Mistletoe Cowboy Page 14

  “She did and I was so damned glad to hear the news that the roads were closed that I almost danced a jig, woman. Truth is, I was about half-afraid of you. That morning when I found you in the kitchen I was stunned out of my mind. It’s a wonder I could speak.”

  “So I wasn’t what you thought I’d be?” she asked.

  “I was expecting something way, way different, lady. Your picture doesn’t do you justice. You are one beautiful woman.”

  “Thank you for that. But put yourself in my place.”

  “Are you going to be really angry when she sells me this ranch?”

  Sage thought about the question while she chewed. “Not angry. Sad.”

  “That’s what you were thinking about this morning, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “My momma was hoping I’d hate this place. All of her kids are within a thirty-minute drive but me. I’m the only one who won’t be there for Christmas.”

  Sage looked up quickly. “But you can go home for the holidays if you want to. Grand will be back for those days. She and I can do the chores.”

  “This is my home. I knew it when I walked up on the porch that first day. Home is where the heart is, not where you hang your hat, and for the first time in my life I want to be here. Going to Ringgold now is going to Momma’s house, not home. And I want to spend my first Christmas on my very own ranch, not at Momma’s house.”

  “Okay then, let’s eat and start decorating the tree. I bet we can get it done before time for chores,” she said.

  ***

  They looped the tinsel on the tree and then began hanging the ornaments. He removed each one from a bit of tissue paper and handed it to Sage, who told stories as she hung them.

  She’d made the reindeer ornament from an old wooden clothespin with the glued on eyes and red felt nose in kindergarten. The long, skinny glass ones had belonged to Grand’s mother, so she hung them in the middle of the tree to make sure Angel and later Rudolph and his siblings wouldn’t bat them off.

  “How do you remember all that?” Creed asked.

  “I’ve been reminded every single Christmas that I can remember. I loved hearing the stories behind the ornaments and Grand loved telling them. Grandpa bought a new ornament for her every year. This is the last one he gave her.”

  She held up a gingerbread man made of cedar. “He made it himself.”

  “He was pretty good with a whittlin’ knife, was he?”

  “He was gone before I was born but he must have been because some of the ornaments are made of wood. Grand said that those were the lean years when he couldn’t afford to buy her anything so he made one. It just dawned on me, Creed. Grand took over running the whole ranch all alone when she was in her early forties, after a bad year. And then in the next seven years she lost her son and her daughter-in-law and was left with me.”

  “She must’ve always been tough.”

  Sage nodded. “She ran this place and raised me with a steel hand, but she’s also soft. I remember… we’ve got to make cookies.”

  He looked up at Sage and grinned. “Lord, girl, you can turn the course of conversation around on a dime.”

  Sage’s lungs burned as if the air was hot and her mind really did plunge into the gutter. If he walked into a room full of women and looked out over the crowd and smiled, the women would flock to him like bees to a honey jar.

  “People will be stopping by during the holidays. Grand always offers them a cup of coffee or hot chocolate and she puts a plate full of cookies and candy on the table.”

  “What kind of cookies?”

  “All kinds, but especially sugar cookies with icing and gingerbread bars. We have to make gingerbread bars because Grand said her great-great-grandmother made them and it’s a Christmas tradition.”

  “O… kay!” Creed dragged the word out to four syllables.

  She hung the last ornament and stood back, adjusted a few, popped her hands on her hips, and declared it finished. “Now when the electricity comes back we’ll light up the whole ranch. Well, we will when we get the lights on the house and that’s the next job.”

  “You are a drill sergeant. What if I wanted to take a long nap, do chores, and read until my eyes get tired?”

  She air-slapped him on the shoulder. “Really?”

  He laughed. “No, Sage. I want to finish decorating and then make cookies. I can guarantee you that I’ll eat them as fast as they can cool, so you’d better make a whole bunch.”

  She sat down in his lap. “You are a good sport, Creed Riley.”

  Chapter 10

  Creed held a single stalk of mistletoe toward Sage. It was covered with white berries, but the leaves on it weren’t as thick as the ones he’d either brought in on his shoulder or else tracked inside.

  “You ever heard the legend of the mistletoe?” he asked.

  She laid it on the window ledge. “No, I haven’t. You can tell me about it in front of the fireplace. It’s colder this morning. I turned on the oven and two burners on the stove to warm up this end of the house. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please. According to the thermometer on the fence post out there it’s eighteen degrees. Snow ain’t meltin’ at this temperature. Noel ran out long enough to make some yellow snow beside the porch and whined to get back inside. She didn’t even go feed with me. The rooster didn’t want to do much crowing and I didn’t even hear a grunt coming from the hogs.”

  She carried two steaming mugs to the living room, set one on each end table, and pulled a quilt from the back of the sofa. She curled up on the sofa with a quilt wrapped snuggly around her legs. “It’s a wonder the cow even gave milk.”

  “Well, it did look like ice cream,” Creed teased as he hung his hat on the rack. “The refrigerator is full of milk, Sage. What are we going to do with all of it?”

  “Grand gives it away or she skims it, uses the cream for butter, and feeds the rest to the hogs. Now tell me about the legend thing. Listen to that wind.”

