Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(78)

When the front door to the ranch house opened, the two dogs came running outside, tangling between her legs. She laughed, bending down to pat the Australian shepherd on the head.

“They’re so cute.”

“Menaces,” a voice shouted after them.

Callie remembered Iris, Jake’s cousin, who was standing in the doorway, looking more amused than angry.

“You don’t even live here anymore,” Jake said. “What do you care if the dogs run wild?”

“I care for common decency,” Iris said.

“Yeah, well, they don’t,” Jake said.

He put his hand on Callie’s lower back, and she flinched away. Mostly because she felt a little bit too raw for him to be giving her casual contact in front of his family. And anyway, it was just a reflex, because they weren’t even putting on a show for them.

She looked at him, and he lifted a brow in question.

“Don’t forget where you are,” she said.

Great job, Callie. Be petulant, and ruin your chances of figuring out how to get close to him again.

She didn’t mean to be petulant. It was just... He was being thoughtless. And nothing about her right now was thoughtless.

She was brimming with thoughts.

Here was an unforeseen downside to this embracing all aspects of womanhood thing.

The thing about her life being all about saddle bronc was that it was simple. She either got to do it or she didn’t. One was acceptable, one wasn’t.

Wanting Jake...

Well, she wanted him, but it hurt. She wanted to get her way but she was also afraid of it.

It was so complicated, and so internal, and so...

Nothing she was used to at all.

Jake dropped his hand, and she was immediately upset. Well, she’d gone and cut her nose off to spite her face.

The Christmas decorations were gone from the ranch house, but it was still brimming with color and activity. She found herself fascinated by each and every one of his family members. Where her brothers were all sort of cut from the same cloth, this family was something else entirely.

His cousin Ryder was a Captain America type. Good, heroic. And adorable with his baby daughter. Ryder’s wife, Sammy, was a flurry of motion, hair and diaphanous fabrics. Police chief Pansy was the female counterpart to Ryder, with Rose the youngest, most stubborn and outspoken. Iris, the oldest of that sibling group, was maternal, but with a dry, quiet wit that snuck up out of nowhere. Then there was Jake and Colt. The cousins. She noticed that they talked and laughed easily enough with each other, but that they didn’t seem to ever talk about anything beyond the weather.

After dinner, she found herself in the kitchen with the women, and a few weeks ago that might’ve bothered her. But now... Now it didn’t. She liked these women. She had from the first time she’d ever been here. And she’d been fascinated by all the different ways that they were women. And now she felt like she fit. A part of them. Her own kind of woman, and just as much of a woman as anyone.

“Jake used to be an absolute hell-raiser,” Sammy said. “I thought he was going to give Ryder gray hair even back when we were kids.”

“I don’t understand how that worked,” Callie said. “Ryder taking care of everybody when they were so close to the same age.”

“The only reason we even got away with it was that this is a small town with limited resources, and it was easier for people to come check in on us than farm a bunch of unwilling, angry teenagers out to foster homes,” Pansy said. “At least that’s what I figure. Not that Ryder didn’t do a great job—it’s just...you know, that was a lot to put on him.”

“But he was the best,” Rose said, unfailingly loyal.

“And did you all listen to him?” Callie asked.

“Oh, they resisted it,” Sammy said. “The boys especially. It was only Iris and me cooking good food that kept them coming back at night. Colt and Jake were assholes.”

“It’s true,” Pansy said, nodding.

“I don’t remember,” Rose said, shrugging.

“Yeah, because you’re the baby,” Sammy said, patting her on the head.

“What was Jake like... Before?” She felt slightly like a turncoat asking that question. Like she shouldn’t try to get information about her friend that wasn’t directly from him. But things had changed. She wanted to talk to him in a different way. She wanted to talk to him more deeply, and she didn’t know how to access him. She didn’t know how to get down to that level. There were a whole lot of things that she just didn’t quite know about him right now, and she couldn’t pretend that their friendship was going to power them through it. Not when things had changed.

You know why they’ve changed.

“Oh,” Iris said, frowning. “I don’t know. I mean, he was always a smart-ass. But he... He liked to be at home. I figured he would be a rancher like his dad.”

“But he never really worked on the ranch, did he? I know he went into the rodeo. I remember that.”

“Yeah,” Iris said. “He just lost his interest in the place after our parents died. It’s strange, because it didn’t have that effect on Ryder, but Ryder ended up taking care of everybody, and I feel like in a lot of ways his future was decided for him. Ryder always planned to leave. He was going to play football. Jake... I never got the impression he did plan on going anywhere else, and then he ended up leaving right when he turned eighteen.”