Or excuse himself and hurry away?
Her heart sank as she realized the most likely scenario was the third. That was so odd, because she felt like they had an attraction and a connection. Sometimes you just knew when someone else was attracted to you. It was like that sixth sense tingled with awareness, and she definitely felt that tingle around Eli. Heck, she felt all kinds of tingles around Eli.
But if he didn’t want her, she couldn’t force the issue. There had to be a reason he would hold back if he really was interested in her, and she was sure it was a good one. Above all, she was his guest. He’d saved her out of the kindness of his heart and gave her a roof, and she wouldn’t repay that by flinging herself at him.
“No matter how flingable he is, Frannie,” she murmured and sat down amid the sea of boxes, determined to get started.
Just unpacking everything took hours. At first, she was caught up in the wonder of what she was finding. Maria was obviously someone that dearly loved Christmas, because she had to have owned at least two of everything that was even remotely holiday-ish. Several lightweight boxes were full of wreaths of every make and shape imaginable. There were red ones, and green ones made of artificial pine. Blue and pink ones for some reason. One looked like a snowman. One was made entirely of mistletoe. She blushed and put that one aside, not entirely sure if she should put it up or not. Another was made of green and red ribbons, and there was a very large wreath that looked as if it had been made of repurposed gift bows. She carefully laid them out and then found boxes of garlands. And lights. Then there were boxes of Christmas skirts and tablecloths, placemats and napkins and napkin rings. There were snowman candle holders, Santa candles, stuffed reindeer, and three different kinds of nativities. There were throw rugs with reindeer hooves on them, stockings of all kinds, and gigantic bows to cover the doors. It was a mind-boggling amount of stuff, but there was no doubt that someone loved to celebrate Christmas. It must have killed her to not put up any decorations this year, and Cass vowed that she was going to decorate enough to make Eli feel like it was being celebrated after all.
Once she got past all of the room decor, she dug into more boxes and found tree trimmings. There were handfuls of tinsel carefully stored in Ziploc bags, clip-on birds, decorative candles, bells, and ornaments of every kind imaginable. Light strings of every color and shape—star, diamond, round, you name it—were available. They’d need ten trees to decorate with all of this stuff. Cass packed some of it back away. She liked the idea of a simple tree. It seemed wrong to be in such a rustic location and then cover it with store-bought plastic.
She picked out the simplest ornaments, glass balls in green and red, and then went hunting in the kitchen for popcorn. When she found it, she decided she’d make popcorn garlands instead of the heavily decorated ones that Maria preferred. She sorted through the items she selected, then boxed the rest of it carefully away and stacked the boxes in the corner of the room so Eli could put them up later.
Tree first, she determined, then the rest of the living area and kitchen afterward. That decided, Cass couldn’t help but peek out the window, looking for Eli again. She knew he wasn’t going to come in for lunch. He’d told her that he had to reinforce part of the fence at the far end of the pasture and it’d take some time, so he’d grabbed a protein bar, shoved it in his pocket, and then headed out the door. She didn’t see him in the field, but there was hay spread among the snow, so she knew he was around. Just seeing that made her feel less isolated, and she went to the stereo, turned on the Christmas music, and hummed along as she decorated.
The day went by fast. So fast. It seemed like Cass returned from feeding the chickens, started decorating the tree, and then it was time to feed them again because it was dark. She hurried through the chores, proud that she’d gone through a whole day without having to collapse into sleep. That meant she was getting better, didn’t it? That her brain was healing and she’d remember who she was anytime now. All she had to do was wait. She did mental exercises while she fed the chickens, and then came inside, unwrapping all her layers. It was dinnertime, so she washed up and made more egg salad sandwiches, and waited. When Eli didn’t come in, she figured that he must have been busy, and put his sandwiches into the fridge, then went back to work on the tree. She turned the Christmas music off, though, because she wanted to hear when he came in.
