Operation: Married by Christmas

by Debra Clopton

  Adela reached for her cup, lifted it to her lips then paused, a thoughtful look in her eyes. “After all these years, you girls know as well as I do that God didn’t just happen to bring them both back to Mule Hollow without a reason. It’s no accident. We just have to have faith and God will work it out.”

  “But God didn’t just give us this hankering to help them for no reason. So I can’t just sit back and do nothing,” Esther Mae exclaimed.

  Norma chuckled. “Well, then let’s get busy and give this covert operation a shot in the leg.”

  “Oh!” Esther Mae exclaimed and dropped her fork. It clattered on the plate but no one noticed as her eyes lit up and she waved her hands in excitement. “Girls, I’ve got it. I have the perfect idea!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was ten in the morning and Will found himself standing in front of the community center beside Haley.

  Norma Sue smiled at them engagingly while waving a hand-drawn map at him. “So, if you follow these instructions you should have no trouble.”

  Will took the piece of paper and stared at the drawing wondering how he’d allowed himself to, once again, be roped into doing something he didn’t have time for….

  But then, he knew how it happened. Norma Sue had told him that Haley had volunteered to go cut the berry branches from some special bush that they just had to have to decorate the tables for the Christmas production. Then she’d told him that Haley might need some help and asked him if he would mind going along just in case.

  Of course he would go along. Haley didn’t need to be running around out there in the woods alone. Knowing Haley she’d get stuck in a wild hog pen again, and who would be around to find her? Though in an effort of self-preservation, he’d been working hard and trying to avoid her for the last few days, but he couldn’t deny that a part of him wanted to go berry picking with Haley.

  “Now remember,” Norma Sue continued, “they’re purple berries.”

  Haley walked up to where Will and Norma Sue stood in front of the convention center. “Are you certain you want purple berries and not red holly berries?” she asked, stopping just short of three inches from Will’s left arm. Will was more than aware that she was standing beside him.

  Esther Mae hustled out of the community center just in time to hear Haley’s question. “Purple’s what we want, Haley. They’re just the cutest little clusters of round balls that you’ll ever see. And when you see them you’ll know exactly why we want them.”

  Norma Sue nodded. “But if you find some red berries, grab them, too. We can use both colors. Okay, though, y’ all better get this show on the road. No sense wasting daylight.”

  Anticipation skittered through Will and there was no sense denying that it was because he would be spending the next couple of hours with Haley. It was dangerous for his peace of mind, but for right now he didn’t care. “Come on, then, you have everything you need?” She tucked her fingers into the pockets of her jeans, rocked forward on the toes of her boots and nodded. He turned to his truck and opened the door of the passenger side for her.

  “Are you sure you have time to do this?” she asked, hesitating before she climbed in.

  “If I run into trouble getting my deadlines met I might have to teach you how to use a grinder. Are you game?”

  She tilted her head back and startled him by smiling up at him, her blond hair sparkling in the morning light like a sunbeam. Looking at her, he knew he didn’t care if he had to spend the next week without sleep to get his last two gates finished; the smile on her face was worth it. The next few hours would be his bonus.

  “I always did want to learn how to use a grinder.”

  “Well, y’ all have fun out there—oh, hang on a minute, I almost forgot,” Norma Sue yelped. Swinging around, she barreled off the steps and yanked open the tailgate of her truck. “Will, come over here and grab this cooler. I put some cold drinks in there and a little snack.”

  “Exactly how long do you expect us to be out there?” Will asked, looking from Norma Sue to Esther Mae.

  “You never know,” she said, grinning. “I didn’t say purple berries were going to be easy to find.”

  Knowing exactly what she was doing, he took the cooler and lifted it into the bed of his truck. The ladies never gave up.

  “’Bye, now,” Esther Mae shouted, waving wildly as he got behind the steering wheel. Haley waved back as he started the motor and then backed out.

  He added a quick wave, held back the big grin he was feeling then drove a little quicker than the law allowed down Main Street, toward the deep woods of Clint Matlock’s ranch. As they passed Sam’s, he thought he saw Applegate’s and Stanley’s noses plastered to the glass.

  “I’m sorry they pulled you away from work for this,” Haley offered, snapping her seat belt in place. “I told them I was more than capable of following the directions and cutting purple berry bushes down. But then they started to fret that I didn’t need to be out there all alone. They forget that I grew up running around these woods.”

  “I don’t mind. Besides, someone needs to open the cage doors for you after you run inside.”

  She smiled and her eyes grew wide. “I hope you didn’t tell everyone I got stuck in a hog pen!”

  “That’s just between us.”

  “Thank you. Thank you. I could just see it becoming another egg-salad-fiasco story.”

  Will met her gaze directly. “I’m done with telling stories on you, Haley. I’ll just keep that one for myself.”

  Now why did he go and say that? He focused on the road and tried not to think about the light the statement had brought to her eyes. What did that light mean?

  That question tugged at him. “So take a peek at the map and tell me which gate we’re supposed to take,” he said about five miles down the road. As per the instructions, he turned onto the dirt road that led them deep into what Will classified as some of the most remote untouched land in west Texas. The ladies seriously wanted some berries if they sent them out here.

