“Why?”
“Because you can’t break hay. You ever haul any?”
“Oh, yeah! This is where I grew up. I know all about hay. You about ready to put this family together?”
His eyes twinkled when he grinned. “I sure am and then we’re goin’ inside for something hot.”
“Oh?”
“Hot chocolate. Get your mind out of the gutter, woman. We’re about to birth a couple of snow children here.”
He loved it when she laughed. It wasn’t a sissy giggle but a full-fledged woman’s laugh, and when he said something that brought that kind of happiness to the surface, his cowboy heart threw an extra beat into the rhythm.
She had the hiccups the whole time he stacked the snowballs together. While he was on the tractor he took it back to the barn.
When he returned she was standing back, hands on her hips, head cocked to one side.
“Please don’t tell me that we have to build a lamb or make a whole nativity. I’m really getting cold,” he said.
“Poor Mrs. Frosty. She looks naked.”
Creed threw his arm around her shoulders. “Shhh, you’ll offend her. She’ll go shopping as soon as she can, but right now she’s thinking about Christmas presents for the kids.”
Sage laughed and patted the snow wife. “Welcome to Mistletoe, Texas, Miz Frosty. Hope you enjoy your stay.”
* * *
Sage couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun.
Maybe it was because she’d been cooped up in the house for three days and cutting out paper dolls would have been a great distraction.
Maybe it was the text message she’d gotten that morning from the gallery owner. She’d said that the mistletoe pictures breathed life and joy and she should bring eight to ten to next year’s showing. They were going to bill them as the Sage Presley Mistletoe Collection and start advertising two months before the showing.
Maybe it was Creed who brought out the little girl in her and made her laugh so much. Or perhaps it was a combination of all of the above after being snowed in for so long.
Her nose was numb by the time the snow family had arms of twigs, buttons for eyes, and carrots for noses. She’d found old scarves and hats, plus a purse with a sequined Christmas tree on the outside for Mrs. Frosty. But still there was something missing, and Creed’s nose testified to the fact that he really was cold.
She pointed at him and smiled.
“What?” Creed asked.
“Your nose is red. Is your middle name Rudolph?”
“Well, darlin’, so is yours, and no, my middle name is not Rudolph. Can we go inside? I’ll even make the hot chocolate and we can get warm by the fire.”
“Not just yet. Something is still missing.” She clapped her hands when she thought of what they needed for their new little icy family decorating the yard. “I know! Mistletoe. Frosty needs mistletoe hanging from his fingers. His beautiful wife will want a kiss when she comes home from the church social Christmas party.”
“Well, this place seems to grow that stuff with no problem. Let’s go hunt some up. I’ll back the tractor out again and we’ll take a trip over the river and through the woods.” He grabbed her hand and jogged to the barn.
“And back to Grandma’s house!” She kept pace with him the whole way.
“And back to my house, not Grandma’s house,” he said.
“Not until Christmas,” she told him.
He didn’t argue, which made her wonder if he was having second thoughts after living through a Texas-sized snowstorm.
“I thought you were cold,” she changed the subject.
“I am, but you want mistletoe and you’ll have mistletoe. Besides, I saw a big chunk of it not far out into the pasture. We could walk there, but it’ll be faster on the tractor.”
He motioned toward the snowy white field lying before them. “It seems like sacrilege to mess up something that pretty.”
“Virgin snow is always beautiful, but you’ll probably turn the cattle back out of the feedlot before long and they’ll mess it up and look, there it is. In that scrub oak tree and not too high up. There it is.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s exactly what I was talking about and I’ll use the tractor seat to reach that first limb. What do I get if I bring it all down and don’t lose a bit of it?”
“A kiss. That’s what mistletoe is all about, isn’t it?”
He drove the tractor close to the base of the tree, stood on the seat, and grabbed the lowest limb. He threw a leg over it and was soon climbing to the top like a monkey. The way he moved from limb to limb made her gasp. He unzipped his coveralls and reached for the perfect ball of mistletoe, tucked it inside, and zipped up. Coming back down the tree took longer than going up.
“You sure are taking your own good time,” she yelled up.
“Can’t lose a single leaf or I don’t get my prize,” he hollered back.
When he reached the bottom, he unzipped, carefully pulled it out, and handed it to her. “I believe that is perfect, madam. It just needs a red ribbon tied around the top.”
He sat down in the driver’s seat, drew her even closer, and brushed a sweet kiss across her lips.
“Paid in full,” he said.
Sage didn’t think it was paid in full at all. She didn’t want a kiss that left her aching for more. She wanted one that melted her insides and turned her legs to jelly.
* * *
The house smelled like a mixture of turpentine, burning logs, breakfast bacon, and wet dog when they went inside. Creed warmed a pot of beef stew, and Sage sliced thick slabs of bread from a loaf she’d pulled from the freezer that morning.
It was Thursday, which meant he’d only known Sage four days, but it felt as if they’d known each other since childhood. He could still taste her kisses on his lips and wondered if this was the way his friend Rye had felt when he tumbled ass over belt buckle in love.