  “It’s howling worse than when the blizzard was in full force. You’d think the sheer force of it would melt some of the snow, but it ain’t happenin’. All it did was blow it around and drift it up against the house and barn. I’m not seeing much thawing. At least it puts nitrogen back into the soil and we’ll have some pretty pasture grass come springtime.”

  Sage snuggled deeper under the patchwork quilt. She was glad for a small house that morning because it heated quickly. If the temperature kept falling they’d have to light the propane heater on the south wall of the living room. She and Grand saved that for the last resort in the winter. Propane was expensive and they had to use it for cooking and hot water. But they always used as much wood as possible to heat the house. Mesquite was cheap and using it was two-fold. It cleared the land and warmed the house.

  What kind of setup would she have in a trailer? After the mother of all storms, she sure wouldn’t have anything that was totally electric.

  “You were going to tell me about the mistletoe,” she said.

  “Just getting my toes thawed out before I started talking.”

  Sage set her mug on the floor. “There’s lots of quilts in the linen closet. I’ll get another one.”

  She tossed the one she’d been using on Creed’s lap, tucked it around his thighs, and made sure his feet were covered well. “Your toes are frozen, Creed. And you’ve only got one pair of socks on your feet.”

  “I didn’t realize it was so cold until I got out there. It was thirty-two degrees yesterday and the sun made it feel even warmer. I bet the wind chill brings it down into the single digits tonight.”

  “It’s a wonder you’ve got any digits after being out there more than an hour with only one pair of cotton socks. Are all your good wool boot socks dirty? We can do hand laundry and hang it in front of the fireplace to dry, or we could light the heater and dry things on chairs in front of it. Even if everything in the house is running, it won’t use up all the propane in just a week.”

  She
mumbled the whole way from the hall to the linen closet and back. Mainly, it was to cover the feelings brought on when she touched him. She’d hugged lots of men, danced up close and personal with men, and brushed against them in the grocery store or the pew after church. None of them turned up her hormones like tucking a quilt around Creed’s toes did.

  Creed raised his voice. “Do you know anything about the gas pump? Is there enough in the tank to keep the generator running? I haven’t had to put any in the tractor or my truck since I got here, but the gauge is broken so I don’t know how much is in reserve.”

  “Gauge has been broken for years. The gas company checks the pumps on the tenth of the month. The weather kept them from getting here but now that the plows have cleared the roads they should be here any day. Do y’all keep diesel and gas pumps on your property in Ringgold?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Farmers and ranchers don’t like to stop working and drive twenty miles to get a tank full of fuel for a tractor or a pickup. And thank you for the quilt. It’s warming my toes right up. I don’t think any of them are going to fall off from frostbite.”

  “Next time wear warm socks,” she said. “You were going to tell me a story about the mistletoe, remember?”

  “In the early days when folks hung up the kissing plant or a kissing ball, each time a feller kissed a girl he had to pick off a berry. When the berries were all gone then the kissing was finished for that season,” he said.

  “Us tall, gangly, cosmetically challenged girls had best claim a spot under it pretty early then because when the berries got scarce the good-lookin’ cowboys would be more particular, right?”

  “Sage Presley, there isn’t one thing awkward or gangly about you. Cosmetically challenged, my ass. You are the most beautiful woman this old cowboy ever clapped his eyes upon. And believe me, if you ever got stuck under the mistletoe, cowboys would be pushing each other out of the way. Hell, there might even be pistols drawn and blood shed just trying to get to you.”

  She shook out a second quilt and covered herself with it when she sat down. “And where would you be in all that pushin’ and shovin’?”

  “I’m the one with one arm holdin’ you close, the other one pickin’ berries as fast as I can, and my lips on yours. When they’re all gone then the other cowboys can go home,” he teased.

  Creed, with his hard muscles and his dreamy green eyes, had said she wasn’t cosmetically challenged but that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Had he not seen many women or was she really that special?

  “Sounds like we’d best take advantage of the oven being hot and make a pan of biscuits to go with some sausage gravy for breakfast,” he said. “And then you mentioned us making more cookies today?”

  The man was so frustrating that she could have thrown him out into the cold to freeze his toes the rest of the way off. One minute they were discussing things that made her heart thump; the next minute his mind was on food. The vibes that were making her jumpy as a virgin bride couldn’t have affected him at all or he wouldn’t be talking about cookies.

  She stood up too fast, got tangled up in the quilt, and fell headlong toward the fireplace. Strong arms caught her and whipped her around away from the fire.

  Creed’s deep voice said, “Whoa, darlin’. That ain’t no way to get warmed up.”

  She hung on to him like he was a rock in the midst of a whirling tornado.

  “That was scary,” she panted.

  When he didn’t answer, she looked up. She barely had time to shut her eyes before his warm mouth wiped out any thought of food, cookies, or even Grand. Then he scooped her up and settled her back on the sofa.

  She didn’t care if he was carrying her outside to roll her in the snow. As long as he kept kissing her, she’d be warm and safe. Forget that idea about a quilt to snuggle under. With the heat his kisses generated they damn sure didn’t need anything else to keep them warm.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you all morning. You are so damn sexy,” he whispered between lingering kisses that grew hotter and hotter.

