A Thunder Canyon Christmas
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RaeAnne Thayne
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CHAPTER ONE
Rock bottom was one thing. This had to be a new low, even for her.
Elise Clifton hunched onto the bar stool at The Hitching Post, painfully aware of her solitary status. She wasn’t sure which made her more pathetic—showing up alone at Thunder Canyon’s favorite watering hole or the fact that she would rather be anywhere else on earth, including here by herself, than home with her family right now.
She sipped at her drink, trying to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze.
So much for the girls’ night out she had been eagerly anticipating all week. She was supposed to have met her best friend Haley Anderson here for a night of margaritas and girl talk, accompanied by a popular local band.
Two out of three was still a winning average, she supposed.
The band was here, a trio of cute, edgy long-haired cowboys belting out crowd-pleasing rockabilly music. Margaritas, check. She was almost done with her second and heading fast toward number three.
But the girl talk was notably lacking…maybe because Haley had called her twenty minutes ago, her voice hoarse and full of apologies.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t phone you earlier,” Haley had rasped out. “I completely zonked and slept through my alarm. All day I’ve been hoping the cold medicine would finally kick in and I would be ready to rock and roll with you at The Hitching Post. No luck, though. It’s only making me so sleepy I’m not consciously aware of how miserable I feel.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Elise had answered, trying to keep any trace of her plummeting mood out of her voice. She couldn’t really blame Haley for her bad luck in coming down with a lousy cold on a night when Elise was particularly desperate for any available diversion. She would be a poor friend to make a big deal about it, especially when Haley probably felt even worse than she sounded, which was pretty bad.
“We can reschedule as soon as you’re feeling better,” Elise had said. “The Hitching Post will still be here in a week or two.”
“Deal,” Haley croaked out. “If I ever get feeling better, anyway. Right now that doesn’t seem likely.”
“You will. Hang in there.”
That was about the time Elise had gestured for her second margarita as her plans for the evening went up in smoke.
“Thanks for understanding, honey. First round is on me next time.”
Elise sighed now as the band switched songs to one she hadn’t heard before. She watched the blinking of Christmas lights that some enterprising soul had draped around the racy picture of Lily Divine adorned in strategically placed gauze that hung above the bar.
Even Lily Divine was in a holiday mood. Too bad Elise couldn’t say the same.
Usually she enjoyed coming to The Hitching Post. Once rumored to be Thunder Canyon’s house of ill repute, the place was now a warm, welcoming bar and grill. Locals loved it for its enduring nature. Unlike the rest of Thunder Canyon, The Hitching Post had remained unchanged through the ebbs and flows of the local economy.
With hardwood floors, the same weathered old bar and framed photos from the 1880s on the walls, the restaurant and bar likely hadn’t changed much since the days when Lily Divine herself used to preside over the saloon she’d inherited from the original madam.
Elise had never been here by herself, though, and was quickly discovering how that created an entirely different dynamic. She felt more alone than ever as she sipped her drink and tried to avoid making eye contact. With a lone woman in a bar like The Hitching Post, it probably looked as if she was on the prowl, in search of some big, strong cowboy to help her while away a cold winter’s night.
One such cowboy—a little heavy on the outdoorsy aftershave—sat three stools away. He’d been eyeing her for the past ten minutes and she was trying her best to pretend she didn’t notice.
Maybe if she had stayed at Clifton’s Pride, she might have been snuggled up right now in a fleece blanket watching some movie on the big-screen television at her family’s ranch house instead of perched here at the bar like some kind of sad, pathetic loser.
She took a healthy swallow of her margarita and gestured to Carl, the longtime bartender, for another one as she swung her foot in time to the music.
Who was she kidding? If she had stayed at the ranch, she wouldn’t be snuggled up with a movie and a bowl of popcorn. Not when her mother and brother had company—hence her escape to The Hitching Post, so she wouldn’t have to smile and nod and make nice with Erin Castro. Right this moment Erin was having dinner with her miraculous, newfound family—Elise’s own mother, Helen, her brother Grant and his pregnant wife, Stephanie Julen Clifton.
Escaping the family gathering had probably been cowardly. Rude, even. Helen and John Clifton had raised her to be much more polite than that. But the truth was, she wasn’t sure she was capable of spending a couple of hours making polite conversation just now, even though she liked Erin.
She couldn’t blame this twisted tangle on the other woman. It wasn’t Erin’s fault that a nurse’s error twenty-six years ago during an unusually hectic night at Thunder Canyon General Hospital and a string of mistakes had resulted in two baby girls—born on the same night to mothers sharing a room—being inadvertently switched.
