Christmas at Home

by Carolyn Brown

  Brad Paisley began to sing a song called “Long Sermon.” It talked about two boys sitting in church listening to a long sermon when they’d much rather be outside in the sunshine in a boat doing some serious fishing.

  Creed kept time with his thumbs on the steering wheel and sang along with the chorus.

  “Ever done that?” Sage asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I have. How about you?”

  “Don’t tell God but I’ve painted dozens of pictures in my mind while the preacher sermonized,” she said.

  “Where do you go to church? Claude?”

  She shook her head. “We go over to the chapel at Canyon Rose on Sunday afternoons.”

  “Afternoons?” Creed asked.

  “The preacher comes from Amarillo. It’s just a little missionary church so we have our Sunday service at two thirty on Sunday afternoons. Unless the canyon fills up with snow and the preacher can’t get down the roads.”

  “Baptist?”

  Another shake of the head. “Methodist. But everybody in the canyon comes to it. Catholic. Methodist. Holiness. We don’t pay much attention to denomination.”

  An Alan Jackson song followed that song, and then there was a five-minute spread of news that talked mostly about the power outages and the snowstorm. That was followed by the weatherman telling them that there was another cold front coming across the plains that would hit that night. Temperatures would drop even further, but there wouldn’t be any moisture with it.

  “However,” he said, “folks can begin to rest assured if they live in the Palo Duro Canyon that they are going to have a white Christmas. Don’t put the sleighs up yet. You might need them and the horses to get around. And for the next hour we’ll be taking requests for your favorite holiday songs by country artists. And our first request is from a listener in Claude who wants to hear ‘Joy to the World.’”

  “I love Christmas carols,” Sage said.

  “We used to go caroling in Ringgold. We’d gather up at the church and Daddy would hook up a trailer to the back of his pickup. He’d throw some little square hay bales on it for the O’Donnell crew to sit on as they played. Those folks can play anything that’s got strings on it. And we’d go all over town, then we’d cross the Red River into Terral, Oklahoma, and serenade those folks too.”

  “That sounds like fun. We should do it here,” she said.

  “Maybe next year,” he said. “We’ll plan it early and get lots of folks to go with us.”

  “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by John Berry started playing.

  Grand would at least be home for Christmas. Why couldn’t they all live on the ranch? Grand, Essie, Creed, and Sage?

  You can’t have it both ways, Sage. Grand’s voice pestered her again.

  “O Come, All Ye Faithful” was the next song.

  Faith! That meant trust. She wanted to have the faith to believe that everything would work out for the best in the end, but it wasn’t easy for Sage. That old adage about changing what she could and accepting what she couldn’t came to mind. The last few words that said she wanted the wisdom to know the difference played through her mind like a broken record.

  Creed reached across and covered her hand with his. The heat was still there in all its radiant glory. Sparks still bounced off the windows of the tractor cab. She looked out across the snow-covered canyon, but it didn’t take her mind from Creed and the way he’d controlled her body the day before.

  Accept it. Stop fighting what is right in front of you and accept it.

  “What’s your favorite?” Creed asked.

  “Favorite what?”

  Part of your sexy body? Your eyes. No, your muscles. Hell, don’t know.

  “Christmas carol,” he said when she didn’t answer right away.

  “‘O Holy Night,’” she said. “Yours?”

  “Well, I like ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,’ but my favorite is probably ‘Mary, Did You Know?’ That one brings tears to my eyes.”

  She reached across the cab and slapped him on the knee. “You had me going there for a while.”

  “So do you like the one about Mary?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do. It’s one of my top five Christmas favorites. The preacher’s wife usually sings it at the Hanging of the Green ceremony at church.”

  She was amazed when the DJ told the time and temperature before he started the next five minutes of songs. It was sixteen degrees and it was after eleven o’clock. They’d been out for more than two hours, and it was almost dinnertime already.

  Sage didn’t realize she was so cold until she started toward the house. Her nose felt as if it would fall off if she touched it, and her toes were numb. If Creed got cabin fever any more that day, he could take another tractor ride by himself. And her stomach had set up a growling noise. Every bit of her breakfast had gone to make energy to keep her from freezing plumb to death.

  Once inside, she shrugged out of her coat and hung it up. Summers in the canyon might be hot as a barbed wire fence in hell, but by golly, she didn’t have to keep putting on and taking off her coat or coveralls. Well, they could dry out completely because she was going to paint all afternoon and nothing or no one was going to get in her way.

  Right after, she threw a couple more sticks of wood on the fire and warmed her fingers enough so that they could hold a brush. A whimper came from the living room and Sage rounded the end of the bar to see if Noel was waiting at the front door. Creed hurriedly hung up his coat, kicked off his boots, and beat her to the Christmas tree. Crazy cowboy! The dog wouldn’t be whining at the Christmas tree if she wanted to go outside.

  “Merry Christmas, Sage,” Creed said.

  Why in the world would he tell her that right then? It was the tenth of December, fifteen days before Christmas.

  He pointed at Noel, who was lying on her blanket wagging her tail.

