Tradition.
It was a bitch.
On the day before the Canyon Rose Christmas party, April always brought her new dress to model. Afterwards, she and Sage would talk shoes, hairstyles, and cowboys. That Thursday morning, Sage didn’t want to talk about any of those things and she sure didn’t want Creed to see the petite April strutting around in a deep blue velvet dress that hugged every one of her tiny curves.
One look at her using the living room floor like a model’s runway and Creed wouldn’t want to be seen with the tall gangly giant called Sage. Even April’s name brought up visions of minty green leaves and new life, whereas the name Sage would remind Creed of a pungent aroma coming from an ugly green powder.
April plopped the box down on the kitchen table and pulled out a dark brown satin dress trimmed in ecru velvet. “Isn’t it gorgeous? We should give all the cowboys a drooling bib at the door because they’re going to need it when they see you in this.”
The back door swung open and cold wind came inside with Creed. He hung his coat on the rack and kicked off his boots.
“Couldn’t feel my fingers, and besides, the houses are ready for the insulation, so I couldn’t go any further. What’s that about drooling bibs? There going to be a bunch of babies at the party?”
April flashed him her best smile. “No, they’re for the cowboys when they see Sage in this dress. She’s going to be the queen.”
Jealousy settled around Sage’s heart followed by instant guilt. April wasn’t making a play for Creed. And he didn’t belong to Sage, so if she wanted to flirt with him, she had every right.
“I see,” Creed said shortly. “I need something hot.”
April giggled.
Sage shot him a dirty look.
“Guess that came out wrong, didn’t it? And it sure didn’t fit the conversation. I was thinking out loud. My hands are frozen. I need a cup of coffee or hot chocolate to wrap them around,” he explained.
Sage’s self-esteem plunged even lower.
He looked right at Sage and one eyelid slid shut in a sexy wink. “However, I do believe that Sage is going to be beautiful in that dress. When are you going to model it?”
“You don’t get to see her in it until tomorrow night,” April said quickly. “But I’ll model mine.”
“I’ll look forward to it, ma’am.” Creed poured a cup of coffee and carried it to the living room. He sat down in a rocking chair and listened to the music on the radio. “Waiting on a Woman” by Brad Paisley started playing. Creed could relate to every word of the song where an older gentleman was telling a younger man about the art of waiting on a woman.
April tucked the dress back into the box and headed toward Sage’s bedroom with it under her arm. Sage was right behind her and when she passed by Creed’s chair he reached out and touched her arm.
She stopped and looked down at him quizzically.
“You sure look pretty this morning,” he said.
His eyes had gone soft like they did just before he kissed her. All doubts about her size and her crazy name washed away. She bent and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Run her off and let’s go to bed.”
Sage patted him on the shoulder.
“Or lock her in your bedroom and we’ll grab that quilt and go to the barn.”
She gave him a long, hard kiss that had both of them panting when she broke away and headed toward the bedroom. She held the handle for a full minute before opening it to catch her breath. She pasted a smile on her face, slung open the door, and found April standing in front of the cheval mirror in the corner. The blue velvet dress laid against her flawless, pale skin like it had been tailor-made for her. The hem stopped at midthigh and the neckline plunged low.
“Finish zipping me, please, so I can see if Hilda has to do any altering. I’m not letting Daddy see it until the party starts or he’ll pitch a bitch fit about the neckline.”
Sage pulled the zipper up the back and sat down on the end of her bed to admire April. “You are a perfect size three, girl. Hilda won’t have to do a thing to it except put a collar on it or maybe some lace to fill in the neckline.”
April turned every which way, checking out every angle in the mirror. “Daddy would make her do that if he saw it. Oh!” April gasped.
“What? Did you see a spider?”
April was terrified of spiders and they multiplied like rabbits in the canyon. Those and stinging scorpions were part of the terrain, along with lizards and coyotes.
