“Oh. Well. We should really go.”
Travis agreed. They should go. And he should learn to keep his mouth shut. All his life people had called him charming. At the moment, he strongly disagreed. In the opinion of the woman next to him, he was anything but charming.
They were driving toward Back Street when she smiled at him. Yeah, her fiancé had been an idiot. Travis couldn’t imagine walking away from this woman with her lacy, crocheted stocking cap pulled down on auburn hair and those big eyes all soft and sweet.
“It’s a beautiful painting.”
“I had a beautiful subject.” He took one hand off the wheel and slapped his forehead. “I’m sorry, I said I wouldn’t do that anymore.”
“You’re a flirt. I think you can’t help it.”
He slid a glance her way. “For most of my life, yeah.”
“You’ve never had a serious relationship? A woman who made you want to settle down?”
He could tell her that he hadn’t, but today things were different. He could honestly say that he’d never felt that way after a few days with a woman. Not that he hadn’t wanted to feel that way. It just hadn’t happened before.
“Yes, I’ve met a woman who did that to me. It isn’t someone I know very well.” He turned into the parking lot of Dawson Community Center, formerly Back Street Church. “But I’m not good at relationships.”
“Maybe you haven’t met the right person.”
Travis eased into a parking space and cut the engine of his truck. “Yeah, maybe I haven’t. I’ve always been told when the right woman comes along, I’ll know.”
“Yes, just make sure you know before you propose to the wrong woman.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” He opened his door and looked out at the church lawn that had somehow turned into the ancient city of Bethlehem.
Elizabeth studied it as well. “This is amazing. The people in town did this?”
“Yeah, the kids who hang out here and the local churches all worked together on it. I have a few details to add on the inn and then we’ll head over to the Mad Cow.”
“I’m still not sure about eating at a restaurant with that name.”
He laughed and she got out of the truck. Together they walked up to the church. “Don’t worry, there’s nowhere better than the Mad Cow for good, home-style cooking.”
“So, I shouldn’t be afraid.”
He reached for her hand. “No, my little city friend, you shouldn’t be afraid.”
Her fingers clasped his. “Of course not.”
But her fingers were tight and he thought she trembled.
“This is the Dawson Community Center.” He figured it might be a good time to change the subject. “Formerly Back Street Church, it sat empty for years until Jeremy Hightree bought it.”
They walked through the front door of the church. It was ablaze with lights and echoed with activity. One of the local teens shouted and a few waved. They were decorating for the beginning of the nativity.
“What is it they’re going to do here?”
“Starting a week before Christmas they’ll have nightly tours of Bethlehem, and a living nativity.”
“A play?”
“Well, yes, I guess. A play based on the birth of Jesus.”
She grew silent and he had a lot of his own questions for her. Her loneliness went way beyond a broken engagement. Only days ago he’d still been the guy who didn’t mind empty conversation. He’d been the guy who really didn’t want to get involved.
Today, he wanted to find a way to never let a woman down. And that was pretty much a problem for a guy like him.
“Hey, Travis, there you are.” A woman had come up the stairs. She was small with dark hair that fell past her shoulders. Her smile included Elizabeth. “And you brought help!”
“Help for what?” Travis still had hold of her hand. “Can’t you keep my brother in line?”
“It isn’t Jeremy, it’s the kids down here making cookies. We’re taking cookies to shut-ins and to the nursing home. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Travis let go of Elizabeth’s hand to lean and hug the other woman. “You’re crazy, taking all this on.”
“Someone has to do it.” She smiled at Elizabeth and held out a hand. “I’m Beth Hightree.”
“Elizabeth Harden.”
“Welcome to Dawson. I hope you’re up for some craziness. We’re in the process of making cookies and doing last-minute alterations on costumes.”
“Count me out on cookies, I have to finish painting the inn.” Travis gave Elizabeth a little push. “But I bet Elizabeth is a Christmas cookie expert.”
“Uh, no, she isn’t.” Elizabeth shot him a look that he seemed intent on ignoring. “Really, I can tell you where to buy some lovely cookies, but making them is a skill I don’t have.”
“You’ll be great.” He started backing away.
Elizabeth grabbed his hand. “But you’re going to stay and help.”
“I have an inn to build.”
“Don’t leave me alone,” she whispered even though everyone could hear.
His gray eyes twinkled and he grinned. “You can’t live without me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, it isn’t at all what I’m saying.” She didn’t have a person, someone to count on, to hold on to. At the moment, he was her person. He had to know that.
For years she’d been so caught up in her schooling and her career that she’d lost track of true friends. She’d had business associates, coworkers and then Richard.
Until Richard walked out on their engagement she hadn’t realized how solitary she’d become. Not until she tried calling people she considered friends and no one came. No one spent an evening with her, took her to lunch or spent a night watching chick flicks with her to cheer her up.
She watched movies alone, eating ice cream from the container and wishing she had friends like the ones in the movies.
What a sad reflection on her life that this man, a stranger, had become her person.
As she stood there, trying to be her strong self, unemotional and capable, his expression changed. His gaze connected with hers. He nodded a little and his smile didn’t mock, it said he got it.
