“Blake’s ranch has the best bowl. Plus, it’s easy to get to,” Skye commented, catching her niece up as she trotted over, arms upraised. “Did you have fun with Uncle Chase?”
Blake watched the little girl’s head bob in agreement and something in his chest caught and twisted. He had a vision of himself bringing a toddler down the hill, but it wasn’t Ethan. It was a wistful, future child with shiny dark hair poking out from her hat and a pointy little chin. Longing rose in him like a gargantuan monster, wanting to claw and grasp and take possession of all of this forever.
His arm unconsciously tightened on Liz, making her look up at him.
He would not marry a woman for money.
But he wanted to marry her. He knew that. It hit him less like a lightning bolt and more like a release of tension. He went from wondering where this was going to knowing. He was in love with her. She was funny and sweet and not afraid of hard work. She gave him space when he needed it and cuddled in when she needed it, making him feel heroic and . . . He had to admit it. She made him feel like he was providing her with what she really needed. That was potent.
Kissing her temple, he felt his heart fall open to her, inviting her inside, no matter how things worked out with the ranch or the Flowers.
She pulled back enough to look into his eyes, searching his expression, attuned enough to him to recognize something was going on inside him. God help him, he was ready to ask her to marry him right here, in front of all his neighbors and friends.
A whoop of, “Auntie Meg!” from his son, startled him into lifting his gaze.
His sister, red ringlets bouncing around ear muffs, trotted up to them at the fire. “I figured from the trucks in the yard and the hay wagon tracks that you all were out here. Surprise! I’m home for Christmas.”
*
Blake’s sister Meg was pretty and friendly and well-liked. Everyone made a point of welcoming her home for the holidays. The talk of the day seemed to be the Sold sign on a foreclosed ranch up the road and Meg brought up a rehash of speculation as she mentioned she’d seen it.
Meg remembered Liz from Blake’s wedding and other than that, didn’t say much about their being an item out of the blue like this. It wasn’t until the day wound down that the sleeping situation was addressed. All the neighbors had gone home, Blake and Ethan were finishing up in the barn and the ladies had come into the house to start supper.
“I wondered who was Goldilocks-ing my bedroom,” Meg teased Petra. “It’s totally fine, hon. I’ll get a hotel.”
“You’re not getting a hotel,” Liz said, askance. “This is your home. We can go back to Nola’s.”
“Mom, I can just move to the couch,” Petra said. “I’d rather stay here than at Grandma’s.”
“Because Ethan has an X-box?” Liz guessed.
“Maybe,” Petra said with a blink of too-innocent eyes. Then, smiled big. “Not just that, though. It’s fun here.” Turning to Meg, she said, “I’ll just change out of my wet clothes, then bring my things down. I don’t have much anyway.”
“I should have called,” Meg said as Petra scooted up the stairs. “But I honestly thought Blake would be here alone. I didn’t think Ethan was coming in until tomorrow.”
Meg knew about Ethan’s paternity, but Liz doubted Blake had had time or opportunity to tell Meg why Ethan had come home early. Skirting the topic, she only pointed at his ancient answering machine, where its red light blinked madly.
“Calling Blake is a bit moot. Half the time he’s not around to pick up his messages. That’s what I’ve noticed. But this is your home. You shouldn’t have to call before showing up.” Liz realized she had the kettle in her hand. “And I’m obviously making myself very much at home here. This must be weird for you. Sorry to spring this on you.”
Meg shrugged. She was a city girl, worked in the news. Liz doubted that much threw her off her stride, but she narrowed her eyes shrewdly on Liz. “The part where you’re a Flower worries me. Blake hasn’t had the best experience with them.”
Liz offered a wide, tense smile. “Ditto.” She flicked her gaze upward as Petra appeared. “Hey, hon. Thought you were changing?”
“I just checked my email,” she said, waving her phone. “They’re home.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. Sonya said they all changed their flights and they just landed. She said that her mom will need her SUV and wants to know if I want to come and stay at Auntie Stella’s for a few days. Would you mind? Just until, like, Christmas Eve maybe? Or, um, if Dad’s home, what are we doing? Staying here, or driving back to California?”
