Chapter Three
F rom across Main Street, a few minutes later, Cami spotted Gus and Eloise, hands full of shopping bags, heading toward Sage’s Copper Mountain Chocolates as she and Shay walked toward the church parking lot. She felt an unwanted flutter at the sight of him and was still processing that reaction when Shay elbowed her.
“Don’t look now, but there’s Gus Claymore.”
At almost the same moment, he looked up and noticed them, too. Hesitantly, he lifted his arm in a wave. Cami waved back, but they both stood on opposite sides of the street indecisively wondering if they should trek across it.
“Don’t be weird. Go say hi,” Shay said. “Look at him. All gorgeous and interested.”
Cami made a face as she pulled her arm back. “Clearly, you’re delusional. He’s just being polite.”
But he took Eloise’s hand and steered her across the street in their direction.
“ Uh —Oh. Uh-huh—” Shay said. “Here he comes.”
Gus and his daughter dodged traffic as they jaywalked across Main toward them. In the background, like the soundtrack to some Nancy Meyers movie, the music from Wham’s “Last Christmas” drifted from a shop speaker out onto the street.
“Stop,” she whispered to Shay. “Seriously. Don’t try to matchmake m—”
“Hey, Gus. What a coincidence,” Shay said as they neared, and she gently shoved Cami forward. “We were just talking about you. Weren’t we, Cami?”
Cami shot a dagger-y look at Shay, then furiously blushed at the two of them. “Hi, Gus. Eloise.”
He shifted his shopping bags and extended a hand. Cami took it awkwardly. His fingers closed around hers with an unexpected warmth.
Flustered, she pulled back her hand. “We were… saying how nice it was of you to drive me home last night.”
“The least I could do. You survived the night, I see.”
“Where’s the baby? Where’s Lolly?” Eloise said. “You didn’t lose her, did you?”
“No. Definitely not. She’s sleeping at home, thankfully. My mom is watching her so I could come and get my car. And yes, I survived.” Barely. “She’s doing well, all things considered. And what’s all this?” she asked, pointing to the shopping bags. “Christmas shopping?” Ugh. Brilliant repartee, Cami.
Gus smiled. “Hard to avoid when everything is so festive in town. Is it always like this?”
“Festive? At Christmastime? Oh. Yes. Absolutely. Isn’t it, Shay?”
“Mmm-hmm. Festive. Very Christmasy.” An-nnd she dropped the ball back in Cami’s court with a look.
Cami bit her lip for a moment. “Yes, and since this is your first Christmas here, you’re probably discovering all the fun things to do here at this time of year.”
Gus nodded. “Like—”
Shay directed a pointed look at her.
“Oh. Like ice-skating on Miracle Lake? Sledding when there’s enough snow. Christmas tree cutting over at the Gallagher Tree Farm. Do you have a tree yet?”
“Not yet.” He met Eloise’s worried look with a frown. “I guess we’ll have to do that soon.”
“Can we today?” Eloise said. “Please?”
He rubbed a hand on her head. “Sure. We can. Maybe after hot chocolate.”
“Maybe Ms. Hardesty can come, too?”
Gus lifted an uncertain look at her.
“Oh, no,” she stammered. “That’s okay. You two should—”
“What a great idea,” Shay told Eloise. “Cami can show you where the lot is. She’s the best at picking out trees. The champion, really. Every year.”
Cami widened her eyes at Shay with warning.
“Well, that’d be great,” Gus said. “But we wouldn’t want to put you out.”
“Put her out?” Shay said. “ Pshaw! And don’t worry, Cami. I’ll be there if the baby wakes up. I can find my way around a bottle. You should go.”
“My sister is being a little pushy ,” Cami said, standing up for herself. “But I’m happy to show you the lot—”
“And help pick out a tree?” Eloise said.
Cami nodded. “Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”
“After hot chocolate?”
Gus grinned. “You a hot chocolate fan?” he asked Cami. “We were just headed to Sage’s.”
“I—Uh—”
“Okay!” Shay brushed her hands together. “I’m gonna head back home then. I’ve got a million things to do this morning. At the ranch. With the upcoming wedding and all. But don’t worry. I’ll still have time for Lolly. So, I’ll see you at home later, Cami?”
When she got home, she was officially going to murder Shay for railroading Gus into spending time with her. “You sure you’re okay with Lolly for a little?”
