Blame the Mistletoe (Montana Born Christmas Book 1)

by Collins, Dani

  She pulled back to look into his steady brown eyes. They’d become very familiar and precious to her. All of him had.

  “Blake, I have money—”

  He shut his eyes, arms falling away, expression going flat and insulted. “I’m not taking your money.”

  She swallowed, hurt by his swift rejection, but not surprised by it. Men would be men.

  Letting her own arms fall away, she said, “Money is convenient, but whether a person is rich or poor, they still wake up every day and find something to eat. You and I are both resourceful and hard-working enough we’d always have something. Maybe not this ranch. Maybe not a mansion in Bel Air, which I had with Dean. But let me tell you, when you wake up and eat breakfast with the wrong person, it doesn’t matter what the kitchen appliances look like. You realize what is important.”

  “And you think I’m the guy you want to wake up with every day?” His lashes were a spiky fence guarding his inner-most thoughts, as he looked down at her.

  She folded her arms, like she needed something to hang onto as she wobbled precariously into the kind of territory she’d always sought to find with a man, but now discovered was actually quite scary. What if he didn’t return her feelings?

  “It’s been pretty great so far,” she said, voice small and defenseless. “Hasn’t it?”

  “It has,” he said, tone a deep timbre from low in his chest. His big hand, roughened by calluses, but tender, cupped the side of her face. “I sure as hell don’t want to give up on finding out what we have.”

  She turned her lips into his palm, lifting a hand to cover his.

  As their eyes connected, he threaded his fingers into her hair, drawing her forward, lowering his head—

  The door to Ethan’s room clicked and they broke apart, guilty and rueful.

  “I imagine they’re hungry,” Liz murmured.

  He nodded and turned to say, “Ethan, we should get more wood in before it gets any worse out there. In case we lose power.”

  “’Kay.” He went straight into the mudroom with Blake.

  Petra came over to the kitchen. “Can I make a can of soup or mac and cheese or something? We’re starving. They only gave us those little pretzels on the plane and I didn’t even eat mine.”

  “I think we can do better than that,” Liz said, opening the fridge. She’d been impulsively buying holiday treats and Petra leapt on them.

  “Oh, hey, can we have some of that cheese? Did you buy the crackers to go with? Are you going to make those sausage cheddar ball things? Did you make cereal mix yet?”

  Liz hadn’t realized she had traditional recipes, but as Petra nudged her to mix up the sausage balls, she realized she wound up making certain things every year and didn’t even need the recipes.

  “We’ll have a little tree decorating party,” Petra said, pulling cereal from Blake’s cupboard and mixing it with the can of high-end nuts Liz had bought. As she added the little bags of pretzels she’d been given on her flights, she asked, “What else, Mom?”

  “Maybe some of these goldfish crackers?” Liz suggested, pulling a box from the cupboard and watching her daughter add it to the bowl of snack mix. “Looks good.”

  A few minutes later, the mix was coated and curing on a low temperature while Liz finished the sausage balls and Petra chopped veggies for a plate she was arranging with cheese and pickles and olives.

  “And candied pecans, Mommy? Please?” Petra asked with a little clasp of her hands under her chin.

  “I didn’t buy any. Sorry. But we have shortbread and gingersnaps and the little almond cookies that you like, the ones with the jam in the middle.”

  “Yay!” Petra began carrying food to the coffee table.

  Liz whipped up a variation on her standard spinach dip that included roasted tomato and artichokes. They didn’t have a sourdough, but she’d bought some pita pockets with the idea to try making something like the Bavarian dish she and Blake had eaten at The Stroll. After letting the pitas toast in the oven, she cut them into triangles for the dip.

  Blake and Ethan wound up taking the dogs out and checking the other animals. When they came back, they were growling about how hungry they were and both nosed out the food in the living room with great appreciation.

  “Ethan, you have to bring your dock down here if we want some decent Christmas music,” Petra told her cousin.

  “Hey. Bing Crosby is classic,” Liz defended.

