If that was the case, she was damn sure going about it the wrong way because every time he touched her or kissed her, it deepened his resolve to stay. He looked at his reflection again. Nothing unusual there.
Maybe you can’t see it. I bet if you were in Ringgold Ace could tell you if you have the look, the voice inside his head said.
He forgot about what he could or could not see when Sage started humming “White Christmas” behind him.
He turned and faked a cough to cover up the quick intake of breath. She had just finished pulling her dark hair from the rubber band holding it into a ponytail. As it fell to her shoulders, she shook her head slowly from one side to the other. That movement bringing all that silky black hair tumbling down to frame her face was sexier than anything he’d ever seen.
“If you really are dreaming of a white Christmas, I figure you are about to have your dreams come true,” he said hoarsely.
The movement stopped and a worried look crossed her face.
“Are you getting a cold? I told you we shouldn’t stay out all morning,” she said.
“Just a frog in my throat. I’m fine and you aren’t remembering right, woman. It was me askin’ you if we shouldn’t come in out of the cold and get warm,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter who said what right now and don’t call me woman. I’ve got a name. There’s no way in or out of here for at least one more day and maybe more. Neither of us can get sick,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am. It will be so. The great Sage Presley has spoken,” he said shortly.
“That’s tacky.”
“No, it’s funny.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
He smiled. “I was not making fun of you. I was teasing.”
She held up a long bladed knife with a serrated edge. “You’d better be. All you got is a wooden spoon and look what I’m holding.”
Noel growled from her blanket in front of the fireplace.
“She’s tellin’ us that the fire is getting low and that all that energy she used up out there helping plow a path and make snow people made her hungry too. And she’s also saying we shouldn’t be arguing when all we got is each other in this house until the snow melts. Dip her stew out before it boils and she won’t have to wait for it to cool down. As soon as we can drive on the roads, we’ve got to go buy real dog food and cat food.” Sage crossed the floor and tossed a couple of sticks of wood into the stone fireplace.
Sage’s head bobbed one time. “Children do have to be fed.”
She put a paper towel in a basket, shuffled the slices of bread into it from the cutting board, and carried it to the table. Her job was finished. The rest belonged to Creed, so she left the kitchen and went to the basket of kittens. She picked the yellow one up and held it close to her breast.
“At least they don’t have to be clothed,” she yelled over her shoulder.
He chuckled. “You sure about that?”
“Of course I am. Little girls might put their doll clothes on puppies and kittens but adults don’t, do they?” She remembered seeing a picture of a movie star in a magazine. She had one of those tiny lap dogs and it had a bow in its hair and wore a pink sweater.
“I knew a woman who had a special walk-in closet for her toy poodle. It was completely full of clothing for each season and the critter had a different bed for days when it rained or the sun shined.”
Sage put the kitten back and picked up a black one. “You’re teasing again, right?”
He dipped out enough for the pets’ dinner and set it on the cabinet. “I wouldn’t tease about something that crazy.”
“Did you date her very long?”
“Twice. Took her to a rodeo over in Wichita Falls one Friday night and the next week we went to dinner. She asked me in to meet her daughter, Fiona. She sure didn’t act like she had a child, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t think fast enough to make an excuse, so I went inside with her.”
“And the daughter had a puppy right?”
“No, the puppy was the daughter. Imagine my surprise when Fiona had gray hair and four legs.”
Sage laughed. “Don’t make me laugh. I always get the hiccups and I don’t hiccup or sneeze like a lady.”
Creed held up a hand and crossed his chest with the other one. “I swear to God. It really happened. I’m not joking.”
“What happened?”
“The dog got all excited and squatted on the floor.”
Sage laughed harder.
Creed went on. “The lady grabbed some scented wipes, soaked it up, and told the poodle that if she wasn’t good that she’d have to sit in the time-out chair. She pointed to a mink-lined bed in the corner of the room.”
“Real mink?”
“Probably not, but it didn’t look like much punishment to me.”
“And you never dated her again?” Sage asked.
“Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. So answer my question, are you going to buy clothing for these animals?”
“Hell, no! They’ll do good to get cheap dog food and cat food.”
Visualizing a big, rough man’s-man cowboy like Creed cooking a pot of stew was stretching the imagination. Walking a toy poodle dressed up like a movie star and prancing along on a shiny pink leash brought on even more laughter.
She put the kitten next to Angel, gathered up the last one to give it some attention, and said between gasps of giggles, “You were a wise man, Creed. She would have made you be friends with that critter and you’d have had to walk her. I just can’t see you walkin’ a little bitty dog wearing a tutu and a pink bow.”
Creed shook his head. “Me either. When she showed me the dog’s closet, I about had a stroke. If the dog was that high maintenance, then what would she be? It’d take more than one cowboy to make enough to keep her and her pup happy.”
“Well, I promise not to humiliate my animals with clothing. They can romp through the mesquite without having to worry if they tear their tutu, and they can sprawl out on the porch in the summertime strip stark naked. And you can bet your cowboy butt that I’m not having a real or fake mink time-out chair for them.”
“Somehow I can’t see Noel in a mink bed,” he chuckled.
