The Christmas Room

by Catherine Anderson

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “When I was little, my dad would call her and try to let me hear her voice on the phone, but she always refused to talk to me. He thought I needed to have some kind of relationship with her, I guess. He only did it a few times, though, before he decided not to put me through that again.” Caleb shrugged. “So I’m fine with the way she wants it. I don’t need her in my life. Gram and Dad say she’s a nice person, but I wonder. She’s been married something like four or five times. I’ve got half brothers and sisters, and I don’t even know their names or how old they are.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “I don’t really care. Not that I wouldn’t like having brothers or sisters, but the ones I’ve got are strangers. My point is that my dad has been my only parent. He had to work to help support me, even when he was still in high school and then going to college. He didn’t have much time for a social life. Dating women, I mean.”

  Kirstin let her gaze stray to the river. The view resembled those from the ranch. Where was Caleb going with this?

  “Anyway, I think it’s great that he’s met you,” he said. “I just want to say that I’d really appreciate it if you would try not to hurt him. I think he likes you a lot.”

  Kirstin’s eyes stung with tears. What a wonderful job Cam had done raising this boy. He wasn’t worried about how Cam’s relationship with her might impact him. His only concern was his father’s happiness. “I like your dad a lot, too, Caleb, and I’d never hurt him on purpose. But relationships can be tricky, and we’re still in the process of making sure we’re right for each other. Things could go wrong this early on.” She gave him a smile. “For instance, you may decide you don’t care for me.”

  “No, I like you fine.”

  She nodded. “I like you, too. But if your dad and I start to get really serious, you may have second thoughts about me being around all the time. If that happens, your father will base his decisions on what he feels is best for you. You’re the most important person in the world to him.”

  Caleb sighed. “In two years, I’ll go away to college. He shouldn’t worry about me. After college, I’ll have a job. I don’t have a girlfriend or anything yet, but someday I might get married. I’ll have my own family.”

  “True.” Kirstin hadn’t known teenage boys had such serious thoughts. “I’ll try my best not to hurt your dad. Honestly I will. Right now it’s hard to predict what may happen tomorrow or the next day. It could be your dad who backs out.”

  He grinned. “I doubt it.”

  “Ah, but people surprise each other. For instance, I don’t like asparagus.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Are you shit—kidding me? It’s my dad’s favorite vegetable.”

  Kirstin laughed. “So, there, you see? We still have a lot of things to learn about each other. Asparagus could be a deal breaker for him.”

  They turned to walk back toward camp. Caleb called to the dogs, and when they bounded up, they were covered with mud from romping in the slough. “My dad won’t dump you over not liking asparagus. If you hated steak, it might be a real problem, though.”

  • • •

  Kirstin enjoyed being with the MCLendons. Unlike at home, where meals with her father were eaten in silence, this family joked around, laughed between bites of food, and talked, the topics of conversation drifting from one thing to another. They sat in chairs and balanced paper plates on their knees. Kirstin’s red wine was served to her in a red Solo cup. Paper towels were provided as napkins. The flatware was plastic.

  “We aren’t fancy here,” Maddie said. “We use our soiled plates and bowls to start fires. We wash the plasticware about three times for reuse, and then it goes in the trash. I cringe, but the garbage company offers no curb service for recycling.”

  “We’re a little behind the times here,” Kirstin replied. “It’s a small town. We can haul recyclable material to a collection center, but many people don’t do it because it’s so time-consuming.”

  “Our steak and brandy sauce is fancy,” Caleb pointed out.

  “And delicious beyond belief,” Kirstin added.

  Cam turned to say something to Maddie. When he wasn’t looking, Caleb snatched the asparagus from Kirstin’s plate and put it on his own. She nearly choked on a sip of wine as she gulped back a laugh. Grinning, she gave him a thumbs-up.

  “What are you two up to?” Cam asked.

  “Nothing important,” Caleb said.

  Kirstin met Cam’s gaze. “Caleb is trying to cover for me. I love every vegetable on earth—except asparagus. So he’s eating mine. I hate the stuff.”

  “You should have said something,” Cam told her. “I’m sorry I put it on your plate.”

  “It’s one of the hazards when the chef dishes up.” Maddie winked. “You get some of each dish.”

  “I’m enjoying everything else.” Kirstin smiled at Cam. “Can you teach me how to make brandy sauce? It’s fabulous with beef.”

  All too soon, it seemed to Kirstin, the meal ended. She helped tidy up, oiling the cast iron after Cam scrubbed it, and then teaming with Caleb to dry the cooking utensils and plasticware. When she thought of driving the short distance home, she wished she didn’t have to leave. As basic as the McLendons’ living conditions were, they had created a warm and welcoming home here, and she could feel the love that they felt for one another as if it were something tangible. Kirstin loved her father, and she knew he loved her, but there was little laughter or sharing under his roof.

  When the work was finished, they sat in a circle, enjoying the warmth of the fire and one another’s company. The three dogs came in and lay on their respective beds under the tables.

  “Who’s up for a game of canasta?” Cam asked.

  Caleb rubbed his palms together. “I am. You whipped me last time. Now I can get even.”

