Christmas On The Ranch: The Rancher's Christmas Baby / Christmas Eve Cowboy

The red sheet metal structure loomed dark and large in the cold, windy night. Newly oiled, the door hinges merely whispered as he pushed the narrow panel inward and stepped over the sill. Three horses and the restless heifer snuffled and shifted in the loamy blackness. The body heat of the livestock warmed this corner considerably, but if the outdoor temperature dropped much further, the heaters he’d installed last year would cycle on.

Reaching up, he switched on an overhead light and swung it to illuminate the nearest stall, where the heifer awaited his attention. He’d haltered and hobbled her, as the local veterinarian, Stark Burns, had suggested, to keep her from opening the stitches that ran from the dew claw to midhock of her left hind leg. She was not a happy patient. Using the pill pusher, he got the medication down her then unwrapped the leg, applied the prescribed salve and put on a new bandage, while avoiding the vicious swipe of an angry tail.

The wound was still fresh, and he couldn’t see any improvement yet. Worse, the heifer appeared to be losing weight. That could be disastrous for a pregnant cow. Dixon tipped extra feed into her trough and mixed a few sugar cubes into it to tempt her before leaving her to go see to the horses.

He took care of the geldings, Jag and Phantom, first. Both were big, powerful cutting horses that he’d dearly love to show professionally. The stallion, Romeo, was meant to be his ticket to competing with the other two horses. The sleek chestnut bay had the bloodlines of cutting horse royalty, but he’d been born early and extremely small. Dixon had taken the chance that he would grow to a suitable size, and he’d been right. By spring Romeo would be old enough to start training. Then all they needed was one good showing at competition. After that, Romeo would get a chance to prove he could produce—or, more accurate, reproduce. The stud fees should allow Dixon to try his hand at cutting horse competitions without risking the ranch or his normal income. It was a long-range plan that his dad fully endorsed, and Dixon had worked patiently to bring to fruition.

As was his habit, he spent some time with the skittish stallion, gentling and grooming the animal. While he worked with his hands, his mind worked over his problems, specifically his mother. He couldn’t deny that at times he felt lonely living out here on the ranch by himself, but he had plans and a purpose for his life, and he wasn’t about to let Jackie throw a wrench into all that. The Bible told him to honor his mother, and maybe Jackie had given birth to him, but she hadn’t raised him, not really. His grandmother had been his real mother. He wasn’t at all sure that he owed Jackie honor or anything else.

Resolved, he put away the curry brush, turned out the light and left the barn for the house. He’d tell Jackie that she and her friends could stay the night, then he’d take a shower and figure out something for dinner. Surely they could manage one difficult night without resorting to ugliness. He prayed about that as he trudged up the slope to the house.

The wind felt bitterly sharp, as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees in the hour or less he’d been in the barn. He let himself into the welcomed warmth of central heating and immediately caught the heady aroma of sizzling steak, his stomach growling. Frown in place, he stepped into the doorway of the kitchen even as he shucked his coat, his hat still on his head. Pretty Fawn stood at his stove turning a slab of chicken-fried steak in his biggest cast-iron skillet. Evidently they’d brought groceries because he certainly hadn’t had that steak on hand. Before he could comment, he heard Jackie playfully say, “Boo!”

A quick glance showed her playing peekaboo with the baby, who sat in a carrier on top of the table, waving her arms excitedly while Jackie draped a soft blanket over her little face and quickly pulled it away.

“I see you, Bella Jo. Peekaboo!”

Instantly, Dixon flashed back to an early memory, one he had almost forgotten.

He crouched behind his grandmother’s easy chair, quiet as a mouse. Suddenly his mom popped over the top, reaching down to tickle him.

“Boo! I found you, Dixon Lee. Mama always finds her boy.”

She scrambled around to sit on the floor with him, hugging and tickling. They were both laughing when his grandmother came in to say that she was going into town.

“Wait a minute. We’ll go with you,” Jackie said eagerly.

Grandma made a face and shook her head. “No, Jackie. It’ll take too long, and it’s way too much trouble for a quick trip to the store.”

“But I haven’t been out of the house in days except to work.”

“Well, whose fault is that? You should’ve thought of the consequences of your actions a long time ago.”

