Mistletoe Cowboy by Carolyn Brown Page A

A barn. Two cows, some chickens, and an apple orchard. Not much of a farm really.”
    â€œAnd is it in the middle of a big town?”
    â€œShade Gap is a rural community. Barely even anything left there except for a gas station and a picnic ground.”
    â€œSounds like she’d be real happy there. As for me, there are cows, hogs, chickens, and when there is electricity there’s good country music to listen to. And now Noel is here and there will be puppies.”
    â€œWhat happens when her owner comes to take her home?”
    Creed looked at the poor skinny dog. “No one is coming to claim her, Sage. She’s a castoff that someone tossed out before the storm hit. She’s probably been living on field mice for a week and sleeping in barns. She’s too skinny to have been thrown away just before the blizzard hit. She’s found a home and a friend in you. Darlin’, she ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
    Sage laid her brush down and scratched Noel’s ears. “Stop callin’ me darlin’. I’m not and I will never be your darlin’.”
    â€œIt’s just my way and I’m not changing,” he said.
    As if Noel understood that men were strange creatures who couldn’t be reasoned with, she wagged her tail so hard that it sounded like a drumbeat on the hardwood floor.
    â€œLook, Creed! I swear she smiled.”
    â€œDogs do that when they’re happy, just like humans.”
    Sage rubbed her fur and said, “You’re a good girl. I bet you were raised on Venus with the rest of us girls and not on Mars with a bunch of mean old boys.”
    â€œI read that book,” Creed said.
    Sage turned her head so quickly that her neck cracked. “Why would a cowboy like you read that book?”
    â€œBecause my brother’s wife mentioned it and because I wanted to understand why women are the way they are.”
    â€œDid you learn anything?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Not much. Just that y’all are temperamental. That y’all approach things you can’t change with anger or tears. And that to really understand a woman is impossible.”
    He changed the subject abruptly. “Wonder what the puppies will look like? Maybe they’ll have some old redbone in them.”
    â€œNot a chance. Noel wouldn’t fall in love with a huntin’ hound. She’s going to have Irish setter puppies or maybe even beagles, but not an old coonhound, are you, baby girl?” Sage kissed the dog between the eyes and went back to her painting.
    It was nearly time for chores and the storm had gotten even worse. Sage finished what she was working on and cleaned her brushes. She went to the kitchen and put a pan of milk on a burner to heat for hot chocolate, took down the cocoa and sugar and marshmallows, and then reached for two mugs.
    She lit two oil lamps, carried one to the end table beside the sofa, and put the other one in the middle of the kitchen table. That brought precious little light into the room, but it beat trying to do anything in the darkness. After supper she’d scrounge around in the pantry for candles or more lamps so they could have one in each bedroom and the bathroom.
    And matches! She’d need to put them beside the lamps so they could reach them without fumbling around and knocking off the lamp. Grand would be really mad if they wasted expensive lamp oil.
    Creed looked up from his book when she set the mug of hot chocolate on the table beside him and said, “Thank you. That looks good.”
    â€œI thought we’d need a warm pick-me-up before we went out to feed. I’ll gather the eggs and feed the hogs if you’ll milk the cow. I hate milking and I’m so slow the milk will freeze in the bucket before I ever get the job done,” she said.
    â€œIt’s not in the contract that you have to help with chores,” he said.
    â€œYou helped cook. I’ll help with the outside