Montana Mistletoe Baby

“It never did.” Her tone was dry, and she cast him one unreadable look.

He chuckled. “Is that the grudge?”

“Yep.” And there wasn’t even a glimmer of humor in her eye.

But that wasn’t entirely fair, either. They’d been opposites, which was part of the fuel of their passion. She was almost regal, and he was the scruffy cowboy. She came from a good family, and he came from a chronically overworked single mom who’d consistently chosen boyfriends over him. Barrie had been the unblemished one, the one life hadn’t knocked around yet, and he’d already been through more than she could fully comprehend by the time he’d landed in Hope at the ripe old age of sixteen. If anyone should have been the obsessive planner at that point, most people would have assumed it was Curtis—just needing a bit of stability—but it had been Barrie who wanted everything nailed down and safe. And she had her untainted life here in Hope as her proof that her way was better than his. What did a scuffed-up cowboy like him know about a calm and secure life?

Curtis had known exactly how lucky he was to have her in his life, and his heart had been in their marriage. The problem, as he saw it, was that she hadn’t trusted him enough to risk a single thing after those vows. He’d wanted to make something of himself, and she’d dug in her heels and refused to budge. Her safe and secure life was here in Hope, and he was welcome to stay there with her, but she hadn’t trusted him beyond those town limits. So he had a grudge or two of his own.

“How is your dad?” he asked, changing the subject.

“As well as can be expected since Mom passed away. He’s looking at retirement in the next couple of years.”

“He isn’t retired yet?” Curtis asked. “He’s got to be, what, seventy?”

“Sixty-nine,” she replied. “And who can afford to retire these days?”

Sixty-nine and still working as a cattle mover—that would take a toll on a body, too, but Steve Jones didn’t have the luxury of a career change.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” he added. “Betty told me about her passing away when it happened, but I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”

“Thanks.” She didn’t clarify if he’d made the right call in staying clear, so he’d just assume he’d been right. He was the ex-husband, after all. Not exactly a comfort.

“That must have been a shock,” he said.

“Yeah.” She sighed. “You don’t see that coming. This will be our first Christmas without her.”

“I’m sorry, Barrie.”

“Me, too.” She was silent for a moment. “I guess you’ll have Christmas with Betty, then.”

“I need to have the sale finalized by Christmas Eve,” he said. “Betty says she could do without me by then, so, yeah. Christmas with Betty, and then I’m leaving.”

“So I’ll be screwed over by Christmas.” Her tone was low and quiet, but he heard the barb in her words.

“Barrie, this isn’t personal!” He shook his head. “You, of all people, should appreciate my situation. Your dad is in the same boat—working a physical job that takes a toll on a body—”

“Leave my father out of this.”

Curtis had crossed a line; her dad’s plans were none of his business, and he knew that. It was hard to come back to Hope and pretend that the people he’d known so well were strangers again just because he and Barrie had broken up. Mr. and Mrs. Jones had been a huge part of his life back then, but obviously, her father would feel different about him postdivorce.

“Like I said before, you were right,” he said. “Bull riding was hard on my body, and this isn’t a matter of choice anymore. I simply can’t keep going. My joints are shot, I’ve broken more bones than I can count, and I couldn’t get on another bull if I wanted to. You told me all those years ago that this would happen, and I said I was tough enough to handle it. And I was—until now. So... I don’t have a lot of choice here, Barrie. I have to establish a new career and get some money in the bank so I can retire at a reasonable time.”

She sighed and adjusted the bag on her lap. “I always thought saying I told you so would feel better than this.”

Curtis smiled ruefully. Yeah, well, he’d always thought hearing it would sting more. But fifteen years had a way of evening the scales, it seemed. She used to be the one with all the cards, and now he was getting his turn at being the one with the leverage. Still, tilling her under hadn’t been the plan...

“You worked with Palmer before,” Curtis said. “Would it be so terrible if you ended up working together again? You’ve got some loyal clients—”

“I worked too hard to get my own practice to just cave in like that,” she interrupted. “And no offense, Curtis, but I don’t need you to solve this for me.”

“Just trying to help,” he said. Which really felt like the least he could do considering that he was selling the building to her direct rival.

“Well, don’t. I’ll figure it out.”

The same old Barrie—single-minded, stubborn as all get-out and perfectly capable of sorting out her own life. That’s what their married life had been—her way. And if you just looked at what she’d done with herself in the last fifteen years, it could be argued that the best thing he’d ever done for her was to get out of her way. He’d never been a part of her success—and she hadn’t been a part of his. From this side of things, it looked like a life with him had only slowed her down.

The truck rumbled over the snowy road, tires following the tracks from that morning. Fresh snow drifted against the fence posts and capped them with leaning towers of snow. Beyond the barbed wire, the snow-laden hills rolled out toward the mountains, the peaks disappearing into cloud cover. He’d learned to love this land those few years he’d stayed with his aunt, and having Barrie by his side as he drove out this way was frustrating. Curtis might be a constant irritation to Barrie—even now, he was realizing—but he wasn’t useless, either. So if he and Barrie were only going to butt heads, he might as well focus on the work ahead of them.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “Around this next corner.”

