Arden’s ranch. The spare bedroom. Safety. It was still dark. He checked his phone. Three-thirty AM. Plenty of time to execute his plan. He shook off the last remnants of the nightmare and got to work.
Kyle pulled a chair under the trapdoor in his bedroom. He pushed the trapdoor up. There was a narrow pull-down ladder folded up just inside. He climbed up into the attic. Kyle took out his phone and turned on the flashlight app. Shining it around the attic, he saw all sorts of old treasures.This could have come straight out of a storybook.
Back in the corner was an old dollhouse with a couple of shoeboxes stuffed inside, probably full of toy furniture, Kyle figured. There were several old-looking steam trunks, the kind that people used to use when they would make the Grand Tour around the world on some sort of ship or train, or hell, on the back of an elephant. Upon closer inspection, he saw one of them engraved with a woman’s name—Nancy S. Holliday.
Ha, Kyle thought,no more Nancy Satin once she became a proper lady, I guess. He wondered if the trunk was full of old-fashioned clothing, and if that clothing would be made of red silk, or something more properly befitting a lady of stature. Or, Kyle couldn’t help but laugh, an old black cowboy hat, a red bandana, and a pair of dungarees still coated in Nebraska dirt from rustling up some cattle.
All these things were cool to look at, but Kyle was on a mission. He walked across the attic, hoping that the creaking wouldn’t wake up Arden. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. Several big cardboard boxes stack together were marked with the wordsChristmas decorations. One box was markedChristmas decorations—outside.
Yep, I haven’t lost my instincts. That beautiful evergreen tree right outside her window, that tree just screamed for Christmas lights and a big bright star right on the top. He grabbed that box first, carried it over to the opening, and then wondered how the heck he was going to get it down into the room without actually dropping it.
It hit him with a strange sad force, the thought that maybe Arden had actually come up here by herself and stood in the very same spot where he did, thinking,my brother is not down there to take the box from me.Maybe that’s when she had given up. Decided that this year, there would be no decorations. That thought filled his heart with sadness.
He was tempted to stop right there, climb down the ladder, and wait until Arden woke up, then send her up into the attic and wait below for the box. But no, he really wanted to surprise her. So he opened the box and looked in. Just as he thought, there were strings of lights, a very long extension cord, and at the bottom, a big, beautiful star covered in blue lights that would go at the very top. He took the strings of lights and the extension cord out and threw them over his neck like a wreath. He picked up the star and carefully made his way down the ladder.
He sneaked out of his room and down the hall, until he got to the great room where Camo was waiting for him. Kyle didn’t know if it was the cold weather or the fact that he’d been working Camo yesterday in the snow, but the dog was moving especially slowly today. It hurt his heart to see it.
If he could have taken the dog’s pain and put it on to himself, he would have in an instant. But Camo’s eyes were just as bright as they had always been, and he was eager to please. Kyle gave him some extra chondroitin and glucosamine and very quietly opened the back door. Camo bounded out into the snow, seeming to forget his pain from a few moments before.
“Camo, you dummy. You’re gonna hurt yourself.” There was that bittersweet pain at seeing his old teammate so enthusiastic, taking his body to its limits.
Dogs, man. They break your heart with love.
Kyle looked up at the sky. The storm had cleared before the next one and oh God, the night was absolutely stunning. Living in the city with so many lights, he wasn’t used to looking up at the night sky at all, let alone seeing any stars. And this sky was filled with them. At first, he thought there was a long thin cloud stretching across the sky, but then he realized he was looking at an arm of the Milky Way.
So beautiful. Wait, I can’t say that about Colorado. I hate this place. Well, he thought looking back at the house making sure that Arden was still asleep,maybe it’s not all bad. He plugged the extension cord—actually a series of them plugged together, he realized—into an outlet next to the door and unwound the cords as he made his way through the light blue snow to the evergreen tree.
He felt a giddiness that he hadn’t experienced since he was a little kid. The idea of surprising someone, and not with just anything, but with a gift that would sparkle like magic, something completely unexpected, something beautiful, something with meaning.
With the help of a ladder from the barn, an hour later he had the tree covered in lights. All he needed to do was grab the star and set it on top, when the voice from his dream came back to him.Let her do the last part.
Kyle smiled and shrugged.Why not?
Eleven
When Arden woke up that morning, she stretched and rubbed her eyes. She was still in that sweet spot where she couldn’t quite remember all the details of her life, and her dreams seemed more real than anything else. What had she been dreaming? Something about a man with ice-blue eyes, a handsome stranger who smiled at her and promised her so many things.
She laughed ruefully. Dreams and reality were overlapping. She did have a handsome stranger with ice-blue eyes right under her roof. But the only thing he promised her was sadness and more loss. He promised to take Camo away.
Something caught her eye outside the window. It twinkled and sparkled as if light were hitting it, though the sun hadn’t come up yet. She pushed aside the sheer curtains and gasped.
The Christmas evergreen sparkled with lights. Top to bottom, every square inch. The only thing missing was the blue star at the very top. But of course, that had always been her job. After her dad finished with the lights, Arden would scramble up the ladder and add the star.
Her heart stuttered. Decorating the outside tree had become Sean’s job after their parents had passed. She would have done it herself but he always insisted, telling her he didn’t know what he would do if she fell and hurt herself. He wouldn’t even let her put the star on top anymore. She always teased him, saying,Oh, just because I’m a girl? You think I can’t do that?But she would laugh and hand him a big mug of hot chocolate, which had become her job. And he would tease her right back—You never trust me anywhere near the stove. She’d answer,not with something as important as hot chocolate I don’t.Then they’d go inside, sip their hot chocolate, and stand at the window looking at the beautiful tree he had just decorated.
The tree blurred as her eyes filled with tears. There was only one explanation. Kyle had decorated her tree. How did he know? She didn’t mention it to him. She didn’t think Ellie had, either, or that the woman even knew about it.
Kyle McGuire, you ain’t so bad after all.
When she padded out to the kitchen there he was, sitting at her table and sipping a nice hot cup of coffee, looking like an innocent schoolboy. His hair was all tousled, his five o’clock shadow was damn near a beard at this point, and those ice-blue eyes were full of warm mischief.
Arden crossed her arms. “So, I just noticed something outside.”
He tilted his head. “Oh did you? What’s that?”
“There is a tree decorated outside my window.”
“Oh.” Kyle nodded knowingly. “I know exactly what happened.”
