by Liz Isaacson
She glanced around to see if Cy had come in. He hadn’t. A blip of betrayal slid through her veins with every beat of her heart. He’d left her to face the whole crowd—people she knew way better than him—by herself.
Maybe she shouldn’t have said yes to his dinner invitation so quickly. Patsy didn’t normally let her hormones dictate what she did, and she certainly didn’t date men like Cy Hammond.
“Have you been talking to him since he bought the orchard?” Sophia asked.
“Sophia, I’m not going to fall in love with him.”
Sophia shrugged one shoulder and said, “You might.”
Patsy didn’t argue further, because she didn’t need to get into her personal insecurities at the Whittaker family dinner on Christmas Eve.
The truth was, Sophia was right. She might very well fall in love with Cy Hammond, but Sophia didn’t need to worry about one of the Hammond brothers “taking” her from the lodge.
Even if she fell for him, no one she ever dated had ever fallen in love with her. Her last boyfriend hadn’t even noticed when she’d cut off ten inches of her hair.
Cy noticed your hair at the orchard, she thought, and Patsy really hated that she remembered that from months ago.
She finished eating and started cleaning up, picking up dishes children had left behind. About the time the ice cream came out of the freezer and the Everett sisters brought their guitars out of the master bedroom, Patsy slipped into her coat and out the door to go to her father’s.
“Oh,” she said when she encountered a cowboy on the front steps. “It’s cold out here, Cy. What are you doing?”
He looked up at her. “Thinking.” He stood up and shuffled a couple of steps back. “Sorry about that in there.”
Patsy’s annoyance flared. “Which part?”
Cy blinked and cocked his head, the same way her father’s dog did when she talked to him in a high-pitched voice. “I…don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you come eat?” she asked. “You threw me to the wolves.” She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, unable to stay for much longer. “I have to go. I’m late.”
“Where are you going?”
“My father’s,” she said as she walked away.
“You didn’t have to use the intercom to say yes,” he called after her.
Patsy had half a mind to spin around and march back to him to really give him a piece of her mind. Instead, she turned and walked backward as she said, “I take it back, then. I don’t want to go out with you.”
She waved and continued to her car, surprised Cy didn’t say anything else. She got behind the wheel, her heart pounding. She had no idea what had just happened in the last hour. She’d asked him a very personal question, which he’d answered. He’d made an innocent mistake pressing the public address system, but he had asked her out.
She liked that he’d asked her out, but she had zero confidence in her ability to hold a man’s attention for longer than a few minutes. And now she’d taken back her acceptance.
A sigh filled the car as it left her mouth, and she looked into her own eyes in the rear-view mirror. She hardly recognized herself, and that only added another layer of unrest to her already weary soul.
“Help me get through tonight,” she whispered as she fitted the key into the ignition. As she backed out of her parking space and headed for the exit, she added, “And what just happened with Cy Hammond? Can You give me a little more direction there, please? Would that be so hard?”
It obviously was, because Patsy’s mind ran around and around the long-haired Hammond brother all the way to her father’s house, which sat in the middle of thirty acres of apple trees.
Joe’s Hummer sat closest to the garage, which meant he’d been here the longest. His children were eight and five, and he was probably exhausted. He didn’t have them very often, because literally the day after his wife had filed for divorce, Joe had lost his job. He’d picked up a new one driving the new bus around town, and since it was a new system, he worked a lot.
He seemed to like it though, and the last Patsy had heard, his boss liked him and had told him he was a smart guy who had management potential.
His ex-wife, Kathy, still lived in town, but she’d moved to a house across the street from her parents, and the kids spent a lot of time over there. Patsy actually missed her. No one had ever talked about what happened to the extended family in a divorce, and Patsy felt like she’d lost a friend she’d known for fifteen years.
Betty’s minivan was parked behind Joe’s truck, and it looked like it had been driven through a mud field to get to their father’s. It probably had been. Betty and Cory lived on a farm on a muddy piece of land off a dirt road about halfway to Dog Valley. They had four teenage girls, and Patsy sat in her car for a few extra minutes, trying to gear herself up to go inside.
It would be loud, she knew, and she’d just come from somewhere with the same pulsing energy she’d find behind the front door.
When her phone chimed and the curtains on the front window fluttered, Patsy knew she’d been spotted. Betty probably wanted to know why she was sitting in her car when she could be inside with the family.
Patsy sighed as she got out of the car and hurried to the safety of the covered front porch. The hail had stopped, thankfully, but the sky looked like it could easily start to dump more. She opened the door to the wall of noise she’d been expecting, but it actually made her smile.
“I knew that was you,” Betty said from her spot next to the window. She stood taller than Patsy, and she’d never had her blonde hair cut above her shoulders. In fact, when Patsy had shown up to their father’s for dinner one week and Betty had seen her hair, she’d been downright dumbfounded at what had “possessed” Patsy to cut her hair so short.
Betty had curves Patsy didn’t, due to carrying and giving birth to four children, but her eyes were just as bright blue, and her skin freckled in the summer, just like Patsy’s.
