Christmas on the Ranch

by Arlene James

  “You work on Saturday?”

  “Yep.”

  “Uh, Dixon, I was wondering...”

  He paused in the doorway to the mudroom. “Yeah?”

  “A Christmas tree for the house would be fun and really cheer up Jackie.”

  Shrugging, he turned. “We usually just cut a red cedar. I’ve tried to eradicate them on the range, but there are a few around the house. I really don’t have time for cutting one right now, though.”

  “Do you have ornaments?”

  “Sure. Up in the attic.”

  “Okay. Now, about the fireplace. Jackie loves a fire. Would you mind if I brought in some wood and—”

  “Yeah,” he interrupted, “I do. Since it’s a propane fireplace. Just flip the switch on the side of the mantel.”

  “Ah.”

  “Now, I gotta go.” He turned away.

  “One more thing.”

  Sighing, he turned back. “Make it quick. I have to doctor an injured cow before I can get to work.”

  “How can I reach you? In case of an emergency.”

  For a moment he merely glared, but then he barked out ten digits. She whipped out her phone and quickly tapped them in, repeating them aloud. A second later his phone started to ring.

  “Now you have my number, too.”

  Nodding, he turned and walked into the mudroom, the phone in his hip pocket still ringing. After a moment she tapped the icon that ended the call. She heard him pulling on his outerwear and mere seconds later he left the house. She returned to her chair and sat down to think, then called her sister. Dawn didn’t have any more experience with men than Fawn did, but Grandmother was already at work, and Dawn was far more careful and suspicious of the opposite gender than Fawn. Surely between them they could safely discern Dixon’s likely reactions if Fawn did what she was contemplating.

  Dawn answered groggily. “I’m the sister who sleeps in. Remember?”

  “Your alarm goes off in five minutes.”

  “Then this had better be a five-minute-long conversation.”

  Chuckling, Fawn told her twin what Dixon had said about the Christmas tree. Dawn agreed that he, conveniently, hadn’t told Fawn that she couldn’t cut down a tree herself and likely wouldn’t be upset if she spared him the effort.

  “Send me a pic when you get it decorated.”

  Fawn promised, but privately she was more concerned about pleasing Dixon Lyons. She told herself that it was because he hadn’t committed to taking care of Jackie and Bella yet, but she feared that the reason was more personal, and that frightened her. Was she more her mother’s daughter than she knew? Even when he was being contrary, she liked Dixon. Was she ignoring the warning signs, as her mother must have done with her father? When Dawn’s alarm went off, Fawn felt a sense of relief. If her overprotective sister ever suspected how strongly Fawn was attracted to Dixon, she’d be on the road to War Bonnet within the hour to judge him and the situation for herself.

  After changing, feeding, bathing and dressing the baby, then getting her down for her nap and making Jackie comfortable, Fawn found it was late morning before she was able to go out in search of the tree. Thankfully, Dixon didn’t seem to lock anything, and she found the tools she needed, along with a wheelbarrow in the little shed built into the end of the carport. The task was more laborious than she’d imagined, and to make matters worse, the tree fell on her. It wasn’t large enough to do any damage, but cedar needles proved surprisingly sticky and itchy.

  Lunch had to be handled and the baby and Jackie seen to again before Fawn could decorate. Desperate for a shower, she worked quickly, getting the tree into the stand in front of the living room window, stringing the multicolored lights, hanging the ornaments and threading wide, wired, red ribbon through the branches. Finding no angel for the top, she used a tinsel star that had seen better days. All in all, she thought it turned out well. Sitting in front of a cheery fire, Jackie seemed to agree.

  “That really takes me back. So much has changed around here, but that really takes me back.”

  Fawn snapped a picture with her phone and texted it to her sister, then rushed off to shower and change her sticky, itchy clothes just in time to start dinner.

  Dixon came in as she was getting the bread ready for the oven. “That smells good.”