Setting him aside, Jackie stiffly rose. “I made a mistake, and I’m never going to stop paying for it, am I?” she choked out.

His grandmother looked at him then, and Dixon thought, Me. I’m the mistake. His grandmother rolled her eyes, then turned and left the room. A moment later his mother also left the room, slamming the door angrily behind her and calling for his grandfather.

How long had it been before he had seen her again? It had seemed like weeks, but he knew it had probably only been days. To a boy of three, days might as well have been weeks, though. The old bitterness welled up in him.

“You can’t stay,” he announced baldly, the words out before he even thought them. Jackie looked up, surprise and dismay on her lined face before she carefully masked her emotions. He lifted off his hat, steeling himself, and plunked it onto the hook beside the door before tossing aside his coat and actually moving into the other room. “You are not going to ruin my Christmas,” he said, trying to sound reasonable, “and we both know that’s what will happen if you stay.”

“I’ve never wanted to ruin anything for you, Dixon,” his mother said softly, sitting back in her chair, “but we have nowhere else to go.”

We? Dixon shook his head. So, it was a package deal. He turned his attention to Fawn. Did Jackie think dragging along this young beauty and her kid would soften him, make him more apt to open his home? What an opinion she must have of him, of men in general.

“And where’s your husband in all this?” he demanded of the dark-haired beauty. If they were asking him to take them in, he had a right to know. Didn’t he?

She looked stunned, standing there with a plate of chicken-fried steaks piled one on top of another, her dark, tip-tilted eyes wide. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your husband,” Dixon repeated. “Why isn’t he taking care of y’all?”

Blinking, she shook her head. “I’m not married.”

No, of course she wasn’t. Why was he not surprised? He slid his mother a disgusted look and stomped out of the room.

Going straight to his bedroom, he made short work of getting clean and dressed again. He was not—not—in any way pleased or relieved or even curious about how or why the woman cooking in his kitchen could show up with a baby and no husband. This itchy, nervous, supersensitive feeling was nothing more than concern.

He wondered what to do with himself, only to determine that this was his house and he’d be hung before he’d be relegated to his bedroom by a pair of unwelcome interlopers and an infant.

After stomping on his boots, he headed back to the kitchen, but at the last moment he derailed into the vacant living room, where he plopped down onto the sofa and prayed for...something. Strength, wisdom, the right words. Kindness? He didn’t know what to ask for. He just knew that he needed help.

* * *

“You’re crying.”

Fawn hadn’t seen Jackie cry since Harry had died, and God knew she’d had plenty of reasons to weep. She’d been strong for so long now, but her weakened physical state was obviously wearing on her.

“I knew he’d be bitter,” Jackie whispered raggedly, “but...” Shaking her head, she wiped at her eyes and focused on the baby. “It’ll be okay.” She managed a wobbly smile. “Despite everything, this has always been my home. It’ll be okay.”

Fawn didn’t know if Jackie was trying to convince herself, comforting the baby or sending up a prayer of faith. Turning back to the stove, Fawn took a plate from the counter and filled it. She carried it to the table for Jackie then poured a glass of water and laid a knife and fork next to it, along with a paper napkin.

“Do you need me to cut the steak?”

“I’m not that far gone.”

Smiling grimly, Fawn went back to the stove and filled another plate, this time with full portions. She poured iced tea into a tall tumbler, pocketed napkins, laid the knife and fork onto the plate and carried everything from the room in search of Dixon Lyons. Thankfully, she found him in the living room, sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He had showered and changed, but even with his head bowed she could tell that he hadn’t shaved. She was glad because she had the feeling that he would be wildly attractive clean-shaven, and she didn’t need that distraction.

“I brought your dinner.”

He jerked, as if he hadn’t heard her approach. For an instant he glared up at her, but then his gaze softened and he reached for the plate, nodding.

“Thanks.”

Parking the heavy stoneware plate on his thighs, he picked up the knife and fork and began to eat. When the steak cut easily, he lifted an eyebrow. He hummed when he began to chew but otherwise said nothing.

Fawn passed him the napkins and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him. He shot her a glance but continued eating without comment. While he ate, she took the time to pray, asking for the words to make him understand the situation and face his responsibilities. When she was done, she decided that bluntness would suit this man best. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Your stepfather is dead, and your mother is dying.”

