A Texas Holiday Reunion. Shannon Vannatter Taylor
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I don’t know.” His mother-in-law pinched the high-dollar fabric of her skirt. “Nigel and I don’t usually bother.”
“I’ll arrange a hayride for us. Bring Jasmine along.”
“Excuse me.” The girl rolled her eyes. “I’m too old for baby stuff.”
“Well, I’m not.” Resa shot the child a wink. “We’ll see you there, Hyacinth?”
The older woman’s mouth opened, closed, opened again.
At a loss for words. Something he’d never seen. He needed to take lessons from Resa on how to handle her.
“I’m bored, Mimi,” Jasmine whined.
“All right.” Hyacinth took her by the hand. “I guess we’ll see you tonight.”
“You can’t make me go,” the girl wailed as Hyacinth ushered her out.
When the door shut behind them, Colson blew out a big breath. “That’s why I haven’t called them. I don’t want Hyacinth turning Cheyenne into a snooty copy of herself.”
Or discovering the truth. “Felicity had her faults, but she was nothing like the other women in her family. They’ve seen Cheyenne exactly three times, and Hyacinth only clamored for more because she had an audience today. Cheyenne’s afraid of her.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “I kind of am, too.”
“Me, too.” Resa giggled. “But I don’t mind taking her money.”
Colson squeezed his eyes closed, tried to block out the image. “I didn’t kill Felicity.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You’d be in jail if you did.”
“She was taking a horse I’d recently broken for a ride. We had an argument and she took off. The horse threw her.” Clear as the day it happened he could still see Felicity lying there, her neck at an odd angle. “I should have known the horse wasn’t safe.”
“You couldn’t have known. Horses are unpredictable. Not even you can read their minds.”
“I shouldn’t have argued with her. Not with her on the horse. I probably agitated him.”
Resa’s slim hand touched his arm. “It’s not your fault.”
He met her gaze. Her hand fell away. His guilt didn’t budge.
“Why did you give me the perfect excuse to avoid Hyacinth tonight and then insist she come along?”
“If you don’t arrange for Cheyenne to spend time with her, the woman might get ugly about it.”
True enough. She might take him to court. Which might lead to DNA testing. Which would prove he had no claim on Cheyenne.
“This way, your daughter will enjoy herself, even though Hyacinth will be there. I figured it was better than a one-on-one situation.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“So are you and Cheyenne coming?”
“We’re in.” It went against all his plans of keeping Cheyenne away from her biological family. But Resa obviously hadn’t caught on—even though Cheyenne was a miniature version of her. “We’ll meet you there.”
“See you around seven?”
“We’ll be there.”
“In the meantime, don’t you have a ranch to run?”
“The feed store.”
“Oh yes. Sorry.” Resa rolled up the blueprints, stashed them in a cardboard tube and tucked it under her arm. “I’m done here, so let’s just go there.”
He followed her out. He had to keep the Birminghams happy. And clueless. His gut did a sick twist. If they somehow learned the truth, Hyacinth would stop at nothing to get custody of Cheyenne. To let a nanny raise her. To add the child to her possessions.
Over his dead body.
But Resa couldn’t learn the truth, either. A delicate tightrope stretched taut underneath him. And the wire kept shifting under his feet.
* * *
Despite Colson, his dad and Annette surrounding her, Cheyenne had gone silent and withdrawn when she’d seen Hyacinth.
Resa absorbed all Colson’s tension. Cheyenne’s discomfort was her fault.
Hyacinth reluctantly sat on a hay bale and paid more attention to the damage the straws supposedly made in her pricey pantsuit than to her granddaughter. Jasmine had pulled a no-show. Probably a good thing. Resa’s friends Landry and Chase, along with his parents, made up the rest of the crew. Putting some space between Resa and Colson.
The ranch truck pulling the wagon rounded the corner and they got the first glimpse of the lights. Cheyenne audibly gasped and seemed to forget all about her grandmother.
Nigel Birmingham, just as down-to-earth as his wife was snooty, focused completely on his granddaughter. “There’s a cowboy boot bigger than would fit any cowboy I’ve ever known.” He was clearly intent on soothing her with his heartwarming, silly running commentary on each display.
The little girl giggled, obviously at ease with her grandfather.
“Except Big Tex. You ever been to the State Fair of Texas?”
Cheyenne’s eyes widened. “Daddy took me this year. Big Tex is really big and I was scared of him cause he talks. But Daddy says he’s just a big old statue with a recorded voice and they take him apart and put him in a truck once the fair is over.”
“I think somebody stole Big Tex’s boot. What do you think?”
She giggled again.
“Which one’s yours, Resa?” Nigel asked.
“The nativity.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “It’s nice.”
“Do you have one?”
The wagon hit a pothole, jostling them a bit.
“The angels overlooking the nativity.”
“We have a display?” Hyacinth whipped around to face her husband.
“For years. It doesn’t cost much. You can’t have a nativity without angels, and it makes people happy. You can’t put a price on that, dear.”
“You helped put up the lights, Poppy?” Cheyenne moved a bit closer.
“Nope. I just pay to have the angels put up every year. But there are lots of Christmas festivities to come. We could get in on Singing in the Saddle in a few weeks.”
“Really, Nigel, don’t encourage her.” Hyacinth scoffed.
“What’s Singing in the Saddle?” Cheyenne, her face aglow from the lights surrounding them, ignored her grandmother.
“It’s a trail ride of sorts with caroling. People ride horses or wagons around Bandera.”
“But I don’t want to ride a horse.”
“How about a wagon?” Resa patted the hay bale where she sat. “You can ride in this very wagon.”
“Can we go, Daddy? Can we?”
“We’ll see.”
“It wouldn’t be Christmas caroling without you.” Nigel sent Colson a hopeful smile. “But just in case, we can sing now.” Nigel started “Silent Night” off, his deep rich baritone echoing through the crisp air.
As voices joined, Landry elbowed Resa. “So why is the cowboy still here?”
Resa whispered the explanation.
“Why