Yuletide Cowboy. Debra Clopton

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СКАЧАТЬ for a good cause,” Seth said, taking a drink of his coffee, just as Sam, the owner of the diner, came striding toward their table with coffeepot in hand.

      Small and wiry, with a quick step, Sam gave a hearty smile. “It’s good ta see ya, son!” He set a coffee mug in front of Chance then shook his hand fiercely. “I was sure sorry ta hear about that bull rider. A cry’n shame is what that was.” Shaking his head he poured coffee into the mug.

      Chance wrapped his hands around the warm cup and felt the stab of deep regret. “Yeah, it was.” All eyes were on him right now. He didn’t want to discuss this.

      “All you could be was there fer them if they needed you.”

      Chance met Sam’s wise, gray eyes. How could he say that he hadn’t been there for Randy? That in his heart of hearts he felt—

      “Yor taken his death pretty hard, ain’t ya?”

      “Yes, he is,” Cole answered for him.

      Chance met his gaze across the table. His cousin had been running hard from his past for years after his fiancée’s death. He was settled and happy now, thanks to a beautiful country vet named Susan. Cole was more content than he’d ever been and he and Susan were planning on starting a family soon. He’d been through a lot and found solace in helping disaster victims rebuild their homes during the time that he lost his way. Chance stared into the black coffee and wondered if that was what he’d done…lost his way. Ever since that horrible night he just couldn’t think of himself as a pastor. It ate at him.

      “That’s what makes you good at what you do, Chance,” Cole continued. “You care. You can’t be a pastor, a shepherd to your sheep, and not care.”

      He felt as far away from being a shepherd as he could possibly get. Talk about a gulf…

      “So don’t keep beating yourself up with things that were out of your control,” Seth, the control freak of the Turners, added. Chance looked at him in disbelief. Seth grinned. “Yeah, you heard right. That coming from me. I’ve been learning to let God handle things more. Not that it’s been a bed of roses. Old habits are hard to break. But I’m working on it.”

      Chance had been handing out advice right and left, thinking he was making sense. Funny how it all seemed out of focus to him right now. “Can we talk about something else?” He didn’t want to be rude but he felt like he was swinging zeros.

      Sam squeezed his shoulder. “You were reckless but you always was one to take the world on yor shoulders. You got a big heart, Chance, even after all you went through. I gotta git back ta work, but you listen ta these boys and pull yourself out of this spot yor in. My eggs and bacon’ll help ya. That all right by y’all?”

      Everyone gave hearty agreement and Sam strode off on his bowlegs. Chance knew Sam had been referring to Chance’s childhood…he’d long ago come to terms with the fact that his dad had had better things to do than raise his son. Chance had been hard to deal with at an early age and his mother hadn’t known what to do with him. He’d spent many summers here in Mule Hollow with his cousins. Their dad had loved him and treated him like his own, worked him hard and given him as much direction and love as he gave his own sons. But in his early teens Chance had rebelled against his dad’s lack of interest and he’d hit the road…it had been a hard time. Too heavy for him to think about right now.

      “Look, Chance, take it from my experience.” Seth glanced around the table at his brothers. “God is in control even when we don’t understand or don’t agree. You’ve given us all that advice at some point in time.”

      “Yeah, I was pretty liberal handing it out, wasn’t I?” He grunted, his mood taking a downhill turn and picking up speed.

      Wyatt frowned. “You hand out great advice. I owe you and there’s no two ways about it. God sent you to me with the advice I needed to hear just when I needed to hear it. I was about as low as a man can get and you helped me see what I needed to do to help Amanda. You just have to heed your own good advice and give this over to the Lord. We’ve all been where you’re at, and it’s not a fun place to be.”

      Applegate and Stanley had been pretending like they were engrossed in their morning checkers game—why they were even pretending was a mystery to Chance. For two men who couldn’t hear they heard everything. It was a miracle beyond understanding, which made Chance smile—some much-needed relief from the downturn of this conversation. App spat a sunflower seed into the brass spittoon at his feet and Stanley did the same. Both hit the opening in the conversation dead-on.

      “Sounds ta me like that steak dinner is jest the place you need ta be. Don’t you thank so, Stanley?”

      “Yup. Ain’t nothin’ like a good steak and the company of pretty women ta pull a man out of the dumps.”

      “A woman is the last thing I need to be thinking about.”

      “It ain’t us that caused Lynn ta blush,” App grunted.

      “You got a free ticket and a woebegone attitude that needs sprucing up. Put on some starched jeans and a crisp shirt, slap on a little smell-good and join the festivities.”

      Sam came out of the kitchen loaded down with plates. Chance had never been so glad to see a plate of eggs in all his life. Maybe putting food in their stomachs would get them off him.

      “And speaking of other thangs,” App drawled, his lean face cascading into a dour look. “We need a preacher. No two ways about it. I been thankin’ that thar is the reason the good Lord brought you home.” App had made it clear at Wyatt’s wedding that he thought Chance should come home to Mule Hollow and become the past or of the church. Chance had told him then that he didn’t feel called to preach in a local church. That should have ended the discussion, but App wasn’t known for letting go of things and it looked like he hadn’t let this go either. “So what do ya say?”

      Chance looked at the steaming breakfast plate and took a long, slow breath. So much for thinking the food was going to get him off the hot seat.

      Chapter Three

      The morning after Chance had flustered her by telling her she smelled sweet, Lynn dreamed about him! Oh yeah, but thankfully she was awakened from dreaming about the hunky, dark-haired bachelor by her horse of a dog, Tiny. Her unlikely hero bounded onto her bed and pounced on her with all four of his huge paws! The power of the attack knocked the wind and the dream right out of her.

      “Thank you,” she gasped, trying to get her breath back as she stared into Tiny’s pale face. His excited are-you-ready-to-play eyes danced as he gaped at her. She relaxed, relieved to be awake…it wasn’t unusual for her to have nightmares. Though they had slowly become less frequent and they were always about her ex-husband…Dreaming about Chance Turner was disturbing on an entirely different level. Thank goodness for Tiny.

      “What are you doing in the house?” she asked, making certain not to scold. The boys sometimes tried to sneak the giant animal into the house, or when they went out side they forgot to close the door and Tiny would sneak into the house by himself. On those occasions there was never any telling what he was going to get into. And if you scolded him he tended to leave puddles—and that wasn’t a good thing.

      The sound of erratic hammering filled the air outside her window. She glanced at the bedside clock—seven o’clock. Tiny danced on top of her, tail wagging, breath huffing, eyes twinkling, he barked excitedly and looked toward the СКАЧАТЬ