Page 8 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
That made her think of Steve again. He and his brothers owned a Christmas tree ranch east of town, and she could picture him sitting around a big country kitchen with his beautiful children—since there was no way his kids could be anything but gorgeous—and his handsome brothers. The mental picture Camille conjured up was so Norman Rockwell perfect that it made her heart hurt, desperate for something she’d never even thought she wanted.
A chime from her laptop brought her out of her daydream, and she shook off the lingering wistfulness. Unrealistic thoughts of Steve wouldn’t pay the bills. Pulling up the new email, she entered the order on her spreadsheet. It was another ranch sign, designed to hang above a front gate, and the customer needed it before Christmas. That was doable—it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go—but first she’d need to finish her other orders.
Scolding herself for wasting time by letting her mind wander to fanciful places, she hurried out to her workshop. It had been the garage, but her grandma had parked her twenty-year-old Buick outside and had the space renovated once Camille had gotten into metal- and woodworking.
“Watercolors are fine inside,” her grandma had said, “but anything requiring a power saw or a blowtorch stays out in the shop.”
With a shiver, Camille pulled on a sweatshirt hanging on a hook by the door. Although the shop was heated, she kept it a good twenty degrees cooler than the house. Once she started working, she didn’t notice the chill, but the first ten minutes could be uncomfortable.
Moving to her workbench, she allowed herself a small, pleased smile as she looked over her work in progress: a weather vane she was making from scrap metal and found parts. That was another reason she couldn’t leave Borne for a big city. Right now, she was surrounded by ranchers, most of whom were happy to let her pick through their scrap piles of old machinery and fencing and broken tools. She paid them for what they considered junk, and everyone was happy.
She quickly wrapped her curly blond hair into a messy bun and grabbed her welding helmet and gloves. Once she attached the wind cup assembly, she could move on to her favorite part—cutting the running horse out of the ancient truck hood she’d picked up just for this project.
A heavy knock on the outside door brought Camille’s head up, and she pulled off her gloves and helmet, frowning. She wasn’t expecting any visitors, and she tended not to answer the door if someone didn’t call or text ahead of time. In fact, she didn’t like answering the door even when theydidgive her advance warning. For all her complaining to Lucy and her daydreams of some ideal dream life with Steve and his perfect Von Trapp children, she generally was happiest when people left her alone to do her art and bake sweet things and cuddle her cat.
Silently placing her helmet and gloves on her workbench next to the pieces of the vane, she tiptoed across the concrete floor, careful not to make any noise to give away her presence. She held her breath as she peered through the peephole in the door, specially installed for situations like this. Unless it was a neighbor with a tray of Christmas cookies, Camille was fully prepared to quietly hide in her shop until whomever it was gave up and went away. Not for the first time, she was grateful that her workshop didn’t have any windows.
It wasn’t a neighbor bearing cookies. Instead, Ryan Springfield stood there, his hands jammed in his coat pockets and an impatient look on his face. Of the four Springfield brothers, Camille found him to be the least appealing, although she knew the women of Borne would disagree with her about that. Technically, he was the most classically handsome, and he was the most confident in his charm, but he’d always left Camille cold—not that he or any of his brothers had ever expressed much interest. She made a face, debating whether to open the door. Ryan was a big talker, and she just wanted to work on her weather vane in peace.
“Camille!” he called, leaning forward to bang on the door again, making her jump back as the loud thuds echoed through the workshop. “I have that barn wood you wanted!”
Her frown turned into a grimace. She needed that wood for five separate orders, all of which had to be sent by Christmas. If she didn’t answer the door, she’d have to get the wood by going out to the ranch, where she might run into Steve. Even just the thought of seeing him again made her wilt from humiliation. Why had she thought it’d be a good idea to tell him the story of her first period?Why?
Still peering through the peephole, she came to the reluctant conclusion that she had to answer the door and talk to Ryan. As he started to walk back toward his truck, she yanked open the door.
“Ryan, hi!” She feigned breathlessness so he’d think she’d had to run to the door. “Sorry it took me so long. I tend to play my music too loudly.” It wasn’t a lie…not really. She stepped back, giving him room to enter.