  She’d had the dog more than a week now. How could that be her Christmas present? Creed stepped to one side and she saw the puppies inside the C that Noel made with her body. She squealed and ran across the room, fell down on her knees, and rubbed Noel’s ears.

  “Three of them? And they are beautiful,” she whispered. “Look at the little spotted things, Creed. Not a single one looks like her.”

  Creed squatted beside her. “They all look just like bluetick hound dogs.”

  He picked up one and handed it to her.

  She rubbed its head against her cheek. “I don’t know why I fought Grand against a pet.” She held it out from her and studied it: black ears, brown around where its eyes would be when they opened up, a splotchy blaze up across its square black nose. The rest of the white dog was covered with what looked like big blue ticks.

  “Hello, Elvis,” she said.

  “Elvis?” Creed asked.

  “He sang about a blue Christmas. And there ain’t no doubt this little bluetick hound dog is Elvis. Besides, Elvis also sang about a hound dog. Put him back and let’s look at the next one.”

  Creed put a second one in her hands and she kissed it on the nose. “It’s a girl and her name is Blue.”

  Two big dark spots that looked like black paint had dripped on the pup’s back. Her muzzle was white and covered with a black mask around her eyes. If she’d been a boy, Sage would have named her Zorro. She wiggled and whimpered, so Sage held her close to her chest. She settled right down when she was next to the flannel shirt and Sage sang a few lines of “Blue Christmas” to her.

  “She’s sleeping now. Give her back to Noel and let’s take a look at the next one,” Sage said.

  Creed handed the runt to Sage.

  “Oh, look! It’s so tiny and has hardly any color at all except for the dark-colored ticks all over her.”

  Sage held her out and looked at her carefully. “You are Lady Crosby. I bet you grow up to be a better singer than either Reba or Wy
nonna.”

  “Hey, now!” Creed said.

  “She will. She’ll make them look like they can’t carry a tune.”

  “How did you come up with that name?”

  “Bing sang ‘White Christmas,’ remember?”

  “And we do have a white Christmas coming up.” Creed nodded.

  “That’s right.” Sage laid the puppy close to Noel, who wagged her tail even harder. “That’s why you didn’t want to go with us, isn’t it?”

  Then it dawned on Sage.

  “You knew, didn’t you? That’s why you took me out to check on things, right?” she asked Creed.

  “I did and you are right. You’d have fretted yourself sick about her if you’d known she was knottin’ up with contractions.”

  The cowboy just flat-out amazed Sage.

  * * *

  The puppies were cute right then. But they’d grow up fast, and pretty soon there would be lots of problems and messes everywhere, so his next job would be building a doghouse. He could set it on the front porch and as soon as the cold snap was over, Noel and the puppies would be nice and warm out there. He chuckled softly at his next thought: a cathouse. There was no way Sage would put Angel and the kittens in the barn, so he’d better start designing a cathouse as well as a doghouse.

  He visualized miniature log cabins. He could insulate the inside and cover the walls with plywood, put a flap door on the front, and run wire for a lightbulb through the window. A nice worn blanket and a forty-watt in the attic of each house would keep the animals cozy on cold nights.

  “What are you thinking about so hard?” Sage asked.

  “Construction work. Let’s eat and then you can paint while I design.”

  “What kind of construction work?”

  “A surprise,” he said. “Listen. A norther just hit. We barely got back to the house in time, Sage. That wind sounds pretty ferocious out there.”

  She shivered. “We probably won’t get electricity today.”

  “Maybe not.”

  An hour later she was painting and he had a notebook and several sharpened pencils in front of him on the kitchen table. Four of Sage’s pictures were drying in the pantry and she worked on the one with the mistletoe and icicles in the top of the snow-dusted scrub oak tree. He picked up a pencil and figured out a comfortable size for the dog and then for the cat and calculated the pitch of the roof. The lightbulb should be close to the babies, but not so close that they could touch it.

  Or it could be behind a piece of glass at the back of the house instead of inside the attic. That would work like the lights inside the chicken house where Creed’s mother hatched out peeps in the spring time. There were basic woodworking tools in the tack room in the barn and some spare lumber pieces stacked in the corner. Some split fire logs would make a real log cabin exterior and look pretty fancy sitting on the front porch.

  Sage laid her brushes down and sat down across from him. “What are you working on, Creed?”

  “Building a couple of houses.”

  “Why? There is this house and then the bunkhouse. Why would you want to build two more?”

  “For Noel and Angel. We’re getting a little crowded in here, Sage.”

  “It’s too cold to put them outside.”

  “Come look at this,” he said.

  She leaned forward and he told her his idea of putting the cathouse and the doghouse on the porch and how they’d heat the houses with lightbulbs. He drew a crude picture of what the houses would look like and then waited. She didn’t say a word for a long time.

  “It would keep the smell down in here, wouldn’t it? We wouldn’t have to have a litter pan, and they’d just be right there on the porch where I could go out and play with them, right? And they could come inside for a little while each day?”

  “Yes, you could, and yes, they could. But rest assured, eventually Angel and the kittens will wind up in the barn because that’s where the rats are, and believe me, that’s like round steak to them.” He chuckled.

