Clint and Angela’s belated arrival at White Pines was greeted with amazement. Most of the family had already settled in and started helping Consuela and Maritza with the final preparations for tonight’s family celebration and tomorrow’s traditional open house but they all came out to help with the bundles that Clint had managed to amass in Los Pinos, exclaiming over the sheer number of them.
“I told you you were going overboard,” Angela told him.
“What’d you do, son? Buy out the stores?” Grandpa Harlan asked with a grin.
He shot a look Angela’s way, then said, “We tried, sir. Angela wore out too quickly.”
“Very funny,” she retorted. “Everything’s wrapped. The presents can go straight under the tree.”
“Except for the cat toys,” Clint reminded her dryly.
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” her mother protested. “Tell me you did not make Clint buy gifts for all of your grandfather’s cats.”
“What can I say? He was feeling generous.”
“And you took advantage,” her mother chided, regarding Clint with sympathy. “Shame on you, Angela.”
“Just doing my bit to keep Dani’s business afloat,” Angela insisted nobly. “She’d give away the store unless she’s changed drastically.”
Silence fell at what should have been no more than an innocuous comment. To Angela’s confusion her mother rushed to change the subject.
Angela put her hand on her mother’s arm to prevent her from leaving. She let the others lead Clint inside. As soon as they were out of earshot, she asked, “Mom, what’s going on with Dani? I sensed something the other day, but Sharon Lynn hushed me up. Now everybody here gets all quiet when I so much as mention the possibility that she’s changed.”
“Sweetie, she’s had a rough year, that’s all,” her mother said, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “I’m sure she’ll tell you about it one of these days.”
“Why don’t you tell me and save her the trouble?” Angela suggested. “It might keep me from putting my foot in my mouth over and over again.”
“It’s her story to tell or keep to herself.”
“Someone hurt her,” Angela guessed. “Badly.”
Her mother sighed. “Yes. Very badly. She lost three people she loved very much. Now let it go. Christmas is not the time for Dani to be thinking about the past. The best gifts you could give her are your love and support.”
“And no questions,” Angela surmised.
“Exactly.”
She relented and kept the burgeoning questions to herself. She followed her mother inside. The rest of the family was gathered in the huge living room discussing the best place for the mound of gifts Clint had bought.
“We can’t put them under the tree,” Jenny protested. “It’s not even decorated yet. We’ll be stepping on them.” Her dark eyes glinted with mischief. “I say we open them now.”
“Nice try, you little sneak,” Angela teased. “You always did want to open something on Christmas Eve. Next thing we knew you had half your presents open. It’s time you learned to wait until morning like the rest of us. You’re supposed to be grown-up, the oldest of all of us. It’s about time you set an example.”
“What’s the fun of being grown-up at Christmas?” Jenny complained, poking at a particularly lumpy package with evident curiosity.
“You get to discover the joy of anticipation,” Angela told her, then glanced at Clint. His steady gaze stirred its own brand of anticipation deep inside her. Aside from a couple of stolen kisses and a few fleeting, if very promising caresses, he’d barely touched her in too many months now. She knew all about the slow build of anticipation. Judging from the hunger she saw burning in his eyes, so did he.
She wondered idly if they could sneak in a kiss or two if she showed him the way to his room now. Her grandfather promptly put an end to that idea by suggesting a tour of the ranch before dark. Angela knew when it came to a competition between her and a herd of cows, it was a real toss-up which one would win. Clint reacted with predictable enthusiasm. Naturally Cody and Luke had to go along. Jordan stayed behind to make business calls.
“On Christmas Eve?” her grandfather grumbled. “What’s wrong with you, boy? Don’t you ever take a vacation?”
“When I do, it won’t be to sightsee on a ranch I grew up on,” Jordan retorted, grinning to soften the remark. “I’ll whisk my beautiful wife off to a deserted beach in the Caribbean. You go chase after your cows. While I’m sitting in here by the fire, I promise I’ll think of all of you out there freezing your butts off for no good reason.”
