The result wasn’t the same as when Mama had been alive, but it was festive enough.
Belinda would be surprised. And the task had distracted Daisy from thoughts of the cowboy for a little while, at least.
She had accomplished one small thing. And was sweating and exhausted from the efforts of the morning, with small strands of hair plastered to her temples.
How could she even think of keeping her own home?
She couldn’t.
Yes, keeping her distance from the cowboy was the right thing to do.
But when he’d manhandled the tree into the parlor, she found herself asking him whether he would come in for dinner.
*
He’d been rescued by the arrival of Daisy’s family and the other cowhands. Belinda had overheard Daisy’s invitation as she’d burst into the house in a flurry of energy and somehow all three men had been wrangled into eating lunch.
So now Ricky found himself crowded between Daisy and Beau at the corner of the table. Her sister sat across, the twins kitty-corner to his left, and Ned rounding out the table, reading a newspaper and ignoring the younger people for the most part.
With the twins chattering about the friends they’d seen at church, it almost felt like home, and the pang of homesickness that cinched his gut was almost enough to make him lose his appetite.
Except trudging through the snow all morning had made him hungrier than usual, and the smell of roast and fresh bread had his stomach gurgling. The hot coffee helped warm those parts of him still chilled from the earlier snowball fight.
Belinda leaned close, whispering to Daisy, and he watched the redhead’s cheeks fill with color again. Both girls’ eyes flashed to Beau, whose face was about as red as Daisy’s hair.
The idea had come to Ricky as he’d been constructing the tree stand out in the barn.
Daisy didn’t think she was attractive any longer. Didn’t expect to have any beaus or find someone to marry.
So he could find someone for her.
As he’d gotten to know the quiet cowboy over the past couple of weeks, he’d found Beau to be steady and reliable, if a bit quiet. Or maybe Ricky only thought that because he missed his boisterous brothers. All of them, even Edgar, who tended to ride him hard about family responsibility.
Beau had changed Ricky’s life. He was a good Christian. A good person. Not like Ricky.
Beau was perfect for Daisy. And this lunch was as good a time as any to start introducing the idea to the both of them.
But Ricky saw Daisy’s shoulders tense when her sister had to cut the meat on her plate, as if she was a little child again.
He cleared his throat and leaned close to the cowboy at his elbow, attempting to distract the man and ease Daisy’s discomfort. “How’d ya like Miss Daisy’s decorating?”
The other cowboy looked startled for a moment, almost surprised that Ricky had spoken to him. “Oh, ah...” His head swiveled to glance through the doorway into the parlor. “It’s...very nice.”
Belinda seemed to understand Ricky’s intentions to move the attention off her sister, because she chimed in, “Our mother used to do the very same, every Christmas. It reminds me of her.” She smiled sweetly. “Does your family have any Christmas traditions?” She directed her question to the both of them.
The kid had gone even redder, if that was possible. He seemed to be having a hard time getting any words out, so Ricky laid down his knife and answered.
“We’ve got a big family, so my ma always draws names for each of the kids. Sort of a secret surprise for that person. We pick out something we think the other will like.”
He paused. Waited for the kid to chime in with something of his own Christmases, but nothing came.
“’Course, it always seems like some of the cattle always choose that day in particular to wander off. I can’t tell you how many times my brothers and I have had to ride out in nasty weather to get them.”
Still nothing from the cowboy beside him, except the clink of his silverware against his plate. Ricky nudged the other man’s arm.
“Same for you, Beau?”
“Oh, uh...yeah, I guess.”
Great conversationalist. Ricky ground his back teeth. How was Daisy going to find out what a catch Beau was if the other man wouldn’t even talk? Of course, Beau wasn’t exactly in on Ricky’s plan. Yet.
But a glance across the table revealed Belinda’s interested look.
“Beau aims to get a spread started in this area,” Ricky said, slapping the other man’s shoulder.
Beau lost his hold on his fork and it rattled on the table. He winced. Ricky did, too.
“Not anytime soon. I got to have some start-up cash first.”
Belinda smiled at the man. She nudged Daisy’s arm. “Our father started this ranch with a homestead and not much more than the clothes on his back.”
“Is that right?” asked Ricky.
“Mmm-hmm,” Daisy said. She seemed focused on her food, her cheeks still pink. Still embarrassed?
“Papa always says how it was God and our ma who gave him the gumption to make this place what it is,” Belinda said.
“Well, then maybe you should be looking for a wife,” Ricky said with another pat on Beau’s shoulder.
The younger man choked on his food.
Ricky slapped him on the back until he finally cleared what had lodged in his craw and reached for his water glass.
Ned cleared out, grumbling about young people and unnecessary days off.
Quiet from the other end of the table drew Ricky’s attention down that way. The twins had their heads tucked together, whispering. Most of the food on their plates had disappeared.
Ricky knew that whenever he and his brothers got quiet, things got dangerous. It usually meant mischief was being planned.
And he didn’t want anything interrupting this chance for Beau to make a good showing with Daisy.
He stood up, bringing his mostly empty plate with him. And stopped behind their chairs.
