Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
By Saturday morning, parade day, dawned, Tessa was running on caffeine and nerves.
The drive into town had her checking mirrors every few seconds, flicking her gaze between the sleigh lashed in the first bay and the minis in the back.
Beside her, Cade sat rigid, palms pressed to his thighs. He hadn’t spoken much since they left the ranch. Every time the slow moving wipers scraped snow off the windshield, he flinched. When a hatchback zipped around them, he grunted.
“You okay?”
He nodded.
“My driving making you nuts?”
“You’re doin’ good.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Papaw taught me how to pull a trailer, but this double rig is a bit nerve wracking.”
“You handle it well.”
At the football field that served as the staging area for the parade, Tessa guided the truck and double trailer across the frozen turf.
Floats waited in crooked lines, tractors idled and belched diesel smoke. The place was a merry hubbub with Christmas carols blasting and parade participants laughing and talking.
“Little to the left,” Cade said. “You’ve got room.”
She checked her mirrors, threading the trailer between a tractor pulling a nativity scene and a vintage Mustang rigged with antlers on the hood. The space was narrow, but she made it.
“There.” She shifted into park, and exhaled. “Told you I could do it.”
“Never doubted it.”
“I did.” She laughed.
They got out and unloaded the sleigh sitting atop rolling furniture dollies. It slid down easily enough. Next came the minis. Cade unlatched the gate of the horse trailer.
Einstein stood in the shadows, ears pricked, gaze intent.
“Your majesty.” She clipped his lead and led him out. He descended one measured step at a time, as if doing her a favor.
Cade took the rope and his fingertips brushed against hers.
She sucked in a breath, took a step back. Liquid heat pooled in her belly. Wowza, each time they touched, she wanted to grab his face and kiss him silly.
Marshmallow followed, eager to join Einstein. Tater Tot, the shy one, had to be coaxed with a candy cane.
“Come on, beauty.” She tugged. “You got this.”
Tater Tot pinned his ears back, and dug his hooves in.
“Hey now.” Cade clicked his tongue. “C’mon now.”
Tater Tot’s ears rotated forward and he stepped down.
“You got them wrapped around your little finger.” Weeks of training with her and they still tested, but three days with him and they fell in line like ducklings waddling after their mama.
Together, they finished unloading the rest of the minis, with the horses on their best behavior.
Because of Cade.
They set to work, harnessing up the little beast. She buckled traces. Cade finished his side before she did, then came over to help her. They added the jingles bells and antlers to finish the transformation from miniature horses to reindeer. Including a red nose for Einstein.
“Tessa!” Eliza waved from a replica Conestoga wagon draped in red-and-green bunting and painted in script.
Foster’s Bakeshop: Since 1878
Wyatt stood beside her in his black duster, looking like he stepped out of a daguerreotype.
“Come get cookies and cocoa!” Eliza called.
“I’ll stay with the team,” Cade said. “You go on.”
“Want me to bring you some cookies and cocoa?”
“I wouldn’t mind.” His grin sent tiny sparks skipping over her arms.
She wove around vehicles, crossing the staging field where cheerleaders practicing counts, a gingerbread float shed glitter, and Santa padded his belly with pillows.
Eliza wore a period costume to match Wyatt’s. “There you are! I was worried you wouldn’t make it.”
“I wasn’t gonna flake. Not with a dare on the line. Besides with Cade’s help, the minis are impeccable. But hey, I didn’t know you and Wyatt were in the parade.”
“Last minute thing,” Eliza said. “The Chamber of Commerce’s idea.”
“This is the wagon from the Chamber’s museum?”
“Yep. We’re playing my ancestors, Maggie and Sam Foster.”
“Aww, that’s sweet. I love that for you guys.”
“Here, fortification.” Eliza pressed a paper cup of hot cocoa into her hands, and offered her family’s famous Yuletide cookies. “I have cocoa for Cade’s as well. Take the thermos. We’ve got plenty and you can give it back to me later.”
“Thanks.” Tessa took a sip.
Eliza canted her head, her smile softening from public-friendly to friend-who-sees-too-much. “What’s on your mind? Besides the fact that you look like you’re about to enter the Hunger Games.”
“That obvious?” Tessa bit the cookie.
“Is it Cade?”
“Yeah.” A lump clogged her throat.
“I’m listening.”
Tessa shook her head, and brushed cookie crumbs from the corner of her mouth with her mitten. “He came to help me for the parade and after today it’s over.”
“Ahh, the uncertainty of a time traveler.”
“It stinks.”
“Believe me, I understand the feeling.” Eliza squeezed her shoulder. “I’m here if you need to talk.”
