“I may be stickin’ my nose in where it don’t belong, but how are things between you and Dixie?” Hud asked. “Rose and Claire were talkin’ last night about how they’ve never seen her so happy.”
Landon removed his hat and raked his fingers through his hair, and then he chuckled. “Y’all have bets going, don’t you? And you’re out here getting some inside information, right?”
“Busted!” Hud laughed out loud. “So you’re not staying.”
“Every one of you will have to wait to find out. I will tell you this much. I’m moving into the cabin until summer, and then I’ll make a decision,” Landon told him.
“If that girl loves you as much as you love her, staying a few more months will be the best Christmas present you could ever give her.”
“I didn’t say I loved her,” Landon protested.
“Some things you don’t have to say,” Hud chuckled. “It’s written all over your face every time you say her name.”
* * *
On Monday Dixie worked on making a quilt square with a string of lights while Sally played with the ornaments that she had taken off the lower limbs of the Christmas tree, but the squirrel had only gotten dirty looks.
Dixie needed one more quilt square to complete the quilt, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make. Then she remembered she hadn’t made one to commemorate the church program they’d attended the day before. She found a scrap of fabric that was printed with Christmas trees and cut one of those out and laid it on a red square. When she had finished stitching around the edges of the tree, she carefully drew a rocking chair on a piece of paper. The first two attempts didn’t work, but the third was the charm. She didn’t realize how much intricate work would be involved until she pinned the rocking chair to the square.
“He’s worth it,” she muttered.
She had finished sewing the squares together with alternating red and green squares by quitting time that afternoon. She fluffed it out in front of Sally and asked, “What do you think, baby girl?”
“Doggie.” She pointed at the puppy square.
“That’s right, and you’ve learned a new word. You are such a smart girl.” Dixie dropped the quilt top on one of the rocking chairs and bent to hug Sally. “You’re going to grow up to be something amazing.”
Sally stuffed the puppy ornament in her mouth and grinned around it.
“Or maybe you’ll be a comedian.” Dixie giggled and hugged her again. “Whatever you are, I want you to be self-confident and happy.”
When Dixie heard a truck door slam outside, she grabbed the quilt, raced to the back room, and hid it in an empty box. She grabbed her coat and Sally’s from the bedroom on the way back up the hall and then answered the door.
“Sorry about making you wait. I was in the bedroom getting our coats,” she said when she opened the door.
“No problem,” Landon said. “I’ll help get Sally ready.” He talked as he put the baby’s coat on her. “We’re going to see all the pretty lights. They aren’t nearly as pretty as you or your mama, but they’ll make you smile, and then we’ll go out for pizza and ice cream.”
“Ice keam.” Sally clapped her hands.
“And we’ll clean her up together, right?” Dixie smiled up at him.
“Yes, ma’am. You ever hear that song by Blake Shelton called ‘I’ll Name the Dogs’?”
“Of course I’ve heard it. Blake is one of my favorites,” she said.
Landon grinned. “Well, you know how he says that you can name the babies, and he’ll name the dogs? I figure I’ll take out splinters if you’ll clean up ice cream messes.”
“Think we could write a country song like that?” Dixie asked.
“I bet we could,” he chuckled.
“We make a pretty good team, don’t we?” She picked up her purse and the diaper bag.
“We sure do,” he answered. “Have you ever been to a festival of lights?”
She shook her head. “That costs money, and Mama needed her cigarettes and beer.”
“Well, get ready for a surprise.” He sat up, and Sally crawled over into his lap. “I don’t expect this to be as big as the one in Hollywood, but I’m looking forward to sharing it with you and this sweet little girl. All you have to decide is whether we have pizza and ice cream before or after the show.”
“Maybe before, so Sally doesn’t turn into a whiny monster,” she suggested.
“This baby?” Landon carried her out to the truck. “Never happen.”
“Oh, yes, it can. If she’s hungry, she’s unbearable. They do have pasta at the pizza place, don’t they?” she asked. “She doesn’t do well with pizza, but she loves pasta.”
“Yep, and they have an ice cream machine so we can either put some in a cup or make cones,” he answered. “I didn’t think about her not being able to eat pizza. We can go somewhere else if you think we need to. There’s a buffet on the same road that will have vegetables and ice cream too.”
“Pasta is great, and I love pizza.” Dixie opened the rear door and helped him get Sally into the car seat. “I think we’re ready.”
“Doggie?” Sally cocked her head to one side.
“No doggies tonight, sweetheart,” Landon told her. “They might have a Snoopy dog in the lights, but it won’t be a real one.”
Dixie sucked in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. She knew exactly what Sally was talking about, and it wasn’t a real doggy, but an image on a quilt. In another year, the baby would be talking enough to tattle about Christmas presents. Dixie would have to be careful about what she showed her.
“Are we ready?” Landon got behind the wheel and started the engine.
Dixie picked up her purse and nodded. “Let another wonderful adventure begin.”
“Have you really enjoyed all the events, even though most of them were catastrophes?” Landon asked.
