THE MAVERICK'S CHRISTMAS BABY Read online

  Yes, there had been some adapting to be done in that family. But they’d adapted to her as much as she’d had to adapt to anyone else. It had only been with Leo that she had found herself needing to be the only one in the relationship to accommodate.

  And now that she thought about it, it occurred to her that Leo had been an only child. Maybe that was why he hadn’t learned to do anything other than expect someone else to meet his needs while putting their own on the back burner. Maybe that had contributed to his expectations that she be flexible while he insisted on remaining a creature of habit. Maybe it hadn’t been just the age difference that had put her at a disadvantage.

  But Dallas came from the same kind of upbringing she did. From a big family. And, yes, he was older than she was—almost as much older as Leo had been. But he was a kind, caring, generous, compassionate man who had sacrificed himself more than once to step in and take care of her.

  Dallas was faultlessly thoughtful and considerate of her—something that could never have been said of Leo. And Dallas hadn’t given the impression that he expected her, or anyone else, to put anything on hold or on the back burner for him. He’d even embraced her having this baby despite the fact that, early on, he’d clearly been confused by why she was doing it this way.

  Never once had she felt taken advantage of, the way she had with Leo, and not until Dallas’s request that she and Noelle move into his house had she felt as if she had to do more compromising than Dallas had done or was willing to do.

  Yes, to be with him would mean uprooting herself. It would mean taking Noelle home to his house rather than to her apartment. But that wasn’t because he was set in his ways or because he used that as an excuse to control what went on. It was just the best, most logical way for things to work out.

  And other than that, she thought that Dallas was right that having kids made being set in his ways impossible. And he was okay with that. He was even okay with adding her baby to his family. And having more...

  More that could come out of nights like the one they’d spent together. The night that had left her wanting nothing so much as to be back in his arms.

  “Are you even listening to me?” her mother asked.

  She wasn’t.

  But now that her mother had forced her to, Nina knew that even if she was willing to move into Dallas’s house and life, even if she was willing to be a replacement mother to his boys and give her new daughter three big brothers, there was still the issue of the animosity between his family and hers.

  Especially the obviously flaming animosity her family held on to, even if his had backed away from the feud enough to allow her in....

  “Please don’t, Mom,” Nina said in a quiet voice when her mother had gone on to disparage Dallas and the rest of the Traubs. “I love that man. Please don’t make me choose—”

  “Choose!” her mother repeated as if the possibility of that hadn’t occurred to her. “Are you telling me that you would pick him over us? Them over us?”

  “I don’t want to pick anyone over anyone. And I don’t think I should have to. Especially when you can’t tell me—right here and now, without any question—why you hate the Traubs. And don’t bring up the election because Nate’s gone on just fine not being mayor and can run again if he wants to. Even against a Traub if it was done less mean-spiritedly, which it could be.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  “The Traubs are just like us, Mom,” Nina went on. “They’re a family who care about each other. And about Rust Creek Falls. Just like us. They’re making their way through life the same way we are. There’s no reason, no sense in hating them because somebody got mad at somebody a gazillion years ago.”

  “You wouldn’t really turn your back on us? Take that baby away from us...?” Laura Crawford asked in a whisper full of disbelief, obviously not in agreement with anything Nina had said but beginning to fear she might actually lose her daughter or her new—and first—grandchild.

  “No, I wouldn’t turn my back on you or take Noelle away from you. But I want to be with Dallas.” And as Nina said that, she knew just how true it was. True enough to weather whatever conflicts arose from joining the two families because she suddenly couldn’t see her life without him. She couldn’t see herself raising Noelle without him. She couldn’t see anything without him.

  “And if I’m with Dallas, then it’s up to you,” she continued, thinking to illustrate what that would mean for her mother, should her family opt to go on the way they had been. “Will you not come to Noelle’s christening or her birthday parties because the Traubs do? Will you only see Noelle when I can bring her to you because you won’t visit her and see Dallas or his boys? Will you keep us at arm’s length just for some fight that took place generations before any of us were even born?”

  “So what is it you see, Nina?” her mother demanded angrily. “The Traubs and the Crawfords just getting together and hugging and kissing and pretending we haven’t hated each other for decades? Becoming bosom buddies?”

  Sadly, no, she didn’t see that.

  But Nina refused to just bow to the status quo.

  “At first they were only civil to me,” Nina informed her mother, outlining the course of her own path to the Traubs. “Then things became a little more friendly because they were glad that Dallas was happier when he was with me—the way I feel when I’m with him,” she said pointedly. “And when they found out I was going to be alone on Christmas they invited me to join them. The same way you’ve invited more people than I can count to join us whenever you’ve heard of anyone we know spending a holiday alone. No, there hasn’t been any hugging and kissing—” well, with Traubs other than Dallas, anyway “—but they opened their door to me, they were nice and hospitable, and it’s gotten easier as it’s gone along.”

  “So put a good face on it, is that what you’re saying? And pretend we haven’t been at each other’s throats forever?”