  “Homemade chicken noodle soup and my grandmother’s biscuits. They’ll take about twenty minutes if you want to shower first.”

  “That’ll work. Took care of that stubborn old heifer on my way in.”

  “What’s wrong with the heifer?”

  “Nasty cut on her rear leg. It’s been stitched, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “I can ask my grandmother what she recommends.”

  “Your grandmother’s a vet?”

  “No, a nurse, but she has a healing way with all living things.”

  “Huh.”

  She’d seen that skeptical look before, but she made no comment. Neither did he, not then and not after he walked into the living room and pointedly looked at the Christmas tree. In fact, he must’ve noticed it when he’d driven in. The lights would undoubtedly show through the front window, but he simply walked past the fireplace and into the hallway without a single word.

  When tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes, Fawn felt like kicking herself. Or him.

  * * *

  Dixon told himself that it was foolish to feel disappointed that she hadn’t waited for him to cut down the tree and help decorate it. The last couple years he hadn’t even bothered with a tree because he lived alone and knew he’d be spending the holiday with his dad and the rest of the family. Still, he’d felt an unexpected warmth when he’d spied the glowing lights of the Christmas tree in the front window. It was nice not to come home to a cold, dark house, even if what awaited him inside was a lot of problems. If it had only been Fawn waiting for him... But he dared not think like that.

  Then memories had assailed him as he’d taken in the tree, years past when he and his mother and grandparents had made a whole evening out of putting up the Christmas tree. He’d suddenly longed for what had never truly been, wondering why it was so easy to forget the good times and so difficult to forget the bad.

  He had suddenly wished that they had never come; yet the idea that decorating this tree tonight with Jackie and Fawn would have banished bad memories had washed over him. He felt robbed, especially if Jackie was dying, as Fawn insisted. He turned off the thought.

  Like his dad said, worry didn’t add a single day to anyone’s life. Prayer, on the other hand...

  Lord, if it’s true that she’s as sick as Fawn says, have mercy on her.

  He left it at that and swiftly cleaned up. When he returned to the kitchen, it was to find Fawn carrying food into the formal dining area. He’d removed the wall between the old formal dining room and the living room to make it one large open space with cased openings that gave good lines of sight from the kitchen into both areas. The Christmas tree, however, stood in the central window, the one space that would be difficult to see from the breakfast nook where he normally took his meals, so Jackie requested that the meal be served in the dining room.

  Dixon had no quarrel with the arrangement. With the fire blazing and the tree twinkling, he felt the first real stirrings of Christmas spirit. He certainly had no complaints about the food. The soup was hearty and delicious. The bread, though, was the stuff of dreams—high, airy, flaky. He’d have made a real pig of himself if Fawn hadn’t said she’d make gravy with breakfast if enough biscuits were left over.

  As the meal progressed, however, he felt more and more uncomfortable, so he escaped to his room and watched a movie on the TV there. All the while, he wondered what Fawn and Jackie were doing, but when he slipped out after the movie, all was quiet and dark, so he turned in for the night.
>
  He tried very hard not to be too impressed when he walked into the kitchen the next morning to find a skillet of thick, fragrant sausage gravy steaming on the stove and a plate of warmed biscuits waiting for him. As it was Sunday, he came in dressed in his darkest jeans, white shirt, blue tie and his best sport coat.

  Fawn wore her usual boots, jeans and loose top, this one plaid with a collar and cuffs. She’d braided her hair and left it swinging in one long plait between her shoulder blades, slender tendrils twining with the chunky turquoise orbs dangling from her dainty earlobes. He didn’t know how she managed to look so stunning with such casual ease. She seemed as kind as she was beautiful, too. How many people would do what she was doing for Jackie and his sister? He realized suddenly that he would very much like to be her friend.

  For a moment he thought about inviting her to attend church with him, but then he’d have to ask Jackie, too, and take along Bella, all of which would require some explanation. Given that he had yet to mention any of them to his dad’s family, he couldn’t very well just appear in public with them. So he said nothing, just thanked her for the breakfast as he rose from his chair. She looked faintly startled.

