Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(15)

“If I open the door for you are you going to get mad at me?”

She narrowed her eyes and pushed the door open, letting herself out. And he chuckled, getting out and leading the way up the front porch. As soon as his boot hit the bottom step, the door flung open, and his little second cousin came charging out, all pudgy legs and a four-toothed grin, her wild blond hair sticking up at all angles. And her mother followed behind her—Sammy, in a flowing white dress, her blond hair not any more tamed than her daughter’s.

“You’re here,” she said, folding him into a lavender-scented hug.

“And you must be Cal,” she said, looking from him back to Callie.

He frowned at Sammy’s speculative look. “Yeah.”

Then his cousin Ryder filled up the doorway, standing behind his wife. “Hey, Jake,” he said. “Who’s this?”

“Cal,” Jake said.

Ryder laughed. “Hell. We thought your friend was a man.”

He saw Callie turn a shade of beetroot, all the way up into her hair. “Oh,” she said.

“Oh, well, then you’re going to think the rest of the story is even funnier,” Jake said, planting his hand in the center of Cal’s back and propelling her forward toward the house. They all collected inside, where his cousins Pansy, Rose and Iris already were, with their respective partners, as was his brother, Colt, who was sitting in the corner fiddling with the tuning pegs on his guitar.

Logan was next to him. Logan, who had been part of their ragtag band of misfit toys here in Hope Springs, as he had lost his mother in the same accident that had claimed their parents. Him getting together with Rose last Christmas had come as a source of shock to the family, since they’d all felt the family kind of way about Logan, and clearly Rose had not.

But they were happy, and that was what mattered.

“Everybody,” he said. “This is Callie Carson. Callie, everybody.”

They greeted her with an uneven roar, and he leaned in. “You’ll figure them out as we go. I figure if I tell you all their names now, you’re not going to remember, anyway. But you know Colt.”

Colt treated them to a half wave.

“I thought your friend was a man,” Rose said.

“What did you tell them about me?” Callie asked.

“I just said that my buddy Cal was coming up for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh. Well,” Callie said, sounding exasperated.

“Callie is my fiancée now,” he said.

The entire room went silent. Of all the things he’d expected from this pack of assholes, silence wasn’t it.

“It’s a funny story actually,” he said.

He had expected some kind of eruption. But none occurred. Instead, his entire family was staring at him openmouthed.

“You’re a bad person,” Callie muttered. “He’s helping me out.”

“You make it sound like you’re pregnant,” he said.

“Good God, Jake,” she said, going right at him again. “I told you this was going to embarrass me, and not only are you not trying to not embarrass me, you’re making it worse.”

“How am I making it worse? I’m just saying. I’m helping you out. And it’s true. It’s a trust fund thing. Callie is a saddle bronc rider. At least, she wants to be. Her dad is the rodeo commissioner, and long story short, in order to get her freedom so that she can compete in the event she wants to compete in, she needs to get married for a minute.”

“That is a good story,” Sammy said, looking keen. “You weren’t joking.”

“I said I wasn’t.”

He was grateful for the ribbing of his family, and for the general mayhem around him. Because it took away some of the uneasiness that he felt over the whole situation. The uneasiness that he was feeling because of her.

The dining room had two tables, set up end to end, and all the plates matched, which he thought was kind of weird, but the chairs didn’t. There was a high chair for Ryder and Sammy’s little one, Astrid, and a whole lot more people than they used to have, since everyone was now paired off. And in the case of Pansy and West, there was an extra associated with them because West’s half brother lived with them.

They were going to be very unhappy that Jake was going to have to miss Christmas.

“I’m glad everyone’s here,” Sammy said. “Because before we cut the turkey I have some family business to go over.”

“Who elected you supreme leader?” Logan asked, taking a scoop of sweet potatoes with marshmallows—both varieties were present—and putting them onto his plate.

“If you would like to run the proceedings, Logan, you’re welcome to. But you don’t know what I have to say.”

“Agreed,” Colt said. “I don’t want to hear what Logan has to say.”

Jake shared a grin with his brother.

“Anyway,” Sammy said. “I’m proposing that we celebrate Christmas a week early.”

“What?”

“We got everyone for Thanksgiving, which I’m very grateful for, and it required other families to make various arrangements. But Iris and Griffin want to travel to California for Christmas to spend the holiday with his family, West and Pansy have the Daltons, and so do you, Logan,” she said.