The First Love Cookie Club (17 page)

Sarah snatched the cordless phone from its cradle. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t panic,” he said. “Jazzy is okay, but we do need your help.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet.

Travis exhaled audibly. “Listen, Jazzy had a little episode and when I took her back to the doctor he said she was going to need the injections twice a month now. In order to afford it, I have to sell your Gram’s house.” He paused. “I thought I’d give you first crack at buying it. I know how much you love this place and if you’d like, we could rent it from you and I’d keep it up.”

In her mind’s eyes she could see Travis standing there, cap in hand, his game warden badge at his chest, looking exactly like what he was—a loving father in need. And Sarah wanted the thing he was offering. She’d been bereft when her parents had told her they’d sold Gram’s cottage. Bereft and angry. Now, she had a chance to get it back.

But at what cost? If she bought the house, Travis would be her tenant. It would cause a shift in their relationship. All the power would be hers.

What relationship? She didn’t have a relationship with him. He was someone she’d known nine yearsago, that was all. A guy who treated her as a little sister because she was just a goofy kid with a dumb unrequited crush. Why not become his landlord? Better her than someone else owning Gram’s place.

This time, she wasn’t able to squelch her impulses. “Yes, of course I’ll buy it. I’ll call Jenny and make reservations at the Merry Cherub and fly back to Twilight tomorrow.”

On Friday, Travis took a personal day off so he could pick up Sarah at the airport. When he saw her step into the baggage area at the American Airlines terminal at DFW airport, his heart hammered hard. She wore a long-sleeved, knee-length, wine-colored dress, and he could see the outline of her curvy body beneath the soft material. He crossed the floor to the carousel and reached down to grab her bag just as she went for it.

Simultaneously, their hands closed over the handle. They looked into each other’s eyes and he felt the world settle in with a click, as if it had been spinning out of orbit and he hadn’t known until now.

Riding a wave of impulse, he took her into his arms and kissed her. She kissed him back like she’d been holding her breath the entire five days she’d been away. Had it been only five? It had felt like five hundred.

The next thing he said was completely spontaneous and he meant every word. “Welcome home, sweetheart.”

Coming back to Twilight was far different than she expected. Sarah had anticipated awkwardness, but there was none. It was as if she and Travis had been together for years and it surprised her how easy things were between them.

As soon as they arrived in town, they reclaimed her room at the Merry Cherub, booking her in through New Year’s Day. Then they went to the courthouse to see a lawyer to draw up papers for the sale of the house. Because Travis owned the property free and clear and Sarah was paying cash, the transaction could be completed by the following Friday, which happened to be Christmas Eve.

The only issue they had was agreeing on a price. Travis was asking far less than it was worth.

“It’s your grandmother’s cottage,” he said softly.

“It’s lakefront property,” she argued.

“My asking price is what Crystal and I paid for it.”

“That was nine years ago and my parents sold it so cheaply because they just wanted out from under the responsibility of it. The place is worth fifty thousand more than you’re asking.”

“You’re inflating the price because you want to help me out with Jazzy’s expenses.”

“So what if I am?”

“I’m not going to let you pay more than fair market value.”

“It’s fair market value,” the lawyer interjected. “Just at the high end.”

“See there,” Sarah said.

“It’s only twelve hundred square feet.”

“With its own pier and dock.”

“It needs some renovating.”

“You’ll be renting it from me, do whatever you have time to do.”

The lawyer shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone argue to pay more for a piece of property.”

Sarah reached over and took Travis’s hand and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Take my offer. For Jazzy’s sake.”

She could tell he had to swallow a big chunk of his pride, and she knew only love for his daughter could make him do this. “All right,” he finally agreed. “But I am paying you rent.”

“Of course.” She didn’t have to tell him she was planning on putting his rent money into a money market account in Jazzy’s name.

“This will be a Christmas present to us both,” Travis told her as they left the courthouse.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Miss Sarah,” Mayor Moe called out as he sauntered over to them. “You’re back.”

“Hello, Mayor.” Sarah nodded, and didn’t elaborate on why she’d returned, but she could tell Moe was dying of curiosity.

“How long are you staying?” he asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, it’s wonderful to have you back for however long you’re here.” He beamed, and then shifted his attention to Travis. “Just wanted to tell you Frank Jennings left the back pasture gate unlocked for you. He says you’ve got plenty of great ones to choose from this year.”

“Thanks, Moe.”

