Blame the Mistletoe (Montana Born Christmas Book 1)

by Collins, Dani

“Who?”

  “Mom’s boyfriend. Carl. He was all like, ‘You’re gonna come live with us in Texas ’cause he’s not your father anyway.’ Just ’cause I told Mom I’d rather stay here if she got married and moved. And then I asked Mom and she was all like, ‘Why would anyone want to stay in Marietta? He’s not going to be able to keep that ranch anyway.’ Like I don’t know what I like, or where I want to live, or care about my ho—” He clamped his mouth over the last, trying to fight off openly sobbing.

  Blake couldn’t stand it. He pushed forward and dragged the boy into his arms.

  It felt funny to hold him after the last few years of his son moving into the stage of preferring his own space. For the last two weeks, he’d been holding Liz’s slender frame and Ethan was a huge contrast, surprisingly beefy and strong.

  His arms closed around Blake and hung on like Blake had just pulled him from a lion’s den.

  “It’s okay, son. I love you. You’ll always have a home here.”

  Lies. Dreams. Wishes. Who cared what was said now, except that Ethan know he still had a father? Tears pushed from Blake’s clenched eyes, as he squeezed reassurance into Ethan’s quaking body. “I’m your Dad. Nothing is ever going to change that. You’re my son and I’m your Dad.”

  Ethan’s shoulders rose and fell as he tried to pull himself together. “Okay,” he said, pushing away to dry his cheeks on his shoulders the way he used to do when he was little and had fallen out of a tree. His sleeve went under his running nose. “Thank you.”

  It was a bittersweet, sincere expression that hurt Blake even though he understood. He’d always felt a similar gratitude toward his parents. They didn’t have to love him, but they had. It meant the world.

  “Now, tell me how the hell you got yourself home in that.” He pointed to where flakes were swirling in a near white-out beyond Ethan’s window.

  *

  “How are you here?” Liz asked her daughter, as she finished tugging her sweater down over her hips. Blake was climbing the stairs like he was ascending to the hangman’s platform.

  Petra kept her back turned and her head ducked. Loose blond hair fell forward to curtain the face she covered with both hands. “Is it safe?” she asked in a muffled voice.

  Liz had thought making love with Blake in the living room was safe, but, as she’d just been harshly reminded, when you were a parent, kids could walk in any time.

  She sighed in answer and scooped up the blanket, using the action of folding it to gather her wits. What a disaster!

  “How are you here?” Petra asked, turning to glance warily up the stairs where Blake’s footsteps disappeared into Ethan’s room and the door closed behind him.

  “We’ll get to me later,” Liz said, copping out on defending her own behavior for the moment because honestly, she was not ready to explain this to anyone, let alone her sixteen-year-old daughter. “Ethan said you came from Grandma’s? Did everyone come home early?”

  “No, we got dropped off there. I thought you’d be there.”

  “Dropped off?” Her heart plummeted. “How on earth did you get home, Pet?”

  “I used the credit card you gave me for emergencies. Don’t worry, it was just to change our tickets, it wasn’t a lot and Ethan said he’d pay you back.”

  Liz’s last worry this second was the cost. She wanted to shake answers from her daughter, but Petra’s sweet face, the one with Liz’s own pointed chin and wide spaced eyes, crinkled into anxiety.

  “Mom, is it true? About Uncle Blake not being Ethan’s dad?”

  “Come here,” she said, darting a glance up the stairs as she gave Petra a quick hug on the way to herding her into the kitchen. She needed to keep her hands busy, if they were going to have this conversation. “I’m glad you’re safe. I wish you would have texted me to tell me you were coming, though.”

  “I did!”

  Liz stared at her, then it hit her. No reception out here on the ranch. She hadn’t even looked at her phone. Shoot.

  Seating Petra on a stool at the island, she reached for the kettle to refill it. Once it was plugged in and humming, she gathered fresh mugs and took out cocoa mix.

  “I don’t know a lot about it,” Liz said to Petra, wanting to be truthful, but careful. Despite years of resentment toward Dean and his family, they were Petra’s family. She always had to be mindful of that. “I guess Auntie Crystal had some confusion about who exactly got her pregnant, but she was pretty sure it was Uncle Blake, so she married him. But when they were divorcing, she had Ethan tested.”

