Christmas at Home (Spikes & Spurs #5) - Carolyn Brown Page 0,52
the ceiling, and we don’t have to trim anything off. I wish the snow wouldn’t melt off.”
Creed laughed. “Darlin’, you can’t have fire and ice both. Now let’s go get that barn and fence ready to light up before we take off our coveralls.”
Putting the lights around the barn wasn’t an easy feat in the snow, but by noon they had them in place and the cord taped down to the barn floor all the way into the tack room. Sage held her breath and plugged them in. They were old and that meant if one was shot none of them would light up. Then the painstaking job of unscrewing one bulb after another began until they found the one that was the dirty culprit with the blown filament.
She stuck it in the socket and hurried outside.
“Well, shit!” she yelled and shook her fist at the lights around the barn.
Creed was busy twining the next roll around the top string of barbed wire on the fence.
“Problem?” he asked.
“We’ve got a blown bulb somewhere. I’ll get a good one from the bin.”
“Why?”
“Because these are those old lights and if one is blown none of them work. And you have to replace them one at a time to see which one is bad.”
“Sage, there is no electricity.”
She popped her palm against her forehead. “Duh!”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I still turn the light on in the bathroom every time I go in there and the oil lamp is right there to remind me.”
“Crazy, ain’t it? If you are finished, let’s go get two boxes of decorations and start on the tree.”
They had barely shut the door to the bunkhouse when a rat came out of nowhere, ran across the toes of Creed’s boots, kept moving until it hit Sage’s leg, climbed up one side of her jeans, scooted across her butt, and hurried back down the other side.
Like a contortionist she tried to turn her upper body around on the lower. She slapped at her butt without touching it, screamed, and did a fancy dance.
Creed’s grin went to a chuckle which quickly turned into a belly laugh.
“It’s not funny!” she said.
“That was one fast rat.”
“I hate those things. They get in the barn and stare at me with their little beady eyes, and you can stop laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you, darlin’. I’m laughing at the way that crazy rat turned you into a pretzel. Your pretty long legs and cute little butt were pretty close to break dancing. I hadn’t ever seen a real person do that kind of dance. Don’t worry about them pesky rats. Angel will take care of them for you. We’ll put her and the kittens out in the barn and believe me, there won’t be a rat problem.”
“We can’t put them in the cold. Maybe when they are older.”
Creed crossed the floor and hugged her tightly to his chest. “It startled me too when it dashed across my boots.”
She looked up. A kiss would go a hell of a long way to settling her nerves.
If you think that, you’ve lost your mind. Every time that cowboy kisses you, every nerve in your body starts wiggling and whining for more than kisses.
His eyes closed and his mouth settled over hers. His hands were suddenly under her shirt and on her bare back. This time she felt the hooks of her bra coming undone and his fingertips massaging from bra level to her neck. The rat was completely forgotten.
“Hey, anybody home? Sage, where are you?” a voice singsonged between the house and the bunkhouse.
She stepped back, quickly redid her bra, and adjusted her breasts into the cups. “It’s April,” she said.
“Didn’t sound like one of my brothers.” Creed grinned.
The door burst open. “You in here?”
* * *
Another ten minutes and they would have damned the torpedoes and rats and it would have been full speed ahead right there on the old worn-out sofa in the bunkhouse. If it wasn’t for bad luck, Creed wouldn’t have a lick of luck at all.
April looked from one to the other. “Hey, I figured y’all were decorating when I saw the lights around the barn. Got electricity yet?”
“Not yet. Y’all got any over on the Canyon Rose?” Sage left Creed’s side and hugged April.
The woman reminded him of Macy, his old flame. She was short, blond, and built on a small frame. Her face had those delicate features that took a man’s breath away and made him want to protect her