Mistletoe Cowboy (25 page)

And there was that other thing.

Ada hadn't brought up the sale or what she'd decided in her almost three weeks, but the time had come. Creed wanted the Rockin' C and he wanted Sage right along with it. He didn't know what he'd do if Ada had changed her mind and didn't want to sell. He couldn't ask Sage to leave her home, but his heart would shrivel up and die without her.

He pulled the quilt up over his shoulders and shut his eyes tightly. It didn't work but it did provide a blank screen for him to imagine all kinds of pictures of Sage. There she was in the kitchen that first morning looking like she could chew up nails and spit out staples. And in the mall with the same expression on her face the day they went on their only date.

His eyelids flew up so fast that he couldn't focus for several seconds.

He couldn't ask Sage to marry him. They'd only been on one date.

Don't be stupid. What was that little ride through the pasture the day that Noel had the puppies? What was that trek through the snow to show her the icicle on the mistletoe?

The quilt fell on the floor when he sat up and stared at the fireplace. He was so deep in the inner argument with himself that he didn't hear Sage padding across the floor. He felt a movement and there she was, pulling his arm around her and the quilt over both of them.

“I can't sleep. Hold me,” she mumbled.

He kissed her on the forehead and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Me neither.”

***

Essie awoke the next morning long before dawn and tiptoed to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. She stopped in front of the Christmas tree, turned around, and went right back to the bedroom she and Ada were sharing. She pulled the cover off Ada and slapped her on the shoulder.

“I'm awake,” Ada said.

“Then quit wastin' daylight.”

“I'm not. Can't waste what ain't here.”

“Yes, you are. You can get the chores done and use the daylight to do what you can't do in the dark.”

Ada sat up and yawned. “What put a burr in your butt this morning?”

“Put on your housecoat and come with me.”

Ada slung her legs over the edge of the bed and Essie handed her a faded blue chenille robe.

“Shhhh!” Essie motioned for her to follow.

They stopped in the middle of the living room floor and stared mesmerized at Sage and Creed. One quilt covered both of them. Her head rested on his shoulder. His chin rested on her head.

“Ada, they couldn't sleep without each other. You've got to loosen up and tell them they can sleep in the same bed.”

“The hell I can. This is still my house and if she wants to sleep with him in a bed under my roof, she can marry him.”

Sage sat across from her grandmother at the kitchen table. Essie had claimed a rocking chair in front of the blazing fireplace and was crocheting something pink. Creed had suited up and left to do the chores.

It was time for the argument that Sage had looked forward to and planned for the past three weeks. And she was speechless.

“Well?” Ada asked.

“You first,” Sage answered.

“I was right.”

Sage shrugged.

Dammit, anyway! It wasn't easy admitting defeat before she'd even spit on her knuckles and drawn a line in the snow.

“I liked that cowboy from the start and you've fallen in love with him,” Ada said.

“You were right, and yes, I have.”

“Then why the long face this morning?”

Sage stretched her hands across the table and laid them on Ada's. “Grand, I don't want you to leave the Rockin' C. I can live with the sale now. Got to admit when I dropped down into the canyon on those slick roads all I wanted to do was bust in here and have a big fight with you, but you were right about Creed.”

“You can't have your cake and eat it too,” Essie said from the living room.

“She's been spoutin' off that brand of bullshit for days,” Ada whispered.

“I can hear you,” Essie singsonged.

“She's probably right but it pains the hell out of me to admit it,” Ada said.

Sage gently squeezed her hands. “Why? You and Aunt Essie can live here. The ranch is plenty big and I can take care of you when you get old.”

“When? Honey, we done passed the time of if and when. We
are
old,” Essie said.

***

Creed fed the cattle and worried.

He scattered chicken scratch in the henhouse and worried.

He opened the chute and poured a mixture of sour milk and cornmeal into the hog's trough and worried some more.

Sage was in the kitchen with Ada and it didn't take the intelligence of a rocket scientist to know what they were discussing. His whole future, hell, his whole heart was laid out on that old kitchen table between them.

His boots felt like they'd been filled with concrete as he trudged back to the barn. The brown and white milk cow waited for him as if she understood that he didn't need any further distractions that morning. He led the way to the milk stall and she followed obediently.

“I'll hire some help so Sage can have more time for her painting. Lord only knows I don't want her to give that up.” He pulled up a three-legged milking stool and sat down.

The first milk made pinging noises as it hit the bucket, and whirls of steam arose until the bottom was covered. “Besides, I love to watch her paint. It's soothing to a cowboy's soul. Rye mentioned one of his cousins was looking for work. I met several of his family at his and Austin's wedding reception. I can't put names with faces, but if he's an O'Donnell, you can bet that he knows ranchin' and horses.”

