Christmas at Home

by Carolyn Brown

  She gave him a big hug. “Mundane is magic today.”

  “Oh, and the news on the tractor radio says that the roads are being cleared but they’re still icy so to use caution.”

  “Only thing we need from town is dog and cat food and they’re not complainin’.”

  She hopped up off his lap and turned on the living room light, both lamps at the ends of the sofa and a floor light that usually sat between the rockers but had been relegated to a corner when her easel came into the house.

  “Isn’t it beautiful? That means television and I can paint until midnight if I want to.”

  He smiled at her and headed toward the kitchen to start making breakfast. Then he leaned over the counter and asked, “Television?”

  She slung open two doors of a cabinet on the opposite side of the fireplace and there was a small television. “Works beautifully and we’ve even got cable. Grand loves her old Western movies.”

  “So do I,” Creed said. “Since we have electricity, do you want toast with your ham and eggs?”

  “I’m partial to skillet toast like you made when you brought me breakfast in bed. I usually use that toaster for Pop-Tarts.”

  “Then fried toast it is. It’s my favorite too. Grandpa hated the toaster and tossed it into the trash when Granny died. He said the thing only dried out the bread so it crumbled when you tried to put butter on it. When you took the toast out of a skillet, it was buttered, browned on the outside, and still soft on the inside.”

  “Smart man!”

  Even the floor felt warmer with the lights all on as she padded across the room to pet her animals. Noel was curled around her puppies that were slurping noisily and kneading her stomach as they ate.

  “She went out with me this morning. I flipped her blanket over to the clean side but it needs to be washed. You got another one somewhere that she could have while that one is getting cleaned up?”

  “Sure, and I’ll put a fresh one in Angel’s basket too. We should do that first. They’ll be done by the time we get our beds stripped down and our stuff all sorted out.”

  * * *

  Creed would have never believed that talking about laundry and dog beds could be sexy, but it was. Listening to her talk about stripping down the beds sent his thoughts back to what had gone on in her bed and a stirring started in his jeans.

  The phone put an abrupt halt to his visions and he picked it up on the second ring.

  “You still frozen in?” his brother, Ace, asked.

  “We got electricity just this morning and the snowplows are still working on clearing the roads. Sage tells me that we are always the last to get dug out because our roads are the least traveled, especially this time of the year. We still haven’t even plugged in our phones and computers to recharge them.”

  “Then you’re on your way back to civilization. It hit us last night but we only got the tail end of it. A couple of inches on the ground and the sun is out so it’ll melt soon. Jasmine and Lucy are outside building a snowman about waist high. They plan to take pictures of it with Jazzy. She says this is the baby’s first snowman even if she can’t see it. I told her to pull up her shirt. Maybe the baby can see it through her belly button, kind of like a camera lens.”

  Creed laughed. “I bet that got you a slap on the arm. How is Jasmine? Things going all right?”

  “Oh, yeah. We can’t wait until spring for her to be born. I swear, Creed, there is nothing like the feeling or the fear of being a father. I don’t know how Dad did it seven times. I hear you got holed up with the granddaughter of the ranch owner. How’d that work?”

  “Not so bad. Could have been worse.”

  “Good-lookin’?” Ace asked.

  “Oh, yeah!”

  “Do I hear something in your voice?”

  “I couldn’t answer that, brother.”

  Creed heard a commotion in the background.

  “I miss Lucy’s giggles. Tell Jasmine I’ll send her a picture of a whole snow family as soon as I get my phone and laptop charged.”

  He put the receiver back into the base and it rang again before he could turn around.

  Sage reached over his shoulder and grabbed it.

  “Hello.”

  No more than two seconds clicked off the clock.

  “Oh, Grand, I’m so glad you called. The electricity is back on. We have puppies and I named the girls Blue and Crosby and the boy Elvis, and Creed says their poppa is a bluetick hound. And the kittens are named after Santa’s reindeer. I can’t wait for you to see them. Creed says they’ll all have their eyes open by Christmas and he’s going to build a doghouse and a cathouse…”

  A short pause and some laughter. “I know it’s funny, but what else would you call it? Bet you never thought you’d have a cathouse on the Rockin’ C, did you? Anyway, he’s going to run an electric cord out into their little houses on the front porch and we’ll keep them warm with a lightbulb. Kind of like you do in the spring to hatch out the chickens.”

  There was silence for a while and Sage wiped a tear from her eye. “I miss you. My cell phone will be charged up by noon and I’ll have it with me all the time.”

  Creed’s heart went out to her. Should he back out of the sale? She’d never be happy without her Grand close by, and her happiness was more important than anything.

  * * *

  “You miss her bad, don’t you?” Essie asked.

  Ada nodded. “But she needs to cut the apron strings and realize that just because someone leaves her doesn’t mean they are gone forever. I’ll go back and visit the ranch often and you’re going with me.”

  “Not in the summer. I’d die in that godforsaken place in the summer. My poor little fat cells would all melt and there’d be nothing left of me but wrinkled skin and brittle bones.”

