This Year's Christmas Present Read online

  “Hey, that’s my sister you’re having indecent thoughts about,” Chet protested, interrupting his reverie.

  “I was not,” Clay lied, hoping his flushed face didn’t betray him.

  “Yeah, right. Anyhow, dinner’s almost ready. Do you want me to bring a tray upstairs? Or can you make it downstairs?”

  Clay debated briefly whether to eat here or wait till he got back to the hotel. The embarrassing rumble in his gut decided for him. Clay told him he’d be down shortly and went back to the bedroom to change clothes while Chet made use of the shower.

  A short time later, he sat at the huge oak trestle table in the kitchen waiting for Annie to come in from the barn with two of her brothers, Roy, a twenty-two-year-old vet student, and Hank, a high school senior. They were completing the second milking of the day for the dairy herd. All this information was relayed by Aunt Liza. That was what the woman had demanded that he call her after he’d addressed her as “ma’am” one too many times.

  Had he ever eaten dinner in a kitchen? He didn’t think so.

  Did he have a personal acquaintance with anyone who had ever milked a cow? He was fairly certain he didn’t.

  Aunt Liza wore an apron that fit over her shoulders and hung to her knees, where flesh-colored support hose bagged conspicuously under her house dress. She hustled about the commercial-size stove off to one side of the kitchen. Sitting on benches that lined both sides of the table, chatting amiably with him as if it were perfectly normal for him to be there, were Chet, Johnny, whom he had already met, and Jerry Lee, a fifteen-year-old. This family bred kids like rabbits, apparently. The baby was up in his crib, down for the night, Chet said hopefully.

  A radio sitting on a counter was set on a twenty-four-hour country music station. Surprise, surprise.

  “Do you people honestly like that music?” Clay asked. It was probably a rude question to ask when he was in someone else’s home, but he really would like to understand the attraction this crap held for the masses.

  “Yeah,” Chet, Jerry Lee, Johnny, and Aunt Liza said as one.

  “But it’s so…so hokey,” Clay argued. “Listen to that one. ‘I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life.’”

  They all laughed.

  “That’s just it. Country music makes you feel good. You could be in a funky mood, and it makes you smile.” Jerry Lee thought about what he’d said for a moment, then chuckled. “One of my favorites is ‘She Got the Ring, I Got the Finger.’”

  “Jerry Lee Fallon, I told you about using such vulgarities in this house,” Aunt Liza admonished. Then she chuckled, too. “I’m partial to ‘You Done Tore Out My Heart and Stomped that Sucker Flat.’”

  “I like ‘I Would Have Wrote You a Letter but I Couldn’t Spell Yuck,’” Johnny said.

  “Well, the all-time best one,” Chet offered, “is ‘Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth ’Cause I’m Kissing You Good-Bye.’”

  Some of the other titles tossed out then by one Fallon family member after another were: “How Can I Miss You if You Won’t Go Away,” “I’ve Been Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart,” “If I Can’t Be Number One in Your Life, Then Number Two on You,” “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Edith Too,” and the one they all agreed was best, “I Shaved My Legs for This?”

  Despite himself, Clay found himself laughing with the whole crazy bunch.

  Just then, the back door could be heard opening into a mudroom. Voices rang out with teasing banter.

  “You’d better not have mooned any passersby, Hank. That’s all we need is a police citation on top of everything else,” Annie was chastising her brother.

  “I didn’t say he mooned the girl,” another male said. It must be Roy, the vet student. “I said he was mooning over her.”

  There was the sound of laughter then and running water as they presumably washed their hands in a utility sink.

  Seconds later, two males entered the room, rubbing their hands briskly against the outside chill, which they carried in with them. They nodded at him in greeting and sat down on the benches, maneuvering their long legs awkwardly under the table.

  Only then did Clay notice the woman who stepped through the doorway. She was tall and thin. Her long, looong legs that went from here to the Texas panhandle were encased in soft, faded jeans, which were tucked into a pair of work boots. An oversize denim shirt—probably belonging to one of her brothers—covered her on the top, hanging down to her knees with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A swath of brunette hair lay straight and thick to her shoulders. Not a lick of makeup covered her clear complexion. Even so, her lips were full—almost too full for her thin face—and parted over large, even, white teeth. She resembled a thinner, more beautiful version of Julia Roberts.

