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Christian Contemporary Romance: Her Christmas Cowboy (Cowboy Love Book 2)

By Samantha Bayarr

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ONE

“Momma, are you sure Santa will be able to find me at my new grandma and grandpa’s house for Christmas?” Five-year-old Haylee asked.
“Stop worrying; we’ll go see him again just to remind him,” her mother said, turning on the radio to Christmas songs, hoping to keep the child from becoming restless.
Carlie-Jo McAllister passed under the blinking light on Main Street, the only light in town, and Haylee pointed out the giant snowman on top of the Ace Hardware store.
“Look, Momma!”
Carlie nodded, and slowed down so she could get a better look.
Some of its lights had burned out, and it looked shabby compared to the last time she’d seen it. Lucky for her, dusk had fallen on the town, and the streets had emptied of the town-folk. She’d hoped to avoid seeing anyone except her family during her visit, with the exception of one person.
Carlie had long-since outgrown the small town of Cottonwood Falls, and all the gossip that went with it. It wasn’t so much the ranch that she swore she’d never return to; the small town, and the small-town talk from the townies had become a thorn in her side. She’d been the butt of too much talk, but mostly, she knew it came from jealousy because she’d left town and hadn’t looked back—until now.
Everyone in Cottonwood Falls had wanted out; no one who grew up in the small town wanted to grow old there, and Carlie had made it out. She’d started off right, being accepted to an ivy-league college, but she’d lost it all after one careless afternoon with the most popular guy in town.
Bo Harland.
Just five weeks after starting college, she’d discovered she’d become pregnant from that steamy afternoon in Bo’s barn; they’d been trapped during a thunderstorm that lasted for more than two hours. Afterward, they’d decided it was best if they went their separate ways; Carlie had suggested it, and Bo had gone along with the idea. She had plans for her future that defied the town and her family’s idea of what her future should be.
Carlie convinced Bo she should go away to college as planned, and he would be free to live out his dream of becoming a professional bull-rider; he’d been the best bull-rider in the state, and she knew he had plans to compete at the rodeo.
She’d contacted him just after she’d found out about the pregnancy, hoping the news would be well-received by him, but she never got the chance to tell him. He’d already begun competing, and he told her he didn’t have time to go and visit her, and had even admitted to seeing someone. She’d taken his rejection hard, and determined not to make the offer to him again.
She’d met Brent Fisher just after Haylee turned three years old; she had grown tired from working a dead-end job, and his offer of marriage had almost come as a relief. She knew he only married her to get a promotion with his job; his boss had the silly notion he would be more company-committed if he had a more committed personal life. The job didn’t last long, because being married had not been the only problem he had with keeping a job.
After her mother informed her that Bo had returned to Cottonwood Falls to take care of his ailing father, Carlie didn’t think it would be the right thing to pour more stress on the man by going back home with her news, and she’d committed herself to her marriage, even though the marriage made her miserable.
At first, Brent had been kind, but a drinking problem surfaced after losing his job, and a pattern soon developed, causing him to lose several others over the course of their marriage.
Between the countless affairs and drunken nights when he’d be lucky to make it home; she began to pray that God would either change him or free her from her commitment with him; she’d made a mistake of marrying Brent for convenience, and only God could help her.