“Plenty of great what?” Sarah asked.

“Christmas trees. Travis is the official lumberjack for the town Christmas tree. He harvests a big native Texas cedar every year from a local ranch.”

“Oh, that’s right. You still have the tradition of lighting the Twilight Christmas tree the Sunday before Christmas.”

“You remembered.” Moe looked pleased. “Hey, why don’t you go along with Travis tomorrow? He could use a woman’s touch in picking out the perfect tree.” Moe winked at Sarah. “Make sure he gets a big one. At least fifteen feet.”

“Are you saying my trees haven’t been perfect?” Travis joked.

Moe slapped Travis on the back. “You kids have fun.”

And just like that, Sarah had a date for the following morning to go chop down a Christmas tree.

In North Central Texas, winter was a most fickle creature. Things could heat up to seventy degrees one morning, then by that afternoon, a norther could sweep in from the Panhandle and by dark temperatures could sink below freezing. North Texans knew to keep a heavy coat stashed in their cars just in case the balmy weather turned vicious. The prudent among them also kept blankets and emergency supplies in their trunk, just in case a razzle-dazzler of an ice storm struck. It happened at least once or twice every winter and it always blew in like a freeloading uncle showing up on the doorstep, unexpected and unwanted.

The Saturday morning that Travis and Sarah set off to find the perfect Christmas tree dawned warm as April. She could almost hear the buds on the peach trees ringing the grounds of the Merry Cherub, plotting an early debut. Texas peach trees had notoriously poor timing. A couple of warm days and they were itching to burst out in blooms, completely ignorant of the calendar and those sly Panhandle northers.

“It’s such a glorious day I decided to walk over,” Sarah said as she strolled up into Travis’s yard where he was putting covers on the outdoor faucets.

He pushed back his gray felt cowboy hat and eyed the sky. “Don’t trust it. Bring a heavier coat.”

“I’m already burning up in this jacket,” she said. “Besides, we won’t be gone that long. A couple of hours at most, right?”

He looked like he was going to disagree, but then he shrugged and started his pickup truck. “Have you forgotten about North Texas winter weather? It can change in the blink of an eye.”

“Even when it’s cold here, it’s still warmer than it is in New York.”

He arched an eyebrow, stepped to the back door, and held it open for her. “Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“So how does this choppy down tree thingy work?” she asked as they stepped into the kitchen.

” ‘Choppy down tree thingy'? What is that? Writer-speak?”

She laughed. “It’s just me showing my vast ignorance of proper holiday traditions.”

“You’ve never gone with your family to chop down your Christmas tree?”

Sarah let out laugh that ended up sounding sort of like a bark. She was trying to picture the doctors Mitchell and Helen Collier cutting down Christmas trees and failed miserably. The only cutting they liked to do was in an operating room. “Hardly. I can’t imagine my dad chopping down a tree. It could hurt his surgeon hands. I spent my holidays with Gram, remember? And she was a bit past the age of cutting down Christmas trees. It was a good year if my parents managed to show up on Christmas Day.”

“You’ve been sadly deprived.”

“Shocking, I know; get out the violins.”

“So,” he said, his eyes twinkling mischievously, “I’m going to be your first time.”

“Yeah,” she countered quickly, “that’s a lot of pressure. A girl has expectations. She wants her first Christmas tree cutting to be special.”

He grinned and then looked down at her feet. “You’re not wearing those boots.”

She wriggled her toes. “What’s wrong with them? They’re warm.”

“We’re going to be walking through pastures.”

“I don’t mind getting them a little muddy.”

“They’re stilettos, for crying out loud,” he said. “You’ll break your neck.”

“They’re all I have.”

“Hang on. I’ll be right back.” Travis darted into the garage, leaving her standing in the kitchen that had once belonged to her grandmother. She looked around, remembering. In the corner cabinet on the far side of the stove was where Gram used to keep her canisters. That’s where Sarah once stood on the step stool and sifted the flour Gram had measured out into a big yellow bowl for mixing up the kismet cookies. Now, this kitchen was going to be hers.

“Here we go.” Travis burst back into the room carrying a pair of women’s black rubber boots.

At the sight of them all the breath left her body. “Those … those are my Gram’s.”

“I found them in the gardening shed when we moved in here.”

Nostalgia winnowed through Sarah. She remembered watching Gram slip on the boots to wade out in the garden to pluck her harvest after a summer rain.

