Chapter 6
The lodge was quiet. That Santa and his elves on Christmas Eve kind of quiet.
Even after six months in Wilder, Kip hadn’t gotten used to the silence.
No big city hum of streetlights. No sirens blaring.
The low crackle of cedar in the fireplace and the soft hush of a cold wind rattling cedar shingles lulled her into a peaceful drowsiness.
She hadn’t intended to remain for the night. She might have been able to persuade her Daddy to take her back to her apartment after dinner. But it was the first day of December, and the girls had convinced her to stay.
Kenzie had grabbed Kip’s hands, hopping with excitement. “You can’t leave yet, Kip. If you leave, you’ll miss it! Tonight is the first night we get to open a box from the Advent house. You have to stay for that.”
“You do!” Tildi chimed in. “It’s really fun, and the Daddies always fill the boxes with cool stuff.”
Kip tried to free her hand. She didn’t mind staying a little longer if it would make her friends happy. Would it put Trace on the spot, though? “I’d love to watch, but no one knew I would be here. I wouldn’t expect you to have enough for me.”
“And why not, little fox? Don’t you trust your Daddy to take care of you?
” She stared at him, speechless. Something in the box was for her?
Warmth flooded her chest. She felt an overwhelming urge to throw herself into his arms and kiss him silly.
He’d thought of her. Without anyone telling him to or reminding him.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He pulled her into his arms, giving her a perfect place to hide her face. It was a good thing because her composure was gone. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t!
Squealing with excitement, the girls grabbed Kip and pulled her toward an extra-large dollhouse with twenty-five numbered doors on the front.
“I think since this is Kip’s first Christmas with the family, she should open the first door,” Tildi said. All the girls agreed and led her to stand in front of the first small door. She opened the door, and four tiny boxes sat in the first room, each with a small tag bearing a name.
Kip held them out and waited. Tildi took the box for Bluebell. Joy took the box for Gyspy. Kenzie grabbed the box for Tiger. That left the one labeled Foxy for Kip.
Once everyone had their box, they ripped off the lids. Together, the girls shouted, “Legos!”
Each box contained a tiny Christmas Lego figure to build. They raced to the coffee table and started building their gifts. Trace had given her a Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer to go with Kenzie’s Santa, Tildi’s snowman, and Joy’s elf. She loved it.
“While you girls build your treasures, we’ll be getting the s’mores ready for roasting,” Boone said.
So many thoughts flooded her mind, all of the good ones. The joy of feeling not just included but truly accepted. She hadn’t felt that way in a very long time.
By the time they’d assembled their figurines, eaten a few s’mores, and sung every song from Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s movie five times each, Trace decided it was too late to drive back to town.
He invited Kip to stay the night at the ranch.
Her weak protest didn’t convince anyone, especially not herself.
Looking upset when she was anything but was difficult. She wanted to spend every second with him she could before she left. “You think you are a clever Daddy, don’t you?”
With a hand on each side of her hips, he pulled her closer. “No, just sneaky.”
“Hmm. Bossy, sneaky Daddy,” she said. “There is one problem. I didn’t bring any pajamas.”
Were Daddies allowed to roll their eyes? That didn’t seem fair. “Foxy, with three other Littles in the house, I think we can find you a pair of PJs and anything else you need. Here at the ranch, we keep extras of just about everything.”
Trace carried her up the stairs as if she weighed nothing, even though she tried to wiggle down twice. His arms didn’t budge. Not once, even an inch.
Joy met them at the top of the stairs. “I have these,” she said, holding out a neatly folded pajama set.
Kip couldn’t tell much about them, but she loved the bright red color. “Thanks. I’ll take good care of them.”
“Don’t worry about it. And sorry if they swallow you. I’m kind of big.”
Chance growled and swatted her bottom. Joy grabbed her bottom. “Tall! I meant tall. I wasn’t talking bad about myself. I meant tall.”
Chance looked unconvinced. “We’ll talk about it in our room, Gypsy.” He grabbed the back of Joy’s knees and tossed her over his shoulder. Turning to Trace and Kip, Chance winked. “Looks like we’re gonna be tied up for a while. You two have a good night.”
He strode down the hall away from Trace, with Joy laughing the whole way.
“I hope she doesn’t get into too much trouble,” Kip said as they disappeared through a door at the end of the hall.
