A Lone Star Christmas (Texas Justice Book 3) Read online

  He’d asked him that once, in his less than tactful, twelve-year-old way. It was the only time his father had ever given a completely unsatisfactory answer. That the heart wants what it wants had made absolutely no sense to him; didn’t the brain decide what you wanted? He’d gone to Slater with that one, but his then fourteen-year-old brother had been so busy dealing with college recruiters, after him even at that age, that all he’d told Sean was that when it finally made sense to him, he’d wish it didn’t.

  It made sense now.

  And Slater had been right; now that it did, he found himself wishing for the simpler days.

  The heart wants what it wants.

  He supposed he should be gratified that his heart had at least been consistent. It had always been Elena.

  “Hey, Bro.”

  He nearly jumped at the sound of Slater’s voice; it was as if his thoughts of his brother had conjured him up. He was, of course, with Joey. Because these days he was always with Joey. He gave the quiet-seeming woman with the betraying red streak in her hair a smile. He’d always worried his brilliant brother would eventually leave Last Stand again, that the town was just too small to hold his prodigious brain. But he had Joey now, who gave him a run for his money every day, and Slater had never been happier.

  Seeing them together had, he had admitted one quiet night in the silence of his wing of the ranch house, even given him hope, that someday there might be someone who could deal with his oddity, and his plunges down the rabbit hole.

  But the only woman who had ever stirred him beyond that faint hope was way beyond his reach.

  “Figured you’d be busy at the saloon,” he said. “Maybe adding Christmas music to the jukebox,” he added, teasingly jabbing at his brother’s aversion. People needed someplace to get a way from it, Slater always said.

  His brother just smiled. “Klaus is handling things nicely for the moment.”

  “I forgot you hired the embodiment of Father Christmas to bartend.” Sean suspected it was as much that Slater wanted more time with Joey as it was seasonal help.

  “Besides, it will be busier after the tree lighting, when everybody decides it’s time for a nightcap before that cold walk home.” He gave the woman beside him a loving smile. “Joey talked me into adding hot buttered rum to the menu for the season.”

  “Good idea,” Sean said, and before he thought added, “and maybe some ponche con piquete.”

  “What’s that?” Joey asked.

  “It’s essentially fruit punch, served spiced and warm,” Sean said. “The sting—that’s the piquete—could be tequila, since you’re already doing rum. Or leave it out, for anybody who doesn’t want the alcohol.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  He froze. The quiet, all too familiar voice had come from behind him. Immediately behind him. And in the moment he realized how close she was, he realized he’d been aware of that sweet, light lavender scent in the instant before she spoke.

  He managed not to whirl around like a half-cocked dervish. Barely.

  “Elena!” Joey exclaimed with a wide smile, then Slater spoke with an ease Sean envied.

  “Sean’s our go-to on Hispanic traditions when Esteban isn’t available,” Slater said, referring to her cousin, whose family owned Valencia’s. “Has been since he was, what, eighteen?”

  “Exactly,” he muttered. It had been his only distraction in those ugly days after the accident; inspired by her he’d dug deep, done lots of research, until the Mexican traditions were nearly as familiar to him as his own. It had distracted him from the pain, for short periods, and he needed that to get through. He just had to have moments when it wasn’t uppermost in his mind, and that—because of the connection to her—was the only thing that had done it.

  “In fact,” Slater added, “the whole Tejano contingent added to the rodeo parade ten years ago, that you ride in, that was his idea.”

  She turned slightly, and he swore he could feel her gaze burning into him. “I had no idea,” she said softly. “I thank you, for honoring our traditions as well as your own.”

  Sean had had about all he could take. “I need to get moving. I haven’t walked the other side yet.”

  “Seems pretty calm,” Slater said.

  “I’d watch the Phelps boys in front of the Carriage House, though,” Joey said. “Doesn’t take much to send them off in the wrong direction.”

  “Thanks. I’ll make sure they know we’re around.”

  He tipped the brim of his hat to the two women, smiled as best he could, and walked away. And that he was all the way to the pet shop before he was breathing normally again was something he would just keep to himself.

  The parade came off without incident, except for a flat tire on the classic old convertible that the mayor had commandeered for his pomp and circumstance ride down Main Street. The hoots and hollers that came from the sidelines were a pretty good measure of his standing in town. Or lack thereof. Just as the fact that he had to have—and expected—help changing that flat was a testament to his effectiveness in his office.

  That it had been his sister Sage and Jessie McBride who went out and changed that tire had made the entire crowd roar with laughter.

  The laughter changed to cheers as the Creekbend High School band marched past, followed by the mounted contingent—all the candidates for the rodeo scholarship that would be funded by the charity Christmas Ball in a couple of weeks.

  When the crowd had cheered Santa’s arrival, and then began to move along the street, Sean kept his eyes moving, looking for any knots of people that might turn into something other than just friends gathered after the parade. If things ran to tradition, there would be a lull in the late afternoon, then the crowd would start to build again as evening and the tree lighting drew near. Lots of people would come early, to have dinner in town before the ceremonial flipping of the switch that would light up the towering tree. Valencia’s would be jammed, so it would be unlikely he would encounter Elena—

  He yanked his mind off that all too familiar path, focused on his job for the rest of the day. Tonight that would be merely seeing that everyone stayed peaceful in the clearing out. Once the number out on the streets was down to a normal Friday night, he was done and could go home. Or anyplace else he could think of to get that woman out of his head.

