Midnight Faith

“So you’re not vulnerable to blackmail, huh, Clint?”

He snorted. “As if you’d need blackmail, huh, Cait? I’m thinking a bulldozer’s more your style.”

She straightened suddenly, at the very same time he did, and smiled at him across the horse.

“Aw, come on. It’s Christmas. Let’s not fight.”

He couldn’t keep from watching that smile. He couldn’t keep from noticing the sparkle in her dark eyes.

To tell the truth, he couldn’t move a muscle. Suddenly all he wanted was to look at Cait.

“Hey, Clint, Christmas Eve gift,” she said.

The ancient greeting handed down from his Appalachian ancestors startled him once more. The magic phrase that claimed the other person’s first gift filled him with sudden memories of playing this game with his brothers. Then it filled him with anger and regret. She had no business even saying it—it sounded strange in her northern accent.

“Always one for a little family tradition, huh, Cait?”

Quick, deep hurt showed in her big dark eyes. It wiped her smile away.

Guilt tugged at him. He was never one to be deliberately cruel and he’d spoken before he thought. Cait was practically an orphan—she had no family traditions of her own.

She was tough, though, this Irish girl from Chicago. A little hurt would never damage her confidence.

“Yes. Ever since I fell in love with your brother I’ve been into the traditions of this family.”

She gave him that straight look of hers that dared him to contradict her.

“I’m a McMahan, too, Clint, whether you like it or not.”

He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a blessed thing he could do about it.

From the instant she got back into her truck and turned the key in the ignition, Cait wouldn’t let herself think beyond the moment at hand. Not one second beyond it.

The night was beginning to lighten from true black to a hint of gray as she put the gearshift into Reverse and backed away from the indoor arena. While she pulled out into the paved street and drove past the west end of the barn, she watched the sky in her rearview mirror, waiting for the first glow of pink to prove that the day truly was coming.

Her eyes burned with fatigue and so did her heart, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. Not right now. She was unloading her new horses into their new home and after that she’d think about whatever was next.

The security lights scattered over the ranch were still bright against the darkness, and when she’d reached the barn farthest from the other buildings she parked under the light beside its door. Just get them out and comfortably settled, that was all she had to do. Throw them their alfalfa and get them some water.

Suddenly even that seemed like too much to contemplate. Her limbs felt too shaky to do anything.

Cait set her brake and turned on the lights inside the trailer. She’d driven longer trips than this with no more frequent stops than she’d made tonight. She’d hauled Roy’s horses all the way to Ohio to the Quarter Horse Congress, nearly twenty-four hours with no relief driver and no sleep.

Exhaustion wasn’t her problem.

What was the problem?

She snapped her mind away from that next logical thought and got out of the truck. Not allowing so much as a pause to reach back inside for her canvas coat, she headed for the trailer. She’d work fast enough to keep warm in just her fleece jacket.

“You are some fine travelers,” she said as she opened the narrow door and stepped up inside, “with, perhaps, an exception here and there. Which one of you has been kicking the side?”

The sight of the nice horses, not great, but plenty good, sound horses—her horses—strengthened her. For all these years, she’d never legally owned a horse, and now she owned seven. Today or tomorrow, Christmas or not, she’d get all the registration paperwork ready to mail. She couldn’t wait to see her name on those official papers.

She let down the padded strap across the rear of the short, roan horse and untied his head.

“I only hope I’m not making a big mistake unloading you here,” she confided as she backed him out, “but I can’t go somewhere else now. If I find another location for my school, Clint will think he ran me off and he’ll only be harder to deal with next time.”

And there would be a next time, because she was not giving up her rights to be on this ranch. For one thing, the rent money she’d pay somewhere else for facilities could be better spent on more horses for more disadvantaged kids and then for an assistant as their numbers grew.

This school was what the Lord had laid upon her heart and this was what she had to do to the very best of her ability. Her memorial to John would be this school, which would have two purposes: to introduce troubled teenagers to horses and to faith in God.

