Christmas in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  “Yeah. I want Camden.”

  “Then you’re going to have to tell her.”

  And with that statement Adam left the bar, and Levi went back to throwing darts. Tell Camden how he felt. To what end? She’d already walked out on him. Already accused him of things he didn’t deserve.

  Although, come to think of it, maybe he did. She was right that he had made demands on her that he hadn’t followed through on from his side of things. Levi had never walked out on a wedding, but he had walked away from a career that was important to him. Because of an injury, but he’d still walked away. When he could have just told Camden how he felt about her, he’d instead come up with an elaborate plan that had blown up in his face. Now he was alone. In a bar. Throwing darts at a wall while trying to convince himself he’d done nothing wrong.

  When the truth was, he’d done everything wrong.

  How many times had Camden told him she didn’t want to be controlled? That she wanted to make decisions based on her personal wants and needs and not those of other people?

  He had to show her he wasn’t trying to control her with the trail decision; he was merely trying to give her what he believed she wanted.

  * * *

  CAMDEN CLICKED THE mechanism in her pocket, and Six responded by crouching beside one of the tunnel runners, as if waiting for the moment he could pounce on an intruder. She needed the dog to learn to wait there, no matter how long, because there would be times when the animals he herded would not be quick to move.

  Something caught Six’s attention, and he moved his head. Camden clicked until the dog refocused on her. “Steady,” she instructed the dog. “We’re waiting.”

  This time, Camden heard the movement behind them, too. She clicked so Six would stay and turned, expecting to see Grandmom with a thermos of coffee. Camden had taken to having her lunch at the training area since coming back to the dog school after hiding at Julia’s for a couple of days.

  Hiding hadn’t sat well with Camden. Neither had not answering the phone calls that continuously came in, so she’d turned off her phone and no longer carried it with her. Because of that, Bonita would come to the training area every few hours, just to see if Camden needed anything.

  Only it wasn’t Bonita holding the thermos of coffee. It was Levi. Camden clenched her fist around the clicker, setting off a single click that released Six from his hold. The dog trotted over to Levi, rubbing his head against his leg.

  He wore that Carhartt jacket that made his shoulders look so wide. Jeans and boots. The familiar football cap on his head. He looked good. Too good. She hadn’t wanted to see him, not until she was over him. However long that might take. She’d been prepared to become a hermit, only leaving the dog school for funerals and weddings, all in an effort to avoid him. Not the most adult of plans, but it beat the alternative, which was leaving Slippery Rock so she wouldn’t be faced with the colossal mistake she’d made by falling for Levi Walters.

  She might not have the man she loved, but she had found herself here, in a tiny map dot of a town that threw a monthlong celebration of Christmas and New Year’s.

  “Hello, Levi,” she said, proud that her voice was steady.

  “Bonita said you might need this,” he said, holding out the thermos. Camden took it and set it down quickly on the seesaw apparatus. The usually cool metal was warm from Levi’s hands, and she couldn’t feel his heat, not right now.

  “Don’t pet the dog,” she said when Levi reached toward Six’s ears. His hand stilled, and the dog whined. Damn it, the poor thing only wanted a little head scratch. She shook her head and Levi scratched, and the dog sighed happily. “What do you want, Levi?”

  He reached into the pocket of his coat. “I was hoping to have better news.” He handed her the sheet of paper from the trail designers, accepting the new layout of the trail. “I asked Thom if he could stop it, put the trail back along the actual route instead of the spur, but the designer won’t budge.”

  “Great. Thanks for the good news.”

  She turned away from him but didn’t hear him leaving. So she turned back around. “What? You want to check up on me, see if I’m handling the disappointment of loving you well? Make sure I’m not a puddle of goo because you don’t love me back?”

  “I do love you.”

  That stopped Camden cold. “Don’t.” She didn’t want him to say that just to make her feel better. Although stomping all over his heart the way he’d stomped on hers wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

  “I love you. I think it happened somewhere between seeing you in that wedding dress in the bar and that first kiss outside the barn. But I didn’t realize I loved you until after you said you loved me. But we were in the middle of making love, and I didn’t want you to think I was confusing sex with love, so I didn’t say it back. Then I thought maybe you needed a grand gesture—”

  Camden didn’t want to believe him, but his brown gaze was focused and clear. “And you thought putting the trail through the spur would show me that you loved me?”

  Levi shrugged. “I knew you were in favor of the trail, that you had good memories of the trail up north. I wanted to give you a trail here. The original route would have mostly bypassed Harris Land. The spur puts part of it directly on your land.”

  “You mean my grandfather’s land.”

