The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby by Carolyn Brown Page B

his favorite rocker/recliner.
     “Babies always like me. Jack liked me better than his momma and that used to just
     bug the shit out of her. Now Mr. Josh, we are going to get real comfortable and you
     can take a little nap after you get your belly filled up. Don’t you worry none, son.
     I’ll wake you up when they plug in the lights. You won’t miss the good part, I promise.”
    “And you, missy, are going to help Lucas put the lights and the garland on the tree
     while I watch and make sure it’s all on there just right,” Henry told Natalie.
    “You mean while you boss us all around like hired hands,” Lucas said.
    “It’s a tough job, but I’m up for it,” Henry teased.

Chapter 5
    Lucas carefully slipped the cardboard center out of the first strand of lights and
     looped them over his arms. Natalie didn’t have to be told what to do next. She’d seen
     her mother and father do this dance her whole life. Her father slowly walked around
     the tree and her mother placed the lights in the right spots. When she was a little
     kid it took forever. She and her brothers bounced around the room impatiently waiting
     for their turn to put ornaments on the low branches.
    She could visualize Lucas as a little boy doing the same thing while Jack and Hazel
     draped the lights and the garland. Until that moment, she’d never thought of him as
     a child. He’d come into her shattered world as a full-grown adult. Had he been a quiet,
     brooding child or a busy, loud boy that kept Hazel on her toes?
    “Starting at the bottom,” she said.
    Lucas held out his arms. “Is that a question or a demand?”
    “It’s a statement,” she shot back.
    “Don’t be too rough on him. This is his first year to do this job. Usually Jack and
     Hazel put the lights on the tree, and he’s the impatient one waiting to hang the ornaments,”
     Henry said.
    So he hadn’t been a dark introvert but a normal kid like her and her brothers.
    Grady pointed at Lucas. “And you don’t antagonize her.”
    “Hey, don’t take up for her. She’s already sassy enough,” Lucas said.
    “And don’t you forget it.” She picked up the end of the string of lights and squatted
     to clip the first one on a bottom branch. When they’d finished that strand and started
     on the second, she realized why it took so long and why her mother and father giggled
     so much while they walked around and around the tree.
    Every time she and Lucas moved they brushed against each other. His arm against her
     breast. His hip against her belly. Her bare hands on his forearms as she unwound another
     length. His eyes so close that she could count the gold flecks in them. It might be
     humorous to a couple of married people who’d been in love for nearly thirty years,
     but it wasn’t a bit funny to her that morning.
    Her whole body hummed like a bumblebee when they clipped the final light at the top
     of the tree. She should write a self-help book about relationships, and the first
     test would be decorating a Christmas tree. If the two parties involved didn’t want
     to fall into the nearest bed after they’d put the lights on a tree and tear each other’s
     clothing off, then they should shake hands and walk away.
    “And now the garland,” Henry said.
    “Joshua ain’t asleep and he didn’t put up a fuss when you held him, so it’s my turn.”
     Jack took the baby from Henry before he could protest.
    It was normal for elderly women to rush around after church to get their hands on
     babies or young teenage girls to hurry over to her side to be the first to hold Joshua.
     But most normally, old men looked from afar at babies and kept a good safe distance
     from them. Yet there was Jack and Henry fighting over him and Grady keeping a close
     watch to swoop in for a turn at holding Joshua.
    Natalie squatted again to begin placing the gold tinsel ropes.
    It was her first tree ever to decorate without Drew. Damn the army. Damn the war.
     Damn the IED that