After they’d gone and the women had retreated to the kitchen once again, Angela was left with her uncle. She wondered if Jordan would be any more forthcoming about Dani’s troubles than her mother had been. Tales of his bemusement at becoming the adoptive father of a precocious five-year-old when he’d married Kelly were part of family legend. It was evident to anyone, though, that Jordan had taken to fatherhood and to Dani with the same kind of dedication that had built his oil empire.
“Uncle Jordan, can I ask you something before you make those calls?” Angela asked.
He glanced up distractedly from the pocket-sized computer that held the numbers of his important business contacts. “Sure, angel. What’s up?”
“I’m worried about Dani. She hasn’t seemed herself since I got back.”
Normally the most tranquil of her relatives, Jordan suddenly looked mad enough to wring somebody’s neck with his bare hands. “Leave it be,” he said curtly.
“But—”
“Dammit, I said leave it alone,” he thundered. “She’s been through enough without dragging it all up again, OK? The holidays are going to be especially bad as it is, thanks to that fool idiot she fell for.”
His fury stunned her into momentary silence. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, beginning to get the picture, though far from all of it. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
His expression softened. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I know you’re just concerned about her. Please, please, just don’t ask her about it. Can you promise me that?”
“Of course,” she said at once.
To herself, though, she vowed to get at the bottom of Dani’s troubles. The two of them had always been especially close. Four when Angela was born, Dani had prided herself on helping to care for her messy baby cousin. As they had grown up, Dani had always been as eager as she to get into mischief.
“You two are just natural-born trouble,” her grandfather had said on more than one occasion. He’d always said it with more pride than venom, though. Grandpa Harlan admired spunk, even when it made mincemeat of the discipline their parents favored. They knew to save their most daring enterprises for visits to White Pines.
“What happened, Dani?” she murmured as she climbed the stairs to the room she’d always used on visits to White Pines. “What or who hurt you so?” Every instinct told her this went way beyond a simple broken romance.
For the first time since his arrival in Texas in search of Angela, Clint felt his old confidence soaring. Ranching was something he knew and loved every bit as much as the men who were riding over White Pines land with him. Like them, he appreciated the beauty of the land. Like them, he understood the complexities and hardships of the business and the excitement of mastering the daily challenges.
“You have an impressive operation here,” he told Harlan and Cody.
“It wasn’t always that way,” Harlan told him. “My ancestors hadn’t run the ranch the way they should have. It took a lot of time and hard work and pure cussedness to make it what it is today.”
“You should have seen us trying to drag Daddy into the computer age,” Cody said. “He still thinks those new-fangled machines will be the downfall of us all.” He grinned at his father. “Am I quoting you accurately?”
“Pretty much,” Harlan said. “I still say you’re in a hell of a fix when the electricity goes out and everything you need to know about your operation is lost in some danged machine.”
“That’s why we have back-up disks and battery-powered laptops,” Cody responded.
“More money wasted that could have been spent on a new bull for the herd,” Harlan insisted.
“See what I mean?” Cody said. “He’d be happy if we still did the books in an old ledger.”
“Come up to my place,” Clint suggested. “I’m lucky if my receipts ever get entered into a ledger. By the time I get back to the ranch house at the end of the day about all I can cope with is falling into bed. You’d be in heaven.”
“He would,” Luke agreed. “What about it, Daddy? Want to go and rough it at Clint’s? You can reminisce about the good old days.”
Harlan scowled at his sons. “Now the two of you are trying to run me off my own place. That’s the trouble with sons, Clint. Now daughters,” he said with a sigh, “they’re something else again. They give a man comfort in his old age.”
Luke and Cody exchanged a look.
“He must have forgotten about Jenny stealing his pickup and crashing it into a tree,” Cody said.
“And the time she ransacked the tool shed and splashed paint all over it,” Luke added. “Then there was Lizzy’s nosedive from the barn rafters. Broke her arm in two places.”