  Clay put his forehead down on the table and groaned.

  He knew everyone was probably gawking at him as if he’d lost his mind, but he couldn’t help himself. He knew even before the fever flooded his face and arms and legs and that particular hot zone in between…he knew exactly who this stranger was. It was, unbelievably, Annie Fallon.

  He cracked his eyes open a bit, still with his face in his plate, and glanced sideways at her where she still stood, equally stunned, in the doorway. Neither of them seemed to notice the hooting voices surrounding them.

  How could he have been so blind?

  How could he not have seen what was happening here?

  How could he not have listened to the cautionary voice of the bellhop who’d warned of destiny and God’s big toe?

  All the pieces fit together now in the puzzle that had plagued Clay since he’d arrived in Memphis. God’s big toe had apparently delivered him a holy kick in the pants. Not to mention the fever He’d apparently sent to thaw his icy heart.

  Clay, a sophisticated, wealthy venture capitalist, was falling head over heels in love with a farmer. Old McAnnie.

  Donald Trump and Daisy Mae.

  Hell! It will never work.

  Will it?

  He raised his head and took a longer look at the woman who was frozen in place, staring at him with equal incredulity. It was a sign of the madness that had overcome them both that the laughter rippling around them failed to penetrate their numbed consciousness.

  He knew for sure that he was lost when a traitorous thought slipped out, and he actually spoke it aloud.

  “Where’s the hayloft, honey?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Clay felt as if he’d landed smack-dab in the middle of the Mad Hatter’s party. It was debatable who was the mad one, though—him or the rest of the inmates in this bucolic asylum.

  Love? Me? Impossible!

  Music blared in the background—ironically, “Can’t Help Falling in Love”—and everyone talked at once, each louder than the other in order to be heard. A half dozen strains of dialogue were going on simultaneously, but no one seemed to notice. Good thing, too. It gave him a chance to speculate in private over his monumental discovery of just a few moments ago.

  I’m falling in love.

  Impossible! Uh-uh, none of this falling business for me.

  What other explanation is there for this fever that overtakes me every time I look at her? And, man, she is so beautiful. Well, not beautiful. Just perfect. Well, not perfect-perfect. Hell, the woman makes my knees sweat, just looking at her.

  Maybe it’s not love. I’ve never been in love before. How do I know it’s love? Maybe it’s just lust.

  Love, lust, what ever. I’m a goner.

  But a farmer? A farmer?

  “How come you and Annie keep googly-eyeing each other?” Johnny asked.

  “Shut your teeth and eat,” Aunt Liza responded, whacking Johnny on the shoulder with a long-handled wooden spoon.

  “Ouch!”

  Meanwhile, a myriad of platters and bowls were being set on the table. Aunt Liza assured him this was an everyday meal, not a special spread on his behalf.

  Pot roast—about ten pounds, give or take a hindquarter—cut into half-inch slabs. Mashe
d potatoes. Gravy. Thick noodles cooked in beef broth. Creamed spinach. Pickled beets. Succotash—whatever the hell that was! Chowchow—whatever the hell that was, too! Tossed salad. Coleslaw. Homemade biscuits and butter. Pitchers of cold, unhomogenized milk at either end of the table sporting a two-inch head of real cream. Canned pears. Chocolate layer cake and vanilla ice cream.

  There were enough calories and fat grams on this table to fatten up the entire nation of Bosnia. Yet, amazingly, everyone here was whip-thin. Either they’d all inherited good genetic metabolisms, or they engaged in a massive amount of physical labor. He suspected it was a combination of both.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to eat so much red meat and dairy?” Clay made the mistake of inquiring.

  “Bite your tongue,” everyone declared at once.

  For a moment, Clay had forgotten that these were dairy farmers whose livelihood depended on milk products. Plus, they had about a hundred thousand pounds of beef on the hoof in their own backyard.

  Clay rubbed a forefinger over his upper lip, pondering all that had happened to him so far this day. In the midst of the conversations swirling around him now, he felt as if he were having a personal epiphany. Not just the monumental discovery that, for the first time in his life, he was falling in love; it was much more than that. He’d never realized till this moment how much he’d missed having a family. He never would have described himself as a lonely man—a loner, perhaps, but not lonely. Now he knew that he’d been lonely for a long time.