  “We’ve got an air conditioner. You can take your knitting and sit in the living room all day, but we’re going back every three months. After the first year, you can play with the great-grandbabies. Until then you’ll have to make do with puppies and kittens.”

  Essie shook her head. “Don’t like cats and barely tolerate dogs. When the boys were grown, I said no more pets in this place.”

  Ada slapped the kitchen table. “Looks like you’d best learn to tolerate them because the choice you got is a week out of every three months in Texas with me or a nursing home with a whole new set of friends.”

  “You are a hard woman, Ada Presley.” Essie pouted.

  “I learned it from you.”

  Essie stuck out a hand. “Deal.”

  Two hardworking, veined hands clasped together in an unwritten agreement that was as binding as ink on paper.

  When the hand shaking was over, Essie laughed. “I would have gone for two weeks four times a year.”

  Ada smiled. “I would have settled for three times a year.”

  “You know she’s enough like you that you can’t force her into doing what you want, right?” Essie said.

  Ada threw an arm around her sister. “She gets that from you.”

  * * *

  Noel and Angel both had clean beds, and two sets of sheets were in the washing machine. Sage and Creed carried their overflowing laundry baskets to the kitchen and set them on the floor.

  She dumped hers. “Might as well combine the loads. It’ll take less time.”

  He dumped his on top of hers. “I agree.”

  Putting her underwear in with his was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. It seemed so personal, so symbolic. Not even a long morning of sex had made her blush scarlet. But she did as she sorted clothing and visualized their personal things tangled up in the washing machine together.

  When the kitchen floor looked like an explosion in a Goodwill Store, she poured a cup of coffee and carried it to her easel. The canvas looked different with overhead lights, and l
amps added to the sunshine pouring in from the window.

  “That sun promises warmth, but if you poke your head out the door that cold wind will freeze your nose off,” Creed said.

  “It’s better than snow falling so hard that you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Aha! I can turn on the radio. Six days and I’d already forgotten what all electricity does bring in the house.”

  She picked up the remote, hit a button, and music instantly filled the room.

  Creed exhaled loudly.

  “What?” she asked as she poked a button on the stereo unit inside the cabinet with the television.

  “I liked the feeling of no technology. It’s crazy, but I did. It’s the same feeling I got when I first came out here.”

  “Want me to turn it off?”

  “No, I’d like to hear the news before I go out in the barn and start building the dog and cathouses,” he answered.

  Toby Keith sang his newest song and then there was five minutes of news, most of it still covering the snow and all the damage it had caused. When that was done, Creed pulled on his coveralls, gloves, and boots and settled his hat just right on his head.

  “See you at dinnertime,” he said.

  “I’m making tortilla soup.”

  He made his way around the piles of clothing and kissed her on the cheek. “That sounds great.”

  The house felt empty with him gone. Even the DJ and the constant noise of Christmas songs from country artists didn’t fill the void. The dryer buzzed telling her that the dog and cat bedding was ready to fold. She laid her brushes to the side and went to the backside of the huge walk-in pantry.

  It needs to be as big as the kitchen. It has to house the freezer, the washer and dryer, and enough food to last a month, my child. It’s our grocery store and our laundry all rolled into one. Grand’s answer to her question when she was a little girl flitted through her memories.

  Would she ever tell her daughter the same thing when she asked why the pantry was the biggest room in the house?

  She pulled the old blankets from the dryer, cleaned enough lint from the filter to make a bonfire, and switched the sheets over from the washing machine. Then she gathered up a load of towels, put them in the washer, and added detergent.

  Noel cold-nosed her hand when she started back out and Sage yelped.

  “You scared me, girl.”

  The dog went to the door and put a paw on the doorknob.

  “It’s cold out there,” Sage said.

  The dog barked and she opened the door. Noel meandered out and headed straight for the barn. Other than her floppy ears blown back against her head, she didn’t act like she even felt the cold. But Sage shivered when the icy wind shot up under her shirt. She quickly shut the door.

  “Creed is tough as nails to work outside in this kind of weather,” she said aloud.

  She carried the laundry basket to the table and folded the two ratty blankets. Grand saved everything until she’d gotten the last drop of good out of it. Sage would have tossed those two blankets years ago, but not Grand. And now they’d come in almighty handy.

  She put them back in the linen closet and worked on her painting again. In the thirty minutes before it was time to switch clothing to the dryer, she could get part of the mistletoe painted.

  When she painted, the world disappeared. But that morning was different. She painted the waxy green leaves and white berries, but Creed would not leave her mind.

  Grand had been right about him. He was the perfect cowboy to take over the ranch and Sage was coming to grips with the idea. Still, she felt guilty. She should be fighting harder to get her grandmother to stay and not leave for that godforsaken place in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

  * * *

  Creed measured the boards for the floor of the doghouse and added four inches all the way around. When they went into town he’d buy a roll of insulation. That would keep the cold from sneaking in between the boards.

  “I could just buy a couple of decent doghouses, but what’s the fun in that?”

