A Cowboy Under My Christmas Tree (22 page)
Read A Cowboy Under My Christmas Tree Online
Authors: Janet Dailey
“We got more’n two feet after you left. Drifted higher out here, like always.”
“I can see that. The land’s disappeared. Sure you didn’t sell off some in your sleep?” Sam joked.
“Son, you know me better than that. This ranch stays in the family. You and Annie and Zach are going to inherit it just as it is.”
“May that day be a long way off,” Sam said.
His father sighed. “What us Bennetts do is one thing. But I heard just the other day that the folks down the hill are talking to developers.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Can’t stop people from doing what they want with their own land. But you’re right, it is a damn shame. Don’t you worry, we’re not selling up. I’m healthy as ever and so’s your mother.”
Tyrell winced when the truck went over an invisible bump. “Ouch. Didn’t think this leg would hurt so much once the happy pills wore off. I’m as brittle as an old fence post.”
Sam was reluctant to bring up what his mother had told him about his father’s injury. He searched for the right words.
“Mom said you lay there for a while. She thought you were in the house.”
“That’s right. I didn’t tell her I was going out. No need. I just wanted to get some medicine into that sick calf before he started bellerin’ again. Then I slipped. Accidents happen.”
Sam stopped the truck and let the engine idle.
“You got lucky. What if Mom hadn’t looked out that window before nightfall?”
“She did, though,” his father said stubbornly. “I remember her coming out to me. You know, I felt warm by then. But I couldn’t think right. Or move.”
Definitely hypothermia. Sam had checked the symptoms online last night. Before you lost consciousness, you didn’t feel the cold sometimes.
“Dad, do you even know how long you were there, hurt?”
Tyrell answered with dignity and no contrariness. Unusual for him.
“I do not. And I understand what you’re gettin’ at. I’m old, that’s all. Not a damn thing me or the doc or your mother can do about it.” He looked out over his snow-drifted fields. “Don’t know what I’d do without Lou. She’s my rock.”
Sam didn’t want to think about the possibility that either of his parents might ever be alone. “She loves you.”
“Sometimes I wonder why.” Tyrell gingerly stretched out the casted leg into the footwell of the old truck.
“Take it easy.”
“That’s what I’m doin’. This damn thing slows me down, but it can’t stop me. Do you know how many bones I broke in my life?”
“No.”
“I counted once. Seven, and that includes a coupla ribs and a collarbone from my rodeo days.”
Being indestructible was a badge of pride for his old man.
“Annie isn’t even close,” Sam said. “Only one broken leg so far and a chipped elbow when she wiped out on the black diamond run.”
“Skiin’ is a little safer than rodeoin’. Annie’s a hellcat on the slopes,” Tyrell Bennett said with obvious pride. “You goin’ to ski while you’re here?”
“Maybe. If I have time.” Sam didn’t feel like discussing repairs with his father, who liked to do everything himself.
“Well, we could all just chill out and do nothing,” Tyrell said. “Might be a nice change.”
“Chill out?” Sam chuckled. “Where did you pick up that expression?”
“Annie. That’s what she keeps telling me to do.”
Sam started driving again.
“I haven’t been out this way for a while.” The older man looked out the window. “The snow covered the stump, but that’s where we cut the blue spruce.” His voice was cheerful. “The money from that already paid for feedcake and extra hay. Now drive on a little more.”
Sam grinned. He knew what his father wanted to see.
“Stop here. There’s the tree we didn’t cut,” Tyrell Bennett said with satisfaction. “Hey, I said stop. I’m getting out.”
Sam braked. “You shouldn’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” his father said irritably. He swung open the heavy door of the pickup and eased down, very carefully. Then he thought better of it and stayed where he was, using the door for support.
Sam set the parking brake.
“I guess I can see okay from here,” Tyrell said resignedly. “Bet that tree’s a foot taller than the one you took to New York, Sam.”
“Looks like.”
His father studied the spruces a little while longer. “You gotta hang on to the best. That’s the future.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
“I’m just plain right,” his father said with conviction. “You see the saplings around the big’un? Spiky little bastards. Tough as they come. They’ll be taller still.” He chuckled.
“I expect so.”
His father fell silent. A few years ago Tyrell Bennett would have pulled out his favorite smokes and lit one, but he’d given up that bad habit. In another minute he used his arms to pull himself up into the truck, staying off the casted leg entirely.
He eased down onto the bench seat beside his oldest son. “I may not be around when they get tall, Sam. But you will be.”
“Count on it.” Sam wasn’t saying so to make his old man happy. The Bennett ranch was truly home. He had missed it.
His mother and Annie were sitting on kitchen chairs, watching Sam download photos from his phone onto Lou’s laptop. He added more from friends who’d posted theirs online and set it all up as a slideshow.
“There you go. Click to continue or pause it whenever you like,” he said.
“Oh, I love this,” his mother said. “Annie, scoot over so you can see.”
Sam stood up, looking over their heads.
“That’s the window I worked on. Just for one day. The shop’s right up the street from the installation I was doing with Greg.”
“I hope you got a picture of our tree.”
“Greg did. You’re starting in the middle. That blue spruce is a standout.”
His mother stayed where she was in the slideshow. “My word, look at the city scene. And that little rink—isn’t that clever. What’s the name of the boutique again?”
“Now.”