  “And my puppies?”

  “Will probably claim the porch, bark at any newcomers, and trip you up when you try to bring in groceries,” he told her.

  She laughed. “Kiss me, Creed.”

  His expression made her laugh harder.

  “Wasn’t expecting that, were you?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I can accept all that you just said if you kiss me.”

  She walked around the table and sat down in his lap so that she was facing him. She put a hand on each side of his face and leaned in for the kiss. When her mouth touched his, strong arms encircled her body.

  When the string of hot, heavy kisses ended, he asked, “What does a kiss have to do with doghouses?”

  “Not a damn thing. I heard you. I agree with you. But all I could think about when you were talking is how much I wanted to kiss the lips that were moving.”

  “I thought we were slowing this wagon down.”

  “We are slowing it down, but we aren’t unhitchin’ it.”

  * * *

  He kissed her again, this time controlling the pressure with his hand on the back of her head and teasing her lips with soft nips and his tongue. So she wasn’t ready to unhitch the wagon and put it in the barn forever. Well, neither was he, and if kisses were all he could have until after the sale, then he’d enjoy them to the fullest.

  “I like the way you feel in my arms,” he said.

  “I like the way I feel in your arms too.”

  “But…”

  “No buts; just kiss me again.”

  He held her chin in his hand. “But I can’t do this all evening, Sage. Just sitting in the same room with you makes me crazy with want. Kissing you one time jacks up the heat in my body. A dozen times and I’m throbbing.”

  She moved back to her original chair. “Do you think Noel was in love with her old bluetick hound boyfriend?”

  Creed wasn’t sure how to answer that. Were they talking about dogs or dancing around their own relationship?

  “I hope so. She’s got three babies to raise… Oh my God! Sage, I just thought of something. We didn’t use a bit of protection yesterday. I didn’t even think of that when we…” He let the sentence trail off.

  “I’m on the pill. I’ve always had problems with regularity so I’ve been on it for years.”

  He wiped a hand across his forehead.

  “You tellin’ me you wouldn’t want me to have three little dark-haired cowboys or cowgirls to run around in this canyon?”

  “I wouldn’t mind that at all, but I’d damn sure like for them to be legitimate. I got a feeling the wrath of your Grand would not be a pretty sight.”

  Chapter 12

  Creed’s comment about kids haunted Sage. It hadn’t been a drop-down-on-one-knee proposal, but it had rattled her nerves. If she had kids, they’d grow up and leave her. She could barely think about putting Noel and Angel and their broods out on the front porch.

  A child would be so much harder to lose. Her very own father was proof of that. He’d left the canyon to serve his country. Oh, he’d come home all right. The grave in the cemetery on the other side of the grandfather rock was proof of that. Sage laced her hands behind her head and stared out the window at the stars twinkling in the black sky. Grand was a strong-willed woman to survive losing her only child. And then she took in her daughter-in-law and granddaughter only for the daughter to die two years later. Sage wasn’t sure she could live with that much pain.

  She closed her eyes and sleep came easily, but the dreams haunted her all night. Dreams of little boys and girls chasing puppies around the yard and of Creed swinging them up into his arms when he came in for dinner. She watched the scenario as if it were a movie and felt the joy of the love surrounding them. When she awoke she wasn’t sure if she’d been a charact
er or someone viewing it from a padded seat with a bag of popcorn in her hands.

  A pang of pure old jealousy stabbed her in the heart when she thought of some other woman living on her ranch, raising Creed’s children, and playing with her puppies and kittens. It was still pitch-black dark outside and the clock on her nightstand said that it was three thirty. She snuggled back into the covers, wished Creed was holding her so she wouldn’t feel so alone, and went back to sleep.

  The next time she awoke she was floating through the air. Afraid that she’d gotten too close to the bed and was falling off, she jumped and grabbed at the air. Only it wasn’t air that she latched onto. It was Creed’s big, strong biceps.

  “I’ve got you, darlin’,” he whispered.

  His heartbeat against her cheek convinced her that it wasn’t another dream. He really had picked her up out of her bed and was carrying her off somewhere. Had she moaned in her sleep? Was he carrying her to a rocking chair to soothe her?

  “Don’t open your eyes until I tell you,” he said.

  She clamped her eyes so tight that her face hurt. He took a few more steps and sat down in a rocking chair but was careful not to set it in motion. Something sounded strange in the background. The smell of coffee filled the room but the percolator didn’t sound right. He brushed a kiss across her lips and then planted one on the end of her nose and she forgot all about coffeepots.

  “Merry Christmas, Sage,” he said.

  Her eyes flew open and there it was, not three feet from her, in all its glory. The Christmas tree was lit up with multicolored lights. The electricity was back on!

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard and passionately.

  “Hey, I didn’t do it but I like getting the rewards. When I came out of the barn the lights around it were all lit and when I got to the house, this is what I found.”

  “It’s a Christmas miracle,” she said.

  “I’d say more like overtime for a lot of hard workers to buy Christmas miracles for their kids.” He chuckled.

  “Washing! We can do laundry!”

  “Magic has gone. Mundane landed safely,” he said in a monotone.