The Cowboy's Christmas Plan

by Shanna Hatfield

  When she pulled to a stop, she noticed how inviting the house looked with split cedar shakes on the roof, light tan siding and warm brown and white trim. Just as she was ready to step out of the car, two rambunctious dogs ran down the porch steps and over to her door.

  Never owning a pet and not spending time around dogs, Cadence didn’t know if she should be afraid. Quickly deciding the dogs probably weren’t any more vicious than their owners, she opened the door carefully, stuck out her hand and talked softly to the dogs. Both canines yipped and wagged their tails, then proceeded to lick her hand as she got out of the car.

  The feel of their slobbery tongues on her fingers was a new experience and not one she was sure she liked.

  “Bob, Bonnie, you two get back,” a friendly voice rumbled from behind her. Cadence spun around as Trey walked toward her with a smile.

  “Wasn’t sure you were going to make it,” Trey said as he walked up next to her and gave each dog a pat on the head. “I was about ready to call out the posse when I saw the dust from your car coming up the road.”

  “How did you know it was me?” Cadence asked, curious.

  Trey laughed as he walked to the back of her car and opened the hatch door. “Anyone else who would be coming out here is already here.”

  As he pulled the door fully open, grocery bags shifted and started to slide out.

  “Be careful,” Cadence warned, grasping the handles of two bags before they tumbled out of the car. “I’ve got a full load.”

  Trey looked into the car and whistled. “I think that might be an understatement.” Grabbing as many bags as he could carry, he led her toward the door on the side of the house. “Did you leave anything in the store for anyone else to buy?”

  Cadence didn’t hear the teasing in his voice and went on the defensive. “I most certainly did. In fact, I brought you back fifty dollars and some change. I’ve got it right here in my purse.”

  “Miss Greer, I trust you.” He set the bags on the kitchen counter. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have given you the money in the first place. Looks to me like you did a good job of shopping.”

  Trey walked back out to the car to get another load, wondering what had made the woman so touchy.

  Cadence let out a deep breath and walked back to the car. Bill, for all the money he liked to flash around, was a penny-pinching tightwad. Anytime he gave her money to pick something up, he wanted a receipt and the exact change, right down to the penny, accounted for.

  She was going to have to get used to people trusting her and trusting them in return. She stopped suddenly as she realized she nearly married a man she didn’t trust. That should have been a big warning sign to her. Nearly as big as the one she failed to notice that said Bill would never trust her.

  “You okay, Miss Greer?” Trey asked as he walked by on the way into the house with another load of groceries.

  “I’m fine, thank you.” Cadence redirected her thoughts and hurried to the car to help unload.

  By the time they had all the groceries and supplies unloaded and Cadence’s belongings in the house, Trent arrived and helped carry in the last box.

  “Well, this might take some time to put away.” Trey glanced around. “Trent, why don’t you go park Miss Greer’s car in the garage for her while I take her luggage to her room. Miss Greer, if you don’t mind, we’ll let you put the groceries away where you like, that way you’ll know where to find everything when you jump into cooking tomorrow. Is that satisfactory?”

  Cadence was once again caught off guard. They were going to allow her to waltz into their home and completely rearrange the kitchen to suit her. Who were these people?

  “Yes, sir.” She picked up a bag full of frozen items. “Do you have a big freezer?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Trent said, opening the door to the mudroom where a chest freezer along with an upright freezer filled one wall. “The chest freezer is full of beef, but the upright is mostly empty.”

  Trent ran outside to move her car while Trey hauled suitcases and her few boxes of belongings to her room. When they both returned to the kitchen, they helped her put away the groceries and supplies. Cadence decided they must have left the kitchen much like their mother and their former housekeeper had set it up because the arrangement was both functional and sensible.

  “I don’t see a need to move anything. Everything is very well organized,” Cadence said as she put away the last bag of groceries. Running her hand over the granite countertop, she smiled. “It is a beautiful kitchen.”

  “Would you like a tour of the house?” Trey asked as he watched her take in the large country kitchen complete with a double oven, commercial-sized fridge, two dishwashers and expansive counter tops. The big farm table easily seated twelve and light from a bank of windows brought in welcome sunshine on cold winter days.

  “I’d like that very much,” she said, following Trey and Trent to the front door. A wall to the right of the door kept the dining area from being visible to visitors. Straight ahead was a wall with a mirror, coat rack, and small bench. It looked welcoming and inviting.

  On the left of the entry was a room they called the “ladies parlor” where a set of lovely Victorian furniture resided along with an upright antique piano. Next to it was a large office and library area. From there, she could see a long hallway in what the men called the south wing.

  In the office, an immense bookcase full of books covered one wall. “It can get kind of boring in the winter out here when the weather hems us all in, so some of us like to read,” Trent said. “Help yourself to any of the books.”

  “Thank you.” Cadence studied the masculine room. The wall behind the large desk had a variety of metal objects hanging on it. She walked closer to get a better look, tipping her head as she studied the display. There were matching pairs of each object, but she still wasn’t sure what she looked at.

