Her Montana Christmas

“God must take real pleasure in His creation, just the variety and bounty of it,” Ethan said. “No place I’ve ever been makes me want to worship more than Montana, though.”

“That’s a lovely way of putting it.”

“It’s a lovely feeling.” He looked her straight in the eye when he said that.

All the world seemed to pause in that moment. She felt his words to her bones. She let them settle into her. She thought of all the sermons she’d every heard, all the words of wisdom she’d ever read, but none of them had ever moved her or touched her as deeply as Ethan’s simple declaration.

He loved it here. He had been called here to this place, to serve his Lord and these people. She envied him that calling, that belonging. She admired him for it.

He turned his bare hands palms up and asked, “Will you pray with me before we eat?”

She set aside her mug, tugged off her gloves and placed her hands in his, her head bowed and her heart aquiver.

* * *

They enjoyed a sumptuous meal.

“As sumptuous as Great Gulch Grub can make it,” Ethan told Robin with a chuckle.

“It was good of you to think of lunch.”

“Men always think of their stomachs,” he said with a wink. He had to stop that. For some reason he felt compelled to flirt with her. It was immature and foolish and had to stop.

She looked down shyly, scraping a fingertip across the checked vinyl of the tablecloth. “I’m surprised they put in a real tablecloth and napkins.”

“Oh, no, that was me,” he said without thinking, and her blue eyes zipped up in surprise. “Uh, Jack mentioned that the tabletop was rough planking, and I didn’t want to take a chance on paper napkins blowing away,” he finished lamely, letting the words dwindle into silence, only to have her beam at him.

“That was very sweet of you.”

“It’s just a tablecloth and napkins,” he said, ridiculously pleased.

They packed up and set off to Whistler, a notch in the rock where the wind was said to make high-pitched noises from time to time, in search of holly. Sure enough, just as Jack had said, they found several basketball-size clumps growing out of crevices in the sheer rock face. All were too far up to easily reach, however. Ethan thought a moment and came up with a plan.

“You could sit on my shoulder,” he proposed, “and use those long-handled pruning shears to cut the holly at the base.”

She touched her eyebrow. “And if I drop the shears on your head?”

“I’ll try not to drop you, too.”

She rolled her eyes, even as she reached for the shears with one hand. Ethan went down on one knee, and she climbed up, settling her weight onto his right shoulder.

“Ready?” he asked, wrapping both arms around her knees.

“I guess.”

“Up we go, then.” He stood. She weighed...just what she should. If he hadn’t needed to hold his head at a somewhat awkward angle, he could have carried her for some distance like this. As it was, he only had to walk a few steps to the rock face. She reached above her and, with some effort, clipped off the first clump, which fell right down into his face.

“Sorry!”

He spit specks of dirt out of his mouth, eyes blinking rapidly. “My fault. From now on, I’ll look down.”

“Can you move sideways a couple feet?”

Stepping over the big clump of holly, he moved to his left. This time, she used the shears to flick the clump behind them.

“Good job.”

“Think I have a future as a holly harvester?” she joked, stretching to get another big ball.

He assisted by lifting her slightly, heaving her up by the knees. “I think you have a future as anything God ordains.”

“Walked into that one, didn’t I?” she quipped, managing the third clump. “One more.”

She wound up basically standing in his hands, against the rock wall, to reach the final ball of holly. After it fell, she dropped the shears well away from him. “You can let me down now.”

“If you insist,” he told her playfully, backing up a step so she could bend her knees and resume her place on his shoulder.

His arms were shaking a bit by the time she was safely seated again, but he was feeling quite powerful and manly—and glad that he’d been working out regularly with the weights in his basement. Showing off a bit, he reached up to grasp her about the waist and twirl her to face him, almost dropping her in the process. Instantly, he clamped his arms around her and felt her body slam into his, knocking the breath from both of them. When his vision cleared, they were standing wrapped in each other’s arms, her face turned up to his. It took a supreme act of will, bolstered by a silent prayer, to drop his arms and step back.