A Cowboy's Christmas Promise (22 page)

She cringed. “I really am sorry. I didn't think. I was assuming you have a boatload of work to do, and thought I'd take them off your hands for a couple of hours.”

“Well, see that it doesn't happen again.” He tried to make his voice sound playfully fierce, but faced with three sets of pleading eyes, he couldn't even hold it for three straight words. “Fine. They can go, but as punishment, you have to take me with you.”

Her eyes widened, and the girls paused for a moment, trying to figure out if he was kidding. When they realized he wasn't, they started squealing again.

Hayley's eyebrows furrowed. “Really? You want to come, too?”

“Yeah, I do.” He smiled, gathering his girls close in a jokingly protective manner. “You forget, Scampini. I've heard the tales about you on horseback.”

“I promise to stay on the trail, take a radio, and not go over walking speed.”

“Really.”

“Well, I had to, in order for Cole to agree to let me do this.” She sighed. “And also he was going to come with us.”

Daniel laughed out loud at the consternation on her face as she admitted this. “Your rep precedes you, babe.”

At that last word, her head snapped up, and his mouth felt funny.

Had he just called her…
babe
?

“I think I like the black headband better.” Jess leaned into the bathroom of their cabin and pointed to the counter, where a messy pile of Hayley's hair apparel threatened to fall into the sink in front of her.

“Really? You don't like the green?” Hayley tipped her head left and right in the mirror, trying to see her current one at different angles.

“The green's fine, but the black one says
I'm not trying here.
”

“Maybe I'll just go with a ponytail.” Hayley roped her hair up behind her head, but frowned at the result. “Nope. I'm going with the green. And stop smiling.”

“I'm just enjoying how much time it's taking you to get ready for a simple horseback ride.”

“Y'know, just because you have the whole calm-cool-collected thing down to a science doesn't mean you can make fun of those of us who don't.”

“You
usually
do.”

“Shh.” Hayley cocked her head toward the window. “Are they here already?”

“Well, if they are, I highly suggest pants.”

She looked down, realizing she was still clad only in her underwear and socks. “Pants!” She ran into the bedroom, flinging the door closed behind her.
Which jeans had she decided on?
“Stall them!”

Jess laughed. “They're not here yet.”

“Are you sure? I could have sworn I heard them roll in.”

“He's not supposed to be here until ten o'clock, right?”

Hayley looked at the clock, which read 10:08. “It's already after ten.”

Jess cleared her throat from the other side of the door. “It, um, actually isn't.”

“What do you mean?” Hayley felt her eyes narrow as she picked up her phone from the bureau and checked the time. Then she pulled the door open to find Jess cringing on the other side, a small smile on her lips. “You set my clock ahead a half hour?”

“Only because I know you, and because if it
were
ten o'clock right now and Daniel showed up at the door, you'd still have on three headbands, but no pants.”

Hayley paused, then looked down at her legs. “I wish that wasn't true.” She slid on her jeans, and checked the fit in the mirror while Jess came in and perched on the edge of her bed.

“You look perfect. Relax.”

“I'm perfectly relaxed.” Hayley adjusted her T-shirt.

“Mm hm.” Jess sipped her tea. “Tell your cheeks that.”

Hayley looked at her reflection in the mirror, frowning when she saw the bright spots of nervous color on both cheeks. “We're just going on a little trail ride. Nothing to get nervous
or
excited about.”

Jess laughed softly. “Sorry, sweetie. It's fun to see you this way, all nerved up but not wanting to admit it.”

Hayley looked at her for a long moment, then sat down on the bed beside her. “I'm so sunk. I was
not
going to fall for this guy.”

“I remember. So I'm guessing Kyla was right about the sweetness part?”

“Yeah.” Hayley nodded and blew out a breath. “It goes really well with the hotness part.”

“Dangerous?”

“Absolutely lethal.” She flopped back on the bed. “Oh, Jess. This was not the plan. What am I
doing
?”

“You want my expert opinion?”

“Probably not.”

“I think for the first time in your life, you might actually be falling in love.”

“Not that you'll be blunt.”

Jess shrugged. “It's pretty simple, really. And ridiculously obvious. The sparks you two were shooting on Christmas Day were”—she held her hand over her heart—“wow.”

“Sparks are not the same as love.”

“But they go together pretty well, don't they? When you got back here from Daniel's yesterday morning, your cheeks were a dead giveaway.”