She patted her hand. “Ryan survived me, didn’t he? Leave Lolly to me. Go. Have some fun .”
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Shay with Lolly, far from it. Just that Lolly was Cami’s responsibility, not anybody eles’s. Shay said her goodbyes and Cami watched her sister hurry off toward her SUV, knowing she was right about the million things back at the ranch. With Izzy and Will’s wedding happening up at the round barn the weekend before Christmas they had lots of loose ends to tie up. Even though they’d been planning since this summer, all the last-minute details were closing in. She should be helping her. She should be home with the baby.
Eloise put her hand in Cami’s, tugging her toward the street. “Let’s go, Ms. Hardesty. We’re going to get the works with caramel sauce and whipped cream and everything. Do you like hot chocolate?”
Gus was standing close now and the look he sent her was part sympathy, part curiosity. Probably nothing more. Even though she could feel that look deep down in her chest.
“I do,” she said. “I love hot chocolate. And Sage makes the best.”
*
Cami was right about the hot chocolate at Copper Mountain Chocolates. It was the best Gus had ever had. He sat across from her at the small bistro table in the shop’s window, watching her interact with his daughter, who sat blissfully unaware of the whipped cream mustache she wore as she laughed along with Cami. Ella had been talking about her nonstop for a couple of weeks now, ever since they’d started rehearsals for the pageant. He could see the attraction.
Cami was not only pretty, but she was also… shiny . Like she had a light around her. She seemed to be just one of those people who attracted everyone. And when other customers—people she knew, probably parents from her school—came up to say hi, she seemed easy with them—unlike she was with him. With him—she seemed unsure what to make of him. Of this … whatever this was. They’d both been bamboozled into this, but he wasn’t sorry. It was good to have some company with Eloise. Some female company. Ella missed having a woman in her life. It was mostly just him and Luke, and Ella’s regular babysitter, Rebecca.
But there was something about Cami that struck him, too. It tugged at him, like iron ore to a lodestone. A feeling as foreign to him as living in this small town. Yet, he knew better than to let that attraction be anything more than what it was. It was just a friendly outing. For Ella. That was all it was.
During a lull in the girls’ chatter, Gus smiled at the two of them, sipping his hot chocolate.
“What?” Cami sent him a curious look.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just enjoying this.”
Ella beamed at him. “See? I told you she was nice.”
Cami blushed. “I didn’t mean to do a take-over of your morning together.”
“You didn’t. You just gave us some direction. And hot chocolate was always on the menu. Speaking of take-overs… how’s the kid?”
“Lolly did well, considering.” Cami brushed her fingers along the side of her mug. “I still haven’t called anyone.”
“Like the sheriff? I figured.”
Cami glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I just keep thinking the mom will appear somehow and know that I’ve got her and that she’s safe with me.”
“You really think that will happen?”
She shook her head. “But maybe… maybe we could find her. I. Maybe I can find her.”
Ella’s curious gaze ping-ponged back and forth between them.
“How?” Gus asked. “You think she’s here somewhere? In town?”
“Why not? Maybe no one knew she was pregnant. Or she hid it somehow. But that baby is at least a week old. Not hours. Someone must have seen her with a baby. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe she went to a doctor?” Ella said.
The two of them turned to her, surprised. “Maybe,” Cami said. “We should be able to narrow it down if she did.”
“And if you should find her, then what?” Gus said. “She clearly doesn’t want to be found. No signature on the note. No clue, really.”
Cami shrugged. “I… I have no idea what would happen if we found her. But nothing will be better if Lolly’s been disappeared into the foster system.”
“ Disappeared? ” Ella’s eyes widened in alarm.
“No, no,” Cami said, covering Ella’s hand gently with hers. “I didn’t mean it that way. That’s not what would happen. She’ll be totally fine.”
But he knew from personal experience that she was right about kids disappearing into the system. Once in, it was very hard to get out. But the idea that she was even contemplating taking on that system for a stranger’s child… seemed—on its face—like a crazy idea. Yet, there was also some beautiful logic to it. The even crazier thing was… he was beginning to warm to the idea for her.
Cami wrinkled her nose at Ella. “Anyway, what do you say we go look for that tree? And maybe I can pick up one for our house, too. You can’t ever have enough Christmas trees, right?”