“Who else would it be?” Patsy worked hard not to roll her eyes. She stepped around the couch while she unzipped her coat. She tossed it on the back of the couch and hugged her sister. Betty was a dozen years older than Patsy, and she’d met and married Cory when she was only twenty-four, and their first child had come along only a year later.
“Aunt Patsy,” Laura said, coming around the corner from the dining room, where all of the noise came from. She wore the hugest smile, and she hugged Patsy too. She was seventeen, and trim, with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes. Apparently, she had a lot of boys interested in her, and Betty had “lost so much sleep” worrying about her eldest daughter. Patsy knew Betty liked the drama of literally everything, and she’d actually been encouraging her girls to have boyfriends since the time they turned thirteen.
“I’ll tell Gramps we can have pie now.” Laura stepped back, her smile still in place. “And I wanted to show you that new program I coded. Do you think you have time to see it?”
“Sorry I held you up,” Patsy said, refusing to look at her sister. “I’m sure I have time to see it. I can’t wait.”
“You didn’t hold us up,” Laura said. “Gramps wants to eat pie twenty-four-seven.” She laughed as she went back into the kitchen and dining area that was one big area. Her father also had another set of couches back here, with the television and his beloved record player. He spent almost all of his time in this one room that served different purposes, and Patsy tried to tell how he was feeling just by looking.
He sported a lot of color in his face today, and he was grinning at Betty’s youngest daughter, Jessica, while she acted out something. Everyone else shouted at her, and Patsy had no idea how Jess would even be able to tell if someone got it right.
She detoured over to her father and bent down to hug him. “Merry Christmas, Daddy.” She took in a deep draw of his distinct smell, which was the perpetual scent of apples and leather, a unique blend that he’d accomplished early in his life from his mutual love of two things: horseback riding
and growing apple trees.
“Hello, darling,” he said, his voice raspy. He should probably be on his oxygen, but Patsy couldn’t even see the tank out here. He’d probably left it in the bedroom, as if the grandkids didn’t know he had it.
“Yes!” Jess squealed, and she pointed at Wendy. “It was a monkey riding a bike.”
The noise lessened after that, and Joe said, “Aunt Patsy’s here, so we can have pie.” He grinned at her, and his five-year-old daughter slid off his knee and ran to Patsy.
She giggled as she scooped Angie into her arms. “Howdy, partner,” she said to the girl. Patsy had been taking Angie to ride ponies since she was old enough to walk, and they had a standing date every September for the western festival in Dog Valley. They wandered around and ate candied apples, threw horseshoes, and once, they’d gotten one of those black and white old west photos taken.
Betty had followed her into the kitchen, and Patsy turned to watch her sister and her oldest daughter slice the pies, get out quarts of ice cream, and lay out spoons next to the bowls. “Okay,” Betty said, always confident in the leadership role. Patsy had a word for her sister that wasn’t all that nice, but Betty really could be bossy sometimes.
She supposed with four girls, she had to be.
“We’re ready for dessert,” she said. “Dad, what do you want?” She glared Jess back a few steps, and even Joe held his spot in the living room on the couch.
“Pecan,” their dad rasped, and Betty handed the bowl to Laura.
“With lots of ice cream,” she said to her. “Okay, we’re going to go in age order. Oldest to youngest, so that makes my husband next.”
Patsy rolled her eyes, because that was just like Betty. Serve her father and then her husband. After that, Joe got his treat, and Betty deviated from the declared plan again by giving his children what they wanted too. Patsy thought she could just as easily take a piece of pie from a plate as Betty could, but she helped get Angie situated at the large table in front of the back door, and she waited her turn.
She wasn’t the youngest, but Betty went ahead and let her girls go next, so Patsy ended up getting her pie last.
There was plenty of apple, the kind she liked best. It would almost be a crime if the Foxhill’s couldn’t make the best apple pie on the planet, so it was a good thing Betty could. Patsy could too. She just didn’t have as many opportunities as Betty did to show off her baking skills.
The conversation was easy as they talked about what they hoped to get for Christmas and what they’d be doing for the next week until school started again. Angie told Patsy all about the Christmas around the world stuff she’d done in kindergarten, and Patsy enjoyed the sense of family she felt here.
“I want hairspray,” Michelle said, glaring at Laura.
“Hairspray?” Patsy asked, glancing at the girls. “Your mom doesn’t get that for you? It’s like, two dollars a can.”
“Hey,” Betty said. “Don’t judge me. Hairspray is a real commodity around our house.” She glared at Michelle and Laura. “We get enough every month. Some people just need to learn how to conserve it.”
“Yeah,” Michelle said. “And keep their sticky fingers out of other people’s bathrooms if they run out of their own hairspray.”
“I told you, I didn’t—”
“Girls,” Betty said with a sigh. “Do we have to argue about this on Christmas Eve?” She looked like she was poor, picked-on Betty, and Patsy hated her oldest sister’s act. Since she lived up the canyon, she ordered a lot of her supplies online, and she could easily ship Michelle an extra can of hairspray once a month. Betty would never side with the younger girl, and everyone knew it. Laura, the oldest, was definitely Betty’s favorite, and she probably had stolen her younger sister’s hairspray and gotten away with it.