  Kirstin couldn’t imagine how they could play cards, but Cam brought a small folding table from the storage area and set it up.

  Before he could get the cards out, Caleb grabbed a large roll of white paper off a wire shelf and said, “First, let’s show Kirstin our house drawings!”

  “Oh, how fun,” Maddie agreed. “I love to look at them and dream.”

  Kirstin enjoyed being shown the floor plans for each residence, which would each be around fourteen hundred square feet. “I like the open-living concept,” she told them. “And the designer wasted little space.”

  Maddie talked about wall colors and her stamped-concrete floors downstairs. She even pointed to where she would put her Christmas tree if her residence was finished prior to the holiday. “We decided to have in-floor heating. I think we’ll all love that.”

  After Caleb rolled up the blueprints, Cam pulled a chair up to the table and began shuffling the cards. They spent the rest of the evening booing over bad hands and shouting with glee when they prevailed.

  Before Cam walked Kirstin to her truck later, he turned to Maddie and said, “Mom, I’m going to see Kirstin home, and I may stay to visit for a while.”

  Maddie’s expression tightened. “Are you going to climb over the wall and risk being shot by border control? Or are you going to drive in like a normal person?” She smiled apologetically at Kirstin. “I have no doubt that your father is a wonderful man, honey, but he can be a handful when it comes to you.”

  “I’m sorry about that wall he started,” Kirstin told her. “I think Dad has gone over the edge.”

  Maddie shrugged. “It would have been a lot less money if he’d gone with signs like I did.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kirstin hadn’t expected Cam to choose tonight to enter the lion’s den, but after she thought it over, she could see how it made sense, at least to Cam. She had just met his family, and now he intended to meet her father, no matter how badly that might go. She’d been nervous when she first arrived at the McLendon camp
, hoping to win over Caleb and possibly make some inroads with Maddie. But now her stomach felt as if she had swallowed a quart of live pollywogs.

  As she and Cam walked out to their vehicles, she said, “I think this is a bad idea, Cam. Dad isn’t ready for this yet.”

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I understand, but will he ever be?”

  Kirstin honestly didn’t know. Her stomach still quivered as she turned to lean against him. “Maybe he’ll never be, but, please, try to see this like I do. I just met your son and mom. I think the evening went really well.”

  “How could it fail? You’re a wonderful person.”

  “They won’t continue to like me if you tangle with my father tonight,” she replied. “My dad will do everything he can to destroy you, and if he succeeds, they’ll go down with you. Can’t we just coast along a while longer before we stir the pot with Dad?”

  Cam tightened his embrace around her. “Ah, Kirstie. I’m really uncomfortable with sneaking around. You’ve made a valid point, but I think it boils down to two things. Am I falling in love with you, and are you falling in love with me?”

  “You know what my answer to that question is.”

  He sighed. “It’s the same for me. That’s why I wanted you to meet Caleb sooner rather than later. I don’t think it’s wise for us to continue to invest in each other emotionally until we’re sure we can eliminate any possible obstacles. For me, Caleb is one of them, and like it or not, your father is another one. Do you really want me to postpone meeting him?”

  Kirstin tipped her head back to look up at him. Golden light spilled through the cabin windows to illuminate his face and sparkle in his eyes. She’d come to care for him in ways she hadn’t expected, and now she couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to move forward without him. “Dad isn’t an obstacle for us. I won’t allow him to be. I’ll move off the ranch first.”

  “What if he puts a gun to his head after you walk out? That night when you found him on his knees in the living room and what he said to your mother about putting a bullet in his brain troubles me. People sometimes threaten to commit suicide to manipulate people or get attention. But your dad said it when he didn’t realize he had an audience. That leads me to think it wasn’t a threat and he actually considered it.”

  Kirstin’s stomach muscles coiled into knots.

  “He loves you, Kirstie, and you love him. It will be better for everyone involved if he can wrap his mind around this and come to accept it. We can’t keep sneaking around like two kids. My guess is that he already knows we’re together. With everything out in the open, he can stop imagining worst-case scenarios and deal with reality.”

  “Which is?”

  “That our feelings for each other will have no impact on him. That you love him and the ranch, and you’ll never leave.”

  Kirstin finally nodded and moved from his arms. Aloud, she said, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Silently she said a prayer. Please, God, don’t let Daddy be a complete jerk.

  • • •

  Bored out of his skull because he had nothing good to read, Sam sat in his recliner, trying to concentrate on a news broadcast. Kirstin had left hours ago without even bothering to say where she was going. He was getting damned tired of her lack of common courtesy. That irked him to no end, and it also terrified him. When she grew so bold that she no longer lied to him about her whereabouts, he had to accept that he was inches away from watching her pack her belongings and drive away.

  He knew she was with that useless jackass who’d moved in next door. Every time Sam drove by that sprawling camp, he marveled at the guy’s stupidity. Who in his right mind would subject his mother and kid to a campout during winter in the Bitterroot Valley? Sam didn’t have to trespass on Maddie’s property to see what was happening over there. He had a great set of binoculars.

