All the more reason not to open the door.
But he knew she was in here. Her rental vehicle was out front and all the lights were blazing. Somehow she knew the blasted man would only continue ringing the bell until she answered, so it was absurdly self-indulgent to leave him standing out there all night.
But, oh, she was tempted.
Sure enough, the doorbell rang again. She sighed and set her sketchbook facedown and covered it with a fabric swatch for good measure, then she drew in a breath and reached for the doorknob.
He blinked a little when she pulled open the door. She must look a sight, she suddenly realized, with her hair pulled up out of her way in a haphazard knot and the reading glasses she wore for close sewing work on a chain around her neck.
"I'm interrupting."
Yes. "No," she lied. "Come in."
Despite all the clamoring of her instincts, she held the door open for him. He walked inside and his eyes widened further.
"Wow. Looks like a dress shop imploded inside here."
She shrugged. "Something like that. Every once in a while I find my groove and I can't seem to stop."
"I saw your lights on late last night."
The idea of him looking out from the ranch house to her cabin gave her an odd, jittery feeling inside. Had he been thinking about their kiss, too?
I'm a pretty basic kind of guy. I'm afraid my powers of imagination won't stretch quite that far. I don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.
"Ideas started coming after…after yesterday with the girls." After you kissed me senseless, she thought, but of course didn't say.
He raised a skeptical eyebrow at the fabric samples spread out everywhere. "Is that a good thing?"
Despite the nerves jumping through her like little frogs on a summer night, she managed to smile. "In this case, it was a very good thing. I have a big presentation right after the holidays for a hotel I'm helping decorate. My idea well has been a little dry lately so I was relieved to make some progress. And then when I was happy with the designs I came up with for that project, the ideas still kept coming."
She moved aside a swatch of folded chintz until she found what she was looking for. "That reminds me. These are for you and the girls."
She held out the three stockings she had made for them, but he didn't reach for them, only stood staring at her. "You made Christmas stockings for us? Why?"
Emery shrugged, feeling foolish. "Impulse. I thought maybe the girls might like new ones for a new start."
He took them, his features still astonished. Though she had chosen a bold green-and-gold striped damask for them, they still looked ridiculously delicate and frilly in his dark, masculine hands. She had embroidered their names on the top cuff in a straightforward serif font.
"You really made these? For us?"
As if she knew any other Tallulahs, Claires or Nates. She flushed and began picking up and carefully folding some of the swatches, simply to have something to occupy her hands. "If you don't like them or if the girls don't, you don't have to keep them."
"I'm stunned. I don't know what to say."
She snapped out a length of jacquard in her own design. "Don't say anything. It's a gift for the girls."
She paused, her hands smoothing the texture of the weave. "You might have noticed we didn't have any stockings hanging yesterday while we were putting up the Christmas decorations."
"I did. I just figured you hadn't found them in the boxes."
"We did, almost right away. But Claire became upset when she saw them—four matching stockings with their names and their parents' names on them. It seemed painful to her to hang those empty stockings, or worse, to just put up their two and leave the other two in the box, so I thought a completely new start might be good for them. But I promise, you won't hurt my feelings if you think they would rather use their old stockings for tradition's sake."
A muscle flexed in his jaw and he cleared his throat. "No. These are great. Really nice. How did you do the names?"
"I have an embroidery stitch on my machine. It's not that hard."
"Well, thank you. Really. Thanks."
"You're welcome. Here, let me put them in a bag for you in case it's still flurrying. You probably don't want them to get wet." She forced her voice to be brisk as she took the stockings from him again and dug through another pile of material until she found a plastic sack from the fabric store.
He lapsed into silence and all those tangled knots in her stomach returned. She held the bag out to him.
"Here you go," she said.
He reached for the bag and as their hands touched, a spark jumped from his fingers to hers. His dark gaze flashed to hers and those knots pulled tighter at the flare of hunger she saw in his eyes.
"Was there something you needed?" she asked, then was mortified at the throaty note in her voice, especially when she was almost certain his gaze shifted to her mouth for just a heartbeat before he jerked it back to meet hers and veiled his expression.
"Actually, yes," he finally said and she didn't miss the slight shadow of hesitation in his voice. "I came to ask a favor, but it seems presumptuous now, after you've gone to all this work already for the girls."
"That was really nothing. It only took me an hour, I promise, and I enjoyed it. Go ahead and ask your favor."
He sighed. "I wouldn't drag you into this if I had another choice. Let me just throw that out there up front."
"Okay," she said slowly, not sure whether to be offended or relieved.
"I had a talk with the principal of the elementary school today."
She waited, but he didn't seem inclined to add more. "Is one of the girls having trouble in school?" she guessed.
"Academically, no. They're both doing okay in that area. Better than I ever did, that's for sure. But the principal seems to agree with you that I'm neglecting them."
She glared at him. "When did I ever say you were neglecting them?"
"Not in so many words, maybe."
"Not in any words. Why would I say it when I certainly don't believe it? And neither should this principal! What is he talking about?"