Dixon dropped his fork and looked up at that. “What did you say?”

Fawn met his gaze squarely and said as kindly as she could, “Jackie is dying. It’s her heart. They’ve recommended her for transplant, but for many reasons she’s low on the list, so it’s not likely she’ll live long enough to receive a new heart.”

After placing his knife on the plate, Dixon carefully set the plate aside. “You’re telling me that my mother’s heart is so bad she’s literally dying.”

“Yes. And because Harry was an independent trucker, what insurance they had barely covered his debts. He left her destitute. She tried to work after his death, but her pregnancy wouldn’t allow her to continue, so—”

“Whoa.” Dixon held up a hand, palm out, gray eyes wide. “Pregnancy? Her pregnancy?”

“Of course. Apparently, she already had heart damage, but no one realized it. She was tired all the time, sick and weak a lot, headaches, nausea, various pains and swelling... They were seriously talking about ovarian cancer. When they first found out she was pregnant, we thought that explained it all. We didn’t know until after Harry died that her heart was bad. And the pregnancy just wrecked it.”

Dixon stared at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign language. “You’re saying my mother was pregnant when Harry died?”

“Obviously.”

“How is that obvious?” he demanded, spreading his hands.

Shrugging, Fawn braced her hands on her knees. “I’d think that Bella makes it obvious.”

“Bella! Bella?”

It hit her then with the force of a slap that he really didn’t know, hadn’t put it together at all. Her head jerked to the side as the implications registered. “Oh, how stupid I am.” No wonder he’d asked about her husband! What he must think! Shaking her head, she tried to set it all straight. “The baby is your sister.”

If his eyebrows had risen any higher, they’d have disappeared into his hairline. “What?”

“Bella Jo is your sister.”

“But...” He couldn’t seem to form words for several seconds. “Her hair...”

“Is dark like Harry’s,” Fawn supplied. “Or like Harry’s was before he started going bald and shaving his head.”

Still, Dixon stared blankly at her. “I don’t understand.”

Fawn went to her knees, reaching for his right hand. She gripped it tightly with hers. It was a strong hand, long-fingered and square-palmed, calloused with much use.

“Dixon,” she said carefully, “Bella is your mother and Harry’s daughter.”

His gray eyes plumbed hers. “Not yours?”

“No.”

He gripped her so hard that Fawn feared bruises, but she showed no response.

“My sister.” Suddenly, he dropped Fawn’s hand and bowed his head, pressing his temples with his fingertips. “My sister.”

“Yes. Born the last day of July.”

He looked up again, obviously doing the mental math. “She’s barely four months old.”

“That’s right.”

“My mother’s forty-four! How did this happen?”

Fawn sat back on her heels, trying to find a suitable reply to that. “The usual way, I imagine. I know it took them both by surprise, but they were happy about it, ecstatic. Especially Harry. He was only forty, you know.”

Dixon looked at her then as if she’d suddenly grown an extra nose. Lifting his hands to his head again, he fell back against the couch. “Oh. My. Word.”

Fawn thought about trying to point out the ramifications in light of his mother’s health issues, but he was obviously struggling with these fresh realizations, so she kept quiet. After a moment, confident that he finally understood what had brought them here and why they could not simply leave again, she quietly rose to her feet, picked up his plate and left him alone with his thoughts.

Chapter Three

His sister!

A four-month-old sister. Bella. Bella Jo.

Dixon could barely believe it, but evidently it was true. At forty-four, Jackie had given birth to her second child. His sister. In addition, Jackie was in ill health, but dying? He had much more difficulty believing that than everything else. He set it aside for the moment.

He hadn’t known Harry Griffin at all, but apparently Jackie had been happily married to the man, who turned out to have been a few years her junior. Dixon recalled the times his mother had urged him to get to know his stepfather, and now he regretted that he hadn’t found a way to do that, but he simply hadn’t seen any reason to do it. Until now. Now that it was too late.

Unsure what to say, think or do, Dixon found himself in prayer for the third time since he’d arrived home that evening. The only words his whirling mind could come up with were, Lord, help. I could really use some help.

One thing about being Jackie Jo Crane Lyons Griffin’s son, though, was that a fellow learned to stand up and take life like a man early on. It was either that or cower in shame. Dixon didn’t cower any better than his mother did, so after a few minutes he got up, squared his shoulders and walked back into the kitchen.

