by Nicole Helm
Lindsay took the seat in between her siblings. “So, let me guess, you’re the driving force behind Barton Christmas Tree Farm as a wedding venue?”
“Er, well, sort of.” Sarah looked back at Cal, who was standing there stoically in the corner. At his sister’s glance he shook his head and disappeared down a hall Lindsay knew would take him to the Barton kitchen. “It was Cal’s idea,” Sarah said, over brightly. “But, I do most of the work on that front. But Shane and Cora’s wedding is going to be our first.”
“It’s perfect,” Lindsay said, grinning at her future sister-in-law, Cora. And she didn’t let that grin or cheerfulness die, even though her head was anywhere but weddings or Christmas.
No, her thoughts were full of Cal.
* * *
Cal tossed a frozen meal into the microwave and took out at least some of his irritation on the microwave buttons.
Tylers in his house. Since he was alone, he could scowl. He had nothing against the Tylers in theory. Deb Tyler had been like a mother to him growing up, and Shane and Gavin were good ranch neighbors and decent men.
But no matter that he might like each person individually, they were all blood ties to the one person in the world he expressly did not like.
Lindsay Tyler.
Pretty as ever, too. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her she hadn’t changed. She looked exactly the same as she had the day she’d effectively shoved a dagger into his heart.
Since he was not a man prone to hyperbole, the fact that he’d even think of that comparison proved what a betrayal it had been. Cal Barton was well acquainted with desertion and betrayal.
The microwave dinged, and Cal scowled at it. A burst of laughter from the living room invaded the quiet of the kitchen.
He wasn’t a particularly fun-loving guy, but the laughter normally wouldn’t have bothered him in the least. Especially if it meant Sarah was building a little side business for herself. Except this laughter was Tyler laughter, and he was almost certain he could pick out Lindsay’s tinkling laugh in the midst of all the other people’s.
He plopped himself onto a kitchen chair and attacked the microwave meal. It was only half hot, half still cold. He choked it all down anyway. The sooner he was done with dinner, the sooner he could head back outside. He didn’t have any necessary chores left, but there were always extra chores to be scrounged up when he didn’t want to be around people.
Especially Tyler people.
He would have avoided dinner altogether, but when he did that Sarah scolded him and pecked at him like she’d decided to be his mother, and he’d rather avoid watching her childhood issues bleed out all over him.
After all, he had plenty of his own.
He got up from the table and tossed the remnants of the meal. More laughter from the living room, and with all the damn Christmas lights twinkling around him, he really just wanted to punch something.
He hated Christmas.
He hated Lindsay Tyler.
He hated this ugly, black feeling inside of him. He always wondered if it was the same one that had caused his mother to leave them. Twice.
Always on Christmas.
Cal needed to get out of here, but instead he stood and stared at the cabinet of liquor. It was tempting. A Barton Christmas tradition, after all, to get drunk and wax poetic about the woman who’d left you.
But Cal had decided a long, long time ago to be nothing like his father. That liquor cabinet was a reminder.
“You could have said hello.”
Cal glanced back at his sister. She was only nineteen, and Dad had let wife number three (marriage number four, since he’d married Mom twice before moving on) talk him into traveling the world, leaving Sarah without the means or opportunity to go off to college.
She was stuck here, and Cal was damn determined she have something. Something that would fulfill her. Something that would make her happy.
Something that will keep her here.
“I did say hello.”
“No, you didn’t. You said exactly one word, which was ‘straggler,’ and then you stomped back here.”
“I did not stomp. That’s called a manly cowboy swagger.”
She snorted in disgust, but grinned nonetheless, then her smile died. “You know I’m going to ask her.”
“I know.” He didn’t have to like it to know.
“She’s going to say yes.”
“Of course she is. I don’t know how long she’s in town, but Lindsay would never refuse you. No matter what . . .” Which was why he hated Lindsay Tyler after six years, because he knew with everything he was that she was a good person. Pretty and good and helpful, and she and he belonged together.
But she’d needed more than him and this, and how could he ever forgive her for that?
The fact that Sarah needed some help with graphics and whatnot for advertising the Christmas tree farm as a wedding venue had nothing to do with him. Asking for Lindsay’s art help had nothing to do with him. So, he wouldn’t stand in Sarah’s way. No matter how much he didn’t want Lindsay hovering around, even for a short period of time.
“Okay . . . Well . . .” She trailed off, then shook her head and went for the pantry. “The chocolate ones went fast.” She grabbed a cookie tin and opened it. She took two out and placed them on the table. “That’s for being a good little rancher boy.”
“Ha. Ha.” But he took his sister’s cookies, because she was a hell of a baker. Whether it was Christmas or old, bad memories swirling, he found himself swayed by an unusual wave of sentimentality. “You’re really good at this. The whole entertaining thing. I’m not. I never will be. Lindsay or no. So, just ignore my manly cowboy swagger and focus on this thing you’re really good at.”
For a second she looked like she was about to cry, which horrified him enough to make him start edging toward the back door. But she straightened her shoulders and blinked a few times.
“You’re not that manly,” she offered gravely, before bursting into laughter as she headed back out to her waiting guests.
On a sigh, he ate the Christmas cookies and listened to the faint laughter of another family in his living room. Tylers. The whole lot of them. Up in his house and ranch for the next few days.
Christmases were never very merry around the Barton spread, but it couldn’t be worse than waking up to finding Mom or Dad gone, so he supposed he’d survive.
He’d just do everything in his power to avoid Lindsay. It shouldn’t be a problem. She couldn’t possibly want to see him any more than he wanted to see her.
So, that was settled, and he’d eaten his dinner and talked to his sister, and now he could go back to the solitude of the barn and do something that didn’t feel like a knife being shoved in his heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NICOLE HELM is the bestselling author of down-to-earth contemporary romance and fast-paced romantic suspense. She lives with her husband and two sons in Missouri, enjoying Cardinals baseball and dreaming about someday owning a barn. Readers can visit her website at www.nicolehelm.com.