“What are those tracks?” Liz asked, pointing oft to their right.
“Coyote.”
“Oh. Are we in danger? How fresh are they?”
“Well, it was snowing when we got up and only stopped an hour ago. But I’ve got my gun.”
“You shoot them?”
“A shot in the air usually scatters anything I’d rather keep its distance.”
“Oh. Okay.” She leaned into him, relaxing.
He liked the feel of her. Liked it a lot. Ambling across his land, breathing in the air as it changed with the seasons, was about his favorite thing in the world. Having Liz’s warmth tucked behind him, feeling her head turn as she took everything in, made it all the better.
So, he wouldn’t rush this day. He’d take it slow and savor it.
Just in case he never had another one like it.
*
“The air smells good out here,” Liz told him, straightening away from the warmed sheepskin against his back, so she could properly drink in the pure Montana air. It was cold enough to make her nostrils sting, but she’d never encountered anything like this. No pollution. No dumpsters or dank storm sewers or even the humid tang of the ocean. “I’ve heard people say before that they could smell snow and I always thought they were joking, but I can smell it. It’s sweet. And it’s so quiet.”
She spoke in a hushed voice, listening to the brush of the horse’s legs through the snow and the squeak of his hooves with each step. The air was still, the world silent to the point of reverence. The saunter of the horse rocked her gently, like a mama with a cradle, lulling her.
As they moved into the trees, a chilled pine scent closed around her. Drifts of snow slid from branches with almost musical notes and percussive thumps. Powder poofed in clouds that sparked with rainbow colors in the weak sunlight.
“The other reason I bring the horse,” Blake said, “is to drag the tree. They’re heavy.”
She let herself cuddle against him again, just because she liked it. “I’ve been using the same fake one for years. This is definitely better than digging a box out of the attic.”
They wandered the grove of trees for a while, debating shapes, eyeing rabbit tracks and a deer path. All these years, Liz had thought the accouterments of Christmas a bit phony and clichéd, but today she saw the reality that inspired all of it. The holly tree with its bright red berries, the snow-frosted pine cones hanging like baubles. She could have stayed out here forever, drinking it in.
Christmas might come once a year, but this one—she realized like an epiphany—would never be here again. She had to savor every second and tuck the precious memories somewhere safe.
But the window of milder temperatures was short. Within the hour, clouds had gathered to hide the sun and a snap grew on the air. A few tiny flakes drifted around them.
“This one?” Blake said, circling the horse around a tree.
They agreed on its perfection and both dismounted. Liz stretched her legs while Blake chopped, axe ringing and releasing a pitchy, wood scent into the air.
“I’m warm,” he said as he wiped his brow and roped the tree.
Looking around the little clearing they occupied, she had a feeling both peaceful and awed, yet wistful and melancholy.
“You know how lucky you are to live here, don’t you? It’s genuinely a wonderland.”
“I do,” he said, taking a moment to gaze upward at the cathedral like treetops. “I hope I can keep it. Stay here forever. Might need a Christmas miracle, though,” he said with a wryness that wasn’t as light as it could be.
A few minutes later, he mounted Rocky and looked down at where she still stood on the ground.
She puzzled her brows. “No fence out here, partner. How do I get up there?”
“I’ve done this before you know.” He kicked his foot free of a stirrup and pointed at it. “Put your foot in there.”
“When you say you’ve done it before, do you mean you’ve brought other women out here?” she asked, not sure she liked that.
“I’ve doubled,” he clarified. “But yes, I’ve brought women out here to choose a tree. My mother and sister.”
“Okay then,” she said, sheepish under his amused grin, then making a face as he dragged her up from her high step into his stirrup. “Oof. That wasn’t nearly so graceful as from the fence,” she said after she’d gathered herself into position behind him.
But she was more comfortable up here now. She snuggled into him for warmth, not worried she’d take a tumble. She’d never felt so safe as she did with him.