Elizabeth breathed deep and let go of his hand. She turned and Beth Hightree had a funny smile on her face.
“We’ll both help you with cookies.” Travis opened a door that led downstairs to a basement. “I’ll come back tomorrow and work on the inn.”
Beth went ahead of them, leaving them for just a minute together at the top of the steps. Travis glanced down at her, his teasing smile completely gone.
“You okay?”
“I’m good. I just…” She wasn’t going to say she needed him. “I don’t know anyone.”
“You don’t seem like the shy type.”
“I might be. I’ve never been given the opportunity.”
He smiled again, disarming, off-putting, charming. There were so many words to describe that cowboy’s smile.
“So, shy is a new skill you’re trying out? If you get the opportunity?”
“I’m used to my world. I know where I belong there and where I fit.”
“Do you?”
Did he have to do that? Two little words and she no longer knew about herself. She really had an urge to slug him in the gut.
“You’re horrible.” That was the best she could do.
He tilted his straw cowboy hat that seemed at odds with the dark-framed glasses. The studious cowboy. Did he know who he was?
“You’re my person,” she whispered as he took hold of her hand and led her down the stairs.
“I’m your what?”
“Nothing. But thank you for not leaving me on my own.”
“You got it, city girl. I won’t leave you alone.”
She wondered if he knew that she was going to hold him to that.
Not that it mattered over the next hour if he stayed by her side or not. Beth Hightree kept them so busy that Eliza
beth didn’t have a chance to think about being alone, or what she’d do with herself when she went back to St. Louis.
They decorated cookies. Bells, angels, Christmas trees, snowmen and stars. Frosting, colored sugar and sprinkles were everywhere.
“This is fun.” She spread a dab of white frosting on a star and sprinkled it with yellow sugar.
Travis had left for a minute, just to do inventory on the work left to do on the inn. Beth had taken his place next to her.
“It’s fun for an hour or so. After two or three—” Beth straightened and lifted her arms “—it’s a pain in the back.”
Elizabeth liked Beth and her husband, Jeremy, the long-lost Cooper brother. Travis had told her the story, the condensed version, he said. Yeah, if she lived in Dawson, Beth could be a friend. She would be the kind of person a girl counted on, watched movies with or ate an entire container of ice cream with.
“Okay, I have a confession.” Elizabeth placed her decorated star on the platter with the finished cookies.
“Does this have something to do with Travis?” Beth’s eyes widened.
Heat rushed its way up Elizabeth’s cheeks. “No! Actually, I was only going to tell you that I’ve never made Christmas cookies.”
Beth’s cheeks turned a little pink. “Oh, well, that’s not at all like the secret I imagined.”
“No, I guess it isn’t.”
“But you’ve seriously never made Christmas cookies? How could you not?”
“I guess it wasn’t something we did. I have other secrets that are just as disturbing. Like I haven’t put a tree up in three years.”
“That is pretty disturbing.”
“I could think of more, but I think that’s enough for one day.”
Beth bit down on her bottom lip and her eyes narrowed. She went back to work on a pretty bell cookie. Elizabeth didn’t know what to say. It was Beth who broke the silence as she put her finished cookie on the platter.
“I don’t know how to ask, but don’t you celebrate Christmas?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I guess it depends on how you view celebrating Christmas. Yes, we celebrate, just quietly. We traveled a lot for the holidays. For years it’s been the time of the year that we get away somewhere warm.”
“I see.” Beth reached for a decorated cookie and handed one to Elizabeth. “I think we should eat one.”
“Should we?”
“Definitely. It’s the frosting that makes them so wonderful. And the sprinkles.” Beth took a bite of the cookie and Elizabeth did the same.
And she had to admit, the cookies were wonderful. They were sweet and sugary with vanilla frosting.
Beth finished hers first. “We had a few very quiet Christmases after my mom died. Dad wouldn’t let us go to church. It was hard, not having that connection.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” Beth handed her another cookie and Elizabeth shook her head.
“We rarely go to church.” She shrugged at the confession and looked around. “Christmas is a holiday, but nothing like this.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty special to us.”
“I can see that.”
“Elizabeth, if you need someone to talk to,” Beth offered with a sweet smile. “I’m here.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. But really, I’m okay.”
“Beth, are you getting all sentimental with my new bestie?”
Elizabeth turned and gave Travis what she hoped would be a withering smile. He didn’t wither. Instead he winked and slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her to his side.
“Ready to go, city girl?”
“I have a name.” She didn’t mind, though. And she didn’t mind being held close to his side.
But Travis played the field, she reminded herself. He knew how to make a woman melt. He knew how to tease. He knew how to charm.
She reminded herself that he also knew how to be there for her. Even though he didn’t have to be.
“Did you finish what you needed to do?” She slipped from his embrace and turned to Beth. “Are there more cookies?”
“We’re done.” Beth shot Travis a serious warning look. He didn’t seem to notice. If he did, he didn’t show it.
