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“Shssh! Mom’s coming,” Kara said.
“Dinner in a half hour,” Vidalia said, smiling. “Then we’ll decorate this tree.”
Maya lifted her brows and parted her lips to protest. It was bad enough her family had conspired to get Caleb to escort her to the doctor, then dragged him into their family tree expedition. And invited him to dinner. But to invite him to actually help decorate the tree was going just a bit too far.
“I’d be intruding, Vidalia. That’s…that’s a family thing. I’ve already been hanging around here too long.”
He looked almost sad to have to say so.
“Bullcookies!” Vidalia said. “Are you the father of my grandbabies or aren’t you?”
“He’s not gonna answer that one until after the DNA tests, Mom,” Maya said softly.
That earned her a sidelong scowl from Caleb. “I am,” he said to Vidalia. “Though the idea of you being a grandmother is almost as stunning to me as that of me being a father.”
Vidalia smiled and sent him a wink. “That makes you family. Period.” Then she leaned closer to him and said, “That doesn’t mean you need to ease up on the efforts to flatter your way into my good graces, however.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” His smile came slowly. First one side of his mouth pulled upward, and then the other. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me family, Vidalia,” he said. All humble and sweet looking. The big phony. “Thank you.”
Vidalia looked as if she was going to melt right into a puddle of pudding at his feet. And as Maya glanced around at her sisters, she saw that he’d wrapped them all around his fingers, as well. Even Mel looked at him without snarling.
Hell.
“You okay?”
She frowned and saw that the man of the hour was addressing her, still sitting beside her on the sofa. “My feet are swollen and my back aches and I have cramps in my calves that would down a bull moose.”
He smiled softly and lifted her feet up off the floor, draping her legs across his lap and proceeding to rub her calves with his big hands. As he massaged the cramps away, she released a breath.
“Go on, relax. You know you want to,” he said. “Lean back. Breathe, for crying out loud.”
“I am breathing.”
But she did lean back and let go. Hell, it felt great, what he was doing. She was only human.
“Sheesh, when did that start?” Kara asked from across the room. She stood with curtains parted, staring out the window. The snow was falling harder than before. The gently floating fluff of earlier in the day was now slanting downward at an alarming rate.
“I’d heard we might actually get an inch or two tonight,” Vidalia called from the kitchen. “Certainly is gonna be a holiday to remember around here. Come on, Kara, Mel, Selene, you three get upstairs and start bringing down the ornaments and lights, while I set the table.” She glanced in at Maya, then Caleb. “You two stay right where you are,” she added with a wink. “I’ve been trying to get that girl to lie down and relax for days but she’s been just like a jitterbug on a hot plate lately….” Her brows rose, and she tipped her head to one side. “They used to say it was a sign the time was near, when a woman takes to acting all nervous and jittery like that.”
“We can only hope,” Maya groaned, letting her eyes fall closed.
* * *
It was nine o’clock by the time he headed back to the boarding house. In a small town like Big Falls, that seemed like midnight. The town only had a handful of streetlights, and those were dim. But it was enchanting, all the same: the moon straining to shine through the thick night clouds, giant snowflakes falling like an invasion of tiny paratroopers. A rarity, snow in Oklahoma.
He stomped the white stuff off his boots, then crossed the closed-in porch area and heeled them off. He carried them inside—then stood still as the man in the living room rose from the chair where he’d been sitting, apparently having tea with Mrs. Peabody, and turned to smile at him.
Caleb almost cursed aloud. Jace Chapin was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Well now,” Caleb said slowly, wishing to God he could make the man disappear. “What’s the world’s sleaziest tabloid reporter doing way out here in Big Falls?”
“Came to find out what the richest candidate for the U.S. Senate is doing way out here in Big Falls,” Jace replied.
“I haven’t declared my candidacy, Chapin. But getting the facts straight has never been your strong suit.”
The man shrugged and pursed his lips. “Oh, but the facts this time are too good to resist,” he said. “I mean, the background on this unmarried pregnant woman you’ve been running around with is better than anything I could have invented, I gotta tell you.”
Caleb tried to look unconcerned, but he kept his eyes averted as he walked past the man, stood near the fireplace, set his boots down. “You’re going to have to explain to me why the background story on a friend of mine would be of any interest to your readers, Jace. Because, frankly, I’m clueless.”
“Oh, come on, Montgomery. It’s your kid. I have photos of you escorting this woman into the clinic in the next town. Having dinner with her. Carrying her up a snowy hill to pick a Christmas tree.”
