“So, you never believed?” Landon’s brows drew down.
“It’s hard to believe in much of anything when everything about life is just one tough hill to climb after another,” Dixie said. “Until I got stranded in Bowie, I was the poster kid for bad luck, but not anymore. Sally is going to believe and she’s going to have miracles, not hills.”
“Yes, she is,” Landon agreed.
When it was their turn to get Sally’s picture made, she sat on Santa’s knee like a little princess and even smiled for the cameras. When Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she said, “Lan-Lan.”
“Just a minute,” Claire called out from halfway across the room. “I want a picture of our two babies with Hud—I mean Santa Claus.”
“Thank goodness I hadn’t planned to leave before Christmas Day,” Landon chuckled as Claire hurried across the room and put Wyatt on Santa’s other knee.
Wyatt started to whimper. Sally reached out a hand toward him, and the whining turned into wails. “No, no, no!” Sally told him, and he cried even harder. Then she puckered up and tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“Lan-Lan, go,” she said between sobs.
Landon picked her up at the same time Claire rescued Wyatt. “Guess that didn’t work too well,” she said. “He hates the words ‘no, no.’”
“I’m so sorry,” Dixie apologized.
“Don’t be. It’ll be the picture we love the most.” Claire smiled and headed back across the room to where Levi waited.
“Who or what is Lan-Lan?” Santa looked up at Landon.
“That would be me. She doesn’t know a lot of words yet,” he explained.
“I don’t know if I can get you in the sleigh, but if that’s what she wants, I’ll do my best.” Santa winked.
“Thank you.” Dixie smiled at Hud.
“What about you?” Santa asked her. “What do you want for Christmas? I don’t see a ring on your finger. Maybe you want Lan-Lan too?” he teased.
“I learned a long time ago that wishing for special things don’t make them appear,” Dixie shot back at him.
“So, I’m special?” Landon asked as he stepped to the side and let the folks behind him have a chance.
“Of course you are, and you are welcome.” Dixie batted her eyes at him flirtatiously.
“I’m welcome for what?” he asked.
“Didn’t you see those women behind us gawking at you? I let them think we were a family so you could get out of this place with your pants on,” she teased.
“Then I thank you. A cowboy needs a good woman to take care of him,” Landon said. “Let’s bypass the sack with an apple and an orange in it, and drive into Bowie for some ice cream.”
“Ice keam!” Sally said and clapped her hands.
“She knows exactly what that is, and she loves it, especially chocolate,” Dixie said.
“Then let’s get out of here. I vote McDonald’s for burgers and milk shakes.” Landon held Sally in one arm and guided Dixie out of the crowd with his other hand on her lower back.
Sally narrowed her blue eyes and said, “Ice keam!”
“Yes, ma’am, baby girl. Let’s have some ice keam—and some real food too,” Landon said.
The trip to McDonald’s was only a five-minute drive, but the line was long at the order counter. That suited Landon just fine because the evening was already going faster than he wanted.
“Ice keam.” Sally stuck her bottom lip out and pointed toward a poster that featured a triple-dip banana split.
“You bring that precious baby on up here and get in line in front of us,” a sweet little gray-haired lady said. “We’ve got our Sunday school class here for treats after our Christmas program, so we’ll be awhile.”
Dixie smiled. “Thank you.”
“That’s a beautiful little girl. She has her father’s eyes for sure,” the woman said.
“We get told that a lot.” Landon couldn’t keep the grin off his face.
“You’d better be ready to fight off the boys here in a few years,” the elderly gentleman with her said. “That little girl is going to turn a lot of heads, but then I guess her mama sure turned yours awhile back, didn’t she?”
“Yes, sir, she did,” Landon replied. It wasn’t a lie. Dixie had caused him to take a second and a third look when he met her the first time. With her dark brown hair and those clear blue eyes, plus that cute little figure she sported under those skinny jeans and her T-shirt, any man would have had trouble keeping it down to just one glance. But it was more than her looks that drew Landon to her. She was an amazing mother to Sally and had the sweet attitude that he imagined angels in heaven would have. When she looked at him, he felt like he was ten feet tall and bulletproof.
