Her Last Cowboy Christmas Read online

  Amber pulled back. “Not upset about me and Lance?”

  “Oh, he’s upset about that for the both of us.” Jamie Lee wiped her eyes. “Though I did think—do think—you two are absolutely perfect for each other.”

  Amber turned away, not wanting to cry in front of his mom. She’d been keeping things together one hour at a time. One good-bye at a time. Scarlett had planned a going away party for her, but it wasn’t for another couple of days, as Amber wasn’t leaving until Saturday.

  “I sure do like him,” she said.

  “Maybe ask him to go with you,” Jamie Lee suggested.

  “I did.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. I said you should come too, because he doesn’t want to leave you here by yourself.”

  She blinked, her eyes widening with each one. “He said that?”

  Amber realized she’d made a mistake. “I mean…he loves you. You’re his mother, and he feels responsible for you.” She picked up a candle she’d bought for Jamie Lee. “I got this for you. You’ve been so wonderful to me, and I’m going to miss you.” Her voice cracked on the last two words, but she held onto her composure as she passed the gift to Jamie Lee.

  She unwrapped the box, sniffling as she did. “Oh, it’s the frosted peach you’ve told me about.” She looked up, her eyes so bright and so full of life. “Thank you, Amber.”

  Amber simply hugged her again, because she didn’t trust herself to speak.

  “Good luck to you,” she said. “Don’t be a stranger. I sit around with my phone all day, you know.” She smiled with watery eyes and turned toward the door. As she left, Amber heard her say, “I’m going to go talk to my son.”

  Chapter 23

  Lance barely looked up from his grilled cheese sandwich when his mother walked into his cabin. She carried something in her hands, but he knew why she was there. After all, she’d called and had been lecturing him for the full fifteen minutes it took her to walk from the volunteer house to his cabin.

  “I can’t believe you,” she said.

  “You said that already,” he deadpanned. Amber had ratted him out. Unknowingly, of course. But still. “Mom, I don’t want to move to Denver. You don’t want to go to Denver either.” He put the last bite of his dinner in his mouth and stood up to put his plate in the sink.

  “Why wouldn’t I want to go to Denver?” she asked in a self-righteous tone that made Lance roll his eyes.

  He swallowed and leaned against the counter, facing her. “Mom, you wouldn’t be able to go see Dad’s grave. Number two, you wouldn’t see those grandkids you’re always bragging about. Three, you hate the snow. Should I go on?” He cocked his eyebrows at her, annoyed at the conversation but glad he was having one.

  He’d taken to staying in during the evenings, as all anyone wanted to talk about was their family, their new wife, or why he and Amber had broken up. He’d seen all these other men and women get their last chance at happiness, and dang if he didn’t want his.

  The jealous feelings had been sticking around longer and longer, and Lance couldn’t seem to fight them off as quickly as he once had. He didn’t like the bad feelings he had for his friends, the people around the ranch he’d grown to love and trust. The reason he loved this ranch so much was because of those relationships, and the spirit he felt here.

  “I would go,” his mom said. “Because you should go, and you’re right. I don’t want to be on this ranch by myself. But you can’t let her leave.”

  “I can,” Lance said. “I haven’t even spoken to her in a couple of months. I’m doing okay.”

  “You are not,” his mom said. “You haven’t gone to any of the church activities, and you take on more work than you should.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. The ranch is a busy place. Someone has to do the work.” He turned to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. “You want something to drink?”

  “I want you to go make up with that woman.”

  Lance uncapped the water and took a long, long drink. The chill burned his throat, and still he drank. He couldn’t look away from his mother either. He didn’t want to say anything bad against Amber. But his mother deserved to know the truth. Maybe then she’d get off his back about this break up.

  “Mom,” he said calmly after draining the whole bottle of water. “She chose something else over me, okay? She’s the one who did that. Not me. She chose Denver. She chose the promotion. She chose to leave.” His chest heaved, and he felt like he’d been transported back fifteen years, to when Peggy had done the same thing.