Creed used the glass in the kitchen door to check his reflection. No, he wasn’t love drunk. He didn’t have that crazy look in his eyes that Rye had had all those years ago. It was simply being cooped up in the house with a beautiful woman that made things all haywire. Either that or she was working an angle to get him to leave.
If that was the case, she was damn sure going about it the wrong way because every time he touched her or kissed her, it deepened his resolve to stay. He looked at his reflection again. Nothing unusual there.
Maybe you can’t see it. I bet if you were in Ringgold, Ace could tell you if you have the look, the voice inside his head said.
He forgot about what he could or could not see when Sage started humming “White Christmas” behind him.
He turned and faked a cough to cover up the quick intake of breath. She had just finished pulling her dark hair from the rubber band holding it into a ponytail. As it fell to her shoulders, she shook her head slowly from one side to the other. That movement bringing all that silky black hair tumbling down to frame her face was sexier than anything he’d ever seen.
“If you really are dreaming of a white Christmas, I figure you are about to have your dreams come true,” he said hoarsely.
The movement stopped and a worried look crossed her face.
“Are you getting a cold? I told you we shouldn’t stay out all morning,” she said.
“Just a frog in my throat. I’m fine and you aren’t remembering right, woman. It was me askin’ you if we shouldn’t come in out of the cold and get warm,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter who said what right now and don’t call me woman. I’ve got a name. There’s no way in or out of here for at least one more day and maybe more. Neither of us can get sick,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am. It will be so. The great Sage Presley has spoken,” he said shortly.
“That’s tacky.”
“No, it’s funny.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
He smiled. “I was not making fun of you. I was teasing.”
She held up a long-bladed knife with a serrated edge. “You’d better be. All you got is a wooden spoon and look what I’m holding.”
Noel growled from her blanket in front of the fireplace.
“She’s tellin’ us that the fire is getting low and that all that energy she used up out there helping plow a path and make snow people made her hungry too. And she’s also saying we shouldn’t be arguing when all we got is each other in this house until the snow melts. Dip her stew out before it boils and she won’t have to wait for it to cool down. As soon as we can drive on the roads, we’ve got to go buy real dog food and cat food.” Sage crossed the floor and tossed a couple of sticks of wood into the stone fireplace.
Sage’s head bobbed one time. “Children do have to be fed.”
She put a paper towel in a basket, shuffled the slices of bread into it from the cutting board, and carried it to the table. Her job was finished. The rest belonged to Creed, so she left the kitchen and went to the basket of kittens. She picked the yellow one up and held it close to her breast.
“At least they don’t have to be clothed,” she yelled over her shoulder.
He chuckled. “You sure about that?”
“Of course I am. Little girls might put their doll clothes on puppies and kittens, but adults don’t, do they?” She remembered seeing a picture of a movie star in a magazine. She had one of those tiny lap dogs and it had a bow in its hair and wore a pink sweater.
“I knew a woman who had a special walk-in closet for her toy poodle. It was completely full of clothing for each season and the critter had a different bed for days when it rained or the sun shined.”
Sage put the kitten back and picked up a black one. “You’re teasing again, right?”
He dipped out enough for the pets’ dinner and set it on the cabinet. “I wouldn’t tease about something that crazy.”
“Did you date her very long?”
“Twice. Took her to a rodeo over in Wichita Falls one Friday night and the next week we went to dinner. She asked me in to meet her daughter, Fiona. She sure didn’t act like she had a child, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t think fast enough to make an excuse, so I went inside with her.”
“And the daughter had a puppy, right?”
“No, the puppy was the daughter. Imagine my surprise when Fiona had gray hair and four legs.”
Sage laughed. “Don’t make me laugh. I always get the hiccups, and I don’t hiccup or sneeze like a lady.”
Creed held up a hand and crossed his chest with the other one. “I swear to God. It really happened. I’m not joking.”
“What happened?”
“The dog got all excited and squatted on the floor.”
Sage laughed harder.
Creed went on. “The lady grabbed some scented wipes, soaked it up, and told the poodle that if she wasn’t good that she’d have to sit in the time-out chair. She pointed to a mink-lined bed in the corner of the room.”
“Real mink?”
“Probably not, but it didn’t look like much punishment to me.”
“And you never dated her again?” Sage asked.
“Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. So answer my question, are you going to buy clothing for these animals?”
“Hell, no! They’ll do good to get cheap dog food and cat food.”
Visualizing a big, rough man’s-man cowboy like Creed cooking a pot of stew was stretching the imagination. Walking a toy poodle dressed up like a movie star and prancing along on a shiny pink leash brought on even more laughter.
She put the kitten next to Angel, gathered up the last one to give it some attention, and said between gasps of giggles, “You were a wise man, Creed. She would have made you be friends with that critter and you’d have had to walk her. I just can’t see you walkin’ a little bitty dog wearing a tutu and a pink bow.”
Creed shook his head. “Me either. When she showed me the dog’s closet, I about had a stroke. If the dog was that high maintenance, then what would she be? It’d take more than one cowboy to make enough to keep her and her pup happy.”