Hayley sighed, throwing her hand across her eyes, picturing the tiny forehead scar she'd only just noticed. “That man—that man is just way too much perfection in one human.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don't know. I really don't. I'm trying to embrace the Jess method and just go with the flow, but it's a little terrifying.” Hayley felt her nose wrinkle. “Here I am, about to go out on a trail ride with a ridiculously hot guy—and his kids. This is not my typical M.O.—in so many ways.”

She looked out the window at the stable. “This day, this trail ride…it feels like something a family would do together. A mom, a dad, and their kids. It does
not
feel like something Hayley Scampini would do, because she'd have already extracted herself the moment she found out there were kids in the equation. And yet? Here I am, four months later. We've talked on the phone, we've Skyped, we've emailed. For four
months.
I think this no longer qualifies as a fling.”

“Well, that's terrifying.”

“I'm not kidding, Jess. I'm really afraid I'm going to like it out there today. I'm going to like feeling like I'm part of a normal family unit. Maybe I'll even love it—and do you have any idea how scary that is?”

“I actually think it's pretty beautiful.”

“But if I go all-in here, what if it doesn't work? I've already lost my sisters, Jess. I don't think I could go through something like that again. Back then, I didn't have any control over the situation, but now I do.”

Just then Daniel's truck pulled to a stop next to the cabin, and Hayley heard the girls leap out of the back seat and run for the porch. Gracie apparently got there first. “It's my turn to knock!”

“No! You did it last time! It's my turn!” Hayley heard Bryn's voice.

And then Daniel's. “Actually, girls, it's my turn this time.”

Jess turned to Hayley and patted her knee, laughing quietly. “It might be just my read on the situation, but I think you're well past the point of choosing not to get involved. Just take it day by day. Don't think beyond tomorrow until you have to.” She put up a finger. “And before you interrupt me, you do
not
have to think beyond tomorrow. Not while we're here. Just—”

“Be?”

“Exactly. Just be, Hayls. Just dive in, let go, and fall madly, deeply, head-over-heels with this man. This boat is already sailing, and all you can do is hang on and enjoy it.”

Hayley sighed heavily as she sat up and looked at Jess, desperately wanting everything to be as simple as Jess made it sound. Her stomach commenced somersaults, though, as she realized the danger in doing just that, and she felt her smile falter into a frown.

“That all sounds good. But—what if I drown?”

“I can't believe we're having s'mores for lunch!” Gracie grinned as she held her marshmallow stick out to Daniel. He loved that all he could see in her face was happiness. After assuring Cole that he could handle three females on his own, they'd set out from the stable, riding at a leisurely pace on a trail that skated one of the ridgelines that surrounded Whisper Creek.

Hayley and Twinkle had taken the lead, with the girls close behind and Daniel in the rear. As if he'd ordered up a perfect day to help lure Hayley out to Montana, the sky was the bluest of blues, the snow sparkled and crunched beneath the horses' hooves, and the sun was warm enough that Gracie and Bryn never once complained that they were cold.

Hayley pushed Bryn's marshmallow onto a stick and turned her toward the fire Daniel had built at the edge of a meadow about a mile away from the main lodge. “In my defense, I also packed fruit.”

Daniel shook his head and smiled as he watched his girls in their new rubber boots, holding sticks over a fire in the middle of a January day. Gracie's eyes went wide as she picked up her flaming marshmallow. “I think mine's done!”

Hayley laughed. “I would say so.” She helped her put a s'more together, then sat back, relaxed. “You know, I thought Montana was just about the most beautiful place on Earth in the summertime, but I never expected winter to be this gorgeous. I can't get over how…
white
the snow is.”

Daniel cocked his head. “It's not white in Boston?”

“Well, yes, but only for about ten minutes, and then something either steps on it, rolls dirt over it, or pees on it.”

He laughed. “You make it sound so quaint.”

“I just can't believe how far you can see out here, and how few
humans
you can see out here.”

“And those are both good things?”

She looked at him and winked. “Those are both
excellent
things.” She helped Bryn put crackers and chocolate around her marshmallow. “And side benefit, in winter, the bears are sleeping.”

“Told ya you'd like it out here at Christmastime.”

Daniel watched as Hayley helped the girls put marshmallows on their sticks and got more crackers ready. The horses snuffled in the snow nearby, looking for long-hidden blades of grass, the sun was sending long rays of slanting warmth through the trees, and he was here with his two girls and a woman who was maybe, just maybe, falling in love with Montana.