"He's a she. And in this case, Jenny's right. Claire is desperately in need of some new school clothes. Everything she has is worn-out or too small. Tallie's wardrobe isn't much better, but she at least has her sister's hand-me-downs to fall back on."
"What did she suggest?"
"She offered to take Claire shopping, but I didn't feel right about it. I'm their guardian so it's my responsibility." He looked about as thrilled by this particular responsibility as an ant faced with moving a dump truck full of seed pods.
"I noticed a few nice shops in Idaho Falls when I was buying fabric this morning," she said, trying to put as much encouragement in her words as she could muster.
"So you'll do it?" he said quickly.
She blinked. "Do what? You want me to shop for the girls?"
"It would help me more than I can ever repay."
"You're their guardian," she pointed out. "You just said it's your responsibility. What's the difference between the principal taking Claire shopping and me doing it?"
He frowned. "Okay. None. But training bras and that sort of thing are a little outside my area of expertise. I thought maybe you could just pick up some things and I could give them to the girls for Christmas."
That would be the easy way out for all of them. Given the tension between them and the kiss she couldn't forget, she was no more eager to spend an afternoon in his company than he was to scour the stores for the girls.
"You're going to have to figure it out sometime."
He sighed. "I know. Just like I've had to figure out how to put hair in braids and make more than just ramen noodle soup for dinner and spray the monsters under Tallie's bed with Suzi's patented anti-monster spray. I just thought in a few years the girls will want to do their own shopping anyway, won't they?"
"What's the saying about taking a man fishing versus teaching hi
m to fish? Unless you're planning to get married in the next month or two, someone's not always going to be around to bait the shopping hook for you, Nate."
He looked disgruntled. "You won't help me unless I endure the torture right alongside you, will you?"
She shook her head. "Sorry."
His eyes narrowed and she might have thought he was annoyed if not for that spark she could see there. She was absurdly conscious again of her loose updo and the glasses she had at least pulled off so they hung around her neck on their chain as if she were some sort of flustered librarian.
"Since you're not giving me a choice, I suppose we might as well get this over with. Are you free tomorrow while the girls are in school? They've only got two school days left before Christmas vacation."
She tried to picture a day spent with Nate Cavazos doing something so domestic as shopping for clothes and those knots inside her became a hopeless tangle.
"I'm sure I can drag myself away from my fabric for a few hours."
"Thanks, Em. About nine-thirty work for you?"
She was so flustered at his shortened use of her name that it took her a moment to reply. "Yes. Nine-thirty should be fine."
"Thanks. I'm saying that entirely too often to you lately, aren't I?"
Since it was a rhetorical question that didn't require an answer, she only smiled and opened the door for him.
After he left with the bag of stockings, the cabin seemed quiet and a little forlorn.
That was only the mess, she told herself as she bustled around trying to making a little order out of the chaos. It certainly had nothing to do with a dark-eyed soldier or the memory of his mouth devouring hers.
Chapter Eight
He would rather be standing in the middle of a damn Al-Asra sandstorm than the girls' clothing aisle at Dillard's.
The woman was insane. Why the hell would two young girls need all this stuff? So far she had him carrying three shopping bags crammed to overflowing with sweaters, shirts, slacks, shoes, skirts, underwear and those dreaded training bras.
"How are they both on pajamas?" she asked.
"No idea," he was forced to admit.
"Why don't we start with three pairs each, on the assumption they've got some at home they can still wear?"
"Sounds fine." He had never been a pajama wearer, but had started since he had come back to Pine Gulch. While it had been fine to sleep in skivvies in the army, it didn't feel quite right with two young girls in the house.
"And if you don't mind a suggestion, my…parents always gave me a new nightgown on Christmas Eve so I had something new when my grandparents descended on Christmas morning."
He had heard that hesitation before when she spoke of her parents and he wondered about it. Had they left behind some kind of bitterness?
Maybe they had more in common than he thought, if that were the case. Heaven knows, he had enough bitterness toward his mother to fill a C-130.
She held up two nightgowns that looked basically the same to him except one was plain red and the other plaid. "Which one?" she asked.
As if he gave a…
"You pick," he tried for diplomacy. "You're better at this than I am."
"You're going to have to shop for them eventually, you know. I'm not going to be here next time they need pajamas."
The thought of life at the ranch after she left gave him a funny, hollow feeling in his gut he decided he was probably wiser not to examine too closely.
"Why don't you get one of each? The plain one in Claire's size and the plaid for Tallie?"
"Good choice," she answered with a smile. "I think that should just about do it, unless you can think of anything else for Christmas you need to buy while we're in town? Stocking stuffers? Christmas dinner?"
"I haven't given that much thought," he admitted.
It would be a relief to wrap up the whole shebang today and be done. Except for putting together any items that might need assembling. And wrapping. And shoving all this stuff under the tree on Christmas Eve. And fumbling through Christmas dinner.
"It's harder than I ever dreamed, taking care of all the details," he confessed.