  And that wacky bellhop had been right this morning about his coldness. Over the years, he must have built up an icy crust around his heart. Just like my father. Little by little, it was melting now. Every time he came within a few feet of Annie, a strange fever enveloped him, and his chest tightened with emotions too new to understand. He yearned so much. For what exactly, he didn’t know.

  In a daze, he reached for a biscuit, but Chet coughed meaningfully and Aunt Liza glared stonily at him. Once he sheepishly put the roll back, Annie took his hand on one side, and Jerry Lee on the other. All around the table, everyone bowed their heads and joined hands, including Aunt Liza and Chet, who sat in the end chairs, on either side. Then Annie said softly, “Lord, bless this food and all the poor people in the world who have less than we do, and even the rich people who have less than we do. For this bounty, we give you thanks. Amen.”

  Everyone dug in heartily then, passing the bowls and platters around the table as they chattered away. Clay soon found himself with an unbelievable amount of high-cholesterol food on his plate, and enjoying it immensely. He practically sighed at the almost sinful flavor of melt-in-your-mouth potatoes mixing on his palate with rich beef gravy.

  “Frankie Wilks called when you were in the barn.” Jerry Lee bobbed his eyebrows at Annie. “Said something about wantin’ you to go to the Christmas Eve candlelight ser vice with him.”

  “Oooooh! Oooooh!” several of her brothers taunted, meanwhile shoveling down food like monks after a Lent-long fast.

  “Who’s Frankie Wilks?” Clay’s voice rose with more consternation than he had any right to exhibit. Yet.

  “The milkman,” Annie said, scowling at Jerry Lee. She had a hearty appetite, too, Clay noticed, though you wouldn’t know it from her thin frame. Probably came from riding herd on her cows.

  Did they ride herd on cows?

  Then Annie’s words sank in. The milkman? The milkman? I have a five-million-dollar portfolio, I’m not a bad-looking guy, attracting women has never been a problem for me, and my competition is…a milkman?

  Competition? Whoa! Slow down this runaway testosterone train.

  “Don’t you be sittin’ there, gloatin’ like a pig in heat, Chet,” Aunt Liza interjected as she put another slab of beef onto Clay’s plate, despite his raised hand of protest. His mouth was too full to speak. “You got a phone call today, too, Chet.”

  Everyone at the table turned in tandem to stare at Chet.

  “Emmy Lou?” Chet didn’t appear very happy as he asked the question.

  “Yep. She was callin’ from London. Said she won’t be home before Christmas to pick up the baby, after all.”

  “Stupid damn girl,” Annie cursed under her breath. Clay suspected damn was not a word she used lightly.

  “You drove her away, if you ask me,” Hank accused, reaching for his dessert, which Aunt Liza shoved out of the way, pushing more salad his way first.

  “Who asked you, mush-for-brains?” Chet snapped.

  “All you had to do was tell her you looooovvvve her,” Roy teased. He waved a forkful of potatoes in the air as he spoke.

  “I offered to marry her, didn’t I?”

  “Offered? Sometimes, Chet, you are dumber than pig spit,” Annie remarked. “Have some pickled beets,” she added as an aside to Clay.

  Chet’s face, which was solemn to begin with, went rigid with anger, but he said nothing.

  “Is this Lilith?” Annie addressed Aunt Liza as she chewed on a bite of pot roast.

  “Yep. Nice and tender, ain’t she?” Aunt Liza answered. “Thank God we got rid of the last of Alicia in the stew Friday night. She was tougher than cow hide.”

  They name the cows they eat? Will they eat those two sheep that were in the Nativity scene, too? Or—God forbid—the donkey? Bile rose in Clay’s throat, and he discreetly pushed the remainder of his pot roast to the side of the plate.

  “Speaking of cows, I noticed this morning that Mirabelle’s vulva is swollen and red,” Johnny interjected. “We better breed her soon.”

  “I’ll do it tomorrow night.”

  Clay choked on the pot roast still remaining in his mouth. A thirteen-year-old kid was discussing vulvae at the dinner table, and no one blinked an eye. Even worse, Annie—his Annie—was going to breed a cow. “Can I watch?”