Whether she might ever fall in love with
him,
though, was a long long shot question.

Bryn popped up from Hayley's lap. “Can we go make snow angels?”

“Good idea!” Hayley looked at Daniel as she got up. “Coming?”

“I'll watch, thanks.”

Hayley eyed him, challenge in her expression. “I'm hardly dressed for making snow angels, either. Come on, doc.”

Gracie laughed. “You don't have to be dressed for it, silly. Just lie down and flap your arms and legs!”

Daniel shook his head. “I'm good. I'll watch the horses.”

As the girls each took one of Hayley's hands, she looked back at him. “You may regret that decision. Just sayin'.”

The girls dragged her out into the meadow, and as the three of them lay down in the snow, Daniel smiled and shook his head. He watched them make a circle of lopsided angels, and listening to the three of them giggle, he realized there were things Hayley did, seemingly without thinking, that endeared her to Gracie and Bryn like no one else—since Katie.

He watched her, covered in snow and probably wishing she'd packed something waterproof, as she goofed around with the girls, and it struck him that her actions were completely, utterly genuine. Sure, they'd all be wet and cold and high on sugar an hour from now, but this would be a day his daughters would remember for a long time.

As he bent to start packing up their supplies, he suddenly realized the laughing had stopped, and he looked up to see whether something was wrong. As he did, a giant snowball smacked him in the forehead.

Through the ice crystals dripping down his eyelashes, he could see Hayley's wide eyes, her mittens covering her mouth.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, but couldn't stop smiling. “I have miserable aim!”

“That looked like pretty good aim to me, Scampini.” He took a playfully menacing step toward her.

“Seriously! I was going for your feet!” She backed up.

“Right.” He took two more steps forward, matched evenly by her backward progress. He held her eyes, but then hers suddenly shifted and she blurted out a laugh as two snowballs hit him from behind.

“Gotcha, Daddy!” Bryn called, then lobbed another snowball his way, catching him on the chest as he turned around. “We're a team! Girls against boys!”

Gracie zinged one toward his shoulder and it landed squarely on target. “Score!”

Daniel reached down to scoop up some snow, then turned back toward where Hayley had been backing up, only to find her just three feet away now, a huge smile on her face. How had she stepped that close without him hearing?

“Relax, doc.” She grinned innocently. “I'm completely unarmed.”

“Daddy, look!” Bryn called. Daniel glanced toward her for a millisecond, but it was enough, and before he could even take a breath, Hayley took a giant step closer and popped her hand under his own snowball, making it fly directly into his face.

Gracie and Bryn dissolved in giggles as Hayley laughed and stepped backward quickly, but then she tripped and fell into the snow. “Help, girls! I'm down! Get him!”

Daniel reached down for more snow, sending snowballs at both girls' legs as they approached Hayley. They squealed and ran the other way, ducking behind a bush to make more snowballs. He stepped closer to Hayley and put out a hand to help her up.

“Really?” Her eyes were suspicious. “You're going to help me after I just whitewashed you?”

“You call that a whitewash?”

“Totally.”

“Maybe in Boston. In Montana,
this
is a whitewash.” He bent and scooped snow fast and furiously toward her face, making her screech with laughter as she batted it away.

“You are going to regret this!” She shouted through the hail of snow, throwing as much back as she could.

“Really? What are you going to do?” He stopped, hands full of snow, daring her to answer.

“I”—she coughed—“I don't know yet. But you're going to be sorry.”

And before he could register her eyes shifting from left to right, his face was once again full of snow, and Gracie and Bryn leaped past him to help Hayley up, even though they were giggling so hard they could barely stay on their own feet.

“Score!” the three of them shouted as they ran into the meadow together, leaving him cold, wet, and laughing harder than he had in a long, long time.

After another hour of running around the field lobbing snowballs at each other, all four of them were thoroughly tired and shivery. The sun had started its quick descent when Daniel finally, reluctantly looked at his watch. Dammit. Evelyn was at the house right now making dinner for them, and they needed to get back to the stable and get the horses put away if they were going to make it in time.

“You need to get back?” Hayley came up beside him as he started putting their stuff into the saddlebags. The girls were making more snow angels out in the meadow, and the trees were casting long shadows, giving the sunlight a golden glow.