“This has been fun. Thank you for bringing me. This is shaping up to be the best Christmas of my life,” she told him.
“Me, too.” His hand covered hers where she’d slid it under the fold of his coat into the heat against his stomach. “I talk a good game about not letting things worry me, but I’d be brooding if you weren’t here, keeping me thankful for what I’ve got.”
She inched a little closer to him, saying nothing. Just holding onto him and what they had.
*
Blake didn’t get a chance to trim the tree right away. It was a few days later that he set it up in the living room. By then, Liz had bought the ingredients for a pot of apple cider, complete with cinnamon sticks and whole cloves. He came in after a particularly icy morning of chores and tipped some rum into his, making her squeak as he tried to warm his hands on her neck before he settled for cupping his hot mug.
Liz had also had an opportunity to visit the artisan store, where she’d talked to a sketch artist, then bought a hand-carved ornament in the shape of the surrounding mountains ridges. The treed scape down the front topped the words, Home Is Where The Heart Is. The back was inscribed with Marietta and the year.
It was so like the view from Blake’s bedroom, she hadn’t been able to resist. She waited until he’d strung the lights and she’d smoothed his mother’s hand-quilted tree skirt around the base before she showed him the ornament.
“I’m not trying to be presumptuous or anything. I just wanted something that would always remind you that you gave me a special gift this year. I’ve always expected Christmas to be some kind of happily ever after that fixes everything and rights my world. I was always so disappointed when it didn’t. But you’ve taught me that it’s as passing as everything else in life, so we should enjoy it while it’s here. Focus on the parts of it that are perfect and wonderful.”
“Liz,” he murmured, openly moved. They both knew things like this ornament could be the only parts of this ranch he had left in a few years, which is why she’d wanted to give him a touchstone of happiness. A good memory to hold onto, even if he lost everything else.
“You’re perfect and wonderful,” he murmured, drawing her into his arms and setting his chin on her hair.
Her lips trembled and she felt her eyes misting up. A self-deprecating remark sprang to mind, but she let it go unspoken, clinging to this emotional connection with him, even though it was both sweet and painful.
The fire crackled and Bing Crosby crooned. The roast in the crock pot was only beginning to cook, but the aroma from the onions and celery she’d chopped still lingered, underlining the tangy scent of the warm cider and faint smoke from the fire.
His lips grazed her cheek and she turned her mouth up to his.
They kissed with sweet tenderness, for a long time, rocking lightly to the music and caressing each other through thick woolen sweaters and worn denim. Eventually, their hands sought the skin beneath and they both heated up, sighing with pleasure at the other’s touch.
“I can’t get enough of you, Liz. I don’t think I ever will,” he confessed as he slid his mouth down her neck.
She heard forever in that and her heart sang.
Digging her fingers into his hair, she nuzzled her nose into the silky strands and inhaled the scent of snow and wind, man and Montana. The hint of stubble on his cheek was a delicious burn as she kissed him and whispered, “I think about this all the time. H
ow you hold me and touch me. How good you make me feel.”
He tugged her sweater up and off. She opened his jeans. The fire snapped, but the heat was inside her. Pushing away the rest of her clothes, she watched him throw off his shirt and sighed when he pulled her naked body into the silk over steel heat of his.
“Here?” she murmured as he pressed her to the couch.
“Mmm. Pocket,” he murmured, leaning away to snag his jeans and pull a condom from them.
She moaned with pleasure as he rejoined her, stroking her with a possessive hand while she filled her own with his back, his firm buttocks, his wide shoulders. Opening her legs, she twined her calves behind his, whispering that she wanted him inside her.
And then he was, and it was perfect. They savored the moment, the colored lights on the trees putting brilliant sparkles behind her eyelids when she closed them. His ragged breaths as he moved matched her catching sighs and sobs of ecstasy, barely audible over Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
Climax arrived simultaneously, holding them in its exquisite grip, while they shuddered in culmination, clinging and locked together. Then slowly, as gently as the snow fell outside, they relaxed. He left her for a moment and came back with a blanket.
