I don’t fuss about the way it comes to me. Now get back downstairs and have fun. I understand Creed is gettin’ on well with Lawton and that April didn’t wear that topless dress.”
“It was you that sent that to Lawton, wasn’t it?”
“It was not! I sent it to her mother and she sent it to Lawton. A mother has a right to know how her girl is looking in public.”
“And what if that dress had been mine?”
“You are twenty-six, Sage. You’ve got better sense than that.”
“Don’t you miss all this? It’s Christmas. We only had each other all these years and Christmas was our favorite time of the year,” Sage asked.
“Sure I miss it. I miss your grandpa. I miss the ranch. I miss my son. I miss your mother, who was like a daughter to me. I miss you. I miss all of it. Don’t mean it’s not time for a change. I’m hanging up now. Call me tomorrow after the Hanging of the Green and tell me all about the weekend.”
* * *
Lawton stood beside April as the last of the guests left after midnight. Hugs and handshakes and the door shut behind Lisa, the very last one to leave. She sent a wink and a kiss blown from her fingertips across the room toward Creed and gave Lawton an extra long hug. The lights still flickered. The mistletoe was still in place. The band had gone home and the caterers were cleaning up.
“Wonderful party,” Creed said.
“Thank you. Hilda takes care of it every year. I just show up and make sure my daughter is dressed right,” Lawton said.
“Daddy!” April hissed.
Sage hugged Lawton. “I missed Grand but it really was a good party.”
“I talked to her during the party and she and Hilda were on the phone with each other most of the night. I don’t think she missed much.” Lawton chuckled.
“Well, we’ll be leaving now. See you tomorrow at church,” Sage said.
“And afterwards you will be here to help us eat up some of these leftovers, right?” April asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sage said.
“And you?” Lawton asked Creed.
“Wouldn’t turn down another bite of those buffalo wings for anything. I’d walk through the blizzard to get at those things.”
“My kind of cowboy,” Lawton said.
Creed’s pickup was barely warmed up by the time they reached the end of the lane on the Canyon Rose. He’d put the console up so that there was a wide bench seat and Sage had moved right up next to him.
“I feel like a teenager,” she said.
“You don’t look like one. Who was that last fellow you danced with?”
“Joe Rendetta. He’s the vet from Claude. We see a lot of him.”
“He married?”
“Was but now he’s divorced. He and Lawton went to school together.”
“Does anyone get married and stay married in the canyon?”
“Grand did.”
“In this generation?” he asked.
“Lots of young women are workin’ on that,” she said. “You see anything you were interested in?”
“Yes, I did,” he said.
Sage’s breath caught in her chest. “Did someone introduce you to her or did you dance with her?”
“Both.”
Sage hadn’t wanted to share Creed, and riding home in the dark with nothing but snow still on the ground and cold wind blowing, she understood why. If he was suddenly thrown into a room full of petite, charming women eager to do whatever the hell he wanted in the bedroom, she’d soon be like yesterday’s newspaper. Tossed in the pile at the end of the sofa to take to the burning barrel.
“And who is she?” she asked, but she didn’t want to hear the name.
“You,” he said softly.
He parked the truck in front of the house and opened the door before she could answer. He hurried around the truck, opened her door, and slipped an arm under her bottom and one around her shoulders, just like in the visions he’d had that evening. Through the pounding in her ears and the beating of both their hearts, she could hear the soft crunch of the top layer of snow as his boots crunched their way toward the house.
And for the first time in her life, she forgot all about her size.
She leaned away from him enough to open both the glass storm door and the real door and he carried her over the threshold but he didn’t put her down. His lips found hers and the kiss spoke volumes. It said that all the cute little women at the party hadn’t appealed to him. That she was the one he wanted