  “I mean your family’s land. It’ll be yours someday, legally, but it’s already in your blood. It’s a part of you.” Levi twisted his mouth. “I’ll admit, moving the trail to the spur meant less work for me, but mostly, it was about giving the trail to you. To walk, to use with the dogs.”

  “You...you wanted to give me a trail?” It was too crazy, too weird, too unlike Levi. He couldn’t have believed that approving a rail trail to run directly through the area she wanted to use for training would show her how much he loved her.

  She didn’t need a grand gesture. She only needed him.

  “I’ve never been in love with someone before. I love my family, my friends. But I’ve never let a woman get that close to me. Not because I was afraid or had been hurt, but because I like to plan. I planned my way to the football scholarship and then to a draft choice. I planned how I’d expand the dairy. The knee injury, that was unplanned, and it moved up my timetable, and I’ve been so conscious of that change that I started overcompensating in other areas. I thought if I told you how I felt on my terms it would be easier to control the feelings.”

  Camden shook her head. “I’ve never been in love before, either, but even I know you don’t get to control feelings like love.”

  “I guess I’m a slow learner.” He took another piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. Camden opened it and found a map.

  There was an X marking an area with training tunnels and other apparatus. Levi pointed at the X. “That’s where we are now.” He pointed to another X. “That’s the land I’ve been renting from Calvin.” There was another X, just past the rented land.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s about ten acres of completely worthless land. It’s too rocky and steep for the older cows to be safe there, and it would take too much money to make it habitable for them. So it’s just sitting there. Useless, at least to a dairy farmer.”

  Camden swallowed, and focused her gaze on him. “Levi—”

  “I was thinking that I needed a grand gesture to show you how much I love you, and it occurred to me, over a game of darts, that maybe what I needed to show you was how much I believe in you.” He handed her a third piece of paper. “It’s yours, Camden. You can use those acres for your on-the-job training sessions with the dogs, if you choose to. I figure since you don’t mind hiking all the way out to the spur, you won’t mind hiking past a few head of cattle.”

  “You don’t have to give me ten acres of your property to prove a point.”

 
“I know.” His fingers traced over her chin, and it was all Camden could do not to press her lips into his palm “Consider it an early Christmas present. I love you, Camden. I want you to build this dog school to be whatever you want it to be. I want you to stay in Slippery Rock. I want you to be with me.”

  Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. She wanted to be with him, to build up the school, to make her grandparents proud. To stay in Slippery Rock. Mostly, though, she wanted Levi. “I didn’t get you anything.”

  “You already gave me the most important gift in the world.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your heart,” he said.

  Camden looked at Levi and knew there were tears in her eyes. “I do love you, Levi Walters.”

  “And I do love you, Camden Harris,” he said as flakes of snow began falling from the gray sky. Levi grinned.

  Camden put her arms around Levi’s neck. “Snow before Christmas. You said that never happens in Slippery Rock.”

  Levi gathered her in his arms and kissed her. “It’s a season for miracles,” he said.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from MAKING IT RIGHT by Kathy Altman.

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  Making It Right

  by Kathy Altman

  CHAPTER ONE

  “THAT’S FAR ENOUGH.”

  Kerry Endicott lifted her gaze from the graveled path and stared into the scowling face of the man she’d traveled five hundred miles to see.

  “You need to leave,” he continued, his tone curt. “Now.”

  The man who obviously had no interest in seeing her.

  Even after all this time.

  After all she’d been through.

  A cold, quiet curl of hurt lodged in her chest. But what did she expect, after what she’d done?

  Kerry drew in a slow breath and gazed mutely over his shoulder, at a trio of Quonset huts. Shadowed rows of hanging baskets inside each plastic-wrapped structure accounted for the rich odor of damp earth delivered by a teasing April breeze. Weathered outbuildings and shrubs with spindly arms bowed by the weight of sunshine-yellow blooms dotted the property around the huts. To the right of the driveway, at the crest of a long, gentle slope, sat a two-story farmhouse, its plain white exterior brightened by apricot shutters. To the left, the backdrop of feathery pines gave way to vivid green Pennsylvania farmland and a horizontal strip of blue that had to be Lake Erie.

  This place—Castle Creek Growers—was much nicer than he’d described. Then again, that last mention had been more than two years ago. They’d talked only once after that, when she’d begged him to visit her. He hadn’t even hemmed and hawed. Just offered a naked no.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said.

  He took a hesitant step forward. Kerry held her breath. Then a woman called his name from inside one of the huts and he pushed out his chin and widened his stance, as if prepping to protect the owner of the voice.

  From Kerry.