They ordered their food and Landon paid the young man behind the counter. “Thanks again,” he told the Sunday school couple as he and Dixie took Sally to a booth in the corner.
“No problem. Y’all have a Merry Christmas,” the guy said.
“Does that embarrass you?” Dixie asked in a low voice when she slid into the booth.
“Nope,” Landon answered. “Kind of makes me feel good. Like a practice run for when…” He stopped before he finished the sentence.
“When you have a real family?” she asked.
“Does that make you uncomfortable?” he countered, avoiding her question.
She shook her head slowly. “You’re going to make a wonderful father, Landon, so tonight I’m enjoying a night out on the town and pretending like you are really Sally’s daddy.”
Landon was not expecting that answer, and for a moment he thought he’d imagined her saying the words. “What about the rest of it, Dixie?” he finally asked.
“Yep, I’m pretending we are a family too,” she answered, “and it’s a good feeling. I should thank you for renewing my trust in men. Until I came to Sunset and met the cowboys out on the ranch, I thought all men were bastards. I still wasn’t sure until you came into my life. Now I can see there are a few good ones left.”
He could feel his cheeks flush, but before he could figure out some kind of response, the number for their order was called. Landon gratefully slid out of the booth to go get it. When he returned with the tray, Sally shook her head and said, “Ice keam.”
“After you eat your fries and chicken.” Dixie set about making bite-sized pieces of the French fries and nuggets. “Then you can have ice cream.”
Thirty minutes later Sally looked like she had taken a bath in the ice cream machine. She had it in her hair, between her fingers, and even behind her ears. The cone was a soggy mess, and the tray was covered with melted ice cream that Sally had tried to clean up with her bare hands.
Dixie pushed the napkin dispenser over to Landon and said, “Have fun.”
He took out a fistful and leaned over to wipe the baby’s hands, but before he could make the first swipe, she patted him on his cheeks, leaving sticky handprints down in his five o’clock shadow.
“My Lan-Lan!” She grinned and kept patting until he got ahold of one of her hands and wiped it. She immediately ran the clean hand around on the messy tray and patted his arm.
“Tray first, and then kid.” Dixie leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest, and smiled.
“You might have told me that in the beginning,” he said.
Sally leaned over and laid her face on the tray the minute he finished wiping it down. She looked up at Landon and smiled. “Lan-Lan go.”
“Not yet, baby,” he answered. “I’ve got to show Mommy what a great daddy I am.”
“Lan-Lan, Da-Dee!” She raised up, clapped her hands, and left a smear of ice cream on the tray.
“In our pretend world, I am.” He attacked the tray with another bunch of napkins, and then tried to get her face clean again, but she got a handful of hair that time.
“Need a little help there, cowboy?” Dixie asked as she brought out the wet wipes from the diaper bag.
“Never turn down help.” He repeate
d one of her earlier lines. “Getting her cleaned up is like trying to nail Jell-O to the smokehouse door.”
“Pretty good sayin’.” Dixie had Sally cleaned up in only a couple of minutes, and then she focused on Landon. “Turn around here.” She got him by the chin and twisted his face around so she could see him, wiped all the ice cream from his cheeks, and then expertly got it out of his hair. “Now I think we can go home and finish up by giving her a bath.”
“You sure you don’t want to give me one too?” he flirted.
“Not tonight, cowboy.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “We’ve had enough excitement.”
Chapter Six
Dixie could not believe that she’d felt comfortable enough to be honest and admit that she had been playing like they were a real family that whole evening. She replayed every moment of the time they’d had together later as she put together a quilt square with a Santa hat on it and one with a yellow puppy that had a red bow around its neck.