Erin might have set into motion the chain of events that had led to the discovery of the hospital mistake—and the shocking truth that Elise’s birth parents were a couple she had never even met until a few weeks ago—but she had only been trying to look into a mysterious claim by a relative that the truth of her birth rested somewhere in Thunder Canyon. She had come here several months ago to investigate why she looked nothing like her siblings and had finally discovered that she was in reality the child of Helen and the late John Clifton, while Elise—who had spent her lifetime thinking she knew exactly who she was and her place in the world—had been stunned to learn she was the biological child of Betty and Jack Castro.
Elise understood the other woman hadn’t set out to drop an atomic bomb in her life, only to find answers. But every time Elise saw how happy her mother and Grant were now that they had found out the truth about the events of twenty-six years ago—and in effect gained another daughter and sister—Elise felt more and more like she didn’t belong.
She took another healthy swallow of her drink, welcoming the warm, easy well-being that helped push away that sense of always being on the outside, looking in.
The funny thing was, she couldn’t really blame Erin for that, either. She always felt like an outsider whenever she came to town because she was an outsider. Oh, she had lived in Thunder Canyon through elementary and middle school. She had loved it here, had thought she would stay forever—until the horrible events of that day more than a decade ago when her father and a neighboring rancher were murdered by cattle rustlers.
She couldn’t say she was exactly a stranger in town. She and her mother came back occasionally to visit family and friends. Scattered throughout the bar and grill were various people she recognized. Her family’s ties here ran deep and true, especially since Grant and Stephanie had revitalized Clifton’s Pride, in addition to her brother’s work as general manager of the Thunder Canyon Resort.
Grant certainly belonged here. Her mother, too, even though Helen had escaped the bad memories after her husband’s violent death by moving with Elise to Billings when Elise was thirteen.
Elise didn’t feel the same sense of connection. She had come back temporarily with her mother for the holidays while their family absorbed the shocking developments of the last month. But she was beginning to think she might have been better off booking a month-long cruise somewhere warm and exotic and an ocean away from this Montana town and all the pain and memories it held.
The desire was reinforced when The Hitching Post door opened with a blast of wintry air. Like everybody else in the place, she instinctively looked up to see who it might be, but quickly turned back toward Lily Divine, her stomach suddenly as tangled as those wisps of material covering Lily’s abundant charms.
Matt Cates.
She averted her face away from the door, mortified at the idea of him noticing her sitting here alone like some pathetic barfly.
He didn’t seem to be on a date, which was odd. From the rumors she heard even after she moved away, Matt and his twin brother, Marlon, both enjoyed living up to their wild reputation.
Marlon was apparently reformed now that he was engaged to Haley. She didn’t know about Matt, though.
Out of the corner of her gaze, she spotted him heading over to a booth in the corner where several other guys she vaguely recognized from school years ago had ordered pizza and a pitcher of beer.
Some of her tension eased. From his vantage point, he wouldn’t have a direct line of sight to her. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice her. Why would he? She had always been pretty invisible to him, other than as an annoying kid he always seemed to have to rescue.
She crossed the fingers of her left hand under the bar and reached for her third—or was it fourth?—margarita with her right.
“How’d I get so lucky to be sitting next to the prettiest girl in the place?”
Elise turned at the drawl, so close she could practically feel the hot breath puffing in her ear. She had been so busy hiding from Matt, she hadn’t realized the cowboy had maneuvered his way to the bar stool next to her.
She definitely should slow down on the margaritas, since the ten gallons of Stetson cologne he must have used hadn’t tipped her off to him.
“Oh. Hi.” Her cheeks heated and she cursed her fair skin.
“I’m Jake. Jake Halloran.”
She should just ignore him. She wasn’t the sort to talk to strange men in a bar. But then, everything she knew about herself had been turned upside down in the last two weeks, so why not? It had to be marginally better than sitting here by herself.
“Hi, Jake. You from around here?”
“I’m working out at the Lazy D.” His heavy-eyed gaze sharpened on her. “You sure you’re old enough to be in here? You must have used a fake ID, right? Come on, you can tell me the truth.”
“I—”
“Don’t worry, darlin’. I won’t say a word.”
He smiled and mimicked turning a key at his lips. He was good-looking in a rough-edged sort of way, with tawny blond hair beneath his black Resistol and a thin, craggy, Viggo Mortenson kind of face.
She supposed she was just tipsy enough to be a little flattered at his obvious interest. Not that she had the greatest track record where men were concerned. She sighed a little. Her one and only serious relationship had been a total disaster. Kind of tough to see it any other way after the man she’d considered her first real boyfriend—and had surrendered her virginity to—introduced her to his lovely fiancée.
