A Coldwater Christmas Read online

  Sometimes a little Christmas magic can rekindle the most unexpected romances...

  Sheriff Kace Laramie and his brothers found long-awaited happiness when they moved to Coldwater, Texas, as foster children. But the feel-good story has one bittersweet twist—his brief marriage to local rich girl Jana Parker. When that blew up, Kace vowed never to marry again and has kept Jana mostly off his mind...until she comes back to town, needing his help.

  Recently divorced for a second time, Jana just wants to create a good life for her young daughter—and keep her mother from marrying Kace’s gold-digging father. Asking him for help may be wrong given their history. But as the stakes—and their chemistry—make the Christmas season sizzle, Jana knows how much more wrong it would be to let a love this magical slip away again...

  Praise for USA TODAY

  bestselling author Delores Fossen

  “The plot delivers just the right amount of emotional punch and happily ever after.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Lone Star Christmas

  “Clear off space on your keeper shelf, Fossen has arrived.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lori Wilde

  “A marvelous Christmas romance novel, a fantastic family saga, and a deliciously desirous addition to the beloved series!”

  —Books and Spoons on Lone Star Christmas

  “An amazing, breathtaking and vastly entertaining family saga, filled with twists and unexpected turns. Cowboy fiction at its best.”

  —Books and Spoons on The Last Rodeo

  “Fossen certainly knows how to write a hot cowboy, and when she turns her focus to Dylan Granger...crank up the air conditioning!”

  —RT Book Reviews on Lone Star Blues

  “Overall, this romance is a little sweet and a little salty—and a lot sexy!”

  —RT Book Reviews on Texas-Sized Trouble

  “This is much more than a romance.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Branded as Trouble

  “Nicky and Garrett have sizzling chemistry!”

  —RT Book Reviews on No Getting Over a Cowboy

  “Delores Fossen takes you on a wild Texas ride with a hot cowboy.”

  —New York Times bestselling author B.J. Daniels

  Also available from Delores Fossen

  and HQN Books

  Coldwater Texas

  Lone Star Christmas

  Lone Star Midnight (ebook novella)

  Hot Texas Sunrise

  Texas at Dusk (ebook novella)

  Sweet Summer Sunset

  A Coldwater Christmas

  Wrangler’s Creek

  Lone Star Cowboy (ebook novella)

  Those Texas Nights

  One Good Cowboy (ebook novella)

  No Getting Over a Cowboy

  Just Like a Cowboy (ebook novella)

  Branded as Trouble

  Cowboy Dreaming (ebook novella)

  Texas-Sized Trouble

  Cowboy Heartbreaker (ebook novella)

  Lone Star Blues

  Cowboy Blues (ebook novella)

  The Last Rodeo

  The McCord Brothers

  What Happens on the Ranch (ebook novella)

  Texas on My Mind

  Cowboy Trouble (ebook novella)

  Lone Star Nights

  Cowboy Underneath It All (ebook novella)

  Blame It on the Cowboy

  To see the complete list of titles available from Delores Fossen, please visit www.deloresfossen.com.

  Delores Fossen

  A Coldwater Christmas

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EXCERPT FROM SAFETY BREACH BY DELORES FOSSEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  WATCHING FROM THE window of the police station, Sheriff Kace Laramie wasn’t sure if he should deal first with the senior citizen flasher, the traffic violation or the whizzing longhorn.

  As a cop in a small ranching town like Cold water, Texas, Kace didn’t usually have to pick between wrongdoings and disturbances, but apparently today they were experiencing a sort of crime wave.

  When he saw the flasher, Gopher Tate, reach to unbutton his ratty raincoat, Kace moved him up to the number one spot of which situation should get his attention. There wasn’t anyone around Gopher, and the man never flashed a full monty, especially in winter, but Kace didn’t want anyone shocked or complaining if they got a glimpse of Gopher’s tighty-whities covering his wrinkled junk.

  “Liberty,” Kace called out to Deputy Liberty Cassaine as he pulled on his jacket and hat and then headed out the door of the police station. “Go after that idiot who just blew through the red light. Red Porsche, Oklahoma plates.”

  No need for Kace to specify which light, since there was only one, and it was on Main Street, right in front of the police station. It was also next to the clearly marked sign with the posted speed limit of 30 mph. By Kace’s estimate, the guy wasn’t exactly speeding, but the light had been red.

  Liberty leaped up from her desk in the squad room, crammed the rest of a goo-loaded sticky bun into her mouth and hurried out to the cruiser in the parking lot next to the building. Kace went across the street to deal with Gopher.

  As Kace walked, he gave the pissing longhorn a glance. Like the rest of Coldwater, it was a familiar sight. It belonged to the librarian, Esther Benton, who affectionately called the bull Petunia.

  Petunia had a fondness for breaking fence, wandering onto Main Street and disrupting traffic. Today though, the bull wasn’t in the street but rather had taken to the sidewalk, working its way through the dancing Santas, glittering candy canes, and other assorted decorations that the town and business owners had set out for Christmas. Those particular items had only been in place for a couple of hours and had replaced the gobbling turkeys and cardboard cornucopias from Thanksgiving. In a month—specifically December 26—the Christmas decor would be boxed up, and the New Year’s stuff would be set out.