  “And he’s not,” Petra said, eyes so wide they ate up her face.

  “Blake is Ethan’s dad in all the ways that count, Pet.”

  Petra accepted that with a muted nod and a push of her mouth to the side. “Still, it was really awful for him to not know and find out like he did. They should have told him a long time ago, don’t you think?”

  Liz wasn’t going to touch that one. “What happened?” she asked instead.

  Petra shrugged. “I guess he was fighting with his mom about moving to Texas. She has a new boyfriend. Carl. They were all kind of drunk. Not Ethan. I mean the adults.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Carl just blurted out that Uncle Blake isn’t even Ethan’s Dad so why would he want to stay here? Auntie Crystal didn’t say he was wrong. That’s what Ethan said when he came over. She just kept talking about how much he’d like Texas. I was watching the twins. Again.” Another eye roll. “But when Dad and Karen got back, Ethan stayed, and we just talked in my room. He was crying and I told him to just phone Uncle Blake, but he was like, ‘No. I have to see him.’”

  Liz had a feeling the boy had needed to come home to what was solid and safe, but let Petra continue.

  “I was like, You might be too young to fly alone and how are you going to get to the ranch from the airport . . . But he just asked me how much money I had and . . . Mom, he was so upset. I think he would have gone to the airport and begged for cash if he had to. I couldn’t just put him in a cab and hope he got home okay.”

  The part where Petra was only sixteen and not exactly an adult herself seemed to escape the girl. It spoke of how much responsibility Dean was throwing on her with his twins that she’d stepped up to get Ethan home, but Liz would address all of that later. What she saw now was, Petra had taken charge in a very impulsive and expensive way, but her heart seemed to be in the right place. She’d acted out of love.

  “How did you get home then?”

  “The hotel had a shuttle, and we had to wait at the airport for a while, but I told them it was a family emergency, and they could see Ethan was super upset, so it wasn’t that big a deal. They did all the flight stuff and gave us the passes. I was worried about getting from the airport into Marietta but—oh my God, guess what? You’ll never believe it!”

  Liz lifted her eyes from spooning sugary powder into the mugs, startled by the way Petra had lit up like Times Square. “What?”

  “When we were in Dallas, waiting for our connection, I was like, I don’t know if they’ll rent me a car. I’m only sixteen. I was trying to figure out how to get a bus schedule and Ethan was like, Wait. I got this.” She mimed the confidence of a young man, holding up a hand to stop the world so he could save it.

  Half-amused despite the circumstances, Liz prompted, “And . . . ?”

  “He points to this guy who’s giving autographs. Totally surrounded. Took me a minute to recognize it’s Chase Goodwin. Dad’s gonna mess himself when I tell him.”

  “How—? Oh, right. Skye said they were going to Texas for a party.”

  “You know her?”

  “I went to their house for a potluck. That’s how I bumped into Uncle Blake. Apparently her family’s ranch is next to this one.”

  “That’s what Ethan said! That’s how he knows them. Also, she was the secretary at the high school. But Mom, it was so funny! They were getting on our flight, but flying first class, of course, so Ethan is busy saying, ‘Excuse me,’ trying to get close and no on
e would let him. People from all over the airport are super-fanning him, right? Then, a guy in a uniform comes and tells Chase and Skye to go into the tunnel thing, like onto the plane, and the guy tells everyone to take a seat and wait ’til they’re called to board and whatever and Ethan just steps onto a chair and yells, Skye!”

  “Oh.” Liz winced. “Did he get in trouble?”

  “Almost, but Skye turned around and came back and she is soooo nice. She’s all like, ‘Of course we’ll drive you from the airport.’ And Chase tried to upgrade us to first class, but it was full. But he gave me his autograph for Dad when he dropped us off at Grandma’s. Ethan knew where the key was, but Skye said to call if we couldn’t get in. Anyway, we got in and when I saw the keys for your car were there but you weren’t, I said I could drive him out here. I don’t like driving in the snow, though.” She made a face.

  A glance outside put a flutter in Liz’s heart, especially when she thought of Blake’s birth parents. Even people who grew up in these conditions could get into trouble when the weather turned. Petra barely had her license and usually only drove quiet streets to the school or a friend’s.