  “Huh? Oh, sure,” she said and resumed eating. Clay liked to watch Annie eat. Her full lips moved sensuously as she relished each morsel, no matter if it was a beet or the chocolate cake. He about lost it when her tongue darted out to lick a speck of chocolate icing off the edge of her bottom lip. “If you’re sure you want to. Some people get kind of squeamish.”

  “I can handle it,” he asserted. Heck, he’d probably seen worse in Grand Central Station. But, hot damn, Annie had just-like-that agreed to let him observe her breeding a cow. And she wasn’t even embarrassed.

  “Are you rich?” Roy asked.

  “Rooooy!” Annie and Aunt Liza chastised.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?” Everyone at the table put down their eating utensils and gaped at him. Except Annie. Her face fell in disappointment. Could she be falling in love with him, too? He didn’t have time to ponder for long. He just kicked into damage control. “Well, not rich-rich.”

  “How rich?” Annie demanded to know.

  Before he could respond, Hank commented, “Betcha draw a bunch of chicks, having heaps of money and all.”

  “At least a bunch,” Clay said dryly.

  Annie flashed Hank a glower, which the teen ignored, smiling widely. “Man, if I had a little extra cash, and a hot car, I would be the biggest chick magnet in the whole United States. I’m already the best in the South.”

  His brothers hooted in reaction to his high self-opinion.

  “If you’d get your mind off the girls once in a while,” Aunt Liza reprimanded, “maybe you’d pass that cow-cue-lust.”

  Everyone laughed at her mispronunciation of the word calculus, except Annie. “And, by the way, where is your second-term report card, Mr. I-Am-the-Stud?”

  “Uh-oh,” Johnny and Jerry Lee groaned at the same time.

  “You had to remind her,” Johnny added.

  Clay’s lips twitched with suppressed mirth. Being in a family was kind of fun.

  But Jerry Lee was back on his case again. “Do you have a chauffeur?”

  Clay felt his face turn red. “Benson—George Benson— doubles as my driver and gardener. His wife Doris is my cook and house keeper.”
r />   “You have a gardener!” Annie wailed. You’d think he had told her he employed an ax murderer. “And a house-keeper!”

  “Do you live in a mansion?” Johnny’s young face was rapt with interest.

  “No, he lives in a trailer, you dweeb,” Hank remarked, nudging Johnny in the ribs with an elbow.

  “No. Definitely not. Uh-uh. I do not live in a mansion.” This was the most incredible conversation Clay had ever experienced. Why was he trying to downplay his lifestyle?

  To make Annie more comfortable, that was why.

  Annie’s eyes narrowed. “How big is this nonmansion?”

  “Tweytfllrms,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Twenty-two rooms. But it’s not a mansion.”

  “Twenty-two rooms! And you live there alone?” She appeared as if she might cry. “You probably have caviar for breakfast and—”

  He shook his head quickly. “Toast, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and black coffee, that’s what I have. Every day. I don’t even like caviar.”

  “—gold faucets in your bathrooms and—”

  “They’re only gold plated. Cheap gold plating. And brass. I’m pretty sure some of them are brass.”

  “—and date movie stars—”

  “The only movie star I ever dated was Brooke Shields, and that was because she and I are both Princeton alumni. And it wasn’t really a date, just brunch at—”

  “Brooke Shields!” five males at the table exclaimed.

  Annie honed in on another irrelevant fact. “He eats brunch. Brunch. Oh, God! He must think he’s landed on Welfare Row. Better Slums and Gardens.”

  “Who’s Brooke Shields?” Aunt Liza wanted to know. “Is she one of those Melrose Place hussies Roy watches all the time?”

  Before anyone could explain, Annie sighed loudly and declared, “Maybe I’d better take you back to your hotel tonight.”

  “Annie!” Johnny whined. “You promised we would put up the Christmas tree to night.”

  “Yeah, Annie,” Jerry Lee chimed in. “We would have had it up by now if it wasn’t for your dumb Nativity scene idea.”

  “Well, actually…uh, I’m not feeling so good,” Clay surprised himself by saying. He was in a sudden panic. If he went back to the hotel, he’d have no opportunity to study this fever thing with Annie…or this falling in…uh, what ever. He could easily conduct business on his pocket cell phone from the farm, for a day or two anyhow.