  “Yes,” Nina said. “Start that way. For my sake. For Noelle’s sake. Do what Dallas asked—just put the stupid rift behind us and try something else.”

  Laura Crawford was still frowning over that surgical mask but her tone was more resigned when she said, “You’re serious about this? About this man? Isn’t he as old as Leo?”

  Ah, an attempt to throw a wrench into the works, because her mother knew Nina’s thinking about that...

  “Yes, he’s almost as old as Leo, but he’s a completely different person,” Nina said, knowing that as a fact, pure and simple, and not daunted at all anymore by their age difference.

  “And three kids, Nina,” her mother said, trying again. “He already has three kids.”

  “Three kids who need a mom. Three kids who I already love and want to be a mom to.”

  “And you’d leave your little apartment and let yourself be swallowed up in his life. Isn’t that what you did with Leo? What you weren’t going to do again?”

  “I’d leave my apartment to live in a nice house, but it isn’t the same as what I had to do with Leo because nothing is the same with Dallas. He left his kids, his family on Christmas to do what needed to be done for me because he takes care of what needs to be taken care of. Like I do. He goes with the flow—that makes him the exact opposite of Leo.”

  “But they’re Traubs...” her mother said, sounding defeated.

  “They’re just people. A family. The same as we are.”

  “I don’t know how this will work,” her mother lamented.

  “I think that if you try, and they try, eventually it can.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes, shook her head, frowned mightily. And yet there was still some semblance of acceptance. Unwilling and resentful, but acceptance on some level. “And I thought artificial insemination and having a baby without a husband was over-the-top enough. Leave it to you to add Traubs to the mi
x,” she grumbled.

  But, for now, that was concession enough for Nina, and she realized that she just had to have faith that something better would come later, that even if both families began by just going through the motions of peace, eventually maybe peace would become a reality and grow into something better. Something that could genuinely put behind them whatever it was that had kept them at odds.

  Her mother had just taken her hand to squeeze and leaned over to place a kiss to her forehead through the surgical mask when Dallas knocked on the door, tentatively poking just his head into the room.

  “I thought you might want to know, Mrs. Crawford—they’re about to change Noelle’s diaper. If you want, they’ll do it at the nursery window so you can see all ten fingers and all ten toes, and that she really is just perfect.”

  And maybe what the two families could be brought together for.

  “I need to go see that,” Laura Crawford said, tearing up again at the mere thought of the baby.

  “Go,” Nina encouraged her.

  She watched as her mother returned to the door and stopped in front of Dallas, where he’d remained just to the outside of it.

  For a moment Laura Crawford didn’t speak, she merely stood there, proudly, stubbornly. But then she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin to the big man and said, “Thank you for taking care of my daughter and my granddaughter.”

  It was slightly begrudging, only coolly courteous, but an improvement nonetheless.

  “You’re welcome. It was my pleasure,” Dallas answered with more warmth.

  Then Nina’s mother went past him and down the corridor, and Dallas came back to sit on the side of Nina’s bed.

  He took her hand in both of his, raised it to kiss and when he’d tucked it against his thigh, he said, “Poor Noelle has to have a diaper change whether she needs it or not because there’s one more thing I have to say, and I had to get back here to say it.”

  Nina smiled at him. “You said quite a bit before.”

  “But there’s one more thing—if it isn’t too late...” He glanced over his shoulder at the door to see if the coast was still clear. Then, looking at her again, his blue eyes delving into hers, he said, “I love you, Nina, and I’d really, really—really—like it if you’d say yes, you’ll marry me...”

  Nina teared up herself for the umpteenth time, smiled and didn’t even need another moment to think about it before she said, “Yes, I will marry you.”

  A shocked sort of happiness infused Dallas’s expression. “You will?”

  Nina laughed. “My mother had a lot to say and it gave me a while to think when I was supposed to be listening,” she confided, going on to tell him how she’d resolved her own issues and the realizations she’d come to about him, about everything.

  “I love you, too,” she told him. “I don’t know how it happened when I was trying to make sure it didn’t, but it did...”

  “I know, I was fighting it, too. It was just bigger and stronger than I am.”

  And that was saying something.

  “But what about your mom and the rest of your family?” Dallas asked, nodding in the direction of the hospital room door.

  “I told her how I feel about you. That I want to be with you. So seeing her granddaughter might be more limited if she and everyone else keeps up the way they have been. And she doesn’t want that. So I’m hoping that she and everyone else will come around.”

  “That’s why she was nicer a minute ago?”

  Nina laughed. “Well, yes, that’s why she’s trying. If everybody just tries—”

  “We’ll make it work out,” Dallas assured her, reaching a hand to the back of her neck as he leaned forward to kiss her. Deeply, profoundly, oh-so-sweetly and yet with passion right there, too...

  And that was what Nina really needed. The touch of Dallas’s hands. The heat and strength of his body. The feel of his mouth pressed to hers. And that connection that had formed between them despite every obstacle and issue that should have prevented it.