She’d dated on and off over the three years since then, but most guys tended to see her as a buddy. Jake Halloran obviously didn’t. Though she thought it was more than a little creepy that he would be willing to flirt with somebody he thought might be underage, she figured there was no harm in flirting back just a little.
“I appreciate that, Jake,” she answered. “But I’ve known Carl, the bartender over there, since I took my first steps. He knows exactly how old I am and would be the first one to tan my hide if I were caught trying to pass a fake ID in The Hitching Post.”
“Is that right? So how old are you?”
“Old enough,” she answered pertly.
“Well, however old you are, you are about the prettiest thing I’ve seen in this whole town.”
“Um, thanks.” She forced a smile.
“How come I haven’t seen you around before now?”
“I’m from out of town, here visiting family for the holidays.” Or at least visiting the people she had always considered her family.
“What’s your name?”
It was a simple question, really. Just about the most basic question a person could be asked. She still hesitated before answering, for a whole host of reasons.
“Elise. Elise Clifton.”
The words came out almost defiantly. She was Elise Clifton. That’s who she had been for twenty-six years, even if it turned out to be a lie.
She gestured to Carl for another margarita, even though she was usually a one-drink kind of gal.
“Well, Elise Clifton,” Jake said. “This is goin’ to sound like a cheap line but what’s a sweet-looking girl like you doing in a place like this all by herself?”
Now that was a very good question. She took a swallow of the new drink Carl delivered as the music shifted to a cover of a rocking Dwight Yoakam song. “Listening to the guys,” she finally answered. “They’re one of my favorite bands.”
At just that moment, she spied Matt over Jake’s shoulder. He stood at the other end of the bar, talking to a middle-aged man she didn’t know.
He was so gosh-darned gorgeous, with that streaky brown hair and warm brown eyes and broad shoulders. She sighed. She’d always had more than a bit of a crush on Matt, ever since the day in first grade when he had taken down a big third-grade boy who had pushed her into a mud puddle.
Matt didn’t see her as any sort of romantic interest. She knew that perfectly well. To him, she was small-for-her-age Elise Clifton, bookish and shy and clumsy, always in need of some silly rescue.
He turned in her direction and she quickly angled her body so she was hidden by the cowboy’s big hat and his broad shoulders.
Jake’s eyes widened with surprise at her maneuver, which also happened to put her closer to him, then she saw a gleam of appreciation spark there and he tilted his head even more closely.
“They are a mighty fine band,” he agreed. “Makes you want to get up there and dance, doesn’t it?”
“The bass player went to school with me,” she said, trying her level best to act as if practically sitting in a stranger’s lap was an everyday event. “He used to play tuba in the school band.”
“Is that right? What did you play?”
“Clarinet,” she answered. “I’m really good at blowing things.”
He choked on his drink. It took her several beats of listening to him cough and splutter to figure out what she’d said and then she gasped. Her face flared—she wanted to sink through the floor. She was apparently a really cheap drunk. After three and a half margaritas, she excelled at unintentional double entendres.
“That’s not what I meant,” she exclaimed. “I really did play the clarinet. Oh!”
He laughed roughly, wiping his mouth with a napkin he’d grabbed off the bar. “I’d love to see you…play the clarinet.”
Okay, she should really leave. Right now, before Jake Halloran got any ideas about checking out her embouchure.
Despite her discomfort, she laughed at her own joke but when she looked up, Lily Divine seemed to be undulating up there on the wall like a snake dancer. Elise blinked. Maybe she needed to switch to water for a while. Apparently the fourth margarita hadn’t been her greatest idea.
“Hey, you wanna dance?” Jake suddenly asked. Either he was slurring his words or her ears weren’t firing on all cylinders.
She considered his invitation, taking in the small dance floor that had been set up in front of the small stage where the band had now switched to a bluegrass version of Jingle Bells. Only a handful of couples were out there: an older man and woman doing a complicated Western swing like they were trying out for some television dancing show, another pair who weren’t really even dancing, just bear-hugging like they were joined at the navel, and a couple about her age, dancing with a painful awkwardness she instantly pegged as a first date, even through her bleary brain.
Ordinarily she loved to dance. But since she had probably spent enough time in the Thunder Canyon spotlight the last few weeks, she decided she didn’t need to be the center of attention by dancing out there in front of everyone. Everyone being primarily Matt Cates.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” she lied. “Why don’t we just talk? Get to know each other a little better?”