She helped clean up and helped her father back to his recliner. “How’s the lodge?” he asked, reaching over to pat her hand.
“Good,” she said. She came down to visit him alone sometimes, because it was easier to have a real conversation with him when Betty and her entourage weren’t around. “How are you doing, Daddy?”
“Good,” he said. “This last round of chemo wasn’t bad. I think they might have found the right combination.”
“That’s great,” Patsy said. “I can take you to the doctor this week.”
“Oh, Betty’s going to do it,” Dad said, and Patsy pursed her lips and nodded. She needed to get going back to the lodge, but she decided to stay for just five more minutes.
“Hey,” Betty said from the formal living room in the front of the house. “There’s a big truck here.”
Patsy didn’t move, because no one would come here looking for her. No one had called or texted, and she watched Joe’s kids set up a checkerboard on the floor in front of her. Alan, the eight-year-old, was definitely the one with all the bossy Foxhill genes, but Angie let him claim the black checkers and put them on the squares just-so.
“Patsy,” Betty said, appearing in the doorway, her face flushed. “It’s for you.”
“What’s for me?” She let go of her father’s hand and stood up, confusion furrowing her brow.
“The door,” Betty said, her eyes wide and astonished.
Patsy hadn’t even heard the doorbell ring. Of course, Betty stood at the window like she expected a burglar to be creeping through the front yard. “Who is it?” Patsy started toward the only doorway leading into the front of the house.
Betty turned sideways to let her pass, and Patsy saw Cy standing just inside the front door, a delicious cowboy hat on his head, covering his long hair.
“What in the world are you doing here?” Patsy demanded, her steps slowing to a near-stop.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before he turned and went out the front door. Laura looked at Patsy, and she could feel Betty’s eyes on her back too.
So she followed Cy, wondering how in the world he’d even figured out where her father lived.
Chapter Three
Cy marched across the deck and down the steps, his annoyance with himself and his brothers and Patsy and the whole wide world foaming inside him. He finally heard the slamming of the door behind him when he touched the sidewalk with his cowboy boots.
He wasn’t even sure what he was doing here, only that the Lord had directed him to come. Cy had argued with Him the whole way down the canyon, but sometimes his feelings wouldn’t be put to rest.
“What is going on?” Patsy hissed from behind him. “How did you even find this place?”
“Uh, I own the twenty acres on the other side of the highway?” His voice came out too sarcastic, and he knew it. “You said your father lived on this side. It wasn’t that hard, Patsy.”
He’d wished it had been. He’d been perfectly happy sitting in his truck too, and if the other blonde woman hadn’t come out onto the porch, her arms folded, and her frown so disapproving, Cy would still be sitting in his truck.
It felt like the whole world was conspiring against him today.
“Well, what are you doing here?” She darted up beside him, her short legs doing a good job of keeping up.
“I just wanted to—I really do think you should come work for me.”
“What?” She shook her head as if trying to get the words to line up right. “You drove down here after me to badger me about a job?”
“I’m not badgering you.”
“You interrupted my family Christmas Eve party.”
He reached for the door, but she threw her hand out and put hers on the handle, preventing him from opening the door. He finally allowed himself to look at her, which was a big mistake. Lightning and blue fire danced in those eyes, and when Cy’s blood warmed, he realized what a horrible error he’d made. He shouldn’t be attracted to the tongue-lashing he was about to get, but oddly, he was.
“This has nothing to do with a job that doesn’t even start until March,” she said. “You’re here to soothe your broken ego.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, though pushing her further away was the last thing he wanted to do. “I can get a date any night of the week.” Just because he and his couch had gotten really close the last year or so didn’t mean he couldn’t find someone to share a meal with.
Your brothers don’t count, he scolded himself. Neither do your parents. And Grams is ninety-eight.
“You’re being a beast,” she said, removing her hand from the handle. “You make one little mistake and hide like a child. You don’t apologize when I call you on your behavior. And then you stalk me to my father’s to say I need to work for you?” She shook her head, the lower half of her jaw starting to shake. “What a joke.”
He opened the door, because he couldn’t argue with her. “Come sit in here,” he said. “It’s warm.” Cy watched her look back to the house, clearly torn. It must’ve been pretty bad in there for her to even consider staying out here with him, especially after what she’d just said.
Patsy’s whole body shivered then, and Cy said, “Up you go, Patsy. You’re turning blue.”
She did as he said then, and Cy followed her into the truck. She slid over and over until she met the other side of the bench seat, and he turned on the engine and got the heater blowing.
“What are you really doing here?” she asked, her voice much quieter now. She didn’t fold her arms like the woman inside, and she kept her eyes out the passenger window.
Cy looked around at all the dormant apple trees on his side of the truck. A sigh pulled through his whole body, but he did not let it out of his mouth. He’d had some real disappointments in his life too, and he knew how to cage the emotions and keep them captive until later.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just felt like I should come.”
“Really? Why?” She did look at him then, and Cy found her vulnerability absolutely charming. He liked her fire too, and he liked that they didn’t get along like kibbles and bits.
Cy shrugged. “The Lord doesn’t always make everything ultra clear for me.”