“Then let’s see if we can’t scrounge up some leftovers back at the house.” He glanced at his watch. “No way is the Mad Cow still open.”
“Take sandwiches from the fridge, Trav.” Beth pointed to the big avocado dinosaur of a refrigerator. “We bought deli sandwiches for earlier. There’s plenty left.”
Travis helped himself, taking a couple of wrapped sandwiches from the fridge. “Later, Beth.”
When they walked out the front door of the church, the temperature had dropped drastically. The sky was black as ink, not a star in sight. Elizabeth shivered in her light coat and Travis reached to pull her next to him, to his warmth.
“You should have bought a heavier coat.”
Somehow they were no longer moving. They stood facing one another next to his truck. The cold darkness surrounded them. And silence—heavy, heavy silence.
St. Louis was never this dark, this silent.
The air in St. Louis never felt this heavy, this charged with electricity.
Travis held her in his arms, wrapping his coat around her and pulling her into his embrace. His mouth stopped just inches from hers.
“Would you be totally offended if I kissed you?” he whispered, his voice softly accented and husky, with just a slight catch of emotion.
She breathed deep and his scent swept around her, clean, brisk, holding her close. “I think I’d be hurt if you didn’t.”
“Man, I don’t know if I’ve ever…” He didn’t say more. Instead he leaned in, his cold lips touching hers and then warming as the kiss lingered.
He brushed his lips across her cheek, nuzzled her ear, held her close. And then he kissed her again. Eyes closed, she drifted in the dark night, holding on to a moment that wouldn’t last forever. Moments like this rarely did.
Their lips separated. He leaned close, whispering near her ear, “You taste like sugar cookies. Do you always taste like cookies?”
“Hmm, no, I don’t think so.”
“I might have to kiss you again, just to see for sure. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I’m going home tomorrow.” She’d never been more sad to say those words.
“We’ll see about that. I really think you should stay. No one should be alone at Christmas.”
She couldn’t agree more. But her heart had already been broken once and she didn’t think it could take being hurt by him. Because if he broke it, she thought it might be broken for good.
And she’d finally accepted that what she’d felt after Richard’s phone call hadn’t been a broken heart. It had been about relief. Anger and betrayal, but also relief.
She’d been spared marriage to a man she hadn’t loved, not with her whole heart.
Chapter Six
Bright sunlight streamed through the window of the upstairs bedroom Angie Cooper had shown Elizabeth to the previous day, when she’d first arrived in Dawson. Had it really just been a day? She lay there in the big sleigh bed, trying to make sense of everything that happened the previous evening.
The kiss. Even after they’d shared sandwiches in the big kitchen, alone because Angie and Tim Cooper had already gone to bed, Elizabeth had still remembered the way Travis held her. The way his kiss made her want to believe that someone could really love her forever.
She’d watched him walk out to his truck and drive to his apartment. She’d watched as the lights went out. She’d finally climbed the stairs to the guest room and she’d spent another hour sitting next to the window wondering if God really was out there somewhere, caring about her.
And she’d wondered what Travis had planned to say but hadn’t. He’d never what?
Not that it mattered. With morning came new perspective. She’d be leaving. Travis would forget her. Life would go back to normal. Soon. Wha
t she needed to do was immerse herself in work and let that be her focus.
As she lay there, a dog barked, doors slammed and then loud voices combined in an uproar that sounded as much like a fight as a party. Someone knocked on her door.
“I’m up.” She pulled her blanket to her chin, in case the person on the other side decided to open the door.
“I wanted to let you know that we’re making pancakes and then we’re going to find our Christmas tree. Do you want to join us?” Angie Cooper’s voice on the other side of the door sounded bright and rested.
Elizabeth felt as if she hadn’t slept two hours. Her eyes were heavy with sleep and her stomach growled. She’d never been a morning person. But pancakes?
“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Good. I found warm clothes for you. Can I bring them in?”
“Of course.”
The door opened a crack and Angie peeked in. She smiled, looking much younger than a woman with a dozen children, a few of whom were in their thirties. “I think these should fit. And Travis said you needed a warmer coat. I found one of Heather’s.”
“Thank you.”
Angie set the pile of clothes on a nearby chair. “I left the shoes downstairs.”
“That’s good. I appreciate this so much.”
Angie stood next to the bed. “It’s the least we can do. I hope you’ll enjoy yourself. And really, Elizabeth, you don’t have to rush off if you don’t want to.
“I appreciate that, but I’d hate to impose.”
Angie laughed at her objection. “Honey, you haven’t met everyone. You’ll see that one extra isn’t an imposition. Which reminds me, I need to call my son Jackson because he has one or two more of his own to add to our holidays.”
“Oh, is he married?”
“No, and he says he isn’t getting married. But life has a way of changing our plans.” Angie walked to the door. “It seems my son might be the proud father of a bouncing baby girl—of fourteen.”
Angie Cooper said it as if she wasn’t shocked. Elizabeth blinked a few times, plenty surprised by the way the other woman made the announcement and then out the door she went.
Christmas Gifts: Small Town ChristmasHer Christmas Cowboy Page 15