She’d given her husband several chances, and he’d made a promise to her he’d give up other women and the drinking; she’d forgiven him, accepting his false sincerity, but his promise didn’t last long. Once, she’d let her guard down and caught him accidentally; it had been the last straw. She’d let him go, despite all her praying that God would save her marriage; in the end, God had decided to save her and Haylee instead from further heartache. Finally, after being separated for more than a year, she’d given up and signed the divorce papers.
Now, as she drove her SUV through the town so small, it only had three stop lights, she sickened at the thought of getting teased for being a failure and returning such a broken woman—a divorced woman with a child, no less.
Carlie worried about one thing more than any other—rejection from Bo Harland, the one she’d regretted letting go. She’d prayed for the opportunity to tell him about his daughter, and that he’d forgive her for waiting five years to tell him he had a child. She’d be lucky if he ever spoke to her again, let alone, give her another chance.
Her own mother had never let her hear the end of it; she’d ridden her conscience so hard, Carlie didn’t ever intend on coming home. She hadn’t been back to the ranch since she’d left for college, and Haylee had never met her grandparents or the biological father she had no idea she had. To Carlie’s parents, she’d been a disappointment, and it would be worse for her now that she would arrive back home without a husband, and with a child in tow.
Carlie tried her best to be cheerful for her daughter, as she drove past her old high school, still able hear the echoes of cheers she’d chanted for the football team and the roar of applause from her classmates when she’d been voted their prom queen; those were special days she would cherish forever, but now they seemed as if they belonged to someone else.
As soon as this town finds out what’s happened to me since graduation, they won’t think I’m so special anymore.
Her parents and the entire town had expected her to marry Bo, and the two would blend their land to make more profit for both families. Carlie had ruined that for her daddy by wanting to go to college, and now the man struggled financially, and all her mother did was pour guilt into her wounds like salt, during the long conversations they had once a week. Thankful her parents didn’t believe in cell-phones, her penny-pinching mother would only call on Sundays when long distance was free on her land-line. Now, Carlie would have the misfortune of hearing about it full-time, and in person.
She prayed her parents wouldn’t lecture her in front of Haylee, who could certainly understand the things being said. She’d also prayed they would accept their granddaughter. Her own mother didn’t know about the divorce; she thought they were making a visit as a family, and would finally meet their son-in-law, and grandchild. Carlie hadn’t had the guts to admit her failure to her mother, and she wasn’t so sure she would tell her now. She’d lived the lie for too long, always singing her husband’s praises, that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to tell the overbearing woman the truth about the shattered life she lived.
Perhaps she would make an excuse for Brent’s absence, such as a business trip; she didn’t have the guts to tell her parents about the divorce. Truth be told, Brent had failed her and Haylee; he’d been fired from countless jobs, and Carlie had worked two jobs to keep them from losing their apartment.
Unfortunately, he’d blamed it all on her.
Unable to handle all the bickering, and not wanting Haylee to grow up hearing the same thing she’d heard from her own parents, she opted to sign the divorce papers. Brent wanted out in a bad way, and he’d cheated several times to prove it. In the end, divorce had been the only logical solution.
How could she ever explain any of that to her mother, and get her to understand?




