Ada looked at Essie, who nodded.
Tears flowed down Sage’s cheeks.
“See, I told you he was the very cowboy to take over the Rockin’ C.” Ada’s voice cracked.
Essie leaned over and whispered in Ada’s ear. Her younger sister shook her head emphatically and said, “Hell no, it’s my house!”
* * *
“Where are y’all going?” Sage asked when Ada and Essie headed around the house toward the barn.
“Out to the cemetery. I want to visit with Tom and see your folks while I’m here. I won’t be back until Easter. You did get flowers put out, didn’t you?” Ada asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Poinsettias. The biggest pots that Walmart had to sell.”
“I’ll take you, Ada,” Creed said.
“No, you won’t. There’s only room on the tractor for two people and Essie wants to go with me. Three weeks didn’t knock out my ability to drive that tractor, son. You go on in the house and get to thinkin’ about what kind of house you want and where you are going to put it. I don’t intend to share mine when I come back at Easter.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
He waited by the kitchen window, standing under the mistletoe still hanging on the curtain, for the sound of the tractor’s engine starting up. Sage slipped her arms around his waist and together they watched Ada back it out of the barn and head down the plowed path to the cemetery.
“I love you,” Sage said.
“Wait right here. Don’t move.”
“You’re supposed to say that you love me,” she said.
“I do but… No, stand right here.” He walked her backwards until she was standing in the exact same spot where she’d been when he first saw her. She had been wearing sweats that day. Today she wore jeans and a bright red sweater with a Christmas tree knitted into the front. Christmas bulb earrings dangled from her ears and her hair was loose around her shoulders like Creed liked.
“What are you doing? Taking a picture to remember this day by?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
It felt strange opening the door into the bedroom where Ada and Essie had taken up residence. It wasn’t his even though that was his television on the chest of drawers and his things in the closet. He dug into the pocket of his coat and found the right ring box and carried it to the kitchen.
“I didn’t move. Where’s the camera?” she asked.
He kissed her hard and passionately.
She threw both arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. “You got it backwards, darlin’. You don’t go to the bedroom before you kiss me like that. We go afterwards and have a wild hour of sex before they get back.”
He removed her arms and stepped backwards, dropped down on one knee, and looked up at her. “I never figured on falling in love, didn’t even know what real love was until I fell for you. You breathe life into this ranch, but more importantly, you give life to me. Sage Presley, will you marry me?”
The ring box popped open and she squealed, “Yes!” without a split second’s hesitation.
Chapter 21
“All week I’ve struggled with a sermon. First I thought I’d preach on the birth of Christ, but we covered that in last week’s Hanging of the Green. Then I thought I’d preach on the chapter about love in Corinthians, which we’re all familiar with, but nothing came to me. And then I got a call on Saturday morning from Ada Presley, and everything was clear as a church bell ringing out across the canyon on Sunday morning. This afternoon, instead of a church service we are having a wedding. There is no better way to celebrate Christmas than new beginnings,” the preacher said from the pulpit.
* * *
Sage bent her knees so she could see her reflection in the mirror above the vanity in the bathroom of the church. She’d dressed at Canyon Rose, where she spent the night before with April. Grand had declared that they’d follow tradition even if they didn’t have time to plan a big wedding. The groom wasn’t to see the bride on the day of the wedding and nothing was going to change her mind.
The woman looking back at Sage looked happy, but was it for real? Was she really, really getting married just three weeks after meeting Creed?
He’d proposed and she’d said yes without even thinking about things. Then Grand and Aunt Essie came home from the cemetery and everything went into high gear.
“When is the wedding?” Grand had asked.
“We thought we’d go over to the courthouse this afternoon or maybe sometime next week,” Sage had answered.
But that wouldn’t do. No, sir! If they were getting married that quickly then they could do it on Sunday before Grand and Essie flew out. Sage had argued that it couldn’t be arranged in that length of time.
“What are you thinking about?” April asked.
“How tiny this bathroom is.”
“You don’t lie too good, Sage. You’re worried that you are going too fast and that you’ll have regrets later. If you wanted a big wedding with all the trimmings you should have put your foot down,” April said.
“I didn’t even want this much. I wanted to go to the courthouse.”
“Not me. I want the whole ten yards. That’s even more than the nine yards thing. I’m having the big white dress with a train that reaches from the top of the stairs all the way to the bottom and a reception out on the ranch lawn after the wedding in the ballroom.”
“I just wanted to dash into the courthouse and come out married, but Grand wanted something else and I let her have her way.” Sage straightened up.
“Well God bless Grand! I’d rather be a bridesmaid and flirt with Creed’s handsome brothers than yawn through a sermon today.”
Sage looked at the clock above the vanity. “Five minutes.”
“Nervous?” April asked.
“You’ll never know.”
* * *
The preacher nodded at his wife who played the piano that morning and her fingers went to the
