Ada pushed her chair back. “I’m going to Chambersburg to the Walmart store. You want to go with me? We could have dinner at the Cracker Barrel and go to the Hobby Lobby store to buy a Christmas tree.”
“I told you, I ain’t put up a tree in twenty years.”
“And I’m tellin’ you, Essie, we will have a Christmas tree and we’re makin’ a big Christmas dinner for all your family this year.”
She exhaled loudly. “Sounds like you’re going to a lot of trouble for nothing.”
Ada started toward the door. “I’ll warm up the truck. You get your walkin’ shoes on and your coat. I’m leavin’ in five minutes.”
Essie was sitting in the passenger’s seat with her big black plastic purse in her lap in exactly three minutes.
* * *
Creed could hardly believe his eyes when April appeared in the living room in her party dress. He had equated the Christmas party with the sale party held at his folks’ ranch every fall. The girls all showed up in their tight-fitting jeans, fancy shirts, and best boots. A few came in a skirt, but it was usually something all decorated up Western style. April looked like she was headed to a party in a Dallas bar or for a walk down a model’s runway, not in a sale barn.
“Just exactly where is this party going to be?” he asked.
April did a couple of runway spins for him. “At the Canyon Rose.”
“In the barn?”
“No, silly, in our house. We’d all freeze in the barn.”
Creed wanted to say, “You definitely would,” but he held his tongue. “How many people will be there?”
“A bunch. You are supposed to tell me I’m beautiful in this dress, not ask a dozen questions,” April said.
“Sorry, ma’am. You stunned me when you appeared in your dress and it is a lovely dress.”
She turned one more time and headed back to the bedroom. “Thank you.”
He looked up at Sage.
She shrugged. “The end.”
“Does yours show your belly button?” he whispered.
She put a hand on each of his shoulders, leaned forward, and said, “I’ve ordered a brand-new belly button ring.”
She giggled when his eyes bulged. “Honey, there is too much woman in me to wear a dress like that.”
“I rather like how much woman there is in you, ma’am.”
“Sage, help me, please!” A plaintive cry came from the bedroom.
The rocking chair was set in motion when she pushed away from his shoulders and hurried back to her bedroom to help April get out of the revealing dress.
Creed imagined Sage in a dress like that. If it was for his eyes only, it would be fantastic. He could flip a breast out with nothing but his thumb. But if it was to be worn in front of a whole passel of other cowboys, well, now that was a different matter altogether. That set him to pondering the idea of going to a party where every cowboy in the canyon would know Sage and be angling for a dance.
Jealousy had reared its head right high by the time April breezed out of the bedroom with the dress box under her arm.
“See y’all tomorrow night,” she said.
Sage followed in her wake and sat down on the floor to pet the puppies. “So now what did you really think? You sidestepped the compliment very well, but you did not say that you liked the dress.”
“Is Lawton going to like it?” he asked.
“He won’t even see it until she makes her grand entrance down the staircase into the ballroom.”
“And what will happen?”
“What do you think will happen?” Sage asked.
“I don’t know Lawton. I’ve never met him but I know what I’d do if she was my daughter. I wouldn’t care if she was fifteen or twenty. She wouldn’t be wearing that thing in public.”
“It didn’t look that low in the picture on the Internet. I swear it didn’t or I would have talked her out of buying it.”
The big yellow cat left her squirming babies and made a bed in Sage’s lap.
“And the lion shall lay down with the lamb,” Sage said.
“What’s that got to do with a floozy dress?”
“Nothing,” Sage answered. “But cats and dogs, especially those with babies, don’t usually trust each other, do they?”
“I still think they were raised together and then dumped out together. And if I was Lawton, I’d send her back to put something decent on her body.”
“Lawton will most likely take her back and put it on her himself. And then the fight will be on because she inherited her mother’s flaming temper.”
“She needs a mother,” Creed said.
Sage put Blue back into the bed and picked up Elvis. “She has a mother.”
“My daughter wouldn’t wear something that revealing,” Creed said.
Sage shot a mean look his way. “And you have how many daughters?”
Creed should drop the subject or change it abruptly. She was playing with cats and dogs and she’d tried to change it when she said that about lambs and lions lying down together. He wanted to, he really did, but he couldn’t.
“Riley men don’t often throw girl babies, but when and if I ever did, she wouldn’t be wearing something like that to a party where a bunch of rowdy cowboys would be.”
“Well, my daughter can wear whatever she wants when she’s twenty years old.”
Creed clamped his mouth shut.
Sage glared at him.
The silence created a tension so thick that a chain saw couldn’t cut through it.
Finally, she laid Elvis close to Noel and went to the kitchen. The way she was banging things around left no doubt that she was still mad and that she wasn’t going to talk about it. Well, that cleared up things for Creed. He wasn’t going to entertain another moment of sharing his whole life with Sage. No, sir! A woman who couldn’t rationally discuss important issues without clamming up wasn’t worth wasting his time on and she sure wasn’t worth giving up a ranch for.
He brought the chair to a standstill,