  Maybe he’d even hit the saloon; that hot buttered rum sounded pretty darned good at the moment. Certainly more potent than the hot chocolate and cookies being offered at the booths set up near the tree.

  He’d never managed to drink himself into oblivion, but at this point he was willing to try.

  Chapter Seventeen

  They were an interesting combination, Elena thought as she wandered the shelves of the library. Joella Douglas—or Joey, she amended, remembering with a smile the exchange between Marcos and Sean about adding ie and y to names—and the saloonkeeper. Not a pairing she would have thought of, but clearly it worked for them.

  Although she guessed there was a lot of truth in what she’d heard Joey say, that for Slater it was as much the caretaking of Last Stand history as saloon keeping. That history was something that ran as deep in the Highwater family as it did in her own, and they were good stewards of it.

  As Joey was a good steward of this place. It showed in the tidy shelves, the occasional clever arrangement highlighting a particular book or theme. She and Emma Corbyn were very good at what they did, and their love of it showed clearly. She thought of the books she had often seen Slater Highwater reading—print books, often hard covers, thick and sometimes ponderous-looking tomes with long titles and authors she did not recognize—and wondered if that was what had drawn Joey to him. Not that those Highwater looks weren’t enough, but Joey seemed to her the personification of still waters, and Elena suspected it would take much more than surface things to hold her.

  Whatever the connection was between them, it was clearly strong. And obvious, as it had been yesterday at the festivities.

  “It seems yo
u are always here when I come in on Saturday,” she remarked as Joey paused to shelve a book beside her.

  “I like working Saturdays,” the young woman said. “There are people who can’t come in any other day, and I like seeing them.”

  Elena smiled at her. “And I like seeing someone who so loves their work.”

  “I do,” Joey said with a smile.

  “I believe my son attended one of your readings a few weeks ago. He came home raving.”

  Joey’s smile widened. “He did! I remember he seemed quite entranced with the dragon in the story.” She looked thoughtful. “You know, I believe a copy of that book came back in this morning. It’s usually in high demand, but there’s no hold on it at the moment. Do you think he might like to read it for himself?”

  “I am willing to hope that he would. I would love to see him with an actual book in his hands again.”

  Joey’s smile became a grin. “Ah! I thought I recognized a fellow purist! I love my e-reader, mind you, but sometimes only a paper book will do. Despite what Sean says,” she added.

  Elena told herself she was imagining the speculative gleam in the woman’s green eyes. “I’m not surprised he’s an electronic devotee,” she said in a very neutral tone.

  Joey nodded in agreement. “I’m not complaining, mind you. He helps us out a lot with our computer network. We haven’t had to hire an IT person, which we can’t afford, because of him.”

  “I did not know this.” But somehow, she was not surprised. It clearly was in his nature to help where he could.

  Joey nodded. “I swear, sometimes I think this town would fall apart without the Highwaters. So I’ll forgive him the e-books. At least he reads. A lot.”

  “Does he?” This, she did not know either.

  “Voraciously, Slater says. And that his retention is almost frightening. And coming from Slater, that’s almost frightening,” Joey added with another grin.

  Elena laughed. “It is good to see you both so very happy.”

  “We are,” Joey said. “Me, especially.”

  “I suspect he feels he is the lucky one.”

  Two spots of color rose in the woman’s cheeks. “He does.”

  “That is the secret,” Elena said, for some reason feeling even older than her years at the moment. “If you can keep that, you can conquer anything.”

  Joey smiled again, gave Elena another speculative look, glanced around as if to see if anyone was around, then said quickly, “Look, Elena, tell me to butt out if you want, but last night, there seemed to be…something, between you and Sean.”

  “Something?” Elena said carefully.

  “He doesn’t usually get that edgy when he’s working, but he sure did when you came up. I mean, I know he thinks you’re like the Queen of Last Stand—”

  “What?” Elena said rather sharply, completely startled.

  “I…Slater told me he’s always thought that. Like you and your family would be the royalty of Last Stand, if America went in for that.”

  “Which, thankfully, it does not,” she said briskly.

  But her mind was reeling a bit. Sean thought of her…like that? And always had? Her mother had always teased her that she carried herself like a queen, but she’d thought there had been pride beneath the teasing. She’d never thought that she might be keeping people at arm’s length with it.

  “I’m sorry if I—” She held up a hand and Joey stopped.

  “You did not offend me, if that’s what you’re worried about. I was just…surprised. That he—that anyone would think of me that way.”

  “Slater says you can always tell how strongly Sean feels about something or someone by how edgy he gets.”

  Elena pondered this as she and Marcos—who was delighted to have the dragon book in hand—left the library. That Sean Highwater—any Highwater, she amended, as if that somehow took a little of the too-close feeling from it—would be…intimidated, or ill at ease with her for such a reason seemed unlikely, but she couldn’t deny how often he seemed edgy whenever they were together.

