A Cowgirl's Christmas (19 page)

“Okay. Pick a frivolous topic. Say a guy is taking you on a date. Would you rather he bought you chocolates or flowers?”

Callan didn’t like this conversational direction much better. “I’d rather he bought me a beer and challenged me to a pool game at Grey’s.”

Court didn’t laugh. “You don’t have to be tough
all
the time, Callan.”

“And you’re analyzing me again. I think we should go.”

“One minute.” Court put his hand over hers. “Are you pushing me away because you’re not interested? Or because you’re scared?”

His hand, which had once been so white and smooth, was callused now, and she liked the way it felt on her skin. She wanted to grab on tight. She wanted him to kiss her again. But there was something blocking her from doing these things or even admitting that she wanted them.

It didn’t feel like fear. It felt like a solid wood wall.

Court was still waiting for her answer, but all she could do was shrug.

After another long minute, he removed his hand. “You win, Callan. Let’s go.”

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T
he week after her twenty-four hour bug, Callan had little appetite - or energy, for that matter. She’d always been an early riser, but in the morning she had to force herself out of bed in order to put in a full day at the chocolate shop. When she’d started helping out Sage, she’d enjoyed learning the tricks behind making all the delicious chocolates and truffles. But the job had become drudgery, something she only continued so Sage wouldn’t tire herself out too much.

When she wasn’t at Copper Mountain Chocolates, Callan wandered around the house. Every room now had several packed boxes stacked in the corners. When it came time to sell, it would be easy to strip out what mattered and leave the rest.

She wished she could leave now. She felt suffocated by the memories in this place. Looking at the fireplace, she thought of all the pictures they had posed for there. Every birthday and Christmas, their mother would gather them on the hearth, arranged from oldest to youngest. Mattie and Sage had both been married here. Even the imperfections in the house were lovable, because of the stories behind them, like the nicks in the wall around the hall mirror. Sage had replaced the mirror with a dart board, and they’d played several rounds before their mother found out and nixed the idea.

The red stain on the carpet in her father’s study came from a glass of wine Mattie had snuck from the dining room table when she was around twelve then spilled when Dani insisted she wanted a taste, too.

And the buckled hardwood by the back entrance was the result of Callan neglecting to close the window properly during a big rainstorm.

Hardest of all for Callan were the nights. She almost never slept a solid eight hours anymore, thanks to nightmares about the day her father had died. She’d hoped that trip up to the ridge would help. But it had not.

Meanwhile, the weather was getting progressively colder. Ten days before Christmas they had their first real blizzard in Paradise Valley. Callan was out checking on the horses when she saw Court for the first time since they’d gone for coffee in Marietta.

He stopped to ask her how she was doing but the wind was so loud she could hardly make out his words. She didn’t attempt a reply, just gave a nod to let him know everything was okay. She considered looking in on Zorro, but some hard, stubborn feeling inside her said no.

On her way back to the house, she turned and noticed Court standing where she’d left him, watching her, apparently unbothered by the driving snow and wind. What was he doing? Waiting for her to invite him inside or something?

Well, he’d be waiting a long time.

She had to fight the wind to open the door to the mudroom and once she was inside, the stillness and warmth was a delicious relief. She thought about hot cocoa, making a fire and watching a movie. Or reading a book.

Yet she felt too restless to settle down. There was a strange longing inside of her when she thought about Court. Why did just seeing the guy tie her up in knots like this? It had to be linked to her feelings about losing the Circle C. Yet try as she might, she couldn’t conjure the same anger toward him for that.

A week before Christmas, Callan made a double batch of chili in anticipation of her family’s arrival. She’d never been much for holiday baking—usually Mattie and Sage took care of that. But it occurred to her that she might find it relaxing to bake some cookies.

She pulled out her mother’s old recipe books and flipped the pages, feeling more confused with each new recipe she tried to read. Not only was her mother’s aging cursive script difficult to read, but Beverly had a system of abbreviations that were like a secret code to Callan. Maybe someone who did a lot of baking would understand. She didn’t.

She decided to call Sage and see if she had an easy Christmas recipe to recommend.

“You have to check out the Bramble House Christmas blog,” Sage said.

“What’s that?” Callan hadn’t been impressed when her cousin Eliza moved to Marietta from Nashville and suddenly turned their great-aunt Mabel’s heritage home into a bed and breakfast. Before Nashville, Eliza had lived in numerous places in California. It seemed unlikely that she’d settle in Marietta for long. And once she left, what would Mabel do with the bed and breakfast? It would be too much for her to handle on her own.

“Eliza’s done a spectacular job of decorating Bramble House this year. She has pictures up on the blog, as well as a bunch of the family’s traditional holiday recipes. Her blog got so many hits that she was invited to New York to tape a segment for the Jane & Ty show. I can’t believe you haven’t heard about this.”

“Sounds like a lot of fuss over nothing.”

“Not true, Callan. During the taping John Urban called in and said he wanted to book a suite at Bramble House for the holidays. Can you imagine that? John Urban coming to a small town like Marietta?”

Callan was a huge fan of the country music star, but the story seemed too far-fetched. “Maybe it’s just a publicity stunt or something.”

“Time will tell, I guess. But you should still check out the blog. Eliza has re-written the recipes so they’re easy for the modern cook to read and follow. No more pinches of this and a peck of that.”

“I suppose she had access to all the old recipe books at Bramble House.”

“Yes, and I recognize a lot of them. Mom must have copied them out when she got married. Remember Mom’s whipped shortbread? Eliza has included the recipe for that and it should be right up your alley. Only five ingredients. You can’t go wrong.”

