“I’m not a very good student.” He smiled.
“Then you might get a spanking with a ruler. I’ve got my ways to make you into a very good boy.”
The gritty growl in her voice left him cold, as if he’d rolled in the snow strip stark naked. He’d tasted the faint remnants of cigarettes covered up by beer and chocolate. But there was no stirring in mind or body that wanted him to show her anything he had. And he was too old to go back to school, even if the teacher did promise to work with him.
Lisa stepped back abruptly and Sage stood behind her.
“May I cut in?” Sage asked.
Lisa’s laugh was brittle. “Sure thing. Don’t throw him back, Sage. He’s not trained, but there’s promise in that sexy body.”
Sage’s body next to his had a very different effect. Instantly, he wanted to kiss her. Hell, he wanted to do more than that. He wanted to carry her up that staircase and kick open the nearest bedroom door.
The vision of tumbling her onto a bed and letting the hot kisses take them on another wild journey stirred every nerve in his body. “How long do we have to stay?”
“Until the last dog is dead. April and I are cohostesses at the party. And why were you kissing that hussy?”
“I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me. Sometimes the mistletoe is your friend. Sometimes not so much. Where did all these women come from? I thought the canyon was like a man cave.”
Sage’s fingers played in the hair hanging on his neck. The visual of hauling her off to the bedroom changed to carrying her into a cave with candles glowing in the corners and stretching her out naked on a pile of thick, soft bearskin rugs. With Sage, he just might enjoy role-playing after all.
“But I never did like whoopin’s,” he mumbled.
“What did you say?”
“Lisa offered to take me home and teach me how to kiss. She’d be the teacher and I’d be the student and if I didn’t get it right, I’d get a whoopin’ with a ruler,” he said honestly.
“That hussy! I’ll show her a whoopin’, but it won’t be with a ruler.”
“I’ve handled worse than her, Sage. I can fight my own battles.”
The dance ended and Lawton tapped Creed on the shoulder. “We’ve got a discussion going about breeding buffalo with Angus. We’d like your input.”
* * *
Sage made herself walk slowly up the staircase but she wanted to run. Greenery had been looped around the banister and red velvet bows were attached on every fifth rung. The sides of the landing were strung with gold tinsel garland and caught up at the top with another bow and a big ball of mistletoe.
The kissing was over. She’d already let it go way too far.
She bypassed the restroom at the top of the stairs and circled around to April’s room. She stopped at the edge of the railing and looked down at the party. The feeling of Christmas was in the air. Lights twinkled everywhere. Ladies kept trying to work their way under the mistletoe as they danced. When they did, the kisses were anything from brief pecks on dry lips to downright take-it-to-the-hayloft sexy. A riot of red, green, gold, and silver decorated the whole room as well as the big tree. And then there were the two-foot trees that decorated the tables shoved away from the dance floor.
A beautiful sight with a great party, and she’d forgotten that Grand wasn’t there for the first time in more than fifty years. April was sitting at a table with Willa Sue and Maria. Lawton had Creed cornered beside the Christmas tree.
Sage started to turn around and go into April’s bedroom when her skin tingled like it did when Creed touched her. She looked back down and he was gazing up. He grinned and waved, then went back to his conversation.
She eased into the bedroom, turned on the light, and shut the door. The blue dress was crumpled on the bed beside her when she sat down. She pulled the phone from her tiny gold evening bag and hit speed dial. Her grandmother picked up instantly.
“Hey, are you having fun?” Grand asked.
“You are supposed to be here.”
“And I’m not. Deal with it. We work hard all year and we only party at Christmas and Independence Day. If you are sitting in April’s room sulking, you deserve to be miserable.”
“How did you…” Sage stammered.
“I might not be there, but never doubt my Indian sense.”
“Or Hilda’s cell phone or the gossip hotline, right?”
“Doesn’t matter how the ESP shit works. I just trust it and I don’t fuss about the way it comes to me. Now get back downstairs and have fun. I understand Creed is gettin’ on well with Lawton and that April didn’t wear that topless dress.”
“It was you that sent that to Lawton, wasn’t it?”
“It was not! I sent it to her mother and she sent it to Lawton. A mother has a right to know how her girl is looking in public.”
“And what if that dress had been mine?”
“You are twenty-six, Sage. You’ve got better sense than that.”
“Don’t you miss all this? It’s Christmas. We only had each other all these years and Christmas was our favorite time of the year,” Sage asked.
“Sure I miss it. I miss your grandpa. I miss the ranch. I miss my son. I miss your mother, who was like a daughter to me. I miss you. I miss all of it. Don’t mean it’s not time for a change. I’m hanging up now. Call me tomorrow after the Hanging of the Green and tell me all about the weekend.”
* * *
Lawton stood beside April as the last of the guests left after midnight. Hugs and handshakes and the door shut behind Lisa, the very last one to leave. She sent a wink and a kiss blown from her fingertips across the room toward Creed and gave Lawton an extra long hug. The lights still flickered. The mistletoe was still in place. The band had gone home and the caterers were cleaning up.