  “Admiring my spur collection?” Trey asked, stepping beside her. “Are you familiar with spurs?”

  “I know cowboys wear them, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair. I’m guessing some of them are quite old,” she said, pointing to a pair that looked ancient.

  “Metal spurs date back to around 2 B.C. The first ones were most likely made of wood or bone,” Trey explained, taking a pair off the wall and handing them to Cadence. As she held them, he pointed to various parts.

  “Spurs are made up of some basic components with variations. This part is the heel band. It goes around the back of the boot. The metal bar coming away from it is the neck and that spinning piece on the end, shaped like a star, is called the rowel.”

  “Oh,” Cadence said.

  “The phrase ‘earn your spurs’ came from a time when knights earned their spurs.” Trey continued his history lesson. “A disgraced knight would have his spurs taken away and his sword broken. Over in Spain, influenced by Northern European large rowels, and heel plates from Moorish spurs, they developed a spur that travelled to America with the conquistadors, which evolved into Latin American spurs to the south. They traveled north with vaqueros where the styles evolved yet again, based on climate and terrain of a region, into the shape of today’s western spurs.”

  “Interesting,” Cadence said, impressed with Trey’s historical knowledge. “And what do they do, exactly?”

  “They help your horse know what you want him to do,” Trent added, stepping up on the other side of Cadence. “It gives the rider another tool to guide the horse in the direction he should go.”

  “It doesn’t hurt them?” Cadence asked, suddenly thinking some of the spurs looked like they could poke a hole through concrete, let alone the tender side of a horse.

  “Not the spurs we wear.” Trey hung up the spur she’d been holding and took down another pair with spiked ends instead of rowels. “These would definitely have caused some damage.”

  “How old are some of these?” Cadence asked.

  Trey pointed out a pair from the seventeenth century he had managed to find at a
Portland auction, a pair from the 1880s, and a set that traveled with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.

  “These belonged to our great-grandfather.” Trey pointed to an old rusty pair. “Then there is our granddaddy’s pair, and that flowery set belonged to our grandmamma. Those little biddy ones were my first pair.” Trey pointed to a miniature set of spurs. His hand gently touched a silver pair that looked like they’d been hung up right after the wearer took them off. “These belonged to our dad.”

  Cadence didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded her head sympathetically.

  “I think that’s enough of the professor’s history class for one day,” Trent said, grinning at Cadence. “You’ll have to forgive him. While some of us have normal hobbies like football, he spends hours studying history and looking for old spurs.”

  Trey shot Trent a cool glare, but motioned for him and Cadence to precede him out of the room.

  The three of them returned to the entry area, on the other side of the wall across from the front door was a large open gathering room, visible from the kitchen and dining area. A big fireplace, sofas and several comfortable looking chairs completed the room.

  From the gathering room, doors opened out onto a large patio where a barbecue and several pieces of outdoor furniture sat in what seemed like an open courtyard. She noticed there was even a fire pit with curved benches built around it. With the wings of the house flanking it, the view from the courtyard looked out toward a pond and the rolling hills that would be golden with wheat in the summer.

  After wandering through the patio area to the end of the south wing, Trent opened a door and stepped back to let Cadence and Trey precede him. There were five bedrooms as well as a large bathroom in this section of the house.

  “This is where Trent and I get our beauty rest.” Trey grinned as they walked down the hall toward the main area of the house. “Travis will sleep here, too, when he’s home. And we have two guest rooms in this section with private baths. Trent and I share the big bathroom here.” He pointed to a large bathroom, across the hall from the office.

  They walked back to the kitchen and down a short hall to the north wing, where Cadence would stay. Trey moved her things into a spacious room located just steps down the hall from the kitchen. Two large windows flanked a patio door that opened to the courtyard. A rocking chair sat beneath one of the windows and an intricate hand-stitched quilt topped a queen-sized bed. A chest of drawers with a matching bird’s-eye maple dresser had surely been crafted a century or so before.

  As she ran her hand over the beautiful wood, she watched as Trey stepped over to a door that opened to a large closet. Cadence was also thrilled to discover she had her own private bathroom.

  “Will this room work for you?” Trey asked.

  “It is wonderful and more than adequate,” Cadence said, knowing that every piece of furniture in the house was nicer than any she’d ever owned. “Thank you for this opportunity. I hope my work will be acceptable.”

  “Miss Greer,” Trent said, a teasing gleam twinkling in his eye, “If the pie I ate last night is an example of your work, then we’ll get along just fine.”

  The three of them laughed and continued on their tour. Across from Cadence’s room was a laundry room with a large washer and dryer and wall-mounted rods for hanging damp clothes. A deep sink sat in a solid counter top and an ironing board rested beneath a set of tall shelves.

  Next to the laundry room there was a small guest room with a private bath. A few steps down the hall brought them to a door that opened into a master suite. The room was massive and felt sadly forsaken.

  The suite included a fireplace with what was once a sitting area, large windows and French doors that opened out to the courtyard. A chest of drawers and dresser with an ornately carved mirror matched the over-sized king bed. Trey opened another door and turned on the light in an expansive bathroom with double sinks, a deep garden tub and a walk-in shower. There was also a large walk-in closet.