  Besides, you had to get out of the house. One more lonesome tear from Sage’s eye and you’d be calling Ada Presley and telling her to come home on the next flight. You’d declare that you couldn’t live in this desolate hole in the ground, but it wouldn’t be that at all, would it?

  “Shut up,” he demanded out loud.

  He finished nailing the floorboards to the base and fixed the studs to the sides. Noel meandered in, her ears drawn back against the cold wind. She curled up in a pile of loose hay with her head on her paws and watched him.

  “It’s for you and the puppies. I’ll build one for Angel too, so get that sad look off your face. She won’t be taking up permanent abode in the house either.”

  Noel’s tail wagged, scattering loose hay all around her.

  “How’d you talk Sage into letting you out?”

  Noel raised her head and barked her answer.

  “Lied about having to go, did you?”

  He discussed everything with Noel as he worked. He told her how big her house was, how much insulation he planned to put inside, how he’d put the bulb in the attic with a piece of glass between it and the ceiling so the puppies wouldn’t slap at it and get their paws burned. He told her about his new feelings for Sage and how he couldn’t stand to see her cry or know that he was the cause of her unhappiness.

  “I’d planned on fighting with her to the bitter end, but I’m a sucker for tears.” He sighed.

  Noel growled.

  “You don’t think so? Well, that’s comforting that you don’t think I’m a sucker. So what do you think, girl? Will you like your new log cabin or did you want it to look like a white mansion?”

  Noel shut her eyes and went to sleep.

  “Log cabin it is. I’m glad we agree. I’ll get the outside covered and then put the insulation in the walls and cover the inside with quarter-inch plywood. It’ll be a nice home for you and your bluetick hounds.”

  Noel got up and meandered out of the barn as slowly as she’d come in. She looked over her shoulder and gave one more bark but didn’t slow down.

  When she was gone, Creed realized that he couldn’t feel his nose and his fingers had begun to tingle in the bitter cold. He unplugged the circular saw, put it back in the tack room, and left the beginnings of a doghouse sitting right in the middle of the floor.

  * * *

  The dryer beeped and Sage laid aside her brushes again. She’d barely made it to the kitchen when she heard scratching on the back door. Noel ambled inside when she opened it and went straight for her bed without stopping to have her ears rubbed.

  “Got cold out there, did it?” Sage asked. “Your babies didn’t even miss you. They slept the whole time you were out.”

  She followed Noel. “See, I told you. I’m a good babysitter. If they would have whined, I would have rocked them back to sleep.”

  The back door opened with force and Creed came in stomping his feet and clapping his hands. “Damn, it’s cold out there.”

  “Weatherman says it’s going down to single digits by night and for us to brace up for another norther. Did you bring all this with you from Ringgold, Texas? We haven’t had a storm like this since I was born and when you arrive, boom! Look what you caused.”

  “No, ma’am. Where I come from, we get excited about two inches of snow. It gets cold but it don’t last forever. And please keep that idea to yourself about me causing this. The other farmers will take me out behind a mesquite thicket and stone me to death if I’m the culprit who caused a blizzard.”

  The dryer beeped again and she started toward the kitchen.

  Creed held up his palms. “Let me. Whatever it is, I’ll get it out and fold it just to get something warm in my hands.”

  She wiggled her eyebrows.

  “Honey, I’d put fr
ostbite on your pretty skin if I touched you right now. You ever lick an old metal ice tray?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, that’s what would happen if I kissed you. We’d be joined at the lips until the spring thaw. Go on back to your painting. I like the way the mistletoe came out. Looks like I could reach right in there and pick it out of the picture.”

  Sage picked up her brushes. It wouldn’t be so bad to be joined at the lips until the spring thaw. If his kisses could set her ablaze in the middle of a Texas norther, what would they create in July or August? Her heart wasn’t in painting, so she cleaned her brush and put her palette in a plastic container with an airtight lid to keep the paints from drying out.

  When he brought the load of towels to the table, she picked up an armful of white clothes—T-shirts, thermal undershirts, and underwear—and carried them into the pantry. She switched a second bunch of towels to the dryer and stuffed the washer full one more time. He had almost finished folding the towels when she got back.

  “You can keep on painting, Sage. I know how to do laundry. I promise I won’t put red socks in with the white clothes,” he said.

  “I need to think about it for a while, and besides, it’s time to start the tortilla soup. How much did you get done on the doghouse?”

  “Floor is in. Studs are up and the siding is going on. It’ll be a fine log cabin. Noel says she likes it,” Creed said.

  “Is the door going to be a gaping hole?”

  “I’m a better carpenter than that,” Creed answered. “It’ll have one of those doggy doors that they can push in from the outside or out from the inside.”

  “Why are you building it so well? It’s just a doghouse,” she said.

  “Shhh…you’ll hurt her feelings. If she’s going to be thrown out of the big house, she needs to feel like she’s getting a good deal. And besides, we haven’t had an argument yet.”

  “What does us arguing have to do with her house?”

  His eyes twinkled in mischief. “Not a thing.”

  Sage racked her brain for what could be so funny, but not a single thing surfaced.

  “Explain please,” she said.