Picking Up Cowboys (8 page)

chapter ten

Finally, Gage moved away.  Catherine ignored the gooseflesh raising on her arms.  When his arm had brushed against her, heat had pooled in her and she’d almost collapsed.  How could one man be so aggravating and so attractive at the same time?

“What kind of fudge?” 

Catherine glanced over her shoulder.  Gage had one hip propped up on the kitchen table, his free leg resting on the floor.  His arms were crossed over his chest, outlining his muscles.  Catherine turned back to the stove and stirred furiously.

“Chocolate.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he drawled.

Catherine laughed.  “It’s my favorite thing.”

“Any kind of chocolate?”

Catherine turned sideways, still stirring, but able to see his face.  “Yes, why?”

“Chocolate icing?” His smile lit his eyes with a sensuous flame.

“Yes,” Catherine answered a little more hesitantly.  What was he up to?

Gage shifted away from the table and took a step toward her.  “Chocolate syrup?”

Catherine cleared her throat.  Gage kept walking toward her, stopping within touching distance.

“Why do you want to know that?”  His gaze was so heated she had to look away.  Catherine turned back to the stove, using the fudge as an excuse.

“I just can see the possibilities.”  His voice was  husky as dry snow.

Catherine dripped some of the fudge base into the cool waiting water and almost did a dance when the test proved the candy was ready.  Maybe she could escape this uncomfortable conversation.  Uncomfortable and way too stimulating.

“Fudge is ready,” she sang, yanking the pot off the burner and dumping a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and a jar of marshmallow cream into the pot.

“Now what?”  Gage moved closer, glancing over her shoulder. 

His body pressed against her back and Catherine closed her eyes.  “I stir some more.”

“You certainly stir me,” he whispered.

Catherine dropped the spoon and turned to face him, planting her hands on her hips.

“Okay, what’s up?”

Gage grinned and Catherine blushed.  He hadn’t moved back when she’d spun around and they stood so close their breaths mingled in an age-old dance.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”  Catherine decided that a good offense was the best armor against his rugged charm.

“Could I?”

Catherine felt her jaw slacken.  “No.  So stop it.”  She turned back to the fudge and stirred vigorously to make up for the few seconds she’d allowed it to sit.

“Liar.”  Gage’s breath brushed over her ear and Catherine began to tremble.  “But then you are a Claiborne.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Catherine poured the fudge into buttered pans and ran some water in the cooking pot.

“Not a thing, darlin’.”  Gage’s voice took on the soft southern drawl that it did when he didn’t want to discuss something further.

“Do you have something against Claibornes in general or is it just me?”

Gage’s green eyes snapped hostilely for a minute and then a shutter fell over his emotions.  Perhaps she’d imagined it.  Or did he really want this ranch that badly?

“Truce, Cat.  For Christmas.”  He lifted his hand and held the palm against her cheek.

Catherine resisted the urge to rub herself against him like the domestic creature he was so fond of calling her.

A truce for Christmas.  Was it just possible that they could be at peace for that short period of time?  A real Christmas.  Wistful longing swept through her, robbing her of her ability to answer him.

“We’ll cook dinner together.”

Catherine raised her gaze to his, but the emotions were still hidden and she couldn’t read his intentions.  Was this all a trick to get her to sell the ranch?  Or was he sincere?  Did it even matter?  A real Christmas.  This was what she’d always wanted.

“Truce,” she agreed.

Gage moved his hands to her shoulders and tugged her closer.  “Truces should always be sealed.”

Catherine raised her brows.  “Oh, really?”

“Yes.”  Gage lowered his head and captured her lips with his. 

Catherine didn’t resist, she returned his kiss with more enthusiasm than she’d intended, but he didn’t linger.  He pulled back after that first brief kiss.  The faint taste of disappointment lingered in the back of her throat, which was ridiculous.  She hadn’t really wanted him to kiss her.  Of course not.  It was just the human contact at Christmas.  That’s all it was.

“And tonight, Santa visits.”  The shutters flung open and Gage’s eyes filled with excitement.

Catherine giggled.  “Were you like this as a child?”

“Worse.” He grinned.  “Didn’t you get excited about Christmas?”

Her thoughts were jagged and painful, like shards of glass covering her memories.  Excited?  How could you get excited when you knew there was no such person as Santa, or that Santa was the drunken shell of a man upstairs passed out?

* * *

Gage watched as the animation left Cat’s face to be replaced with sorrow.  Apparently he’d said the wrong thing.  Was it because this was her first Christmas without her father?  As much as he hated Mustang Claiborne, he supposed he could understand her grief.

“Excited?”  Catherine laughed bitterly.

Gage frowned.  She was still talking about Christmas and childhood.  What had upset her then?

“I guess you could say I was usually anxious about Christmas as a child.”  Her even teeth came out and bit into her bottom lip.

Gage wanted to take her in his arms and soothe the hurt he saw written on her face, but Cat paced away from him, crossing her arms as if to ward off a chill.

“That bad?”  The thought of Cat as a small child, the light of joy stamped from her face, touched a part of him that had been buried for too many years.

Cat shrugged, but Gage could sense that she was holding her emotions tightly in check.  Well, he would go ahead with his plans to celebrate the holiday and if she wanted to talk he’d offer a willing ear.

“Let’s go decorate that tree.”  He grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him into the living room.

The scraggly, pathetic tree still stood in the corner where he’d left it.  A reservoir of water filled the base of the stand and Gage slid a glance at Cat.  She must have filled it sometime after he’d stormed out the other day. But she hadn’t bothered to decorate it; he wondered why. 