“Wonderful party,” Creed said.
“Thank you. Hilda takes care of it every year. I just show up and make sure my daughter is dressed right,” Lawton said.
“Daddy!” April hissed.
Sage hugged Lawton. “I missed Grand but it really was a good party.”
“I talked to her during the party and she and Hilda were on the phone with each other most of the night. I don’t think she missed much.” Lawton chuckled.
“Well, we’ll be leaving now. See you tomorrow at church,” Sage said.
“And afterwards you will be here to help us eat up some of these leftovers, right?” April asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sage said.
“And you?” Lawton asked Creed.
“Wouldn’t turn down another bite of those buffalo wings for anything. I’d walk through the blizzard to get at those things.”
“My kind of cowboy,” Lawton said.
Creed’s pickup was barely warmed up by the time they reached the end of the lane on the Canyon Rose. He’d put the console up so that there was a wide bench seat and Sage had moved right up next to him.
“I feel like a teenager,” she said.
“You don’t look like one. Who was that last fellow you danced with?”
“Joe Rendetta. He’s the vet from Claude. We see a lot of him.”
“He married?”
“Was but now he’s divorced. He and Lawton went to school together.”
“Does anyone get married and stay married in the canyon?”
“Grand did.”
“In this generation?” he asked.
“Lots of young women are workin’ on that,” she said. “You see anything you were interested in?”
“Yes, I did,” he said.
Sage’s breath caught in her chest. “Did someone introduce you to her or did you dance with her?”
“Both.”
Sage hadn’t wanted to share Creed, and riding home in the dark with nothing but snow still on the ground and cold wind blowing, she un
derstood why. If he was suddenly thrown into a room full of petite, charming women eager to do whatever the hell he wanted in the bedroom, she’d soon be like yesterday’s newspaper. Tossed in the pile at the end of the sofa to take to the burning barrel.
“And who is she?” she asked, but she didn’t want to hear the name.
“You,” he said softly.
He parked the truck in front of the house and opened the door before she could answer. He hurried around the truck, opened her door, and slipped an arm under her bottom and one around her shoulders, just like in the visions he’d had that evening. Through the pounding in her ears and the beating of both their hearts, she could hear the soft crunch of the top layer of snow as his boots crunched their way toward the house.
And for the first time in her life, she forgot all about her size.
She leaned away from him enough to open both the glass storm door and the real door and he carried her over the threshold but he didn’t put her down. His lips found hers and the kiss spoke volumes. It said that all the cute little women at the party hadn’t appealed to him. That she was the one he wanted to be with; she was the one he had danced with; and she was the one he carried into the house. She put both arms around his neck and her feet hit the ground just enough to give her momentum to take a gentle leap and wrap her legs around his waist.
He cupped his hands under her bottom and the tight-fitting dress hiked right up as if it had a mind of its own. He took a step forward and set her on the credenza. The zipper of her dress came down and warm air flowed against her cool skin. How had he gotten her coat off? She’d had it on and now it was gone.
Her hands went to his chest to find that his coat was gone too. The man sure didn’t need lessons in how to undress a woman without her even knowing it. She unbuttoned his shirt and slowly ran her fingers across his tense abs and up across his chest. Lord, he felt good. Tight and ready and good, and from the hardness pressing against her stomach, something was happening below the belt buckle.
He peeled the dress down from the top without stopping the hard, demanding, and hot kisses. Next the bra came off and then he skimmed the bikinis from her hips slicker than skimming cream from the top of milk.
She moaned when he pulled her forward until her hips were at the edge of the credenza. When she opened her eyes, he was as naked as she was and his eyes had that soft, dreamy look in them, made even sexier with nothing but the light flickering from the fireplace.
“I want you,” she gasped.
“Bedroom?”
“No, right now,” she whispered hoarsely.
The washstand was exactly the right height for him to take her right where they were. Hard flesh joined hot flesh and her fingernails dug into his back. The last thing she thought before she gave up thinking about anything but satisfying the ache inside her was that she was damn glad she hadn’t put the ceramic nativity scene on the credenza yet. If she had there would be shepherds and wise men smashed all over the floor and Creed might cut his feet.
The thrusts started out slow but they got faster with each kiss and groan. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She just wanted release and when it came, he said her name in a ragged, hoarse breath. He backed up and she scooted forward, wrapped her legs tightly around him, and he carried her to the bedroom.
Then she was on the bed, in his arms, the covers pulled up over them, with that gorgeous thing called afterglow settling around them.
She giggled as she snuggled up next to him, sharing a pillow.
“Please don’t tell me you thought that was funny,” he gasped.
“No, it was wonderful…absolutely fantastic. I’ve never flown so high, Creed, or felt so safe afterwards. It was the place where I took flight from. I’ll have to polish the top of that credenza until it shines before next week and put the nativity on it or Grand will want to know why.”