When Clint knew that, he’d change his attitude. At least, he’d change it a little.

So why hadn’t she told him that at once?

She tried to puzzle out the answer as she led the roan into the barn and into the first stall, slipped his halter off and then left him, to get some bags of shavings from the trailer. Maybe it was because she wanted him to acknowledge her right to use the ranch. Maybe it was because she wanted him to know that Bobbie Ann had every right to make decisions, too.

Maybe it was because she wanted Clint to accept her as a person and not only because of John.

That was close.

It was because she wanted him to see her as a woman, not as his brother’s wife.

Chapter Two

All he had to do was simply not think of Cait as a woman.

Impatiently Clint popped the shine cloth across the toe of his right boot one more time, put that foot to the floor and set his left one up onto the woven-bark footstool. It was stupid that he’d ever even noticed that she was a woman, anyhow.

She was his brother’s wife—widow or not—for heaven’s sake! She was forward and stubborn and she had no tact whatsoever in any situation. He didn’t have the slightest interest in her.

Except, of course, as to how her cockeyed school was going to impact his ranch operations. He popped the cloth in the air and then pulled it vigorously across his already-shiny left boot.

He snorted. Her staying out of everybody’s way and using only the old outdoor pen was nothing but a pipe dream. Just let the temperature go above a hundred, let the wind blow dust in their eyes at forty miles an hour, and Caitlin and her little-rich-girl clients would be cluttering up the indoor arena from one end to the other. They’d turn the whole place upside down and probably drive his trainers so crazy they’d quit.

And that kind of trouble he did not need—especially not now, when he was making so many decisions about the ranch and its future. He absolutely would not lose two top trainers who were winning at all the big shows and bringing attention and dollars to the ranch.

What he would do was find a way to get Cait’s silly school off this ranch and to another location as soon as humanly possible. He’d talk to Bobbie Ann and start pushing for that just as soon as Christmas was over.

He could see his face in his boot, so he threw the rag back into the wooden box and went to wash his hands before he touched his white shirt. It was time to go downstairs and get on with this poor excuse for a Christmas Eve. Dad, John and Monte all being absent was an unbearable thought, especially for the late-night hot-chocolate family time, and Caitlin’s presence was the icing on the cake. As if he didn’t have enough to think about!

All he wanted was to get this Christmas over with.

Tonight he would simply look at Caitlin as a sister-in-law, exactly as he did Darcy, Jackson’s new wife. That was the one bright spot of the past year—Jackson’s sudden marriage and his gradual rejoining of the human race.

Clint tucked in his shirt, went to the armoire for a belt, selected the saddle-tan one that matched the boots, put a buckle on it and threaded it through the loops of his pants. It would serve Caitlin right, pushy as she was, if he did convince Bobbie Ann that this riding school business was a bad idea. He had a ranch to run, he was responsible for everything that happened on it, he didn’t have time to deal with the trouble Caitlin was bound to bring to it and he didn’t owe her the time of day.

He hooked the buckle, gave his hair one last, quick swipe with the brush and headed for the door. Well, if he were perfectly honest, he did owe Cait an apology. That crack he’d made about family traditions had been cruel and he hated the sharp pain it had brought to her big dark eyes.

Least said, soonest forgotten, though. No sense in bringing it up and hurting her feelings all over again.

He strode across his room and out into the hallway, glancing toward the guest rooms on that wing. Cait had slept all day, Bobbie Ann had said—not that he’d asked about her—and he’d heard that before breakfast, even, Manuel had asked her for instructions so his crew could feed her horses and take care of them for her.

Poor Manuel. Evidently he was as goofy as all men were about the tall, black-haired, long-legged horsewoman with the million-dollar smile. He’d probably hire a couple more stable hands just to wait on her hand and foot.

He started down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Manuel had said her horses were good, sound stock but not world-class. Said half of them weren’t tall enough to compete in English classes, which was Cait’s specialty over at Roy’s.

