She nodded even though she was telling her head to go back and forth, not up and down.
“He would have said that you were built like a redbrick shit house without a brick out of place.” Creed smiled.
She jerked her head up to lock gazes with him across the table.
“Thank you, I think.”
“It’s a compliment, I promise.”
“Maybe so, but it won’t keep me from talking Grand out of selling the ranch, and that’s a fact.”
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. His knee settled against hers under the table at the same time.
“I meant what I said. You are beautiful. Whether I own the ranch or not, it doesn’t make you any less gorgeous,” he said.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Then his knee was gone and his hand left hers.
He picked up his spoon and started eating stew again, changing the subject and talking between bites. “I haven’t had snow ice cream in at least five years.”
“Well, finish up your dinner and bring in a big bowl of snow, and you’ll get the best you’ve ever had in your life,” she said.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Are we still talking about ice cream?”
“Creed Riley!”
“Just checkin’ to be sure.” He grinned.
“Yes, we are!”
He finished eating, grabbed a huge metal bowl from the pantry, and filled it with snow from a drift at the edge of the back porch. He was halfway across the porch when he noticed bird droppings in the snow. He dumped it and went to the other end of the porch, checked to be sure it was clean, and took it inside.
Sage swallowed her last bite at the same time he did and set their dirty dishes beside the sink. She grabbed a can of sweetened condensed milk from the pantry, hurriedly opened it, poured it into a mixing bowl, and grabbed a whisk.
When Creed returned, she was busy stirring, scraping the sides, and stirring some more so he would think she’d whipped up several ingredients together. She stirred small amounts of snow into it until it was finally the right consistency and then dipped out two smaller bowls full.
He tasted it and shut his eyes as he groaned. “God, this is the best I’ve ever had. What is your secret?”
“Just the right mixture of eggs, sugar, and cream,” she said.
There were some things a woman just kept to herself, right?
“Living room?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah! Warm fire, snow ice cream, and Christmas.”
He sat on one end of the sofa. She claimed the other.
She grabbed her head with her free hand. “Oh, shit!”
Creed set his ice cream on the end table, scooted down the length of the sofa, cupped her chin with his hand, and kissed her hard.
“Wow, that worked,” she said when he pulled back.
“Heat melts cold, darlin’.”
He went back to the other end and started eating again.
In seconds Sage had gone from aching cold to boiling hot. How many times could a woman’s body do that and not explode?
Chapter 7
A brand-new blank canvas waited on the easel. The window painting had been relegated to the top shelf of the pantry to finish drying. The bunnies now had the drying space on the living room wall, and she liked them even better the second day after finishing them than she did at first. Two paintings in such a short time did worry her, though. Was she color-booking or was she really painting?
Sage eyed the rest of the canvasses and decided the one on the easel was too big. She removed it and picked up a sixteen-by-twenty-inch one and slid the top bar of the easel down to hold it steady. She looked around the room, but there were no angels swirling about outside the kitchen window.
A flash of yellow leapt from floor to living room windowsill and caught Sage’s attention. The snow people seemed to fascinate the cat. Or maybe it was the birds that lit in their tree limb arms that got her attention. She made a deep guttural sound in her throat, as if telling them if they’d come on into the house, she’d tell them a pretty story.
Sage had no doubt that the old fairy tale would be a brand-new jacked-up version of “Little Red Riding Hood” if Angel could entice the birds inside. Sage smiled at that idea and turned her attention back to the canvas in front of her.
“The Mistletoe Collection,” she said. “That sounds wonderful.”
Still, nothing materialized. Maybe her mistletoe collection was going to consist of two paintings. One of a snow angel and one of two bunnies.
The back door swung open and Creed filled the space for a split second before he stepped inside. “Mistletoe what?”
“Cowboy. Mistletoe cowboy. Did you track more inside the house?”
She was not going to paint a cowboy with mistletoe on his shoulder or a cowboy boot with it frozen to the toe, either.
He looked at his shoulders and down at the floor. “Not today. I plowed the snow away from a third of the feedlot so the cows wouldn’t be standing in it, but you were right. They’d stomped down most of what was in the lot so the job was easy. Those wind breaks your Grandpa planted sure work.”
“Next thing you know, you’ll ask me to knit socks for the cows.”
He hung his heavy coat on the rack. “You knit?”
She stole quick glimpses of him without turning around to face him head-on. His jeans were snug and stacked up over his scuffed up boots. His denim shirt had two buttons undone showing an oatmeal-colored thermal shirt underneath.
“I do not knit. Grand does and she tried to teach me. That pesky yarn crawled up the needles and tried to strangle me. So don’t ask me to make socks for your cattle.”
He chuckled.
“What? It’s the truth.”
“I’m not saying it’s not. You said your cattle.”
“Slip of the tongue. I meant to say Grand’s cattle.” She folded her arms over her chest and turned her attention once again