He looked a little startled by her uncharacteristic volubility but quickly recovered his normal smooth smile as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Camille.” His gaze flicked over her so quickly that she almost missed it. “Good to see you.”
“You, too.” Now that her fake rush to the door was over, she felt her usual awkwardness settle over her, and she scrambled for something polite to say. Steve, still hanging out uninvited in the forefront of her mind, was the only topic she could think of, and she seized on it eagerly. “So…Steve’s home for a visit. That must be…nice.”
Camille thought that Ryan stiffened slightly, but then he smiled so easily that she was pretty sure she’d imagined his reaction. “It’s not just a visit.” He leaned back against the door, looking like he was settling in for a long chat, and Camille wished she’d gone with her gut and hidden until he’d left. “He and the kids are staying. Guess mountain living got too dangerous for him.”
“I don’t blame him.” Even though Borne was tucked at the base of the foothills, close to the mountains, they felt like a far-off world to Camille. She liked safe activities like dancing and swimming and yoga. Sports like snowboarding and mountain biking that involved high speeds and steep hills and possible death just didn’t appeal to her. Plus, there were avalanches and rockslides and bears and strange mountain people—not that she could say anything about strange mountain people, being an odd hermit type herself. She was only a few babbled conversations away from the townspeople crowning her the local weirdo.
She realized that Ryan had been talking while her mind wandered, and she refocused on what he was saying.
“…as soon as the fire department in Monroe hired his replacement, he joined his kids on the ranch. They’re great kids. You should stop out and meet them. I’ll give you a great deal on a tree.” His smile pulled up higher on one side than the other, giving him a sort of sly charm. That look had always made Camille feel like he was secretly mocking her, and she mentally chided herself. That was just how Ryan looked. She was a grown woman, and she needed to quit letting high school insecurities creep into her brain.
“Um…sure.” Clearing her throat, she decided it was past time to bring this little chat to a halt. “So, the barn wood…?”
“Yeah. I think you’re going to like it. We finally took down that old shed before it fell. The wood has got to be a hundred and twenty years old, but it’s in great shape.”
Camille hit the button to open the overhead door. “Go ahead and back your truck inside, and I’ll take a look.” She tried to hide the thrill that had gone through her at his description, not wanting him to see how excited she was in case he jacked the price up. Reclaimed barn wood was crazy popular at the moment. Everything she made from it—signs, furniture, decorative paintings—sold as soon as she listed the items on her website. Maybe it had been worth answering the door after all.
Once he backed his pickup into the shop, she closed the overhead door and went to check out the wood stacked in the truck bed. It was in even better shape than she’d hoped. “How much?” She tried to keep her voice casual.
He was silent for several moments, long enough for her to stop examining the wood and look over at him. She wasn’t sure how to read his expression, and that made her a little uncomfortable. It had seemed like a pretty straightforward question that required a simple answer, but apparently Ryan was in a mood to complicate things.
“Tell you what,” he finally said. “Do you still make those little metal animals?”
“Sure.” She glanced at the shelves holding her smaller pieces, pretty sure that she’d sold the last one—a whimsical scrap-metal beagle—the previous week. The animal sculptures were almost as popular as the barn-wood items. “I don’t think I have any available right now, but I can make some if you want.”
“I’d like to sell some at the ranch shop,” he said. “We sell wreaths and pine boughs now, but I think those animals of yours would fly off the shelves. Could you do some angels or maybe some nativity pieces?”
“Definitely the angels.” Her tone grew thoughtful as she considered the question. It sparked an avalanche of ideas, and she smiled, excited at the possibilities. “I’ll try some different nativity arrangements, too. Maybe some horses… You use draft horses on the ranch, don’t you?”
“We do.” His eyes lit up at the suggestion, and his usual smirk transformed into an honest grin, one that made Camille like him more. “That’s a great idea. The customers love the horses. Some people drive an hour or more to get a tree from us just because they love the feel of the ranch. Your animal sculptures have that same warm, nostalgic thing going.”