The cow mooed.

“Sounds like a good idea, does it? I can clean up the bunkhouse and start with one hired hand this year and if the calf crop and the hay makes good, I can maybe hire a second one next year.”

By the time the bucket was full, he'd envisioned more than one year into the future and every one of them involved Sage and the rings still hidden in his coat pocket.

“Well, shit! If Ada gets to snooping around in the closet, she's liable to find the rings. That would be a disaster.”

He let the cow back out with the other cattle and carried the milk back to the house, dreading what lay ahead.

His eyes swept the kitchen first looking for Sage, but she wasn't there. He peeked around the bar but she wasn't working on the newest painting. Essie was doing something with pink yarn in front of the fireplace. Ada had just pulled a pan of spicy-smelling cookies from the oven.

She tossed oven mitts on the cabinet, poured two cups of coffee, and motioned for him to sit down. “I'll strain the milk while you get out of those coveralls and we'll talk.”

He unzipped his coveralls. “Where is Sage?”

“She's out on the porch playing with her pets. I got to hand it to you, Creed Riley. I knew you was the cowboy I'd been waiting for when you knocked on my door. I could feel it in my bones but I never figured that you'd talk her into animals. That's a pretty nice momma cat; kinda pretty with all that long fur and I can see Sage falling in love with her. But that ugly dog? God Almighty, that took a pure miracle.”

Creed didn't want to talk about animals. He wanted to talk about the sale of the Rockin' C. “Yes, ma'am, but Noel wormed her way into Sage's heart real quick.”

He kicked his boots off and joined Ada at the table. A plate of fresh cookies sat between them and the coffee was still steaming.

Ada pushed the cookies his way. “Help yourself.”

He bit into the soft gingerbread and nodded. “Very good.”

“Christmas tradition around here. I like that y'all put the tree up and the lights around the barn and that you made sugar cookies and gingerbread. I had to make fresh for today though because this is an important day.”

It took two long gulps of hot coffee to swallow the gingerbread. “Yes, it is.”

“I'm going to sell you this ranch, Creed. I'm not backing out of the agreement. Are you?”

He shook his head. Had he heard her right? Would Sage be able to really live with the decision?

“Good.”

“Well, damn!” Essie said. “Now she'll lord it over me that her damned old Indian sense is real.”

“Oh, hush. You want me to sell the ranch and you know it. Put that yarn down and tell Sage to come in here. We need to talk amongst the four of us because there are some conditions.”

Essie obeyed but she muttered something about her sister being too bossy.

Creed smiled at Sage when she came back into the house. Her nose was scarlet and her knit cap was set off to one side. No doubt Noel had been extra friendly.

She smiled back and winked.

The stone in his heart dissolved completely. She was okay with the sale and their relationship was fine.

“Okay, Sage, get out of that coat and pour some coffee for you and Essie. We're going to lay out the terms of this sale amongst us.”

Sage stopped long enough to brush a kiss across Creed's cheek. “Good morning.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down onto his lap where he kissed her properly. “Good morning, darlin'. Your grandmother has not backed out of the sale.”

“I know. I chose eating my cake.”

A puzzled expression crossed his face.

Essie laughed out loud. “So did Ada, thank God.”

“I'm sure it'll all make sense someday,” Creed said.

He would have preferred that Sage sit in his lap through the whole discussion of the terms but she stood up. Once her coat was removed she took her place and reached under the table to squeeze his thigh.

“Okay,” Ada began. “I'll go first. Essie and I had a long talk last night after we went to bed. When I left the canyon I was positively sure about this sale but then the doubts came creepin' in on me. So we made arrangements to come a few days early so that I could tell Creed I'd changed my mind and wasn't going to sell out. Seemed only right to give him time to go home to his family for the holidays and I wanted to be with you, Sage.”

“She was an old bear,” Essie said. “Wanted her cake and wanted to eat it too, just like Sage did.”

Ada shot her sister a dirty look and went on. “Essie and I want to be together in our old age. She wants to be in Shade Gap because that's her home. I want to be here because this is my home. We couldn't have it both ways until we got to studying the matter. This is what we've come up with and if you are in agreement, we'll call the lawyer and have him meet us at the courthouse in Claude this afternoon.”

“Why the hurry?” Sage asked.

“Courthouse will be closed on Monday. Tuesday is Christmas, and besides, Essie and I are going back to Shade Gap on Sunday evening. Had to get a red-eye home because all the planes are booked full during the holidays.”

“But Grand, if you were going to back out of the sale, why did Essie come with you? She would have had to fly home all by herself,” Sage asked.

