"A tall, dark cowboy; a stray cat; & a pregnant dog combine for a Christmas Sage will never forget..."
Reviewed by Cheryl Beal
Posted September 14, 2012
Romance | Holiday
Sage Presley is an up and coming artist who has roots and
strong ties to the Texas Panhandle. The Rockin' C Ranch
has
been in her family for over 50 years, but her Grandma has
pulled the rug out from under her by announcing that she is
selling the ranch. Sage risks life and limb to make it
home during a blizzard so she can convince her Grandma not
to sell the ranch before Grandma leaves for a 3 week trip
to
visit her sister in Pennsylvania only to find her Grandma
had left early to beat the impending storm.
Creed Riley is a true Texas cowboy and has found the ranch
of his dreams in the Rockin' C. He has agreed to a 3 week
trial period while Grandma Presley goes east to spend some
time with her sister. When she comes back home, they'll
finalize the sale or he'll go on his way. There is only
one
condition to the sale -- he has to let Sage Presley live on
the ranch for as long as she wants after he buys it.
Snowed in with 8 inches of snow, Sage and Creed are forced
to spend over a week together with only each other, a stray
cat, and pregnant dog for company. Sage soon realizes
that
Creed isn't such a bad guy and maybe, just maybe having him
buying the ranch won't be the worst thing in the world.
The heat between Sage and Creed builds to a boiling point
and once they give in to their desire, they practically
ignite the pages.
MISTLETOE COWBOY is a sweet, erotic romance that just flew
right off the pages. Carolyn Brown did a great job with
character development -- Creed Riley is the epitome of the
rugged Texas cowboy -- tall, dark & handsome; and yet he's
also sweet & gentle. And Sage Presley is a stubborn,
beautiful, complicated artist with so many layers, I think
we could have kept peeling back and learning more about
her.
I felt like I was right there in the Texas Panhandle as Ms.
Brown was describing the scenery....she is a master at
building a story and the surrounding world.
SUMMARY
Commitment! It made Sage run the other way. It made Creed
shudder. But Sage's granny, the Widow Presley, was
determined to get her granddaughter a cowboy for Christmas.
And who better than Creed, the man interested in purchasing
the widow's Rockin' C Ranch? The fact that a three-day blizzard was blowing in just made
things all the better. A person can't run from commitment
when they're snowed in, now can they?
Excerpt"Dammit!"
Sage's favorite cuss word bounced around inside her van
like marbles in a tin can, sounding and resounding in her
ears.
She had slowed down to a snail's pace and was about to
drop off the face of the earth into the Palo Duro Canyon
when two men dragged sawhorses and a "ROAD CLOSED" sign
toward the middle of the road. She stepped on the gas and
slid between the sawhorses slinging wet snow all over the
highway workers.
The last thing she saw in her rearview mirror was
shaking fists and angry faces before the driving snow
obliterated them. They could cuss all they wanted and even
slap one of those fines double where workers are present on
her if they wanted. She didn't have time to
fiddle–fart around in Claude waiting for eight to ten
inches of snow to fall and then melt. She had urgent
business at home that would not wait, and she was going
home if she had to crawl through the blowing snow and wind
on her hands and knees.
She'd driven all night and barely stayed ahead of the
storm's path until she was twenty miles from Claude and got
the first full blast of the blinding snow making a
kaleidoscope out of her headlights. If she was going to
stop, she would have done so then, but she had to get home
and talk her grandmother out of the biggest mistake of her
life. With the snowstorm and the closed roads into and out
of the canyon, Grand wouldn't be making her afternoon
flight for sure. Maybe that would give Sage time to talk
her out of selling the ranch to a complete stranger.
"Dammit!" she swore again and didn't even feel guilty
about it. "And right here at Christmas when it's supposed
to be about family and friends and parties and love. She
can't leave me now. I should have listened to her."
What was Grand thinking anyway? The Rockin' C had been
in the Presley family since the days of the Alamo. It was
one of the first ranches ever staked out in the canyon, and
her grandfather would roll over in his grave if he thought
Grand was selling it to an outsider. Had the old girl
completely lost her mind?
"Merry freakin' Christmas!" she moaned as she gripped
the steering wheel tightly on the downhill grade. The van
went into a long greasy slide and she took her foot off the
gas pedal and gently tapped the brakes to hold it back. She
didn't have to stay in her lane. The roads were closed and
no one in their right mind would be driving in such a
frightful mess with zero visibility.
