“Oh! I hadn’t thought about that. Felix does fine by us. We never have wolves on the property. He scares them off.”
He smiled softly at her. “Not all reindeer can fly. I bet that scares more than wolves.”
She nodded, not meeting his gaze. “Good point.” She cleared her throat again. He was starting to think that was something she did when she was trying to get words out. “You had a banner year for calves. Do you think you’ll split the herd?”
He paused. There was no way she’d know about their calving rate unless she’d looked up the ranch. “Were you checking me out?” he teased.
She sputtered and dropped her glue covered shim to the floor. “No!” She dropped down to pick it up and popped back up again, glaring at him. “I may have watched a few videos aboutthe ranchlast night.” Her cheeks dusted pink to match her ears.
He checked his grin. “Faith, my sister-in-law and our resident veterinarian, went through the pedigree charts and came up with fifty unique gene combinations we could try. We’re hoping for a flying reindeer. We haven’t had one born on the ranch for a while and without them, well, I don’t want to get into the doomsday Christmas spirit, so I’ll let you figure out what will happen if Santa doesn't have any flying reindeer.”
She bit the side of her lip. “It didn’t work,” she stated.
He took the hammer from where she’d set it and tapped his shim deeper. “Nope. Basically, we’re out of options. My dad blames himself. He thinks he should have been more careful about breeding, but none of us thought running out of fliers was ever going to be a problem.”
“Oh?”
His mind drifted back to the good ol’ days. “When I was a teenager, we had more fliers than we had time to train. The ranch was a terrific way to grow up. Some guys like rodeo and riding brocs–they should try training a reindeer to fly through a hoop or land light as a snowflake on a roof. Talk about an adrenaline rush! And then when you put them on a sleigh for the first time and take the reins.” He laughed just thinking about it. “Your whole life flashes before your eyes. I can’t tell you how many times I ended up stuck in a tree.”
She laughed too, her baby blues sparkling with mirth. “That’s something I’d like to see.”
He reached out and tickled her neck. She giggled and moved out of reach, swatting at his hand but not telling him to stop. She glanced shyly from under lowered lashes. “What’s your dad like?” she asked quickly as she looked away.
His thoughts slowed down. He had to think about this one. “I’ve always been closer to my mom.”
Her eyebrows went up.
He pointed to his chest. “Youngest son.”
“Ah! Baby of the family.”
He bristled at the term but tamped it down for her. “Caleb and Jack, my oldest brothers–they’re twins–were Dad’s helpers. He used to tromp out to the barn and one would follow in his right footsteps and one in his left.”
She smiled as she worked. She was one dowel ahead of him, but he didn’t care.
“Then Forest and Pax came alone. Forest hung with Caleb and Jack, but Pax is more of a loner. He’s shy and likes to be in the workshop–alone, thank you very much.” He shrugged. “I guess there wasn't much room for me on the tractor with three other boys and Pax didn’t like to talk much, so I hung out with Mom.”
Clove squeezed more glue onto the paper plate where they dipped their shims.
“Anyway, last year Dad got really sick, and we didn’t know if he’d make it through to Christmas. I spent hours sitting by his bed so Mom could do what she needed to do for the ranch and I feel like I got to know him for the first time in my life.” He tried not to think about how sad that was—that he didn’t know his own father with whom he shared a roof and a table his whole life. It would have been tragic if Dad didn’t get better. Now, it seemed like a strange thing to lament because their relationship was so much stronger.
“Oh?”
He felt confident of being able to answer her question now, but he wouldn’t have felt that way two Christmases ago. “Dad’s a thinker. He has deep thoughts. We spent a lot of time talking about the Bible and Jesus and life and even death. It scared me when he’d want to talk about what happens on the other side of dyin’.” He rubbed his moist palms down his pant legs and went back to work. “I kept thinking he was trying to prepare to go Home, and I was just starting to understand him.”
He stepped back and surveyed their work. They needed a handsaw to cut off the parts of the shims that stuck out. He crossed to the shelves and started looking.
“You felt cheated,” she whispered. “I get that.”
The pain and longing in her voice made him believe her. What did she say? She’d been with her grandma since she was eight?
“What happened to your parents?” He tried not to look at her, to make her feel less like he was studying her and more like she had an open space to share her thoughts.
She sucked in and her back stiffened like a cornered cat. “Did you find a saw?”
He paused before turning back to the shelves and allowing the change of subject. “Yep. Let’s cut these off and take Felix for a walk. He needs some exercise.”
She smiled as if she hadn’t ignored his question. “Sounds like a plan.”
