A Cowboy Under My Christmas Tree (21 page)

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Authors: Janet Dailey

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“Stop hovering. Nobody’s going to steal your moon.” He laughed.
“Hey, it’s one of a kind,” she protested. “And it’s the right one. Don’t you know how it feels when you find something that good?”
Sam only nodded. There were a lot of answers to that question.
Nicole read the menu. “It’s going to be a long night. I need fuel.” A waitress appeared. “I’ll have a cherry Coke and the fried chicken basket with a side of mac and cheese, please.”
The waitress jotted it down and looked expectantly at Sam. “Ah—same thing for me.” He was feeling hungry again. Hauling that moon had given him an appetite.
Nicole handed back both menus and the waitress walked away.
“Are you really going to eat all that?” he asked.
“Watch me.”
 
 
Finn’s team was good. The ENJ flagship store closed at nine and they had the mannequins painted blue by ten. Several were positioned in front of a space heater to dry. They needed only two for each window, but Nicole wasn’t taking any chances on body parts falling off.
The mannequins were different from the ones at Now. The facial features were not painted but only suggested with abstract curves, and the bodies were flexible.
Sharon was in charge of the dressers, handing each a rhinestone setter to affix tiny fake diamonds to the jeans. She sat down with the box full of them and ran her fingers through the glittering pile.
“Just what I always wanted to do,” she said to Nicole, who barely paused to listen. “Play with diamonds. So where is Sam? Didn’t you say he was going to be here?”
“He’s working in back.”
One pair was completed and hanging alone on a rack. The effect was subtle, not gaudy. Other ENJ denim items were crowded together on a different rack, awaiting their turn. Nicole had some leeway as to which ones she would ultimately use in the windows. She was as nervous as a cat, running everywhere, seeing to every detail.
A couple of guys were up on ladders rigging lights high up in the ceiling of the window bay. She called out yes or no as the riggers moved spots of white around, not satisfied with any until square sheets of gel went over the brilliant lights and turned the scene into shades of indigo.
Sam was drilling through the rim of the moon so it could be securely hung. Once that was done, it would be taken down and covered in tiny fake diamonds, then rehung from the steel beams above. The ENJ window setup was professional, and there was a lot less improvising to do than at Now.
But the work seemed endless. Some members of the team were stretching canvas over high wooden frames to create panels that would be painted in darkening shades of a different blue to create a receding effect when the panels were set up inside the window.
They were building everything onto two platforms that would slide into the bottom of the window when all parts of the design were completed. Finn moved among the chaos in an unhurried way, his red hair like a torch against the cool jewel blues. He directed the construction and the painting, checking with Nicole on every detail, occasionally talking to someone else when the wireless receiver he wore in one ear flashed. They both took innumerable photos and compared notes.
Nicole was down to tank top and jeans and some accidental splotches of blue paint on her face. Sam tried not to look at her too much. She was too busy to talk.
Finn stopped to take a few photos of Sam as he adjusted the position of the hanging moon. “That’s going to look great when it’s finished.”
“I’m willing to believe it,” Sam said.
Finn smiled. “Thanks for helping out, man. The simplest windows are the hardest. And Nicole is a perfectionist.”
It was hours before the first tableau was set up. By then Sam was able to take a break and observe.
He didn’t notice Sharon observing him, standing with Nicole too far away to be heard.
Sharon whispered anyway. “So that’s your cowboy. My, oh my. Sam Bennett really is something. Now I understand why you were so confused. ”
“I’m not confused. I mean, we do hang out and all that.” In armchairs. Kissing their way into heaven for two.
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s just for fun, not the future,” Nicole went on. “I’m not going to marry him or anything.”
Sharon turned to her. “Marry? I don’t think I ever heard you use that word.”
“Don’t read anything into it, okay?”
Sharon seemed doubtful. “Too bad he’s not staying. ”
“I guess we can agree on that,” Nicole said with a sigh. “All right.” She looked over at the freelancers working on the moon. “Back to work.”
They went their separate ways.
The shining moon, transformed from its battered state by the painstaking efforts of the team, leaned against a heavy ladder. When the platform was moved, it would hang low in a deep blue sky over the graceful figure of a young woman, her face in half profile as she turned to glimpse the man behind her. Tiny diamonds traced the outlines of what she wore.
