It was the snowstorm causing all the crazy emotions between them. He was excited about finally finding just the right ranch and getting it for such a good price. He would just blame the whole thing on Christmas. For the past two years he’d searched for a ranch that he could afford and that had the right feel. And now he’d found it at the beginning of the season. It stood to reason that after growing up on a ranch with a big family, he’d get a silly notion like that in his head too.
The place had to have some kind of voodoo magic to make him fall prey to Sage’s charms. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind she had something up her sleeve that had to do with her grandmother changing her mind. He’d have to be very careful or else he’d be right back looking for a place of his own again if Ada Presley came home and listened to her granddaughter.
He’d just let things get to him. He’d been bored with only chores to keep him busy and it had been a long, long time since he’d wrapped his arms around a woman. Pregnant dog, new baby kittens, cooking together, and sharing meals—it all combined to put thoughts of a family into his mind.
Creed had a lot of work to do before he could entertain notions of a family. He’d arrived at the ranch with the idea etched in solid granite that he’d given up on all women. That he’d dance with them, do a little flirting, and enjoy a one-night stand a few times a year. But in the end, he’d be the old bachelor uncle who lived out in Palo Duro Canyon that all the nieces and nephews adored. There were six other Riley sons. The three older ones had families. Ace and Jasmine were already pregnant and it was going to be a girl, so Creed’s momma was happy. And Dalton and Blake were out there scanning the mesquite bushes for a woman. It wouldn’t be long until they’d have one cornered and wedding bells would be ringing. He didn’t need to produce a Riley to keep the name going, and he didn’t want another heartbreak.
He stomped what snow he could off his feet and slung open the back door. Noel danced around Sage’s feet as she kicked off her boots and unzipped her coveralls. Angel peeked up over the edge of her basket and then curled up again. Sage reached over and picked a piece of mistletoe from off Creed’s shoulder.
“This stuff thinks you are an oak tree.” She smiled.
“It must be blowing off the scrub oaks. I swear if they brought an instrument to measure the wind that would be a snow tornado out there. The wind is as bad if not worse than the actual snow.”
She dried the mistletoe and laid it on the shelf with the other pieces. “It does feel like that with the hard wind, don’t it? If you keep growing this, we won’t have to go looking for any to hang up for the holidays.”
Just moments before she’d unzipped his coveralls to the waist and slipped her hands inside to hug him tighter. His poor heart had about stopped in anticipation of where those hands might be headed, but they’d splayed out on his chest and stayed there. He’d wished she would go a layer deeper and pull his shirt out from his belt and put skin on skin. Frostbite would have been worth it to feel those long slender fingers all stretched out on his abs.
Now she was talking about mistletoe as if the kisses never happened at all.
“At least we’ll have plenty to tie up with a bow and put over the doorway,” he said.
If she wanted to ignore the kiss, then he could do the same thing.
* * *
When Sage painted, she concentrated on the underlying message of her picture while she carefully built dimension upon dimension to bring out depth and character.
Anyone can color a page in a coloring book.
That’s what her art teacher told them the first day she had walked into his class as a sophomore in high school. He’d seen something in her raw ability and had fussed at her for three years, critiquing and pressuring her to do better and better until she’d gotten the fantastic opportunity to study art in college.
Two years later she’d had all she wanted. She wanted to paint, not write creative English papers for the basic classes she had to take. So she quit and came home to the canyon. Grand supported her decision without a single negative remark. Four years later her bank account was substantial and she was doing exactly what she loved to do.
That morning she stood in front of the painting of the kitchen window and studied it. The angel was there, hiding in the snow. The little cardinal was on the window ledge, details in the way his feathers fluffed out against the cold. The next step was his eyes. She looked back at the window and either the original cardinal or one just like him flew out of the white flakes to land there again. Only this time he brought his mate, a female cardinal, with him to take a peek inside the house.
They stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds before they took flight. Sage looked back at the picture on the easel. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to put the female in the picture. The part of the picture where she would be was as yet unfinished. Sage picked up a tiny outline brush and painted the male cardinal’s eyes. The critics might not see the love at first glance. They might only see four panes in each of the upper and lower windows with a snowstorm in the background. Maybe after close scrutiny, they’d see the whole story and it would touch their hearts.
She was tempted to rush, but she forced herself to slow down, to shut her eyes several times and get the female bird’s part in the picture just right. Even though her colors weren’t as brilliant as her counterpart’s, and even though the wood between the panes separated them, she was his choice. And the angel was smiling down on them.
When both birds were to her satisfaction, she picked up the brush to paint in the mistletoe. She glanced back at the window and suddenly in her mind’s eye the mistletoe wasn’t lying on the sill but was tied up together with a bright red satin ribbon and hanging from the bottom of the poinsettia valance.
She blinked and it was back on the windowsill, but Sage Presley did not argue with her visions. If the gods said that she should hang the mistletoe then she would do just that. The times when she’d done what she wanted rather than what her visions gave her, those paintings had been a big flop. When she listened, the critics went wild with what she produced.
* * *
Creed and Noel played tug-of-war with an old wash rag he’d found in the scrub bucket. Creed held onto the rag with his hand and Noel pulled against it with all her might using her teeth. Even while he played, he kept a steady watch on the picture’s progress. He didn’t know jack shit about good art versus bad art. But the canvas on the easel was alive with color and motion. Two birds on the windowsill, feathers fluffed out against the cold wind, the promise of warmth behind the thin glass, mistletoe and poinsettias and an angel floating in the background.
When Sage painted the mistletoe above the cardinal’s head, Creed could actually feel the painting. He couldn’t have put a single thought into words, but it touched all the senses. He imagined one hand on the outside of the window and the other on the inside. One cold. One hot. He could taste the snowflakes on his lips, and the mistletoe reminded him of the kiss he and Sage had shared.