“Selective memory,” Cody agreed. “I hear it happens a lot in old folks.”
“You think your sisters were trouble, maybe we should start dredging up the grief you all caused me,” Harlan shot right back. “Let Clint weigh that and see whether he’d rather Angela delivered a girl or a boy.”
Luke’s expression softened at once. “Girls are a blessing,” he admitted. “Angela could always light up a room. I’d come home at the end of an exhausting day and one smile on that little girl’s face would cheer me right up.”
“Indeed,” Cody chimed in. “Sharon Lynn has been a joy compared to that brother of hers. Harlan Patrick must take after Daddy. He surely doesn’t take after me.”
“Who are you trying to kid?” Harlan demanded. “That boy is all your own worst sins come home to haunt you.”
Clint chuckled at the nonstop and obviously affectionate banter. “Do you all ever let up on each other?”
“Never,” Luke said.
“Why should we?” Cody asked. “Daddy acts as if we’ve made his life a torment, but there’s another side to that story we could share with you.”
“Never mind,” Harlan said hurriedly. “We’d better be getting back and cleaned up before the women get dinner on the table. We’ll never hear the end of it if we’re late for Christmas Eve supper.”
“Who cooked the turkey?” Cody asked worriedly. “Maritza or Janet?”
“I’m going to tell Janet you asked that,” Harlan swore. “You’ll be lucky if you get out of here in one piece.”
“When was the last time you ate anything she cooked?” Cody retorted.
His father grinned. “Not since I married her, I guarantee you that. When we were courting, I had to be polite. Fortunately, most of the time she had the good sense to try to sneak food in from some restaurant and pretend she’d fixed it.”
“Now who’s telling tales?” Luke asked. “Isn’t a husband duty bound to gloss over all his wife’s flaws in public?”
“This isn’t public, Luke,” Harlan declared. “Clint’s practically part of the family.”
“Well, I still say we should be setting an example for him,” Luke protested. “The first time he gives away any of my daughter’s little idiosyncrasies, I can just about guarantee there will be fireworks.”
“Your daughter has idiosyncrasies?” Cody asked, feigning astonishment. “Since the day she was born, you’ve had us believing she was perfect.”
“She is,” Luke said quickly, then grinned. “For the most part.” The grin quickly shifted to a scowl when he faced Clint. “That’s something I can get away with saying, son. You can’t. Just a word of caution.”
“Believe me, that’s advice I won’t have any problem taking. I’ve seen your daughter’s temper at close range.” He gestured to a tiny slash over his lip. “Have the scars to prove it, too.”
“She hit you?” Harlan asked incredulously.
“With a skillet,” Clint claimed, though the truth was even more humiliating. He’d actually walked straight into the danged thing while she was waving it around as a threat. “It pretty well ended the last discussion we had before she tore off and disappeared on me.”
“You must have riled her pretty good.”
Clint realized he’d just waltzed himself straight into a dangerous trap. Maybe they suspected the fight had been over Angela’s pregnancy, maybe they didn’t. It wasn’t a topic he particularly wanted to discuss with them.
“The same way you all rile your wives, I suspect...by disagreeing with them,” he said.
The response drew the expected laughter and the potentially tense moment dissipated. They were still laughing when they walked inside.
Angela looked up from the pie crust she was filling with pumpkin and promptly caught Clint’s eye. She looked worried. He walked over and brushed a kiss across her lips, plainly startling her.
“There’s nothing to worry about, angel. We were just doing a little male bonding.”
“That’s what worries me,” she responded.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting down to do that?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject. He reached for a chair. “Sit.”
“It’s easier if I stand.”
They scowled at each other in a stubborn test of wills. Clint finally shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m going up to shower and change.”
“Supper’s in an hour,” she called after him.
“Then you’d better get upstairs, too. I’ve never known you to take less than that to get ready.”
“Uh-oh,” Luke and Cody muttered in unison.