“Two people slept in that bed. Both pillows have hollows and the sheets are rumpled and you are sleeping with Creed Riley.”
“Sleeping, yes. But that’s all that went on,” Sage said.
It wasn’t a lie. They had only slept in the bed the night before and she didn’t have to explain the other times when they’d done things to melt all the snow in the canyon. She sure wasn’t going to go into the story of what had happened on the sofa while John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara fought their way through an old Western movie.
“Are you freakin’ crazy?” April hissed.
“Probably. It won’t be easy to see him leave,” Sage admitted.
“Not that! You got him into your bed and you didn’t have sex? Are you blind?”
“Not last time I checked,” Sage said.
“You have seen him, haven’t you? I mean, you don’t look at him and just see a cowboy trying to buy the Rockin’ C. You do see those big old arms, that cute little butt, and those dreamy green eyes, don’t you?”
“I see Creed,” Sage said.
“Are you gay?”
Sage sputtered and almost choked on her own spit. “Why would you ask a fool question like that?”
“You haven’t had a boyfriend in years. You’ve been shut up with that hunky man for almost two weeks and you sleep as in shut your eyes and snore? God, Sage, you just fell off your pedestal I’ve had you on all these years. You must be gay. Admit it. Come on out of the closet.”
“I am not gay. I like men.”
I love Creed. Now where in the hell did that come from?
April sat down on the end of the bed beside Sage.
“Well, thank God. Do you need me to give you some lessons in what to do with a sexy cowboy when he gets into your bed?”
“I think I can handle it.” Sage grinned.
April slapped her on the arm. “You rat! You had me going. He didn’t sleep with you at all, did he? You wouldn’t do that when you’re trying to run him off. We both know Grand would never sell the Rockin’ C. She’s just giving you a taste of what could happen so you will get on the ball and find a husband.”
“You are smarter than the average rich kid,” Sage said.
“Not much or I would have figured it all out before I blew a gasket.”
***
Ada had been antsy since she awoke that morning. She had married when she was eighteen and had gone to live on the Rockin’ C the day after her wedding.
Those were the days when Lawton’s father had just taken over the Canyon Rose and the Christmas party had been an institution long before then. She’d attended ten or more parties before Lawton was even born. Fifty-plus years she’d looked forward to that party every year, and this year, she was sitting in Shade damn Gap, Pennsyl-shittin’-vania.
Listening to Sage describe April’s dress just made her more homesick. Seeing the picture on her cell phone of Sage and April posing together in their new sexy dresses in front of the cheval mirror made her want to throw herself down and cry like a jilted bride.
Missing the party where Lawton threw his daughter over his shoulder like a sack of chicken feed, hauled her upstairs kicking and screaming, and then brought her back to the party with a buttoned up flannel shirt over that dress—well, hell, that was the toughest thing she’d ever done or would do in her lifetime.
And he would do that when she appeared at the top of the staircase and started down into the ballroom. Hell, she would
n’t make it to the fifth step before his boot heels sounded like drums on those oak steps and he had her over his shoulder. No way would Lawton let April wear something that revealing to the party, and Ada was going to miss the fun.
Essie peered over her sister’s shoulder at the dress with the deep plunging neckline. “I’m durn sure glad I never had a daughter.”
“One dress sure changed your mind in a hurry,” Ada said.
“That ain’t a dress. It’s two Band-Aids stuck to a hanky. Lord, do girls really wear such things out in public? I wouldn’t have worn something like that to bed with my husband.”
“Times is different,” Ada said.
“Must be. Wonder what her momma is going to say about it.”
“Her momma won’t be the problem. It’s Lawton that’ll throw a shit fit.”
“He needs to. Why, if she got to dancing her boobs would fall out of the thing. That thing that Sage has got on is too tight and it’s wintertime and there’s a durn blizzard out there so it’s got to be cold. It’s above her knee and ain’t got the first sign of a sleeve in it. She’ll catch a cold and that cowboy you was crazy enough to trust will have to take care of her. He’ll be going in her room with a hot toddy and her laying up in her bed in nothing but a nightgown.”
