Victoria Pade – The Maverick's Christmas Baby (страница 10)

“Good idea. We can decide later what we might want to add and what we might not.”

The older boys returned then. At Nina’s suggestion Christmas music was turned on as she heated the cider and put it into mugs, and everyone got busy putting up the tree and decorating Dallas’s house.

Nina half expected Dallas to merely sit on the sofa and watch her and the boys do the decorating, because in the four years she’d been with Leo, that was what he’d done. Christmas spirit seemed to have been something he’d outgrown, and while he’d assured her that he enjoyed the sight of a well-lit tree, he’d refused to exert the energy to actually decorate it.

But Dallas pitched in and did every bit as much as she did until the room was decorated—not quite as elaborately as Nina’s apartment, but enough so that it looked very festive.

When all the work was done, Robbie demanded that all the lights be turned off except for the tree lights, and that they all stand back to see how the tree looked in the dark. It looked beautiful, and Nina had the sense that the activity and the addition of the holiday cheer had lifted some of the cloud from the household. If not permanently, then at least for the time being.

Then Dallas said, “Tomorrow is a school day and you guys are late getting to sleep. Tell Nina thank-you for all of this and then upstairs to showers and pajamas and bed.”

Ryder and Jake thanked her perfunctorily, but Robbie gave her an impromptu hug around the middle to accompany his expression of gratitude. Then the boys went up the stairs in a thunderous retreat that seemed louder than a mere three kids could cause, and Nina and Dallas were suddenly alone.

“This was a really, really nice thing you did,” Dallas said when the noise had dwindled to thumps and bumps overhead. He seemed inordinately grateful. As grateful as she’d been for his help during the blizzard. As grateful as if she’d done something for him that he just hadn’t had it in him to do on his own.

“I wanted to do it,” Nina assured him.

“Now sit and catch your breath,” he insisted. “I’ll reheat the cider and have another cup with you.”

Better judgment told Nina to decline, to just head for home. She’d done what she’d come to do and she should just leave.

But she couldn’t deny herself a few minutes alone with Dallas now that the work was finished and the boys were elsewhere.

So she sat on the big overstuffed leather sofa across from the Christmas tree that they’d set beside the fireplace.

She enjoyed the view of her handiwork and how much more cheerful the room looked while Dallas microwaved refills of cider for just the two of them. Then he brought the mugs and joined her.

Nina was at one end of the long couch, and after handing her the mug he sat on the opposite end. Far, far away.

Or, at least, that was how it seemed.

But it was good, Nina told herself. Because even if she was liking that scruff of beard on his face a little too much and thinking that it was sooo sexy, sitting at a distance from each other proved that there was nothing more to this than two relatively new acquaintances sharing a friendly evening together topped off by a cup of cider.

She took a sip of hers and said, “I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d find when I came out here. You know, a Crawford setting foot on the Traub’s Triple T ranch...”

“You thought you might be shot on sight?” Dallas joked, gazing at her over his own mug just before he took a drink, too.

“That’s what Nate thought—he loaded the tree onto the car for me. I gave him grief for saying such a dumb thing, but I have to admit that I was glad when I found someone at the store today who could tell me which place out here was yours so I didn’t have to go to the main house and ask. I sort of figured if I did I’d run into the same kind of wrath from your family that you got from mine.”

“At least the hospital was a public place—that probably made it a little safer.”

“But obviously not much,” Nina said.

“I can’t imagine Nathan was any too happy to load up a Christmas tree for you to bring to me,” Dallas said then.

Nina shrugged her concession to that. “Losing the election to your brother has riled up my family all over again. I’m sure you know how that goes.”

“Oh, I know. The slightest thing that happens with a Crawford and everyone on my side is up in arms.”

“But it’s gotten me to thinking...” Nina mused. “And it occurred to me that I don’t even know for sure what started the Crawfords and the Traubs hating each other in the first place. Do you know?” she asked, having wondered a great deal about that since Wednesday when she’d discovered that she couldn’t find a single thing wrong with Dallas. When, in fact, she could only find things more right than she wanted them to be.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too,” Dallas admitted. “Here you are, a nice person, great to be around—” and if the warmth in his gaze meant anything, he didn’t hate the way she looked, either “—and I keep wondering why I’m supposed to think you’re the devil incarnate just because you’re a Crawford. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know, either.”

“I know there’s been a history of Crawfords and Traubs competing for the same public positions—like this last election for mayor,” Nina said.

“Right. There have been Traubs and Crawfords vying for the sheriff’s job and city council seats along the way—I remember our fathers both running for an empty seat on the city council when I was a teenager.”

“And that time my dad won—I’d forgotten that he sat on the city council for a while back then,” Nina said.

“But there’s always a winner and a loser in those things—sometimes in favor of a Traub, sometimes in favor of a Crawford—”

“And then there are hard feelings on the part of whichever side loses,” Nina finished for him.

“Sure,” Dallas agreed. “Plus I think I remember hearing something about a romance—a long, long time ago, when Rust Creek was nothing but cowboys and farmers. I think there was a story about a Traub and a Crawford both wanting the same woman, or something. And when neither of them got her they blamed each other....”

“I hadn’t even heard that one,” Nina said, laughing again. “I did hear one once about a business deal gone wrong, but all I know for sure is that whenever I’ve asked why the Crawfords and the Traubs hate each other it’s started a tirade against the Traubs without any real answer. But it sounds like it’s a matter of the Traubs and the Crawfords being too much alike and wanting the same things over and over again.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Dallas agreed, laughing with her. “But at this point it just seems silly to me.”

Nina was so glad to hear him say that. Probably because it was how she felt, as well, she told herself. It probably didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she was enjoying being there with him so much, or the fact that she kept remembering how he’d taken care of her during the blizzard and the feel of him carrying her to his truck, the comforting feel of his arm around her when she’d had pain.

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