“Okay. I’ll try it.” After the call, Callan pulled out her laptop and searched on Google for the blog site. The song “Christmas Time Is Here,” began to play when she clicked on a button that said, “Enter Bramble House.”

Callan found herself in a virtual foyer, with a beautiful fir tree taking center stage. It was decorated in ornaments that reflected Montana in one way or another, along with beautiful glistening snowflakes representing the winter weather.

From the foyer, she had the choice of moving to the Library, the Sitting Room, the Breakfast Room, or the Kitchen. Charmed despite herself, she clicked on Kitchen.

The music changed to “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” and the screen displayed an old-fashioned kitchen. The tree in the corner seemed to be decorated with miniature cooking implements, china cups, copper kettles and teapots. On the counter was a Recipe Book. When she hovered the mouse over it, it opened to review a recipe index.

“Holy crap. This is incredible.” Callan clicked on “Cookies” and before long was looking at the Whipped Shortbread recipe.

Sage was right. It did look easy. And bonus—she could use the food processor. All she had to do was beat together two cups of butter—wow, an entire pound. No wonder the cookies tasted so good—along with a cup of icing sugar, half a cup of corn starch, three cups of flour and a teaspoon of vanilla.

Fortunately Callan found all the ingredients in the cupboards—many of them purchased by someone other than her. Within fifteen minutes, she had the mixture ready to drop by the teaspoon onto cookie sheets.

Her Mom had placed squares of milk chocolate on top of the cookies before baking. That had seemed awesome when Callan was ten. But she opted to use toasted pecans this time.

Ten minutes in a three-hundred and fifty degree oven and they were done.

“Kind of awesome, if I do say so myself.”

She brewed a cup of tea, intending to enjoy a couple of the cookies, but the tea was no sooner steeped than she lost her appetite. It was no fun eating Christmas cookies alone. And yet she didn’t think she would enjoy them once her family arrived, either.

If she had her choice, she would skip the holiday entirely. How was she going to pretend to be happy and jolly when she felt anything but? She was such a Scrooge she hadn’t even bought any Christmas gifts yet. Picking up a bunch of boxes of Sage’s chocolates would be a cop out. But even that seemed like too much effort this year.

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O
n the night of the twenty-third, Dani and Eliot arrived, along with baby Bev and Mattie’s daughter Portia. They’d flown in from Seattle that afternoon then rented an SUV in Bozeman, arriving at the Circle C just after eight.

Callan had fallen behind with her emails and wasn’t expecting them until the next morning when Mattie, Nat and Wren would be coming.

She was sitting in the window seat of her father’s office in the dark. From here she could see a faint light coming from Court’s cabin. She was nursing a glass of bourbon, promising herself she wouldn’t have another one when it was gone.

It was a promise she hadn’t kept the past few nights.

Bourbon wasn’t the answer to her problems. But it was doing a good job of dulling her pain-filled evenings, of blurring the lines between night and dawn, when she could busy herself making chocolates and listening to Sage’s happy chatter about the new baby, coming next spring.

When she first saw the headlights, she assumed they would drive on—though there wasn’t much else down this road other than Court’s cabin. But the lights turned at the Circle C drive and came right up to the house. As the occupants spilled out, she realized who they were.

Callan roused herself from her perch and went to switch on the light over the porch, as well as the ones on the outdoor tree. Then she opened the door and stepped out onto the snow-dusted landing.

Dani was the first up the stairs, sophisticated and svelte in a caramel wool coat, dark brown boots and a cranberry-colored scarf. Her hair looked freshly styled and her make-up could have been professionally applied. She set down the two bags she was carrying and gave Callan a hug. “Why were all the lights out? It’s only eight.”

“I forgot to turn them on. I—kind of wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

Dani pulled back from the embrace, frowning. “You’ve been sitting alone in the dark and drinking? Honey, that isn’t good.”

Callan felt a flash of anger. Easy for Dani with her devoted boyfriend, adorable daughter and successful career to judge. She gritted her teeth and forced a smile as Portia ran to her.

“Auntie Callan! It’s so nice to be here. There’s no snow in Seattle. It doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.”

Callan gave her niece a hug, careful not to let the young woman get a whiff of her bourbon-scented breath. “One thing you can count on in Montana is snow. Now come on in! Don’t worry about your boots.”

Eliot came in next, toting the infant carrier with baby Bev strapped inside. He looked the perfect urban complement to Dani in his city-lawyer-dresses-country apparel. Perversely Callan wanted to fault him for trying too hard, but nothing about him struck a wrong or over-done note. He simply looked perfect—all set for the cover of a J. Crew catalogue cover.

He gave her a friendly smile and a one-armed hug before handing over the carrier. “Would you mind taking Bev out of this thing? I think she’s overheated. I need to grab some more bags from the SUV.”

“Of course.” Callan’s heart softened a little as she released the clip holding in her newest little niece. Bev wasn’t crying but her face was red. When Callan unzipped her snowsuit she found the baby hot and sweaty.

“Poor thing. I overdressed her for the ride. She’ll need a feeding and a diaper change, but I’m going to wait until Eliot sets up her portable crib. Are we in the same room as last time, Callan?

“Yes.” Truth was, Callan hadn’t looked in any of the bedrooms since they’d all left after burying Hawksley’s ashes.

“Sure is dark in here.” Dani turned on the lights to the Christmas tree in the foyer and immediately baby Bev was transfixed. “Isn’t that pretty?”

“It sure is,” Portia agreed, following Dani to the kitchen and then the sitting room. “Wow, this tree is the best. Even bigger than last year, I think.”

“Dawson and Sage did most of the work,” Callan admitted, following after them with the baby in her arms. Bev had gained a few pounds since the last visit, and had started smiling. She was the sweetest little thing. “How was school this semester, Portia?”