Christmas Lights

by Tanya Hanson

  Could she? Should she?

  Did she want him in her day-to-day? When normal life came back? It was Christmas after all. But more than anything, why would he want her…if he knew the truth?

  The winter weather and her past chilled her to the marrow of her bones.

  Miriam stomped over and pulled at Lori’s hand. “Just so you know, Auntie, I just called Gee-Gee. My mommy, too. It’s OK about the sleigh ride. So you can’t say no. Come on now. You come on, too, Heston.” Miriam’s wide blue eyes implored the handsome man at Lori’s side. “Come on. Let’s go eat. There’s French toast.”

  Heston’s brown eyes turned golden in the rising sun, and his gaze glazed over Lori, covering her like sweet syrup. And she warmed all the way through.

  “Delicious,” he said, his lips slow over each syllable.

  4

  “Oh, what a shame, Lori. The big sleighs are full.” After the enormous ranch breakfast, Heston pointed at the two-seater and the patient Saddlebred horse hitched to it. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.” He quickly batted his eyelashes at her and was thrilled at her grin.

  In the chilly wind, long brown hair swirled across Lori’s shoulders as she laughed. “Yeah, right. I’m positive we could scrunch along with the crowd.”

  “Now now, say howdy to Tatonka.” He brushed his hand over the horse and suddenly turned serious.

  Her eyes smiled, but maybe he was overstepping. Over reaching. Maybe she didn’t want to be next to him at all.

  “Lori, we can squish with the rest if you want. I didn’t mean...”

  Maybe in her personal story, she didn’t write pushy manipulative men.

  Her face reddened but it might’ve been the cold. “Oh, no, no, no, Heston. I love the idea. I do. And it’ll be nice to have a break from Miriam.” Her restlessness touched the air around them. “She’s so busy with the other kids. It’s kind of hard on her, being with grownups all the time. But…”

  “Uh, we can be back in twenty minutes. If you have to…get home.”

  She spent a quiet moment rubbing the horse’s neck. “Hello, gorgeous,” she said, and then looked at him, fully. Breath-stoppingly. “It’s just...I don’t want us to be pests. And, well, Gee-Gee will say she’s fine, but it’s tough, tending a crabby invalid.” Her eyes widened. “Not that Granddad doesn’t have good reason. And I adore him. He needs to be up and about.”

  Heston nodded, wheels turning in his head. “How about we get your grandparents on a sleigh ride tomorrow? The weather’s great. Come on.” He took her hand and nudged her up the ice-slick path and into the sleigh. Heston tucked a soft woolen blanket around Lori’s knees and hopped up beside her, close enough on the bench seat to touch.

  “What do you think?” He hoped, prayed.

  “I think they’d love it. Tomorrow should work.” She smiled. He swallowed a gasp.

  Like last night, her scent breathed into his skin, and for a quick moment, Heston couldn’t imagine anything else to want. A beautiful woman next to him, Colorado around him. Reins in his fingers and something special tumbling in his heart. Slowly, he guided them behind the large sled ahead of them. Which was packed to capacity.

  A warm trickle of sunlight blessed him, and he hoped, wished, prayed Lori felt it, too. Sled runners split the quiet of the morning, and Heston traveled to cloud nine and back when her hand lightly came to rest on his knee. The breezes on their face caught the cold drifting up from the snow, but somehow, he felt more alive than usual. Maybe the evergreen spikes of pine trees reminded him of forever. Or the tall white skeleton of Aspen promising the greening of spring.

  “Let’s plan on it, then. Now, tell me more about your granddad. We’ve met, but I don’t really know him. He sounds quite a character.”

  “You mean, him disowning my mom?”

  “Well, yeah. Families are funny things.” Heston nodded in rhythm to the slip-sliding of the sleigh runners and Tatonka’s confident hoof beats.

  “Even your TV perfect clan?” Her tone, eyes teased, but he sensed an underlying seriousness.

  “Yup. The four of us each have tales to tell that we’d rather not.” Especially him. His muscled tautened across his shoulders. That Christmas party, his first year of college. It had taken him years to face the holy season without a sense of doom, despite the forgiveness. When would be proper to tell her? “Can’t judge, though. God tells us that.”