Sage could find her way to the Rockin' C with her eyes
closed, and she might have to prove it because she couldn't
see a damn thing except white. From the inside of her
house, it might have been beautiful, but from the inside of
her van, it was eerie.
Sage laid her cell phone on the console and pressed the
button for speakerphone and hit the speed dial for the
landline at the ranch. Nothing happened, which meant the
snow had already knocked out the power for both the
landline and the cell towers. Grand kept an old rotary
phone that worked when the electricity was out, but if the
phone power was gone, nothing worked.
Neither surprised her. The next to go would be the
electricity. She just hoped that Grand had listened to the
weather report and hooked up the generator to the well pump
so there would be water in the house.
She was crawling along at less than five miles an hour
when she turned into the lane leading to the house at the
Rockin' C and the van still slid sideways for a few minutes
before it straightened up. She slowed down even further and
crept down the dirt lane, the engine growling at the abuse.
"Don't stop now," she said.
The quarter mile had never seemed so long, but if the
van stopped she could walk the rest of the way. She'd even
ruin her brand new cowboy boots if she had to. A warm house
and her own bed were right up ahead and she was meaner than
the storm anyway.
She kept telling herself that until she came to a greasy
stop in front of the porch. She unbuckled her seat belt and
clasped her hands tightly together to make them stop
shaking, but nothing seemed to help. The adrenaline rush
had brought her almost twenty miles into the canyon and now
it was fading, leaving jitters behind.
Sage Presley was not a petite little woman with a weak
voice and a sissy giggle, so she shouldn't be sitting there
shaking like a ninny in a van fast losing its heat. She was
five feet ten inches tall, dark haired and brown eyed, and
there wasn't one small thing about her. But Sage didn't
feel like a force right then. She felt like a scared little
girl.
The small two–bedroom square frame house was
barely visible even though it was less than ten feet away
when she stepped out. Her feet slipped and she had to grab
the van door to keep from falling square on her butt. She
found her balance and took short deliberate steps to the
porch where she grabbed the railing and hung on as she
climbed the three steps one by one.
If the storm really did stall out over the Palo Duro
Canyon for three days, it was going to be one helluva job
just digging out. It was a good thing she'd blown by those
highway workers because Grand was going to need her help.
She pulled her key ring from her purse and finally found
the right key and got it into the lock. How on earth could
anything as white as snow make it so dark that she couldn't
even fit a key into a door lock?
Stepping inside was similar to going from an
air–conditioned office into a sauna. She dropped her
purse and keys on the credenza right inside the door and
flipped the light switch.
Nothing happened. The electricity had already gone out.
The only light in the house came from the glowing embers
of scrub oak and mesquite logs in the fireplace. She held
her hands out to warm them, and the rest of the rush from
the drive down the slick, winding roads bottomed out,
leaving her tired and sleepy.
She rubbed her eyes and vowed she would not cry. Didn't
Grand remember that the day she came home from the gallery
showings was special? Sage had never cut down a Christmas
tree all by herself. She and Grand always went out into the
canyon and hauled a nice big cedar back to the house the
day after the showing. Then they carried boxes of ornaments
and lights from the bunkhouse and decorated the tree,
popped the tops on a couple of beers, and sat in the
rocking chairs and watched the lights flicker on and off.
She went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, but
it was pitch–black inside. She fumbled around and
there wasn't even a beer in there. She finally located a
gallon jar of milk and carried it to the cabinet, poured a
glass full, and downed it without coming up for air.
It took some fancy maneuvering to get the jar back
inside the refrigerator, but she managed and flipped the
light switch as she was leaving.
"Dammit!"
"Bloody dammit!" she said a second time using the
British accent from the man who'd paid top dollar for one
of her paintings.
One good thing about the blizzard was if that crazy
cowboy who thought he was buying the Rockin' C could see
this weather, he'd change his mind in a hurry. As soon as
she and Grand got done talking, she'd personally send him
an email telling him that the deal had fallen through. But
he'd have to wait until they got electricity back to even
get that much.