“Well, I promise not to humiliate my animals with clothing. They can romp through the mesquite without having to worry if they tear their tutu, and they can sprawl out on the porch in the summertime strip stark naked. And you can bet your cowboy butt that I’m not having a real or fake mink time-out chair for them.”
“Somehow I can’t see Noel in a mink bed.” He chuckled.
Sage put the last kitten back in the basket and scooted across the floor to Noel’s blanket. The giggles had subsided and she didn’t have the hiccups that time. “My girl is happy with her frayed blanket, aren’t you?”
Noel wagged her tail and slurped her tongue across Sage’s cheek like it was a snow cone.
“Snow ice cream,” Sage said.
“A dog’s slobbers reminded you of snow ice cream?”
“No, I just remembered that we’ve got to make it. The snow is clean right now, but in a day or two it’ll all be nasty. We’ve got to bring in a bowl of good clean snow and make ice cream.”
“Oh, yeah!” Creed agreed. “Just tell me when and I’ll go get the snow for you. Do you have a special recipe? My momma uses whipping cream, milk and eggs, and vanilla. Do we have all that stuff here?”
“I thought you were cold.”
“I am, but I don’t mind stepping out the back door and getting some snow. I’m just glad you weren’t talking about building a snow cone stand for our snow family. I’m dishing it up, so come and get it while it’s hot. I’m talking about this stew, not snow ice cream.”
“My snow family would probably appreciate a snow cone stand. They do need something to keep them occupied other than kissing under the mistletoe all the time. And yes, I do have a special recipe. It’s an old family one that we never share, so don’t even ask. You might talk Grand into selling the ranch, cowboy, but my ice cream recipe isn’t up for sale.”
She left Noel, washed her hands at the kitchen sink, and sat down at the table. “This smells even better reheated.”
He sat down across from her, pulled his chair up, and their knees bumped together. “Soup, stew, and beans all get better toward the end of the pot. Maybe we’ll make a pot of beans and ham tomorrow. And fried potatoes.”
She nodded because all the words in her head were suddenly gone. Only two layers of denim separated her knees from Creed’s. The steaming bowl of soup in front of her was actually cold compared to the heat generated between them.
Then he shifted his chair and it was gone.
She moved her knee a little, couldn’t hook up with his, and was searching under the table for his leg when she realized what she was doing. She jerked her hand back faster than if she’d touched a hot iron, and high color blazed in her cheeks.
Whoa, hoss! You’ve got to slow this buggy down. Four days, Sage Presley, and have you forgotten this is the man who’s going to buy the ranch? You are supposed to hate him and discourage him from wanting to live in the canyon.
She blew on a spoonful of soup. But maybe he could work for Lawton and I could still see him. There are other small ranches in the canyon that he could buy.
She realized she wanted to have her cake sitting all pretty on the table and eat a big chunk of it too. Life didn’t work that way. Either preserve the past and keep the cake, or get a knife and slice into it.
“Hey, what are you thinking about? It looks like you’ve got a war going on in your head,” Creed said from across the table.
“Whether to buy Noel a pink or red sweater. Since it is Christmas and she does have a holiday name, I was thinking red. What do you think?” she joked to keep from spitting out what she’d really been
thinking about.
“Ask her. She’s the one who’ll have to wear it,” Creed said.
“How old are you?” Sage asked bluntly.
“I might ask you the same thing, but a gentleman never asks a woman about her age or weight.”
“I was twenty-six in September. I went to college for two years, came home, and started painting full time, sold a few, and then got a fantastic break when my professor dropped my name to a gallery owner in Denver. What I weigh is between me and the bathroom scales, and if they ever start talking, I will take the hammer to them. Your turn.”
Creed laid his spoon down. “I was twenty-eight on the first day of October. I have a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business. All I’ve ever known is ranching and farming. Like you already know, I was engaged once, and I’ve sworn off permanent relationships. What about your love life, Sage?”
“I love painting. Seems that men have this crazy notion that I’ve got commitment issues.”
“Imagine that.”
Sage didn’t want to talk about the big, dark C word, so she changed the subject. “Don’t eat too much. You’ll want to save room for ice cream, and besides, Noel looks like she’s still hungry.”
“That’s the first step toward a mink-lined bed in the corner. Feeding the dog,” he quoted the last word with two fingers on each hand in the air, “the good stew and going hungry yourself.”
“The bathroom scales would argue with you that I’m not about to waste away to nothing,” she said.
“I think you are just right, Sage. Matter-of-fact, my Grandpa Riley had a way of describing a woman like you.”
Sage didn’t know if she wanted to hear what his grandpa would say about a woman who was too tall and who was too hippie and whose smile looked like a dental chart (compliments of a remark made by Triston Jones in the fourth grade).
“Well, do you want to hear it or not?” Creed asked.
She nodded even though she was telling her head to go back and forth, not up and down.
“He would have said that you were built like a redbrick shit house without a brick out of place.” Creed smiled.
Christmas at Home Page 10