  She unfastened three buttons on his soft red and black plaid flannel shirt and slipped her hands inside. He wasn’t wearing the usual thermal undershirt so her hands landed on hard muscles, hot skin, and taut nipples; oh yeah, he had felt the vibes, all right.

  “Your hands are like silk,” he said.

  “Touching your skin makes them hotter’n the devil’s pitchfork,” she mumbled.

  His warm breath created scorching waves up and down her whole body when he said, “Oh, honey, you don’t even know what hot is.”

  Her pulse quickened and her heart raced with pure old sexual desire.

  He unzipped her coveralls, reached inside, and unfastened her bra. She shifted when his hand moved from her back to the front to give him easier access to her breast. His sudden intake of breath said that he liked the way it filled his hand as much as she did.

  His lips strung a trail of slow steamy kisses down her long, slender neck and ended at the breast. She shouldn’t be doing this. It would only lead to the point of no return and then she’d feel even guiltier after sex with Creed.

  “You taste like heaven,” he said.

  “How many times have you tasted heaven?” she gasped.

  “Darlin’, a man only gets one taste of heaven in a lifetime.”

  She didn’t care if she never found her way back. She wanted to be his one taste even if it meant a heartache when he drove away from the ranch. Her arms went around his neck and she grabbed a fist full of dark hair. She felt as if she were driving down into the canyon on ice with no brakes.

  “I could die right here,” he mumbled.

  “Please don’t. Not just yet.”

  She let go of his hair and found her way back inside his shirt.

  He grabbed her hand and brought her fingers to his lips, tasting them one by one. She’d never known that the tips of her fingers were erogenous zones until he licked each one like he was eating an ice cream cone on a hot summer afternoon. If it meant living forever if he stopped or dying if he kept on, she would have still wanted him to keep touching her.

  He’d stopped abruptly and the message was loud and clear. He was gentleman enough to stop right there and make cookies the rest of the morning.

  Flirting was done. It was her call.

  The choice came down to two options. It was either mount up and ride or else put the horse back into the pasture and never saddle him up again.

  The phone didn’t ring. April didn’t knock on the door. God wasn’t going to interfere. It was totally up to Sage, and she didn’t have cold feet. She wanted more.

  His heart matched hers for speed, and one thumb made slow lazy circles against her cheekbone while the other one did the same on the soft skin on her wrist. Lord, where did all those sex zones come from anyway? Or was it just Creed? He could probably kiss the callused soles of her feet and send her into a tailspin.

  She could feel his erection pushing against his jeans and into her belly. The heat of it would leave something akin to sunburn right above her bikini panties, even though two layers of denim.

  “My heart is racing,” he said.

  “I can feel it. It’s keeping time with mine.”

  Creed tucked her hair behind her ears and cupped her face in both of his hands. His lips found hers in a passionate kiss that had a voice. It promised that he wouldn’t leave her. That the Rockin’ C really was his home.

  That’s what she wanted to believe.

  Sage wrapped her long legs firmly around his waist. Without breaking the kisses, he carried her across the living room floor and started down the hall toward his bedroom.

  “Oh, no!”

  “What?”

  “Not in there. She would haunt me. Let’s go to my bedroom.”

  He grinned and her heart pumped harder. He eased the door open with his toe and laid her on the unmade bed. He stretched out beside her, one arm around her tightly, the other one cupping her neck for b
etter leverage.

  Without breaking the kisses, she removed her shirt and bra and tossed them onto the floor and then closed the space between them, pressing tightly against his chest. She reached a hand between them to undo his belt and unzip his jeans.

  He gasped when she wrapped a hand around his erection.

  “Soft as silk and hard as steel,” she whispered close enough to his ear that she could nibble on it.

  “My God, Sage.”’

  “Looks like you are ready,” she said. It was a heady feeling, knowing that she affected him the same way he did her.

  “Ready as hell.” He unfastened her jeans and tugged them away from her hips.

  “Take them all the way off,” she whispered.

  She’d never in her life had sex in the house before. Would lightning flash through the roof and strike her dead?

  He propped up on an elbow. “Sage, this is it. If you are going to say no then do it right now and we’ll walk away from this bedroom. Because if you are completely naked in this bed with me, I won’t be able to control a damn thing.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. “I can get mine off in thirty seconds. What about you?”

  “Darlin’, if you aren’t going to say no, I can shuck out of these jeans in ten seconds.”

  She jumped out of bed and removed her jeans leaving only a pair of red silk bikinis, which soon joined the shirt in the corner. “Ten, nine, eight,” she counted.

  All of his clothing was lying in a pile on the floor and he’d pulled the covers up over them when she reached the final number. His hands were both tender and demanding. His hands and mouth searched out her body for new territory to build the fire hotter and hotter until she couldn’t bear another minute.

  She’d touched, tasted, and returned his moves until she could feel the aching desire in both of them. She arched high against him and wrapped her legs tightly around his body as he pushed inside her. She wanted him worse than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. She rocked with him, his mouth on hers, his tongue making love to her mouth and his hands gliding over her sides and down her thighs at the same time.