Sage had lived in the house all of her twenty–six
years and very little had changed, so she didn't have any
problems going from kitchen, across the living room floor,
and to her bedroom without tripping over anything. There
had been a couple of new sofas, but they'd always been put
right where the old one had been, under the bar and facing
the entertainment unit located to the right of the
fireplace. The kitchen table was the same one that had been
there when Sage and her mother came to live in the canyon.
Grand wasn't one much for buying anything new when what was
already there was still usable. She made her way down the
hall to the bathroom and out of habit tried the light
again. It didn't work either.
"That was stupid," she whispered.
The propane heater put out enough heat to keep the
bathroom and the bedrooms from freezing, but it meant
leaving the doors open a crack. Grand's door was ajar and
she wanted to see her so badly that she was on her way to
peek when she stopped. If Grand woke up there wouldn't be
any deciding about when the fight would take place.
Grand was not a morning person even though she crawled
out of bed at six every single day, Sunday included. Sage
had learned early on not to approach her until she was
working on her second cup of coffee, so there was no way in
hell she was going to start the argument right then.
She turned around and went straight to her bedroom,
kicked off her boots, and hung her wet shirt and jeans over
a recliner in the corner of her bedroom. She pulled an
extra quilt from the chest at the end of her bed and tossed
it over the top of the down comforter before she slipped
into bed wearing nothing but her panties and bra.
She was asleep before her body had time to warm up the
sheets.
***
The wind was still howling like a
son–of–a–bitch when Creed awoke at
daylight. Why in the hell had he decided to buy a ranch in
the middle of the winter? Sure, he'd liked the land when he
looked at it a week ago and he'd seen potential for raising
Longhorns and growing hay come spring. No sir, it didn't
look bad at all at fifty degrees and with the sun shining
on the winter wheat.
And God only knew the price was right. Right, nothing!
It was a downright steal and he'd felt an inner peace that
he hadn't known in a long, long time when the owner had
showed him around and made the deal with him. But he hadn't
planned on the canyon filling up with snow on his first
night in the house.
The weatherman said after that the blizzard was going to
stall out right above the canyon and wouldn't move on
toward the east for at least three more days. That was the
last thing he'd seen on the television the night before
because the electricity had flickered and then gone out for
good.
The phone service had gone out before the electricity.
His cell phone's battery would soon be dead and the battery
in his laptop would have bit the dust during the night. So
there he was all alone in a blinding blizzard with a
hundred head of cattle corralled in a feedlot behind the
barn.
He wasn't acquainted very well with the house, so he
moved slowly when he slung his legs out of the bed and made
his way across the bedroom floor. He shivered and opened
the door wider to let in more heat. At least he had the
little two–bedroom house all to himself until the
blizzard came and went and things thawed out.
He put on three pairs of socks, long underwear, jeans,
and a thermal knit shirt. He topped that with a thick
flannel shirt and peeked out the window. There was nothing
but a chill from cold glass and thick falling snow beyond
that. But rain, snow, sand storms, or heat, cattle had to
be fed and taken care of, and the lady had said that if he
wanted to buy her ranch, he'd have to take good care of it
for the next three weeks. She'd be home the day before
Christmas to see if he qualified as a buyer. If she liked
what he'd done, she'd sell. If she didn't, he'd only wasted
three weeks.
Her words, not his!
It was December so he didn't expect eighty–degree
weather, but he sure hadn't figured on eight inches of snow
coming down in blizzard–strength wind either, and
that's what the weatherman predicted. Two inches of snow or
sleet crippled folks in Texas as much as two feet so they'd
be a while digging out from under eight inches for sure. At
least he wouldn't have to contend with the granddaughter.
No way could she get into the canyon in a storm like this.
She could just hole up in her fancy hotel in Denver where
the gallery showing was for her paintings.
La–tee–da, as Granny Riley used to say about
all things rich and famous.
The stipulation for the sale was that Sage Presley could
live on the ranch as long as she wanted. Well, Creed could
live with the painter in her own house on the back forty of
the Rockin' C to get the ranch for the price Ada Presley
quoted. She could play with her finger paints and take them
up to Denver and Cheyenne every year. Their paths might
cross once in a while and he'd tip his hat to her
respectfully. He'd never heard of her, but that didn't mean
much. In Creed's world a velvet Elvis was art and pictures
torn out of coloring books held up with magnets graced the
front of his mother's refrigerator.