That right there made him wonder what she was really up to. Maybe she was planning a horse-trading business here on his ranch, where all the chores were done efficiently and on schedule and any problems would be taken care of by him and Manuel.

Which, come to think of it, would explain her smiling at him this morning and teasing him and saying let’s not fight, when they had never been in the same room in their lives when they didn’t fuss and wrangle about something. That must be it.

All Cait wanted from him was free rent at an efficiently run stable.

Even if that were true, though, it didn’t excuse him for not helping her unload and get her horses settled. He felt ashamed every time he thought about that—he would’ve extended the courtesy to anybody else in the world, since none of the hands had come to work yet.

He had never shown anyone such a lack of hospitality.

What was it about Cait that made him behave like a stranger to himself?

What was it about Cait that made him obsess about her every time he saw her?

Cait hardly knew the woman who looked back at her from the mirror.

She wore a skirt, for one thing, a very feminine, clingy, black velvet skirt cut with a bell flare at the below-calf hem, and with it, a white silk blouse that had cost as much as a good work saddle. Never in her entire life had she owned such an expensive garment. She still could not believe she had bought it.

Or that the moment she’d tried it on at that expensive shop in Dallas, she’d thought of Clint. Had imagined Clint seeing her in it.

Tears stung her eyes at her own foolishness, but she forced herself to blink them away and meet her own gaze.

“Face reality,” she told her reflection.

She hadn’t survived this long without knowing how to do that.

Lifting her chin, she looked it right in the eye: Clint might be attracted to her, too—maybe—but what he also felt for her was scorn.

And she was not accepting any scorn tonight.

Tonight was Christmas Eve. She was invited to a family celebration. Of her family.

For the four months of her marriage to John, the two of them had lived on the ranch in a small house about two miles away from headquarters. They had come back from their elopement in time for New Year’s Eve and she’d been in the family for Easter that year, but this was her first Christmas.

Tears stung her eyes. How could she ever have believed it would be a true Christmas without John?

If she had gone with him to Mexico instead of doing her job for Roy, would it have saved him—as Clint believed it would?

Dear Lord, I hope I wasn’t the cause of his dying. Please help me know, once again, that I wasn’t.

Most of the time she clung to the assurance she’d achieved through hours of prayer after the very first time she’d heard that theory, which was by accidentally overhearing a conversation between Clint and Jackson at John’s funeral. Today, though, Clint’s accusation had shaken her.

Her heart beat faster. She tightened the combs holding the mass of her hair on top of her head and pulled at the tendrils curling along her neck.

John was gone. Nothing could bring him back. He would not want her to be sad and mourn for him when she should be happy. He would want her to help make his family happy, too.

Deliberately she set her mind to that goal.

It would be a storybook Christmas—family and friends, a huge tree with ornaments that had been in the family for years and years, a festive dinner, gifts, traditions and singing. They would have hot chocolate late, right before they went up to bed. After the old family friends and their Christmas guests came and then left after appetizers and drinks and a dance or two, after the family dinner was over and they’d all sat around telling stories and singing carols and after they’d opened one gift apiece. She would be here for all of it because she was one of the family.

Eagerly she turned and went out into the hallway, savoring the spacious, secure feeling of the old stone house around her. Closing the door of her room behind her, she leaned back against it for a moment, just taking in the scents and sounds of the house before she saw anyone else.

This was the most wonderful house she’d ever been in. The center of it was old, a classic, two-story Texas Hill Country farmhouse squarely built of big, rectangular chunks of limestone carved more than a hundred years earlier out of the dusty land itself. It had the typical wooden porches front and back, and wings on either end of the old house, which had been added on fifty years later.

When those wings were built, the once-small oldest rooms in the center had been converted into a couple of huge ones—the great room and the dining room. The part of the kitchen that held the fireplace also had been in the original house. There were nooks and crannies in these rooms and huge rough-cedar posts and beams bearing the weight of the second floor. All the rooms had high ceilings and wide windows and ceiling fans and the solid feel of a home that had its roots deep in the ground.