The mood was intensely romantic and also sensual.
Several of the women on the team sighed with appreciation when they saw the final setup.
“It’s like a dream of love,” one murmured. “You know in another second that he’s going to sweep her up in his arms or something.”
Nicole looked over their heads and winked at Sam.
“You did good,” he said.
“We all did.”
She moved to the platform containing the second window scene to check it against the drawing in her sketchbook, making more notes around it.
It would be a continuation of the first window, its lights set up so that the stylized moon would seem to illuminate both scenes, creating a convincing illusion.
Nicole stepped up into it, adjusting the position of the female mannequin. “She needs to really look at him,” she said to the guy who had just moved the male figure into the background. Nicole got the positioning the way she wanted it and jumped down, studying the scene carefully.
Sam felt the cell phone in his shirt pocket ringing. Who the hell was calling at one in the morning? He took it out and looked at the screen. His mother. It was only eleven o’clock in Colorado.
She did sometimes check in with him around then, when the evening chores were long since done and she had a quiet moment to herself in the ranch kitchen. He answered, moving away quickly to the other side of the store.
“Kevin Talley wants the new dark-wash jeans on the blue guys,” Finn called out.
“No one can tell. You can barely see what they have on in the background,” a dresser said. She wasn’t arguing, just pointing that out.
“True. But Talley has to get his two cents in.” He signaled one of the men on the team. “Help her lift that down.”
Nicole had heard the conversation. The change wouldn’t affect the look of the window at all. But it did feel strange to see the blue girl looking at nothing.
Sam came back to where she was standing. “Can I talk to you alone for a sec?”
“Sure.” She picked up on the somber tone of his voice. “What’s the matter?”
They walked away from the others. “My mother just called. My dad’s broken his leg. He slipped on a patch of ice out by the barn.”
“Oh no!” Nicole looked up at him with heartfelt concern.
“I’m guessing there were some complications—he is almost sixty-seven. Anyway, he’s home. Apparently he’s going to be laid up for a while. My sister, Annie, drove down from Vail while my folks were at the hospital for the X-ray and cast.”
Nicole absorbed all that in stunned silence.
“That’s good that your sister is there.”
No matter what had happened between them, she’d always known that Sam was going back to Colorado right after New Year’s.
“Yeah. But Annie can only take one day off from the ski lodge, and my brother, Zach, can’t get there until the weekend. So I’m flying home.”
Nicole hoped her voice didn’t sound as numb as she felt. “Of course.”
“My mom’s online right now, looking for morning flights. She’s going to get back to me.”
Family trumped fun. She would do the same for hers if something like this happened.
Nicole composed herself somehow. “Are you leaving right now?” He wasn’t being paid for his work tonight. He could go whenever he wanted to.
“I think I should. Who knows what the next call will be about?”
She looked around for Finn, not seeing him. “I’ll explain to Finn. Let me walk you out.”
“You don’t have to.”
She gave him a wistful smile. “Don’t you always walk me home? I’m just doing the same for you. To the curb, I mean. For a taxi.”
“Fastest from here, right? And it’s the first part of the trip back,” Sam said. “So I guess that does count as walking me home.”
It occurred to Nicole that they were both putting a brave face on their unexpected parting. She told herself silently what she’d just told Sharon.
Don’t read anything into it
.
“Your folks will be glad to see you. I really hope your dad’s going to be all right.”
Sam gave her a rueful look. “They don’t come tougher than Tyrell Bennett. The hard part is getting him to slow down.”
“Make him,” she advised.
“My mom is a lot better at that than I am,” Sam murmured.
She walked with him over to where everyone had slung their coats and bags. Best to stick to routine remarks, she thought. She didn’t want to bawl. Nicole was so wound up she just might. “How long is the flight?”
Sam started looking for his jacket and found it under a parka. He’d put his Stetson safely above it all on a high shelf.
“About five hours nonstop,” he said as he reached for the hat. “But more like seven or eight if I have to connect. Last minute, I probably will. I told my mom to book the cheapest ticket that would get me there by tomorrow.”
Nicole looked up at him. He caressed her cheek, rubbing his thumb over a streak of blue paint. “Don’t forget to wash your face.”
“I’ll add that to my to-do list.”
Sam smiled faintly.