  Women always chose something else over Lance, and he wasn’t sure why.

  He felt so inadequate. So lost. He sighed, and said, “Sorry, Mom. I’m taking Ribbon for a walk.” It was much too hot for such things, and Lance just wanted to stay in the air-conditioned cabin, kick off his boots, and eat an ice cream bar.

  But he grabbed a leash he wouldn’t use and said, “Let’s go, Rib.”

  Outside, he didn’t feel quite so lost, as God had anchored him to this place. “Am I enough for you, Lord?”

  The sweetest sense of reassurance came over him, and Lance finally relaxed for the first time since he’d walked away from the volunteer house. He’d been sending others to deal with any adoptions or the other things he used to take on himself, just so he’d have a reason to see Amber.

  It had been surprisingly easy to avoid her, but of course he knew she was leaving Last Chance Ranch on Saturday. It was all anyone, anywhere, could talk about.

  He knew Scarlett was throwing Amber a party on Friday night, because all the men had asked if they could come to his house after band practice. Even Carson and Hudson, who weren’t in the band. Ames, too.

  Lance had said he wouldn’t be in the partying mood, but Cache and Cook had insisted they bring pizza and soda and “try to distract” him.

  He scoffed as he wandered around the U-shaped Cabin Community, his dog limping alongside him. He felt so much like Ribbon, like Amber had cut him off at the legs but he was still trying to walk.

  He’d tried several “distractions” over the past couple of months, and none of them had worked. His knees hurt from the attempts at running with the cross-country team. His back hurt from his attempts to squeeze more work into his already full day. And his heart hurt from his attempt at signing up for ChristianCatch, a dating app Dave had told him about.

  Nothing had worked, and Lance didn’t know where to turn or what to do next.

  Maybe you should go to Denver streamed through his mind again. The thought had been present and persistent for weeks now, but he’d never encouraged it. Never allowed it room to grow. He couldn’t. It was simply too dangerous, and there were so many roadblocks between the thought and reality.

  His mother, for one.

  As if summoned by his thoughts, she texted him just two words. I’m sorry. Lance’s chest pinched, and he looked up into the cloudless California sky, a single plea for the Lord now.

  “Make the pain bearable.”

  Hours marched on, and days passed. He entertained his friends on Friday night, though his heart wasn’t in it. Lance’s heart wasn’t in a whole lot of anything, and everyone around him knew it.

  Saturday morning, he sat on the back steps, throwing a little ball for Maddie, who only brought it back one out of every three throws. Amber was leaving today. He imagined her little red brick house all packed up, neighbors and friends coming to help load the truck, her getting behind the wheel and facing the long drive ahead.

  He wanted to be there so badly. But he couldn’t get himself up to go. She didn’t want him there, and that was what really mattered.

  About ten o’clock, his mother arrived, a large soda cup in her hand. She gave it to him without a word and sat beside him on the steps.

  “You went to town,” he said, taking a long draw of the drink. The lemon she’d put in the Diet Coke tasted great, and he felt refreshed from what was sure to be an oppressively hot day.

  “Yes.”r />
  He knew why, so he didn’t ask. Just bent to pick up the ball when Maddie finally brought it back and tossed it for her again. Ribbon wobbled after it, but he never picked it up, always letting the little dog get it and bring it back.

  “She said good-bye, for what it’s worth,” his mom said. “Said she missed you and would love to talk to you.”

  “I’m not calling her.” Besides, phone lines went both ways, and she had his number. Had never used it.

  His mom patted his thigh and pushed herself up. “I know you won’t. And I don’t think you should. I told her I’d tell you, and I told you.” She walked away, pulling her jacket around her as if she could possibly be cold in this August heat.

  Lance watched her go, his chest collapsing with each passing breath. This wasn’t healthy. He had to find a way to move on, but he knew better than most that a break-up was never even. And no matter who he dated, he always seemed to end up with less than half a heart, the pieces he did have left shattered beyond recognition.

