Mistletoe Bride

“Tell me about this ornament,” Sawyer said. He held up a decoration shaped like a candy cane and sporting angled red-and-white stripes.

“My mother and I made that from salt dough when I was about your age,” Dani told him.

“Where’s your mother now?”

The question, uttered in innocence, brought back painful memories of arguments, partings, regrets. “She died years ago.”

“Do you miss her?” Sawyer asked as he draped an icicle over a branch.

Ryan shook his head at his son, clearly trying to discourage further questions. With a wave of her hand, Dani told him it was okay. “Sometimes.”

“Can I put the star on the top of the tree?” the boy asked.

“Sure,” Dani murmured, amazed by the agility of the eight-year-old mind, which could leap from death to tinsel stars in the blink of an eye. “Want the ladder, or can your dad lift you up there?”

“Dad can do it,” Sawyer said. Ryan obliged, a move that demonstrated impressive upper body strength and made Dani long to be captured in those powerful arms again.

Quite a sensation, that. Her heart rate still hadn’t slowed to normal.

“Ready to turn on the lights?” she asked.

“Yes!” Sawyer exclaimed.

Ryan did the honors, plugging the cord into the socket even as Dani turned off the overhead light. At once the tree twinkled red, blue, green and yellow. Sawyer whooped his delight and made it a point to see if Rudolph’s nose glowed red. It did.

“Do you suppose it’s too late for old Santa to find us?” Dani asked.

Sawyer’s smile faded just a little. “Probably, but that’s okay. We’ll have lots of presents next year in Wyoming, won’t we, Dad?”

“Sure thing,” Ryan agreed, exchanging a glance with Dani.

Later? she asked without words, hoping Ryan would allow her to surprise the boy by slipping the present under the tree sometime during the day. Ryan nodded as if he instinctively understood her plan.

Pleased, Dani excused herself to the kitchen, leaving the men to clean up what mess had been made and stash the decoration box in the toolshed. A woman with a plan, she made short work of clearing the breakfast things. She then mixed up sugar cookie dough, which she set in the refrigerator to chill, all the while keeping out an ear and an eye for the pair.

The sounds of their voices out back reassured her. Busy with who knew what, they laughed, talked and argued good-naturedly for the better part of the morning, during which she baked three dozen cookies, all shaped like Santa Claus and decorated with red icing and sprinkles. She didn’t examine her motives for trying to give Ryan something he’d said he loved for Christmas. It was enough that she could do this little thing for him. While the cookies baked, she stewed a hen for dinner, just as her mother and grandmother had always done on this special day. Christmas without hen and dressing would not be Christmas at all.

Just as she tucked the last cookie into a decorated tin, Sawyer burst into the room. “Do you have any construction paper?” he asked.

“Look in the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk in my office,” Dani told him, wisely not asking why he needed them.

“And scissors?”

“Middle drawer of the desk.”

“And glue?”

“Top left.” Still, she didn’t ask a single question. Sawyer rewarded her for her reticence with a smile as bright as the lights on their tree, then charged from the room.

I could get used to having this kid around, Dani realized, a thought that made her sad. Ruefully, she acknowledged that inviting Ryan and his son into her home probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. By nature a people person, Dani had struggled hard to gain independence the last few years. Three days with these guys could well result in a crash landing back on square one and a resurrection of dreams long dead.

Was it worth it, just to have company for Christmas? Dani wondered. Nowhere near knowing the answer to that question, she peeked into the hall trying to locate Ryan and Sawyer. Since she heard their voices in the office, she felt safe to slip the tin of cookies and the remote-control car, originally purchased for Ricky, under the tree.

Then, suddenly inspired, she headed to her bedroom at the back of the house. In the walk-in closet, a ladder led to the attic. Armed with the flashlight she always kept by her bed, Dani climbed up into the spacious storage area. There, she perused an old bookshelf loaded down with board games, books and other toys saved from childhood—further evidence of her “sentimental softie” tendencies.

Armed with a like-new Monopoly game and a shoe box full of baseball cards—she’d been a tomboy from the get go—Dani descended the ladder again. Cleaning up the boxes took seconds, after which she wrapped them in colorful paper and added them to the stash under the tree.

The rest of the day passed in a pleasant blur of activity. They snacked on cheese and saltines for lunch, watched Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Story, then drank hot chocolate while they stood on the front porch and exclaimed over the silver-dollar-size snowflakes that began to drift to the ground around 4:00 p.m.

One eye ever on the Christmas tree and the packages that kept appearing so mysteriously under it, Sawyer fairly bounced off the walls in anticipation of the special dinner Dani had promised, not to mention the thought of opening his presents.

At last, dinnertime rolled around. When they finally laid down their forks and moved into the living room, all three of them were stuffed with hen and dressing. Dani, by now a little tired, settled into her favorite recliner and let Ryan run the show. He did so by allowing Sawyer to play Santa Claus and pass out the presents, the total of which had somehow multiplied again, this time without her help.

Her jaw dropped in surprise when Sawyer handed her a homemade Christmas card and something else, rather large, roundish and wrapped in newspaper.