“You mean just that one word? Now?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, I see it. There, in the corner of the window.” Lou used the zoom function under the online photo to take in every detail. “This is so much fun.”
The laptop she was looking into had been her Christmas present from her three grown kids last year. She’d taken to it instantly.
“Is that where you got my present?” Annie wanted to know.
“How did you know?” Sam was startled by the question.
“It looks like the kind of place I’d go into. You’re smarter than you look, Sam.”
“Thanks a lot, princess.”
Lou paid no attention to their verbal sparring. She’d been listening to it for years.
Annie grinned. “Seriously, there are boutiques just like that in Vail and Aspen. Denver too. Colorado is getting to be full of rich people who love to shop.”
Sam thought of Nicole. She might be interested to know that.
“Speaking of presents,” he said to his mother, “I was thinking of getting you a digital camera.”
“Not a surprise, then, is it? But I don’t care,” Lou said happily.
“This is going to be an electronic Christmas,” Annie informed her older brother.
“Huh?”
His mother interrupted. “Sam, do you have a digital camera or did you just use your phone?”
“I used the phone. I don’t have a digital camera. A lot of these are from friends.” He’d had fun last night looking at them all before he’d chosen the ones for the slideshow just now. “Greg took those.”
She’d gone back and was starting again in the correct order. “The blue spruce looks great with all the lights and the big star on top. I wonder how it likes being in New York,” she said playfully.
“The kids love it. I was the one who flipped the switch and lit it up when we were finished with the installation. You should have seen their faces. ”
“I wish I had been there,” his mother said with a sigh. “Tyrell too. Maybe next year.”
Sam looked over her shoulder. “Keep going. See those blue scenes? That’s what I was working on when you called.”
“Will you look at that color,” his mother murmured. “That’s a real fairy-tale blue. Just beautiful. Now, that young lady is a mannequin, but I know the other is real—”
“That’s Nicole.”
“She’s lovely. Even with those streaks of blue paint on her face. Annie, look. That’s who Sam was working with at Now and this ENJ place. Nicole is a window designer.”
Lou gazed into the laptop screen, but Annie turned around, ready to start a little trouble with her big brother. She mouthed the words
she’s lovely
and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Sam scowled.
she’s lovely
and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Sam scowled.
“I didn’t know you liked city girls,” Annie said innocently. “Are you dating her?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I have my ways. I will find out.” His sister grinned at him over their mother’s shoulder.
“Is Nicole from New York?” Lou asked.
“Born there.”
Lou seemed thoughtful. “I heard that a lot of people who live in New York are from somewhere else. That’s true of Colorado these days, though. ”
“I suppose so.”
Lou kept clicking. “And there’s that gigantic thing you two found. Look at that before and after. What a difference.”
“It came out really well. Finn—he’s a friend of Nicole—posted those. Hang on. Can I look at that one? I don’t remember him taking it.”
Sam was on a ladder behind the decorated metal disk, which glittered so brightly that his face was partly obscured.
Nicole was standing in front of him, smiling.
“What a beautiful smile. She’s looking at you like you hung the moon.” Lou turned to her son. “Which is exactly what you did.”
Nicole felt something in the pocket of Sam’s jacket prickle her fingers. She closed them around a twig and removed it. It was from some kind of evergreen tree. The needles were pale under the streetlight, still thickly clustered and fresh.
It must have come from the blue spruce. She’d seen it on his phone once, but she had never gone to see Sam’s tree in person.
Nicole rubbed the needles between her fingertips, putting the twig under her nose to enjoy the piney fragrance before tucking it back in the pocket. She turned up the collar and caught a faint whiff of Sam’s scent. Not aftershave, just clean. With a note of man. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to wear his jacket. Sam was enough of a distraction when he was actually around.
She continued walking past several cross streets south of Now to where she thought the tree might be.
The small park divided a busy street. There were other trees behind his, but not the same color. They were dark, and Sam’s tree was an unusual light blue. The spruce stood tall and strong amidst the high buildings surrounding it and the constant racket of traffic that flowed by.
The star atop the spruce glowed a steady gold. It was the only one of the group with a star, though all the trees twinkled with color. She half wished she could climb up into its branches and see if she felt as safe as she did in his arms.
Nicole settled for the bench underneath it. It was freezingly cold. She wouldn’t be able to stay there very long.
She had been stunned to find out that Sam had to fly back to Colorado, although of course he’d had no choice. Nicole had kept her promise to call him, but when he’d answered the Bennetts had been just sitting down to dinner. She’d forgotten about the time difference.
Sam had called her back later that night, not saying much. His father’s injury had been worse than he’d been told. There might be complications. He wanted to get to repairs that had been put off, make sure that his parents were safely set up before he could think about coming back.
One thing for sure, he wasn’t making any promises to her.
She understood why. She respected him for putting his parents first. But a question that made her sick at heart assailed her. What if he never came back?
He’d planned to stay in New York until New Year’s Eve, but a family emergency was likely to keep him in Colorado indefinitely.
Miserable, she huddled into his jacket. Might as well get used to missing him, she told herself. But Nicole knew that might be impossible.
Her cell phone rang, and she scrabbled frantically through her purse to find it. Not Sam.
“Hi, Sharon.”
“Just thought I’d call.”
Nicole suppressed a sigh. It was good to hear a friend’s voice, and it was nice of Sharon to check in with her.
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