She looked up and down the hall of this bedroom wing. Old Man Clint, John’s grandfather, had believed every bedroom should have the south breeze or the east breeze or both if possible, so this east wing was family bedrooms and guest rooms, while the west one held a pool room, music room, saddle room, library and spaces for Bobbie Ann’s sewing and other activities.

But what Cait loved most was not the space—although it amazed her every time she walked through it—it was the old, settled, secure atmosphere created by the worn oak floors, the square Mexican tiles of the kitchen, the leather furniture that had been there since the house was built, the Navajo rugs on the floors and the walls, the wood worn smooth by much use and many hands, the gorgeous Western paintings and sculptures that had gradually come into the house over the years and now looked as if they’d been born there.

This family had not moved out in the night when the rent was due. This family had not splintered into pieces and sent its children to live with the first relatives who would grudgingly take them.

The long, deep nap that had erased her tiredness had left her senses all open and vulnerable. She trembled as she breathed in the cedar smell of the greenery Bobbie Ann had wrapped around the banister railing of the stairs. There was a strong scent of spices, too, because every few feet a bundle of cinnamon sticks and oranges studded with whole nutmegs were tied into the cedar with a big red bow.

A marvelous Christmas that she’d never forget. That’s what John had promised her. And that’s what he would want her to have.

She started walking down the hall, and passed Clint’s room. The door stood ajar, the light was out. He was already downstairs.

Fine. Let him be anywhere he wanted. She didn’t have to talk to him. She wasn’t accepting any scorn tonight.

Slowly she walked down the stairs, humming along with the song floating up from below. John had said that his sister Delia’s band always played for the dancing. Right now, though, it was a lone guitar playing “White Christmas.”

Well, there was no chance of snow in the Hill Country tonight, but Cait didn’t care. She didn’t even need it. In fact, she didn’t want it. It would only remind her of the miserable Christmases of her childhood.

Chatter and laughter rose, then, to drown out the guitar and to fill the whole downstairs. The doorbell rang again as Cait reached the first floor. And she could smell chili. Chili and tamales were the McMahan tradition on Christmas Eve.

Company was the other McMahan tradition. There were six or seven families who had all been friends for generations, and they and any Christmas guests of theirs came to the Rocking M for appetizers and drinks before dinner on Christmas Eve. Probably, in the next two hours, at least a hundred people would come and go from this house.

LydaAnn’s trilling laugh sounded above the din of greetings called out by a dozen different voices. Bobbie Ann demanded that all the guests take off their coats and stay awhile.

Christmas had arrived at the Rocking M.

Cait lingered at the bottom of the stairs, kicking out so she could see her new, custom-made-in-Dallas-by-Matteo black boots. Matteo had created the design just for her: red roses and green, twining vines, carved to have layers and layers of petals and stems, plus white butterflies, all of it inlaid and stitched to perfection.

Western boots with the old traditional high, slanted heels and pointed toes. She could have spent less and gotten a great new pair of English riding boots, which she truly needed, but then she wouldn’t feel so much like a Texan, would she?

She grinned at her own silliness and started down the hall toward the huge living room full of people. Maybe no one would notice when she came in and she could just wander around and enjoy the tree and not have to make too much small talk.

“Cait! My goodness! What a gorgeous blouse!”

Bobbie Ann was coming out of the living room with her arms full of wraps and jackets of the guests. Cait went to help her.

“And those boots! Oh! I have to see them. Hold up your skirt!”

“It’s all your fault, Bobbie Ann,” Cait said. “You’ve been telling me to indulge myself, so I did.”

Bobbie Ann’s bright blue eyes looked her over from top to toe.

“You done good, girl,” she said, with an approving smile. “You look wonderful tonight.”

She let Cait take half her load and led the way toward the master suite.

“I bought this blouse, these boots and seven head of horses,” Cait said. “Did I indulge myself enough?”

Bobbie Ann gave her husky chuckle.

“No, but it’s a start,” she said. “I’ll take you shopping after Christmas and we’ll buy you a wardrobe for spring.”