“Talking’s nice.” Jake grinned and put his hand on her knee. Through the material of her favorite skinny jeans, his hand felt uncomfortably hot. “Gettin’ to know each other better is even nicer.”
Drat Haley and her stupid rhinovirus.
She tried to subtly ease her knee away, wondering if she ought to ask Carl for a cup of coffee.
“Where are you from, Jake?” she asked a little desperately. “Originally, I mean.”
“Over Butte way. My daddy had to sell off our little ranch a few years ago so I’ve been on my own since then. What about you?”
“Um, I live in Billings most of the time. I’m only in town for the holidays. I think I said that already.”
“You did. And doesn’t that work out just fine for me?”
She barely heard him. Out of the corner of her gaze, she saw a woman in tight Wranglers and a chest-popping holiday sweater approach Matt’s table and a moment later, he headed out to the dance floor with her. Elise refused to watch and shifted a little more so her would-be Romeo was blocking her from view.
He didn’t seem to mind. “Hey, what do you say we get out of here? Take a little drive and see the Christmas lights?”
She might be tipsy, but she wasn’t completely stupid. She wouldn’t go with him, even if his breath wasn’t strong enough to tarnish the frame on Lily’s picture.
“I’d better not. I don’t want to miss the music. That’s the reason I’m here, after all.”
Just her luck, at just that moment, the lead singer stepped up to the mike. “We’re going to take fifteen, folks. Meantime you can keep dancing to the jukebox.”
“What do you say? Want to at least walk outside and get some air?”
Air might be nice. Even cold air. The faster she worked the margaritas out of her system, the faster she could leave. Where she would go until the dinner party with Erin was over was a question she didn’t want to consider yet.
Though she was leery about going anywhere with a man she had just met and didn’t trust, how much trouble could she get into walking out into the snowy parking lot on a frigid Montana night? Anything had to be better than sitting here trying to avoid being seen.
“Sure. Let me grab my coat.”
The coat and hat racks at The Hitching Post lined the hallway on the way to the restrooms. She decided to make a quick stop at the ladies’ room first to check her lipstick and maybe splash a little water on her face to clear her head.
It helped a little, but not much. When she emerged a few moments later, she found Jake lurking in the hallway.
“I thought you might be having trouble finding your coat,” he murmured. For some reason, she thought that was hilarious. As if she was so stupid she couldn’t recognize her own coat, for heaven’s sake.
“Nope. I just stopped to fix my lipstick.”
“It looks real pretty.”
“Um, thanks.” Maybe going outside with him wasn’t such a great idea. Actually, she was beginning to think walking through The Hitching Post doors tonight ranked right up there with her worst decisions ever. Second only to her ridiculous lapse in judgment in ever agreeing to date that cheating louse Jeremy Kaiser in college.
Jake cornered her just to the edge of the row of coats. “Bet that lipstick tastes as good as it looks,” he said in what he probably thought was a sexy growl. Instead, he sounded vaguely like a cat whose tail just had a close encounter with a sliding door.
He leaned in closer and she edged backward until her hands scraped the dingy wood paneling.
He dipped his head but she managed to shift her face away at the last minute. “Um, I think I changed my mind about going outside. Too cold. Let’s go dance.”
“I reckon we can do a pretty good tango right here,” he murmured.
He tried again and she planted her palms on the chambray of his Western-cut dress shirt. “No, I really want to go dance,” she said and realized her voice sounded overloud in the still-empty hallway.
Where was everybody? Didn’t anybody in the whole place need to use the bathroom, for Pete’s sake?
They struggled a little there in the hallway and she started to feel the first little pinch of fear when she realized she wasn’t making a lick of headway against those cowboy-tough muscles.
“Come on, darlin’. A little kiss won’t hurt nobody.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know you.”
His face hardened and she wondered why she ever thought he looked a little like Viggo. More like Ichabod Crane. “You sure knew me well enough to be all snuggly over at the bar,” he snarled.
“Hey,” she exclaimed when his hand slid behind her to hold her in place. She pushed at the pearl buttons on his shirt. “Let go.”
“Come on. Just a kiss. That’s all.”
“No!” She wriggled and squirmed but was faced with the grim realization that her 110-pound, five-foot-four frame was no match for somebody who wrangled tons of Angus cattle for a living. “Let me go!”
“Looks to me like the lady’s not interested, Halloran.”
The familiar steely voice managed to pierce both her sudden attack of nerves and her muzzy head.
She swallowed a curse. Matt. Her miserable night just needed this. Her face blazed and she knew she must be more red than a shiny glass Christmas ornament. Of every single person out in the crowded bar, why did he have to be the next one who happened into the hallway to come to her rescue?