  Liz supposed that blizzard meant she and Petra were here for the duration. That was going to be interesting come bed time. Hmm.

  “Well, this was a little extreme as reactions go,” Liz said, deferring those thoughts to later. She was getting good at Blake’s coping strategy of not facing down things that were unpleasant. With a dip of her chin to convey consternation and warning of consequences, she said, “Please tell me your father knows where you are?”

  “I texted him when we were boarding in Mexico.” Petra bit her lips guiltily. “He wasn’t very happy. I turned my phone back on in Dallas and my phone blew up with him and Grandma leaving messages. Everyone else was texting like crazy.”

  “Really? Weird,” Liz said with a you-made-that-bed look at her daughter.

  “But, Mom—” Petra’s brow tugged and her bottom lip came out. “Dad’s being so unfair. It was supposed to be my vacation too, and he just kept leaving me with the twins. Like, the way he was talking in the voicemail, I think he was more angry because Karen was supposed to go to the spa today, and he wanted to golf, than because he was worried about me or Ethan. He was all like, ‘what am I supposed to do now?’”

  “I’m sure he was very worried,” Liz said as sincerely as she could muster, while privately thinking, The truth hurts, honey. I’m sorry. “Does he know you got into Marietta okay?”

  “Yeah. Ethan texted his mom. She’s super mad. Like, ‘Get back here, and you’re not staying with him, you’re coming to Texas.’ Sonya said everyone is yelling at everyone. Her and Bob are hiding out at the horseshoe pitch behind Grandma’s unit. She said that Auntie Stella said, ‘Don’t you two dare leave my sight.’ Like her and Bob would make a break for it if they could.” Petra giggled. “She said they wanted to. Bob said it doesn’t feel like Christmas if there’s no snow. He’d rather be here.”

  Don’t laugh, Liz warned herself, but spared a sigh of commiseration for poor Stella, who would be in full crisis mode, as she tried to unfrazzle everyone’s nerves.

  Liz stirred up the mix into rich hot chocolate and pushed one across to Petra.

  She accepted it with two hands and an absent, “Thanks.” Her sheepish gaze altered to curiosity as she glanced around the kitchen. “I haven’t been here since I was really little. Ethan’s birthday when he was still a baby, I think.” Coming back from a circle on the stool, she sat straighter and leaned on her elbows. Her gaze came up in a quizzical but demanding silence.

  Liz pressed her lips flat, flicking a cursory glance at her daughter to let her know she intended to keep this brief. She might have shut Pet down completely, if there hadn’t been a shadow of confusion and worry behind her daughter’s gaze. Obviously, Pet had questions. There was no hiding the fact Liz was intimate with Blake without marriage or even a long-term, committed relationship in place, pretty much going against everything Liz had taught her daughter about when it was appropriate to share her body.

  “After we met at Skye’s party, we decided to have coffee,” she said. “Since I don’t really know anyone here. We didn’t plan for anything to happen. He’s just a really great person. I like him a lot.”

  “So you’re like, dating? Or . . . ? Like, what happens now? Or when we leave?”

  I don’t know. Liz didn’t want to admit that. She didn’t want to face how nascent her relationship with Blake was. They hadn’t talked about a future. She knew Blake didn’t think he could offer her one. How had he imagined things would go when January came and she was due to head back to California? She wasn’t even sure if she would stay in Marietta through Christmas now. If both of their kids were back, she could leave Curly here and take her daughter home to California.

  But she didn’t want to leave early. She wanted to stay here and keep seeing Blake as long as she could.

  Her life wasn’t her own, though. Not now. Her actions, both hers and Blake’s, would impact Pet and Ethan. Liz’s gaze lifted of its own accord to the loft and the closed door, where Blake might be thinking it was best if she left, while he mended fences with his son. All the soft feelings he’d nurtured in her contracted with a sting. She would understand if he had to put his son ahead of their budding romance, but it would hurt. A lot.

  “I thought we’d have more time to figure things out before we decided whether to tell you kids about it. Kind of like how you didn’t tell me right away when Jay Greenburg started texting you. It was your own thing that you wanted to keep to yourself, until you knew if it was going anywhere.”