Travis held the boots out to her and their fingers brushed. A wildfire of sensation shot through her the way it always did when he touched her. Sarah’s stomach lurched. Oh, this wasn’t good. She had no business going off with him to some isolated ranch on a Christmas tree hunt. She should be back at the Merry Cherub writing the ending of her book.

“All set?” he asked when she’d slipped off her Italian leather boots and plowed her feet into Gram’s rubber work boots. They felt solid, reliable, and very comfy.

“All set. Do we need a saw or anything?”

“Everything is loaded up in the toolbox in the back of my truck,” he said.

Of course, he was Mr. Wilderness Man. She followed him out to his pickup with a long flatbed trailer attached for hauling the Christmas tree. He opened the passenger side door for her. She planted one foot on the running board for a boost up into the high seat and he held out a hand to steady her. He made her feel cherished and it was a dangerous feeling indeed.

He got in and took a pair of scruffy-looking work gloves from the glove compartment.

“Hey, look,” she said, “you actually keep gloves in your glove compartment.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t even own a car. I live in Manhattan, remember.”

He tossed the grubby gloves into her lap.

“Ugh, what did you do that for?”

“Put ‘em on.”

“I have gloves, thank you. She tugged a pair of delicate leather kid gloves from her coat pocket.

“Trust me, you’re gonna want these.”

She picked up one of the offending gloves by its pinkie finger. “They’ve got gunk on them.”

“That’s because they’re work gloves. Those girlie things you’ve got won’t protect your hands. We’re going to the back pasture of a working cattle ranch, there’s no one there to impress with your great fashion sense.”

“You think I have a great fashion sense?”

He started the truck. “Stop fishing for compliments.”

“You think I look good?”

Travis grinned. “Sin-sational.”

“Thank you.”

“Now put on the work gloves.”

“It kills the look.”

“The look died with the rubber boots.”

“You’ve got a point.” She wriggled her fingers into the gloves. They were way too big. “Look, Paul Bunyan hands.”

He laughed. “It’s fun to see you like this.”

“What, buffoonish?”

“Lighthearted. You’re usually so serious.”

“Hey, life
is
serious.”

“Which is why we so desperately need those lighthearted moments to get us through the crappy ones.”

“You’re a flaming optimist, aren’t you?”

“When you’ve got a sick kid, you have to be.”

“Jazzy’s been doing really well though, right? Even with this setback.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “But even an optimist is sometimes afraid to hope too hard. She’s been sick for so long and has been through so much, it’s difficult to believe this one drug has made such a difference. Thank you for agreeing to buy the house and letting us rent from you.”

“Thank you for offering the house to me before just selling it to someone else.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then murmured, “You’re one awesome woman, Sadie Cool.”

Travis turned off the main highway onto a one-lane dirt road and bumped over a cattle guard. All around them was grassland dried yellow in winter. They drove for fifteen minutes without seeing anyone or anything except a few head of Angus cattle, over rough Texas terrain—gullies and washes—until they came to a fenced-off area. Travis stopped his four-wheel drive pickup truck and got out to open the gate. Sarah sat in the cab watching him. He cut a ruggedly handsome figure in his gray cowboy hat the color of his eyes, blue flannel shirt, faded denims, and scuffed boots.

Once the gate was open, he came back toward the pickup and caught her watching him. He cocked his head and leveled her an insouciant grin, making her knees so weak she was happy she was sitting down. He could have been a bull rider with that wiry frame. The way his eyes caught hers sent a current of electricity running straight to her heart.

He got back into the pickup, bringing the smell of the outdoors with him, grass and cedar and earthy Texas soil. Her insides turned to jelly. Every time she was around this man, she lost her ability to think calmly, rationally. Desire rushed over her. Emotions ambushed her. She was feeling too much and she was giddily afraid.

He drove clear of the gate, got out, and reversed the process. They traveled for a time, seeing mes-quites, scrub oaks, cactus, and pecan trees, before they arrived at a small log cabin in a clearing. Beyond the clearing was a huge cedar thicket.

“What’s this place?”

“It’s a hunter’s cabin Frank Jennings sometimes rents out. I don’t think he’s running a deer lease this season, so no one else should be here.”

Travis killed the engine and got out of the pickup. Sarah followed suit. He went around to the bed of the truck and removed a long-handled axe, ropes, and bungee cords.

“What can I do to help?”

“Pick out the perfect tree.”

They walked through the forest of cedar, the air heavy with the Christmassy smell of them. Sarah eyed the trees, searching for one that was the right height that still had a good shape on all four sides.