Cass decorated and listened for the door to the mudroom. She hung the tree with green and red glass ornaments, and peppered it with a few of the clip-on candles and birds. The living room was pretty enough without a ton of lights, so she added a long string of plain white lights and wrapped them around the tree. The skirt she picked was a simple red and white that looked like Santa’s hat, and she hung equally simple stockings on the mantel. Frannie immediately settled under the tree on the fuzzy skirt, and she looked so miserably pregnant that Cass didn’t have the heart to shoo her away. It wasn’t like there were going to be presents under there, anyhow.
Or were there?
She thought hard about that. Cass loved the idea of having a present for Eli. To have his face light up with surprise—and hopefully pleasure—at the realization that she’d thought about him and made him a little something. But what? She chewed on her lip and dug through the boxes again. She didn’t have anything to give him, but maybe she could make him something? Christmas cookies were an obvious choice, and she could do those easily. Ditto popcorn balls. But that didn’t seem like something worthy of wrapping up and putting under the tree.
Her hand skimmed over one of the boxes and she paused. It was clear that Maria was crafty in addition to being a Christmas-style hoarder, because one box had been full of craft items in various reds and greens. There were crystals, Popsicle sticks, pinecones, and lots of soft yarn.
Yarn. If she could find a needle, maybe she could crochet him something.
Wait, did she know how to crochet?
Cass picked up one of the skeins of yarn and fingered it. Oddly enough, she thought she might. If she didn’t, she could always look up something on the Internet. YouTube videos had tutorials for everything nowadays.
The thought of going on the Internet made her stomach churn, though. It was one of those vague, nameless fears she couldn’t put a finger on. One of the ones she suspected had a lot to do with her missing memories. Something out there bothered her, and she didn’t want the outside world to find her and ruin her happiness here on the ranch. It was a strange thought, but she couldn’t shake it. She didn’t think she was a miserable person, but who knew? There was a large chunk of her memories that was missing right now. Maybe she was miserable.
Maybe that was why she was so fascinated with Eli. He presented a different set of circumstances. An escape.
Even as the thought crossed her mind, she discarded it. It wasn’t that she wanted to hide out here because she wanted to be lazy. Lazy was boring. It made the time pass incredibly slow. It was something else.
What, then?
But her brain provided no answers. Frustrated, she pulled out skein after skein of yarn and eventually found a crochet hook. A smallish one, but still usable. As a test for her brain, she pulled the end of a red piece of yarn and tried to crochet it. The movement of the hook felt natural, and within moments, she had a nice, neat chain. Better than that, she knew how to keep going. She visualized a hat, something festively bright but not gaudy, because Eli wasn’t gaudy. Earflaps to keep his ears warm. And a thin weave so he could wear it under his cowboy hat. She liked the idea, and she’d leave a few dollars for Maria to replace the yarn . . . once she got her purse back.
That unhappy, tense knot returned to her stomach. The thought of getting her purse back made her as uneasy as getting on the Internet did. But why? Was her brain deliberately blocking memories? Did something traumatic happen? She didn’t know the answer to that.
And that bothered her most of all.
Disturbed, she went to
her room and hid the yarn under the bed. She’d work on it during the day when Eli was out tending to the cattle. She checked the calendar—Christmas was in four days. She had time. A hat would be easy enough, she figured, and then tomorrow she’d bake up some special Christmas cookies just for him. That meant she’d have to find out tonight what was his favorite flavor or if he had allergies. It’d do no good to make peanut butter cookies if he was allergic.
After the yarn was stashed, she went back into the kitchen, humming. She’d found a deck of cards in one of the boxes—Christmas themed, of course—and had kept them out in the hopes that she could play a few rounds of something with Eli later. She knew poker and rummy, and she was pretty sure she could pick up anything else he threw at her. Heck, he could throw the cards on the ground in Fifty-Two Pickup style and she’d be thrilled as long as she got to spend time with him.
Man, she really did have it bad.