  “Now where?” he asked when they came to a fork in the road. Haley had been quiet. She studied the map Norma Sue had drawn them.

  “It says here to take the fork less traveled.”

  Will shot her a glance. She was staring at him with a question in her eyes. “That’s all it says?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  Tilting his head, he lifted an eyebrow. “You’re joking, right?”

  Haley mimicked his tilted head with her own then laughed. “Yes, I’m joking. But you looked so serious.”

  He smiled and suddenly the years seemed to melt away. This was how they used to be together. “So, what does it really say?”

  She sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes at him. “It says, take a left at the fork and follow the road to the next cattle guard. Cross it, then follow the fence line down to the creek. Think you can get us that far?”

  “I believe I can manage it.” He loved the huskiness of her voice and the laughter in her eyes. It was a dangerous thing to acknowledge. But he was feeling dangerous himself.

  “I don’t know, you’ll have to prove it.”

  Will figured he might have more fun getting them lost. He laughed at the temptation and felt his world grow weightless with the sudden joy of the day.

  Looking over at Haley, he knew, dangerous as it was, it was a feeling he could grow used to very easily. He’d been fighting it and trying to deny it. But it was true.

  “So, do you see anything?” Haley asked, tugging her coat closer around her. Will was a few feet away from her as they trod through dense woods in search of the infamous purple berry bushes. What kind of bush had purple berries? She was beginning to question their existence. They’d been looking for a couple of hours and had turned up nothing. No berries, at least. Tension between them was escalating with each passing second. Haley was struggling to keep her gaze off Will—which could very well explain the lack of berries. Despite her decision to go back to Beverly Hills, she’d done
nothing but think of him ever since they’d shared lunch earlier in the week, and it just wasn’t a good thing. It just wasn’t. She was beginning to think she was a lost cause.

  Will glanced over his shoulder at her, his lips curving at the edges, and her heart thudded like a drum. Feeling unsettled, she stepped forward and tried to focus. “I’m beginning to suspect that there is no purple berry bush,” she said and proceeded to step into a pocket of mud. Her boot sank instantly ankle-deep. “Whoops,” she gasped, yanking her other foot back before sinking it, too.

  “Are you okay?” Will was beside her in an instant, taking her elbow as she tugged her boot free from the muck. It made a nasty slurping sound when it popped free from the suction of the thick goop. But she was only feeling his touch on her elbow.

  “That doesn’t look so good.”

  Haley chuckled nervously, holding out the muddy boot. “Brings back memories of when I was a kid roaming around the woods.” Moving back a bit, she rubbed the sole of her boot on a thick clump of grass, thinking Will was standing too close, his grin too lethal. “It will be my luck that the only things we’re going to find out here are gators and snakes.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Will agreed, his tone serious as his teasing smile disappeared. “The wild hog population and the gator population have grown a lot since we were kids. It’s getting to be a major problem.”

  They were walking again but Will stopped suddenly, put his hands on his hips and surveyed the area, his expression grim. “Come on, we’re going back to the truck. I don’t want you to get hurt, and it’s getting colder anyway.”

  Haley scowled. “You’re joking, right?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m not.”

  “Will, I’m not going to freeze. And the ladies wouldn’t send us out where there were alligators. Even if there were any out here, you know as well as I do that those animals are as afraid of us as we are of them. Besides, we can’t go back empty-handed. What would we say—“Sorry, we got cold’?”

  Haley had enjoyed the morning very much and she didn’t want to admit it to Will, but frankly, she wasn’t ready to go back yet. Not because of gators or snakes, but because going back would mean her time with Will would be over. They were getting along as if she’d never run away from Mule Hollow. It was as if they’d both left their past at the crossroads where the dirt road met the pavement. And though she might be flirting with a broken heart again, she hadn’t had this much fun in years.

  “I used to love to wander around out in the woods at Applegate’s. I hadn’t realized until the other day when I took the horse out how much I’d missed country life.”

  Reaching out, she grabbed Will’s hand and tugged him up the embankment away from the stream. “Come on. If there’s a purple berry out here then we are going to find it. So buck up, buddy, and put those eyes to work.”

  He groaned. “I forgot how tenacious you could be.”

  When they reached higher ground, all too aware of the feel of his fingers clasped tightly around hers, Haley let go of his hand. She’d grabbed it impulsively, and it was the last thing she needed to be holding. Shaken by his touch, she missed seeing the log in her path, stumbled over it and plunged forward, headfirst down another hill.

  She barely had time to scream before she hit the ground, rolled a few times then landed flat on her back in the middle of a bank of cold, wet mud beside the stream.

  Dazed and aching, Haley lifted her head and the only good thing she saw about landing in the frosty, mushy mud was that at least she hadn’t landed on top of the alligator lounging contentedly three feet away from her.

  Her brain repeated the information with a bit more urgency. Alligator!

  But her response was to continue to stare at the prehistoric-looking creature with its flat rounded snout and beady eyes. It was as startled to see her as she was to see it. Still, her fear won out when it lifted out of the mud on its ugly squat legs and hissed at her like a mad cat on steroids.