  Dave joined him next, surprising as the cowboy didn’t even live on the ranch anymore. “Hey, man,” he said. “Just checking on you.”

  Lance didn’t want to lie, so he didn’t say he was fine. The dogs had laid down an hour ago, finding a patch of shade under the steps where he sat. He didn’t want to go back inside, as he didn’t have anything to do there. He had no work on the ranch today, as Saturdays brought many volunteers out to work in the Canine Club.

  “Thanks,” he finally said to Dave. He’d watched his friend go through a hard time with Sissy too, but it had lasted a couple of days. Then she’d come back to the ranch, back to Dave, and they’d been married a month later.

  The familiar jealousy coated Lance’s mouth, and he reached for his drink only to find he’d finished it.

  “Come to dinner tonight,” he said. “Sissy makes this great sausage and potato casserole.”

  “Maybe,” Lance said. Dave clapped him on the shoulder and left, and Lance finally got up and went inside.

  The dogs jumped up on the couch and promptly fell asleep, leaving Lance with two rescue cats for company. He hadn’t heard what Amber had done with Cyclops, and he hoped she’d found a good home for the cat.

  Why he cared, he didn’t know.

  Over the next few months, Lance said “Maybe,” a lot. He didn’t follow through on hardly any of the maybes, though, but his friends didn’t stop inviting him to things. Dinners, birthday parties, festivals, lunches, the whole nine yards.

  He was grateful for such attentive friends who never allowed him to feel alone or like he was intruding on their lives.

  The day after Thanksgiving, he showed up at the homestead, just like Scarlett had asked him to. “Decorating day,” she said brightly, a smile on her face.

  Lance loved the Christmas traditions at Lance Chance Ranch, so he grinned too. “I get to do Prime, right?”

  “And all the fences,” she said, as if putting lights and wreaths on hundreds of yards of fences should excite Lance.

  At this moment in his life, it did.

  “Everything’s in the garage,” she said. “Hudson’s been pulling it out for a week.”

  Lance tipped his hat and looked to the garage as it opened. “I’ll take care of it, Scarlett,” he said as a baby wailed inside.

  “Thanks, Lance.” She dashed back inside as he walked away.

  “Hey, Hudson.” Lance thought he looked exhausted—much the way Lance felt. “I’ll get the stuff out. You don’t need to do it.”

  Relief crossed Hudson’s face. “Miles has been sick for a week, and no one is sleeping. Well, he does, sometimes.” He smiled and turned away from the bins and boxes and tall, plastic covered trees.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Lance said as Cook arrived. He’d been around for a couple of Christmases now, and he knew what to do. He got Cook decorating the homestead with lights, and he sent Ames across the street with big, red bows to tie to the posts bordering the cow pasture where Cache and Karla had gotten married.

  He said, “When you finish here, Cook, this tree goes over next to the goat yoga sign.” He pointed to the covered tree. “It anchors to the ground with the kit beside it. You’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m sure I will.” Cook grinned at him and opened another box, this one with a huge light-up star on it. “This goes…where?”

  “The chimney,” Lance said. “Ladder’s in the back there. I’m taking a bunch of stuff down to the entrance, and I’ll be working there for a while.” He started putting wreaths and ornaments in the back of his truck. Several boxes of lights went in too, and Lance told his dogs to move back.

  When he had everything, he went down to the entrance and got to work. Stringing lights just-so around the fence wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t hard either. The work allowed his mind to wander, and he thought about his Lord and Savior, the one who’d been by him all these months on the ranch alone.

  He’d never truly been alone, and he knew that now. He hummed a hymn as he worked, hanging ornaments on all of Prime’s limbs and putting a big wreath right over his mailbox chest. He was also exactly enough for God, and he’d been looking forward to celebrating the birth of the Savior for a while now, because he knew only the Lord could truly heal him.

  And he was so ready for that.