  Ethan made a face as he started for the stairs. “That’s as bad as Grandma and her Elvis.”

  Liz exchanged a put-upon look with Blake. “What’s wrong with Elvis? Blue Christmas is beautiful, right?”

  “Dad likes Boney M,” Ethan said from the loft, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

  “That’s your Auntie Meg’s,” Blake shot back.

  “You still play it,” Ethan retorted with teenaged condescension.

  Blake shrugged. “I like Feliz Navidad. It’s catchy.”

  Petra laughed as she popped a last bite of cauliflower into her mouth. “You and Mom will get along great, then. She thinks Mary’s Boy Child is the best song ever.”

  “You try to impart a decent education on your children and they just run you down,” Liz said with disgust, hands on hips.

  Blake gave a regretful shake of his head. “Kids and their new-fangled music. That’s what my Dad used to say. ‘In my day . . . ’” he said with a deeper voice, mimicking his father. “‘We sang our music ourselves. In church.’” Scooping a carrot through the dip, he added, “This is really good. Thanks, ladies.”

  Moving to the kitchen, Liz rinsed the coffee pot. “I was thinking of making some of that flavored stuff. Interested?”

  He nodded. “Love some.”

  A few minutes later, Liz had switched out the oven, replacing the snack mix with the sausage balls. They’d need to cook a while and the mix needed to cool, so for now she was able to take mugs of fresh coffee into the living room and sit with Blake, while the kids discussed different approaches to Christmas.

  “Me and Dad usually do this and it usually looks pretty terrible, doesn’t it, Dad?” Ethan said. “Unless Auntie Meg is here. Then it turns out pretty good.”

  “It’s true. We’re wall-eyed when it comes to decorating.”

  “My dad gets someone in to decorate,” Petra said. “For real. Because he always has a staff party for his managers and stuff. The lady who does it is like, a movie set person. That’s her job, so it looks pretty fancy when she’s done. I always wanted to go and begged my Dad every year to let me and finally last year he said Okay, and it was so boring. Sorry, Mom. Was that bad manners?”

  “It’s not really supposed to be entertaining for kids, so I don’t think he expected you to have a good time. That’s probably why he put you off so long,” she said judiciously, while sending a glance at Blake that said, so boring.

  His mouth twitched, and he moved the folded blanket that had fallen onto the sofa cushions, silently inviting her to sit closer.

  It seemed awfully forward in front of the kids, but Petra and Ethan were still comparing notes, as they shook out garlands and wound them on the tree.

  “Mom has a fake tree,” Ethan said. “Usually Auntie Stella is the one who comes over and notices it’s not up then she gets us kids to get it out and put it together. I don’t think Mom would bother if Auntie Stella didn’t make her.”

  Liz resisted the urge to ask if that bothered Ethan. She didn’t look at Blake, either, but she grazed her fingertips against the back of his hand.

  He turned his palm up and enclosed her in a warm grasp, holding her lightly, while his thumb caressed her knuckles. It was nice. She felt adolescent and obvious, but it was sweet and warmed her to her bones. She thought she might be falling in love.

  “We have fun, don’t we, Mom? One year we tried making popcorn strands. That was a huge mess!” Petra glanced over, gaze flickering to the adults’ joined hands, but she didn’t seem to react beyond a brief hint of surprise. Then
she looked toward the kitchen. “Is the snack mix cool enough? We always have bowls of that and Mom puts on her boring music,” she teased, wrinkling her nose. “And we drink hot chocolate and decide if we’re going to have a theme—’cause sometimes we go all blue or just round ones or last year we did all red and gold ’cause we didn’t have enough to do just red. And then we watch a Christmas movie and write out cards. Mom writes the cards. I address the envelopes and we fight over who has to lick the stamps.”

  “Because it’s not Christmas if family isn’t fighting,” Liz told Blake facetiously.

  “You know you can get stamps that stick on now and you don’t have to lick them?” he asked.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” she asked as she sipped her coffee.