He chuckled. “You don’t think your Grand and grandpa ever used it for that reason?”
“Yuck! Erase that picture from my mind.”
“You are so right. I’d rather have a picture of you wrapped around me in every sense of the word. You are a beautiful, sexy woman, Sage. You were the most gorgeous woman at the party tonight.”
The smile that covered her face was nothing compared to the feeling in her heart. “Thank you, Creed.”
“Good night, darlin’.”
“Good night, Creed.”
Chapter 16
When Sage said they were having services in a chapel, Creed pictured a small building that would seat about thirty people. But the white clapboard building in front of him was bigger than the church he’d attended his whole life in Ringgold. It had a small front porch held up by two square porch posts, a steeple on the top, and windows down both sides, not totally unlike the one in north-central Texas. But there was a lot more distance from front to back than the one he was used to.
“Chapel?” he asked Sage when he parked the truck.
“That’s what it’s been called for years. Story has it the first Pierce who settled on the land built it because it was too far to go into town on Sunday. Each generation has maintained the building. It’s probably petrified wood under those layers of white paint. Grand says she remembers when the last stained glass window was replaced, so it must have been quite the thing in the beginning.”
She opened the door and made a face. “Should have worn my boots.”
“Wait right there. I’ll carry you inside. You’ll get your feet wet in those shoes and catch pneumonia. Your grandmother will tack my hide to the smokehouse door if you get sick.”
He shoved his jeans down into the tops of his boots and circled around the truck to her side. She swung the door open and he slid a hand under her knees and the other one around her midsection. “You can shut the door, please, ma’am.”
She slammed it shut. “I can’t believe you are doing this.”
“Just don’t want your Grand to skin me alive,” he said.
But Creed’s intentions were far from honorable. If he carried her inside the church right there at five minutes before services began, then the other cowboys would for sure see that she wasn’t available anymore. And he fully well intended to share his hymn book with her too. In his part of the world, that meant that there had been an agreement of sorts met. He hoped the cowboys in the canyon played by the same rules.
The door was open a crack when they reached the porch so he stuck a toe in it and kicked. It swung to the inside and she wiggled as if she wanted him to put her down but he ignored it.
“If you’ll shut that please, darlin’,” he whispered.
Inside the quiet confines of the packed church the whisper carried right down the center aisle to the preacher who was just taking his place behind the podium. Lawton turned around from the front pew and grinned. April followed her father’s gaze and winked. Hilda gave them a mean look.
“Put me down,” Sage whispered so low that only Creed could hear it.
He marched down the entire length of the aisle and sat her down beside Hilda. Then he took his place right beside her, untucked his jeans from his boots, and laced his fingers in hers.
The preacher looked down at them, a question in his eyes.
“Excuse us, sir. She didn’t wear her boots and there’s too much snow still on the ground for her to plow through in those shoes,” Creed said.
* * *
Every woman in the church sighed.
“Well, that was very gallant. We wouldn’t want her feet to get wet or for her to be sick.” He smiled and said, “As you are all aware, we usually have this ceremony at the first of the month to get the congregation ready for the true reason for the season. But evidently God had other plans because we got snowed in pretty tight. So today we will celebrate all that is Christmas and begin with congregational singing. Inside the program, you will find the Christmas carols
we will be singing this afternoon. We’ll start with ‘Silent Night.’”
Creed had a lovely deep voice that resounded off the walls. When they got to the part about all is calm and all is bright, she stopped singing. It was true that everything was bright and pretty that time of year. It was Christmas, the season of love and happiness, of giving and sharing. But what scared her was the calm in her heart since the night before.
She did not want Creed to leave. She damn sure didn’t want her grandmother to move away permanently, but the Rockin’ C was plenty big enough for all of them. Grand didn’t have to move and Creed didn’t have to go. Just admitting that had brought about the peace they sang about.
Hilda nudged her and grinned. Sage didn’t know what was so delightful until she realized that she and Creed were sharing the program with the two congregational hymns printed inside. That might not mean jack shit in his part of the world, but in hers, if a woman brought a man to church and shared the hymn book, it meant something.
Sage shook her head at Hilda, but the older woman’s smile didn’t wane one single bit. And Sage would bet that as soon as she could find a quiet place, Hilda would call Ada and tell her all about it.
When the last piano notes of the carol ended, the preacher began the responsive reading that retold them the reason they were preparing the chapel for the birth of Christ. He read a line and then the congregation spoke their line in unison.
The preacher said that the branches of cedar and garlands of pine and fir represented never ending life because their branches were always green. The voices in the congregation joined together in the proper response. Then he said that the wreaths of holly and ivy told of the passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord and Savior.
Sage read her lines but she thought about her passion for painting and how Creed understood it. He hadn’t made one small overture toward changing her but encouraged her to do more and more. She thought about the death of the anger inside her and how she’d been so determined to see him leave. And the resurrection of a calm peace when she accepted the fact that she didn’t want to face the days ahead without Creed in her life.
Christmas at Home Page 22