She high-fived his daughter and Ella giggled. “Did you know that in the old days, people in Poland used to hang their Christmas trees upside down and put fruit and nuts on them for decorations?”
“Really?” Cami asked in all seriousness. “How did you know that?”
“I read it. In a book. In the library.”
Cami met Gus’s look.
“She’s been reading since she was four,” Gus said. “I can’t take credit. She sort of taught herself.”
Cami blinked in surprise as Eloise slurped her hot chocolate at the bottom of the cup. “Well. That is—”
“No, Daddy taught me. He read me the same book so many times, I learned the words.”
“Did he?”
“Oh, yes,” Gus said, grinning. “ Blueberries for Sal. Many, many… many times.”
“I know that book,” Cami said. “It was one of my favorites.”
“Are there any bears at the Christmas tree place where you cut down your tree?” Eloise asked.
“I’ve never seen one,” Cami said. “I think it’s a little too crowded with humans up on the tree farm for the bears’ taste.”
“Darn,” Eloise sighed.
Cami laughed. “If it’s any help, there are plenty of bears in the mountains around here and lots of huckleberries and blueberries to go around. But hopefully—as far as I’m concerned—we won’t run into any of them.”
“That would make the ranchers around here very happy,” Gus said. “C’mon. Let’s go find a tree.”
*
Cami took them to the Gallagher Tree Farm and they spent the next half hour hiking up the gentle hillside to find the perfect specimen. The fragrance of pine filled the air and somehow boosted Cami’s mood. It was cold and they walked through a few inches of snow still covering the ground, but it was also sunny, and the crisp, blue sky overhead seemed to go on forever. Perfectly December in Montana.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” echoed up from speakers below at the check-out stand as they wove through the nursery of pine trees. Though she’d come here many times in the past to cut down a Christmas tree with her family, it felt distinctively different to be here with Gus and Eloise.
Christmas had always been her favorite season, filled with scents and sounds as familiar as her family. This year, for some reason, she’d felt too overwhelmed to truly enjoy its approach. What with the guest ranch business, helping to plan Will and Izzy’s wedding, teaching and the Christmas pageant, it felt as though she was living in the middle of a storm. And that was all before the baby showed up. Now, her life had seemed to cross some threshold of unmanageable .
Still, some crazy voice inside her said she could handle it. Handle it all. Maybe she was deluding herself, but it had always been her experience that her capacity to embrace life had always expanded with the arrival of need. And that baby needed her.
They scrambled up the hillside, Ella slipping and sliding in the snow. She started a snowball fight with Gus and before long they were all involved, all of them laughing and ignoring the judgy looks they got from the serious tree shoppers until they were all covered with snow and chilled to the bone. They looked and looked, with Ella discounting all the ones Gus pointed to, the perfect six-foot tall ones, with cone shapes and thick, full branches.
“She has a mind of her own,” he said out of her earshot to Cami, who agreed with a smile.
“She’s great,” Cami said. “Smart as a whip. Did she really teach herself to read?”
“Yup. One day, she brought me that book and read the whole thing to me. I thought at first she’d just memorized it. And maybe she did in the beginning, but when I pointed at the words individually, she knew them.”
“Impressive.” Cami studied him as he walked beside her. He was a good seven inches taller than she was with an athletic build that was regrettably hidden by his thick winter coat. But her gaze fell to his strong hands. A doctor’s hands, she thought. Long fingers, hands strong enough to coax stubborn calves from their mothers’ bellies and gentle and skilled enough to do surgery on the smallest baby goat, if she didn’t miss her mark. Illicitly, and without preamble, she wondered what else such skilled hands could do.
Gus looked up to find her watching him and a flush of color climbed his neck. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. She got all that fire from her mom.”
There was no ring on his left hand. But for all she knew, he could be one of those who shunned jewelry. But the look on his face when he spoke about Eloise’s mother told her that probably wasn’t the case. But she didn’t want to ask. She didn’t have to.
“My wife… died two years after Ella was born. Cancer. It’s okay. Most people wonder.”
“I—” she began. “I’m so sorry.”
He gave a quick nod, staring out after his daughter. “And Ella’s got a string of people, including me, who love her. My brother, Luke, who you met last night. Rebecca White, a local woman who babysits when I need her. When we lived back East, Luke stood in for me when I had my hands full at work. What they say about it taking a village? That’s very true.”
“Just the same… it couldn’t have been easy, raising her on your own. While you were…” While he was grieving.