Barrie sat up a little straighter, her attention out the window.

“I left the cow with some feed and a blanket—you know, just in case. I wasn’t sure how sick it was, so—”

“That was a good call,” she said, glancing around. “How far out into the field is it?”

“A few yards,” he said. “Not too far. I found it when I was filling feeders this morning.”

He pulled up to the gate that allowed trucks access to feeders in the field, and got out to open it. The cows looked up at him in mild curiosity—an older calf ambling over as if interested in some freedom beyond the fence.

“Hya!” he said, and the calf veered off. Curtis jumped back into the cab and drove into the pasture, then hopped out again to close the gate behind them. By the time the gate was locked and he’d come back to the truck, Barrie was standing in the snow, her bag held in front of her belly almost protectively. Her hair ruffled around her face in the icy wind, and her breath clouded as she scanned the cattle that were present, her practiced gaze moving over them slowly. She was irritatingly beautiful—that was the first thing he remembered thinking when he’d met her in senior year. She was the kind of gorgeous that didn’t need what he had to offer, but he couldn’t help offering it anyway.

“The cow’s over—” he began, but Barrie was already walking in the direction of the cow about twenty yards away now. The cow had shaken off the blanket, and the rumpled material lay in the snow another few yards off.

“I see her,” Barrie said over her shoulder.

Once—just once—couldn’t Barrie be a step behind him? But whatever. They were here for a cow, and not their complex history. If she wanted to know why he needed a new start so badly, here was a prime example.

“Lead the way,” he muttered. It’s what she’d always done, anyway.

* * *

THE COW WAS definitely ill; she could tell by the way the animal stood. As she got closer, she could make out nasal discharge, the bovine equivalent of a runny nose. The snow was deep, and she had to raise her feet high to get through it, something that was harder now that she was pregnant. Her breath was coming in gasps by the time she approached the cow. She had to pause to catch her breath, and she glanced back to see Curtis’s tall form close behind.

It felt odd to have Curtis in town, and something had been nagging at her since she’d seen him in the barn last night—how come this was the first she’d seen of him in fifteen years? Betty was in Hope, and she’d been like a second mother to him. He’d walked out of town and come back only once—to finalize their divorce. Did he hate Barrie that much by the end of their marriage?

She looked around the snowy field, gauging the cow’s flight path. When handling cattle, it was important to make sure they had a free escape route, or the cow might panic, and two thousand pounds of scared bovine could be incredibly dangerous. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted.

“You never visited Hope,” she said as he stopped at her side.

“Sure I did.”

She looked over in surprise. “When? I never saw you.”

“A few Christmases. I didn’t call friends or anything. I just had a day or two with Betty and headed on out again.”

“I didn’t realize that.” She licked her lips. “Why the secrecy?”

“It wasn’t a secret visit, just streamlined. I didn’t really keep up with people from high school. I came to see Betty.”

She eyed him speculatively. “You weren’t avoiding me, were you?”

His lips turned up into a wry smile. “Why would I avoid you?”

Barrie sighed and turned back to the cow. She felt the cow’s belly. It hadn’t been eating much—like the calf—but the belly wasn’t completely empty, either. The cow shifted its weight from side to side, and she took a step back.

“Maybe the same reason you left in the first place,” she replied, her voice low.

“You really wanted me dropping in on your family Christmases?” he asked.

“No.” She sighed. She wasn’t sure what she wanted—absolution, maybe. She hadn’t been the wife she’d tried to be back then, but now, as a mature woman, she wasn’t sure that her image of perfection had been realistic. It certainly hadn’t included the fights they used to have...

Barrie liked the challenge of taming a wild spirit when it came to horses and cattle, but she resented that same wild spirit when it came to her husband. Marriage meant hearth and home to her, but to Curtis, it had been a beat-up trailer parked wherever he was bull riding.

But he’d come back for Christmas with Betty a few times, and somehow that stung.

“I meant well, you know,” she added. “I only ever tried to make a home for you.”

“I was a bull rider,” he replied. “You knew all of that before you married me.”

“Most men settle down when they get married,” she countered. “A wife should change something.”

“Not my identity. You wanted me to act like a different man.”

“I wanted you to act like a married man!”

The old irritation flooded back, and she hated that. She’d come a long way in the last fifteen years, and it felt petty to slide back into those old arguments. She wasn’t the same person anymore, either.

“I never cheated on you,” Curtis countered.

“There is more to marriage than monogamy,” she said. “You had a home with me, Curtis. You treated it more like a hotel room.”

“In all the best ways.” He shot her a teasing look, and she rolled her eyes in response. They might have shared a passionate relationship, but that hadn’t been enough. She’d been the fool who’d married a man based on love and her belief in his potential.

