Hot Christmas Nights. Sharon Kendrick

number of things, protection, guarding, barking an alarm. He’ll even go for help if you tell him to. Once, on a cold winter day Ned’s horse fell with him, broke its leg, and Ned couldn’t get free. Ned sent Twig for help. Saved his life, no doubt about it. Another time, Ned, who was getting on up in years, slipped getting out of the tub and knocked himself unconscious. Don’t guess we’ll ever know how Twig got out of the house. Ned was up and nursing a goose egg by the time we got here, but it could’ve gone the other way. When Ned passed—went real peaceful in his sleep—Twig came, then, too.”

      “Wow,” Danica said, looking down at the dog with new respect. “You’re a regular Lassie, aren’t you, fella? And I guess the boy is your Timmy.”

      “Actually,” Winston said, “that would be you. The dog belongs here.”

      She looked him in the eye and said flatly, “It belongs with the boy.”

      Cool gray eyes assessed then pulled back from hers. “Looks to me like Twig has something to say about that. Voted with his feet, apparently, and it seems you’re elected.”

      She frowned. “But I saw how fond your son is of him.”

      “His name’s Jamesy.”

      “Jamesy,” she repeated impatiently, “fine. You tell Jamesy that Twig belongs with him now.”

      Winston Champlain shook his head again, wagging it decisively from side to side. “I’d say Twig has other ideas.”

      She looked down at the dog, sighed and bit her lip. “I couldn’t live with myself, knowing how the, er, Jamesy would miss him.”

      “Is that why you threw us off the place yesterday?” he asked softly.

      She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his gaze. “You wouldn’t listen to me.”

      “Now if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.”

      He had a way of being right, blast him. “I just didn’t want to fight about it, okay?”

      “You didn’t have to be rude.”

      “I wasn’t—” She broke off, knowing that he was right again and confessed, “You made me mad.”

      “Yeah, well, that was no reason to talk to the boy the way you did.”

      Her surprised gaze popped up to his face before she could prevent it. “I wasn’t angry with him! Anything, ah, heated that I might have said was aimed at you.”

      “I know that,” he admitted, “but Jamesy’s kind of sensitive.”

      “Really,” she quipped drolly, “and he’s your son?”

      His mouth thinned into a flat line. “That wasn’t funny.”

      Her eyebrows jumped. Apparently she’d hit a tender spot for which she hadn’t really aimed. “Sorry.”

      “The fact is,” Winston Champlain told her angrily, ignoring her muttered apology, “he looks exactly like me, in case you didn’t notice.”

      “I noticed,” she said softly, but he wasn’t satisfied with that.

      “Jamesy couldn’t be anyone else’s,” Winston insisted, “no matter how his mother behaved after he was born.”

      Danica winced. Oh, boy, had she put her foot in it. “I only meant to imply that you aren’t very sensitive yourself,” she told him sheepishly. It wasn’t at all true, she admitted silently, his current reaction a case in point.

      “It’s bad enough that she abandoned us for the party life,” he went on heatedly, “without you making him think you don’t like him, too.”

      She blanched, truly ashamed now. “Oh, gosh, he didn’t really think that, did he?”

      “That’s exactly what he thought! He’s a kid, and a kid whose own mom didn’t think enough of him to stick around.”

      She moaned, eyes squeezed shut. “Me and my big mouth! I don’t know what’s wrong with me anymore. I have no patience. My fuse is so short! I just didn’t want to take the boy’s dog, and you wouldn’t accept that, so I lost it. I certainly never meant to make him think that I didn’t like him.”

      Winston folded his arms and heaped on the coals. “You did more than that, frankly. You didn’t appreciate the sacrifice he was making in order to do the right thing. Yes, he’s fond of the dog, but he realizes that it belongs here. What’s more, Jamesy’s got sense enough to know that you need that dog, even if you don’t.”

      She had her own opinion about that, but she wasn’t going to argue about it now. It didn’t matter at this point that she wasn’t going to get caught under a fallen horse or slip getting out of the bathtub. As unfair as it seemed, she’d survived a horrendous car crash; she couldn’t believe anything worse could happen to her. That, however, was not the issue.

      “What can I do?” she asked simply, and he told her.

      “Just let me tell Jamesy that he can come visit Twig occasionally.”

      “That’s it?”

      “You were maybe thinking of adopting him?”

      She rolled her eyes, but the truth was that she wouldn’t be leaving herself open to much more interaction with Winston Champlain if she did adopt his son. He wasn’t really giving her any options, however, and she couldn’t seem to find any for herself.

      Sighing inwardly, she nodded and said, “Tell Jamesy for me that he’s welcome any time, that I wasn’t shouting at him yesterday, and that I’m looking forward to getting to know him. And tell him that I’ll take good care of Twig.”

      Winston Champlain shoved his hat farther back on his head and sent her a lazy, approving smile with just enough smugness in it to make her want to hit him. Problem was, he had a right to that smile.

      “If it helps, I figure you have good reason to be mad at the world right now,” he said.

      She grimaced and held up both hands defensively. “We aren’t going to grief counseling now, are we, because I’ve got to warn you, I am not up for it.”

      He looked down, rubbing his chin. “No fear there, but we could talk about that restitution order.”

      She looked away, pondering what to say. The truth was that she’d had about all of Winston Champlain that she could take for the moment. He had the most infuriating way of being right about too much, and in her current state of mind, one slip of the tongue, his, and she would be shouting. She’d prefer to avoid that embarrassment.

      “Uh, this isn’t the best time, actually,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t press for an explanation. “Why don’t we make an appointment for, oh, day after tomorrow?”

      He rubbed his chin. “It would have to be that evening.”

      Relieved, she agreed immediately. “Sure. Evening’s fine.”

      “Say about seven?”

      “Seven’s good.”

      His smile beamed pure pleasure this time. “Okay,” he said, resettling his hat. “See you then.” He leaned forward and ruffled the dog’s ear, saying, “You take care of her now, Twig.”

      The dog snuffled, then yelped in delight when Winston took a short stick from his shirt pocket. Danica marveled at how cleanly the dog nipped it from the cowboy’s long, lean fingers. It immediately dropped down onto its belly then and began gnawing.

      Winston chuckled, flipped her a wave and walked back to his truck. A few moments later, he and the truck disappeared around the same curve from which they had appeared.

      Danica sat down on the step next to the dog. “Well, I tried, but I guess we’re a team, after all,” she told it, “for now.” The dog glanced up at her, then went back to gnawing