Sage put the last kitten back in the basket and scooted across the floor to Noel’s blanket. The giggles had subsided and she didn’t have the hiccups that time. “My girl is happy with her frayed blanket, aren’t you?”
Noel wagged her tail and slurped her tongue across Sage’s cheek like it was a snow cone.
“Snow ice cream,” Sage said.
“A dog’s slobbers reminded you of snow ice cream?”
“No, I just remembered that we’ve got to make it. The snow is clean right now, but in a day or two it’ll all be nasty. We’ve got to bring in a bowl of good clean snow and make ice cream.”
“Oh, yeah!” Creed agreed. “Just tell me when and I’ll go get the snow for you. Do you have a special recipe? My momma uses whipping cream, milk and eggs, and vanilla. Do we have all that stuff here?”
“I thought you were cold.”
“I am, but I don’t mind stepping out the back door and getting some snow. I’m just glad you weren’t talking about building a snow cone stand for our snow family. I’m dishing it up, so come and get it while it’s hot. I’m talking about this stew, not snow ice cream.”
“My snow family would probably appreciate a snow cone stand. They do need something to keep them occupied other than kissing under the mistletoe all the time. And yes, I do have a special recipe. It’s an old family one that we never share, so don’t even ask. You might talk Grand into selling the ranch, cowboy, but my ice cream recipe isn’t up for sale.”
She left Noel, washed her hands at the kitchen sink, and sat down at the table. “This smells even better reheated.”
He sat down across from her, pulled his chair up, and their knees bumped together. “Soup, stew, and beans all get better toward the end of the pot. Maybe we’ll make a pot of be
ans and ham tomorrow. And fried potatoes.”
She nodded because all the words in her head were suddenly gone. Only two layers of denim separated her knees from Creed’s. The steaming bowl of soup in front of her was actually cold compared to the heat generated between them.
Then he shifted his chair and it was gone.
She moved her knee a little, couldn’t hook up with his, and was searching under the table for his leg when she realized what she was doing. She jerked her hand back faster than if she’d touched a hot iron, and high color blazed in her cheeks.
Whoa, hoss! You’ve got to slow this buggy down. Four days, Sage Presley, and have you forgotten this is the man who’s going to buy the ranch? You are supposed to hate him and discourage him from wanting to live in the canyon.
She blew on a spoon full of soup. But maybe he could work for Lawton and I could still see him. There are other small ranches in the canyon that he could buy.
She realized she wanted to have her cake sitting all pretty on the table and eat a big chunk of it too. Life didn’t work that way. Either preserve the past and keep the cake, or get a knife and slice into it.
“Hey, what are you thinking about? It looks like you’ve got a war going on in your head,” Creed said from across the table.
“Whether to buy Noel a pink or red sweater. Since it is Christmas and she does have a holiday name, I was thinking red. What do you think?” she joked to keep from spitting out what she’d really been thinking about.
“Ask her. She’s the one who’ll have to wear it,” Creed said.
“How old are you?” Sage asked bluntly.
“I might ask you the same thing, but a gentleman never asks a woman about her age or weight.”
“I was twenty-six in September. I went to college for two years, came home, and started painting full time, sold a few, and then got a fantastic break when my professor dropped my name to a gallery owner in Denver. What I weigh is between me and the bathroom scales and if they ever start talking, I will take the hammer to them. Your turn.”
Creed laid his spoon down. “I was twenty-eight on the first day of October. I have a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business. All I’ve ever known is ranching and farming. Like you already know, I was engaged once, and I’ve sworn off permanent relationships. What about your love life, Sage?”
“I love painting. Seems that men have this crazy notion that I’ve got commitment issues.”
“Imagine that.”
Sage didn’t want to talk about the big, dark C word so she changed the subject. “Don’t eat too much. You’ll want to save room for ice cream, and besides, Noel looks like she’s still hungry.”
“That’s the first step toward a mink-lined bed in the corner. Feeding the dog,” he quoted the last word with two fingers on each hand in the air, “the good stew and going hungry yourself.”
“The bathroom scales would argue with you that I’m not about to waste away to nothing,” she said.
“I think you are just right, Sage. Matter-of-fact, my Grandpa Riley had a way of describing a woman like you.”
Sage didn’t know if she wanted to hear what his grandpa would say about a woman who was too tall and who was too hippie and whose smile looked like a dental chart (compliments of a remark made by Triston Jones in the fourth grade).
“Well, do you want to hear it or not?” Creed asked.
She nodded even though she was telling her head to go back and forth, not up and down.
“He would have said that you were built like a red brick shit house without a brick out of place.” Creed smiled.
She jerked her head up to lock gazes with him across the table.
“Thank you, I think.”
“It’s a compliment, I promise.”
“Maybe so, but it won’t keep me from talking Grand out of selling the ranch, and that’s a fact.”
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. His knee settled against hers under the table at the same time.
“I meant what I said. You are beautiful. Whether I own the ranch or not, it doesn’t make you any less gorgeous,” he said.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Then his knee was gone and his hand left hers.
He picked up his spoon and started eating stew again, changing the subject and talking between bites. “I haven’t had snow ice cream in at least five years.”