  She tightened her grip on the keys in her right hand and a sudden staccato blare made her jump. Her heart flung itself into a slam dance. Car alarm. Chill. Stones skittered as she whirled toward the driveway and fumbled to press the panic button again on her fob.

  Finally, silence. An echo pulsed in her ears, but it wasn’t the rhythmic shriek of the alarm.

  “You need to leave,” he’d said.

  Slowly she turned back to face him. “Dad,” she croaked, half greeting, half protest. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” No response. Her cheeks heated and her eyes burned. “I’ve been driving all day,” she said thickly.

  His gray-blue eyes had gone hard. “No one asked you to.”

  God. She’d known this would be tough. She just hadn’t expected it to be this tough.

  A door slammed. A girl in jeans and a pink sweatshirt clomped down the porch steps. His boss’s daughter? Nicole? No. Natalie. As she jogged around the side of the house, she aimed a curious glance at Kerry.

  “You’re late” came the gruff words from Kerry’s father.

  The girl’s gaze moved to the older man. “Can’t help it. Mom made muffins. Growing bones and all that. Banana chocolate chip. Too bad I didn’t save you any.” With a smart-alecky grin and one last glance at Kerry, she took off across the yard, toward the nearest Quonset hut, brown hair bouncing on her shoulders.

  Harris Briggs’s snort bore more affection than pique. “If she thinks she’s going to eat all the muffins and get out of snail duty, too, she has another think coming.”

  “What’s snail duty?”

  The indulgence on his face dimmed and his gaze dipped to Kerry’s ankles. He wouldn’t be able to see anything, since the hem of her dark gray pants reached nearly to the toes of her high-heeled boots.

  “Been six months already?” he asked, almost idly.

  “All things considered, time went a little slower for me.”

  He grunted. “I have to get back to work. Anyways, the answer is no.”

  She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her light wool jacket to keep from yanking at her hair. “I haven’t asked a question.”

  “You didn’t come all this way just to show off your bare ankle. You should have saved your gas money. I’m done opening my wallet for you.”

  “I didn’t come to borrow money. I came to return it.”

  Her father, a former marine with more hair in his eyebrows than on his head, folded his brawny arms across his chest and waited. Good grief, he looked even more intimidating than she remembered. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

  She felt like one, though.

  Kerry licked her lips. “I mean, I don’t have the money now. But as soon as I get a job, I’ll be able to pay you back.”

  “And you think I can help with that.” His thick brows lowered. “If you’re countin’ on me getting you a job here with the Macfarlands, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Reid’s been through enough, and his wife, Parker? Don’t know what I would do without her. She’s like the—” He stopped.

  “The daughter you never had?” Kerry swallowed. This was worse, so much worse than she’d expected. But at least he was talking to her.

  Heat swept her cheeks, but she had to ask. “Would it be possible to stay with you? Just until I find my own place.”

  “If you’re bent on stayin’, there’s a motel down the road a ways.”

  She bit back a sigh. A motel it would
be, though she couldn’t afford more than a couple of nights. She’d better find a job quick, or she’d be sleeping in her car.

  “But it’d be a hell of a lot easier on everyone concerned,” he continued, “if you just headed on back home and forgot about writin’ a check I won’t ever be able to cash.”

  She tipped up her chin. “Easy got me into this mess. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Approval was too much to hope for, but anything other than the stark disbelief on his face would have been welcome.

  “You got you into this mess. Anyways, what kind of job you thinkin’ you can get in Castle Creek that’d pay enough to get you out of debt?”

  She was tempted to tell him she’d be dealing drugs, but he’d probably believe her. “Any job that’s available.”

  His face said that yeah, he’d believe her. “Dad.” He flinched yet again. She’d have to find something else to call him. “I’m not the same person I was. That’s why I’m here. To prove that to you.”

  “I’m not interested in your money, and I’m sure as hell not interested in your promises.”

  “Eugenia, too. I want you to know she’ll get every penny back.”

  He paled, and his thick arms dropped to his sides.

  Oh, no. “You two aren’t together?”

  “Not anymore.”

  So it was more than the return of the prodigal daughter that had him looking so miserable. “May I ask what happened?”

  His expression soured. “She wanted to invite you to the wedding.”

  Kerry sucked in a breath. This wasn’t going to work. Why had she thought this would work? She stumbled in a half circle and started back to the driveway. She’d managed two steps when the voice she’d heard calling her father stopped her.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  Kerry hesitated, then turned slowly back around as the woman added, “Harris? Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

  A tall, striking redhead in overalls and a long-sleeved plaid shirt almost identical to the one Harris was wearing stood sandwiched between him and the girl who’d run out of the house earlier.