“There’s not much to say. I’ve only know him three days, but already…” She hiccuped.
“He’s gotten under your skin.”
Tessa bobbed her head. “He’s temporary. I don’t get to keep him.”
“What if he could stay? Like Wyatt did?”
“No, he wants to go back to 1878.”
“Did he say that?”
She thought about his wish on the falling star. “Pretty much.”
“Oh, Tessa, I’m sorry. I thought with Wyatt being his best friend, he might decide to stay.”
“He doesn’t belong here but I don’t want him to leave. Which is stupid. And the way he looks at me...” Tessa fanned herself.
“When Wyatt first showed up, I thought the same thing. That wanting him was foolish. That a man who could travel through time would never stay for someone like me. That I was setting myself up for the kind of heartbreak they write country songs about.”
“And?”
“And I fell for him anyway.” Eliza’s gaze went distant. “I chose to take the risk. To believe we could figure it out. Love is never safe. It’s supposed to crack you open and rearrange everything you thought you knew about yourself.”
“It’s okay, really. Yes, I think he’s fantastic and we’ve got off-the- chain chemistry, but I barely know him. It’s for the best.”
Empathy misted Eliza’s eyes. “Or maybe you don’t know him well enough yet to predict what he’ll choose.”
Tessa managed a half-smile and lifted the cocoa. “Either way, the parade won’t wait.”
“True. But neither will love.”
“You’re getting to far ahead of yourself. Thanks for the cookies and cocoa.”
“Anytime.”
Tessa headed back, cookies and cocoa thermos clutching in her arms. Cade would go home. Nothing she could do to change that, but for now, she still had a sleigh to drive and a dare to win.
Tessa turned back toward the field. Cade and Wyatt stood near the sleigh, shoulders close, heads bent.
She moved closer, saw Wyatt reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled something out. She recognized it at once. Cade’s Christmas card.
Cade took the card from him, stared at it a long moment, and then slipped into his coat.
Her stomach dropped. The hand-painted card from 1878. His way home.
Tessa stood rooted. The man she’d let herself want had his escape route tucked against his heart.
* * *
An hour after they arrived at the football field, the lineup lurched to life.
Drumbeats thudded from the marching band at the front, brass blaring over the tractors pulling floats.
Sleigh bells clattered from a dozen rigs at once, jingles crashing against each other.
Engines revved, kids shouted, dogs barked, and the whole procession inched forward in toward Main Street.
On her sleigh, Tessa clutched the reins in her gloved hands, her breath clouding in the frosty air.
The minis stepped out onto the street. Einstein, as Rudolph in the lead, Marshmallow and Domino steadying the middle, Tater Tot and Cupcake bringing up the rear.
Her goal was simple. Get her team of “reindeer” from the high school football field, through downtown Evergreen Springs, and back again without disaster.
Easy in theory. In practice, her stomach churned, anticipating every potential pitfall.
Worse, she was hyperaware of the man sitting next to her. Cade, six-foot-something of honed muscle and broody calm.
As if driving temperamental mini horses through crowds of people was just another Saturday.
His dark hair peeked out beneath his black Stetson, and his rugged jawline ringing with that sexy beard had her thinking things too hot for a G-rated Christmas parade.
Focus, Tessa. Horses. Business. Not the cowboy. You can’t have him.
The sleigh glided forward over the packed snow. The crowd lining Main Street whooped and cheered, their voices a river of sound. Candy canes waved. Mittens clapped. Kids shrieked with joy.
“Keep steady pressure on the lines.” Cade demonstrated, resting his hand near hers on the reins.
“I’ve got it.” Her blood strummed. She’d been fighting this attraction since he arrived and it was getting harder to deny.
The first glitch arrived at block one. A group of children darted too close to the sleigh, their sticky hands waving lollipops under Einstein’s nose.
His ears flicked, and his stride faltered, causing a pile with the horses behind him.
“Hey!” Tessa tugged , trying to urge him forward.
Cade closed his hand over the rein. A quick flick, a whistle, and Einstein straightened, ears forward again.
“That’s it, boy.”
The man had magic hands when it came to animals. Made a girl wonder what else those hands were good at.
Not appropriate parade thoughts, Tessa.
The minis picked up their pace, hooves clopping in sync, bells ringing with each step. The crowd cheered and waved.
Tessa let out a breath, smiled, and waved at the rows of familiar faces. Rent-a-Reindeer might actually have a future beyond this weekend.
And maybe Cade might decide to stick around a little longer. Who knew?
The brass band behind them launched into “Deck the Halls.” Einstein tossed his head at the trumpet blast, but Cade’s hand steadied the line before he could spook.
Einstein flicked an ear, then settled.