Liz opened her mouth, but didn’t have an answer.
“Well, I guess we have to get the rest of your luggage from Stella’s and my things from Grandma’s,” she said. Her heart sank. She’d been going back to Nola’s every few days to make sure pipes weren’t bursting, but wished now she’d cleared out completely as soon as she’d started sleeping here. This confrontation would not be pretty.
“Also, Auntie Crystal wants you to bring Ethan to her house,” Petra added.
Terrific.
*
Blake came with them, after taking the answering machine to his bedroom to listen to Crystal’s messages. He drove behind them in his truck, Ethan in the cab with him, Curly standing on Ethan’s thigh and pushing his black nose against the window.
“He only goes into the carrier if he’s going to the vet. That’s why he hates it,” Ethan told Liz, laughing at Liz’s story of her struggle to get him into it.
“I wish Sonya and Bob could come out to Ethan’s and we could all hang out there,” Petra said, mentioning her other cousins as they kept their speed down through the turns on the country road.
“That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” Liz said mildly.
“I feel like Dad’s going to yell at me,” Petra added in a heavy voice.
“Just take responsibility for what you did wrong, Pet. Tell him you’re sorry you left without talking to him about it first. The rest is between Auntie Crystal and Ethan. If Dad says anything to you about me and Blake, you tell him I said he can talk to me directly about that. It’s not something you have any control over.”
“I like Uncle Blake a lot, Mom. I mean, I always thought he was nice and a good Dad to Ethan, but as, like, your boyfriend? I think he’s really great.”
“Thanks for saying that, honey. I think he’s pretty awesome too.”
“And like, if you guys wanted to get married or something . . . Well, I was talking to Ethan about the school here. There’s only one!” She laughed. “But he says it’s okay and I’d have him and Sonya and Bob and I already know a bunch of their friends. So, it wouldn’t be like starting school in a place full of strangers. Not like if Ethan has to go to Texas.”
“Blake and I aren’t really there, hon,” Liz said, skirting what Blake was facing with Crystal. Besides, the truth was, “Your Dad would have some say in a big decision like that, you know.”
“Yeah,” she said, craning her neck as they passed a nativity scene on someone’s front yard. “And I’d miss the twins, but sometimes I feel like Karen wishes I weren’t there. Uncle Blake doesn’t make me feel like that at all. Ethan likes you, too. And he thinks you’re a good cook.”
That made them both chortle.
“The way to a man’s heart . . . ” Liz mused, still grinning. “It sounds like you and Ethan have discussed this quite a bit.” Her insides felt as though they were expanding, curling and twining like a prickly vine as she yearned for a future with Blake, could almost see it. But oh, the stakes were so high right now, as they closed in on Stella’s neighborhood. He cared for her, she was sure of it. But was it enough? Given what they faced?
“Well, yeah, of course we talked about it,” Petra said, like it should be obvious they would. “It affects us, right? But I’ve never seen you with any guys, really. Like sometimes you’ve introduced me to a date or whatever, but I’ve never seen you happy like this, just being yourself a
round a guy. And Ethan was like, ‘I don’t think my Dad’s gotten laid since my mom left.’”
“Petra!”
“Ethan said it,” she defended. “But he meant that he’s never met any of Uncle Blake’s girlfriends, but so many of Auntie Crystal’s boyfriends. And he feels like his Dad is lonely sometimes and wishes he had a wife. If you guys decided to have a baby, that would be okay with us, too.”
“Oh, thanks. Good thing we’ve got your permission,” Liz said facetiously.
“I’m just saying, if you’re worrying about any of those things, you don’t have to.”
Pulling to a stop on the street outside Stella’s crowded driveway, Liz turned to her daughter. “You’re growing up way too fast.”
“And I’ll be going off to college in a few years and you’re not finished being a mommy. So, why don’t you have a baby with Uncle Blake?”