“I thought we were going to decorate,” she murmured as he stretched out alongside her, shifting her so he was mostly under her and she was draped across him beneath the scratch of the wool blanket. Their feet pointed to the tree that remained almost as bare as they were.
“Go for it,” he said, but his arms tightened around her, like he wouldn’t let her move if she had the energy to try.
She sighed, completely relaxed and content. Sleepily, she stroked her fingertip against the silky hair on his breast bone, mind wandering as Bing switched from Dreaming of a White Christmas to Silent Night. When the lyrics reached ‘mother and child . . .’ she whispered, “Are you asleep?”
“I’d like to, but I should check the weather,” he said in a low rumble. “I spent the last day and half buttoning up for that storm they promised and I think it’s finally coming. Hear the wind?”
She did, in the chimney and against the window.
“Will we lose power? Should I worry about Nola’s place?”
“It should be fine. We’ll have to dig out the driveway, but Curly’s here, so what else is there to worry about? No, you can stay right here.” He settled her even more firmly against him.
“Mmm,” she hummed in agreement, then cautiously asked, “Can I ask you something? Don’t take it as pressure, okay? I’m just curious.”
He tucked his chin to frown down at her. “Okay. What is it?”
“Do you ever think about marrying again and having more kids?”
“Yes,” he said, solid and firm. “All the time. Having more kids, anyway. I love Ethan so much. But Crystal and I fell apart almost as soon as we came together and since then . . . What do I have to offer a woman, Liz?”
His words squeezed her heart.
“You,” she said firmly, rolling against him, so their nude bodies slid deliciously beneath the blanket. “Don’t undersell yourself.”
He dismissed that with a kick of his brow and a curl of his mouth. Then, he snagged her gaze with a solemn, penetrating stare. “What about you? Do you want more kids?”
She nodded. “I do.” Looking toward the tree, feeling as though she were wishing on its empty top, she said, “I’m trying not to make it a goal. Like a task that needs to be ticked off a list, but I think it’s easier for a man to just let something like that happen naturally. As a woman, I’m constantly thinking of my age and . . . ” She sighed. “Honestly, I’m not fishing for anything. I was just wondering whether you did.”
“Liz, I—”
The door to the mudroom clapped open and feet stomped.
Blake’s arm tightened around her as he sat up, bringing her with him, both of them looking over the back of the sofa. Liz scrambled to keep the edge of the blanket across her naked breasts.
“Who’s there?” Blake barked, making Blue heave himself to his feet and woof once before he wandered toward the mudroom with his tail wagging.
Curly went crazy, but almost immediately evolved into a bundle of wiggles and excitement, telling her both dogs must know who—
“It’s me,” a young man’s voice said, adding a sarcastic, “Dad,” before Ethan appeared from the mudroom and halted in his tracks at the sight of them.
Chapter Seven
‡
Blake knew his son. He hadn’t seen him this red-faced, tense and confrontational, since the first pulses of high-grade testosterone had begun pumping through his body a few years ago. Things had leveled out in the last year, but today, Ethan looked like liquid nitrogen, ready to explode.
His derisive use of Dad put a barbed hook in Blake’s chest, but he wasn’t ready to face what it might mean. His brain focused instead on how the hell this could possibly be happening.
Ethan’s aggressive posture seemed to expand as he took in that Blake had company. That it was a woman. That they were naked.
“Auntie Liz?” Ethan blurted, peach-fuzzed jaw dropping in shock.
Liz inhaled sharply, just as a second pair of feet moved from the mudroom. A pretty teenager Blake barely recognized because she’d changed so much since he’d last seen her, appeared behind Ethan.
“Mom?” Petra said.
Liz swore. Petra goggled big blue eyes.
Ethan swung his gaze back to Blake’s and it was the worst look his son had ever turned on him. It was a mixture of contempt and confusion and such a depth of hurt it clenched a fist around Blake’s heart.