Essie put up a palm. “That was my idea. If I let her out of my sight for a minute she makes the wrong decisions. I had to come along to keep her in remembrance of the fact that I need her to help me.”

“Bullshit! Woman who can climb on the roof don't need nobody to help her,” Sage said.

“Okay, you caught me. I don't need her but she needs me,” Essie giggled.

“That's a load of bullshit for sure,” Ada raised her voice.

“Oh, hush the bitching and tell them the plan,” Essie said.

“Okay, I'm selling you the ranch for the price we agreed upon. But I want to buy this house back from you for the same amount. Not the land it sits on, just the house.”

Creed's brows knit together. “Explain please.”

“You are going to give me the rest of the money for the ranch. I'm going to tear up the check because I'm buying my house back from you. Understand that much?”

“But why?”

“Essie and I are going to spend our winters here and our summers at her place. We've even written it down on the calendar. We'll go to Shade Gap after Easter and we'll come back here after Halloween each year. All but this first year which we plan to spend in Shade Gap. We will come back to Texas for Easter this year and for July Fourth,” Ada said.

“But I'm staying under the air conditioner and knitting. I'm not going outside in that sweltering heat,” Essie declared.

“Then we'll come for the winter after Halloween. By then I expect you two to have your own house built with the money I'm paying you for this house. There's over a thousand acres here so you've got lots of choices to make about where you want to build and what size house you want, but I don't want to give up my house.”

Creed nodded. “But you can have this house and we'll build one, Miz Ada. You don't have to pay for it.”

“See, Sage, I told you he was a good man.” Ada grinned.

“Stipulation number two coming up,” Essie said.

Ada looked from Sage to Creed. “You've got to hire some help. Sage can't leave her career in the dust to be a rancher's wife. She'll resent it in her old age.”

“Agreed,” Creed said without hesitation.

Sage blushed. “No one said anything about a marriage.”

“Any more conditions to the sale?” Creed asked.

“That's it,” Ada said.

“Then I think the terms are more than generous and I want to add my stipulations to the deal,” Creed said in his slow Texas drawl.

All eyes were on him.

“When I drove up in the front yard three weeks ago, I knew I'd found home. Don't know if your Indian sense had found its way to me by osmosis or what, but I was at peace for the first time in years. All I wanted for Christmas was a ranch of my own. I didn't have any idea what all went with the ranch.” He grinned and leaned over to kiss Sage on the cheek.

“Here's my only condition, Miz Ada. When you two are too old to make the trips back and forth, I want your promise that you will settle here on the Rockin' C with us and let us take care of you.”

Ada looked at Essie, who nodded.

Tears flowed down Sage's cheeks.

“See, I told you he was the very cowboy to take over the Rockin' C.” Ada's voice cracked.

Essie leaned over and whispered in Ada's ear. Her younger sister shook her head emphatically and said, “Hell no, it's my house!”

***

“Where are y'all going?” Sage asked when Ada and Essie headed around the house toward the barn.

“Out to the cemetery. I want to visit with Tom and see your folks while I'm here. I won't be back until Easter. You did get flowers put out, didn't you?” Ada asked.

“Yes, ma'am. Poinsettias. The biggest pots that Walmart had to sell.”

“I'll take you, Ada,” Creed said.

“No, you won't. There's only room on the tractor for two people and Essie wants to go with me. Three weeks didn't knock out my ability to drive that tractor, son. You go on in the house and get to thinkin' about what kind of house you want and where you are going to put it. I don't intend to share mine when I come back at Easter.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”

He waited by the kitchen window, standing under the mistletoe still hanging on the curtain, for the sound of the tractor's engine starting up. Sage slipped her arms around his waist and together they watched Ada back it out of the barn and head down the plowed path to the cemetery.

“I love you,” Sage said.

“Wait right here. Don't move.”

“You're supposed to say that you love me,” she said.

“I do but… no, stand right here.” He walked her backwards until she was standing in the exact same spot where she'd been when he first saw her. She had been wearing sweats that day. Today she wore jeans and a bright red sweater with a Christmas tree knitted into the front. Christmas bulb earrings dangled from her ears and her hair was loose around her shoulders like Creed liked.

“What are you doing? Taking a picture to remember this day by?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

It felt strange opening the door into the bedroom where Ada and Essie had taken up residence. It wasn't his even though that was his television on the chest of drawers and his things in the closet. He dug into the pocket of his coat and found the right ring box and carried it to the kitchen.

“I didn't move. Where's the camera?” she asked.

He kissed her hard and passionately.

She threw both arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. “You got it backwards, darlin'. You don't go to the bedroom before you kiss me like that. We go afterwards and have a wild hour of sex before they get back.”