  “It is fun! Mom did I tell you? Last year Suzy Armstrong was all, ‘Oh my gawd, your mom still makes you decorate the tree?’ And I was like, ‘Why, don’t you like it? It’s fun.’ See? Like this.” Petra held up a misshapen, roundish clay pad with a small handprint in it. Turning it over, she said, “Oh! I thought this was going to be Ethan’s, but it’s your hand print, Uncle Blake! That’s funny. Has every kindergarten teacher done this with their class for, like, a hundred years?”

  “Pretty sure,” Blake said, smirking.

  Liz watched her daughter turn the ornament over and over, loving how genuinely taken she was with it. Petra took great care with the worn yarn, as she opened it and looped it over the end of a bough.

  “That’s pretty cool, don’t you think? To still have something like this, and be able to hang it on your tree? It’s kind of like a family history lesson. Friends of ours, the Hendersons, have antique ornaments from when Jenny’s mom’s great-grandma came over from England. One broke last year and her mom cried. Like hugely cried for two days, so her dad bought one off eBay to replace it and gave it to her for Christmas. Isn’t that nice? It was actually Jenny’s idea, and she found it, but she said it was too expensive, so she told her Dad, and he was super excited, because Dads never know what to buy their wives. He was like, Thank you, Jenny. Thank you.”

  Blake turned his head to Liz. “Does she ever wind down?” he asked with bemusement.

  “Nope. She’s a talker. Just like her Dad.”

  “Oh Mom. You talk too. You should hear her on the phone to any of the Aunties. Like, Three. Hours. Later.”

  Ethan snickered, then he glanced toward the kitchen, saying without subtly, “The snack mix smells really good.”

  “That’s the sausage balls. I’ll check them.” Liz looked in on the pot roast, while she was up, warning everyone to save room for supper, because it would be a good one.

  They wiled away the time waiting for it by decorating and snacking, then playing cards and Pictionary, kids against adults, then boys against girls. By the time they sat down to eat, the kids were feeling the time change and the adults were mellow. The lights flickered a few times, but stayed on while the wind rattled windowpanes and whistled in the chimney.

  When they sat to eat, they said a brief grace and tucked into the hearty roast and comforting potatoes and onions and carrots. Everything felt very natural and right to Liz. She found herself with a thick throat and a sting behind her eyes as she thought, Can you see what we could have Blake?

  Maybe there was no easy way to get there, but she could see what she wanted. This. Gentle teasing and all hands pitching in to clear the table and clean up, Petra getting a brief lesson in discipline from Blake, when she called Curly off his mat. Ethan feeding both dogs without being asked. Petra asking for the broom and using it after she’d wiped down the table. It was homey, family stuff, all of them clicking and working together like gears in an old-fashioned watch.

  Then, the topic they’d all been avoiding came up.

  “Um, Mom? I only brought my backpack when we left Mexico and I left it at Grandma’s before we drove over here. So, I don’t have jammies or a toothbrush.”

  “I have a toothbrush from the dentist that I didn’t use yet,” Ethan said, starting for the stairs.

  “Thanks, Ethan,” Blake said to the boy’s back. “Have a look through Meg’s dresser,” he told Petra. “She has stuff there she’s forgotten she owns. She won’t mind if you take a T-shirt or something to sleep in. It’s just a single bed in her room though, so . . . ” He glanced at Liz. “You can take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “Oh no, Blake. You’re too tall for the couch. I’ll sleep down here and—”

  “Mom.” Petra quirked her brows in a pained look. “Are you serious? We know you guys have been sleeping together.”

  “This is different,” Liz said firmly, because it seemed like the right thing to say.

  “Dad and Karen slept together for years before they were married. Auntie Crystal and Carl were sleeping together in Mexico. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Look,” Liz tried. “Blake and I—”

  “Ethan,” Petra called up to the loft. “Do you care if my mom sleeps with your dad in his room?”

  “No,” he said in an annoyed voice. “Better than the living room.”

  Blake searched for patience with his eyes rolled to the ceiling. Liz smiled tightly, aware her cheeks were flaming.

