Page 11 of Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
“Micah?” Camille repeated, trying to place the name.
“My brother. He made the snow horse outside.”
“He did that? It’s beautiful,” Camille said. “How old is he?”
“Thirteen.”
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Impressive.”
“Yeah.” Will grinned, obviously proud of his brother. “His drawings are even better.”
The other customers had noticed the pieces and were drawing closer, and the threesome outside had finished tying the tree to the car roof and were headed toward the shop door. Their moment of semiprivacy was coming to an end. The tiny hairs on the back of Camille’s neck stood on end at the thought of being trapped in the little store. Quickly averaging her work hours and material costs in her head, Camille said, keeping her voice low, “I’ll need double what we agreed on for the animals.”
“Done.” Ryan didn’t hesitate. Grabbing a piece of paper, he scribbled some numbers and handed the list to Will. “Here are the retail prices. Make a tag for each of them, and set them up in the window display. Just ring them up under miscellaneous until I get them entered in the inventory system. I’m betting we sell half of them in the first ten minutes.” He turned to Camille. “C’mon. I’ll write you a check in the office.”
Once they were out of the store, Ryan slowed and fell into step next to her. The cleared pathway was wide enough to walk shoulder to shoulder, although Camille still felt a little awkward when their coat sleeves brushed. Nate was leading a gray draft horse away from the lot, and he stopped, waiting for them to catch up.
“Hey, Ry,” Nate said. He looked surprised when he saw her. “Camille? How are you? Have you recovered from the other day?”
“Hi, Nate.” She gave him her dorky wave, which seemed to be becoming a bad new habit. “Um. Yeah. I mean, there wasn’t much to recover from. I wasn’t really out that long. There were, you know, layers.” Nate looked puzzled, and she clamped her mouth shut. If she kept trying to explain, she’d just get more and more confusing.
“That’s good, then.” He walked with them, the giant horse ambling quietly on his other side. Even though Nate was a tall guy, his head topped the mare’s withers by only an inch or two. Although he wasn’t as traditionally handsome as Ryan, he had a rugged, wholesome look, reminding Camille of an actor in an old-school cowboy movie. He’d always been athletic, playing football and baseball in high school and spending a couple of years after he graduated roping on the rodeo circuit. According to Mrs. Lin, he’d given up what was looking to be a promising career to help save his parent’s struggling ranch. “Where’ve you been hiding? Up until the other day, it’d been years since I’d run into you.”
Since the answer was that she’d beenliterallyhiding in her workshop, Camille was stuck on how to answer without sounding like a sad little hermit. “I’ve been around. Busy. With making things. Metal things…sculptures, actually. There are some in the gift store, in fact. That’s why I came here today, to drop them off. Normally, I don’t leave the workshop much in December, except to sleep, of course, and eat and sometimes go to the grocery store or the gas station or…” She cleared her throat, knowing she needed to stop talking or she’d only make it worse.
Neither man filled the following pause, though, and the silence grew until it was thick and heavy, weighing on her chest and making it so she couldn’t breathe. Not even the horse made a sound except for the quiet plod of her dinner-plate-sized hooves. The tension built with every step until Camille couldn’t take the silent awkwardness for even one second longer. She had to saysomething. “What’s with the horse?”
“Buttercup?” Nate tugged affectionately at her long forelock. “She’s on duty.” At Camille’s curious look, he continued. “We use the horses to bring the trees to the lot. The customers pick the one they want, we cut it down, and then Miss Buttercup here pulls it to their car. It’s not the most efficient way, but the customers love it.” He rubbed under the strap of the mare’s halter, and she twisted her head, pushing into his hand as if he’d found an itchy spot.
“I can see why,” Camille said, pleased by the easy turn in the conversation. Despite the cold, she found that she was relaxing slightly, the beauty of the ranch easing her nerves. Behind the well-kept barn and outbuildings, neat rows of evergreens created dark-green stripes on the snowy ground, making the place look like a handmade quilt. The entire ranch seemed to radiate old-fashioned Christmas spirit. It was beautiful and charming and somehow soothing, as if none of life’s usual worries existed at the Springfield ranch. No wonder people drove for hours to get their trees here.
“Besides,” Ryan chimed in, “it gives the horses something to do while we’re tied up with selling trees and manning the shop.”
“What do they do the other ten months of the year?” Besides the Christmas trees and the store, Camille realized that she didn’t know what else the Springfield brothers did. She assumed they raised cattle like their neighbors, but she didn’t see any sign of livestock in the pastures except for horses. After Steve had moved away, Camille’s interest in the Springfield family had sharply declined.
“They skid logs for us.” Nate was the one who answered, not sounding at all offended that she knew so little about her almost-neighbors.
“Horse logging?” Her doubt was obvious in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. Even though the ranch felt like a trip back in time, using horses to skid logs seemed ridiculously old-fashioned. “Isn’t that…well, really slow?”
Nate laughed. “Nah. It’s making a comeback as people get more interested in sustainable forest management. Logging with horses leaves behind a lot less damage, and it means I get to work with my best girl.”
“Buttercup?” Camille asked, charmed, even as Ryan snorted.
“Of course.” Nate rubbed the mare’s forehead, and she half closed her dark, liquid eyes in bliss. “I’m going to see if she wants some water before we head back to the store. Good to see you, Camille.”
“You, too,” she said, meaning it.
He and the horse headed for the barn door as Ryan led Camille toward the next building. They entered a good-sized office with four desks, one in each corner, blocking off the space to make wall-less cubicles. A long conference table sat in the center of the space. It was basic but looked tidy, and the room was blessedly warm. Her fingers prickled with pins and needles, half-frozen after just the short walk from the store. She tucked them in her coat pockets, vowing to bring her warm gloves the next time she came—if she got up the courage to come a second time. Maybe she could pay Mrs. Lin to drive the next batch out to the ranch…although that meant she’d have to deal with Mrs. Lin, so it probably wasn’t worth it.
Pulling out one of the conference table chairs, Ryan said, “Have a seat.”
Although she sat in the proffered chair, she wondered why he was having her get comfortable. How long could writing a check take? One minute? Two?
Rather than pulling out a checkbook, however, Ryan leaned his hip against one of the desks and crossed his arms over his chest in a showy gesture. She remembered that he’d always done that a lot, even back in high school, and she wondered if it was to make the muscles in his arms and chest stand out. If so, his ploy wasn’t very successful, since his winter jacket hid any extra bulging. The thought made her want to laugh, but she managed to swallow it in time.
“So, what do you think?” he asked, and for a brief, illogical moment, she worried that he’d read her thoughts.
“What do I think about what?”