“How long have you been the official Twilight Christmas tree lumberjack?” she asked, tromping over the briars and tall dead grass. She was grateful now for the rubber boots he’d made her wear. Gram’s boots. She wriggled her toes, thinking of Gram, feeling closer to her than she’d felt in years.

“About the time Crystal took off. I wanted to do everything I could to make Jazzy’s holidays special and she loves it that I cut down the town Christmas tree.”

“How come we didn’t bring her with us?”

“My Aunt Raylene wanted to take her to see
The Nutcracker
at the Bass Hall in Fort Worth. She’s wanted to do it for years, but I’ve always been afraid to let Jazzy get too far away from home. Now that she’s doing better, I couldn’t keep denying her. They’re going to make a day of it. Tea at the Worthington, shopping, all that girl stuff.”

“It must have been really tough for you,” she said, “with both your parents gone. Alone with a sick kid.”

Travis shrugged. “I manage.”

“You do much more than manage. Jazzy is an amazing child. Positive, upbeat.”

“Sometimes I wonder if she feels she always has to put on a happy face for me,” he said, “because I always try to put on a happy face for her.”

Sarah’s breath tangled up in her lungs. Even though it made no sense, even though they were nothing alike, she felt a bond with him that she couldn’t explain. They were so dissimilar. He was gregarious. She was shy. He liked the country. She’d made a home for herself in New York City. She kept people at a distance. He would embrace the whole world if he could. But they’d both suffered. He more than she. He’d lost his parents and could just as easily lose his child. Sarah couldn’t begin to imagine what that was like.

But she’d suffered too. She’d never really been able to connect with her parents. She’d lost her beloved Gram. And then there’d been the disaster that had scarred more than just her body. She’d allowed fear to hold her back and keep her from taking emotional risks, while Travis couldn’t afford to gamble on anything.

They’d both been changed by what they’d experienced, Travis growing from a reckless young maninto a responsible father, while Sarah had gone from wide-eyed romantic to total cynic. As kids, their lives had intertwined during the holidays when she’d come to visit her Gram, and now, years later, they’d intertwined again over his daughter.

Her gaze followed the line of a tall cedar standing majestic green against the background of troubled blue sky, suddenly knotted up with gray clouds. The wind had changed directions, now gusting in from the north. She shivered and raised the collar of her jacket. These were the conditions Travis worked in every day as a game warden, nature in the raw—beautiful, exciting, powerful. The morning sunlight dimmed, went bright, then dimmed again as it played tag with the broody clouds marshalling across the western horizon.

“Cumulonimbus squall lines,” Travis said.

“What?”

He nodded at the sky, tilted back his head, and inhaled deeply. “Storm’s closing in. Smell the wind?”

“Um … no … not really.”

“Ice,” he said. “Those clouds are carrying ice.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen it, smelled it. We need to cut down a tree and get back to town before it hits. I hope Ray-lene is watching the sky. I’d hate for her and Jazzy to get trapped in Fort Worth in this mess. Hurry and pick a tree.”

“There’s so many.”

“Tall and fluffy will do.”

Feeling the pressure, Sarah circled several trees. “Ooh, ooh, this one!” she exclaimed, and pointed to the perfect tree, which she hadn’t seen before.

Travis went to work on the tree, chopping itdown with just a few expert whacks. She helped him drag the prickly-branched tree to the flatbed trailer and load it up. Good thing he’d made her wear the work gloves.

By the time they got the tree securely strapped down and covered with a big blue tarp, the wind was gusting icy cold across the pasture and the sky had darkened considerably with the gathering squall line. He rubbed his palms together. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge, Miss Kitty.”

She grinned at his teasing and climbed into the passenger side of the pickup truck while Travis slid behind the wheel. He paused a moment to pull his cell phone from his pocket. “Just going to call Aunt Raylene and tell her to cut the trip short,” he explained.

Sarah listened while he contacted his aunt and from the one-sided conversation gathered that Raylene had already checked the weather and canceled the trip.

“Hello … ?” Travis pressed the phone closer to this face. “Can you hear me? Aunt Raylene?” He paused, pulled the cell phone down, and peered into it. “Dammit.”

“What is it?”

“The battery’s dead,” he said. “Here, let me plug it in to recharge.” He plugged it in. They waited, but the battery did not recharge. Travis frowned. “It’s gone. Do you have your cell with you?”