“More than words can say,” she answered. “Simply going out for pizza, pasta, and ice cream is like getting a Christmas present to me. Add in getting to experience a light show for the first time”—she stopped before she said, with you—“makes that two big presents.”
“For real?” Landon put the truck in gear and backed out of the driveway. “If you could have anything in the whole world for Christmas, what would it be? Money wouldn’t even be an issue, so would it be diamonds, a fancy new car, or what?”
“You want the truth?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.” He made a right turn toward Bowie.
“I’d want one more week like this last one,” she answered. “This has been the stuff that dreams are made of. When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of having a perfect Christmas like all the other kids at school talked about, and now you’ve given me just that. I’ve never had so much attention poured on me in all of my years combined, Landon. And I just love our little Christmas tree.”
“An ugly tree that is already getting dry and shedding. Next year, we’re having an artificial tree with soft needles, so it doesn’t bite the baby,” he declared.
Dixie held her breath for a minute, letting hope get a toe in the door. “And you helped me make my first snowman.”
“It wasn’t even a foot tall,” Landon laughed, “but we did have fun playing in the snow.”
“And we’ve got lots of cookies made,” she went on.
“After we burned a few in the process,” he reminded her.
“You’ve come to see us every night this week,” she finally said.
“That was the stuff dreams are made of for me, Dixie.” He reached across the console and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Why would you only want one more week? Why not a lifetime?”
“That would be asking for too much, and I’d feel selfish,” she answered. “I’ll just be happy with what I’ve had and count every minute of this Christmas as a blessing and a miracle. Especially when I know you’ll be moving on soon. Have you decided what day you are leaving?”
“Pretty much,” he replied.
“You
wouldn’t leave without sayin’ good-bye to us, would you?”
“I promise I won’t.” He took her hand and gently squeezed.
Driving to Bowie took only ten minutes, and Dixie let her thoughts wander, reliving the moments she’d had with Landon. The most beautiful things in life weren’t perfect. They were feelings and memories and smiles and laughter. Landon had made her believe there were good men in the world…and she had flat out fallen in love with him. The ugly tree, the tiny snowman, the burned cookies—a perfect Christmas was a feeling, not everything turning out flawless. Every time she thought about this year, she would wrap the warmth of that emotion around her like a warm blanket on a snowy night and think of Landon.
There were only a half dozen vehicles in the pizza place parking lot. Monday night was buffet night, so they didn’t have to wait to be served. Landon loaded up two kinds of pasta on a plate for Sally, along with some tiny bits of ham and cheese from the salad bar so that there would be a few things she could eat all by herself. Then he fed her bites as he ate his meal. Every one of his gestures, every moment she spent with him, every smile he flashed her way was a memory, and there could never be another Christmas as perfect as this one had been—not even if she lived to be a hundred.
They were back in the truck headed for the entrance to the light show in less than an hour. Dixie hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what she saw. From the time they crossed under the brightly lit arch and started the drive through the park where the lights were on display, she felt like a little kid.
“Go slow so I can take pictures for our album,” she said as she snapped photo after photo until her battery went dead.
“Here, now you can use mine, and I want a couple of selfies of you with the displays behind you in the window,” Landon told her. “And don’t forget to turn around and take some of Sally. I’ve been watching her in the rearview, and her little mouth has been a perfect O ever since we started the drive.”
“Neither one of us has ever seen anything like this. I thought maybe we were just going to drive around and look at people’s houses all fancied up,” she said.
“Did you do that when you were a kid?” Landon asked.
“Once,” she replied, but kept snapping pictures. “The stepdad who was with us then took us to look at the lights, but he and Mama got into a big argument on the way home, and she kicked him out. But hey, I got to see something pretty before the bad stuff happened that time around.”
“Do you always find something positive, even in terrible situations?” he asked.
“I do my best,” she answered, and wondered exactly what she would find positive when she and Sally were telling Landon good-bye.
Don’t weep when he goes. Give thanks for the time you got to spend with him.
Chapter Nine
By Christmas Eve night, there were boxes of cookies in every room at the Quiltin’ House. Landon worked for half an hour loading the boxes with plates covered in plastic before transferring them to the truck. Then he and Dixie got Sally strapped into her car seat so they could begin their delivery rounds. First stop was the Fab Five house, where they took in five separate plates full of cookies—one for each of the elderly folks. Then they drove out to the ranch and were able to catch the bunkhouse guys before they all left for a couple of days with their kinfolks. That taken care of, they swung by Claire and Levi’s house and were invited in to visit for a little while.
Levi and Landon left the ladies in the kitchen and disappeared into the living room with a couple of beers. “When are you moving into the cabin?” Levi whispered.
“Already did,” Landon said. “Got all my stuff in there today. I love the place, but good lord, that bathroom is tiny.”
“Yep,” Levi chuckled. “It sure wasn’t designed for a couple to shower in, but Claire and I managed to defy the odds a few times. Does Dixie know yet?”
“I’m going to tell her tonight. I even put up a tiny little tree, and I have a present wrapped for her and one for Sally waiting underneath it,” he said.
“Did you call Pax and Maverick?” Levi asked.