She checked out on the back porch, looking hopefully out into the snow for Eli, but there was no one. The light was on, showing glistening fresh snow with zero footprints. Oh dear. Sometime in the afternoon, it had snowed again. She wondered if she should get bundled up and go after him, but Cass worried that she’d just be in his way. He was working long hours, and a sandwich didn’t seem like enough of a meal for someone who worked so hard.
Well, she was here with a nice big kitchen stocked full of food, wasn’t she? Surely she could whip up something for him. That wouldn’t be too hard. Encouraged at the thought of doing something to help, Cass smoothed the new snowman tablecloth on the table, and then hopped up to find a cookbook. She needed something she could make quickly. But what?
She decided on bacon and eggs again. She could make the bacon and then put on the eggs when he came in. What man didn’t like bacon and eggs, after all? Cass tossed aside the recipe book and turned on the front burner on the oven, and then moved to the fridge, rummaging around looking for what she wanted. She’d seen a TV cooking show being filmed in person once, and they used sour cream with the eggs . . .
Cass paused, standing upright slowly. She’d seen a TV show in person? How did that happen? Did she know someone famous? She frowned, trying to concentrate. That feeling that the information was just out of reach returned, and she held still, as if her entire body could focus on the memory.
At least, she did until the scent of burning paper caught her nose. She sniffed and then turned around. The cookbook she’d tossed aside was on the stovetop, the burner scorching the paper. Ugh. With a spatula, she flipped the book onto the counter and then slapped it until the embers of the pages died out, leaving nothing but stink and charcoal-like ash. She lit a Christmas candle, but that didn’t help much—now it smelled like ash and pinecones.
Well, shoot. She was already messing things up, wasn’t she? Eli was going to laugh at her. He’d shake his head and say she wasn’t paying attention, but she truly was. It wasn’t her fault the book landed on the burner.
“Just bad luck,” she muttered to herself as she pulled out an enormous package of bacon from the fridge and slapped it onto the counter.
The bacon was a new package, and of course, it was one of those “easy-open” packages that just wasn’t. Cass wrestled with it for a few minutes, and even tried her teeth. All she got was a mouthful of plastic. Fine, then. She found a sharp knife on the counter and used it to poke a hole. Not a big one, because the package was too floppy, but it was a start. Encouraged, she put her hand on the wiggly, slidey package and jerked the knife through—
Just as Eli banged in from the mudroom.
Cass jumped. She sliced, and the plastic tore open. Unfortunately, her hand was at the end of the package and she managed to smack the blade of the knife right against her palm. It took her a moment to realize what she’d done, because the knife got stuck when it shouldn’t have.
And then she saw the blood.
Really, she didn’t know how she’d missed it, since it was now gushing everywhere. All over the counter, all over the frying pan, the bacon, her clothes . . . Swallowing hard, she grabbed a nearby towel and shoved it against her hand.
“Sorry I’m late,” Eli said, and she heard him stomping his boots in the mudroom, shaking off the snow. “Seems like the entire damned fence has chosen this week to fall apart. I’d fix one section and check the next and it was coming apart at the seams, and . . . Cass? You in there?” He poked his head around the corner.
“Here,” she said faintly. “Just, ah, making dinner.” She was going to be sick. Hopefully not on the now-bloody counter, because that mess would be awful to clean up.
“You don’t have to do that,” he began as he entered the kitchen. “I was thinking that . . . what the hell?” Eli rushed to her side and grabbed the hand she’d swathed in the cute snowman kitchen towel she’d gotten out earlier. He stared at the blood soaking the fabric and then immediately raised her hand in the air, holding it in a tight grip. “What’d you do?”
“It was a showdown between me and a package of bacon,” she said, her voice timid. “The bacon won.”
Eli muttered a curse under his breath and tugged her along. “Come on. Let’s get you in the bathroom and do something for this, because if you bleed out in the kitchen, I’m never going to forgive myself.”
