Hometown Holiday

by Caro Carson

  “It’s a career hazard. I’ve dated women like that too often.”

  “Was this what you were afraid I’d regret? That I would be sorry I’d slept with you if you weren’t going to be on the rodeo tour next season? Because that would be insulting to me, and it would hurt to think you knew me so little. I realize you’re used to women who want to travel with a celebrity, but I’m not that kind of woman.”

  “I know you’re not.” She was fresh-faced, makeup free, a naturally beautiful woman against the backdrop of a beautiful part of the country. Her braid had fallen forward and was lying over one breast. He wanted her fiercely. “You are too much a part of this ranch and this town to want to waste your life on the road.”

  “Well, that sounds nicer than saying I’m a homebody, I guess.” Her smile was as irrepressible as the growing sunrise. Ryan wanted to hold her close and feel that warmth.

  Reading his mind, she stepped into his willing arms and laid her head on his shoulder. He caught her close and kissed her hair, the corner of her eye, the bridge of her nose. She relaxed under his touch, the change in her muscle tension as obvious as Zorro’s had been.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. After this week, will you be gone long?”

  “I’m spending Thanksgiving with my parents. After that…”

  He didn’t know. He hadn’t thought beyond this week, beyond satisfying that burning need he’d had to see Kristen once more, just once more. Standing in this barn, the differences in their lives were more obvious to him than ever.

  So was his need to be with her. One week with her would not be enough.

  “It may be a while, but…” He shook his head at his own idiocy. He wasn’t kidding anyone, least of all himself. “I don’t think I can go without you very long. I’ll come back.”

  “I knew that last July.” She shushed the impatient Zorro, then turned her sunny smile on Ryan once more. “But it’s nice that you know it now, too. Four months was a long time for you to realize you should come back to the place you said makes you feel at peace. I hated knowing you were out there somewhere, not at peace.”

  “Montana doesn’t give me peace. You do.”

  The sound of a very loud, very human yawn startled them both. Kayla was behind them, stretching her arms overhead as she sat on an overturned barrel. “I hate to bother you two, but if we could turn out these last four horses and clean the stalls…” She yawned again.

  Kristen frowned a little. “Another late night? You’ve been tired a lot lately.”

  “I’m fine. I’m just trying to live without coffee.”

  Kristen looked horrified. “No coffee? Why would you do that?”

  Kayla ducked her head, shy once more. “Caffeine is supposed to be bad for you. I read this blog that made me want to try going without it. Just for a little while.”

  “Sis, I love you, but that’s nuts. Maybe you should get some breakfast. Ryan’s here. He’ll help me finish up.”

  Kayla left after a few more protests. Kristen picked up a pitchfork and sifted through the hay in Zorro’s empty stall, coming up with a clump of manure and tossing it into the wheelbarrow. “Why don’t you turn out the rest of the horses while I get started on the dirty work?”

  Ryan took one look at the ropes and knots and bridles hanging on the wall and took the pitchfork out of Kristen’s hands. “I’m sure your horses would rather say good morning to you.” He was also certain he’d make a fool of himself trying to put a bridle on a horse for the first time. A pitchfork took no skill, only muscle, and that, thankfully, he had.

  Kristen slipped a leather bridle around the brown horse’s head, reaching up to guide its ears under a strap, all while keeping her gaze on Ryan. “We can get breakfast afterward.”

  Ryan stopped in midscoop. Here was another obstacle he hadn’t planned on negotiating. If he met her parents, there would be the inevitable getting-to-know-you questions. He tossed the manure into the wheelbarrow. “I hadn’t planned on meeting your parents this morning.”

  Before he could add an acceptable excuse, Kristen jumped in. “Oh, I didn’t mean breakfast at the house. It was too late last night to call and tell them you’d be here this morning. I know my mom. She’d kill me if I walked into the kitchen with you while she was in her bathrobe.”