“I don’t want any more clothes,” Cait said quickly, although the very thought made her yearn to do it. “And I won’t have time, anyhow. As soon as I finish working for Roy every day, I’ll have to rush over here and protect my school—Clint is furious at the very idea of it.”

“Clint needs a distraction,” Bobbie Ann said calmly. “He’s trying to work himself to death. Anything new is good for him.”

They dumped the coats on the bed and Bobbie Ann turned to Cait with open arms.

“Oh, Cait, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

Cait’s heart leapt as they hugged. Clint might not want her here, but his mother truly did.

“I’m glad, too,” she said. “Thanks for asking me for Christmas, Bobbie Ann.”

“Thanks for coming.”

Bobbie Ann stepped back and looked up into her eyes.

“I couldn’t have borne it if you’d refused my invitation, Cait,” she said. “You’re all I have left of John.”

She took Cait’s hand and led her toward the festivities then, but Cait’s heart had dropped into her new boots. Was that the only reason Bobbie Ann wanted her there? Did she not love her for herself at all?

Clint stood in front of the fireplace talking to Pete Kirkland—well, listening to him would be more like it—and wondering how soon he could get away to circulate among the other guests. Delia’s band was playing, a lot of people were dancing and he needed to dance with Aunt Faylene because that had been their own private Christmas Eve ritual since he was ten years old.

He also needed to be sure he had a good visit with Larry Matheson, because he was talking about breeding a couple of his best champion mares to the Rocking M’s new young cutting stallion, Trader Doc Bar. Larry was nothing if not stylish and a leader in the industry, and his enthusiastic support of the stallion could fill the stud’s book for next year and mark him as the up-and-coming best in the business. It was worth far more than any paid advertising ever could be.

One thing he did not need to do was apologize to Cait. That would only encourage her to settle in here with her horses.

He tried to covertly glance at his watch. It already felt as if this evening had lasted a year.

Fortunately, just when he thought he couldn’t stay in one spot any longer, the doorbell rang and he excused himself from Pete to go to answer it. His parents’ lifetime friends, the Carmacks, and the twenty-two guests they were having for Christmas this year poured in through the door.

Lorena Carmack laughed as she kissed Clint’s cheek.

“They swarmed on us this time,” she said. “Aren’t you glad this tradition is only bring all your own guests for appetizers and drinks and not for dinner, too?”

“Ma’s made enough chili for everybody in Texas,” Clint said hospitably. “Y’all should stay.”

“Truly spoken like a man,” she said. “We can tell you’re not the one arranging the place settings, Clint dear.”

He ushered them into the already-crowded great room and was in the middle of introductions all around when Bobbie Ann called to him. He looked up…and saw Cait.

All the music and the talk faded away beneath the roaring of his own blood in his head.

Cait was beautiful. He had been wrong about that.

He had never seen her in a skirt, and this one fell over her body like a sunrise coming over the land, touching here and there and then sliding away. She was all softness, all creamy skin and white silk and black velvet. She didn’t seem like Cait at all.

She seemed like a stranger.

Except for her unmistakable presence, the way she held herself and the way she moved that drew the eye of everyone in the room. She still had that distinctive, long-strided walk that said, I know where I’m going and nobody’d better get in my way.

The eternal challenge of her was the same. Except for an added one—the tumbled mass of black curls piled high on top of her head made a man want to take out the pins and run his hands through her hair.

Her eyes looked like black velvet—like her skirt.

Finally they rested on him. Just for an instant.

“Cait, honey, you know the Carmacks, don’t you?” Bobbie Ann said, and she and Lorena began the introductions all over again.

Cait spoke to everyone in the group except him. No one else noticed. Two of the young men in the group—he thought they were Carmack grandsons—monopolized her as soon as they could.

And then she was gone, drifting away with those boys after a pat on the arm from Bobbie Ann, who was shepherding the Carmack group toward the tables full of food.

Clint just stood there for a long minute, looking after her. Then, mercifully, Aunt Faylene came to claim him.