Chapter Nine
Beth stood at the window, looking out at the pristine landscape. The promised four to six inches had arrived overnight, so that everything was covered in a fresh blanket of white.
“It does look pretty,” Beth said to Cody.
She was holding him with his back to her front, so he could see what she was seeing. He reached out to put his hand on the glass, then quickly pulled it back again.
“That’s the problem,” she said. “As pretty as it looks, it has to be cold for that white stuff not to melt.”
“It’s not that cold out today,” Wilder said, joining their conversation as he entered the room.
“I don’t see the snow melting,” she remarked.
He smiled. “No, the snow’s not melting,” he agreed. “So go put on your coat and boots while I get Cody bundled up for his first sleigh ride.”
She appreciated the way the words “first sleigh ride” rolled off his tongue. As if he anticipated there would be a second and a third. As if he wanted the little boy to spend more winters here in Rust Creek Falls with him. Maybe all the other seasons, too.
For herself, she expected that this would be her first and her last sleigh ride. And though she suspected she’d be too preoccupied with her frozen fingers and toes to enjoy it, a promise was a promise.
She’d put on a pair of thermal underwear that morning, as instructed, then added a long-sleeved shirt and a thick sweater, blue jeans and two pairs of socks.
Cody was similarly dressed in layers, and Wilder had borrowed a down-filled bunting bag with built-in mittens and a faux fur-trimmed hood for the little guy.
In the foyer, she shoved her feet into the boots she’d borrowed from Sarah, wrapped herself in Avery’s jacket, pulled a knitted hat over her head, wound a scarf around her neck, and slid her hands into fleece-lined mittens, all accessories courtesy of Lily.
Wilder chuckled. “You really are a tenderfoot, aren’t you?”
“And not ashamed to admit it,” she told him, her voice muffled through the scarf already pulled up to cover her mouth.
“Let’s get out of here before you overheat,” he suggested.
She nodded and followed Wilder and Cody out the door.
Though she braced herself for the cold air, she forgot about the weather altogether for a brief moment when she spotted the pair of enormous black horses harnessed to a fancy black sleigh with glossy-painted red runners, a tufted red velvet seat and collapsible roof.
“Did you steal Santa’s ride?” she asked Wilder.
“I’m pretty sure that would get my name on the naughty list, so no,” he said. “This is actually an antique doctor’s sleigh.”
“So you stole it from an old doctor?”
He chuckled. “That would be another no. My dad bought it, restored, at an auction.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, stroking a mittened hand over the curved side.
“And it rides incredibly smooth,” he promised. “Of course, you have to actually get in the sleigh before we can go anywhere.”
He offered his hand, and she stepped up into the sleigh.
“There aren’t any seat belts,” she realized, as she lowered herself onto the seat.
“Seat belts hadn’t been invented when this sleigh was made,” he pointed out, passing her the bundled baby. “But it’s perfectly safe, I promise.”
She nibbled on her lower lip as she hugged Cody close to her body, uneasy with the idea of taking her nephew for any kind of ride without him being secured in an NHTSA-approved child restraint system.
“You’re not convinced?” he guessed.
“I’m a worrywart,” she reminded him.
“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious,” he said. “But trust me, I wouldn’t have suggested this ride if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain that Cody would be safe. Although I can try to rig up some kind of anchor system for his car seat, if that would make you feel better.”
It would make her feel better. But she couldn’t imagine how they’d both fit in the sleigh with the baby’s bulky car seat between them. And maybe she needed to learn to be a little less rigid all the time.
“You’re one hundred percent certain?” she asked, seeking reassurance.
“One hundred percent,” he confirmed.
“And you won’t go too fast?”
“I’ll go as slow as you need me to go,” he said, with a teasing wink.
“Okay, then.” She decided to ignore his double entendre as she tightened her arms around the baby. “Let’s go for a ride.”
He settled beside her and picked up the reins, and she felt a little niggle of fear as she shifted forward in her seat when the animals began to move. But their gait was slow and steady, the ride as smooth as Wilder had promised, and she soon relaxed again.
As the sleigh traveled over the snow-covered ground, he identified the other buildings on the property and described their specific uses, pointed out the cabins belonging to his brothers, and answered her curious and numerous questions about raising the cattle she could see in the distance.