  Kristen led Zorro and the brown horse around the wheelbarrow, stopping in front of him and tossing her braid back over her shoulder with a graceful movement of her head and shoulder. “My house in town is always an option.”

  Her hands were full and so were his, but their mouths met with a hunger that had nothing to do with breakfast.

  “Wow. You weren’t kidding about the braids and boots, were you?”

  “Your house is not a safe option.” He stepped back. “How about that donut shop from our tour?”

  “Bear claws and coffee. Sounds perfect.”

  “Go Grizzlies.”

  “Spoken like a true Rust Creek Falls native.”

  He had no answer for that, either, as Kristen led the two horses out of the barn.

  He wasn’t a native, and no matter how content he felt in Montana, he couldn’t leave his parents and their practice. It was clear that Kristen belonged here with her family just as strongly. He couldn’t pull this sweet cowgirl out of Montana, and he couldn’t hide from his responsibilities in California, either.

  He jabbed the pitchfork into the hay. He’d be lucky to get away from work one weekend every few months. Her two-timing pilot had been able to spend more time with her than Ryan could. How long would he and Kristen keep these tender emotions and this burning attraction going? Through how many lonely months of separation between the occasional three-day weekend?

  He dumped more waste into the wheelbarrow.

  Nothing good lasted forever.

  * * *

  It couldn’t be done.

  Ryan stared at his laptop in defeat. The firm’s calendar was no more flexible than a judge’s gavel. There was no way Ryan could squeeze in a return visit to Montana between Thanksgiving and Christmas. When he left Kristen at the end of the week, he’d be leaving her until February, at the very earliest.

  I’m in love with you, Kristen. I’ll miss Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, but I can make it back by Groundhog Day, and Memorial Day three months after that. Is that the relationship with a cowboy you’ve always dreamed of?

  His reality sucked. He needed to tell her all of it, before someone else burst their private bubble. If he kept taking Kristen on dates in Rust Creek Falls, it was inevitable they’d run into Brad Crawford or Lissa or, God forbid, Maggie.

  Disaster had been narrowly avoided this morning. After they’d mucked the last stalls and washed up, they’d headed for the donut shop. As Ryan had rounded the corner in his rented rig, the local term for any kind of vehicle, the sheriff’s rig had been parked squarely in front of the donut shop. There was no way Lissa’s husband, Sheriff Gage Christensen, wouldn’t have sat with them. There was no way he wouldn’t have asked Ryan how LA was treating him, and God knew what else. But the sheriff’s truck had pulled out of its parking space just as they were pulling in, and Ryan had dodged yet another bullet.

  After breakfast, he’d had the inspired idea to order sandwiches to go. A picnic at the actual waterfall that Rust Creek Falls had been named after had given him time alone with Kristen. He hadn’t had to fear being unmasked at any moment by a friendly townsperson who might remember him from the flood cleanup. They’d seen no other humans on their afternoon hike. No grizzlies, either, and the placid but alarmingly large moose they’d spotted had been completely uninterested in meeting the new guy in town.

  There’d been no dinner date.

  Alone with his laptop was not how he’d hoped to end the night, but Kristen was at her mystery job in Kalispell. She’d given him one clue. Her job woul
d help her become outrageously overqualified in the high school principal’s eyes. Ryan had pretended not to guess the obvious, that she was teaching a night course.

  He loved Kristen’s determination. She’d win that teaching job sooner or later. Kristen as a cowgirl, home renovator and schoolteacher was an adorable combination. Kristen was perfect as she was, where she was. He couldn’t ruin her life with his selfish desire to have her waiting for him in his beachfront high-rise at the end of his fourteen-hour days.

  Sometimes the pursuit of happiness ended in a dead end.

  It didn’t have to end immediately, at least. Once she knew who he was and the limits of what he could offer, she might choose to be his long-distance lover. It couldn’t last forever, but a few months of anticipating insanely heavenly weekends was as good as his life was going to get.

  But if she said no when she found out how little he really had to offer her, he wouldn’t be able to stop her walking away sooner rather than later.