His mother still sat at the table, cradling Bella Jo in her arms. Jackie pulled the nipple of a bottle from the baby’s cupid’s-bow mouth and tilted Bella up onto her shoulder. She’d barely landed the first pat before the baby belched like a twelve-year-old boy trying to impress his buddies.

“Always the lady,” Jackie quipped, lowering Bella to her lap. “Just like your mother. Poor thing.”

Dixon couldn’t help a sudden fascination with the infant and went to look over his mother’s shoulder. “Can’t believe I have a sister.”

“I don’t know why not,” Jackie said brightly, holding up the baby for him to view. “She looks just like you.”

Dixon narrowed his eyes at the plump-faced infant. “No, she doesn’t.”

“She does,” Jackie insisted. “Except for the dark hair, she looks just like your baby pictures.”

“And your baby pictures look just like your mother’s baby pictures,” Fawn put in from the sink, which was full of suds.

“I have a dishwasher, you know,” he pointed out, aware that he sounded surly but unable to help himself.

She shot back with, “It’s full.”

Surprised, he lifted an eyebrow. It took him days to fill up the dishwasher. Looking back to his mother, he asked, “Is that true? Are my baby pictures that much like yours?”

“Why do you think your father tried to name you after me?”

Now that was a surprise. “Dad wanted to name me Jack?”

She nodded. “We settled on my mother’s maiden name and his middle name. I think he did it partly to curry favor with her. If I’d been a boy, she’d have named me Dixon. So, Greg decided you would be my mom’s Dixon. Didn’t matter. She still hated him.”

“Hate is a strong word,” Dixon muttered, but it wasn’t far off the mark. His grandmother had been the driving force keeping him from his father. She’d always said it was to protect him, but Dixon could never figure out what she’d been trying to protect him from. Greg was a solid citizen, never missed a child support payment, attended church regularly, kept his nose clean and ran a successful business. Yes, he’d gotten her daughter pregnant too young, but he’d married her and tried to be a good parent, which was more than could be said for his mother.

Jackie lifted Bella onto the edge of the table, holding her there in a sitting position. “Would you put her into her carrier, son? She’ll need a dry diaper soon. Then she’ll go down for several hours.”

“I haven’t handled many babies,” Dixon hedged, wiping his palms on his jeans.

“Just pick her up under her arms and lay her in the carrier,” Jackie said with a chuckle. “She holds her head up well now.”

Dixon wiped his hands once more then placed them just above his mother’s. He lifted gently and was shocked by how little the baby weighed. “She’s light as a feather!”

“Duh. She’s a baby.”

“What does she weigh?” he asked, gingerly laying the infant in her padded carrier seat.

“A little over fourteen pounds.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, she only weighed five pounds when she was born.”

“Was she early?”

“About three weeks.”

“But she’s healthy,” Fawn said.

“Perfectly healthy,” Jackie confirmed, smiling.

Bella kicked a foot, and Jackie pretended to gobble her toes, which made the baby smile, her eyebrows dancing.

“She’ll be laughing before long,” Fawn predicted.

“Remember when I used to do that with you?” Jackie asked Dixon. “You used to howl with laughter.”

“I remember you called me your mistake,” Dixon blurted, quite without meaning to.

Jackie’s face registered shock, and she twisted around in her chair. “I did no such thing.”

“You did,” he insisted quietly. “Well, as good as.”

“I don’t know what you heard,” Jackie insisted, “but I never would have said that.”

He told her then exactly what he remembered, and she shook her head sadly. “Son, son. You weren’t the mistake. Yes, I got pregnant and married too young, and it was much more difficult than I thought it was going to be, just as my parents predicted, but that wasn’t the mistake. My real mistake was divorcing your father.”

“But...you hated Dad as much as Grandma did!”

“No. No, no.” Jackie shook her head, smiling sadly. “I was heartbroken when Greg came home married to Lucinda. Frankly, Dix, until Harry, I never thought I’d love again.”

“I...I don’t understand any of this.”

She sighed. “Pride and pain make us do foolish things, Dix. I have no pride left, and Harry took care of the pain. He was a good Christian man. He forgave all my mistakes, loved me in spite of them and made me happy, even though I didn’t have you with me.” She looked at Bella, smiling. “We never expected to have a child of our own. He thought he couldn’t. Imagine our joy last Christmas when the doctors told us we were expecting.”