“Forget it,” she said with a sigh. “It was a long time ago. I’m sorry to have brought it up.” This was exactly why they hadn’t worked out. They talked at cross purposes, but maybe he was right—she’d been trying to change him. She was wise enough now not to try that again.

Barrie turned her attention back to the cow. She checked its temperature, and while she couldn’t tell exactly how sick the animal was by temperature alone, it had a low fever. All the signs were here—the illness was spreading, apparently. She patted the cow’s rump, and it didn’t move.

“We wanted different things, Barrie,” he said. “You wanted that white picket fence that would please your parents and give you some respect around here. I didn’t care about Hope’s respect. I wanted some adventure. We just...clashed, I guess.”

Barrie dropped the thermometer back into her bag, and pulled out a fresh syringe and the bottle of medication. Yes, she’d wanted a respectable home, and she’d worked hard to create it. A garden in the backyard, flowers in the front... He’d never cared to put down his roots where she’d turned up the soil.

“Quite simple, really,” she said with a sigh. “And we’d been young enough to think it wouldn’t matter.” She turned back toward the cow. “I’ll give the antibiotic shot. It’ll boost her recovery.”

“You’re the expert,” he replied, and she glanced back to see Curtis standing there with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. The wind had reddened his cheeks, and she had to admit that he had aged. In a good way, though. He wasn’t like some of those boys from high school who were bald under their baseball caps and sported beer bellies now that they were creeping up to forty. Curtis was in good shape.

Barrie prepared the syringe, then felt for the muscle along the flank. Her feet were cold in her boots, and the wind stung her fingers. Just as the needle hit flesh, the cow suddenly lunged, knocking Barrie off balance as it heaved forward.

The cow stepped back so fluidly that she wasn’t able to pull herself out of the way quickly enough. But just before she was trampled, strong hands grabbed her by the coat and hauled her backward so fast that her breath stuck in her throat.

Barrie scrambled to get her feet underneath her, and Curtis lifted her almost effortlessly, then pulled her against him as she regained her balance. She was trapped in his strong arms, staring up into a face that was both achingly familiar and different at the same time.

“You’ve aged,” she said feebly.

“Yeah?” He chuckled. “Is that how you thank a cowboy?”

“Thanks...” Her stomach did a flip as she straightened and pulled out of his arms. “I’ll be fine.”

Curtis cast her a dry look.

“What?” She smoothed her hand over her belly.

“How many times have you told me now that you’re fine? I’m calling BS on that, Barrie. You aren’t the least bit fine right now.”

“The cow missed me—”

“That’s not what I’m taking about, and you know it.”

Barrie bent down to collect the syringe that had fallen into the snow. The cow had wandered off a couple of yards—maybe this particular cow had a bad experience with an immunization or something. Whatever had happened was all perfectly within the realms of normal when it came to a vet’s daily duties. Granted, if she weren’t pregnant, her reflexes might have been a bit faster...

“Curtis, you don’t actually know me anymore.”

“Hey,” he said, his voice lowering. “You might not have liked the kind of husband I was, but I was your husband. I knew you, and I can recognize when you’re freaked out.”

Curtis might know some of her deeper characteristics, but that didn’t mean he still knew how she thought and what could get a rise out of her. He’d missed fifteen years of personal growth. Besides, she hadn’t been enough for him, so he could take his insights into her reactions and shove them.

“I’m not freaked out.” She shot him an irritated look. “I’m fine.”

She looked toward the cow again and adjusted the syringe, getting it ready for one more try.

“I don’t need rescuing.” Her fingers moved as she spoke. “So do what you have to do with that building, and I’ll sort things out. I always have.”

“Fair enough.”

Barrie didn’t want him to sell that building, but he’d already made it clear that he was out of options. If their divorce had taught her one thing, it was that she was better off facing facts and dealing with them. Hoping and wishing didn’t help. She’d focus on her future with her child.

“And you’ll need to quarantine that cow,” she added.

“Yeah, I know. I’m not new to this, Barrie.” His smile was slightly smug, but arguing with Curtis Porter about just about anything wasn’t a great use of her time. Professional. In and out. What had happened to that excellent plan?

She headed toward the cow that had wandered off. She might be pregnant, and her life might be spinning right out of control at the moment, but she’d get through this by standing on her own two feet. Curtis was a cautionary tale—that was all.

Barrie took a deep breath, and let her tension go. The cattle could feel it. She patted the cow’s rump, then inserted the needle into the tough flesh. She slowly depressed the plunger, then pulled the needle out and firmly rubbed the injection site.

“Done.” She turned around and gave Curtis an arch look. “Like I said, quarantine that cow, and any others that appear sick. That’s the fastest way to curb an outbreak.”

Curtis might know her weaknesses, but she also knew his, and he was the furthest thing from reliable. She needed a plan and blinders, because with a baby on the way, she didn’t have the luxury of being knocked off balance a second time by the same cowboy.

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