“Try and get some sleep before you leave, if you can,” she added.
“Not a high priority.”
He shook out his jacket and put it over her shoulders.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re only wearing a tank top. I have a shirt on. And I’m going to wear my down jacket back to Colorado. It’s way below zero there.”
“But—” Nicole made a move to shrug it off.
Sam stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He buttoned up the metal buttons and chucked her under the chin. “Don’t argue. Let’s go.”
They kept a little distance between them as they walked out together, in unspoken agreement to not become the subject of gossip. Outside of Finn, who didn’t say anything, no one noticed them exiting the store as the security guard turned the key in the lock to let them out.
Nicole shivered despite the jacket. Sam didn’t. He looked down the empty avenue for a taxi, seeing one only two blocks away.
“I don’t know what to say. Happy trails? I’m so sorry this happened,” she began. Then she stopped, fighting a catch in her throat.
“My dad will be fine. And I’m coming right back. Don’t know exactly when, though.”
“Stay in touch,” Nicole said. The world wasn’t coming to an end, she reminded herself.
“I will.” The taxi went through the intersection and flashed its lights at them.
“Call me when you land. Or text. I might still be here.” She gestured toward the store.
“Send me a photo of the windows when they’re done.”
“I will.”
“On second thought, don’t. I’d rather see them for myself, standing right where we are now. Then we can go out to dinner and celebrate your first big job.”
The taxi pulled up.
“It’s a date, I guess.” Her intuition told her that he wasn’t all that sure he would be back to make good on the invitation.
Sam looked down into Nicole’s eyes, sweet and soft, the color of dark honey under the streetlight. His ungloved hand cupped her warm cheek and he tilted her face to his, kissing her long and lovingly.
Nicole was breathless when he finished. Sam meant her to be.
“Good-bye,” she whispered as the taxi driver unlocked the door for him. He got into the back of the taxi.
That wasn’t a word Sam was going to say to her. He looked through the window as she pushed the door shut and put her palm against the glass for a second. He did the same on the other side.
Nicole stepped back. She let him go.
Chapter 12
S
am dozed through nearly all of the nonstop flight, not drinking or eating. He was grateful when he awoke for having had the chance to catch up some on sleep. The last-minute ticket and the empty seat next to him had been pure luck.
A flight attendant was delivering the usual information over a microphone, which turned her soft words into a warning squawk.
“Passengers, please return seats and tables to the upright position and prepare for landing. Welcome to Denver. The time is ... and the outside temperature is ...”
Sam wasn’t listening. He reached for his seat belt and realized he had never unbuckled it.
The plane landed and taxied to the gate, and they deplaned quickly enough. The Denver airport was relatively empty. It felt a little strange not to be shoulder to shoulder with everyone. He’d gotten used to crowds in New York.
Sam ducked into a restroom, then washed up. He scrubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then combed his hair. His mother would fret if he showed up looking scruffy.
Back in the long, high-ceiling corridor that led to the baggage claim where she was meeting him, he walked faster.
Sam adjusted the gym bag over his shoulder, which was relatively heavy for its size. He had to slow down. The difference in altitude between Denver and New York was noticeable.
Louisa Bennett, Lou to her family and friends, was just entering the door in back of the gates around the baggage claim area. He saw passengers from his flight waiting by a carousel that shuddered to life. The tilted ramp in its center started sending suitcases out and down.
She spotted him and threw open her arms. “Sam! Welcome home!”
Sam exited and wrapped his mother up in a great big hug.
Petite as she was, his mother tended to disappear inside most hugs. He looked down at her. The same bright blue eyes looked back, sparkling with happiness. Her pixie haircut, white mixed with gray, didn’t seem ruffled at all by the embrace.
“It’s so good to see you, son. No luggage?”
“Nope. Just this.” He hoisted the gym bag. “I didn’t need to pack. I have plenty of clothes at the bunkhouse.”
Which was true. Sam didn’t want his mother to think that he wouldn’t stay on if they needed him. That was a given.
“Do you? I never go in the bunkhouse. You boys are grown and taking care of yourselves, and I’m thankful for it. That was a happy day when we bought a washer and dryer for out there.”
Sam followed her out the electronic door, inhaling the frigid mountain air. Its dry, bracing coldness was a tonic.