  Coldwater had no shortage of overly done spangles, adornments of questionable taste and downright tacky holiday plastic.

  Kace gave Petunia another glance to make sure the longhorn hadn’t moved. It hadn’t. It was now underneath the awning of the taxidermist’s shop, Much Ado about Stuffing, and it had pissed a puddle deep enough to drown an alley cat.

  Apparently, hydration wasn’t an issue for Petunia.

  Once Kace had finished with Gopher, he’d need to get the longhorn moving, call Esther and tell the woman she’d need to pay for another cleanup. Ironically, Gopher often did janitorial services for the town so Kace would be tapping the man for the job if he didn’t have to arrest him first.

  Gopher still had hold of the sides of his raincoat, but his grip dropped away when he spotted Kace. “You gonna arrest me?” Gopher asked, making it sound as much a challenge as a question.

  “Depends. You got a good explanation as to why you’re on Main Street wearing a raincoat when there’s not a chance of rain in the forecast?”

  Gopher’s forehead bunched up as if giving that some thought, and he glanced up at the cloudless blue sky. “I like to be ready in case there’s a change in the weather.”

  Well, it was an explanation all right, but it wasn’t an especially good one. “You’ve got two choices, Gopher. Come with me to the jail or button up that raincoat and clean up after Petunia.”

  Gopher contemplated that, too. “But I got a different color bow on today, and nobody’s had a chance to see it.”

  Since that bow, whatever color it was, would be tied around Gopher’s junk, Kace didn’t intend to give the man an audience. “Choose wisely,” Kace advised him. “Cleanup or lockup.”

  “Cleanup,” Gopher finally grumbled, and he continued to grumble while he got busy buttoning the raincoat.

  With that task ticked off his to-do list, Kace turned toward Petunia. He took off his cowboy hat to smack the bull on the butt, but he stopped in midwhack when Gopher spoke again.

  “Say, ain’t that your wife over yonder?” Gopher asked.

  That got Kace’s complete attention, and he followed Gopher’s gaze across the street. Specifically, to the parking lot of the police station, where he spotted the tall blonde getting out of a silver SUV. Not easily getting out, either. She was taking a wriggling, fussing baby from the infant seat in the back, and the kid wasn’t cooperating.

  But, yeah, it was January Parker all right. Jana.

  “My ex-wife,” Kace corrected.

  And because Jana had been his ex for fifteen years, that correction just slid right off his tongue. Of course, Kace had seen her more than a time or two since then, whenever she’d visited her mother, Eileen, who still lived in Coldwater. Jana, however, lived about an hour away on a ranch near Blanco.

  “Didn’t know she had a kid,” Gopher remarked.

  Kace knew. Gossip about Jana just seemed to stick in his mind even when he would have preferred that it didn’t. Last he’d heard, Jana had had a daughter, and judging from the blond curls haloing the baby’s face, this was her child. Kace guessed she was about a year and a half old. Also, last he’d heard, Jana was divorced or in the process of divorcing husband number two.

  “Jana always did fill out a pair of jeans,” Gopher commented. “A little more of her to fill them out these days, but the years have settled just fine on her.”

  Kace scowled at the man, but there was no way he could deny such an observation even if it had come from Gopher. Jana did indeed have an ass that got noticed, and apparently childbirth hadn’t affected that part of her anatomy. Kace could see that firsthand because of the way Jana was leaning into the back seat. The maneuver caused her jeans-clad butt to be aimed in their direction, and the short waist jacket she was wearing did nothing to conceal it.

  Jana finally managed to hoist the toddler out of the infant seat and onto her hip. The kid didn’t care much for that, either, because she kicked her legs, threw back her head and let out a wail loud enough to start a stampede. Jana ignored that and started walking. She didn’t glance across the street at Gopher and him but rather kept her attention pinned to the police station.

  “It appears Jana’s about to pay you a visit,” Gopher added.

  Gopher was a wellspring of information today. Jana was indeed headed for the police station. Maybe not specifically to see him, though. She could be going inside to file some kind of complaint or report a crime. That didn’t help the knot that was already forming in Kace’s stomach.

  Kace silently cursed. He’d been divorced from Jana plenty long enough not to feel the punch of attraction whenever he looked at her. Thankfully, the lust was tempered with the memories of their god-awful marriage. Of course, plenty would say it was a marriage that should have never happened in the first place. Jana’s mom definitely felt that way, and Eileen had made it her mission in life to see that their wedded “bliss” ended as fast as she could manage it.

  Fourteen months and three days.

  That’s how long it’d taken Jana to cave into Eileen’s demands that she divorce her “cowboy husband” and find someone more suitable for their tax bracket and social standing. Eileen might have been a local, but she had always set herself apart from the rest of Coldwater, what with her sprawling house, fancy cars and snobbish ways.

