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They reached the top of the hill and the tree lot. Caleb stopped trudging, but he didn’t put her down. She was looking ahead at her sisters, running around like excited children from tree to tree, examining them from all angles. But now she drew her gaze in, turned it upward and focused it instead on the man who held her as if she was not the size of a small hippo. He wasn’t even out of breath. And he was looking at her like…like…
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” he said.
She lowered her lashes. “Stop.”
“You are. Snowflakes on your lashes. Cheeks all pink and glowing. But it’s more than that. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s different…but it’s not something I can name. It’s something from inside.”
“It’s a pair of somethings from inside,” she told him.
He smiled at her. Then he leaned down and he kissed her. Long, slowly, tenderly. His mouth was warm, and he tasted so good she wanted to kiss him forever. Yet the kiss terrified her, partly because she wanted it so very badly. And then he lifted his head away.
She blinked rapidly, because there was moisture in her eyes, and she stared at him. “Put me down.”
“What do you want for Christmas, Maya?”
She looked away fast when he said that. Because images of her childish wishes and dreams popped into her mind. A rambling log cabin. A dog to lie by the fireplace. A cat to sit in the window. Her own kitchen to fill with the smells of baking bread and Christmas cookies. Her children’s wide sparkling eyes as they watched for Santa’s reindeer on magical Christmas Eves. And a loving, devoted husband coming through the front door, his arms filled with presents for the kids. His eyes filled with love for them—for her.
“Maya?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “Let’s go get a tree before we start worrying about what to put underneath it.”
He set her down on her feet, and she trudged forward.
An hour later, a huge tree with roots enough to fill the entire back of Caleb’s pickup was on its way to the Brand place. It was wrapped in burlap, and a half acre of the tree farm seemed to be coming with it. It had taken all that time for Caleb, Mel and Ben Kellogg, the farmer, to dig it up. And once they removed it, they had to fill in the hole and smooth things out as best they could. The farmer charged extra for the privilege of digging up a living tree. Caleb insisted on paying, since it was his idea.
It took a giant washtub to hold the thing. But Maya watched Selene’s eyes light up when they finally got the tree home and standing upright in the living room. Her small hands were black with soil and her hair full of pine needles. She’d been underneath the tree, smoothing the soil they’d added to the tub, pouring in water and tree food, holding the base as they straightened it and tied it off to keep it in place. And talking to it as if speaking to a puppy. The tree’s lush branches completely hid the baling twine they’d used to support it, thank goodness.
Maya stood back and looked at it, shook her head at the dirt all over Mel and Caleb and the living room floor.
“My, my, but that’s the nicest tree we’ve ever had,” Vidalia said, shaking her head in awe.
“You say that every year, Mom,” Maya told her.
“And every year it’s the truth. We just keep topping ourselves.” She smiled. “Well go on, now, Caleb, Mel, Selene, get washed up. Dinner’s in an hour, and there’s plenty to do before that. We’ll need all hands on deck for hauling out the decorations. Lord knows we’re already late getting them up.” She clapped her hands twice.
Maya looked at Caleb, closed her eyes. “That’s my mother’s way of inviting you to stay for dinner.”
He smiled at her. “I figured that out. But I’d feel better if you were the one issuing the invitation.”
“Would you really?”
He nodded. And he looked at her with those big eyes of his, like a puppy dog. She felt something soften inside her. In spite of herself, she heard herself asking, “Would you like to stay for dinner, Caleb?”
His smile was fast and blinding. “Oh, yeah.”
She rolled her eyes as he raced off to the bathroom to scrub his hands like an excited youngster. Vidalia came close to her, slid a protective arm around her shoulders. “He seems like a decent man,” she said.
“Yes. He does, doesn’t he?”
“He’s your soul mate, Maya,” Selene whispered from nearby.
“Hell, Selene, you just like him because he didn’t support the annual tree slaughter.”
Selene shook her head slowly, coming closer, slipping her arm around Maya on the other side. “Idolike that about him. But, if you recall, I told you he was your soul mate that night a long time ago, in the saloon, when you first met him.”
Maya frowned and turned to the side.
“She did,” Kara said, coming from the kitchen. “I remember she told me the same thing.” She sidled up to her mother, slung an arm around her. So there were four now in the link.