  Okay, so at least if she had landed on top of the thing she might have been lucky enough to knock it unconscious instead of being its lunch. Which apparently she was about to become.

  She’d been too busy tumbling down the hillside and meeting up with the six-foot-long gator to realize that Will had tripped on the same log and was tumbling down the hill right behind her. That was, until all one hundred and eighty-five pounds of him landed facefirst in the mud between her and the hissing gator.

  It all happened in a matter of seconds, and it was over quicker than that. Thanks to the good Lord, Mr. Gator, aka Chicken Little, took one look at Will’s sludge-covered face as Will lifted up from the mud and took off! Haley watched in shocked amazement as the scaly beast trotted away, tail swaying in its wake.

  Will’s face was so slimy with mud that Haley didn’t blame the reptile. But she was so relieved to see the gator’s tail disappearing into the stream ten feet away that instead of screaming or running, she sat up and did the unthinkable—she laughed.

  Not a good thing to do in the presence of an angry man.

  “What are you laughing at?” Will yelled, scrambling out of the mud watching the water ripple where the small gator had just disappeared. Will was shaken by how close Haley had just come to being attacked by the animal. Reaching down, he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her up out of the mud to hold her close. He’d been so intent up on the hill watching her eyes dance that he hadn’t seen the log. When she’d flown forward, he’d lunged for her, hit the same obstruction, and followed her straight down the hill—and into the path of the alligator. Thank goodness God had put him between her and the gator.

  “Are you all right?” he asked now, angered at his carelessness. Alarmed at the thought of what had almost happened to her, he pulled away and ran his hands quickly down her arms then back up to her shoulders. They were both covered in mud, but he didn’t care. He had to make sure she hadn’t broken anything—had to make certain she was safe.

  “I’m fine, Will. Really, God was just having a good laugh at us today is all. What are the odds?” She looked shaken despite her words.

  “That’s it. No more discussion. We’re getting out of here.” Taking her hand, he started to lead her back up the hill, but she held back.

  “Will, stop!” she exclaimed, pulling her hand out of his grasp.

  He spun around at her exclamation. “What?” he yelled, scanning the area, arms outstretched and ready for a fight, expecting the alligator to be charging them.

  “Purple berries, there,” she sang like a kid spying cookies. Sidestepping him, she slogged through the six inches of mud to the far hill where a grouping of thin scraggly limbed bushes covered with clusters of purple berries dotted the terrain.

  “Haley, enough already. Forget the berries. You’re covered in mud and it’s getting colder, not to mention there could be another alligator in there. Now come on.”

  Haley ignored him as she marched right up the hill to the first bush and fingered the ugly clump of purple berries. They looked like red holly berries but were bright purple, and though Will had seen them before he had no idea what their name was nor did he give a hoot. What he cared about was getting Haley safely home before she caught a cold or got her arm bitten off. Something she was completely oblivious to considering. He’d always had to look out for her and now was no different.

  “You just wait until I get back to town,” he growled. “Norma Sue should never have asked you to come out here.”

  Haley turned toward him. Mud was clinging to one side of her cheek; her hair was wet on one side and her skin was pink with chill. But her eyes were on fire as she pinned them on him, startling him with her intensity.

  “You will do no such thing, Will Sutton. Norma Sue asked me to find the berries. She didn’t force me or know she was putting me in danger. The odds of me running into an alligator or falling over a log are low. It is not her fault that today was not my day.” She proceeded to reach into the pocket of her coat and pull
out the canvas laundry tote Will had watched her carefully fold and place there earlier.

  Frustrated, he scrubbed mud off his chin and realized he’d lost his hat in the fall. Deciding he would be better served by calming down, he spun and stalked back across the mud in search of his hat. He spotted it up the hill by the log that had caused this whole fiasco. Stomping toward it, he wondered why he was so upset. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t grown used to the unexpected happening when Haley Bell was around. That was part of her being her. She attracted, or caused, no one knew what it was for sure, the unexpected. Growing up, she’d always been the little kid that weird things happened to. Sweet little Haley Bell. Everyone had loved her, and loved to tease her, but one day when he’d come home from college he’d realized she wasn’t little Haley Bell anymore. That summer he’d fallen in love with the woman she’d become, and part of that love included an overwhelming desire to protect her. Many times that included protecting her from herself.

  A hard thing to do when she was always running ahead of him, like tripping over the log before he could get a grasp on her. How did a man protect someone who wouldn’t slow down and try to protect herself? Especially a woman who knew that trouble and mishap preceded her?

  Will snatched up his hat, wincing when a strained back muscle protested the maneuver. It was a wonder they hadn’t broken their necks careening down that hill.

  He didn’t put the hat on, not wanting to transfer the mud in his hair to the inside of the Stetson. Instead he took the time to reshape it, fighting for calm, then he hung it from a tree limb and marched back toward Haley.

  She was happily snapping berry stems from the bush and dropping them into the bag, totally oblivious to the fact that he was in crisis. The woman had been controlling him since he’d been a sophomore in college with this overwhelming need to protect her. He wanted to march down there, grab her and carry her back to town whether she was ready or not. But what he wanted to do more than anything else was hold her and kiss some sense into her.