She’d seemed so excited when they’d first brought the tree home. 
Home
.  The word hung in his mind and tormented him.  This was his home and yet it wasn’t.  Technically, it was just a house.  A place where his family had lived.  In his heart, it was home.  It was his parents’ home, and his childhood, and his memories.  This ranch was every precious memory.  What bothered him about using the word associated with Cat was that somewhere along the way he’d come to think of it as her home too.  And it wasn’t.  Her father had stolen it, but it wasn’t hers.  It wasn’t home for her.  Or was it?

“Where are the decorations?”  He’d focus on getting the tree decorated, and all the other traditions his family had passed down to him.  If he kept his mind off his traitorous ex-partner, maybe he could enjoy Christmas Eve with that partner’s daughter.             

“I pulled them out of the attic the other day and put them in the coat closet.”

  Gage whistled and went to get the heavy cardboard box of ornaments.  Cat ripped the tape off with a noisy yank and dug into the box.  She pulled out two little glass globes with angels in them.  They looked too fragile to exist.  Gage took a step back, scared that if he looked too long, they’d disappear into the wispy dreams they appeared to be.

“These were my mother’s.”  Cat’s voice was so soft, Gage almost didn’t hear her. 

She rose to her feet and hooked each globe over a high branch, stepping back to admire them.

“How old were you when she died, Cat?”  Gage understood the heart wrenching loss of a parent.  When his father had died, it had been like someone had reached inside of him and ripped out a vital part of himself.  He couldn’t imagine the pain of losing both parents.

“I was a baby.  I don’t remember her.”  Cat’s eyes were wistful and she seemed about to say something else but then turned back to the box.  “Let’s get the rest of these up.”

“Are there stories behind any of the others?”  Gage reached into the box and pulled loose a little blue house covered with painted on snow.

“No.  No more stories.”  Cat spat the words out.

Gage stared at her in shock.  No stories?  Didn’t all families have stories at Christmas?  Something wasn’t quite right here.  Either the traditions were a little off-kilter or Cat was embarrassed by them.

“We usually built a cozy fire on Christmas Eve.”  Gage nodded his head toward the fireplace and then realized what he’d done.  He didn’t want Cat to realize he’d grown up in this house.  Not just yet.  “We would drink hot cider and my father would read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Contentment passed over her face, softening her blue eyes to a cloudy gray.  “That sounds nice.”

“What did your family do for Christmas, Cat?  I want to know some of your traditions.”

Cat quickly dug back into the box and shrugged her shoulders, not really answering his question.

Gage eyed her suspiciously.  Either she was closing him out intentionally or she was hiding something.  Either way he intended to find out.

“We would open one present on Christmas Eve.”

Cat’s eyes started to glow again.  “Really?  How many brothers and sisters did you have?”

“Just a sister.  She’s two years older than me.  What about you?”

“No brothers or sisters.  It was just me and Pop.”

“What?”  He threw a hand over his heart.  “No one to fight with?”

“There was no one.”  She stopped mid-way to hanging an ornament and stood motionless. 

“Well you had your father at least.” 

“Did I?”  Tears glistened on her lashes and one rolled slowly down her cheek. 

“Cat?”  The sight of her tears caused an unfamiliar reaction in him - the fierce need to protect her from any pain.  Gage pulled her into his arms and held her gently.

“My father never made a big deal out of Christmas is all.”  She sniffed and then palmed her tears away.  “This is silly, I quit expecting miracles a long time ago.”

“Didn’t you have any traditions?”

“Yeah, we had one.  My father would go out and get as drunk as he could on Christmas Eve, someone would bring him home and then he’d sleep until four or five on Christmas day. When he got up, there was never any acknowledgment that it was Christmas.”

The drunkard!  Gage had known that Mustang was a selfish cheat but he’d never dreamed the man had cheated his daughter more than anyone. 

No child should have to miss out on the joy of Christmas.  His family had always followed a set pattern on Christmas.  Traditions that he had come to count on as a child and continued to practice as an adult.  The fire and stories on Christmas Eve, Christmas dinner and the opening of presents, and the big fight between his mom and dad.

Gage frowned, wondering why he’d recalled that twice after all this time.  His father had been dead for nearly fifteen years, shouldn’t he only be remembering the good times and not the bad?

“My childhood wasn’t perfect either, Cat,”  he admitted.  There had been the fights over selling the ranch and moving and his mother threatening to take the kids and leave.  It had usually spoiled the high spirits they were in. 

“It sure sounds perfect to me.”  Cat’s heart was in her eyes and Gage ached for the little girl she’d been.  “He never bought me a Christmas present, Gage.”

“He was a drunk, Cat.”

She didn’t seem to notice that Gage had spoken from personal knowledge.  “He didn’t love me enough to take the trouble to ever buy me one little thing.  I wouldn’t have cared what it was.  Anything would have worked.  But he didn’t bother.”

He reached over and stroked his thumb over her slightly trembling lower lip.  “I’m sorry, Cat.”

“Once, he came home with Peanut.  He’d won her in a card game.  He said, ‘Here, you take care of it.’  That’s why she’s so special to me, it was the closest I ever came to receiving a present from Pop. He never got over losing my mother.  I think it almost destroyed him.”

Gage swallowed his response.  He wasn’t willing to feel sympathetic toward Mustang, the man didn’t have a compassionate or fair bone in his body.  He hadn’t even been capable of loving his own daughter.

What Cat needed was a traditional Christmas, one with all the caring and warmth he could give.  It sounded to him like she was long overdue one.