Page 2 of The Cowboy's Christmas Baby
“Maybe fidget putty?” Hannah suggested.
“The kids in my practice love that stuff,” Dallas added. “Their parents do, too. It keeps little hands busy, and it cleans up easily, so they can play with it in the car on long drives. Or bring it to their doctor’s appointments.”
“I understand the parental appeal. But my goal is to annoy their parents by setting the gift bar so high it’s out of their reach.” Maybe make them less scared of him, too. And he still had three weeks until Christmas to make good on his goal.
“Ah. You’re a big spender,” Dallas said, nodding wisely, as if he wasn’t one of Grand’s richest residents.
Miles had known Dallas for a little less than six months, but already suspected money was the one thing he knew little about and valued even less. He and Dan McKillop left that particular headache to the third Endeavour owner, Ryan O’Connell. Whereas Dallas, a doctor, and Dan, the county sheriff, were easygoing and friendly, Ryan, Miles’s boss, was neither. Miles could never understand why the other two men were so willing to trust him. He wasn’t shady, exactly. But he was a man who seemed like he had dark secrets.
Despite that, Miles liked Ryan. He liked working for him. He liked his ambition and drive. Well, he respected them. He only wished the guy would find a hobby that took his attention off the new circuit rodeo and left Miles alone to do the job he’d been hired for. One would think Ryan’s pretty, very pregnant, new wife might provide enough of a distraction, but so far, that wasn’t the case.
“How’s the exhibition coming along?” Dallas asked, tagging along on Miles’s train of thought.
Fantastic.
The Grand Chamber of Commerce had no issues with a Christmas rodeo held at the Endeavour, rather than inside town limits. They especially had no issues with Ryan O’Connell.
Miles wished. “We didn’t get the permit for a parade through Grand that we asked for.” The parade was the throwaway he’d known the Endeavour would never get approved. Declining it gave the chamber of commerce the illusion of power. “But we’re going ahead with the fireworks and the dance. They can’t stop those. The ranch is private property.”
“I don’t understand why the town is so set against a circuit rodeo,” Hannah said.
“They aren’t against it,” Dallas explained, proving he really did pay more attention than anyone thought. “They’re against the Endeavour hosting it. They think it will eat into the annual horse sale profits and undercut local businesses.”
This Christmas rodeo was meant to be a dry run. The real rodeo—the one intended to set them up for the PRCA circuit next year—would happen in February, a few months shy of Grand’s annual bucking horse sale held every May. But by hosting a PRCA event at the Endeavour, the town would have little to no say in how it was run, which was what Ryan intended. The chamber of commerce didn’t like that.
Hannah rubbed the frost-nipped tip of her nose with a pink mitten. “Why can’t the rodeo be part of the horse sale?”
“Because then Ryan would be the one with no say,” Dallas replied, again echoing what Miles had been thinking and proving he was nobody’s fool.
After chatting for a few minutes, Miles said goodbye to the couple and set off to see if there was anything at the craft sale that he might have missed.
An hour later, he had to concede there was not.
Maybe he was being too picky, he mused as he left the square and its pretty lights behind him, but he wanted to get gifts that suited his niece and nephew. Sydney wasn’t a doll type of girl. And Pax? He definitely was not a doll type of boy.
It was going to be weird to celebrate Christmas without them. Kids made the whole season. He should quit being such a coward and go home for a few days. Sooner or later, they’d get used to his face.
If it wasn’t for the kids, he wouldn’t care so much. His famous face had been a pain in his ass even before it was damaged. For three years, he’d been the public spokesman for professional bull riding. He’d been world champion for the two seasons prior to that. The only person more readily recognized in most parts of the country was the president of the United States. Fame became tiresome pretty fast.
Then, during a photo shoot, he’d turned away from a bull for a fraction of a second, and he’d been hooked in the shoulder and the left side of his face. The angry, red, puckered scar on his cheek ran diagonally from his chin to his temple, narrowly missing his eye, so in that, he was lucky. The scar would fade, although he’d carry it for life.
Plastic surgery had repaired much of the muscle damage. His smile was only a little lopsided and his eye opened and closed normally. He’d been so relieved to discover his shoulder still worked that he’d given no more than a passing thought to his appearance. Still didn’t, most days.
But having kids hide when they saw him was unsettling, no question.
He tugged his wool hat over his ears, tucked his hands into his fleece-lined, oilskin coat pockets, and started the long, cold trek to his truck. He might as well have walked to the waterfront from his house because he’d had to park halfway to Billings, anyway.
He found his truck, hopped in, and cranked the heat to full blast. The midnight madness craft fair was misnamed in that it ended at midnight, it didn’t begin then. Right now, it was barely ten o’clock on a Saturday night.
Maybe he’d drop in at the Grand Master Brewery and Taproom on the way home and check out if Hannah had any new blondes on tap.
*
Tate
Getting sacked atChristmas was one more reason for Tate Shannahan to hate the whole holiday season—from the ridiculous store Santa with the fast hands, to the cheap decorations, to the overpriced merchandise.
She fidgeted with the faux-fur-lined hem of the uber-short skirt on her elf suit and tried to pay attention to what her supervisor was saying, mostly out of politeness, and not because she thought she’d hear anything truly constructive. Vanessa Hamilton had been an old lady when they were in high school together and she hadn’t grown any younger in the seven years since.
