Christmastime Cowboy

“Thank you,” Sabrina said. “I hope that you’ll come down for the grand opening. There’s going to be wine, cheese and all manner of festivities.”

“Definitely,” the banker said, and Liam really couldn’t tell if she was being genuine, or if there was just no other polite response to give.

Considering they had just signed a considerable amount of their lives over to this establishment, she did have to be polite.

Well, it was a considerable amount of Grassroots’ life, and Lindy’s, he imagined. It wasn’t so much to him. Even if Finn was being adamant that it all be paid for with Donnelly ranch money, and not Liam’s.

As they walked out of the bank, Sabrina still had a large, fake-looking smile plastered on her face. But as soon as the glass door closed behind them, she chucked the Styrofoam cup of coffee in the trash beside the building. “That was disgusting coffee.”

He grimaced and sent his cup the same direction. “Agreed.”

“Well, I need more coffee. Better coffee. So I’m going to head down to The Grind and grab some, and then I’m going to go to the shop.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She looked...not shocked, but a little bit like she wanted to argue. “I don’t really have any plans. I just want to make a quick sketch of the floor plan so that I can get a rough idea of what we need to get, and you know, layouts and things.”

“Right. Do you have a tape measure, anything on you?”

“I can buy one,” she said, looking mulish.

“I have a toolbox in the back of my truck. Why don’t you ride down with me?”

He knew that she was annoyed. And he also knew that she would rather ride with him than protest. Because he could tell that she was caught between wanting to spend less time with him and wanting to act like it didn’t matter.

For his part, he wasn’t really sure why he cared either way.

Really? You don’t know why you care?

As if his stomach didn’t clench tight when he smelled vanilla, which was a scent that he had always associated with her. Like he hadn’t quit a job because he’d worked closely with a woman who shared her name, and he couldn’t hear it without thinking of her and that devastated expression on her face when he’d left her that night.

As if he didn’t have a tattoo on his body that was dedicated to her.

He could admit that now. He had been in pretty deep denial even when he had gotten the ink. But, as it had taken shape, as he had laid out what he had wanted, it was pretty hard for him to deny that the barefoot blond figure that rested beneath the tree that stretched over his shoulder and around to his back wasn’t inspired by her. That she wasn’t the picture in his mind when he’d thought of it in the first place.

“Great. Let’s go. I suppose I should be grateful for you and your tape measure.”

She stepped gingerly toward his truck and got into the passenger seat without waiting for him. He hadn’t bothered to lock it. There wasn’t really much point in Copper Ridge.

He jerked the driver side door open and got in, starting up the engine. “Yeah, you probably should be a lot more grateful for me than you are.”

They pulled out of the lot and headed back into town. There was one lone spot that he was able to parallel park in just in front of The Grind.

“Two hour parking,” he commented as he got out and rounded her side. “We could walk from here.” He finished that sentence when she hopped out onto the sidewalk.

“Sure,” she said. “If you want to lug your tools all the way down there.”

“I think I can handle it.”

He held the door open for her, but this time, did not put his hand anywhere on her body. She said nothing, but walked into the café in front of him. They got in line together, and he could tell that she was annoyed that they were together in public, and not just running into each other by happenstance.

“What’s your poison?” he asked.

“Just a coffee.”

“That’s not at all exciting.”

“You don’t find a strong jolt of bitter caffeine exciting? I do.”

He laughed. “I suppose I do. A little more exciting with a double shot of espresso poured over the top.”

When they got up to the front he ordered just that, and then ordered her regular coffee. She glared at him as he got his wallet out and paid. “What?”

“I didn’t say you could buy me a coffee.”

“I don’t recall asking you.”

The girl behind the counter handed them their order with a slightly glum expression on her face. Sabrina snatched her coffee out of his hand and headed over to the cream and sugar station.

“I hope you’re happy,” she commented, pouring a little bit of cream and a packet of sugar into her cup and stirring. “You’ve broken that little girl’s heart.”

“That little girl?” he asked, gesturing back toward the counter.

“Yes.”

“First of all, she’s like five years younger than you. Second of all, why? Because she thinks I’m with you?”

“You bought my coffee.”

“Well. I was unaware that was small-town symbolism for a marriage proposal. I thought that you still had to give a couple of oxen to get a woman. I didn’t know you could get her with one cup of coffee.”

She laughed reluctantly, and the two of them walked out of The Grind and onto the rain-soaked sidewalk.

Sabrina looked both ways, and didn’t bother to go to the crosswalk. She just did half a jog across the street, conveniently forgetting the lecture she’d recently given him on the dangers of walking with hot beverages, and he followed.

They walked past his sister-in-law Lane’s Mercantile, full of specialty foods, and then past Pie in the Sky, his sister-in-law Alison’s bakery, which was now across the street from them.

“Main Street is becoming quite the Donnelly affair,” he commented.

“The tasting room is not primarily Donnelly,” she said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it being part Donnelly, I suppose.”

“Sure, sure.” He smiled at her, and she looked away from him.

He shook his head.

They rounded the corner to the front of their new store and Sabrina produced the keys. “Officially ours,” she said, jingling them before jamming the key into the lock. “After you.”

She held the door for him and he went in ahead of her.