Her eyes softened at what he was suddenly afraid sounded like desperation in his voice. She rested a hand on his forearm and squeezed gently and he was intensely aware of her. "You'll figure things out, Nate. Right now everything seems new and overwhelming, I would guess. Once you get into a routine, it will probably all seem easier."
He wanted to bask in that concern in her eyes, the warmth of her skin that penetrated even through his jacket and shirt.
Too quickly, she removed her hand and he wondered why her cheeks looked a little more pink than usual.
He thought of all her hard work on those stockings and realized he needed something good to fill them. "I haven't given stocking stuffers much thought."
"Hmm." She pursed her lips. "What about a nice journal or some jewelry, since they both have pierced ears?"
"That sounds good."
"Or some things for their rooms, maybe."
"Again, I'll defer to your wisdom."
They walked to the jewelry counter and she helped him select a couple earring assortments for each of them, as well as some delicate necklaces with angels on them. Emery was so excited when she saw them and he couldn't help remembering the conversation he had overheard while they were making cookies, and Tallie's cynicism.
They spent another half hour looking for smaller items until she finally declared herself satisfied with their choices.
The checkout line was already long with similarly overburdened shoppers, but Emery didn't seem to mind.
"I had an idea, actually, for a gift I would like to make for the girls," she said as they took their place behind a woman carrying only two bags instead of the three he held. "I meant to talk to you about it last night when you stopped by, but I didn't have a chance."
"You don't have to make them anything. I think you've done enough already."
"I know I don't have to." She smiled again and he thought how bright and lovely she became when she smiled, not at all like the stiff, elegantly detached creature he had thought her when she first arrived at the ranch. "It's a nervy suggestion and you might not like it, but it's something I'd really like to do."
"I'm all ears now," he said drily.
"The other day when I was helping the girls decorate the little trees in each of their bedrooms, I couldn't help noticing their comforters were nice, but they were starting to wear out. Not much, just a little. Textiles are my business so of course that's the first thing I see."
"It's about the last thing I pay attention to," he confessed. "I'm afraid I haven't noticed anything wrong with their comforters."
"I was thinking I would like to make a couple of quilts for their beds. I sketched out the patterns for them and everything…and then I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if I pieced them using familiar clothing of their parents? A favorite dress of their mother's, maybe some ties or T-shirts of their father's. You haven't thrown away all of Suzi's and John's clothing, have you?"
He shook his head. "I had Joanie box it all up, but everything is still in the master bedroom. I keep thinking I need to take it all to Goodwill. Maybe after the holidays."
"Would you mind if I looked through the boxes and took some of the things to cut up for them?"
"It's three days before Christmas. How could you possibly finish a project like this by then?"
"I wouldn't have time to hand stitch them," she acknowledged. "But I'm a fast machine quilter. I know I can do it."
That she would even suggest such a project astonished him. The woman barely knew the girls, but she wanted to spend endless frenzied hours on a gift he knew both Tallie and Claire would find beyond price.
"You're supposed to be on vacation!"
"Working vacation, remember?" She smiled. "Anyway, this is what I love to do, Nate. Since I accomplished so much yesterday on my most pressing project, I've got plenty of time. I w
ant to do this, if you'll let me. Please?"
He studied her, the sincerity and the hope in her eyes. She made him want to borrow a little of that hope himself and believe for a little while that everything would be okay.
"How can I say no, especially when the clothes would only go to a secondhand store somewhere? I know the girls would treasure such a gift, if you're sure this is something you really want to do."
"Positive." She smiled radiantly, brighter than the sun reflecting off the brilliant snow outside, but then it was their turn at the checkout counter so she dropped the subject.
By the time they paid for their purchases and left the mall, his feet ached in his boots as if he had marched twenty kilometers across the desert, his bank account had seen a substantial dent and he was ravenous.
"I owe you at least lunch for all this," he said after they had loaded the packages into the cargo space of his SUV.
"To tell you the truth, I'm so excited to get started on the quilts, I can hardly wait to go back to the ranch. But I suppose we have to eat."
"How do you feel about Mexican?"
"Love it!" she said, and he wondered again what put that color in her cheeks.
He took her to one of his favorite authentic Mexican restaurants in town, still around from his high school days. Over hot, salty chips and fresh-made salsa heavy on the cilantro, they talked about mostly inconsequential things—the ranch and her shop in Virginia and her plans for the Montana project. After their server brought their food and set it down with the warning that the plates were hot, as if they couldn't figure that out from the nuclear-reactor-type hand mitts she used, he finally asked the question that had been burning through him for days.
"Why are you here, Em?"
Surprise flickered in her gaze and something else, something almost furtive. "I'm having what looks like a really great chicken quesadilla."
"You know I don't mean here at Lupe's. I mean here in Idaho. Who comes to the middle of nowhere to be alone for the holidays? I know there's more of a story here. You told me you were divorced, but what about family? Aunts, uncles, cousins? Why would you choose to be alone?"
She took a sip of her raspberry lemonade, avoiding his gaze. "I…don't really have any family. My parents were both only children. My mother died in September after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma two days before Christmas last year. My…father died a few years before that."
A Cold Creek Holiday Page 9