  She truly loved this man and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

  When the kiss ended and she looked more closely at him, she saw the fatigue lurking behind his eyes and knew he needed some rest.

  “Go home and sleep,” she urged in a quiet voice filled with her own reluctance to lose his company.

  “I’d rather round up some of my brothers and start to move you and Noelle to my place,” he said, more question than statement. “Are you gonna let me do that?”

  Nina smiled. “I don’t think you and three boys will fit into my apartment, so yes, you can do that.” Because even though she’d been looking forward to bringing her new baby home to the bright yellow nursery she’d decorated, the thought of going anywhere Dallas wasn’t didn’t appeal to her. “But you must know better than anyone that that means you’re signing on for sleepless nights.”

  He smiled back at her. “Consider me signed on.”

  “But get some rest before you start moving day,” she decreed.

  “A couple of hours,” he agreed. “A couple more to move things. Then I’ll be back.”

  She already couldn’t wait.

  But he still didn’t seem eager to leave because he stayed there, studying her awhile longer, kissing her again, telling her how much he loved her.

  And only when Nina reminded him that her mother would be back any minute, and told him it was probably better if she was alone with her to tell her they were engaged, did he give Nina one last, lingering kiss, and actually go.

  But not without leaning in first and whispering, “We’re going to have a great life together...”

  And leaving Nina certain that they would.

  Epilogue

  “Welcome, everyone, to the grand reopening of our elementary school, and thank you for coming out before you get your New Year’s Eve parties started!” Mayor Collin Traub said over the microphone.

  He was standing at a podium set up in the school cafeteria in front of a hundred occupied folding chairs while the rest of the audience filled the perimeters of the room because there weren’t enough seats.

  Nina was sitting in the center of the third row. It was Noelle’s first outing and the newborn was sleeping peacefully beside her in Dallas’s arms—which had become Noelle’s favorite place to snooze.

  To Nina’s left were her parents and those of her siblings who could make the event, and to Dallas’s right was his family, with Ryder, Jake and Robbie interspersed between uncles.

  During the week since Nina and Noelle had left the hospital and moved in with Dallas and the boys, the Crawfords and the Traubs had crossed paths and reached an unspoken truce of sorts. At first, barely civil hellos had been the only exchanges. As the week progressed, “How are you?” had been added on both sides. And with most of their focus on Noelle, Ryder, Jake and Robbie, so far the two families seemed to be tolerating each other.

  It wasn’t great, but it was something.

  And having them all in that room at that moment, sitting in the same row of chairs, was enough to have caused a buzz throughout the cafeteria when townsfolk began to notice that a détente between the families had been reached.

  “The flood cost us dearly.” Rust Creek’s new mayor began what sounded like a prepared speech. “Including the life of our former mayor, Hunter McGee, and I’d like us to spend a moment in silent remembrance.”

  That request was honored by everyone except a few fussy babies and very small children.

  When the moment had been observed, Collin picked up where he’d left off.

  “As you can see, thanks to the involvement of the New York organization Bootstraps, and the volunteers who came to Rust Creek Falls, the mission to bring our school back from the flood damage and make it better than ever has been accompli
shed. We want to thank everyone for their efforts and generosity of time and energy.”

  Applause and cheers went up.

  When it died down, Collin said, “We want to particularly thank Lissa Roarke, who brought our situation to the attention of the whole country and whose television appearance and writings on our behalf have generated donations and help and—” the mayor smiled “—the interest—I hear—of any number of single women who just might like to find a Rust Creek cowboy of their own. Like my brother Braden, for instance, who is now the only one of us left single.”

  The crowd laughed at the brotherly goad.

  “Sorry, Braden,” Collin apologized remorselessly. “But I wanted a lead into making some announcements and congratulations, and your status as an available bachelor got to be it.”

  More chuckles from the audience.

  “While we aren’t all out from under the destruction the flood left,” Collin said, “I think we should note that from the bad came some good. And as this New Year is upon us, I want to take the time to recognize and celebrate that good the same way we’re here celebrating our resurrected and improved school.”

  There were mutterings of agreement to that.

  “I know you’re all looking at that third row, there,” Collin went on, “where the Crawfords and the Traubs are actually sitting together. If you’ll notice, my brother Dallas and Nina Crawford—and Nina’s not-quite-a-week-old daughter, Noelle—are right there in the middle, and that says it all because they’re the connecting link. Seems like Christmas brought them together and—in keeping with the holiday theme—Dallas and Nina are engaged and have set a Valentine’s Day wedding date.”

  More clapping and cheers of congratulations rang through the room. Nina wasn’t sure how much of it might be for the ending of the feud between the two families, but she knew that some of it was for her and Dallas. So she smiled and glanced at Dallas, who smiled back, leaned over and kissed her.

  “But they’re not the only two pairing up,” Mayor Traub went on. “As you all know, your kindergarten teacher, Willa Christensen, and I came together over the flood and ended up tying the knot, and so did Dean Pritchett and Shelby Jenkins, and our newest addition to veterinary medicine—Brooks Smith and Jazzy Cates.