“No. But my late, great-aunt who raised me used to always say nothing that’s good ever comes easy. And Ella’s the best thing in my life.”
She smiled as they walked together up the hill, following his daughter who was hopping around the trees after a bunny she’d spotted. “And you must love what you do,” Cami said. “Liam says you’re the best large animal vet he’s ever worked with.”
“Well, that’s kind of him. I do love it. To be honest, I prefer animals to most people. Present company excepted, of course.”
“Well. That’s a relief. I mean, on a scale of one to Angus cow.”
He laughed. “And aside from taking in lost babies and wrangling children in a Christmas pageant, Ella says you’re also a teacher at her school.”
“That’s me. The crazy, overcommitted one. But I love it all. I really do. Now… the baby… that’s another level of crazy, I guess.”
“You don’t really think the mother is going to come back, do you? Sounded pretty final to me in that note.”
“I don’t know. You can never underestimate the power of motherhood. Who knows why she did it? But if I can track her down, somehow, maybe this isn’t a lost cause. She could be anywhere. She could be here in town still. She could be someone we know. And it’s just a matter of finding her and sorting it out. Which is why I hesitate to call social services. What’ll happen to that baby then? She entrusted her to me. I have no idea why.”
He brushed his fingers along the pine needles of a noble fir and the pine scent was strong. “I didn’t sleep much last night either.”
Surprised, she turned to him. “You didn’t?”
“No. I kept thinking about that bracelet she came with. The one with her name engraved on it.”
“What about it?”
“Well,” he said. “Unless it belonged to the mother or was handed down, she had to have gotten it engraved somewhere pretty recently. Probably here in town.”
Cami stopped dead. “You’re right. There can’t be that many places that do engraving here. I can think of one or two off the top of my head.”
“And if you check there, maybe they’ll have some kind of record of it.”
“That’s brilliant!”
His grin, that completely unaffected Hollywood-level grin, did something to her insides. As if he’d suddenly become a coconspirator with her in this baby caper. But more than that, he stirred some long dormant awareness in her… awareness not only that it had been eons since she’d felt any kind of flutter around a man, but that this man, in particular, was someone she wanted to get to know.
“What do you think of this one?” he asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.
He stood beside a perfectly sad little Charlie Brown tree with a crocked top and bare spots in the branches. He straightened the top for Eloise, whose eyes widened with delight.
“That’s it! That’s the one!” she said.
“Okay then. This tree it is.” It only took a few minutes to cut the little tree down and he handed the saw to Cami and lifted the tree up on his shoulder.
Eloise ran down the hill in front of them, intent on petting the goats and special reindeer penned near the entrance of the lot.
“Thanks for coming along,” he said, walking beside Cami down the hill. They passed dozens of other tree hunters wandering through the nursery in search of their own perfect tree. “You really made Ella’s day.”
“I have to admit, this is the first Christmasy thing I’ve done this year, outside of the pageant—which is sometimes more like cat-wrangling than directing a play. So, thank you for inviting me. Even though Shay did kind of foist me on you.”
“There was no foisting involved. And we probably would have had to settle for a puny grocery store tree if you hadn’t shown us this lot. It’s amazing.” Down the hill, Eloise already had her fingers sunk into the nearest goat’s fur and was talking to it through the fence.
“She must have inherited her love of animals from you,” Cami said.
He nodded. “I’ve been an animal person all my life. People…”
“Which makes you the vet I’ve heard you are. But you can’t have one without the other. Humans are inextricably attached to their animals.”
“Yeah.” He shifted the tree on his shoulder. “I do my best to work around them. That’s probably TMI about me.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Hmm. Which hardly explains how Liam and all the clients gushing at you at Sage’s seem to really, really like you. I’m pretty sure you’re underestimating your people skills.”
“It’s all a ruse.”
She laughed, watching Eloise cuddle a goat through the fence, trying to avoid allowing her gaze to linger on him as he carried the tree down the hill. He had a naturally sexy walk. Maybe it was because of his tall, athletic build but she guessed it was just something innate. Maybe it was a veterinarian thing.
She cleared her throat. “So, Liam says you’re from back East.”
“You asked him about me?” A grin tipped his mouth.
“ No. Well… your name came up in conversation.”