By the time they had gotten home from their visit with Santa Claus, freezing rain had started falling, coating the trees and the roads with ice. That put an end to his idea about going over to Bowie to see the Christmas of Lights Festival on Wednesday evening. When she suggested that if the roads weren’t too bad he could help her make cookies to deliver to all her friends on Christmas Eve, he’d been as excited as Sally always was when he arrived at the Quilt Shop.
Now it was midnight, and she had tossed and turned for the past hour. She sat up in bed, beat on her pillow, straightened her covers, and flopped back down to stare at the ceiling.
She finally fell asleep and dreamed she was standing on the porch with Sally in her arms. They were both waving good-bye to Landon as he drove away, and tears were rolling down both their cheeks. She woke up saying “my girls” and “home” over and over again.
Then Sally was standing up in her crib and saying, “My Lan-Lan,” over and over again. Dixie threw back the covers, picked Sally up, and hugged her tightly.
“Were you dreaming too?” She kissed the baby’s little cheeks. “We’ve never been like this with good-byes, not even when your father left us. We’ll just have to be brave and love the memories we’re making with Landon these days.”
She changed Sally’s diaper and carried her to the kitchen. “Let’s have pancakes this morning, and then we’ll make a batch of chocolate chip cookies—just in case someone comes in today. I doubt that anyone will be out on the roads, but we’ll be ready if they do.”
“Nanny?” Sally asked.
Dixie settled the baby into her high chair and kissed her on the top of her blond hair. “Never know what one of your nannies might do, but I don’t expect them to get out in this kind of a mess.”
* * *
Levi arrived in the bunkhouse that morning right after the hired hands had finished breakfast. “All right, guys, it’s a mess out there. We’ve got the cattle pretty much contained in two pastures, but we’ve got to break ice in their watering troughs at least twice today. I’ll take Landon with me, and we’ll take hay and feed out to the west pasture. The rest of you take care of the east pasture. I don’t have to tell you to check every head of cattle.”
Landon pulled on a pair of mustard-colored insulated coveralls and a ski mask, stomped his feet down into his boots, and followed Levi out the door.
“Do you ever wish that you were doing another job when weather like this sets in?” Levi asked as he climbed into one of the old ranch work trucks and started the engine. He put the truck in gear, backed out a ways, and then headed toward the pasture.
“Nope.” Landon shook his head. “Weather is part of ranchin’, whether it’s hot enough to boil your brains or cold enough to turn your blood into ice pops. You got to love it to be able to do it.”
“That’s the gospel truth. You are a natural-born foreman. I sure do wish you’d stick around. I’m willing to give you a foreman’s assistant title, and you know you’re welcome to move out to the cabin,” Levi said.
The two of them got out and, working together, they hitched up a trailer already loaded with two big round bales of hay. Without being told, Landon went straight to the stacks of feed and hoisted two bags onto his shoulders.
“I’ve been givin’ that some thought, but I’m not sure I’m ready for a title. If I was to stay, I would sure like to live in the cabin though.” He carried the feed to the truck and tossed it in the back. “Do you think we need four or six this morning?”
“Four should do it now, and then we’ll take more out this evening,” Levi said as he leaned against the truck fender. “You talked to your brothers?”
“Nope.” Landon loaded two more bags and got back into the truck. “I got to figure out things for myself before I talk to them.”
Levi slid in behind the wheel, started the engine, and headed out across the ice-covered ground. “The cabin is yours anytime you want it. We haven’t had weather this bad since back in the late nineties. That one knocked out our power and we were without electricity for five days.”
“What did you do?” Landon asked, but his mind wasn’t on the ice storm or the electricity.
“In between taking care of chores, we all snuggled up to the fireplaces,” Levi answered.
“Ranchers through thick and thin,” Landon chuckled, but the picture in his mind was one of Dixie and Sally and himself in the old cabin at the back side of the ranch. They were cuddled up together on a quilt in front of the stone fireplace, and the logs were blazing on the andirons. Just thinking about that made him happy.