Ada studied the picture. “You think so?”
“I swear it ain’t got enough material in it to sag a clothesline, Sister.”
“A person can always hope, can’t they?”
Essie slapped her on the shoulder. “Ada Presley!”
“Or we could pray.”
Essie giggled. “God would be so shocked if He heard you praying for anything that He’d faint dead away.”
“I go to church every Sunday except when I’ve got hay to haul.”
“Going to church and praying are two different things.”
“And I suppose you know all about the fine arts of praying?”
Essie sighed. “If you’d had to put up with what I have you’d learn the fine arts.”
Ada pushed her chair back. “I’m going to Chambersburg to the Walmart store. You want to go with me? We could have dinner at the Cracker Barrel and go to the Hobby Lobby store to buy a Christmas tree.”
“I told you, I ain’t put up a tree in twenty years.”
“And I’m tellin’ you, Essie, we will have a Christmas tree and we’re makin’ a big Christmas dinner for all your family this year.”
She exhaled loudly. “Sounds like you’re going to a lot of trouble for nothing.”
Ada started toward the door. “I’ll warm up the truck. You get your walkin’ shoes on and your coat. I’m leavin’ in five minutes.”
Essie was sitting in the passenger’s seat with her big black plastic purse in her lap in exactly three minutes.
***
Creed could hardly believe his eyes when April appeared in the living room in her party dress. He had equated the Christmas party with the sale party held at his folks’ ranch every fall. The girls all showed up in their tight-fitting jeans, fancy shirts, and best boots. A few came in a skirt, but it was usually something all decorated up Western style. April looked like she was headed to a party in a Dallas bar or for a walk down a model’s runway, not in a sale barn.
“Just exactly where is this party going to be?” he asked.
April did a couple of runway spins for him. “At the Canyon Rose.”
“In the barn?”
“No, silly, in our house. We’d all freeze in the barn.”
Creed wanted to say, “You definitely would,” but he held his tongue. “How many people will be there?”
“A bunch. You are supposed to tell me I’m beautiful in this dress, not ask a dozen questions,” April said.
“Sorry, ma’am. You stunned me when you appeared in your dress and it is a lovely dress.”
She turned one more time and headed back to the bedroom. “Thank you.”
He looked up at Sage.
She shrugged. “The end.”
“Does yours show your belly button?” he whispered.
She put a hand on each of his shoulders, leaned forward, and said, “I’ve ordered a brand new belly button ring.”
She giggled when his eyes bulged. “Honey, there is too much woman in me to wear a dress like that.”
“I rather like how much woman there is in you, ma’am.”
“Sage, help me, please!” A plaintive cry came from the bedroom.
The rocking chair was set in motion when she pushed away from his shoulders and hurried back to her bedroom to help April get out of the revealing dress.
Creed imagined Sage in a dress like that. If it was for his eyes only, it would be fantastic. He could flip a breast out with nothing but his thumb. But if it was to be worn in front of a whole passel of other cowboys, well, now that was a different matter altogether. That set him to pondering the idea of going to a party where every cowboy in the canyon would know Sage and be angling for a dance.
Jealousy had reared its head right high by the time April breezed out of the bedroom with the dress box under her arm.
“See y’all tomorrow night,” she said.
Sage followed in her wake and sat down on the floor to pet the puppies. “So now what did you really think? You sidestepped the compliment very well, but you did not say that you liked the dress.”
“Is Lawton going to like it?” he asked.
“He won’t even see it until she makes her grand entrance down the staircase into the ballroom.”
“And what will happen?”
“What do you think will happen?” Sage asked.
“I don’t know Lawton. I’ve never met him but I know what I’d do if she was my daughter. I wouldn’t care if she was fifteen or twenty. She wouldn’t be wearing that thing in public.”
