“Good night, darlin’.”
“Good night, Creed.”
Chapter 16
When Sage said they were having services in a chapel, Creed pictured a small building that would seat about thirty people. But the white clapboard building in front of him was bigger than the church he’d attended his whole life in Ringgold. It had a small front porch held up by two square porch posts, a steeple on the top, and windows down both sides, not totally unlike the one in north-central Texas. But there was a lot more distance from front to back than the one he was used to.
“Chapel?” he asked Sage when he parked the truck.
“That’s what it’s been called for years. Story has it the first Pierce who settled on the land built it because it was too far to go into town on Sunday. Each generation has maintained the building. It’s probably petrified wood under those layers of white paint. Grand says she remembers when the last stained glass window was replaced, so it must have been quite the thing in the beginning.”
She opened the door and made a face. “Should have worn my boots.”
“Wait right there. I’ll carry you inside. You’ll get your feet wet in those shoes and catch pneumonia. Your grandmother will tack my hide to the smokehouse door if you get sick.”
He shoved his jeans down into the tops of his boots and circled around the truck to her side. She swung the door open and he slid a hand under her knees and the other one around her midsection. “You can shut the door, please, ma’am.”
She slammed it shut. “I can’t believe you are doing this.”
“Just don’t want your Grand to skin me alive,” he said.
But Creed’s intentions were far from honorable. If he carried her inside the church right there at five minutes before services began, then the other cowboys would for sure see that she wasn’t available anymore. And he fully well intended to share his hymn book with her too. In his part of the world, that meant that there had been an agreement of sorts met. He hoped the cowboys in the canyon played by the same rules.
The door was open a crack when they reached the porch so he stuck a toe in it and kicked. It swung to the inside and she wiggled as if she wanted him to put her down but he ignored it.
“If you’ll shut that please, darlin’,” he whispered.
Inside the quiet confines of the packed church the whisper carried right down the center aisle to the preacher who was just taking his place behind the podium. Lawton turned around from the front pew and grinned. April followed her father’s gaze and winked. Hilda gave them a mean look.
“Put me down,” Sage whispered so low that only Creed could hear it.
He marched down the entire length of the aisle and sat her down beside Hilda. Then he took his place right beside her, untucked his jeans from his boots, and laced his fingers in hers.
The preacher looked down at them, a question in his eyes.
“Excuse us, sir. She didn’t wear her boots and there’s too much snow still on the ground for her to plow through in those shoes,” Creed said.
* * *
Every woman in the church sighed.
“Well, that was very gallant. We wouldn’t want her feet to get wet or for her to be sick.” He smiled and said, “As you are all aware, we usually have this ceremony at the first of the month to get the congregation ready for the true reason for the season. But evidently God had other plans because we got snowed in pretty tight. So today we will celebrate all that is Christmas and begin with congregational singing. Inside the program, you will find the Christmas carols we will be singing this afternoon. We’ll start with ‘Silent Night.’”
Creed had a lovely deep voice that resounded off the walls. When they got to the part about all is calm and all is bright, she stopped singing. It was true that everything was bright and pretty that time of year. It was Christmas, the season of love and happiness, of giving and sharing. But what scared her was the calm in her heart since the night before.
She did not want Creed to leave. She damn sure didn’t want her grandmother to move away permanently, but the Rockin’ C was plenty big enough for all of them. Grand didn’t have to move and Creed didn’t have to go. Just admitting that had brought about the peace they sang about.
Hilda nudged her and grinned. Sage didn’t know what was so delightful until she realized that she and Creed were sharing the program with the two congregational hymns printed inside. That might not mean jack shit in his part of the world, but in hers, if a woman brought a man to church and shared the hymn book, it meant something.
Sage shook her head at Hilda, but the older woman’s smile didn’t wane one single bit. And Sage would bet that as soon as she could find a quiet place, Hilda would call Ada and tell her all about it.
When the last piano notes of the carol ended, the preacher began the responsive reading that retold them the reason they were preparing the chapel for the birth of Christ. He read a line and then the congregation spoke their line in unison.
The preacher said that the branches of cedar and garlands of pine and fir represented never ending life because their branches were always green. The voices in the congregation joined together in the proper response. Then he said that the wreaths of holly and ivy told of the passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord and Savior.
Sage read her lines but she thought about her passion for painting and how Creed understood it. He hadn’t made one small overture toward changing her but encouraged her to do more and more. She thought