  Although dinner the other night had seemed relaxed enough. She felt a sudden tightness in her throat as she remembered how easily, how naturally he had picked up her sleeping son and carried him gently to the car. She didn’t even have a name for the emotion that had welled up inside her then, unstoppable, until it had spilled down her cheeks in the form of tears. Tears he had stared at, but hadn’t asked about, a forbearance she had been very grateful for. Because she did not think she could have explained the tangle of emotions, even to herself. She had no name for what she’d been feeling. She didn’t know anything about what she’d been feeling.

  Except it made you kiss him.

  She shook off the shiver the memory brought, and told herself she should be thankful she’d managed to keep it to a kiss on the cheek. Her self-lecture did not help, for all it did was make her yearn to find out exactly what it would feel like, the kind of kiss she’d really wanted that night.

  She gave herself a sharp, inward shake and focused on getting them safely home. The Saturday morning traffic normally wasn’t a problem, but today, with the Christmas market, it was heavy enough that she wished to avoid it. She had just decided to make a loop to get back to the house from the other side when Marcos yelped.

  “Stop, Mom!”

  She hit the brakes simultaneously with a split-second glance in the mirror to be sure they weren’t about to be rear-ended. Then she searched for something she’d missed, some car coming at them from somewhere, some animal she hadn’t seen dart into the road.

  “It’s Sean, over by that stall with the cowboy boots!”

  She breathed again. But somehow the juxtaposition, of Sean’s name and the slamming on the brakes and bark of tires brought that long-ago day back to her in a rush. She’d heard the screech of the brakes that day at the restaurant, and the screams and shouts, that someone had been hit. She’d rushed outside, seen the group clustered around the still figure of a man in the street, their faces shocked and wide-eyed.

  The last person in the world she would have expected it to be was Steven Highwater, the police chief of Last Stand. She had never hesitated to go to him, to try to help him, although the moment she looked into his Highwater blue eyes she’d known, and knew that he knew, too. He’d managed to get out a few words, even as he lay dying, absolving the distraught George Goetz of any blame, although the rest was cut short.

  Not his fault…find him…my kids…tell them…

  He’d been gone before he could give her whatever last words he’d wanted passed on to his children.

  “—show him my book. Joey said he’s read it.”

  She snapped back to the present. And her son’s eagerness to share something special to him, such a rarity, broke down whatever resistance she had. She shook off the lingering chill of the memory and began to hunt for a place to park. She found a spot where a car with New Mexico plates was pulling out, and took it. Marcos was out of the car and hurrying back toward the marketplace, toward the rows of temporary stalls and kiosks stationed up and down Main Street and spilling over onto the side streets.

  “No running in this crowd,” she cautioned him. He didn’t run, but he was still moving fast, and she had a moment to be glad she had worn comfortable shoes as she jogged after him, careful to keep him in sight.

  He was far enough ahead of her that she had the chance to watch. He broke and ran the last few feet. Sean looked up the instant he did, and she saw him smile. It was a real, genuine smile. He was truly glad to see Marcos. And that did crazy things to her insides. As did the way, in the next moment, he looked around, searching the crowd.

  For her. And she wasn’t sure at this point if he was hoping to find her or not.

  He leaned over to Marcos and said something, and her son gestured back the way they had come. She braced herself, and as she’d known he would, he looked that way and spotted her immediately.

  He smiled again, but this time it was more hesitant. Almost
shy.

  …he thinks you’re like the Queen of Last Stand.

  Joey’s words had seemed impossible in the library, but here, seeing firsthand the way he was looking at her, she couldn’t deny they fit his expression.

  A ridiculous scenario popped into her mind, born no doubt of too many romantic movies and stories. The commoner hopelessly in love with royalty, and unable to do anything about it because he was so beneath her, and she was untouchable to him.

  And suddenly she was seized with a determination to show him just how wrong he was. At least, when it came to him.

  She was not royalty. She was not untouchable.

  Not to him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “It’s a great story,” Sean told Marcos. “I’ll bet you read it all in one night.”

  Marcos looked slightly crestfallen. “Nah. My mom won’t let me stay up all night.”

  “I think,” she said, laying a hand on her son’s hair, “that for reading a physical book I might make an exception.”

  She looked up from Marcos’s startled but delighted expression to find Sean smiling at her. And in that moment at least, there was no hesitation, embarrassment, or distance between them.

  “Whatcha looking for?” Marcos asked him, looking around at all the booths.

  Sean blinked, as if he’d forgotten where he was. Or had mentally been somewhere else. Elena dared to hope it was the same place her mind had gone, to exploring whatever this was that sprang to life whenever they were together. Although perhaps she should instead simply hope that he felt it too, that it wasn’t just some one-sided silliness from a…what? Prowling cougar? Love-starved widow? Oh, think of some more clichés, Elena!

  “Christmas stuff,” Sean said to Marcos. “Presents.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it,” Elena said, brought out of her inane musings by his grimace.

  “All of sudden I have…women to buy for.”

  “Ew,” Marcos said with feeling.

  “Plural?” Elena said, feeling a knot in her stomach. “More than…your sister?”