  “If you only knew.” With a head shake, she breathed out a quiet laugh. Her gentle hand didn’t move. “Anyway, Granddad’s great-grandfather, or maybe even one more ‘great’, came to Mountain Cove as a vaquero on the cattle drives in the 1870’s. Eventually homesteaded with a few head, built up a nice little ranch. The Rio Colina got passed down for a few generations. But Granddad got wounded in Vietnam, couldn’t keep up the place and sold it.”

  “Wow. Tough to part with a heritage like that. You think he regrets it?”

  Lori shrugged against the seat back. As she moved, her scarf danced around her lovely face, and he ache to wrap his hands inside. “Him? I doubt it. He’s not an outdoors kind of guy. But it might have been something nice for my mom.”

  “Being she married a cowboy and lives on a ranch now herself?” His question wasn’t too nosy, was it? It seemed right to take his hand off the reins and take hers inside it.

  She smiled, squeezed his fingers. “In the army, Granddad learned how to tinker with helicopter engines, stuff like that, so he bought the auto shop in town. Does pretty well. Has fixed up a stable of classic cars he rents out for weddings and Prom.”

  “Sounds like quite a guy.”

  She laughed out loud, a peal that rang on the air. “He is a hoot. Even if he doesn’t have his own reality show.”

  “Aw, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “I do know he watches your show, though.”

  The bells hanging from the sleigh tinkled in the wind. Lori burrowed deeper into the blankets. The breeze was freshening but cold.

  “Whoa, Tatonka.” Deftly, Heston had the sleigh skirt a snow-covered boulder. “I'll say it again. Families are funny things.”

  Her mittened hand swiped a loose strand of hair. “You got that right. I mean, my grandparents have never even been to Texas. But I’m sure glad my brother and I discovered our Colorado roots.” She wiggled beneath the blanket with what he read as satisfaction.

  “I’m glad, too. You can’t beat the scenery.” Of course he meant her, but for a long, delicious minute, her head swiveled left and right to see the splendor around them. Rolling range white with winter that greened to feed cattle all summer long. Forests of fir and spruce, breathtaking even with the onslaught of bark beetle and the dead trees it left behind. Spires of legendary aspen…the arms of gray-blue mountains holding everything close with snow-tipped fingers.

  She looked at him then, eyes full of so many emotions he couldn’t pick one. “I’ve never seen anything like…Colorado.”

  Did her pause suggest she almost included…him? He heated even in the cold. He cleared his throat, hoped he’d talk normal. “I wonder if your mom minded. Leaving here, I mean.”

  Lori’s shiny hair spilled like coffee over her shoulders as she shook her head. “She’s never mentioned any regrets. And her story is kind of romantic. Even if it did cause so many problems.”

  “Maybe it rubbed off. You write romance, after all.”

  “Maybe. My collaborator Cate and I have used seeds of it in our stories. My parents met at a rodeo in Rustic Canyon. It was one of those love-at-first-sight things.”

  She sighed so deep he wondered if she believed in love so soon. For that matter…his breath caught but it might just be the frigid air. Did he?

  “But Mom wasn’t eighteen for a month. They kept things secret. As soon as she had her birthday, they ran off.”

  “Not a word? Wow.” Didn't take a second thought for him to know how heartbroken his folks would have been had Cagney pulled such a stunt.

  “Not until the deed was
done.” She sighed, shuffled her feet in the footwell. Restless? Might be from cold, though. Last night she’d said something about cold feet.

  The memory struck him. Maybe she’d meant it figuratively. Eh. He slapped his thigh. “Kinda tough, that.”

  “I can see from a daughter’s perspective why it killed my grandfather.” Her words blew off in the wind, and her glance gleamed sorrow. “I mean, every dad wants to give his little girl away in a real wedding.”

  “Yep. You got that right. Cagney’s wedding hoopla lasted three days.” That he all he could think to say. Nothing profound. Somehow Lori’s eyes had shaken him. What had broken her so? Not Scott—they were too good of friends now. Some other man? Or had life simply thrown her curveballs she didn’t know how to catch? Happened to everybody some time or other—he’d lived it first hand, but God was there standing right behind you. If you let Him in.