  “Uh. You’re welcome. I’ll have lunch ready by noon. BLTs and potato skins. Your mom really likes both, and she doesn’t eat enough.”

  He really liked both, as well, and Fawn was an excellent cook, but his stepmom almost always invited him over for Sunday dinner, so he said only, “I’ll keep that in mind,” as he headed for the door.

  “Is it the tree?” she asked.

  He paused, trying to decide what to tell her. Finally, he shook his head. “No.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you. Since you were so busy, I thought I’d just take care of it. I hoped it would cheer up the place, bring in a little Christmas spirit.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It does. I didn’t realize how much it would until I saw it. Then...” He shrugged. “I guess I suddenly wished I could’ve taken part.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at her toes. “Well, I wasn’t trying to keep you out. It just never occurred to me. It’s been a while since I’ve been around a man much. I don’t remember my grandpa, and my father died when I was eight.”

  “Aw, I’m sorry. What happened?”

  “He was a drunk,” she said flatly. “He set the house on fire accidentally. My mother tried to pull him out. They both died.”

  He stared at her for several seconds, at a loss for words. Finally, he said, “That’s awful.” Then he felt he had to add, “I’m sorry. For everything.”

  She smiled tentatively. “Me, too.”

  Nodding, he headed for the door, guilt dogging him every step of the way. He hated the anger and resentment that he felt for his mother and the way it had splashed over onto Fawn in the beginning. He hated that he was ashamed of his own mother and that he didn’t want to be seen with her or tell the rest of the family about her. He hated that strangers showed her more understanding and kindness than he could. He told himself that he couldn’t have handled the situation any other way, however, and when he joined the rest of the Lyons family in their customary pew, he felt mainly relief at not having to tell them about his mother’s presence or the existence of his baby sister. Still, when Lucinda invited him home with the rest of the family for Sunday dinner as usual, Dixon couldn’t quite make himself agree. So he came up with an excuse.

  “I better not. That old heifer of mine’s not doing too good. I need to give her as much attention as I can today.”

  His father clapped him on the shoulder. “Let me know if you need help, son.”

  Dixon smiled. “Will do.”

  Then he took himself home, irritated by how much he anticipated Fawn’s cooking. And just the sight of her. Why’d she have to be so wonderful, anyway? He kept trying to find some flaw, but not only was she lovely to look at, she was selfless, kind and caring. She had the most beautiful face he’d ever seen. Her hair couldn’t have been any blacker or more lustrous, and though she stood at least a foot shorter than he did, she was perfectly proportioned, with skin that looked like caramel silk. He was finding it increasingly difficult not to touch her just to see if it was as smooth as it looked. He didn’t like being so drawn to his mother’s champion.

  The meal did not disappoint, and with Bella awake and charming everyone with her gurgles, squeals and smiles, he couldn’t help enjoying himself, which just added to the guilt he already felt.

  He escaped to the barn at the earliest opportunity, only to find the cow in a very foul mood and that the wound on the heifer’s leg still looked red, angry and swollen. She couldn’t kick, so she tried to squash him between her body and the stall fencing while he attempted to rewrap her wound.

  “I’d flatten you, too, if you kept me tied up like that.”

  Surprised that Fawn had followed him and managed to enter the barn without his knowledge, Dixon dropped the unrolled end of the bandage in the dirt. Irritated, he balled up the whole thing and tossed it over the rail before pushing up to his feet. She stood there in a big canvas coat, the cuffs rolled back. The coat was obviously a man’s and much too large for her but looked warm. If she had gloves, she wasn’t wearing them.

  “Sorry about that,” she said.

  Dixon pointed at the cabinet fixed to the wall just inside the door.

  “Bring me another bandage.”

  She went to the cabinet, rummaged around and found the right packet. When she returned to the stall, instead of simply handing over the bandage, she let herself inside and went to the cow’s head, frowning. “She’s on too short a halter.”