Liz gave her a stern look and changed the topic. “If your Dad is staying in town for Christmas, which I’m sure Grandma will want, then you can stay here with Stella until Christmas Eve. I want you for the night and Christmas morning, then we’ll get you back here to have dinner with Dad and the family. Deal? If he’s going back to California, we’ll have to talk more.”
“I’m going to tell him that if you and Uncle Blake get married, I want to live here with you and just visit him on school break and stuff.”
“I’m going to ask you to hold off on that. There’s a lot going on with Auntie Crystal right now and if my being with Blake makes things worse, then Blake and I will have to take a break. I’m not going to be the reason he loses Ethan, you know?”
“That couldn’t happen, could it?”
“I honestly don’t know, honey, but I’m not going to ask him to choose between me and his son.”
Petra pouted out her bottom lip, pretty much the reaction Liz was privately nursing. Ethan appeared at Petra’s window and Liz’s door opened behind her.
“You okay?” Blake asked her.
“Just talking,” she said, a little surprised he was coming in with her.
The kids went ahead through the back door into the kitchen, kissing their Auntie Stella along the way. “All the kids are in the game room,” Stella said absently, sending the teenagers into the basement, while bouncing her gaze back and forth between Liz and Blake.
“Your keys,” Liz said, setting them on the counter without leaving the mat by the door. “I told Pet she could stay with you until Christmas Eve if you’re good with it.”
“Of course. And I’ll drive Ethan over to Crystal’s in a bit—”
“Stella,” Blake said in a voice Liz hadn’t heard him use. It was so low and hard and sober it put a cold hand around her heart and made Stella’s eyes widen. “Let your sister know that if she so much as takes him to Livingston without clearing it with me, I’ll have her arrested for kidnapping.”
“Blake—” Stella started to say persuasively.
“That’s all I came in to say. I would have dropped him off at her house and told her myself, but I’m liable to put that boyfriend of hers in the hospital. What he did was not cool. I’ll wait in the truck,” he said to Liz, turning to reach for the door.
At the same moment, Karen, Dean’s new wife, bustled into the kitchen and shot Liz a killing look.
“Thanks for ruining my Christmas.”
Liz was completely taken aback. Her mind instantly whirled with about a million come-backs. The injustice was profound. Who had tried to take her daughter away for an entire month?
A firm hand closed around her arm. Blake. Holding her back.
She almost burst out laughing, as she realized he was afraid of how she’d react and was stopping her from doing something crazy. She loved him in that moment. Absolutely loved him.
“Karen,” Stella tried placating, but Dean charged into the kitchen.
He took in Blake’s hand curled round Liz’s upper arm and swelled with umbrage. “Seriously? You had to do this just to spite me?”
“Okay, I am going to laugh at that,” Liz said with a hysterical bubble in her voice. “This is so not about you Dean.”
“Really,” he scoffed. “You’re not playing sex against the ex-es?”
“That sounds like something your sister would have come up with and no. You and Crystal are the last thing either of us has been thinking about.”
“Let’s go,” Blake murmured, trying to turn her to the door.
“Bullshit,” Dean accused. “You think I don’t know about your secret Swiss bank account? The one where all my money goes?”
Liz flicked a startled glance at Stella, who lowered her gaze to the floor. That had been a late night, mildly intoxicated confession between besties, not meant to be repeated to Dean.
“It’s supposed to be used to keep Petra’s standard of living equal to the one she has at my house,” Dean said with a point at his own chest. “Not get socked away so you can gloat about hoarding it. What are you going to do? Give my money to him to keep his ranch out of hock, just to piss me off? That’s low, Liz. That’s really pathetic and mean-spirited.”
“Are you serious right now?” she charged, turning back but kept on the mat by Blake’s firm grip on her arm. “Why in the hell would it bother you if I did? Ethan is a Flower. We’ve got the DNA results on that at least, don’t we? So, why would you want him to lose his home? Have any of you ever stood back long enough to see that he stands to inherit that ranch if Blake manages to hang onto it? If Crystal takes him away, he gets nothing. All your money that I’m recycling back to Blake just goes to Blake, Dean. If you don’t like it, tell your sister to let Ethan keep an interest here.”
