The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby by Carolyn Brown

Joshua. A little
     piece of my best friend lives on in him. Now your turn… what secrets did you keep
     from me?”
    Lucas brushed imaginary dirt from the legs of his jeans. “What makes you think I have
     any secrets? I told you all about Hazel raising me after my mother left, my dad and
     Grady being cousins, and Gramps.”
    “Is that a picture of your dad and mother on the dresser in the room where I’m staying?”
    He nodded. “Yes, it is. The only one ever taken, probably. I’ve never seen any other
     ones. Granny died when Daddy was a little boy. Hazel was already keeping house and
     working on the ranch, so she finished helping Gramps raise him. Dad waited until he
     was almost thirty to get married, but age doesn’t seem to matter much. He married
     my mother and she hated country life so bad that when I was two she left it and me
     both, so Hazel raised another kid for the ranch. Our luck ain’t too good when it comes
     to women in this family.”
    ***
    Natalie cracked an egg on the side of the bowl and turned on the mixer. It required
     a full minute of high beating after each egg or the pound cake would be heavy and
     soggy.
    She couldn’t imagine walking away from Joshua and she’d only had him two months. “Why
     didn’t she take you with her?”
    “She had aspirations about being an actress and a two-year-old doesn’t fit with that
     image, and besides, Dad said that she was free to go but if she took me away from
     Cedar Hill, he’d tie up the courts so bad, she’d never even see a settlement. He made
     her a one-time very generous offer to leave me with him and she took it,” Lucas said.
    “Did she become an actress?”
    “No, but she did find a high-powered business executive and married him a couple of
     years after she left the ranch,” he said.
    “You ever see her again?”
    “Oh, yes. She comes at Christmas every year. Her folks live over in Bells and she
     comes home for a couple of days. When I was a little kid, Grady would take me over
     there for an afternoon. She hasn’t set foot back on the ranch since she left. Nowadays,
     we usually meet for lunch somewhere in Denison and spend an awkward hour together.”
    What kind of mother only saw her child on Christmas? And why didn’t she come back
     to the ranch?
    Natalie finished beating the cake mixture and poured it into a loaf pan, slid it into
     the oven, and refreshed his coffee cup before she sat down at the table. The tension
     had eased slightly and the feeling between them loosely resembled what they’d had
     on the Internet.
    “Jack never remarried? Is Grady married?”
    He shook his head. “Neither one. Dad said he learned his lesson and Grady swears he
     learned from Dad’s mistake. Besides, he always said it took two of them workin’ full
     time to raise me. An Allen man only gives his heart away one time. Gramps told me
     that a long time ago along with the lecture that I’d best be damn sure I was giving
     it to the right woman before I let go of it.”
    His cell phone rang and he dug it out of his shirt pocket.
    “Sure thing. I’ll be right there.” He paused and listened some more, nodding when
     he agreed and shaking his head when he didn’t.
    “No, sir! She ran me off and they should be in the air by now, maybe even part of
     the way to Memphis. Give me five minutes to get my coat on and drive down there.”
    He pushed back the chair. “Hold down the fort, Josh. I’ve got to go check on a couple
     of cows that aren’t acting right. Probably just need warming up in the barn, but if
     they are ailin’, we’ll need to separate them from the herd.”
    Natalie held in the excitement, but it wasn’t easy. He’d actually talked to the baby.
     It was one tiny step in the right direction, and it hadn’t even grated on her nerves
     that he called the baby Josh instead of Joshua. When she’d had him, she’d declared
     to her parents and her brothers that he was to be called by his full name, not Josh