Carlie shook as she pulled into the long snow-covered driveway of her parent’s small ranch only a few miles outside of the town that bordered Cottonwood Creek and Bo Harland’s larger ranch. Her mother had told her recently that Bo himself had been running the ranch since his daddy had passed away. She’d cruelly reminded her daughter that she could have been the wife of a wealthy ranch-owner, making Carlie feel worse about her situation.
They passed the corral and Haylee pasted her face to the glass to watch the horses romping in the snow. She prayed the smile on her daughter’s face would stay there long after their visit came to an end.
Truthfully, she’d prayed her parents would take pity on her and help her out. She’d been downsized at her job in the city, and she had no money to keep up her rent. Unable to make ends meet, they’d be homeless after the first of the year when rent came due if her parents refused to help her until she could get another job.
Though she hated to admit it, coming home had been her last hope.
Her refusal to marry Bo and attend college had not set well with her parents, but she hadn’t wanted to stay here and become a small-town statistic. Well, so much for that dream. She’d certainly made a mess of her life, and Haylee’s too by giving her a father who wasn’t even capable of taking care of himself, let alone a wife and child.
“Can I ride those horses?” Haylee asked, breaking Carlie’s worrisome thoughts.
“I don’t see why not,” she answered her daughter, feeling a spark of hope.
Carlie had missed riding and roping; she’d missed a lot of things about the ranch and the town, if truth be told. She missed the rodeos most of all, and the horse auctions.
The social aspect of living in a small town could always be counted on, unless you earned a spot in the gossip mill, and Carlie had been there too many times. Not only from being the most popular girl in school, but being a cheerleader too. The real gossip had come when Jenna Parker learned that a marriage had been arranged between her and Bo. Jenna had always been in love with Bo, and he’d never given her the time of day; when Jenna got wind of the arrangement, she’d let her jealousy get the better of her, and had made Carlie’s senior year of high school nothing short of miserable.
Jenna lived in the trailer park behind the Twisty-Treat, and even worked there during the summer months, and she hadn’t exactly been what most would refer to as a lady. Her daddy had run out on her and her momma just after she turned ten years old, and she’d been trying ever since to remind the folks in town of the ranch her family had owned, and the plans she had to buy back the land once she graduated high-school. Her constant boasting ended when the Walmart went up on her land, and Carlie might have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t been so mean to her. Last she’d heard, Jenna still worked at the Twisty-Treat and had also had a daughter out of wedlock about the same she had Haylee.
Rumor had it the child belonged to Bo Harland, but Carlie knew better; if she had to guess, she’d imagined Jenna herself had started that rumor to cover up the fact that the very-married manager of the Twisty-Treat had been the cause of Jenna’s shame.
Carlie’s mother had been her source for most of the gossip she’d been privy to about the small-town goings-on since she’d been away, and she had to wonder what the woman had told others about her, and what sort of rumors had been tossed around town about her short-comings. She shook off the ghosts of her past, determined to make this a positive visit for Haylee’s sake.
She pulled up to the house she’d grown up in and noticed right away that her daddy hadn’t put up the Christmas lights—the one thing that might have put a spark of Christmas spirit in her.
She sighed as she opened the door and stepped out of her SUV with her daughter, remembering why she had made the trip, but prayed the visit would go as quickly and painlessly as possible.






