Christmas at Home (Spikes & Spurs #5) - Carolyn Brown Page 0,46

picture best of all three.”

“Thank you, Mr. Riley, and there isn’t a written copy of my recipe. The only one in existence is in my head and it will die with me,” she said.

“That would be Creed, ma’am. My friends call me Creed.”

“Do you go around hugging and kissing all your friends?”

“Only the pretty ones who paint gorgeous pictures and make luscious snow ice cream. See you after a while.” He kissed her on the neck, just below her ear.

It was a full five minutes after he left before she could steady her hands enough to touch the canvas with a paintbrush. Yes, sir! Just like the moth to the flame and Creed was one scorching hot blaze.

She’d barely gotten started when Creed burst in the back door. “You’ve got to come and see this, Sage. It’ll be gone by morning. Do you have a camera in the house? My phone is dead or I’d use it.”

She laid her palette and brushes down. “What is it?”

“Your next big thing.” He grinned.

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that Grand had taken her to see the next big thing dozens of times, but she could never get them to come out right on canvas. If the PGs didn’t slap her with inspiration, she might as well not even try to paint it.

“I’ll get the camera.”

She disappeared into the bedroom and came out with a digital camera and hoped the batteries in it were still good. She seldom used it. If she saw a picture, it was embedded in her mind permanently and refused to leave until she finished the job.

He held her coat while she slipped her arms into it. She stomped her feet down into her boots and followed him outside. He grabbed her hand to hurry her along the plowed path leading to the tractor sitting on the south side of the barn.

Sage didn’t see a thing that was so wonderful, but warmth ran from his hand up her arm and into her body. Maybe the next big thing was that she would fall in love with the man.

Hell, no! She caught herself before she said it out loud. Sage Presley never made rash decisions. She weighed everything carefully, sometimes even wrote the pros and cons on paper, before she made up her mind. She’d known Creed less than a week, for God’s sake!

When she had her first sexual relationship as a sophomore in college, she’d gone into it thoughtfully and with lots of care. That was seven years earlier, so there was no way she was entering into something with Creed Riley after such a short time.

He stopped and pointed. “Look.”

She stared, slack-jawed.

Sure enough. There was the next big thing and it had been delivered through him. That was a first, for sure. The PGs had never worked that way before.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think you should paint. You have an eye for it.” She dropped his hand and brought the camera up and pressed the button. She moved a foot to the left and took another picture, two feet and another one. Not that she would need the pictures, but the vision through the lens was like framing it after she’d painted it.

“Aww, shucks.” He kicked a big pile of snow. “I can’t even color without getting outside the lines. Just ask Rachel.”

She lowered the camera. “Rachel?”

“Yep, she’s the expert.”

“Oh?”

“She’s my friend’s daughter. She’s in preschool and she tells us all that we’ve got to stay in the lines or we can’t color in her books,” Creed said. “So you think you can use that in your new collection?”

“Oh, yeah!”

Sage stepped back and branded the moment into her brain. It was a scraggly old scrub oak tree with a big bunch of mistletoe near the top. The sun had melted the snow from the top branches and the water had dripped slowly through the mistletoe, making icicles all through the thick green leaves. Icicles as thin as hair even hung on the tiny white berries.

Sage stared until her head hurt. True, the berries and the mistletoe were beautiful, but the thing that made her know that this was an inspiration were the shadows in the branches. They formed a manger with a shepherd’s hook leaning against it. No people. Nothing like a complete nativity scene or a baby kicking and wiggling in the manger. Just the wooden box of straw with the mistletoe hanging inside the hook’s crook. One part of the mistletoe lay