“I confess I’m surprised,” Dixon said, looking at his now drowsy-eyed baby sister. “I wouldn’t have thought you even wanted more children.”

Jackie looked up, obviously surprised. “Why would you think that?”

“It’s not like you were around a lot,” Dixon pointed out. He didn’t say that some folks would have called her neglectful. His grandmother had.

“I needed to work to help pay the bills, Dixon, and that meant either driving long distances on a daily basis or moving you away from your grandparents, which was exactly what your father wanted me to do. That was our main problem, actually. Eventually he gave me an ultimatum. And I made the wrong choice. He left, and I stayed here with you, which meant that I had to work even more, and that just made your grandmother even more critical. Eventually she was raising you, and I was...inconvenient.”

Dixon hadn’t realized that she’d felt that way, but he could see now how she might have. His grandmother had been a strong-willed woman of firm opinions. He didn’t doubt that she’d loved him, but her love had been a rather possessive sort.

“How is Greg?” Jackie asked lightly, too lightly, interrupting Dixon’s thoughts.

“Fine,” Dixon answered in the same vein.

“Still married?”

“Yep.”

“That’s good.”

Something about the way she said that set off alarm bells in Dixon’s mind, which made him say, “Lucinda and the boys are fine, too.”

Jackie smiled knowingly. “Your brothers must be all grown up.”

“Sixteen and fourteen.”

“That’s quite a group of siblings,” Jackie mused. “Twenty-eight, sixteen, fourteen, and four months.”

“Almost twenty-nine,” Dixon corrected. “I’ll be twenty-nine this month.”

Jackie beamed. “Yes. My two Christmas gifts. I found out about your sister on the nineteenth, the day before your twenty-eighth birthday.” She laughed. “I thought they were going to tell me I had cancer. They told me I was pregnant!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, sincerely puzzled.

She sighed. “I guess I was afraid you’d say what everyone else did, that having her was foolish. Harry and I were going to bring her together to meet you as soon as she was born and able to travel, but then...” She bowed her head. “God had other plans.” She looked up once more and said, “You do think I was foolish to have her, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Greg would probably agree with you.”

“I didn’t say that,” Dixon repeated more firmly.

“Your grandparents would certainly agree.” She chuckled sourly. “That would probably be the first time Greg and your grandparents agreed on anything.”

“No one has said you were foolish to have Bella,” Dixon told her.

“Well, I don’t care,” she went on as if he hadn’t even spoken, her fingertips brushing over Bella’s tiny foot. Dixon realized that the baby had dropped off to sleep while they were talking. “She’s worth it. You’re both worth it.”

Feeling eerily as if his mother had somehow slipped away, Dixon murmured that he was going up to the attic for some things they might need. Tossing aside a dish towel, Fawn asked if she could help. He wanted to wave her away, but he doubted he could move down the necessary items alone.

Nodding, he led the way to the game room and pulled down the hinged attic ladder. It was the one feature from the garage that he had elected to leave in place. After climbing the ladder, he switched on the attic light and went straight to the farthest corner. Fawn scrambled up after him. The white crib, with its yellow and green trim, stood collapsed against the wall, with the metal spring platform behind it and the mattress, wrapped in plastic, in front.

“What do you think?”

“That’s good,” Fawn said. “Bella can’t sleep in her carrier for long.”

They moved all three pieces to the hole in the floor then let each one down.

He got some rags while Fawn located an appropriate cleaner, and together they wiped down everything. As they worked, he considered what to do next. Obviously, he couldn’t put his ill mother and baby sister out in the cold, but he worried that he didn’t know the whole story yet, and he feared that Jackie might resent his father and vice versa.

Over the years, every time anything about his mother had come up, his dad had always quickly changed the subject. Not once had he expressed an opinion or a thought about her, though the man had to feel something for her. They were once married, after all, and had a child together. Dixon assumed that Greg’s feelings for Jackie were mixed at best and most likely negative, given that few divorced couples thought highly of each other. Jackie, on the other hand, might well resent Greg and Lucinda’s successful marriage and family, which could lead to some truly appalling episodes.