  Sam briefly lost his train of thought, sidetracked by the memory of glimpsing Maddie McLendon in the buff through a window of her trailer early one morning. He prided himself on the fact that he’d been a gentleman and quickly looked away. But he’d seen enough for the sight to be branded on his brain. For an old broad, she was still put together pretty nice.

  He forced his thoughts back to her son, the king of dumb. The idiot might not know it, but that drinking-water tank he’d put next to the trailer would freeze like a gigantic ice cube if the temperatures dropped low enough. And that fancy washing machine wouldn’t work with a frozen waterline. All his crazy notions of how to care for his family were going to blow up in his face.

  Just then Sam heard vehicles go by his house. Punching downward with the heels of his boots as he released the recliner footrest, he stood and crossed over to the living room windows. Through the glass, he saw the taillights of two pickups glowing red in the darkness as they pulled up in front of Kirstin’s house. The next instant, all went dark, and then dome lights illuminated both of the passenger cabs.

  He glimpsed Kirstin’s black hair as she piled out of the ranch truck. He stiffened when he recognized Cam McLendon as the driver of the second vehicle. Rage, hot and sudden, roiled through his veins. He’d hoped Kirstin wouldn’t do this. He’d been pretty damned clear with his wording when he told her that he wouldn’t allow her to consort with men on his property.

  Sam flipped on the outside lights and slammed out of the house to stand on the porch. He glared as his daughter and her worthless boyfriend met in front of their respective pickups. He fully expected the weasel to hurry inside Kirstin’s residence. Instead he turned to walk toward the main house—and Sam—as if he’d been invited to a late supper. That’ll happen when hell freezes over.

  Kirstin ran after her friend and grabbed his arm. Sam couldn’t hear what she said, but she was clearly trying to convince him to turn back. Smart girl. She knows just by looking at me that I’m ready to go after him like a mudhole I’m stomping dry. If that jerk keeps walking, I’ll give him what he deserves. As the two drew closer and Sam could see his daughter’s face, his heart squeezed. The way she looked at McLendon told the story. He’d lost his little girl. She’d gone and fallen in love with the asshole. Sam wished he had more time to think this through. He needed a plan to make Kirstin see how worthless the dude really was. Only Cameron McLendon kept walking.

  Once at the porch, he dared to look Sam directly in the eye. Blue eyes. No hesitation. He stood on Conacher land as if he had every right to be there. “Mr. Conacher, my name is Cam McLendon. I believe you’ve met my mother. We live next door.”

  Kirstin moved closer to hug McLendon’s arm. “Daddy, please, stay calm.”

  Calm? Sam felt his pulse hammer in his temples.

  McLendon patted Kirstin’s hand before gently prying her fingers loose from his shirtsleeve. “This isn’t the way I wanted to do this,” he said as he took one step closer to Sam. “I would have preferred to talk to you long before now, Mr. Conacher. I wanted to ask your permission to court your daughter, but given your feelings about her dating, Kirstin didn’t think it was a good idea. She feared that you would just say no and then try to destroy my reputation so I couldn’t sell ranches here in the valley. It seemed to her a premature thing for me to do until we knew for sure our personalities meshed. Now I’m falling in love with her, and she’s falling in love with me. I don’t like sneaking around to see her, so I’d really like to have your blessing.”

  My blessing? This asshole had had sex with his daughter in a fucking park. Sam felt like a champagne bottle that someone had just uncorked. Without weighing his options, he went down the steps, taking them two at a time. “I’ll destroy a hell of a lot more than your reputation, you bastard!”

  Sam swung and planted his right fist in the center of McLendon’s face. The younger man keeled over backward. Kirstin screamed.

  After he moved to stand over his daughter’s fallen lover, Sam’s voice shook with rage as he said, “Get back u
p and fight me like a man.”

  “No, sir,” McLendon said through bloodied fingers that he’d clamped over his mouth. “You’re Kirstin’s father, and I respect her too much to behave that way.”

  Sam thought Cam McLendon was a lying coward and just putting on a show for Kirstin. “Any man will fight back if he has a lick of sense.”

  Reaching down, Sam clamped his hand over the younger man’s arm and jerked him back to his feet. Then he hit him again.

  Kirstin jumped in to intervene. “Stop it, Dad!” Her voice rang shrill. “Just stop it!”

  “Get out of my way, girl.”

  “The hell I will,” she yelled. “Just look what you’ve done! I love this man! He’s my guest here!” She knotted her fists. “I never realized until now just how much I’ve come to hate you! I’m leaving the ranch for good in the morning. You can wallow in your anger and misery for the rest of your life as far as I care.”

  She turned to help her pansy-assed boyfriend to his feet. Sam watched as she led McLendon back to her house. A sinking sensation attacked his belly as his anger ebbed. What had he just done?

  Feeling as if each of his feet weighed a thousand pounds, Sam made his way back up the steps. Once inside the house, he sank down on the living room hearth and held his head in his hands. For the life of him, he couldn’t think what to do or how to fix this. He’d worked his whole life to build an empire, and now he’d driven his daughter away from everything he had to offer her. God, he missed Annie. As delicate as she had been, she’d always kept him in line and made him stop to think before he acted.