Spinning, she flung the door open herself, almost hitting Blake in the face. He caught it, then had to step back as she jerked around to confront Karen.
“And by the way, this has been the best Christmas of my life. I know this tropical wedding thing was all your idea and initially I was mad, but it’s worked out beautifully for me, so thank you,” she said with a viscously sweet smile. “We’ll be back at nine on Christmas Eve to pick up the kids.”
She was vibrating as she stalked to the truck.
Blake paced beside her. He made a choking noise that drew her gaze. He was struggling to hold back laughter.
“Seriously?” she demanded.
“That was a really bitchy parting shot,” he said. “I loved it.”
Remorse crept in as her ire subsided. “Do you think any of the kids heard me? I’ll feel awful if they did.”
He got the truck on the road, then said, “Thank you for saying what you did, but you know I’d never disinherit Ethan, don’t you?”
“I’m sure Dean will figure that out, but you still have to hang onto the ranch for Ethan to get it and I don’t think they’ve ever clued in that they’re hurting him by trying to hurt you.”
He didn’t say anything. They started out of town toward Copper Mountain and Nola’s place at the bottom.
“Four hundred thousand,” Liz blurted.
“What?” Blake asked sharply, turning his head with a shocked stare, before he sent his attention back to the road.
“I know you wouldn’t ask, that you don’t want it, but if I sold my house and added it to the divorce settlement and all of Dean’s payments, I’d have close to four hundred thousand dollars.”
“Holy crap, Liz.”
“I told you I had money,” she muttered.
“You are a hoarder.”
“All the cash you’ve given me for groceries is in an envelope in the freezer,” she added in a guilty rush.
“You’re an idiot,” he said with a bewildered laugh.
“No, that’s the best place to keep it. It’s one of the most likely places it would survive if there’s a fire.”
He turned into Nola’s driveway and parked. Curly circled off her lap to his and back. Blake gathered him up.
“You’re coming in?” she asked. “I was going to say if I’m not out in five, knock on the front door
and I’ll sneak out through the garage.”
He shook his head at her. “If Nola starts in on you, tell her I’m outside shoveling the drive and you want to help.”
“You have a passive aggressive streak, too,” she accused.
“It’s the only language some people understand,” he said, handing her the dog as they reached the side of the house. He picked up a shovel.
It turned out to be a dark, quiet and frosty twenty minutes, the worst of it happening inside the house in the first five. They finished clearing the drive and climbed into the truck, breathless from shoveling so hard and fast. As Blake backed onto the road, a car pulled up going the other way. It was Meg in her rented SUV.
“Hey. I left you a note. Skye’s having a girls’ night. Book club with wine instead of books,” she snickered. “Did you want to come, Liz? I was going to spend the night, but . . . ”
“No, I, um . . . Thank you, but—”
“I was just teasing. I knew you guys would rather have the house to yourselves. See you in the morning. Call me if you need me to get anything on my way home.” Meg took off up the hill.
Did they? Did Blake want her with him? She had assumed he did, but he was pretty quiet as they drove home.
Home. She was starting to think of his ranch that way. Everything Petra had said rang in her mind. It had given her the gumption to throw her threats of financing this ranch into Dean’s face, but there was very real willingness to do so behind it.
If Blake would only accept it.
The house felt quiet and empty after the activity of having the kids home, but she turned on the lights on the tree. The soup she’d left in the crock pot was still simmering. She fed Blue, who looked mopey, and put away the dishes Meg had washed after the bonfire.
When Blake came in from closing everything up, he was cold and hungry enough to want to eat right away. Then, he went up to shower and she impulsively joined him, wanting the closeness.
“Hello,” he said with a pleased sweep of his gaze down her nude body as she crowded in against his.
“Something we haven’t been able to do with kids in the house,” she murmured, pressing against him so her breasts gave him a soapy, silky caress and her stomach took the nudge of his growing erection.
Blame the Mistletoe (Montana Born Christmas Book 1) Page 10