  “I’ll loosen it when I’m done here.”

  Fawn patted the cow then sidled around it, keeping a hand on the rough black hide.

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Yep.”

  “You should untie her back legs.”

  “It’s to keep her from breaking open these stitches.”

  Shaking her head, Fawn said, “Too stressful and uncomfortable for her. Remove the hobble. She’ll calm down.”

  “She’ll kick me!” Dixon exclaimed before emphatically holding out his hand for the bandage.

  Fawn gave him a droll look. “You’re not smart enough to keep from getting kicked by a haltered cow?”

  Dixon glowered, but something told him that she was right. He dropped down to his haunches and gingerly removed the hobble. With Fawn at her side, the heifer didn’t so much as swish her tail, and when the hobble dropped away, the cow immediately shifted, blew and lowered her head. Fawn came and peeked at the wound before digging something out of the pocket of her coat and handing it to Dixon. It was a plastic baggie filled with a yellowish paste.

  “Will you try this on the wound? Grandmother says it draws out infection and reduces swelling. It won’t hurt, I promise.”

  Frowning doubtfully, Dixon opened the baggie and sniffed, catching hints of honey and something sharpish. He removed a tube of ointment from his own pocket and held it up. “The vet gave me this.”

  “So use that, too. For all the good it seems to be doing.”

  He uncapped the tube and squirted a line of the goo all along the wound. After replacing the cap, he returned the tube to his pocket. Wisely, Fawn passed Dixon the bandage and moved back to the cow’s head without further comment. Dixon squatted there on his haunches for several heartbeats, the baggie in one hand and the bandage in the other. He looked at the jagged, inflamed line of the wound and thought, Why not?

  Opening the corner of the baggie, he squeezed out the paste, laying it in a line alongside the prescription gel. He closed the bag and quickly ripped the paper package protecting the bandage to begin wrapping the bandage around the animal’s leg.

  While he worked, Fawn spoke softly to the cow, patting the animal as if it was a pet. Dixon didn’t recognize any of the
words she used, the language unlike any he’d heard. As swiftly as possible, he molded the self-adhering mesh around the wounded limb. To his surprise, the heifer barely moved. He glanced at the head of the stall to find Fawn feeding the cow from her hand.

  “What are you giving her?”

  “Crackers. Cows like them because they’re salty.”

  “Obviously. She’s not been eating. I’ve been trying to tempt her with sugar, but she’s not been cooperating.”

  “She’ll eat now,” Fawn said, lengthening the halter rope. As he finished off the bandage, she crumbled crackers into the feedbox. When he went to add more grain, the cow already had her nose buried deep in the box, her tail swishing happily.

  Dixon took the hobble and let both himself and Fawn out of the stall. “Where’d you learn about cows?”

  “My grandmother has a milk cow. And chickens and rabbits. How come you don’t have chickens?”

  “Too much trouble. With the cattle and horses, I have my hands full.”

  “You have a good place for a chicken coop,” she said. Then, abruptly, she asked, “Why do you have three horses when you can only ride one?”

  “The two geldings, Phantom and Jag, are cutting horses, very useful on a ranch. The stallion, Romeo, is a moneymaker, or will be once he’s trained and shown.”

  She tilted her head, a sign, he had come to realize, that she was thinking. “Do you always name your horses after expensive automobiles?”

  Dixon chuckled. She was quick. “Caught that, did you?” He moved to Romeo’s stall and hung his forearms on the top rung.

  “Rolls Royce Phantom, Jaguar and Alfa Romeo.”

  He nodded. “Yep. The point is, I’d rather have these guys than those cars.”

  Laughing, she said, “Clever and appropriate.”

  “I thought so.” He cut her a curious look. “What was that you were speaking earlier? It wasn’t English.”

  “Well, it’s primarily Unami. Some call it Lenape, though that word means man or people. My mother was almost full-blood Leni-Lenape, what you would call Delaware Indian.”