He nodded. “Originally? Virginia. But I specialized in large animals at Cornell and ended up practicing in Upstate New York for a few years. Lots of dairy farms. Lots of horses. Left there a couple of years ago and Ella and I have moved around a few times, doing what I’m doing here.”
“Working with Dr. Anders.”
“Well, filling in for Dr. Anders while he’s on medical leave. Knee replacement.”
Disappointment threaded through her like an unexpected jab. “So… you’re not here to stay then?”
“No. That was never the plan.”
“Ah.” A silent sigh escaped her. Why had she even imagined—
Ella came running toward them. “Daddy! Did you see the reindeer? He let me pet him!”
“He’s a beaut.”
Cami blinked and shook off her thoughts with a wink at Ella. “He must be one of Santa’s reindeer, don’t you think?”
Eloise slid a look at her father. “Santa Claus isn’t real. He’s just a story parents tell their kids.”
Cami pressed her lips together to keep from letting her mouth fall open. Eloise was only six . “Wait. You… you don’t believe in Santa Claus?”
“No. It’s okay,” Eloise said. “I don’t tell the other kids. It’s a secret.”
Gus flicked a guilty look at Cami. “Library,” he said.
“Well, sometimes even libraries can be wrong.” Cami leaned close to the little girl. “You know, I used to think that, too… about Santa. But I’ve changed my mind.”
“You have?”
“Oh, yes. I think he’s absolutely real.”
Eloise made a face. “No, he’s not. That’d be a miracle. Right, Daddy?”
Gus opened his mouth to answer, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Well, Santa Claus does kind of fall into the miracle category, doesn’t he? I mean, making it around the world in one night with toys for everyone? And if you ask me, miracles are not so uncommon. In fact, I think they happen all the time.”
Gus dropped the tree off his shoulder, and it landed with a thud on the ground between them. “A cow giving birth to a perfect calf? A foal getting to its feet for the first time? Yeah. Those I’d call the real miracles. Miracles we can see. Ella and me? We keep things on the up and up. She knows.”
How had this conversation taken such a weird turn? It really was none of her business what Gus told Ella about Santa. But she was so little.
“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t mean to step on your toes.”
“My toes are just fine. We should find someone to ring up this tree though.”
Ugh. She’d said the wrong thing. And he was not happy with her. Of course she did. Why couldn’t she learn to leave well enough alone?
“They’ll ring you up over there. I’m going to go find another little tree real quick to take home from the cut ones over there. Ella, do you want to help me pick one out?”
“Okay! I’ll find one!” She bolted ahead, running toward the lot full of pre-cut Douglas firs and nobles.
Cami lingered beside Gus for a moment, trying to think of how to remove her foot from her mouth. But he spoke first.
“She’s too smart for her own good sometimes,” he said when Ella was out of earshot. “But I don’t like to lie to her. If I did, she’d find out the truth eventually anyway. And then what?”
She had no answer for that, except that by then Ella would be eight or nine and she’d know the secret of Santa was something he’d shared with her because he loved her. But it wasn’t her place to say it. So, she said, “You’re an amazing dad. And she’s a darling girl. Don’t mind me. I have zero children to raise. Well… except momentarily.”
“Yeah, you’ll probably want to be getting back to her. And figure out what you’re going to do.”
She rubbed her forehead. “I could actually use one of those miracles right now. See any on the horizon?”
“Nope. Just blue sky.”
Gus Claymore was as pragmatic as he was handsome. But underneath all that pragmatism was some quiet river that made her wonder about him and his just-the-facts-ma’am attitude about life. Maybe it was the scientist in him.
It was probably the elementary school teacher in her that perpetuated all this Christmasy optimism in her. But Santa and Christmas had always been big on the ranch when they were young, and her older siblings had dutifully kept that secret from her for years as she grew up, faithfully visiting Kris Kringle, the Graff Hotel’s long-time Santa. It hadn’t hurt her one bit to know her siblings had kept that secret from her in the end. Nor did it color her belief in the spirit of Santa being alive and well. It had only made them all closer with the joy of Christmas mornings together.
For just a few minutes, she’d nearly forgotten that baby who’d fallen into her life like a little miracle herself. The baby her entire family was now looking after. She hadn’t made any decisions at all about her, but putting all that off by distracting herself with Gus and Eloise wasn’t going to make her choices any easier.
“Blue skies it is,” she said and headed off to join Eloise in the tree hunt.