“You going to tell her?” Creed asked.
Sage shivered. “Hell no! Not even on her deathbed.”
Creed unzipped his coveralls and let them fall to his waist, pushed up his sleeves, and stuck his hands under the faucet with Sage’s. Would there ever come a time when his touch, even with her grandmother so close by, didn’t give her naughty thoughts?
She wrapped her soapy hands around his fingers and washed his hands for him. “Oh, I’d slippy and I’d slidey over Creed’s little heinie. Oh, I wish I was a little bar of soap.”
“Shhh.” Creed caught her fingers. “You want to get me in trouble? And besides, that’s not the way the song goes.”
“That’s the way it went in my head right then. And besides, I don’t get to see you cook supper in the nude,” she whispered.
He burst out laughing.
“It wasn’t that funny,” she said.
“Not that. It just dawned on me. The credenza.”
She blushed. “What about it?”
He stopped laughing and kissed her on the cheek. “We had sex on top of the outhouse. Bet you never thought you’d say that, did you?”
Sage’s eyes popped so wide open that they hurt. “We did, didn’t we? Oh my God!”
They finished washing up and Creed stood to one side so Sage could go ahead of him. She made it to the middle of the living room floor when she stopped so suddenly that he plowed right into her back. She started to fall forward but he grabbed her from behind and held on until she got her balance.
“Where’s Angel and Noel?” she whispered.
Ada poked her head across the bar and said, “They’ll be outside in those fancy log cabins. I plugged in their lightbulbs and you should have seen those two animals. They carried on together in the snow like a couple of kids. You’d have never believed that they were supposed to hate each other.”
“Cats don’t like me and I ain’t none too fond of them either,” Essie yelled. “I’m mashing these potatoes and then we’re eating.”
“It’s okay,” Creed whispered. “They helped us out. Neither one of us could have carried the puppies or the kittens outside. We’ll go check on them after supper.”
“That is one ugly dog,” Ada said. “I would have bought you something a little prettier than that. Them bluetick pups of hers is even better looking than she is.”
Sage patted Creed’s hands, which were still firmly around her waist, and took a step forward. “She grows on you. In a week, you won’t think she’s ugly because she is so sweet.”
* * *
It wasn’t that the sofa was uncomfortable. There had been times when Creed had slept on the hard ground with nothing but his saddle for a pillow.
It wasn’t that he was hungry. After that supper, he probably didn’t need to eat until Christmas dinner.
The tossing and turning was because he missed Sage. He missed the feel of her back pressed against his chest, his hand wrapped around her ribs, and her hair tickling his nose. He missed the sweet smell of soap on her skin and her cold toes warming against his feet.
And there was that other thing.
Ada hadn’t brought up the sale or what she’d decided in her almost three weeks, but the time had come. Creed wanted the Rockin’ C and he wanted Sage right along with it. He didn’t know what he’d do if Ada had changed her mind and didn’t want to sell. He couldn’t ask Sage to leave her home, but his heart would shrivel up and die without her.
He pulled the quilt up over his shoulders and shut his eyes tightly. It didn’t work but it did provide a blank screen for him to imagine all kinds of pictures of Sage. There she was in the kitchen that first morning looking like she could chew up nails and spit out staples. And in the mall with the same expression on her face the day they went on their only date.
His eyelids flew up so fast that he couldn’t focus for several seconds.
He couldn’t ask Sage to marry him. They’d only been on one date.
Don’t be stupid. What was that little ride through the pasture the day that Noel had the puppies? What was that trek through the snow to show her the icicle on the mistletoe?
The quilt fell on the floor when he sat up and stared at the fireplace. He was so deep in the inner argument with himself that he didn’t hear Sage padding across the floor. He felt a movement and there she was, pulling his arm around her and the quilt over both of them.
“I can’t sleep. Hold me,” she mumbled.
He kissed her on the forehead and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Me neither.”
* * *
Essie awoke the next morning long before dawn and tiptoed to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. She stopped in front of the Christmas tree, turned around, and went right back to the bedroom she and Ada were sharing. She pulled the cover off Ada and slapped her on the shoulder.
“I’m awake,” Ada said.
“Then quit wastin’ daylight.”
“I’m not. Can’t waste what ain’t here.”
“Yes, you are. You can get the chores done and use the daylight to do what you can’t do in the dark.”
Ada sat up and yawned. “What put a burr in your butt this morning?”
“Put on your housecoat and come with me.”
Ada slung her legs over the edge of the bed and Essie handed her a faded blue chenille robe.
“Shhhh!” Essie motioned for her to follow.
They stopped in the middle of the living room floor and stared mesmerized at Sage and Creed. One quilt covered both of them. Her head rested on his shoulder. His chin rested on her head.
“Ada, they couldn’t sleep without each other. You’ve got to loosen up and tell them they can sleep in the same bed.”
“The hell I can. This is still my house and if she wants to sleep with