“Boys, the gals made this nice meal for us. Why don’t we say thanks by clearing the table.”
His voice made it less of a question and more of a command. They looked at him, looked at each other, then back at him.
He kept his expression serious, channeling his pa or Edgar, he was sure.
They reluctantly took to their feet and followed him to the kitchen, where the warmth of the stove and the scent of the meal they’d just eaten still lingered.
Ricky’s adopted ma, Penny, had grown up in a well-off family and when she had married Jonas, she hadn’t known her way around a kitchen much at all. Most of the kitchen chores and cooking had fallen to Ricky’s pa and brothers—that was okay, they’d been doing it before her arrival. And teaching her had provided some hilarious moments for the family.
Because Ricky knew his way around a kitchen, he quickly spotted the scrap bucket.
He set Terrance to scraping plates. Todd he kept with him as he went back to the table for the serving dishes. Todd seemed the more ornery of the two—likely the instigator—and needed keeping an eye on.
From this end of the table Ricky witnessed that Belinda seemed to be the only one talking. Beau was red-faced, staring down at his plate but with his head bobbing to show he was listening.
Daisy had her eyes on the window past the other cowboy. Not paying any attention.
Ricky must’ve made some noise because her eyes flitted to him. He had the strangest urge to wink at her.
Which was totally inappropriate. He was a new man.
Why did he still want to flirt with her?
The boy at his elbow grumbled. “Don’t see why we have to clean up. Ma never makes us. It’s a woman’s job anyway—”
“A woman appreciates a man who helps her out.” The teasing words were out before he really thought about it.
And he made the mistake of looking up. Daisy’s eyes were still locked on him, and sure enough...he thought he saw the echo of appreciation in the
ir depths.
*
What had he done?
Not long after eating, Ricky tossed his hat onto his bunk in the small barn loft Richards had turned into a bunkhouse of sorts. He and Ned and Beau shared the space, with one empty bunk in the back corner. A table was wedged between the two bunks on one side. They stowed their personal belongings beneath the bunks or on hooks on the opposite wall. The space wasn’t heated—couldn’t have a stove with all the flammable hay just behind the wall separating the open loft from this area—but retained enough warmth from the animals below that it wasn’t too bad when they bundled up in their bedrolls at night.
He paced the enclosed space, trying to figure out what was wrong with him.
Something had happened between the snowball fight, talking in the sleigh and the teasing at the table.
Some small connection had been made between him and Daisy. He’d seen it in her eyes. He felt it.
He hadn’t meant for it to happen. He didn’t want to hurt her, not as all those other girls had been hurt when he’d flirted, and more, with them. And then walked away. Staying in Pattonville had never been in his plans.
He had to keep his distance.
But he also needed to make things right. Including finding her a husband.
And if there was some connection between her and Ricky, that might interfere.
He liked her.
“You want to tell me why you embarrassed me at the meal?”
Beau burst into the room, and it instantly felt confining. There wasn’t much space between the bunks already and with the two of them in there it was even tighter. Hard to dodge a swing if the other cowboy was so inclined.
And Ricky had never seen the quiet cowboy so riled before.
Again, it reminded him of his brother Maxwell.
Beau didn’t take kindly to Ricky’s smile, and his fists clenched at his sides. Ricky backpedaled, raising both hands in front of himself.
“We’ve become friends over the last coupla weeks, haven’t we?”
The other cowboy took a breath, seemed to calm some. Nodded.
“And I’ve been trying to make friends with Miss Daisy.” Here’s where he needed to finesse the words a little bit.
“Now that I know the both of you a little better, I think you’d make a right nice match.”
Something tightened in his gut as he said the words. He ignored it.
“You do?” Beau appeared flummoxed. He sat down on the nearer bunk, Ned’s bunk, and took his hat in his hands, flipping the brim one way and then another.
The other cowboy was going to ruin his hat if he kept it up, but he didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it.
“I don’t know...”
Ricky propped one shoulder against his top bunk, settling in now that Beau didn’t seem to want to punch him anymore. “What do you have against her? Her arm?”
The other cowboy looked up and appeared a little afraid of the growl in Ricky’s voice. He’d scared himself a little, in fact, and worked at making his voice sound more normal. “She’s working at getting over it.” Sort of.
“It ain’t that,” said the other man, now rubbing his knee. “You might’ve noticed I’m not the best at talking to fillies...”
No kidding.
“And she’s from—well, her pops has got this fine place...” Beau motioned in a circle around them.
Sure, it was a nice spread. Same as Jonas’s.
The pang of homesickness hit Ricky hard in the gut. But maybe he could use it.
“Look,” he said, quieter. “You sorta remind me of one of my brothers. I’m just trying to look out for you. And I think you and Miss Daisy could really have something.”
There was that pain in his midsection again at the words.
Daisy needed someone kind. Someone patient, like the other cowboy. If Ricky could make them both see it, he would be on his way to redeeming himself and the situation.
“Will you at least think about it?” he asked.
Beau still looked skeptical but finally nodded gravely.
Good.
So why did Ricky feel a little as if he was going to lose his lunch?
