“It might not be beautiful now, but it will be when we get it decorated,” Landon told her.
“It’ll take a lot of ornaments to make that pitiful-lookin’ tree pretty,” she laughed.
He dropped to his knees and she giggled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked and then realized that he was on his knees right beside her. “Have folks been teasing you ever since we met too?”
“Oh, yeah,” she answered. “We’ve got to admit, it was kind of funny.”
“Yep, it was,” he agreed as he started sawing through the base of the tree. The brave little squirrel hung on until the minute the tree began to fall, and then he jumped to the ground and ran away.
“We’d better get this loaded before the princess follows that pesky animal to a ten-footer.” Landon threw the tree over his shoulder as if it were as light as a bag of marshmallows.
Dixie could imagine his muscles bulging under his denim coat and wondered what it would be like to have those strong arms wrapped around her body.
Stop it! she scolded herself. Don’t let yourself go there. He won’t even be around after the New Year. He’ll find someone out there in west Texas to hang out with.
He tossed the tree in the back of the truck and then turned around to Dixie. “Since we’re here, would you like to see inside the cabin?”
“Don’t you need to ask someone or get a key?” she asked.
“Folks leave it open all the time unless someone is living here,” he said as he led the way over to the cabin. He held the door for Dixie, holding Sally in her arms, and then reached around to switch on the lights. “Especially after Claire got stuck in the snow and had to take shelter here. Did she tell you about that?”
“Yep,” Dixie answered. “She said that she and her little niece would have frozen if it hadn’t been for the cabin.”
She stepped farther into the cabin and looked around. A stone fireplace was to her right, a small kitchen area to her left. A coffee table that looked like dozens of pairs of boots had been propped on it sat between the well-worn sofa and the fireplace. Beyond all that, in what was like a little cubbyhole, sat a king-sized bed covered with a brightly colored quilt—no doubt one of Claire’s creations.
“The bathroom is through that door and the other one is a closet,” Landon explained. “They offered this to me if I’d stay on here at the Longhorn Canyon.”
Dixie set Sally on the floor, and she crawled over to the coffee table and pulled herself up on it. “Why did you come here, anyway? I would’ve thought you’d want to stay close to your two brothers after you found them.”
“I love my brothers and their families,” he answered. “But I got this itch to go somewhere else, like something was pulling at me to go.”
“Seems to me that you’d do the same jobs no matter which ranch you decided to live on,” she said.
“Yes, but…” He paused. “I guess I’m just not ready to settle down, and I need to do more, work on more ranches, meet more people, and travel more before I settle down. Have you ever felt like that?”
“Just every week,” she admitted for the first time. “But it’s not to leave Sunset or this area. It’s to have a place of my own for me and this baby, a place that doesn’t have a shop in the living room. Sometimes I feel like she’s never going to have a normal life with so many people coming and going all the time.”
Something like this is what I’d love, she thought, looking around the cabin, but she didn’t say it out loud.
Landon chuckled. “You want to dig in and put down roots. I want wings to fly to the next ranch.”
“If you want to travel and see things, then why are you going right back to your brothers’ ranches?” she asked.
“It’s only for a week, and then I’ve got a job offer just over the border into Colorado. I’m supposed to drive up there and talk to them the second week in January,” he explained.
“When you finally settle down, where do you think it might be?” she asked as she turned toward the door.
“Who knows?” He shrugged. “In another ten years, I might be right back at either Pax’s or Mav’s ranch. When I get ready to put down roots, it would be nice to have family around me. But until then, ranchers always need help.”
Dixie bit back a sigh. That sealed it right there. Even if they became more than friends, she would never be willing to drag Sally from one place to another every few months.
“If we’re going to make decorations, we probably should be going,” she said as she took one last look at the sweet little cabin.
“To tell the truth, I hope the decorations help the looks of that pitiful tree. I’d hoped to find something really pretty for you.” He picked Sally up and followed Dixie outside.
“I’ve got lots of scraps,” she said. “We’ll just fill in all the bare spaces with decorations. The tree doesn’t have to be perfect. Just think about if it could talk. It would be bragging to all the pretty trees that the cute little girl picked it over them.”
“You should write children’s books,” Landon told her.
“I could never do that, but I do tell Sally stories like that all the time,” she admitted.
“I bet you could if you tried. You should at least write down the stories you tell Sally and keep them in a journal for her.” He buckled Sally into the car seat and then checked the tree in the back to be sure it would ride well.
“Maybe I will, but right now we’ve got to turn this tree into a pretty one, not tell stories about it,” she said.
Chapter Three
How about pizza for supper?” Landon asked as he drove down the pathway toward the road leading west to Sunset. “The convenience store is open so we could get some slices, or some chicken nuggets if that sounds better, and then get busy decorating the tree.”
“I’ve got a slow cooker of chicken and dumplings ready to eat at home,” Dixie answered. “Be a shame to waste it. Why don’t we just have that before we start making decorations?”
“You don’t have to twist my arm. I’m always ready to eat a home-cooked meal.” Landon made a left-hand turn onto the road.
“So, you’ve got the itch to move again?” she asked.
“I feel like a fish out of water,” he answered. “I love it here, and I’ve kind of made a shirttail-kin family right here. Emily is my sister-in-law Alana’s friend, and my brothers both worked out here on Tag and Hud’s ranch next to the Longhorn, but I’m just not satisfied yet…” He paused.
“You feel like there has to be something more to life than this? I love my job, too, and the folks at the ranch are good to me, and I feel guilty when I want more. Is that kind of the way you feel?” she asked.
“Exactly,” Landon agreed. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m restless even when I’m happy.”
“Well, you’ve got some time to figure all that out,” she told him.
“Yes, I do, and until the first of the year, we’ve got something to do every single day so that you can have a perfect Christmas.” He slowed down and turned right into the driveway of the Quiltin’ House. “I can almost smell that chicken and dumplings. I’ll get the princess out of her saddle and bring her inside if you’ll go on and dish them up.”