what they keep telling me.” He twisted in his chair. “Caleb!”

The other cowboy appeared immediately, a giant baby bottle in one hand. “What is it, Pops? Need something?”

“Kristen’s about to crank up R2-D2. You gonna watch?”

Kristen laughed. “R2-D2?”

“Sure. Look at that thing. Don’t you watch Star Wars?”

The look Caleb gave his dad was amused and tender. “Let me put this up and wash my hands.”

* * *

Caleb hated this. Hated the fear, hated the disease, hated seeing Pops’s blood flowing out of his body and into a machine.

Somehow Pops put on a happy face and chatted up Kristen as if she hadn’t been gone for six or seven years. Caleb felt like a voyeur as he listened in on the conversation, snatching up bits of personal information about the girl he’d never forgotten.

That she was a registered nurse with advanced training didn’t surprise him. He’d known she went off to some big college in Colorado on a scholarship. She was smart, classy, a sweet-natured girl who was nice to everyone. Like him. Even though he’d been a troubled foster kid nobody but Pops wanted, she’d acted as if he was every bit as good as her preppy friends.

Then she’d left Refuge for college and stayed away, a surprise, given her great family. She and her family had always been close. A normal family, like the one he’d never had. He’d envied her and her brothers for that. Probably one of the reasons he’d hung around her house so often. That and his mad crush on Kristen.

“Watch both wounds for signs of infection,” she was saying.

Caleb tuned in, loving the sound of her voice. Educated, but not haughty about it. He liked watching her mouth move, too. She had a soft, kissable mouth, as he well remembered. That kiss had haunted him. Haunted him still.

“What are the signs?” he managed to ask when his brain settled back down.

“I’ll leave you a list but, in general, call me if you notice anything unusual around either site. Or if he runs a fever.” She pointed to the place where two tubes entered Pops’s forearm. “The fistula takes a while to heal.”

He nodded, knowing he was in over his head but trying to appear halfway intelligent. “The doc told us. Pops has the chest catheter for now. Until the fistula heals.”

The wound in his dad’s forearm gave him the creeps. The idea that a thick vessel would develop under Pops’s skin like a gopher tunnel was one he didn’t like to think about. But if it kept Pops alive, Caleb didn’t care if it was as big as the Holland Tunnel.

“Healing could take several months,” she said.

Months of watching Pops suffer, watching him deteriorate daily. Yesterday he’d been too weak and short of breath to saddle a horse.

Caleb squeezed the bridge of his nose, wishing he could turn back the clock. For months, maybe longer, Pops had been sick and hadn’t known it. And even when the symptoms hit, he’d ignored them too long. The cowboy way. Suck it up, be tough, keep going.

Kristen went through a few more instructions, using big words and then dumbing them down for him and Pops. Caleb’s head hurt from information overload.

Eventually, Pops waved them away. “You two go somewhere else so I can catch a nap.”

Kristen patted his shoulder. “I can’t go far. Maybe the living room. I’ll tiptoe in occasionally to check your monitors. You get that two-hour snooze.”

Pops gave her a grin and a wink. If Caleb didn’t know better, he’d say the old man was flirting.

He turned and went back to the living room to finish feeding the calf, aware that Kristen followed. At Caleb’s entrance, Ripley whopped his tail against the rug.

Caleb dropped a hand to the black-and-white head. “Hey, Rip, looking after the baby?”

“Rip?” Kristen approached with caution, standing behind Caleb’s shoulder, close enough to brush his arm. “As in he’ll rip my throat out?”

He was so aware of her, his skin tingled. “As in Ripley, which sounds too grand for a working cow dog. Rip for short.”

“Won’t he hurt the calf?”

“Nope. He’ll protect her.”

To prove as much, Ripley began licking the calf’s still-damp forehead. Gently, Caleb eased him aside and urged the calf onto her wobbly legs to recommence the feeding regimen.

Rip curled into a circle at Caleb’s feet to watch.

“What happened to his mama?” Kristen settled on the couch almost close enough to touch, an electronic tablet on her lap.

“Calf’s a her. A heifer.” As if the calf knew they were speaking about her, she gave the bottle several hard head butts. “Feisty girl to be so little, but her size may have saved her life. She had a leg turned back and under. Couldn’t deliver. Cow died.”

“Poor little orphan.”

The term caused a burn in the pit of Caleb’s stomach. He’d been a social orphan, not a biological one, but either way, he’d been without a parent. Like this calf. “I’ll take care of her.”

Like Pops had done for him. Like Caleb tried to do with the group of boys he mentored.

“Will she survive?”

“Hopefully. This colostrum will help. Sometimes I don’t find the calves quick enough.”

“Colostrum is important in humans, too.”

“I guess you’d know about that. For cattle, we’ve got about six hours before the gut will no longer absorb these essential nutrients, so the quicker I get this in her, the better.”

“You must have to know a lot to care for cattle.”

Nothing like what a college-educated nurse had to know to care for people. “We do what we can. If that means letting a calf sleep in my living room, I’m willing.”

“You were always a kind person.”

The comment caught him off guard. “I was?”

“Remember that kid in high school with the speech impediment?”

“Jimmy Starks.” He hadn’t thought about the poor stuttering kid in years.

“You punched Trent White for tormenting him.”

Caleb snorted. “And got suspended.”

“You shouldn’t have. Trent was a bully before bullying was a thing.”

“Bullying was always a thing, Kristen.” She’d just been too popular to be the object. Right side of the tracks, good Christian family with a respected mother and a successful father, smart and pretty Kristen had it all.

If Caleb hadn’t learned to hit first and apologize later, he’d have been more tormented than poor Jimmy. Foster boy, dummy, loser, who’s your daddy? Those were only a few of the remarks he’d endured. They’d made him feel as worthless as used tissue. As a result, he’d hated school. And his grades had shown it.

Kristen tapped the iPad a few more times and then went to check on Pops. Her boot cast thudded on the wooden floor, warning him of her going and coming. Again, he wanted to ask about the accident. This time, he didn’t. He didn’t want her scowling at him again.

When she returned, she came to the fireplace, where he was stroking the calf’s neck to encourage her to swallow. The flames flickered behind her, yellow and blue and warm.

He looked up at her. “Pops doing all right?”

She stretched her hands behind her back, toward the fire. “Sleeping.”

“He does that a lot.”

“He needs a transplant,” she said softly.

“I know that.” His tone was harsh. “He’s on the registry.”

She perched on the raised brick hearth, watching him with sympathy. “I’m sorry. This has to be incredibly difficult for you.”

“Not for me. For him.” He didn’t matter. Pops did. “I’d give him both my kidneys if they’d match.”

She smiled a sad smile. “All it takes is one.”

“Which we can’t find.” Fury at the injustice boiled in his gut. “Probably won’t find. Not with his rare antibody.”

“He’s a tough match, but not impossible.”

“How long can he live like this without a transplant?”

Her eyes shifted. She grew wary. She picked imaginary lint from her blue scrub pants. “Statistics vary, and averages don’t consider the individual. Your dad doesn’t have some of the other risk factors, so with dialysis, he could live a long time.”

Or he could die tomorrow. That was what she wasn’t saying.

The calf drained the bottle, and Caleb lowered the animal to the rug and went into the kitchen. At the sink, he washed out the container, his heart heavy as a boulder. He was a man of action, a man who took charge of his sick animals and found a way to make them well. That he couldn’t do the same for Pops made him crazy.