  To lighten up things, he waved to kids shouting from the sleigh ahead and offered, mild, “I imagine it went deeper than that. They’d never even met the guy. Plus she was mighty young.”

  “Not so much her age.” Lori pulled her hands from the blankets and waved, too. Miriam’s excited howls were likely to start an avalanche. “My grandparents had married super-young. War kind of pushed things faster for them. It was more...they wanted Mom to be the first to go to college.” Lori stuck her hands back beneath the covers too fast for a chance to take one. “But eventually peace was made. Lucky for Leo—my brother—and me.”

  “Sounds like everything worked out.”

  “It did, I guess. My parents truly are soul mates. It can honestly happen sometimes.” Her wistful voice trailed off. Then she caught his gaze and grinned. “Mom eventually got a Bachelor’s in Hospitality and Tourism management. They really found their niche in Bandera. Daddy’s retired from competition now, but he helps with Friday night rodeos during the season.”

  Tatonka hustled through a line of aspen and up the cleared trail. Wind from the peaks poured down in the same rhythm of his hoof beats. The other sleigh faded behind a stand of Douglas fir bordered by aspen.

  “So...how about the love at first sight thing?” Careful. Heston spoke slow, treaded slow into a maybe-minefield. “Do you believe in that?” He wasn’t sure he did, but he hadn’t been the same since meeting this woman. In case she didn’t want to answer, he murmured horsey nonsense to Tatonka.

  “Of course.” Her smile lit up the sky but didn’t reach her eyes. “I write romance novels.”

  A shaft of sun slipped through the creamy clouds and flashed gold in her dark blue eyes before she looked away.

  “But that’s fiction,” he hedged, not wanting to know for sure.

  “I know. But I can still believe in it. Whether or not it happens for real, it makes a good story.” Her luscious mouth moved as though she were forming more to say, but she gave a quick nod and turned the conversation to him. “My boring facts must have put you to sleep by now. Cowboy reality star, wake up and tell me about you.”

  “There is nothing about you I find boring.” He meant it but regretted saying so when her face paled. Too much? He rushed on. “Me, I graduated from Colorado School of Mines. If that isn’t a snoozer, I don’t know what is.”

  “Mining engineer?” She pulled her hat snugger over her ears as a slice of wind hit the sleigh.

  Ah, it’d be good to warm her up. His veins heated. “Mining interested me, to be honest.” He shrugged. “An ancestor did some significant hard-rock mining and, well, left a lot to fix. Not much I could do there, but I wanted to protect the future. And it’s more than mining the old fashioned way. You’re talking renewable energy, reclamation of river habitats, desalination...”

  “So what’d you desalinate?”

  “Well, I started out in technology to treat and re-use onsite water for oil and gas extraction.”

  “Fracking?” Her brow furrowed.

  “Yeah, but...” He grimaced as another gorgeous grove passed them by. “Too many unknowns. Too controversial. Got me wa-a-a-ay out of my comfort zone. And as it happened, I had the chance to get on a stream team.”

  “Dream team? Sounds nice.” She nestled against the back of the sleigh, close enough for him to feel her warmth.

  “No, stream. Like water. Not long ago, the Saint Vrain river diverted course during severe rain and flooding.” He vaguely pointed southeast although Vrain was many miles away. “So we helped rebuild diversion systems for agriculture and to purify drinking water. But more than that...well. I mean, nobody doubts that the floods were a disaster. But when a river changes course, it’s creative too.”

  “Creative?” Like a butterfly, her lovely hand flicked at another strand of hair set astray by the wind. “Aren’t floods bad? People always sandbag and dam to keep them out.”

  He nodded. “Yes and no. Bad of course if homes and lives are lost. The good—new pools and ponds form, and waterbeds. In come new life forms. Water plants. Birds. Kind of nature’s way of taking away, but giving back, too. We master-planned watersheds like a developer designs a residential community.”

  Well, maybe he hadn’t bored her as much as he expected She nodded with interest, and her beautiful eyes twinkled like a starry night. Something fluttered deep in his gut. At that second in their perfect little world, a towhee flashed its red belly as it flitted through the snow-filled pines. Lori pointed in delight.

  “I admit all that sounds truly helpful. So you go out in the muck and mud?”