TWO

Carlie’s breath caught in her throat when her mother opened the door before she reached the top step of the wraparound porch; she hadn’t expected her emotions to catch up to her the way they had, but something about seeing her mother for the first time in more than eight years caused her independent spirit to betray her.
Though she hadn’t detected it in her voice, her mother had aged in the years she’d been away; before setting her gaze upon the woman, she’d had a vision in her head of this moment, and this couldn’t compare to what she’d imagined. Seeing her mother had somehow accelerated her own years to meet this moment at warp-speed. Not only did it make her feel suddenly old, it put a lump in her throat to think of her mother as getting on in years.
Her dark auburn hair, now peppered with gray, framed her crinkled face, making Carlie think she just didn’t look like her mother anymore. Everyone had always told her how beautiful her mother was, and that she’d looked just like her
Wiping her hands on her apron, the woman smiled at her daughter, urging the two of them inside the warm house, with sincere welcome.
Carlie took in a deep breath and smiled, the familiar aroma of warm cinnamon made her mouth water; her mother had been baking pies.
After a minute or so, she threw herself into the aging woman’s arms, sobbing and forgetting about Haylee until she felt a tug at her coat.
She pulled away from the woman, who’d joined her emotional reverie. “Momma, I want you to meet Haylee-Jo,” she said turning to her daughter. “This here is your grandma, sweetie-pie.”
“Well, ain’t she just as purdy as can be?” her mother said, welcoming Haylee into her waiting arms. “Lemme get a good look at ya.”
She leaned back and looked at her granddaughter and smiled. “She don’t look like you at all, Carlie-Jo,” she said, sizing up the young girl. “Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she looks like…”
Don’t say it momma!
“Like Bo Harland!”
Haylee tugged on Carlie’s sleeve, looking up at her with a smile. “Momma, who’s Bo Harland?” she asked with an innocence that put a lump in Carlie’s throat.
“Never you mind!” she said, shooing her daughter toward the front door, which still lay open, letting snow drift in on the woven rug. “Go out and get our bags from the car and bring them up to the house while I talk to your grandma.”
When her daughter left the room and out of earshot of their conversation, Carlie turned to her mother, trying not to show her disapproval over the woman’s boldness of speech.
“Momma, please don’t bring up the past this week, and especially don’t talk about Bo, or any other boys I dated when I was younger.”
“Pft, what other boys? There was always only Bo since the day you two set eyes on each other!”
Carlie crossed her arms. “Momma, I’m warning you; I’ll get right back in my car and drive away from here and never come back if you embarrass me in front of my daughter!”
Her mother smiled knowingly and looped her arm in her daughter’s, steering her toward the tempting treats waiting for her in the kitchen. “Did you forget what a small town this is already, Carlie-Jo? If she don’t hear about Bo from me, she’ll likely hear about him somewhere else in this town.”
“We won’t have time to run into anyone from this town, so it won’t be an issue, Momma.”
Then she remembered her promise to Haylee about seeing Santa, and prayed the girl would forget about it with all the excitement around her grandparents’ ranch.
“Well, then I suppose the two of you can hide up in your room during the Christmas party!” her mother said, filling a glass of milk to go with the freshly-baked sweet-potato pie cooling on the counter.
It wasn’t enough to distract her, even though her mouth watered for that pie.
“Christmas party?” Carlie asked. “Why would you do that, Momma, without asking me first?”
She set the pie down carelessly in front of her daughter, taking out her disapproval on the old china plate. “Don’t you raise your voice with me, Carlie-Jo!”
Carlie lowered her gaze. “Yes, Momma.”
“Besides, all your cousins and your friends were so eager to see you again when I told everybody you were comin’ home for Christmas, I didn’t have the heart to turn ‘em down when they suggested a party in your honor, now could I?”
“What friends?” Carlie dared to ask, not touching the pie in front of her. “The only friend I had was Brenda-Sue, and you told me yourself she ran off and got married.”
“What about Jenna Parker?” her mother asked.
Carlie jumped up from her chair abruptly, and her mother put a hand on her shoulder to make her sit back down; she’d done the same thing to her as a young child, and it seemed that the simple gesture still worked on her now.
“Momma, you know me and Jenna were never friends; don’t you remember how she treated me when we were in school?”
“She’s really changed, Carlie,” her mother said, singing the praises of the one person who’d been a thorn in her side growing up. “She’s the manager of the Twisty-Treat now, and they stay open year-round, serving chili-dogs and barbeque sandwiches, and even hot cocoa in the winter, with whipped topping and a peppermint stick in it just the way you like it.”
She rolled her eyes.
Is that supposed to make me want to go there and give her a chance to mean to me again?
“Having a job doesn’t change a person,” Carlie argued.
“Perhaps not, but having to live down her shame in this small town has humbled her.”
Carlie couldn’t help but worry that she, herself, might be in for some humbling; if she didn’t get that call from her interview, she might have to beg Jenna for a job at the Twisty-Treat.
Just then Haylee came barreling into the kitchen and rubbed her knuckles into Carlie’s scalp, and giggled. “Some man outside told me to give you that!”
Her mother smiled mischievously. “Bo must be here to help your daddy put up the Christmas lights!”
“Momma, why couldn’t you have warned me?”
Carlie’s heart did a somersault behind her ribcage; she hadn’t wanted Bo to see Haylee before she had a chance to break the news to him; there would be no explaining to him why she hadn’t told him about her. The fact they’d now seen each other gave Carlie a sick feeling in her stomach.
Her mother brought two more slices of pie to the table and set one in front of Haylee. “I don’t see what the big deal is! Eat your pie,” she said to Carlie.
Lord, help me fix this!
Carlie forced a smile and choked down the pie, trying her best not to alert her daughter to her discomfort over this visit; she enjoyed seeing the smile on the girl’s face, and seeing her eagerness to learn about her new family. She didn’t have the heart to disappoint Haylee by leaving, but the upcoming week already promised to be a long and hard one.

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