Now think about leaving here and going back to the other side of Texas and figure out which one makes you happier, the pesky voice inside his head suggested.
I know that I have to make a definite decision before the first of the year, he argued, so get out of my head and leave me alone so I can figure things out on my own.
“Speaking of huddling around the fire, telling tall tales, and soaking up enough warmth, that’s what the hired hands do in between jobs on these cold days. I’m not interested in tall tales. I think I’ll go out to the tack room and do some cleaning,” Landon said.
Levi nodded. “Best way to sort things out is with hard work.”
“That’s what my old ranchin’ friend used to tell me,” Landon said.
“We’re both lucky to have had good advice.” Levi stopped the truck in front of a gate leading into a pasture, and Landon hopped out to open it. Mesquite tree branches sounded like shotgun blasts as they broke with the weight of the ice. Cows bawled and made their way toward the feed bins. A cottontail rabbit darted so close to his foot that he could have touched it with the toe of his boot. Cold permeated his coveralls, and yet he was so happy that he couldn’t imagine being anywhere but on a ranch—and he was happier right here in Sunset than he’d ever been anywhere else.
When Levi dropped him off at the bunkhouse after chores, Landon discovered that he was the first one to get back, but he didn’t linger long. Since he wasn’t on the list for kitchen duty that day, he got into his truck and headed back to the barn. The tack room was a mess, so he skipped lunch and spent the rest of the day putting it to rights. Then right before suppertime, Levi picked him up for the evening feeding.
“Looks good in here,” Levi said. “Matter of fact, I don’t think this place has ever been this clean. You want to call it a day and go on into Sunset to see your girlfriend?”
“A future ranch foreman wouldn’t do that now, would he?” Landon said. “And Dixie isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Is she going to be?” Levi asked.
“Don’t know yet. She’d have to agree to that,” Landon answered.
“Won’t know unless you ask her. She’s as valuable to Claire as you are to me. Claire would sell the shop tomorrow if she didn’t have Dixie to run it for her.” Levi headed out of the tack room toward his truck.
“Oh, really?” Landon followed him and helped load a couple more bags of feed.
“Dixie will
have a job as long as she wants it, and Claire will still make quilts to ship out to her customers, but she’ll be doing her part at home,” Levi explained.
They repeated what they’d done that morning, and when they were finished, Levi dropped Landon back at the barn. He got into his truck and didn’t even stop at the bunkhouse. He was already running an hour behind, and he didn’t want to miss another minute of the time he could spend with Dixie.
* * *
Dixie had just pulled the second sheet of sugar cookies from the oven when she heard the familiar rat-a-tat-tat on the front door. She knew by the knock that it was him, but he was earlier than she’d expected. She hadn’t even had time to take her hair down from the usual ponytail, and she was barefoot, but she couldn’t leave him standing out there in the cold, so she opened the door.
She smiled. “Come right on in.”
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said as he stepped inside the house and brushed something from the tip of her nose before he removed his coat and hat. “Little flour on your nose. You must’ve already started the cookies.”
If this was the way a ranching wife felt, then Dixie liked it. “I figured y’all would have extra work today and you might not get to come into town.” She hurried back to the kitchen, set the cookies on a cooling rack, and peeked around the corner.
Landon picked up Sally, and she laid her little head on his shoulder. Oh, yes sir, she did like this contented feeling more than a little.
“Feeding took longer than it does in better weather,” he said, “but I wouldn’t miss decorating cookies for anything. Is that pot roast I smell? Have y’all already eaten? Should I put the baby in her chair, and help feed her?”
“We had supper,” Dixie answered, “but I’m sure Sally would love to eat a little something with you. She’s been sayin’ your name all day.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking your name and hers, too, so we’re even.” Landon settled the baby into her high chair. “Is it all right if I give her bites of one of those warm sugar cookies to nibble on while I eat?”
A Little Country Christmas Page 6