Chapter Six
Several days later, Ricky rode back into the barnyard, huddled in his slicker and half frozen from a long morning of checking on the flock. He’d never been so happy to see the barn.
Two of the woolly beasts had decided to hide in a brushy canyon, and he’d had to spend extra time locating them. The winter weather didn’t stop predators, although Ned had two farm dogs trained to stay out with the sheep and protect them. It was important to keep watch over the flock.
Ricky was used to being out in inclement weather. On his pa’s spread, it seemed as if the cows always picked the worst weather to give birth in. He’d been out in near-blizzard conditions, ice, freezing rain... But never alone. Always with one of his brothers at his side.
But his family troubles weren’t the burr under his saddle today.
He was full of pent-up emotion. Frustration. Guilt. He’d had the nightmare about Daisy again this morning, woke up with his nostrils burning from smoke, the back of his wrist on fire.
Shaking.
He might’ve even cried out, but he couldn’t be sure because the loft had been empty, Beau out on a night watch and Ned blessedly gone.
Now his breath puffed out in front of him in a white cloud as he dismounted outside the barn and pushed open the door to let the animal inside.
He cared for his horse first, finally warming up enough to unbutton his coat in the barn.
When the animal had been tucked away, Ricky went back to the project he’d been working on these past few days. He hadn’t been able to see Daisy or figure more ways to push her and Beau together, but this he could do.
And he had a couple of hours before he had to hitch up and go to town to pick up the boss and his new wife. Beau and Ned were still out delivering a wagonload of hay to the sheep, a job they had to do every couple of days to supplement what the animals could forage in the winter, what with the grass covered in snow.
He hadn’t seen Daisy in several days. He was missing her. It wasn’t right, not when he wasn’t good for her, but that was how he felt.
Yesterday, he’d strung two hooks from a rafter in the back of the barn. But the leather straps Ricky had looped through the hooks hadn’t been long enough for what he had in mind.
Now he shucked his coat so it wouldn’t hinder him. Then he clambered up onto one of the stall dividers, holding on to a post for balance. Stretching until he reached the first strap and disengaged it from the hook.
He was fighting with the second strap—it had gotten tangled in the hook somehow—when he felt a rush of cool air and the barn’s dim interior lightened momentarily. Then it went still and dim again. Someone must’ve opened the door and come in. Ricky couldn’t look away from what he was doing, afraid he’d lose his concentration and fall.
Figuring it was Beau or Ned, he kept at what he was attempting. He almost had that loop...
It slipped loose and he cried out. Success.
“What are you doing up there?”
The feminine voice had his head jerking around and he wobbled perilously, grabbing the post with one arm.
Daisy. She looked up at him, a mixture of curiosity and wariness on her expressive face.
She’d come out of the house.
She was pretty as a peach, her hair down around her shoulders, and he felt nine feet tall—or maybe he just felt that way because he was standing on the stall.
“Help ya, miss?” he asked with a charming grin.
“What are you doing up there?” she asked again. She stood several yards away, and didn’t come any closer.
“Working on something.” He grinned again. Had she sought him out? The thought warmed him up from the inside.
He grabbed one of the longer straps from where he’d thrown it over his shoulder and, still holding on to his post with one arm, reached up to loop
it through the hook.
“I grew up on this ranch. When we’ve been short on hands, I’ve done just about every job there is to do around here. But I still can’t even fathom a guess at what you’re doing this very moment.”
He grinned. It was supposed to be a surprise for her, but now that she’d caught him, maybe he should fess up. And he would, once he got down.
“What’s your favorite chore?” he asked. He tucked the second strap through its hook and straightened the pair of them. Yes, that looked as if it should reach where he needed it much better.
She hesitated only a moment, then murmured, “I liked driving the hay wagon at harvest.”
He steadied himself with his hand against the post and bent his knees, then jumped off the stall wall into the soft hay below, landing with a wobble and a thump. He lifted his head and grinned at her.
“Harvesting? The long, boring days... It’s always so hot...”
“The sweet smell of the hay, the sense of satisfaction when the fields are bare,” she countered. “The knowledge that you’ve provided for the winter ahead.”
She looked from him to the two straps hanging from his hooks in the rafter overhead. “What is that?”
“Well, it’s not done yet. A better question is, what is it going to be?” From his hip pocket, he pulled a sheet of paper, folded into quarters, and held it out to her.
The paper crinkled as she spread it out. He knew what she would see. It was a rough sketch of his idea to hang a bridle about at the height of the horse’s head. He’d spent several hours over the past few days piecing together a square metal rigging with two hooks—one shorter and one longer—that hung down.
“Is that a...bridle?”
“Yep. The way I figure it, your boy—” he nodded to her horse, stalled in the middle of the barn “—is docile enough, you could train him to step into his bridle, and if you use this, if it works, you can bridle him yourself.”
She looked skeptical, frowning, her eyes trained on the single page.
*
Daisy kept her eyes focused on the cowboy’s sketch, as her heart thundered in her ears. The man’s presence was simply...overwhelming.
A Cowboy for Christmas (Mills & Boon Love Inspired Historical) (Wyoming Legacy - Book 5) Page 6
