“Grandson-in-law,” Ada corrected Essie.
“No, you raised her so she’s yours. Sage is still young and this might not be the man for her. She might not be ready to settle down yet. I’m just glad you’re either selling the ranch or putting it in her name when you go back. I’m not a spring chicken and I want you here with me.”
“It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?” Ada said.
“Yes, it is, and Thomas would be proud. Now let’s go put on blinged-out sweat suits and go over to Idabelle’s for canasta. Texas can have all that snow and wind. I’m going to enjoy this forty-five-degree weather and sunshine.”
* * *
Creed awoke to the aroma of fresh banana bread baking in the oven. It was Christmas morning and his mother was in the kitchen making her traditional Christmas breakfast. They always had hot banana bread, cinnamon rolls, and a pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling on Christmas morning. All the nightmares about snow covering up the house had just been crazy dreams. He was in his bed at home on the family ranch. There wasn’t even a real canyon that looked like a giant bomb had exploded in the panhandle of Texas.
He sat straight up in bed and realized in a split second that it was not Christmas morning and he wasn’t in Ringgold, Texas. He was in a canyon fast filling up with snow, and it was not a nightmare that disappeared when he opened his eyes.
When he first drove out to that area it was the strangest sensation he’d ever known. Land met sky in every direction, and the ever-blowing Texas wind had picked up the remnants of a cotton crop on the side of the road and blew it around like big flakes of snow. He’d even gotten behind a cotton wagon taking a load from the field to the gin and then the wagon was gone, flat land was behind him, and he was following a twisting downhill road to the bottom of a big hole. It looked like someone had lobbed a nuclear bomb toward the Panhandle and it had landed between Silverton and Claude. It had been pretty that day, but the sun was shining and everything wasn’t covered with almost a foot of snow and colder’n a well digger’s naked butt in Alaska.
“All that cotton was trying to tell me that this was coming along pretty soon,” he muttered as he jerked on a clean pair of jeans.
He didn’t even stop to check on Angel and the kittens but followed his nose straight to the kitchen. Part of the dream had been real because there was a loaf of banana bread on the table with steam still rising from it.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Sage said. “Usually I paint when I can’t sleep, but I had a hankering for Grand’s banana bread so I made some.”
She wore tight-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt with more paint stains on the front. The mistletoe he had tracked in was tied with a red ribbon and pinned to the curtain above the window.
He moved toward her. “Smells good. I thought it was Christmas morning. Momma makes this for our breakfast on Christmas morning.”
“Grand makes it too. But I had to eat my eggs before I could have it,” she said.
He settled a hand on the cabinet on either side of her. Her eyes met his and her eyelids fluttered. Then something changed and she turned her head to the left to stare at the coffeepot.
“Creed, I don’t know…”
He tucked a fist under her chin and gently turned her back to face him. He looked up at the mistletoe and grinned.
“Can’t waste it,” he whispered.
His lips touched hers in a sweet, sweet kiss that ended too soon and left him yearning for more. He took two steps back and opened the drawer where the knives were kept. Before he could pick one up, her hand closed over his and forced him to shut the drawer.
“Chores first. Breakfast after.”
“You are downright mean. It’ll be cold by then.”
“It will be perfect. The pecans will slice well instead of making a gummy mess on the knife, and the cream cheese will be softened to spread on it.”
“You are killing me,” he groaned.
“I’ll help with chores.”
“That’s a poor second choice but I’ll take what I can get.” He started getting his coveralls on to go outside.
* * *
“Look!” Sage pointed. “I can see the outline of the barn. It’s slowed down, Creed!”
“There is a God. I thought maybe He’d forgotten us and this whole canyon would be level with the rest of Texas before the storm moved on.”
“It really is the worst storm I’ve ever seen. Grand talked about bad ones back when she and Grandpa first married, but this takes the cake for my generation,” she said.
Going was still slow as they trudged through snow halfway to their knees. Noel bounded through it like she was running through daisies in the springtime and beat them to the barn by several minutes. The smell of hay, cows and warm cow patties greeted Creed when he opened the door. Noel dashed inside ahead of him and she ran to check on the milk cow before he could shut the barn door.
“Are you putting another big bale in the doorway?” Sage asked.
“That worked fairly well. If it quits sometime today or tonight, tomorrow I’ll put the plow on the front end of the tractor and scoop any snow they haven’t tramped into the ground to the sides of the feedlot so we can feed them out there. I’m just grateful for the lean-to roof that they could huddle under. If they’d been out in the far reaches, we might have lost a few.”
“Grand wouldn’t have been happy about that,” Sage said.
“Neither would I. Soon as possible I’m hauling my stock out here. I’ve got Angus and a few Longhorns. My hope is to build up the Longhorns for rodeo stock. I’ve got a