“Now, I hope you’re not too worried about your dad,” she said as she walked. “It looks like he’s going to be all right. But I wanted to talk to you before you walked in the door. That’s why Annie didn’t come.”
“Aha. I wondered about that for a second.”
“The long and the short of it is that your dad isn’t going to heal up quick the way he used to.”
“I had a feeling I didn’t get the whole story over the phone from you,” Sam said.
“I didn’t want him to hear me, and I didn’t know if I’d have a chance to call you back when you were still awake out there.”
“Just tell me, Mom.”
Lou’s reply was brisk, a sure sign of strong emotions right under the surface.
“Your father went to the barn sometime in the afternoon that day, to check on a sick calf. The temp was down in the teens. I didn’t know he was going—he didn’t bother to tell me.”
“When does he ever?” Sam wanted to know.
“Anyway, he slipped on ice and broke his leg. But he was there for a while before I happened to look out the bedroom window.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was still light out. He was conscious, just kind of confused. The doctor said it was probably mild hypothermia. Thank heaven he had his long johns on and insulated overalls.”
Sam shook his head. “That’s not good.”
“We didn’t know the prognosis for the break when I called you. The orthopedist said your dad might or might not need a pin put into the bone, depending. So it’s wait and see.”
“Got it.” Sam’s tone was serious.
Lou Bennett’s voice was light as she changed the subject.
“I just need you to sit on him.” She laughed. “He keeps wanting to get up and do. Every time I say don’t, he huffs at me.”
“That’s to be expected.”
He shortened his strides to match hers as they went up the parking lot ramp.
“He’s looking forward so much to seeing you, Sam. It’s going to be wonderful to have all our children under one roof again. I know, I know—” She held up a hand before he could say anything. “You and Zach haven’t been gone that long, and Annie wasn’t far away in Vail. But it still feels strange when none of you are actually on the ranch.”
“I can understand that.”
They had arrived at a battered vehicle that looked like a cross between an SUV and a station wagon and a truck, all from the same manufacturer. Sam’s dad loved to tinker and knew how to weld. He never threw away a fender or an auto part if it wasn’t rusted. The result had been named The Banger.
“This thing running okay in the cold?” Sam asked. “I heard it got down to twenty below in Velde.”
“It runs fine,” was Lou’s indignant answer. “Always has.”
“One of these years I’m going to buy you something brand-new and all your own.”
“I like The Banger,” she said loyally. “And it is mine. Your father has his truck. Want to drive?”
“All right.” Sam tossed his gym bag in the back.
It was hard to believe that he hadn’t been gone that long. The drive to the ranch made him feel like he’d been away for months. He knew every curve, and yet the landscape seemed different.
The snowfall since his departure had covered more of it, that was for sure. It lay in soft, sculpted drifts of the purest white everywhere he looked.
He responded now and then to his mother’s affectionate chatter, preoccupied by the information concerning his dad’s fall. He and Zach were going to have to get around to repairs to the ranch house and the outbuildings.
Sam had noticed excessive thawing over that corner of the barn roof last spring. There might be cracked shingles trapping snow that melted and formed ice on the ground. The afternoon sun lingered on some parts of the barn for hours, even in December.
“We didn’t expect to hear from you every day, but you almost never called. We figured you were working hard.”
“Like a dog. A happy dog,” he amended. “But sometimes we didn’t quit until close to midnight.”
“You’re young enough to do that. Not your old man, not anymore. He’s going to be sixty-seven in January, you know.”
Lou Bennett was six years younger. Sam glanced her way. She might not take it kindly if he told her that she and his dad needed to start being more careful. Anyone could slip on ice.
“So what’s New York like?” she asked.
“Quite a city. I don’t think I’d ever want to live there, though.”
Lou didn’t respond to that right away. “Your dad and I figured you were busy, but we were also wondering if you met someone.”
“Mom—”
“I knew it,” she said triumphantly. “I told Tyrell so. So who is she?”
Sam sighed. There was no escaping feminine intuition. It was better than radar and more precise than a GPS system.
“Her name is Nicole Young.”
“Oh. And what does she do?”
He slowed down to drive The Banger into a switchback brimming with drifted snow and back around onto a straight stretch of road. “Nicole creates window displays. She just got a big job for a national jeans maker. I was helping out with her team when you called.”