Because bleeding out in the bathroom was better? But she didn’t protest, because in all the days she’d known Eli so far, she’d never seen him look that pale. She let him pull her along, and the cowboy headed into the bathroom, closed the toilet lid, and then put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her down lightly. “Sit and keep your hand elevated.”
“It’s elevated,” she told him, determined not to whimper at how much it hurt. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.
With careful hands, Eli pulled the towel away from her wound and then began to wash it with the gentlest of touches. “It doesn’t look too deep. Thank God.” He shook his head as he delicately rubbed a wet washcloth over her palm, brushing it ever so slightly against the cut. “If we keep it sealed, it shouldn’t require stitches, which is good. I’ve stitched up cows and horses, but if I had to stitch up a person, I’m not sure my stomach could handle it.”
Cass couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “So much for my image of a stoic cowboy.”
“Stoic enough,” he told her, “until you get hurt. Then I feel like I failed you.”
“Because I’m a girl?”
“Because you’re—” He paused and shook his head. “It ain’t important. Just hold still.” He dug around in one of the drawers and pulled out a tube of antiseptic.
She watched him, wondering what he was going to say. “Because I’m incompetent?” she asked, unable to let it go. “Because I’m not a cowgirl? Because what?”
Eli just glared at her. “It ain’t important,” he repeated.
“Well it is now, because I’m not going to be able to rest until I find out what you were going to say.”
He scowled at her, his eyes narrowed. She wasn’t afraid, oddly enough. She knew him well enough at this point that he was all bark and no bite. So she continued pressing him. “Because you’re a . . . ?”
She watched as his nostrils flared with frustration. “Because you’re my responsibility,” he said after a moment, and she suspected that wasn’t the real answer, but it was all he was going to give her.
“I see.”
A tense moment passed between them. Neither spoke as Eli carefully dabbed more ointment on her hand, and then packed her wound with gauze and wrapped it. Now that all the blood was down to a trickle, it seemed like a lot of packing for a small cut, but she didn’t say anything. Eli looked very intent on taking care of her.
And that made her feel warm and fuzzy inside, even if their conversation was frustrating. She’d let things slide a little, then. It was pointless to argue with him anyhow, especially when he was taking such good care of her. “I’m sorr
y if I scared you,” Cass told him. “I was trying to make dinner. I thought you’d want something warm to eat after being out all day, and I certainly wasn’t intending to baste the bacon with my own juices.”
Eli looked surprised at her admission, and then chuckled, carefully curling her fingers over the bandage before releasing her hand. “I just don’t understand how one person can be so bad in the kitchen. What do you do at home?”
“I don’t know,” she answered glumly. “I don’t even think I can recall where my home is.” Her jaw clenched and she felt dangerously close to tears. “Maybe I’ve sworn off everything but celery sticks and that’s why I don’t know how to cook.” Her voice was hoarse and she gave him a wobbly smile as she stood up, her wounded hand against her chest.
“Hey,” he told her softly. “None of that, now.” When she wouldn’t look him in the eye, he slid a finger under her chin and tipped her head up. Their eyes met, and Cass felt an electric rush move through her. God, he was handsome. It was more than just his looks, she realized—though those were incredible, with his stunning eyes and perfectly shaped mouth—it was that he was caring, and hardworking, and patient. Even when she cut her hand open and bled everywhere and then he was all gruff at her, she never felt like she was a bother to him. He was concerned, but he wasn’t annoyed that she was around. That felt good. It made her feel important, and more than that, it made her feel important to him. Like if something happened to her, he wouldn’t act as if it was just one of his cows down for the count. It would be like . . . she was someone to him.
The thought filled her with a sense of wonder. She gazed up at him and found he was still staring at her, so very intent. The air practically crackled with the attraction she felt for him. Surely she wasn’t imagining this. Surely she wasn’t making all this up.
All I Want for Christmas Is a Cowboy Page 11