Kristina Knight - Christmas In A Small Town

Camden looked around. How could anyone hate the smell of fresh hay and summer sunshine? Even the gray November sky today couldn’t take away the smells that lived in her memory. She remembered traipsing over these fields with Levi when the sun was high and the temperatures much hotter than on this chilly morning. He’d had this sky and these smells all of his life. Did he know how lucky he was?

“Your dad wanted to train a few dogs for the show circuit.”

“I remember.” He’d been so excited about the prospect. Her father, Bobby Harris, liked his job in the marketing department of the television station in Kansas City, but he’d loved coming back to Slippery Rock for vacation every year. Had been talking about getting a dog for the city, not a cattle dog, but a retriever or something.

“You don’t have to train dogs because it was something your dad liked to do. Not even because it’s something I like.”

“I know. I just liked working with them. I’d like to work with them again.” She didn’t want to live her life in a quiet office, watching girls try on dresses and perfect their makeup.

“Then you should do it.”

She inhaled, deeply. “Yeah?”

Calvin nodded.

Camden grinned at her grandfather, and he swung his arm around her shoulders the way she’d seen him embrace her father so many times in the past. “I’m glad you came home, kiddo.”

“So am I,” she said.

In the kitchen, her grandmother Bonita was just taking toasted cheese sandwiches off the stove. “You two are back early.” She wore a neon-orange hoodie with black yoga pants and sneakers with bold orange, green and yellow striping on them. Her bobbed hair, dyed a crisp black, was perfectly arranged, and she’d put on lipstick.

Camden hung her jacket on the peg in the mudroom, slipped the muddy boots off her feet and smoothed her hands over her long brown hair.

“Couldn’t stay away any longer.” Calvin put his arms around his wife’s waist, pulling her back against his chest and nipping her earlobe with his teeth. Bonita slapped at his hand and blushed as a grin spread over her face. “Camden wants us to hit Tulsa for a dog show in a week.”

“Tulsa in the middle of the holiday shopping season?” Bonita shook her head. “I’m going into town this afternoon. Groceries. And then I need to stop in at the boutique. They’re holding a pair of earrings for me. Want to come along?” Bonita looked pointedly at Camden. “I don’t know what you could need after the five packages that were delivered this morning, but you might find something.”

“I was going to—”

Bonita held up a hand. “Play with the dogs, I know.”

“Train Six,” Camden corrected. Bonita and Calvin exchanged a look.

“We’re going to reopen Harris Farms,” he said after a long moment.

Bonita’s smile grew wider. “He’s been pretending to be retired and complaining about having nothing to do for nearly a year now. Yet on only your second day back in town, you got him to agree to reopen? That is reason enough for a little celebratory shopping. You can help me pick out a few things for Tulsa, because while he’s only going for the stock, I’m thinking I can get him to agree on at least one fancy restaurant.”

Granddad frowned at his grilled cheese. “This is a business trip, Bonnie.”

“Everyone has to eat, Cal. Who says we only have to eat at fast food restaurants?”

Camden watched the two of them bicker and thought it was the cutest thing she’d ever seen. She had been too young to realize whether or not her parents bickered, but her mother and stepfather didn’t. Her stepfather made the decisions about schools and household budgets, and her mother made the decisions about vacations. There was something odd about parents who presented logical, spreadsheeted presentations about everything from the type of shoes needed for tennis to a summer spent sailing in the Caribbean.

“I’d like to work with Six a little this afternoon,” Camden said when they’d agreed on one fancy dinner and the purchase of at least two new collies.

“You aren’t reopening today, and you can’t train a puppy for a competition set for only a few days away,” her grandmother said. “Come on, woman does not live by dog obstacle courses alone.”

Bonita made a good point. And there had been that really cute tunic at the store yesterday. “I guess training could start tomorrow.”

* * *

NINETY-NINE PERCENT of the time, football held zero allure for Levi Walters. What fans saw as a couple of hours of playing on television he knew was actually six hours in the weight room, another three watching film and a minimum of two more hours of on-the-field practice. He’d been out of the game for nearly three years and could honestly say he didn’t miss the grind of the football life.

He did, sometimes, miss the glitz. Red carpets could be fun. The roar of the crowd after a particularly good tackle made him feel alive in a way nothing else did. The women were beautiful.

Although none had made him forget to breathe like Camden had the other night at the Slope.

And he wasn’t going to spend another day thinking about Camden Harris. She was a childhood friend, that was all. He had no business wondering about her appearance in Slippery Rock. Or thinking about what she’d look like out of that designer gown.

Wedding dress, dude, wedding dress. He was not going to get hung up on a woman who ran out on her own wedding. Back to pondering football. The things about it he’d liked. The exhaustion after a particularly grueling workout.

An image of Camden, face pinkish with exertion, body naked, popped into his mind. Levi gritted his teeth and refocused on football.

Signing autographs for kids had been fun. Visiting them in the hospital.

An image of Camden in a nurse’s costume popped into his mind, and Levi angrily sank the shovel he was holding into a pile of manure and hay. He barely knew Camden Harris. He’d talked to her for all of five minutes. What the hell was she doing in his head?

Football never failed to distract him, so Levi ran back through the things he’d liked about the game. The exhaustion that made his mind blank—he wouldn’t mind a bit of that right now. The one-on-one interactions with kids, the roar of the crowd on game day. The bullshitting in the locker room.

Fifty-three sweaty men, some with questionable hygiene to begin with, were definitely better than the two hundred cows he cleaned up after twice a day.

Levi sank the shovel into another pile of manure and hay in the milking parlor. Mucking out the stalls after the herd of dairy cows had done their morning session was one of the times he missed the relative cleanliness of football.

A clump of manure landed on his boot.

In some very specific instances, football was better than being a dairy farmer. Definitely better.

He flicked the clump into the pile in the back of the ranch truck. Brilliant November sunlight peeked over the trees, turning the sky a brilliant blue. Under the smell of manure, there was the scent of dew on the grass, and the leaves were finally beginning to turn. All along the lakeshore, the trees would be laden with deep red and orange leaves with a bit of gold thrown in for good measure. He’d missed the turning of the leaves for four long professional seasons, and for the four before that, when he’d played at the college level.

The few things he missed about football life didn’t compare to the beauty of a country sunrise or getting to watch the slow change of the leaves or knowing that the products that came from his dairy were wholesome and healthy for the people who consumed them.

Football was fun, but the best part was that the money he’d made playing the game ensured the stability of Walters Ranch.