  Pet gave her a disgruntled look, somewhere between acceptance and self-consciousness, and This is a lot more than I had with Jay Greenburg. Pet’s puppy love crush had gone on for a few months with a handful of movie and mall dates before fizzling, but Petra had been at first secretive, then giddy, and finally a bit mopey as she and Jay had drifted apart.

  Please don’t let me reach the mopey stage, Liz thought with another pang in her chest.

  Petra was searching her gaze, making Liz tense at what her daughter might be reading in her expression. Pet gave a little snort. “I guess it’s better than Dad taking me to lunch with . . . How many girlfriends? It’s just weird, though, Mom. You have to admit it. Uncle Blake? What will Auntie Crystal say? And Grandma?”

  Liz had had all the same thoughts, but she only produced a hard smile, thinking, I don’t give a hoot what the Flowers say.

  Upstairs, Ethan’s door opened and Blake emerged. Coming down the stairs, he nodded at Petra, his expression very grave, but calm.

  “Thanks for bringing him home, Petra. I owe you. But I wish you’d called from town instead of driving in that. Ethan should have known better than to ask you.”

  “It was okay,” Petra said in a small voice, spine soft and head heavy as she slouched on the stood, watching him warily. “Is he okay? Should I go up?”

  “If you want to. He was just going to send an email to his Mom, then come down for something to eat.”

  “You could send a note to your Dad and Karen,” Liz suggested in the way that was more of a direct order. “Let them know you’re sorry that you worried them, and tell them you’re sorry for missing Christmas. It won’t be the same for them without you there.”

  “Okay.” Petra slid off her stool.

  “Here hon,” Liz said, offering the second mug of cocoa she’d made. “Take this one for Ethan. I haven’t touched it yet.”

  Flashing a little smile, Petra walked both mugs up the stairs, catching Ethan as he came out of the bathroom. They went into his room and closed the door.

  Both Liz and Blake let out a long hissing exhale of decompression, gazes locked. Liz lifted her brows in query at him.

  “How did it go?” She jerked her head toward the loft.

  “Good,” he said in a deep, emotive voice, face spasming with a harsh memory before he smoothed his expression. “He was upset. Feels lied to. I gu
ess I should have told him long ago, but . . . I never wanted to believe it. But he knows now that this is his home and I love him—” Another flinch of agony twisted through his face, before he ran a hand over it then massaged the back of his neck, scowling. “I want to wring Crystal’s neck for letting him find out like that. Sounds like she’s pretty determined to take him to Texas. I’m in for a long haul of fights with her.”

  “Ethan’s old enough to have some say in where he lives. Her family is here, which has to count for something. She’s the one trying to uproot him. Surely, the court’s can’t side with her.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s not above playing the paternity card, obviously. And where the hell am I going to get the money for another custody battle? It’s pretty hard to claim my home is the stable one when the bank owns it.”

  “Oh, Blake.” She couldn’t stand it. She went around to him, not entirely certain he’d accept her embrace, but his despair was more than she could bear.

  They slid into each other’s arms like two halves of a whole, arms locking around the other in synchronized need. His chin rested on her hair and they both relaxed, as they soaked up the other’s calming energy.

  “She’ll hate this, Liz.” He tightened his arms, pressing one hand to the back of her head like he was protecting her from a potential explosion.

  “Would it be better if I took Pet home? If we told the kids not to tell them?”

  “You’re not going anywhere right now,” Blake growled.

  She turned her head against his chest so she faced the window, ear still pressed to the steady beat of his heart.

  Outside, the wind spun the flakes in all directions. Visibility was about a foot and a half. She shouldn’t be grateful for such harsh weather, but she was very happy to be in this old, but sturdy house, trapped with Blake.

  “Did Ethan ask you about us? What did you tell him?” she asked.

  Blake snorted. “I didn’t know what to say. Your Auntie Liz is hot. I can’t keep my hands off her,” he said with gentle derision, while the hands in question shaped her back and hips. “Liz, I know you think I’m in denial about certain things, but I can’t see an easy way forward. Even with you. Tell me what you want. Are you prepared to pack up your whole life, a very lucrative one from what I can tell, and take a chance on a man who only knows how to ranch? I don’t even know if I can provide for you. I’ll tangle you up in a fight with people you already hate . . . It’s a God-damned mess, Liz.”