Trace snorted. “I think she’ll be fine, Foxy.
Joy likes that kind of trouble. Now, let's get you settled in my room.” At the opposite end of the long hall, Trace stopped in front of a dark, solid pine door.
The bottom was scuffed with what looked like boot heel marks, but the rest of the door gleamed, right down to the brass doorknob.
He rested her on his hip and entered a code on a keypad beside his door.
That was… unusual. “You have a keyless lock to your bedroom in your own house?”
“I do. And if you don’t know why, you didn’t grow up in a house full of prank-pulling brothers.”
The door opened into a room that felt like a secret carved out of the mountain itself.
Two tall, double-hung windows dominate the wall to her right, huge and framed in black steel.
Through them, she could look straight past the landscaped backyard to the Wild River, glinting silver even at midnight, and beyond the river to the mountains with their peaks glowing white.
“Where are your curtains?” The large glass left her feeling vulnerable and exposed.
“No need,” he said. “The dark is honest.”
What the heck did that mean? “I’m sorry?”
He had a way of grinning with the left side of his mouth. She loved that grin.
“You can see better in the dark. Not with your eyes, maybe, but with all your other senses. You can’t hide small things like the tremor in your voice. Or the way you lean toward safety and pull away from pain.
Realizing he hadn’t turned on the lights and that she was leaning into him now, she straightened up. “You can put me down now.”
He entered the room, and the lights turned on. The view outside the windows disappeared, but she hardly noticed as she looked around the rest of his space. It wasn’t just a room. It was more like a small apartment.
There was a large bathroom to the left and an alcove to the right containing all the essentials of a miniature chef’s kitchen.
The light also lit up the far wall, which was made entirely of smooth, mossy river rock.
It housed the biggest fireplace she’d ever seen.
You could roast an entire side of beef there.
Leather furniture curved around the hearth, cozy and inviting.
But the bed on the right wall was what really caught her eye.
The king-sized iron frame was stunning, with a lattice of horseshoes welded into a running-W pattern that formed the brand of Wild River Ranch. “Where did you get the bed? It’s incredible.”
His grin warmed into a smile. “I made that when I was twenty-two.”
Her jaw dropped. “You made that?”
“Yep. That is the wrought iron byproduct of my first heartbreak. She moved on to the next man of her dreams, and I got this bed. Way I see it, I traded up.”
Kip had no idea who might be better than Trace, not that she’d admit it out loud. Probably. Her gaze flicked to him. His expression gave her hope she’d kept that bit of information to herself.
“You can change into your pajamas in the bathroom. I’ll put the milk on to steam so we can have some hot chocolate while you write your letter to Santa.”
“Um, my what?”
He gave her another incredible smile. God, he had to stop doing that. “Your letter to Santa. Unless you’ve already written it, that is. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t done that in a very long time.” Like ever. She clapped her hands over her mouth. She should have said yes, so he would forget about it.
“Well, there’s no time like the present I asked Ruby to gather all the supplies you’d need while we worked on the Advent calendar. Everything is on the table by the fireplace.”
Darn it. How was she supposed to write a letter to Santa? No way could she ask for what she really wanted. She could see it now.
Dear Santa, I’ve been a very scared little girl.
Please bring me a big, scary bodyguard and some rose-gold knuckles (brass bleaches out my skin tone).
And please tell Reynaldo Rios he’s getting a bag full of switches if he doesn’t leave me alone.
And please make sure Trace knows he was the best Daddy any Little girl could ever have, and that I’m sorry I couldn’t stay and be his.
If I thought you were that powerful, Santa, I’d wish you could help me stay.
But no one can do that, Santa. Not even you. Love, Kip
Yeah, that would go over well. She’d have to worry about that once she got changed.
While she put on Joy’s pajamas, she decided to ask Santa for an onyx claw-footed tub like Trace had.
Holy cow! She needed to soak in that magnificent tub at least once before she left.
Because no matter how much it hurt, she was absolutely leaving.
Hearing that, on her account, the bad men were after her friends now, she knew it had to be tonight.
Joy had meant what she said about being tall. The sleeves of Joy’s pajamas swallowed Kip’s hands whole, and the pants pooled around her ankles. And she couldn’t have been more pleased.