Creed didn't care what Sage did for a living or what she
looked like as long as she stayed out of his way. Miz Ada
had said that he'd best be prepared for a shit storm as
well as the big blizzard because Sage did not want her to
sell the ranch. At least the storm had kept her away from
the canyon, and by the time she could get to the ranch she
would be cooled down.
He made it to the bathroom, illuminated only by the fire
in the open–face wall heater, and then down the hall
way and halfway across the living room before he stumped
his toe on the rung of a rocking chair.
"Shit!" he muttered.
His coveralls, face mask, and hat were hanging on a rack
beside the back door, and his boots waited on a rug right
underneath them. He zipped the mustard–colored canvas
coveralls all the way to his neck, pulled the face mask
over his head, and pushed the bottom behind the collar of
the coveralls. Then he stomped his feet down into his work
boots and crammed an old felt hat down on his head. It was
a tight fit with the knitted mask, but a cowboy didn't even
do chores without his hat.
He leaned into the whirling wind on the way to the barn
located only a football field's length from the house. He'd
run that far lots of times when he was quarterback of the
Gold–Burg football team and never even thought about
it. But battling against the driving snow sucked the air
out of his lungs and by the time he reached the barn he was
panting worse than if he'd run a fifty–yard
touchdown. The barn door slid on metal rails and they were
frozen. At first he thought muscles, force, and cussing
wasn't going to do the trick, but finally he was able to
open it up enough to wedge his body through.
The air inside wasn't any warmer, but at least it didn't
sound like a freight train barreling down the sides of the
canyon. He shook off a flurry of white powder, grabbed his
gloves from the bale of hay where he'd left them the night
before, and pulled them on.
"Won't make that stupid mistake again," he said.
He hiked a hip onto the seat of the smaller of two
tractors and planted a long spike implement into a round
bale of hay and drove it up close to the double doors at
the back of the barn. He got off the seat, opened the
doors, and ran back to get the hay out before the cows came
inside. They had crowded up under the lean–to roof
and eaten the last of the bale he'd put out the morning
before. It took a lot of hay to keep them from losing
weight in the winter. He just hoped he'd hauled enough big
round bales from the pasture into the barn to make it
through the storm.
The feeding job that should have been done in half an
hour took twice that long. The two breeder sows holed up in
the hog house were so cold that they barely grunted when he
poured a bucket of food in their trough. One rooster was
brave enough to come out of the hen house and crow his
disapproval before he hurried back inside. When Creed
finished feeding, it was time to milk the cow. Glad to be
back inside the dry barn, he filled a bucket with grain and
gave it to the cow. While she got started on her breakfast,
he fetched a three–legged milking stool and a clean
bucket from the tack room. His hands were freezing, but he
couldn't milk with gloves.
"Sorry about the cold hands, old girl," he apologized to
the cow before he started.
When he'd finished that job he headed toward the house.
Steam rose up from the top of the warm milk, but it didn't
do much to melt the snow coming down even harder than it
had been.
"And it's not letting up for three days!" he mumbled.
When he opened the back door into the kitchen, a
scraggly mutt raced in ahead of him. Ada hadn't mentioned a
dog and he hadn't seen the animal before, but there he was,
ugly as sin, shaking snow all over the kitchen floor.
***
Sage was an early riser so sleeping until eight o'clock
had given her a stinging headache. She grabbed her forehead
and snuggled back into the covers, but the pain didn't go
away. She needed a handful of aspirin and a cup of strong
black coffee. She seldom won a fight with Grand when they
were playing on an even field. A blasted headache would
give her grandmother a real advantage. She jerked on a
Christmas sweatshirt printed with Tweety Bird all tangled
up in a strand of lights on the front and pulled on a pair
of gray sweat bottoms. She finished off the outfit with
fluffy red socks from her dresser drawer.
Grand hadn't even stopped long enough to get a fire
going. That could wait. Coffee came before warmth. Sage
passed the fireplace and went straight to the kitchen. She
filled the electric coffee maker, added a filter and two
scoops of coffee, and flipped the switch.
"Well, shit!" she exclaimed.
Old habits sure died hard. If the lights wouldn't work,
neither would the electric coffeepot. And that left out the
washing machine, the clothes dryer, and the electric churn
to make butter, too.
The fact that the electricity was out wasn't anything
new in Palo Duro Canyon. If the wind blew too hard, and it
did real often in the winter, the electricity went out.