“You didn’t mention that.”
“I would say that dad’s broken leg is a little more important than decorating store windows. ”
He could sense his mother smile in the darkness. “Well, yes. I’m glad you came back, Sam. So ... Nicole, is it?”
Sam knew his mother would remember the name. “I just met her. It’s nothing serious.”
“Of course not. But what she does sounds so interesting. I hope you have pictures on that phone of yours.”
“Yup. On it and online. I’ll download them later so you can really see them.”
“Thanks, honey.” Round eyes reflecting their headlights seemed to be caught in a thicket at the side of the road. “Watch out for deer. I almost hit a doe the other day. She cleared the front in one jump, but just barely.”
Sam drove past the thicket, slowing down.
 
 
He entered the house after his mother, who called softly to her daughter. “Annie? Where are you?”
“In here with Dad.”
A mellow glow came through the entrance to the large living room. Sam knew their Christmas tree was up and decorated, strung with big colored lights.
Sam went in. The sight of that big, gorgeous tree with all the ornaments they’d had for years was worth the long, tiring flight. He was home.
Sam turned to see his dad, asleep in his favorite armchair with a book on his lap. His casted leg was propped on a footstool.
Annie got up the second she saw Sam, throwing her arms around him just like her mother had. She kept her voice low when she said hi, but that didn’t stop her from trying to beat him up.
Sam laughed under his breath. He barely noticed the ineffectual blows to his midsection. That was just Annie’s way of greeting him and Zach. But she seemed stronger.
“Quit it,” he murmured, ruffling her long hair to make her mad. “You’ll wake up Dad. How is he doing?”
“Better today. More tired than he wants to admit. Thanks for getting here so soon.”
He nodded toward Lou.
“Mom saw to that,” he said. “It’s good to be home.”
Annie took his arm and walked him out of the living room. “I don’t want to wake Dad up. Let’s talk in the kitchen.”
His favorite place on the ranch and barely changed since it had been built. Several generations of Bennett wives and daughters had kept it close to spotless, though his grandmother had been the last one to cook in the woodstove in the huge fireplace. Before that, the women on the ranch had used a spit, a grill, and a hinged iron pot hung over the fire to prepare meals.
Cooking had been an arduous process for them, remembered with respect but not missed by those who came after. Stoked, the old woodstove still provided heat, and his mother occasionally raised bread dough on the high shelf above the lids that tamed the heat of the fire within, but that was about it.
His mother was putting the kettle on for hot drinks. He and Annie and Lou Bennett stayed up talking until well after midnight.
The conversation shifted to the female side and Sam listened, thinking about where he would sleep. The main house seemed like the best bet for his first night back. Without Zach in residence, giving him the usual aggravation he didn’t need, the bunkhouse would seem lonely. He would pay it a visit tomorrow and make sure there was firewood by the pot-bellied stove for when Zach returned. His younger brother would howl if all he found was two split logs and a handful of kindling, even if that was how he’d left it.
Sam knew he wasn’t going to miss the elf-size foldout bed in his New York sublet. Staying in the same house with his folks and Annie just seemed like the right thing to do. Though he had to admit he’d gotten used to the faint noise of people in the apartment above and on the street. The new moon he’d seen on the drive home would have to sub for the light from the street lamp that streamed into the sublet’s one room.
“Turning in?” his mom asked when he rose from the old deal table.
“I should. I might wake up in the middle of the night, though.”
“Then go into the kitchen and make yourself a snack,” she said. “Everything’s in the same place,” she teased him.
“Good to know. G’night, Annie.” Then Sam remembered. “Shoot. I bought you a present in New York but I left it in my apartment.”
“Then you have to go back,” Annie said firmly.
“Let’s see how Dad does,” Sam replied.
 
 
He took his dad out for a ride in the truck the next day. Tyrell Bennett could get around outside with a cane and waterproof wrapping over his cast, but Sam didn’t want him risking another fall.
“Head for the back road,” his father said. “That got plowed out the day before I fell. The snow after that filled in the ruts some.”
The truck’s heavy tires gripped the slick patches, and Sam went slowly to avoid jolts. Bits of hard-frozen snow and hoarfrost stuck to the windshield that the wipers couldn’t budge.
His father surveyed his domain through the white-speckled glass.

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