“Yes, and I’ll be going back out to west Texas the first day of June, so teach me everything you can between now and then. I’ll be working for Maverick at first, and maybe later, I’ll help with both ranches,” he answered.
“Nervous about telling Dixie and the move?” Levi asked.
“You can’t imagine how jittery I am,” Landon answered.
* * *
Dixie and Claire sat at the table and sipped from cups of hot chocolate while their babies crawled around the table legs and giggled as if that was a funny game.
“I made Landon a throw for Christmas, but now I wonder if it’s too cheesy. It’s got a square to remind him of each thing we did this past week,” Dixie said.
“He’ll love it,” Claire assured her. “Did you manage to make one with kissy lips on it?”
Dixie’s face immediately flushed with a bright red blush. “I did not!” she protested.
“Too bad, because that’s what he’ll remember more than anything. When he kissed you, did your toes curl?” Claire asked.
“Yes, they did, and my insides went all hot and mushy,” Dixie said.
“That’s great,” Claire said. “That’s the way I still feel when Levi kisses me, and I hope it affects me the same way when I’m ninety.”
Dixie wanted to say, “Me too,” but she couldn’t. “Did you tell Levi about—” She paused, then looked over her shoulder and whispered, “…the baby yet?”
“Not until morning. One of his presents is the first ultrasound picture,” Claire answered.
“That’s a great idea,” Dixie told her.
“Hey, are y’all ready to go?” Landon came around the door and into the kitchen.
“What’s a great idea?” Levi crossed the room and bent down to pick up his son.
“Santa doesn’t reveal his secrets until Christmas morning,” Claire told him.
“We really should be on the way,” Dixie said. “It’s been great visitin’ with y’all, but—” She stopped and stared at Landon. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say ‘y’all.’ You usually say ‘you guys.’”
“Guess this Texas lingo is rubbing off on me.” He reached down and gathered Sally into his arms. “Let’s get your coat on, sweetheart. We still have places to go, and then you can open your present from me.”
They drove to the big ranch house and then to each of the other places where Dixie wanted to give cookies. The clock on the dashboard flipped over to 8:30 when they were finished, back in the truck, and ready to go home. The only box left in the back of the vehicle held a plate of cookies, and the quilt, all wrapped up in gold paper for Landon. She wasn’t sure where or when he wanted to exchange gifts, but she was ready no matter what.
Instead of driving down the lane and toward the road leading back to Sunset, he made a left-hand turn and headed to the barn. If he wanted to have Christmas out there, that was fine with her. The little throw she had made for him wouldn’t seem like such a small present in a barn setting.
“Bit!” Sally squealed when she recognized the barn.
“We’ll see Little Bit tomorrow if you want to,” Landon told her. “Right now, we’ve got somewhere else to be.”
“And where’s that?” Dixie cocked her head to one side and raised her dark eyebrows.
“It’s a surprise,” Landon answered.
As far as Dixie knew, the cabin was the only place located that far back on the ranch, but she couldn’t imagine why they’d be going there. Had he realized how much she’d loved the little place and wanted to have Christmas there?
She could see a trail of smoke from a distance, and hoped the cabin wasn’t on fire. Then she remembered the fireplace. He’d started a fire for warmth, and they were going to have their Christmas there for sure. Just thinking about the peace and coziness she’d felt when she was there put a huge smile on her face.
/> A few snowflakes drifted down out of the sky as he parked as close to the porch as he could. He opened the passenger door for Dixie and then took Sally out of her seat. “I thought we’d have our private Christmas right here. I’ve got a pan of lasagna ready to put in the oven, and a bottle of wine chilled. Let’s go on in and spend the rest of this evening together.”
Tears welled up in Dixie’s eyes. Once she’d heard someone say that home wasn’t a place but a feeling just like the memories of Christmases, and that evening, she knew that she’d come home. Rose and Hud had taken care of her after the fire. Claire had given her a job. The Fab Five had befriended her and spoiled Sally with love as well as presents. Retta had given Sally her daughter Annie’s outgrown clothing. Then there was the rest of the folks on the two intertwined ranches who had become her friends. And now Landon had brought her to the cabin for Christmas—that was enough to bring tears of joy to her eyes. She swiped at her cheeks with her coat sleeve and picked up the last box of cookies.
“What’s that?” Landon asked.
“Your present from me and Sally,” she told him.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “I’ve eaten at least a dozen cookies every night all week, and I got mine right out of the oven.”
“It’s just a little something to remember us by.” She carried the box to the porch. “It’s nothing fancy.”
He swung the door open and the aroma of fresh bread wafted out to greet her. “You made bread?”
“No, I baked bread this evening. It came in a roll and all I had to do was put it in the oven. The lasagna came from the frozen food department. I can make a mean breakfast and a fairly good pot of chili for the bunkhouse, but I’m not a good cook,” he admitted as he sat down on the sofa with Sally. He removed her coat and carefully set her on the floor. Then he got up and slid the pan of lasagna into the oven. “I put up a little fence so she can’t get close to the fire. Let’s have presents while supper heats up. Sally can have hers first.”
A Little Country Christmas Page 8