  Unlike Eileen though, Jana wasn’t into fancy. Those great-fitting jeans weren’t a fashion statement. Neither were the cowboy boots. From everything he’d heard, Jana raised horses and did a lot of the hands-on work herself. Apparently, Eileen hadn’t been able to pressure her into giving that up and becoming a socialite.

  “I’d best go see what she wants,” Kace muttered when Jana finally made it inside the police station, but he shot Gopher one last warning glare. “Keep the raincoat closed and get started on cleaning up after the longhorn.” Whether Gopher would actually do that was anyone’s guess so Kace would have to keep an eye on him.

  Kace’s phone rang just as he started across the street, and he answered it when he saw Liberty’s name on the screen.

  “Uh, Kace,” Liberty said right away. “This guy I pulled over for blowing through the red light says he knows you.”

  Absently, Kace considered the license plates that’d been on the Porsche. He knew plenty of people from Oklahoma, but he hadn’t recognized the car. Nor had he gotten a look at the driver.

  “That’s not going to get him out of a ticket,” Kace insisted.

  “He’s not trying to get out of that,” Liberty explained, and then she paused. Paused long enough that Kace had time to get to the police station. “Uh, he says he’s your father.”

  Kace stopped, and his hand froze in midreach for the door. He already had the knot in his stomach from seeing Jana, but what he felt now was like being showered with knots.

  “Kace?” Liberty said. “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” Kace managed, though he wasn’t sure where he got the air to speak. His lungs and throat had clamped shut. Too bad there wasn’t a lock on the hellish memories from his past.

  A past that his so-called father had created.

  “According to his driver’s license,” Liberty went on, “his name is Peter Laramie.”

  Liberty didn’t ask if that was really his father’s name. Kace’s late mother had called him Petey. Well, she had done that when she hadn’t been calling him a sonofabitch and other assorted obscenities.

  “He’s fifty-four and from Lawton, Oklahoma,” Liberty added.

  Despite the tornado going on in his head, Kace did the math. His father had been just nineteen when Kace was born. Young. But not so young that he hadn’t gotten married and fathered three more sons. Of course, it hadn’t taken more than a signature on a license and some sperm to accomplish those things.

  “Kace, you okay?” Liberty asked.

  “Fine.” And he gathered as much breath as he could manage. “Write him the ticket,” Kace instructed, and he hit the end call button.

  If his father was in town to see him and his three younger brothers, then he’d find them soon enough. Anyone in Coldwater knew where to locate Judd, Callen, Nico and him.

  Kace put his phone in the pocket of his jeans, dragged in another breath and went inside to face Jana. He didn’t have to look for her. Kace just followed the fussy sounds of the baby. Sounds that led him straight to his office.

  Apparently, Jana had indeed come to see him. This was going to be his day for not only a small-town crime wave but also for surprises that weren’t of the good variety. So far, Jana was running second in the surprise department, though. Nothing was going to beat Peter Laramie cruising into town.

  Ginger Monroe, the receptionist/dispatcher, was at her desk, and she had one of her unnaturall y red eyebrows raised to a questioning arch while she volleyed glances between Jana and him. Kace was always a little perplexed when Ginger made that expression or any other one for that matter because she wore her makeup so thick that it coated her face like a mask. Still, she managed to convey not only some amazement but also intense curiosity.

  Kace had some intense curiosity of his own.

  “You got a visitor,” Ginger said in the same tone she would have informed him of a persistent fungus in the bathroom.

  Ginger’s reaction was what he’d expected. After the divorce, the town had taken sides, and most folks had sided with Kace. Of course, Ginger did work for him so that might have played into her decision-making process. As for the rest of the town, Kace figured that folks thought he’d been screwed over by Eileen and also by her daughter, who hadn’t had the gumption to stand up to her mother.

  “Jana didn’t say what she wanted,” Ginger added, using more of that fungal tone.

  Well, Kace would soon find out. Pushing aside the rest of his childhood memories and memories of the divorce, he went in to find out why Jana was here. The odds were that their conversation wouldn’t be private. Heck, it might not even be heard because of the baby’s loud cries, but even if Jana and he managed a whispered chat, the content would soon get around. Kace suspected that Ginger and maybe some of his deputies had taken up lipreading.

  Kace took off his cowboy hat and coat and put them on the wall pegs when he went into his office. “Jana,” he greeted.

  Thankfully, he managed to keep his voice in check. Hard to do though now that he was face-to-face with her.

  As usual, the front side of her looked as good as the back even though her ponytail was a little mussed, and her expression was frazzled and weary. Kace figured the squirming kid was responsible for most of that, but this visit was likely part of it as well. Unless it was for a social visit, and this clearly wouldn’t be, most people got stressed being in a police station.

  The little girl yanked off her pink jingle bell cap as if it were the thing that’d pissed her off. She let out another loud wail and reached for him. Kace didn’t reach back, but that didn’t stop the kid from practically lunging out of Jana’s grip. The motion unbalanced Jana, and if Kace hadn’t caught onto the baby, both of them would have likely landed against him. The baby took advantage of the near mishap and vised her little arms around Kace’s neck. She also hushed.