“It didn’t look that low in the picture on the Internet. I swear it didn’t or I would have talked her out of buying it.”
The big yellow cat left her squirming babies and made a bed in Sage’s lap.
“And the lion shall lay down with the lamb,” Sage said.
“What’s that got to do with a floozy dress?”
“Nothing,” Sage answered. “But cats and dogs, especially those with babies, don’t usually trust each other, do they?”
“I still think they were raised together and then dumped out together. And if I was Lawton, I’d send her back to put something decent on her body.”
“Lawton will most likely take her back and put it on her himself. And then the fight will be on because she inherited her mother’s flaming temper.”
“She needs a mother,” Creed said.
Sage put Blue back into the bed and picked up Elvis. “She has a mother.”
“My daughter wouldn’t wear something that revealing,” Creed said.
Sage shot a mean look his way. “And you have how many daughters?”
Creed should drop the subject or change it abruptly. She was playing with cats and dogs and she’d tried to change it when she said that about lambs and lions lying down together. He wanted to, he really did, but he couldn’t.
“Riley men don’t often throw girl babies, but when and if I ever did, she wouldn’t be wearing something like that to a party where a bunch of rowdy cowboys would be.”
“Well, my daughter can wear whatever she wants when she’s twenty years old.”
Creed clamped his mouth shut.
Sage glared at him.
The silence created a tension so thick that a chain saw couldn’t cut through it.
Finally, she laid Elvis close to Noel and went to the kitchen. The way she was banging things around left no doubt that she was still mad and that she wasn’t going to talk about it. Well, that cleared up things for Creed. He wasn’t going to entertain another moment of sharing his whole life with Sage. No, sir! A woman who couldn’t rationally discuss important issues without clamming up wasn’t worth wasting his time on and she sure wasn’t worth giving up a ranch for.
He bro
ught the chair to a standstill, stood up, and headed to the back door. She didn’t even turn around when he put on his heavy coat and boots and went outside.
***
Sage attacked the butter and sugar instead of creaming them together for a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Creed was a pompous, egotistical male who should never have a daughter. He’d keep her wings clipped so close that she’d never be able to fly.
You are just mad because you pictured him with a daughter that wasn’t yours, the voice inside her head said. It sounded so much like Grand that she whined out loud.
“I’m not fighting with you. Matter-of-fact, I’ll prove my point.”
She left the well-creamed butter and sugar and dialed Grand’s cell phone number. When her grandmother answered she asked, “Did you get the picture?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Where are you? It sounds like you are driving.”
“I am but I’ve got it on speakerphone so don’t say a word you don’t want Essie to hear. And don’t get her started about April’s dress.”
Essie’s voice came through loud and clear. “That ain’t no dress; that’s two Band-Aids holding up a hanky. Her daddy should whip her fanny for even thinking about going out in public in such a thing.”
“She’s a little old to be getting a whipping,” Sage said.
“Okay,” Grand said. “If I’d been there I would have told her to hang that dress back for some other affair and wear one of her other party dresses. Change up the jewelry and the shoes and no one would even realize she’d worn it before. There will be a scene if she comes down the stairs in that thing. Lawton will have a fit.”
“Creed and I just had a big argument about that. He said that his daughter wouldn’t wear a dress like that.”
“You are pregnant?” Grand asked bluntly.
“No, I am not,” Sage sputtered.
Essie’s voice was so loud that it hurt Sage’s ears. “Well, I’d hope not. You’ve only known that cowboy for two weeks. For God’s sake, Ada! Why’d you ask a dumb fool question like that anyway? Sage has enough sense not to go to bed with a man she’s only known two weeks.”
“Well, shit!” Grand said. “Then why’d you fight? You haven’t even got the possibility of a daughter and April is Lawton’s problem. Y’all ain’t got no say-so in what she wears. And the fight will be between them and none of your business.”
Mistletoe Cowboy Page 19
