She peeled a paper towel from the wooden roller beside the toaster and dabbed at the green leaves and berries before placing the sprigs on the windowsill. If he kept hauling it in with every trip outside, she wouldn’t have to climb a scrub oak for a bunch to hang up with the holiday decorations.
That turned her thoughts toward putting up the tree, the lights around the barn, and all the other decorations. She’d have the whole house decorated when Grand came home on Christmas Eve. There was no way in hell Grand could sign the ranch over to a stranger when she saw the tree and the sparkling lights. They’d remind her of all the good times that had gone on during Christmas on the ranch, and any notion of selling would be gone.
And then there were the three weeks with Aunt Essie. That woman was an old sweetheart, but she’d drive a person to whiskey if they had to live in the same house with her. Her house at that! She was so set in her ways that the biggest John Deere tractor on the market couldn’t budge her. And Grand was just as set in hers. Aunt Essie’s house might be nothing but splinters and chunks of age-old linoleum at the end of three weeks because the two sisters argued and fought about everything. One thing was for sure: when Grand got off that airplane in Amarillo, she would be tearing up anything that she and Creed might have signed before she left. And Sage would never hear any bullshit about selling the ranch again.
Creed took so long that she went to the kitchen window and squinted, but the snow blew so hard against the window that she couldn’t see a blessed thing. Then a bright red cardinal flew up and sat on the windowsill. It stared through the glass pane as if begging for just a little bit of the warmth to take the chill off his fluffed-up feathers.
“Can’t do it, bird. The dog forced her way in, but you’d be really unhappy in the house,” she said.
The cardinal took flight and the snow swallowed him up. She looked at the clock. If Creed wasn’t back in five more minutes she was going to suit up in her coveralls and go find him. He could have slipped and fallen. He could be lying out there halfway from the bunkhouse to the kitchen door with a broken leg, freezing to death.
Well, that would definitely solve the dilemma of selling the ranch.
Grand’s whisper was so clear that she jumped and looked around the kitchen. In that instant, Sage convinced herself that Grand hadn’t left at all, but there was no one there.
“I don’t want him dead. I just don’t want things to change,” she said aloud.
The kitchen door swung open and the room filled up with Creed Riley. Cowboy, attitude, and force all combined together to make the whole house seem smaller. Snow drifted in behind him before he could shut the door with the heel of his boot. He set the turpentine on the table and lined the canvases up on the floor with their backs to the wall.
“That enough?” he asked. “Speak now or forever hold your peace because once I take these coveralls off I don’t plan on putting them back on until time to feed this evening.”
She counted eight in various sizes. “More than enough. That should keep me busy for weeks.”
He hung up his hat, brushed the snow from his face, and unzipped his coveralls. When they were removed for the second time that day, he kicked off his boots and left them on the rug beneath the coatrack.
“Well, let’s hope the weather lets up before you get them all painted or we’ll be covered up in it. It’s turned even wetter; it’s coming down so hard that you can’t see your hand in front of your face and the wind is bitter cold.” He talked as he peeled out of the outer clothing yet again. “I’m worried about the cattle, and I’m very glad that your grandmother had the foresight to bring them all into the feedlot right behind the barn before the storm hit.”
“She’s smart that way. She says it’s her Indian blood. We don’t get this kind of weather very often, but Grandpa got prepared for it. That’s why there’s a row of cedar trees on each side of the feedlot. It breaks the wind and the snow coming from the north in the winter and the hard south winds in the summer. If we get as much as the weatherman is saying we will, there’ll only be a couple of inches in the feedlot and the cattle will tromp that down pretty quick. They’ll be cold, but they won’t be standing in it up to their udders.” Sage laughed.
Her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she smiled, but her laughter wasn’t a girl’s giggles. It was a full-fledged woman’s laugh that echoed through the whole house and sounded even prettier than a good country music song.
“And that is funny why?”
“I love my grandmother, but she excuses everything by saying it’s her Indian voodoo. She can smell a storm on the way, and if it doesn’t arrive, then it bypassed us, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t smell it. That kind of thing,” she said.
“Well, whatever voodoo she has, I’m glad she’s got the cows in one small enclosure and that they can huddle up under the shed roof on the back of the barn for a little protection.” He kicked another piece of mistletoe with his toe as he started through the kitchen.
He picked it up and she reached for it. “I’ll take that.”
It was twice as big as the other pieces. Grand would say that was because she wasn’t being mean anymore.
“Where are you going to set up to paint?” he asked.
She pointed. “Right there in front of the living room window to the left of the fireplace.”
“What are you going to paint?”
She shrugged. After that comment about Indian voodoo she couldn’t tell him her deepest painting secret. That she depended on her painting gods to give her inspiration and that she respected them enough to paint what they offered.
“I’m going to paint a picture of that kitchen window with a bright red cardinal on the outside ledge looking in. While you were gone one lit there and looked like he wanted to come inside.”
“Smart bird. It’s terrible out there. How in the world did you ever get home? The last report I got before the electricity went out was that all roads into the canyon were going to be closed.”
“They were just putting up the sawhorses and signs when I drove up. I shimmied around them and kept on driving. The men weren’t real happy with me, but I wanted to be home, not holed up in a motel somewhere. I didn’t have to worry about oncoming traffic.”
“It was stupid! You were lucky to get here.”
“I’m a damn good driver.”
“Didn’t say that. I said that driving down that twisting, steep incline wasn’t too smart.”
The dog raised her head and yipped.
“Guess she don’t want us to fight,” Creed said.
“Guess she don’t get to make the calls,” Sage shot back.