  “Not anymore. My team was all-volunteer. The paid pros are in charge now that federal money kicked in.” His laugh was a little bitter, but he’d never regret the temporary job doing something so valuable.

  She moved a little closer; her shoulders relaxed. “Now you work at the ranch?”

  “Much of the time. I also studied alternative energy designs. We’ve been developing wind farming in Sunset Hills. It’s tricky. Gotta watch out for birds flying in the same thermal updrafts we need.” His shoulders slumped a little. “Radar warning mechanisms are expensive, but I insist on them. So that’s gonna take additional investors.”

  “Wow. I’ve seen those big wind fans. I never imagined birds might get in the way.” Her eyes brightened with sheen from the snow.

  He grinned back. “City girl. Bats, too. But yeah, I got my work cut out.”

  A sweet flush brushed her cheeks, and his masculine instinct knew it was more than the cold. “Mother Nature must surely love you,” she said.

  “The Creator.” Turning in the seat, he steadied his gaze into hers. Did she believe? He took another flirty chance. “Well, somebody’s got to.”

  “I, um.” Almost as if she couldn’t bear any more, Lori’s gaze left his zone and she stared ahead. “What’s that?”

  The relief starting in her voice turned to excitement. He relaxed; her interruption wasn’t just a random diversion.

  Ahead of them, nestled in a small stand of pine with winter-bare aspen grouped nearby, stood a small but inviting cabin.

  “Looks like something out of an old western movie.” Lori’s tone held childlike wonder.

  “It might look rustic, but it is Hearts Crossing Ranch’s newly-built and up-to-the-moment ‘Homestead Lodge.’ Indoor plumbing and everything.”

  “I love it. Do guests stay here?” She clasped her hands to her chest.

  “No. Kind of a halfway house on the way up to Blessing Ridge. A place to warm up, get a snack. Water the horses.”

  “Blessing Ridge? Sounds beautiful. And very Christmas-y.”

  His heart thundered. Everything about Lori Lazaro was all-woman, but her childlike delight touched him, and he prayed the day would not end soon. “The ridge is where you look down and see the herds overwintering at Elk Grove. It’d be a long, cold day to get all the way to the grove and back. So the tours stop here coming and going.”

  “Tours?”

  “Yep. Hearts Crossing has permission from the National Park Service to run the sleighs, and part of the deal is making sure the
elk have enough forage.”

  He reined Tatonka to up the speed.

  “Everything belongs in a magazine, for sure. So perfect. So beautiful.”

  White puffs of breath covered each of Lori’s words, but for many reasons, Heston didn’t feel cold at all.

  “Then what’s inside the cabin?” she asked.

  “A fireplace. And last I heard, hot chocolate, Christmas cookies. Even supplies to make pinecone wreathes await the happy guests.” He parked the sleigh. “Wanna go in?” The thought of her by his side in front of another fire, her lips parting to take in the edge of a cup was almost too delicious. He raised his eyebrows. “There’s nothing better than my stepma’s Christmas cookies.”

  “I believe that. I think I’ve gained five pounds in the last twelve hours.” Her smile sent a blast of heat through him. Then the bigger, slower sleighs pulled up beside them with resulting shrieks and yee-haws. “I probably better hang out with Miriam for a while.”

  “Listen,” Heston said, taking her chin in his hand and staring deep and breathless into her eyes. “No offense, but she’s been hanging out with grownups for days. You said it yourself; she might even be a little homesick. I know my nieces and nephews pretty well. I’m positive she’s having a ball with the rest of the kids. She’s fine.”

  As if hearing her name, Miriam gave a holler and happy wave as she tumbled from the sleigh. Joining in a group whoop, she ran into the cabin with a herd her own age. Cagney threw Heston and Lori a wave, too, and then scooted inside.

  Reading his sister’s intent precisely, Heston held in a secret smile. Matchmaking. Leaving him and Lori alone...

  Her face moved a little inside the gentle cusp of his hand, but she didn’t pull away. “Of course you’re right.” Her voice shook a little. “Maybe Miriam can make a wreath for Gee-Gee’s Christmas present. She’s been harping at me about something handmade, but crafting is not a skill I possess.”

  “Well, you could learn wreath making, too,” Heston offered but hoped she didn’t accept. He wanted more alone time, pure and simple.