  Chapter 24

  Amber had been in Denver for four months. The changing of the seasons had been magical, but that was about the only thing she could put in the pro column. It seemed like everything that could go wrong, had done exactly that.

  She’d blown a tire on the way here, and thousands of dollars and five days later, she’d limped into town tired, hungry, and broke.

  Forever Friends had paid for the move, but it had taken weeks to get reimbursed for the travel expenses—including the tire and the loss of some of her belongings that had been damaged in the resulting accident.

  The apartment she was supposed to be able to rent had been suddenly unavailable, and she’d spent a week in a hotel while she tried to find somewhere else that wasn’t an hour’s commute and tried to start her new job out of a construction trailer.

  She’d cried most nights, wondering why God had communicated to her that moving was so right when everything was so wrong.

  Not only that, but there were no women at work anymore. Only the construction crew, which was comprised of all males, at least until all the hiring for the new facility was finished and they started training before opening in January.

  She’d been asked out twice, and she’d said no both times. She was so proud of herself too, as she normally flitted from man to man, looking for any reason not to be alone. That part of her life was still a work in progress, as she didn’t really like being by herself. But she also didn’t want to go out with anyone but Lance.

  He hadn’t called or texted, though his mother had surely delivered Amber’s message. It was unfair of her to expect him to, and Amber had typed out a dozen texts to him when things had fallen apart. She hadn’t sent any of them, saving them all in her notes app just so she could read over them in her quiet moments, think about what Lance might’ve sent in return.

  She’d spent Thanksgiving with a small group of people from the church she’d been attending, but she was returning to California for the first time since leaving in order to attend her sister’s wedding.

  There had been very little communication from her family since that day in Los Angeles when she’d left her mother and sister at the restaurant. Amber’s guilt trickled through her as a steady clip, the way it had been her whole life.

  She didn’t know how to get rid of it. Didn’t know how to forgive the people who should’ve been the easiest to forgive. Didn’t know why she couldn’t have had a mother and siblings like Lance’s. Didn’t understand why God had led her to Denver only for her to find disappointment lurking around every corner.

  “Stop it,” she told herself as she folded her laundry so she could pack for the trip. Feeling sorry for herself
had never served her well, and she needed to stitch a smile onto her face and get through this wedding.

  Then, she could return to Colorado, get the new facility open, and everything would be better.

  Please let that be true, she prayed as she folded a pair of jeans and put them in her suitcase. She’d be in California for a week, and that was plenty of time to help with the final preparations for the wedding, support her sister, and maybe go see her friends at Last Chance Ranch.

  As he always did, Lance entered her mind, and she wondered what he’d be doing for the holiday. Now that his mother lived at the ranch, would he be there too? Maybe Arthur would host the Christmas festivities at his house. Amber could find out. She’d texted with Lance’s sister a couple of times since moving, and Kristen would tell her.

  Her eyes migrated from her packing to her phone, sitting there innocently on the bed. Texting was easy. A few quick taps and done. Her resolve shifted, and she finished packing. Finished making sure the thermostat was set so things didn’t freeze while she was gone.

  Outside, the snow fell as she drove to the airport, making her mood surlier than it already was. But she made it onto her plane, and they were able to take off, even if the plane did shake like the devil himself wanted to bring it down.

  She managed to sleep on the flight to California, and when she deplaned to sunshine, albeit weak, winter sunshine, her soul felt rejuvenated. Pausing right there in the thick traffic in the airport, she wondered what that feeling meant.

  Should she move back to California?

  She couldn’t make huge life decisions based on current weather conditions, and she re-centered herself as she rented a car and started driving. She’d need all the focus she could get to make it through the next couple of days.

  After pulling up to the house where she’d grown up, Amber simply looked out the windshield at the few cars already parked in the driveway, the yard, the building, the perfectly placed wreath on the front door. No one came to greet her, and as the moments ticked by, Amber prayed for a way to find relief from her negative thoughts about her family.