Sage looked from man to cat and back again.
“Well?” Creed poured the cold dirt into the old rusted dishpan.
“What makes you think I named her?”
“You did. I can see it in your face. Why didn’t you have pets before now? You love animals.”
“No, I don’t,” she argued. “Pets just die and leave you all lonely again anyway. And who knows if these are really strays. Their owners might come looking for them soon as the weather clears up.”
“I doubt it. Most folks wouldn’t go out looking for a pregnant cat or an ugly dog, and you didn’t answer me.”
“Like I just said, pets either run off or die and I’d be left with the pain of it.”
“Better to have loved and hurt than never to have loved at all,” he quipped.
“Oh, so now you are a prophet?” she shot back at him.
“No, ma’am. Not me. I’m not that smart on a good day, and this one has been real strange in my world.”
“You damn sure got that right.” Sage whipped up several eggs and added warm milk to them. Noel saw her pick up the pie pan and came running so fast that she lost traction and slid the last five feet on her belly.
Creed looked at Sage and they both burst out in laughter.
“And that’s why we have pets!” he finally said. “They make us laugh and give us something to pet and to tell all our secrets to without worrying that they’ll ever tell a living soul.”
Sage was still giggling so hard that the milk sloshed when she picked up the pan. “You’re going to have to set it down, Creed. I’ll spill it.”
He reached around her to pick up the pan and suddenly they were face-to-face, noses barely inches away from each other. She could have gotten lost in his green eyes, which were staring so intently into hers. His lips parted slightly and her tongue instinctively wet her dry lips in anticipation of the kiss. She was a boiling pot of desire just wanting to feel his mouth on hers.
* * *
Creed wanted to taste those luscious lips more than he’d wanted to kiss any other woman in his life. When she moistened her full lips, he could hardly wait for the sizzle that they promised. She had shut her eyes and was leaning in toward him when Noel jumped between them and her paws landed on Sage’s hip bones.
Sage’s eyes popped open.
Creed took a step back so she could see that he didn’t have his hands in that place.
Sage blushed and mumbled something about Noel being hungry.
He set the pan on the floor and turned around to remove his coveralls for the umpteenth time that day.
“Guess she likes her milk,” Sage said.
“Looks like it.”
“How am I going to get Angel fed without Noel drinking her supper too?”
Creed chuckled. “I figured you’d name her Mary since she had babies in the manger because there was no room in the inn.”
“I thought about it, but a cat shouldn’t be named after Jesus’s momma. I’m not one for making God mad in the middle of a blizzard. Besides, all that fluffy hair reminds me of angel wings.”
He pointed. “Look.”
The cat and dog were sharing the pan of milk.
“I told you they were friends,” Creed said.
* * *
Sage was afraid the “almost-kiss” would be an elephant in the room all evening, but it wasn’t. They had soup again for supper and she actually felt like she’d known Creed forever. He could be an outlaw or a serial killer. Just because he’d charmed his way past Grand didn’t mean that he was the greatest thing since ice cream on a stick. She shouldn’t trust him and it riled her that she did.
Before Sage trusted anyone she had to know them a long time, but there she was laughing and talking to him as if they’d both grown up on the Rockin’ C. She was supposed to be making him miserable, not befriending him.
At the supper table, Noel begged and whined. When they set a pie pan of soup and corn bread on the floor Angel joined her again.
“She’s even eating carrots, Creed.”
He leaned over so he could see the animals. “Which one?”
“Angel is eating carrots and peas.”
“She’s hungry,” Creed said. “Poor little thing probably thinks she’s died and gone to heaven.”
Grand’s voice whispered into her ear, He’s a good man.
She wanted to argue with her grandmother, but her heart said that Grand was right. Creed was a good man. He could be trusted. He just wasn’t the right man for the Rockin’ C.
When she slipped into her bed that night she laced her hands behind her head and stared at the dark ceiling. It had been the strangest day of her entire life. Maybe it was because she didn’t have a telephone or a laptop, and the only person she could talk to was Creed. Maybe those three pieces of mistletoe really were an omen.
Whatever it was, she sure hoped the next day wasn’t a repeat, because it was confusing the hell out of her. She touched her lips and felt cheated. She’d wanted that kiss to see if she really was attracted to the cowboy or if it was just a simple proximity issue. Close by. Nothing to do but think about those sexy eyes and dark hair. Cooking together. Working side by side. Cats with babies. Pregnant dogs. All combined, it would knock a hole in any woman’s hormones.
Chapter 4
Going to bed before nine o’clock made for an early morning. Creed looked at the clock beside his bed at four o’clock. He rolled over and pulled the window curtain back. The snow was still falling just as hard and fast as it had been when he went to bed. The wind whirled down the canyon walls turning the naked mesquite and scrub oak limbs into musical instruments that hummed something like Christmas carols.
There was no going back to sleep no matter how tightly he closed his eyes or beat on his pillow, so finally he crawled out, padded into the kitchen, and put on a pot of coffee. While it perked, he dressed for chores. He turned the gas off from under it just before he and Noel went out the back door. If Sage got up early, it would be ready. If she didn’t, it would still be hot when he brought the milk inside.
The hay was half gone, but there was enough to keep the cattle happy until nightfall. He shoved the rest of the bale out into the lean-to and shut the doors tightly behind it. He fed the hogs, gathered the eggs, and then milked the cow.
Sage still wasn’t awake when he took the milk inside, so he strained it and put it away. And that’s when the cranky mood hit him. If he was home in Ringgold during a snowstorm, he’d spend time in the tack room or in the barn working on equipment. Or he’d go up to the Chicken Fried Café and talk to the other ranchers in the area. One day was his limit when it came to sitting still all day, and he damn sure didn’t look forward to day two of it.