“Well, finish up your dinner and bring in a big bowl of snow and you’ll get the best you’ve ever had in your life,” she said.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Are we still talking about ice cream?”
“Creed Riley!”
“Just checkin’ to be sure.” He grinned.
“Yes, we are!”
He finished eating, grabbed a huge metal bowl from the pantry, and filled it with snow from a drift at the edge of the back porch. He was halfway across the porch when he noticed bird droppings in the snow. He dumped it and went to the other end of the porch, checked to be sure it was clean, and took it inside.
Sage swallowed her last bite at the same time he did and set their dirty dishes beside the sink. She grabbed a can of sweetened condensed milk from the pantry, hurriedly opened it, poured it into a mixing bowl, and grabbed a whisk.
When Creed returned she was busy stirring, scraping the sides, and stirring some more so he would think she’d whipped up several ingredients together. She stirred small amounts of snow into it until it was finally the right consistency and then dipped out two smaller bowls full.
He tasted it and shut his eyes as he groaned. “God, this is the best I’ve ever had. What is your secret?”
“Just the right mixture of eggs, sugar, and cream,” she said.
There were some things a woman just kept to herself, right?
“Living room?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah! Warm fire, snow ice cream, and Christmas.”
He sat on one end of the sofa. She claimed the other.
She grabbed her head with her free hand. “Oh, shit!”
Creed set his ice cream on the end table, scooted down the length of the sofa, cupped her chin with his hand, and kissed her hard.
“Wow, that worked,” she said when he pulled back.
“Heat melts cold, darlin’.”
He went back to the other end and started eating again.
In seconds Sage had gone from aching cold to boiling hot. How many times could a woman’s body do that and not explode?
Chapter 7
A brand new blank canvas waited on the easel. The window painting had been relegated to the top shelf of the pantry to finish drying. The bunnies now had the drying space on the living room wall and she liked them even better the second day after finishing them than she did at first. Two paintings in such a short time did worry her, though. Was she color-booking or was she really painting?
Sage eyed the rest of the canvasses and decided the one on the easel was too big. She removed it and picked up a sixteen-by-twenty-inch one and slid the top bar of the easel down to hold it steady. She looked around the room, but there were no angels swirling about outside the kitchen window.
A flash of yellow leapt from floor to living room windowsill and caught Sage’s attention. The snow people seemed to fascinate the cat. Or maybe it was the birds that lit in their tree limb arms that got her attention. She made a deep guttural sound in her throat as if telling them if they’d come on into the house, she’d tell them a pretty story.
Sage had no doubt that the old fairy tale would be a brand new jacked-up version of “Little Red Riding Hood” if Angel could entice the birds inside. Sage smiled at that idea and turned her attention back to the canvas in front of her.
“The Mistletoe Collection,” she said. “That sounds wonderful.”
Still, nothing materialized. Maybe her mistletoe collection was going to consist of two paintings. One of a snow angel and one of two bunnies.
The back door swung open and Creed filled the space for a split second befo
re he stepped inside. “Mistletoe what?”
“Cowboy. Mistletoe cowboy. Did you track more inside the house?”
She was not going to paint a cowboy with mistletoe on his shoulder or a cowboy boot with it frozen to the toe, either.
He looked at his shoulders and down at the floor. “Not today. I plowed the snow away from a third of the feedlot so the cows wouldn’t be standing in it, but you were right. They’d stomped down most of what was in the lot so the job was easy. Those wind breaks your Grandpa planted sure work.”
“Next thing you know, you’ll ask me to knit socks for the cows.”
He hung his heavy coat on the rack. “You knit?”
She stole quick glimpses of him without turning around to face him head-on. His jeans were snug and stacked up over his scuffed up boots. His denim shirt had two buttons undone showing an oatmeal-colored thermal shirt underneath.
“I do not knit. Grand does and she tried to teach me. That pesky yarn crawled up the needles and tried to strangle me. So don’t ask me to make socks for your cattle.”
He chuckled.
“What? It’s the truth.”
“I’m not saying it’s not. You said your cattle.”
“Slip of the tongue. I meant to say Grand’s cattle.” She folded her arms over her chest and turned her attention once again back to the blank canvas.
Nothing!
Nada!
Nil!
The PGs weren’t giving her a thing that morning. Two small paintings weren’t enough to make the Sage Presley Mistletoe Collection. Had her special gods forsaken her?
Then the sun peeked out from the dark clouds covering the skies and there it was plain as day. Angel’s fur glistened as the rays flowed through the window and settled on the basket of kittens sleeping soundly. A snowbird with its dark feathers on top and white belly sat in the twig arms of Mr. Frosty, right at the top of the mistletoe ball. Sage moved the canvas one foot to the left. Mr. Frosty was barely showing in the side of the window and the mistletoe in his arm made of twigs hung right above Angel’s head as she washed a paw.
Sage grabbed a sketch pencil and began to work as fast as she could before the sun rays shifted. Two long rectangular lines to denote the direction of the sun. The edge of the snowman’s hat, his scarf blowing out in the wind, the stick arms, and the bird. And the sun’s rays bringing it all to life.
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