  But the kids really didn’t seem phased. They got themselves ready for bed and, just before he went into his room for the night, Ethan stood at the rail of the loft.

  “Hey, Dad. You know what would be fun when the weather clears?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tobogganing. Pet says she only did it once when Auntie Stella took them to the golf course, when she was here for Spring Break one time. I wanna see her go down Screamer.”

  “I’ll check the weather. Maybe some of the other kids would like to come over. Everyone’s out of school by now, right?”

  “Yeah. Let me know and I’ll put it on Facebook. We could have a fire. Hot dogs and marshmallows. That’d be a riot.” He went into his room, calling across the hall, “Get ready for Devil’s Nightmare, Cuz. And The Well of Terror.”

  Absorbing Ethan’s assumption they were staying here indefinitely, Liz blinked at Blake. “Will she survive this Hell’s Kitchen he’s planning for her?”

  “In thirty years, we’ve only had one dislocated shoulder and one broken ankle. Both were adults who’d been drinking heavily. If you’re sober enough to hang on, you’re fine.”

  She laughed. “Sounds fun, then.”

  “You say that now, but guess how we get there?”

  “Horse back?” She approached him to hug his waist. “I’m okay with that. Petra’s the one who will freak out this time.”

  Chapter Eight

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  Blake watched Liz and Petra double down the hill, hair flying from beneath their woolen hats. They screamed the whole way, voices pitched with greater excitement each time they hit the little bumps that launched them briefly into the air. They hung on until the very end where the hill flattened out and every rider had to bail to stop.

  Gathering themselves from rolling in the snow, they found their feet, weak with laughter and coated in powder.

  Blake grinned, pleased to see them having such a good time.

  Skye nudged into his arm with her shoulder. “You like her.”

  “Shaddup brat,” he teased, sipping from his thermal mug of coffee. Glancing up, he watched one of America’s most famous ballplayers use his feet to keep the speed down on his sled as he brought Skye’s toddler niece down the hill. “You’re the one in the tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G.”

  Skye had brought her nieces over along with Chase’s younger brother, Flynn. The high school senior had lit up at the sight of Petra. So had the other teenaged boys from the neighboring ranches. There was a good mix of kids of all ages. They hiked up the hills with boundless energy, taking breaks to build snowmen or refuel with hotdogs and cocoa. One of the parents had brought a basket of chestnuts for roasting, filling the air with the cozy scent.

  “She seems really nice,” Skye murmured. “Her daught
er is a peach.”

  “Yeah, Petra is a good kid.” She looked as pretty and privileged as her mother, but had Liz’s same down-to-earth sensibility and open friendliness.

  “Maybe Mom can stop worrying about you now,” Skye added.

  “Your mother worries about me?” Blake asked with a grin that tried to hide how touched he was.

  “Of course she does. We all do. You’re a good guy, Blake, and you’ve had some rough times. We want the best for you.”

  “Thanks, Skye. I appreciate that. I do,” he said sincerely, but refrained from telling her that things were more dicey than ever. Petra had texted her cousin Sonya, revealing that Uncle Blake and Auntie Liz were an item. That had resulted in a nasty phone call from Crystal, along with several ugly emails.

  Liz had told him that Petra had been quite upset when she realized the secret was out. I didn’t think she’d tell her mom. I’m so sorry that everyone is so mad again, Petra had insisted to her mom.

  We’re not trying to hide anything, Liz had assured Petra, but Liz had privately said to Blake, Maybe we should have gone home.

  As she worked her way over to him, however, still grinning and breathless, he was glad she was here. Petra was hiking up the hill again, this time with Ethan and ready to try one of the steeper tracks.

  “Oh, those chestnuts smell fantastic,” Liz said, turning bright eyes up to Blake. “Best Christmas ever.”

  “That’s the goal,” he assured her, catching an arm around her shoulders as she leaned into his side and hugged an arm around his waist.

  “Do you do this every year?” she asked.

  “Pretty much. I can’t think of a Christmas break we’ve ever missed doing this.”

  “Luckiest kids ever,” she told him.