Page 69 of Flippin' Cowboy
“It was really nice of Autumn and Spring to take the kids sledding for the afternoon,” Nick commented as Winnie and he approached the outskirts of Livingston.
Over the weekend, a storm had rolled through the valley, depositing several feet of fresh snow. The ranch’s kids thought this a gift from heaven, and an entire family of snowmen, snowwomen, and snowkids now lined the long driveway that connected the ranch to the highway.
On Saturday morning, Kelsey had borrowed Nick’s Jeep to drive home to Helena, where she planned to spend Christmas and New Year with her parents and sisters.
With restoration work on The Soiled Dove Inn halted for two weeks, Nick had enjoyed spending the last few days being a full-time dad.
He and Winnie had switched up their routine now that they were officially a couple. She came over to his place for dinner everynight. His son adored Winnie, and she seemed to enjoy Kegan’s company as well. After dinner, they played board games until Kegan’s bedtime.
After Nick tucked his son in and read him a bedtime story, he and Winnie typically spent the rest of the evening relaxing in front of the TV or reading before they retired to Nick’s bedroom to make love.
He loved the sweet domesticity of this new routine. The only downside was that Nick’s bedroom shared a wall with Kegan’s room, so he and Winnie had to be very,veryquiet when they made love.
The plan this afternoon was to take advantage of the sledding outing to pick up a few last-minute stocking stuffers in Livingston and go grocery shopping.
Priscilla and Summer, who were in throes of planning and preparing Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals for a dozen guests, had handed Winnie a list of items when they heard she and Nick were heading north to the city.
Livingston was tiny when compared to Seattle, but it was a sizable city by Montana standards. And it had at least four grocery stores, which meant that they had a better chance of finding everything on the shopping list than at the Snowberry Springs General Store.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Nick said, as Winnie turned into the parking lot of the Albertsons grocery store. “Why don’t we divide and conquer? I’m done with my Christmas shopping, so if you want to drop me off here with your mom’s list, I’ll take care of the groceries while you finish up your shopping downtown. It’ll save time.”
“I didn’t realize we were in a hurry,” Winnie said, shooting him an annoyed glance. “I was actually looking forward to escaping the pre-holiday madness at the ranch for a few hours.”
Nick couldn’t argue with the madness part of the description.
Priscilla and Summer had enlisted every adult on the ranch to help with meal prep. Nick had spent most of the morning peeling potatoes and yams for tomorrow’s Christmas Eve turkey dinner and Christmas prime rib.
Meanwhile, Brock cooked up a giant batch of cabernet-cranberry sauce, and Autumn and Bob peeled, cored, and sliced a bushel of apples for apple pies.
Priscilla put Autumn and the kids in charge of decorating the eleven-foot-tall blue spruce Christmas tree Spring had harvested from the ranch’s forested foothills.
After delivering the tree, Spring immediately headed back outside with the promise to cover all the regular ranch chores while his father was on pie duty. A short time later, Nick spotted him hauling hay bales out to the pasture to feed the cattle before returning to the barn to muck out horse stalls.
“There’s a method to my madness,” Nick assured Winnie now. “I have a plan, and it involves a special outing. Just you and me, alone together. So, the faster we get these errands out of the way, the more time we get to ourselves.”
“I like the sounds of that,” Winnie agreed. She pulled up in front of the busy store. “Okay, divide and conquer it is. I should be back here to pick you up in about an hour. Will that give you enough time to find everything?”
Nick scanned the grocery list and mentally added a few items of his own. “Yup. See you in an hour, my love. Text me if you need more time.”
He leaned over to kiss her before sliding out of her pickup.
∞∞∞
They were halfway back to Snowberry Springs when Winnie’s curiosity got the better of her.
“So, what’s your plan?” she asked finally, taking her eyes off the road to study Nick’s sharply etched profile.
He smiled, that special, wicked smile she had learned meant he had seduction on his mind. “I thought we’d stop by The Soiled Dove to contemplate the next phase of restoration.”
“Oh.” She struggled to hide her disappointment.
Nick was passionate about his work—that was something that attracted her to him. She told herself that he was probably finding it difficult to stop working over the holiday break.
“That sounds good,” she added, trying not to be a wet blanket.
But dammit, she’d been hoping he’d booked them an hour at a motel or something.
His smile deepened. “We haven’t yet discussed our restoration plan for the inn’s spa pavilion,” he purred. “So, I thought we could take advantage of the construction crew’s absence and explore the premises in depth. What would you say if I told you I put together a picnic basket and packed towels for a reconnaissance mission?”