  One thing was inescapable: sooner or later, it was going to hurt like hell.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “We never did go horseback riding yesterday. He wanted to go back out to the falls again. He thinks our falls are as pretty as Glacier National Park.”

  “Which you went to on Tuesday?”

  “Right.”

  Kristen whispered the details of her week to her sister as they stood in the wings of the theater. Tonight was the final dress rehearsal, which meant she had to press down the hoop skirts of her blue Victorian gown to get close enough to her sister to whisper.

  “And?” Kayla whispered. “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “It was rated R, not X. But it was romantic, just the two of us.” Kristen wriggled a little with the happiness of the memory. The motion added to her joy, because it was fun to make her skirt sway side to side.

  “It’s been just the two of you all the time. Awfully private.” Kayla was wearing regular clothes, all black from head to toe, the standard uniform of a stagehand. She had volunteered to serve as the prop master for half of the schedule.

  “We don’t always go off alone. You went to lunch with us today.”

  Ryan had driven her to Kalispell for buffalo burgers and sinful fries. It had been his suggestion to invite Kayla. Kristen had sworn Kayla to secrecy, though. She couldn’t tell Ryan about tonight’s dress rehearsal, only that she’d give Kristen a ride home after work.

  “I want him all to myself. Kayla, I’m so happy when I’m with him. If he asked me to marry him today, I’d say yes.”

  “Silence on stage,” the director called from his seat in the third row.

  Kristen tried not to giggle like a disobedient child. She looked at Kayla, her partner in the crime of whispering, but Kayla was absentmindedly trailing her fingers over a bit of the black velvet trim on Kristen’s gown, looking so sad that Kristen immediately felt sad, too. What had she said to put that look on her sister’s face?

  Marriage. It dawned on Kristen that she’d been taking giant steps since this summer, moving out, finding work, expanding her horizons. Most of all, falling in love. Maybe Kayla was feeling excluded.

  Before Kristen could give her sister a squeeze and whisper that she shouldn’t worry, that nothing could change the bond they shared as identical twins, Kayla yawned. She looked so tired. Come to think of it, she’d been sort of sad and tired for a while now, long before Ryan came back to town.

  Without thinking further, Kristen put her hand on her sister’s forehead.

  “What are you doing?” Kayla whispered, jerking away in surprise.

  “Do you feel okay? You seem kind of down.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Maybe we should get you a chair.”

  “Really, I’m fine. I’m just a little…”

  “A little what?”

  Kayla squared her shoulders, and pulled Kristen deeper into the wings. “I’m worried about you. Everything seems pretty sudden with Ryan.”

  “I’ve known him for months.”

  “You’ve known of him for months, but you’ve really only known him for days. Are you sure you’re in love with Ryan Roarke, or are you in love with the idea that this cowboy has come to town who fits your image of the perfect man?”

  Suddenly, Kristen felt like she was the one who needed the chair. Hearing Kayla whisper doubts after she’d finally met Ryan was a horrible turn of events. She wanted her sister to say Ryan was wonderful. She wanted her sister to say that, having met him, she understood now why Kristen had kept such faith in him for all these months.

  “Don’t look like that,” Kayla whispered. “I just want you to be sure you’re paying attention to the real man, not the idea of being in love with a man. I don’t want you to be hurt again.”

  Understanding dawned. “He’s nothing like that stupid pilot. Ryan’s like us. He worked with us in the stables twice this week. Didn’t you think he loved all our twin stories over lunch today? He understands loyalty, and family, and—and love.” But she hesitated over the last word, because Ryan hadn’t said he loved her.

  Really, she hadn’t said she loved him, either. They hadn’t talked about their future as a couple, only that he loved being with her and would come back as soon as he could. Maybe Kayla was right. Maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention to the real man.

  The theater was plunged into darkness, her cue to take her place center stage before the lights went up on her big scene. It was time for Belle to make things perfectly clear with Ebenezer. Then she’d walk away and leave him alone in a spotlight as artificial snow began to fall.

