Kristina Knight - Christmas In A Small Town

“You fellas gonna leave sometime tonight? I’d like to close,” Merle said. He was leaning against the counter on the back side of the bar, arms crossed over his flannel-clad chest. He tapped the toe of one well-worn boot against the rubber matting on the floor.

“Sorry,” Collin said, pocketing the change Merle had left on the counter.

The three of them walked out of the bar, got into their cars, and each went in a different direction from there. Once Levi was out of town, he considered what might have brought Camden to town.

It could be she was just running away.

It could be that the deal he was about to close with her grandfather had brought her.

It could be anything, really.

The narrow road leading to the ranch and the Harris property split, and Levi paused, watching the lane that would lead to Harris land, for a long time. No taillights shone down the lane, not that he’d expected any, and despite the late November date, the foliage blocked out any light that might have shone from the porch or yard lights at the Harrises’.

Probably she was tucked up in one of the guest rooms Bonita kept in pristine condition despite the fact that no visitors had been at the farm since Levi was a teen.

Probably she was just here for a quick visit, like she’d said.

Probably he shouldn’t wonder what might have brought Camden back to Slippery Rock.

In a wedding dress.

He really needed to stop thinking about what she looked like in that dress.

Levi put the truck back in Drive and turned to go down the road that would lead to his parents’ home and then around to his own. All the lights were off at the main house, which meant Bennett and Mama Hazel had gone to bed and Savannah was spending the night at the orchard.

He shouldn’t let Camden’s reasons for coming to Slippery Rock get under his skin, but her evasive answers in the bar were doing just that. The memory of her soft hand in his still made his palm hot. But her evasiveness, that was the issue here. He had a deal going with Calvin, and he didn’t want that deal messed up. More than that, he liked the older couple. They were like grandparents to him, and maybe it was crazy, but Camden showing up now, when they’d decided to sell—it only made sense if she wanted something from them.

Like money.

Levi gripped the steering wheel as he crossed over the cattle guard separating his drive from the county road.

He would find out what Camden was up to. Then he’d get back to his plans for Walters Ranch. And he’d take a weekend off, maybe go to Little Rock or Tulsa for a few days. He knew women in both cities who would be glad to hear from him, who wouldn’t expect more than a weekend’s worth of fun.

He turned off the truck and went inside, toeing off his boots in the mudroom and slinging his beat-up jacket on the wall hook.

Camden Harris was back in town, and he would find out what she was up to.

CHAPTER THREE

CAMDEN BLEW TWO sharp blasts into the whistle. The border collie who had been working his way through the course of inclines and tunnels stopped and his head swiveled to look at her. She held him there, not moving, for a slow ten count, then blew into the whistle again, giving him the go-ahead to complete the course.

She’d been back in Slippery Rock for only two days, and already she felt like the Camden she remembered from childhood. Not the worried, sheltered, bored woman she’d been in Kansas City. She wanted to stay here, and she was beginning to see a way she could. Maybe for a long time.

“You haven’t forgotten,” her grandfather Calvin said. He stood beside her, looking so much older than she remembered. And shorter, somehow. She didn’t think the shorter was just because she’d grown taller since her last visit to Slippery Rock. God, she’d been a jerk to have stayed away.

Yes, she had only been twelve when her father died and her mother took her away from Slippery Rock, but she’d been an adult for many years now. She could have come down here on her own.

“I practiced,” she said. “Mom had me in pageants, playing piano. I wanted to work a cattle dog as my talent, but she insisted piano was more ladylike.”

“She wasn’t wrong about that.” His voice was gruff, and he put the stopwatch he’d been using in his pocket. “He’s dropped three seconds, and it’s not because of me.”

“It’s just a fluke.”

“You said you’d been practicing.”

“I did, for a while. Mom didn’t care that I hated piano, and I wanted to do something else. So I found a dog trainer whose wife taught piano. I was obnoxiously horrible to every piano teacher in the Kansas City metropolitan area until she worked her way to the teacher with the dog-trainer husband, and I made that teacher a deal. I’d get Mom to spring for two hours of lessons if I could use half the time to work with the dogs.”

Granddad chuckled. “And the teacher went for it?”

“She’d heard how obnoxious I could be.”

“Sneaky. And a little bit brilliant.”

Camden wasn’t so sure about the brilliant part. Desperate was more to the point. And somehow dumb seemed to fit, too. Because a truly brilliant person would have stood up to her mother about the pageants in the first place.

A truly brilliant person wouldn’t have gone to sleep the last two nights thinking about a two-minute conversation with Levi Walters. Or woken up the past two mornings still thinking about the man and half dreaming more conversations with him. Camden shook her head, hoping to dislodge the Levi train of thought. She refocused on her grandfather.

“Let’s take him through one more time,” Granddad said, and Camden blew three whistles. Jake, the collie, lined up at the starting line. When Camden blew the whistle, he started through the course.

Jake was one of only a handful of dogs left at Harris Farms, and the pup of a dog Camden remembered from her childhood. When she was younger, there had been at least thirty collies, Australian cattle dogs and other working dogs on the farm. Her grandfather had trained them to work on ranches all over the United States, Canada and Mexico. Working cattle, sheep, llamas. She’d come here hoping to work with Calvin for a while until she found her footing again, but the dogs he had now were mostly old favorites. They liked the course work, but they were more pets than working dogs.

Still, it was nice to be out here in the bright sunshine, watching the big collie go through the paces. She wondered what Levi was doing this morning. She knew he was running the dairy his family had owned for several generations. Would he still be milking cattle at almost noon on a Friday?

Not that it mattered if he was. Levi was a childhood acquaintance; she was a recently unengaged woman who was not—repeat, not—looking for a one-night stand. No matter how cute the boy she’d known so many years ago had grown up to be.

He kept the hair she remembered as dense and curly nearly shaved now. His eyes—eyes that has mesmerized her as a young girl—were rich and brown with a few hints of hazel or amber in the depths. His skin a shade lighter than his eyes. His smile a bit crooked, but that only made him more memorable to her.

The breadth of his shoulders made her heart skip a beat, and she could still feel his hand on hers.

Calvin snapped off the timer as the collie crossed the finish line, and that snapped Camden back to the course.

She would not let her childhood crush on Levi Walters take hold. Not again. He was her grandparents’ neighbor, that was all. A guy she used to know.

“I think he could be ready for sheep or goats soon,” Granddad was saying.

“Do you still have sheep and goats?” she hadn’t noticed any early morning feeding runs, the pasture near the farmhouse was empty, and she hadn’t hear any distant lowing or bleating from a small herd.