“Who are you?” Ethan asked.
“What—” His voice didn’t want to work. “What do you mean?” Blake asked.
“Well, you sure as hell aren’t my father, so who are you?”
It was like taking a bullet. For a second there was no pain, just shock, then the agony expanded in him, so intense it was debilitating. He knew he should do something, stand up, dress, speak.
Nothing.
“Fuck this. Let’s go back to Grandma’s and—”
“Ethan,” Liz interjected in a calm, don’t-argue-with-me tone. “Why don’t you go to your room. Your dad will come up to explain.”
Both kids stiffened under the Mom voice. Ethan started to say something and Liz cut him off.
“Turn around, Pet, so Blake can get dressed. Go Ethan.”
Blake watched Ethan stomp up the stairs, griping, “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Petra turned around and covered her face.
Liz nudged Blake and they both rose. He avoided looking at her as he jerked on his jeans and shot his arms into his shirt. His heart was pounding and his skin was clammy cold. Thoughts skimmed in and out of his mind so quickly, he couldn’t grasp anything except that he had to climb the stairs.
If he lost Ethan . . .
No. His gut knotted with refusal to accept.
Like an old man, he took the rail and pulled himself upward, distantly aware of movement and murmured female voices below him, but his entire world had been wiped clean except for this one stalk of a boy, who had slammed his door closed against him.
Blake didn’t knock. He walked in to find Ethan pushing things into his school backpack.
“Stop,” he said, surprised how calm he was when desperation gripped him.
“Fuck off. I’m not staying here. What the fuck was that?”
His father instincts leapt on the curses, but he grasped for control, for reason. There was a lot going on right now and he very much wanted to know why Ethan was home a week early and how.
But they’d never get through any of that until they narrowed in on the real issue here.
“Tell me what happened,” he heard himself say. It was something he’d done for years, and he suddenly had a flashback to where he’d first heard it. Two little girls at his wedding had been squabbling. Petra and Stella’s girl, Sonya. Liz had said, Calm down and tel
l me what happened, in that same voice she’d used downstairs. Barely out of boyhood himself, he’d been terrified by the prospect of becoming a father and remembered tucking away her little strategy when he overheard it.
The words gave him a sense of control over the situation, even when he knew it was false. But Blake instinctively knew that Ethan needed to feel like Blake had things in hand, and that he wouldn’t be left to his own devices to deal with all that was hitting him right now.
While Blake mentally slotted a time ‘later’ when he could sort through all this, hopefully with Liz, and put it all in perspective.
Right now, it was battle conditions, though. Ethan’s movements slowed and his face, locked in that phase between boyhood and man, cringed with deep pain. His lips trembled. “Just tell me for real. Are you my dad, or aren’t you?”
Blake wished he could spare Ethan this moment, this harsh truth that had ripped him apart when the two-year-old boy he would have died for was nearly torn from his life. He wished Ethan didn’t have to look into his eyes and see regret for the lies, and sorrow for Ethan’s pain.
He hoped he found the right words when he said, “You know my parents didn’t make me. They were still my mom and dad.”
Ethan’s face crumpled further. “So, you didn’t.”
“I don’t know,” Blake said with an honesty that scraped up from his middle to sting the back of his throat. Tension ached in his face and he wanted to cry. Really cry hard for the first time in forever. “I never saw the tests.” His voice was ragged and papery. “Your mom said a lot of things while we were divorcing that weren’t always true. I didn’t care if I made you. I wanted you. You’re my son.”
Tears started to fall from Ethan’s eyes and he swiped his sleeve impatiently across his cheeks.
Blake blinked hard, trying to clear his vision, the middle of his body feeling hollowed out and empty, needing to fit his son back into the void.
“What happened,” he asked again, more gently.
“He was such an asshole,” Ethan said, catching back a sob.
Blame the Mistletoe (Montana Born Christmas Book 1) Page 7