“I’m out of here,” Harlan said, patting Clint on the back as he passed. “Good luck, son. If you figure a way out of this one, let me know.”
Their wives vanished right along with them, leaving Clint with only Consuela and Maritza to run interference. The two housekeepers took one look at Angela’s stormy expression and muttered something in Spanish that sounded dire. Then they, too, retreated.
“Take it back,” Angela said, advancing on him with a spoon covered with pumpkin.
“You wouldn’t want me to lie now, would you?” he taunted, edging around the table and trying to keep it between them. He figured he was safe enough. She wasn’t half as quick as she’d been the time she’d caught him off guard with that skillet.
“Who spends twenty minutes just polishing his boots?” she demanded. “And another twenty in the shower?”
“Do the math, angel. That still puts me ahead of you.”
“We haven’t even gotten to the amount of time you spend shaving and admiring yourself in the bathroom mirror.”
“Are you suggesting I should grow a beard to save time dressing?”
“No. What I am suggesting, Mr. Brady, is that you are a bald-faced liar.”
“Takes one to know one.”
She paused at that. The spoon, which she’d been waving threateningly, drooped to her side. From across the room he couldn’t be sure, but he thought there might be tears in her eyes.
“Angel?”
“What?” she asked with a telltale sniff.
“Don’t cry.”
“I am not crying, even if that was another particularly low blow.”
He circled the table to reach her, ready to take her in his arms and kiss away the tears. She whapped him on the butt with that damnable spoon. When she would have done it again, he wrenched it away from her and pulled her into an embrace that stilled her frantic movements.
Gazing down into her upturned face, he saw that he had been right about the tears, but there were also glints of laughter sparkling in her eyes now as well.
“Got you, didn’t I?” she said with obvious pride.
“Only because you’re sneaky. Truce?”
She sighed and slid her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. “Truce,” she murmured.
Clint felt a rare and unexpected surge of contentment steal over him as he held her.
“Think we can keep the truce through New Year’s?”
“I doubt it,” she said honestly.
He grinned. “Me, too.”
She sighed again. “Clint?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that means we should give up on any idea of a future together?”
“Just because we can’t go ten minutes without arguing?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see why, as long as we have sense enough to stop and listen to each other occasionally. Some relationships are just plain volatile. It keeps the adrenaline pumping.”
“Are you saying we’re excitement junkies?”
“I suppose.” He regarded her curiously. “Do your parents argue?”
“All the time,” she admitted.
“Have you ever doubted their love for each other?”
“Never.”
“See there,” he said. “Maybe they’ll tell us how they make it work.”
“Sex,” Angela said without hesitation, then blushed. “I mean I don’t know this for a fact or anything. It’s not something we discussed. Haven’t you noticed, though, that they’re always touching, always stealing a kiss when they think no one’s looking?”
“Like us,” Clint pointed out.
“At least the way we used to be,” she said thoughtfully.
“You can’t steal a kiss from someone who’s run off to another state, angel.”
She met his gaze evenly. “Point taken. No more running,” she promised. “I swear to you that I will stay right here and try to work things out.”
“You’re making a commitment?” he asked, surprised by the renewal of the vow she’d made before coming to White Pines.
“A commitment to try,” she amended. “It’s not going to be easy, you know. There’s a mountain of distrust between us.”
“Our baby deserves nothing less than our best efforts,” he responded. “He deserves to know that we’ve done everything possible to give him a real family.”
“Everything,” she echoed.
Clint pressed a kiss against her forehead. Anything more and neither one of them would have been ready for dinner on time. Of course, time wasn’t the only thing frustrating them at the moment. This baby of theirs was a built-in warning to cool down.
As they went upstairs hand in hand, he couldn’t help wondering, though, whether Angela would remember her promise tomorrow when she saw one of the gifts he had bought for her. Maybe he ought to give it to her now, when she was in such an amenable mood. In his experience it was best to capitalize on moments like these to pin her down about anything. A day from now, even an hour from now, the winds might be blowing another way entirely.