Grand said that if someone sneezed too loud up in Silverton
or in Claude that it went out, so no electricity in a
blizzard was no big surprise. That's why they heated the
house as much as possible with the fireplace and cooked
with propane.
Sage opened a cabinet door and removed the old Pyrex
percolator, filled it with water, put a filter in the
basket, added coffee, and set it on the back burner of the
stove. She wasn't as good as Grand about knowing just how
long it needed to perk, but it would be coffee in a few
minutes even if it might taste like mud from the cow lot.
She found the aspirin bottle to the left of the sink and
swallowed four with half a glass of orange juice. While the
coffee perked, she chose several good–sized logs from
beside the fireplace and got a big fire going.
"Bless Grand's heart for bringing in wood to dry," she
said.
She sat down in one of the two rocking chairs pulled up
to the fireplace and warmed her hands by the heat. And a
sudden pang of guilt twisted its way around her heart.
Grand was out doing chores in this godforsaken weather and
she was lollygagging around getting warm. She dug her cell
phone out of her coat pocket and punched in the speed dial
for her grandmother to see what she could do to help and a
message popped up immediately saying there was no service
available.
Of course there was no service. Damn storm, anyway!
At least Grand would come inside to a good fire to warm
her cold feet by and a pot of coffee all perked and ready.
Poor old girl would be miserable cold and she hadn't even
had one cup of coffee yet. It was going to be a long
morning for sure.
At seventy she had no business out in weather like this
without any help. If Sage knew exactly where she was in the
process, she would suit up and go help. But those pesky
hogs wouldn't tell her they'd already been fed or the
chickens, either and starting an argument with Grand
already pissed because Sage had wasted chicken scratch or
hog feed wasn't the smartest thing.
The living room soon warmed and the smell of coffee
filled the house. Maybe she should whip up some pancakes
for breakfast. Grand loved them and that would sweeten her
up to see Sage's point of view. She had just set the mixing
bowl on the cabinet when the back door swung open.
"It's about time you came in from the cold," she said as
she turned.
Her hand flew up to her pounding heart and she backed up
against the cabinet.
The abominable snowman pushed his way into the house
behind something that was either the ugliest dog on the
face of the earth or an alien from a faraway planet. The
huge thing set a galvanized bucket of milk on the table and
a basket of eggs right beside it before he stomped his feet
on the rug under the coatrack. The dog stopped in the
middle of the kitchen floor and shook from shoulder to
tail, sending even more snow flying everywhere in her
kitchen. When it melted there would be water everywhere and
her socks would be soaked.
"Who the hell are you? Get out of here and take that
miserable mutt with you," Sage said.
Creed removed his old felt cowboy hat and pulled off the
face mask. His nose was scarlet and his dark eyelashes
dusted with snowflakes. And of all the crazy things, there
was a spring of mistletoe stuck in the snow on his shoulder
as if it had grown there.
"I'm Creed Riley, ma'am, and I reckon if you want to
throw your dog out in the snow that's your business, but
I'm not that mean or cruel to animals. And I'm here to stay
since I'm the cowboy who bought this ranch. I guess you'd
be Sage Presley. I didn't think you'd make it home in this
blizzard. I heard the roads were closed off."
He was well over six feet tall because Sage had to look
up to him. His brown hair was a bit too long, and his mossy
green eyes were rimmed with black lashes topped with heavy
dark brows. His deep voice held a definite Texas drawl.
She backed up to the cabinet and braced herself against
it. "Where is Grand? Is she behind you?"
"No, left a day early since the storm was coming in. I
expect she's in Pennsylvania by now where it's fifty
degrees and sunshiny today. Crazy, ain't it? We get a
blizzard and the east coast is downright pleasant. At least
it was yesterday when she called to tell me that she'd made
it fine and to tell you so when you got home. Guess her
cell phone's battery was dead and her sister didn't have
one so she called on a pay phone from the airport."
Sage rolled her eyes. "You have got to be kiddin' me!"
"No, ma'am! That's the truth and that's really not my
dog. I'm bringing my two huntin' dogs out here soon as we
make this sale legal, but this old boy just appeared out of
nowhere this morning and rushed right in with me. I figured
he belonged on the property. He wasn't none too pretty when
he was covered in snow, but it was covering a multitude of
ugly, wasn't it?"
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