“Now are you willing to admit that this was worth leaving the house for?” he asked, as he paused the horses at the top of a hill for an overview of the sprawling property.
“More than,” she agreed, as she turned her head to admire the pristine beauty of the land in every direction. “Is all of this really yours?”
He chuckled. “Not mine, but everything you can see, all the way to that fence—” he pointed to a barrier in the distance “—is the Ambling A.”
“You really like it here, don’t you?”
“I thought I’d miss being close to the city when we moved,” Wilder confided. “And I did, at first. But it’s amazing how quickly I adjusted to being out here.”
“‘Out here’ being the middle of nowhere?” she guessed.
He grinned. “It’s not so bad.”
“There’s not even a movie theater in town.”
“They show movies in the high school gym on Friday and Saturday nights—so long as one of the sports teams isn’t playing.”
“Oh, well, I had no idea,” she said. “Movies in the high school gym? This town is practically a booming metropolis.”
“And for anyone who can’t live without a real movie theater experience, Kalispell is only half an hour away.”
“Kalispell isn’t Dallas,” she pointed out. “It isn’t a quarter the size of Dallas.”
“Life’s about choices,’ he said. “My dad chose to come here and, as much as he drives me crazy sometimes, I wanted to support that choice.”
“You’re a good son, Wilder Crawford.”
“That’s kind of you to say. Of course, being a good son doesn’t necessarily equate to being a good father, does it?”
“Not necessarily,” she agreed. “But it never hurts to have a positive role model.”
“It couldn’t have been easy for my dad, having to parent six rowdy sons on his own, but he did it,” Wilder acknowledged. “I respect and admire that, but I wish he’d accept that we’re grown-ups now and let us live our own lives.”
“Is this about the matchmaker again?” she guessed.
“Among other things.”
The cryptic response didn’t invite further discussion, so she only said, “Well, thank you for bringing me and Cody out here. It really was an unforgettable experience.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said, then smiled as he glanced at the sleeping baby. “But I don’t know that Cody got much out of it.”
“If nothing else, he got some fresh air.”
“One of my favorite things about being a rancher is working outdoors,” Wilder confided. “I could never imagine myself stuck in an office from nine to five.”
“But as a rancher, you often work longer hours than that, don’t you?”
“And seven days a week,” he agreed.
“So if it turns out that you are Cody’s father, how would you juggle that schedule with the demands of parenting?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know my family will help. And Cody’s only one baby. There’s another rancher in town—Jamie Stockton—who was widowed with infant triplets.”
“That must have been overwhelming,” she acknowledged.
“You’d think so,” he agreed. “But that’s the thing about a town like Rust Creek Falls—the community comes together to take care of its own.”
“Didn’t you just move here six months ago?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “But I already feel as if I’ve lived here forever.”
“Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that you share a last name with half the town’s residents.”
He chuckled. “Not quite half, but that’s a valid point.”
“So you don’t have any doubts that you’d be able to handle it?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got a ton of doubts. But I’ve never backed down in the face of a challenge.”
Then, because he didn’t want to think about all those doubts, he reached over and gently nudged her chin up. “Look.”
“Oh.” Her eyes sparkled with childlike excitement and her lips curved. “It’s snowing again.”
He studied her as she watched the big, fluffy flakes that seemed to be floating on the air rather than falling from the sky.
“I’ve never seen snow like this.” She smiled again as a flake landed on her cheek. “It’s so pretty.”
Looking at her, watching her surprised joy at something as simple as a snowfall, he couldn’t deny that she was right. It was pretty. And so was she.
“It’s pretty—until you have to shovel it,” he said.
“Now who’s being a spoilsport?” she teased.
And the curve of those perfectly-shaped lips tempted him to taste them, to discover if they were as soft and sweet as they looked.
But, of course, he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Because she was Cody’s aunt and completely off limits.
“Guilty,” he acknowledged, and turned the horses back toward the house.
“Though white Christmases are an anomaly back home, for some reason snow always makes me think of the holiday.”
“’Tis the season.”
“And since it doesn’t look like Cody and I are going to be heading back to Texas anytime soon, would it be okay if I put his presents under the tree when we get back?”
“Of course,” he agreed. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll make the hot chocolate.”
Wilder stacked logs and built a fire in the hearth while Beth arranged Cody’s presents under the tree, then he went to the kitchen to make the hot chocolate.