  Kristen picked up her fur muff and hurried to her mark. Belle needed to have a lot of courage to be so frank with Ebenezer about their relationship.

  A little shiver ran down Kristen’s back.

  It’s just a touch of stage fright.

  But it wasn’t. She couldn’t stay in her happy fog much longer. She needed some of Belle’s courage to ask Ryan exactly where their relationship stood. Tomorrow.

  Kristen took her spot and waited for the curtain to rise. There was nothing to fear. She knew her part and she trusted her crew.

  She had nothing to fear tomorrow, either. Ryan was no Ebenezer. Ryan would never place his career before her. In real life, she wouldn’t be walking out of the spotlight and into his past.

  * * *

  “Oh, my gosh. It’s my Mrs. Claus.”

  Kristen squeezed Ryan’s hand in excitement, pulling him to a stop in front of the thrift shop. They’d had lunch in Kalispell again, and were window-shopping in the quaint part of town, the part that included Depot Park and the theater. Tonight was opening night. So thrilling—but so was finding Mrs. Claus.

  “Do you think she’s the right size? I don’t think she’s four feet. She might be the three-foot version. They made that in 1970. I’ve got the 1968 Santa. He’s bigger.”

  “Maybe your Santa likes his women petite. I do.”

  Kristen bumped him with her shoulder, and he smiled his not-quite-a-smile.

  Pay attention to the real man.

  Her sister’s words had been haunting Kristen all day. She looked at Ryan more closely as they stood outside the window. Its entire display was of Santas. Large ones, small ones, ugly atrocities from dime stores, all were mixed in with porcelain antiques. It was a dizzying array of red suits and white beards, but Ryan had already turned his back on it. That half smile said it all: he wasn’t comfortable.

  “Do dolls creep you out?” Kristen had gone to college with a girl who had a genuine phobia about dolls. To this day, Kristen felt bad about teasing her before she’d realized just how real the girl’s aversion had been.

  “Dolls?” Ryan looked at her with that brow raised in surprise. “Hardly. Did you want to watch a horror movie tonight or something?
”

  It was her turn to laugh uncomfortably. “No, I’ve got something else planned.” His ticket to tonight’s show was burning a hole in her pocket. She pointed at the store window, stretching the blue crochet of her mitten with her index finger. “So, it’s Santa Claus, then. You don’t care for Santa?”

  He was about to say no, she knew it, but then he shook his head and looked at her like she was an unusual creature of some sort. “You really pick up on the strangest things. You’re right. I don’t care for Santa. I’m not a big fan of Christmas in general.”

  She remembered his words from the summer. “You said once if anyone could make Christmas better, it would be me.”

  “The decorations definitely look better when you’re in front of them.” His words were light and teasing, but Kristen knew she wasn’t imagining the guarded look in his eyes.

  “I thought you meant I’d make a good thing better, but you meant make a bad thing tolerable, didn’t you?” She should have been paying attention. Tonight’s play had scene after scene that included carolers and Christmas trees. “Just how averse are you to Christmas?”

  Ryan turned to look at the street, with its red bells and green garland stretched between stores and giant candy canes tied to every pole. Then he looked back to the window full of Santas. “Most of this is fine. I hadn’t really made the distinction, but you’re right. It’s Santa that particularly bothers me.”

  His attention was all on her. For once, it made her uncomfortable.

  She tried for a nonchalant shrug.

  “I don’t believe in aggravating old injuries. You told me once about the church steps, and I think it’s smart to just avoid them. There’s a side entrance to the church, so why stand on the steps when you don’t have to?”

  Why go to a Christmas play when you don’t have to?

  She wouldn’t give him the ticket. It was so disappointing, but really, she wouldn’t make him do something unpleasant for the sake of her pride. She’d wanted him to see her onstage, but he’d love her just the same if he avoided a play that made him cringe.