The Cowboy's Christmas Family

She stepped forward and accepted a grocery bag of donations from a family, finding an assortment of toothpaste, soap and shampoo inside. She put it in the proper box and jumped in surprise when she turned around and Cole put his Santa hat on her head.

“What are you doing?”

“Whoever works the station has to wear the hat,” he decreed.

“I’ve got a knitted one,” she protested, but then realized she’d left it in the diaper bag. With her parents.

“Is it invisible?” he asked.

She smiled at a teenage couple who came over, holding hands, and offered a jar of peanut butter and another of jelly. Cute.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked, annoyed. And amused, damn him. She let the hat sit atop her head where he’d awkwardly placed it.

“Sure do. I get to plug in the lights. Let’s hope I don’t have one of those Clark Griswold moments where I plug them in and nothing happens.”

She did laugh at that. Christmas Vacation was one of her favorite holiday movies.

“I don’t want to keep you. Maybe you’d better check each one individually. And definitely make sure they’re twinkling.”

He leaned forward, a devilish look in his eye that made her realize that he and Tanner really did resemble each other. He touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “You are cheeky tonight,” he said, and he winked at her. Winked! “I like it.”

Her lips fell open and she scrambled for a crushing response, but before her brain kicked back into gear, he was gone.

The hat was warm from his head and she tucked it closer around her ears as the crowd grew and the food donation boxes filled. She greeted neighbors and friends, people she knew by sight but not by name by virtue of working in the library, and nearly everyone wished her a merry Christmas. The high school band teacher conducted a few instrument ensembles for background music, the trills of flutes and jazzy notes of saxophones brightening the air. Several feet away the business association, small though it was, had a table set up with cookies from the market and huge urns filled with hot chocolate and mulled cider. The rich, spicy scent was delicious.

At 7:00 p.m. sharp, Cole stood on a podium and got everyone’s attention with a sharp whistle. “Merry Christmas, everyone!” he called out.

Holiday wishes were returned enthusiastically by the crowd, along with clapping.

“I don’t have a microphone, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. Welcome to Gibson’s first ever Snowflake Days! Tonight we’re going to light our tree and sing a few carols and have an all-around good time. Tomorrow there’s a craft sale at the church, and you won’t want to miss it. I heard Gilda Turner’s made her famous fudge.”

There were laughs through the crowd. Gilda was getting close to ninety and every boy and girl who’d grown up in Gibson had, at some point, tasted Gilda’s fudge. There was none like it anywhere.

“And at the library tomorrow afternoon, we’ve got wagon rides for the kids, plus treats and story time. Finally, tomorrow night at the Silver Dollar, we have a dance for the grown-ups. Admission is ten dollars at the door and all the proceeds are going to the playground fund for a new structure to be built in the spring.”

A round of clapping filled the air.

“Now,” he said, his voice echoing over the crowd, “I’m going to turn things over to Ron here—” he nodded to his right “—and we can start the caroling. But first...can we have a drumroll, please?”

Maddy snorted, the scene from Christmas Vacation still in her head. Someone from the band did a roll on the snare and at the moment Cole went to plug the tree into the extension cord, he looked over in her direction, a goofy expression on his face. She half expected him to break out in “Joy to the World.”

Then the tree was lit, all thirty feet of it, top to bottom in beautiful colored lights that reflected off the snowy evergreen tips. A collective ooh sounded, and then clapping, and then the choir director, Ron, took the podium and started the crowd singing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

Cole jumped off the podium and disappeared into the crowd. Maddy let out a sigh and hummed along with the song. Donations had slowed to a now-and-again occasion, so she tidied the area and packed the boxes more efficiently for delivery. She half expected Cole to show up again, and when he didn’t she pushed down the disappointment. She had no business looking for him. Sure, they’d seen a lot more of each other in the past few weeks, but she shouldn’t make that into anything.

She had to worry about Liam and Luke, and that was all.

At eight o’clock she finally caught sight of him again, coming around the perimeter of the crowd. Things were wrapping up now; the crowd was down to about half, and the hot chocolate and cider were being packed up and the garbage put into bags. She hadn’t even seen her parents or the boys, but she hadn’t heard them fussing, either, so everything must have gone just fine.

“Wow, you’ve got everything ready to go,” Cole remarked as he stepped up to the table. “Once the crowd disperses, I’ll bring the truck down and we can put everything in the back.”

“It was a good turnout, I think.”

“I think so, too.” He grinned at her. “I saw your mom and dad with the boys. They were sound asleep. The boys, I mean,” he added, making her laugh.

“Fresh air and moving in the stroller will do that,” she replied. “Unfortunately for me, that means they’ll probably fight going to bed tonight.”

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