  No art hung on the walls, no quilt topped the bed, and nothing in the room was warm or welcoming.

  “This was Mom and Dad’s room,” Trey explained. “When Mom moved to town, she took most of the things from this room with her and none of us felt like doing any redecorating. When Mom comes out to visit, she stays in one of the guest rooms. She says too many memories live in here.”

  Cadence could almost feel Denni’s pain and loss in the room. “I’m very sorry about your father. Aunt Viv said he was a wonderful man.” Sincerity added softness to her voice.

  Trey and Trent both looked at her.

  “Thank you, Cadence,” Trent finally said. “Our dad was one of a kind.”

  As they walked back out to the hall, Trey reverently closed the door.

  “Now, Miss Greer,” Trey said as they walked her back toward her room. “We don’t expect anything fancy for breakfast but we like to eat at six-thirty each morning. Is that going to be too early for you?”

  “Not at all.” Cadence stopped at the door to her room. “What about dinner tonight?”

  “We’ll make do with sandwiches or something. You are welcome to make yourself whatever you want or we can make a sandwich for you.” Trey stood in the hall, smiling warmly at his newest employee.

  When Cadence’s fresh, womanly scent surrounded him, Trey knew without a doubt he needed to get out more around the female portion of the population. The woman gazing at him with gold flecks swimming in her eyes made his heart pound and his shirt collar feel uncomfortably tight.

  “Nonsense,” Cadence replied. “Give me a few minutes to settle in and I’ll whip up something simple.”

  “Miss Greer, we don’t expect you to cook for us tonight.” Trey took a step toward her. When he placed a hand on her shoulder, an electrical jolt raced up his arm and exploded through his chest. “Really, you can just relax this evening.”

  “No. It’s fine. I really want to make dinner. I promise it will be simple and easy,” Cadence said, surprised she could speak at all. The fire racing from Trey’s fingers all the way to her toes was enough to completely addle her ability to think, let alone speak.

  “You do know you’re stubborn, don’t you Miss Greer?” Trey teased, taking a step back toward the kitchen.

  “So I’ve been told on more than one occasion. I’ll have dinner ready at six.” Cadence went inside her room but turned back. “And thank you for this opportunity. I very much appreciate it.”

  “It’s us who should be thanking you, Cadence,” Trent said, backing toward the kitchen. “I’m already dreaming about another piece of your good pie.”

  As Trent turned the corner into the kitchen, Trey watched a blush highlight Cadence’s cheeks.

  “Are you sure you don’t need anything, Miss Greer?”

  “No, I’m fine. I do appreciate you putting your trust in me,” Cadence said, humbled that these two men would take her in, give her a job and trust her in their lovely home. They didn’t know anything about her, and yet they were willing to give her a chance.

  With a brief nod of his head, Trey walked back to the kitchen and anticipated something good to eat for dinner. Tonight, it would just be the three of them. Tomorrow, it would be interesting to see how Miss Fancy Pants Greer was going to handle seven hungry men first thing in the morning.

  Chapter Four

  Just because something doesn't do

  what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

  Thomas Edison

  Cadence dreamed she was lost in a night fog. She couldn’t get out of it and the only thing that penetrated the all-consuming darkness was an annoying beeping. Struggling to find her way out of her dreams, she sat up with a gasp and slapped her hand on the alarm.

  Her eyelids felt heavy, like a five-pound weight held each one shut, as she struggled to come awake. Cadence had always been an early riser, using the morning hours to catch up on housework, exercise, or to write letters and pay bills. She often arrived home late after work, exhausted with no
time to get things done in the evenings.

  But the stress of the last few weeks had finally caught up with her and all she wanted to do was sleep. The bed in her room was the most comfortable one she’d ever slept on and rolling out of it at five in the morning was just not something she wanted to do.

  The realization she’d have a kitchen full of starving men waiting on her in an hour and a half propelled her out of bed. She jumped in the shower and got ready to face the day.

  Rushed, she pulled her damp hair back into a loose ponytail, not taking time to dry it. The natural wave escaped the confines of her hair band with tendrils curling around her face. She brushed on a quick layer of mascara, applied a touch of lip-gloss and dressed in jeans with a soft cotton blouse and a pair of ballet flats.

  The house seemed quiet as she walked into the kitchen, so she turned on the lights, put on the coffee and got down to the business of making breakfast.

  While she worked, she thought about the strange turns and twists her life had suddenly taken. A month ago, if someone had told her she’d be standing in the kitchen of a sprawling ranch house in Grass Valley, Oregon, making breakfast for seven single cowboys, she would have told them they’d lost the ability to think with any degree of sanity.

  Although she was a business professional and excelled at her job with Neil, Cadence had always loved to bake and cook. Right out of high school, she toyed with the idea of becoming a chef, but after taking several courses and doing a month-long internship at a restaurant, she decided she didn’t really like the idea of working all the hours required by that profession. That, combined with the fact she was terrible at the waitressing end of things, ended her culinary career before it ever started.