He kissed her hair, then rested his chin on top of her head. “I love you, you know.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I love you, too.”
“I’m going to miss you while you’re gone.”
“Me too.”
“But I’m glad you’ll spend some time with your family.”
“Me too.”
“Maybe I’ll drive up to New Jersey and surprise you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not saying you’re not welcome to visit me. I’m just saying it won’t be a surprise. You kind of ruined it.”
He thought about that. “I guess I did, didn’t I? Well, maybe I’ll surprise you by not coming.”
“You better come. My parents want to meet you. They’ve never met a cowboy before and I know they have this crazy picture in their heads in which you walk around with a six-shooter and say things like ‘Howdy, pardner.’”
He laughed. “I guess I’ll disappoint them.”
“No,” she said. “That’s one thing you won’t do.”
At that, Luke smiled. “How about New Year’s Eve? You doing anything?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
“Now you are.”
“Perfect. But you can’t show up at night. You’re going to have to spend some time with my parents, like I said.”
“Fair enough,” he said. He nodded toward the corner. “Do you want to help me decorate the tree?”
“What tree?”
“It’s out back. I picked it out yesterday and dragged it over. It’s kind of small and sparse and it wasn’t likely to sell, but I thought it might be nice in here. So you know what you’ll be missing.”
She leaned into him. “I already know what I’ll be missing.”
An hour later, Sophia and Luke stood back and admired their work.
“It’s not quite right,” Luke said, crossing his arms as he surveyed the tinsel-strewn tree. “It needs something more.”
“There’s not much more we can do with it,” Sophia said, reaching out to adjust a strand of lights. “A lot of the branches are already sagging.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s… Hold on. I’ll be right back. I know exactly what it needs. Just give me a minute —”
Sophia watched him disappear into the bedroom and return with a medium-size gift box, tied with ribbon. He walked past her and set it beneath the tree, then joined her again.
“Much better,” he said.
She looked over at him. “Is that for me?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t get you anything.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“That may be, but now I feel bad.”
“Don’t. You can make it up to me later.”
She studied him. “You knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?”
“It was all part of my plan.”
“What’s in it?”
“Go ahead,” he urged. “Open it.”
She approached the tree and picked up the box. It was light enough for her to guess what was inside before she’d untied the ribbon and lifted the lid. She pulled it out and held it in front of her, examining it. Dyed black and made of straw, it was decorated with beads and a band that held in place a small feather.
“A cowboy hat?”
“A nice one,” he said. “For girls.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Well, I would never wear one with a feather or beads. And I figured that since you were coming out here so much, you really needed your own.”
She leaned over and kissed him. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas.”
She put it on and peered up at him coquettishly. “How does it look?”
“Beautiful,” he said. “But then again, you always look beautiful.”
19
Luke
W
ith the beginning of the season less than a month away – and Sophia up in New Jersey – Luke stepped up his training regimen. In the days leading up to Christmas, he not only increased the duration of his rides on the mechanical bull by five minutes a day, but added strength training to the program. He’d never been fond of weight lifting, but no matter what he was doing in the way of work – which lately was primarily selling the remaining trees – he would duck away at the top of every hour and do fifty push-ups, sometimes finishing four or five hundred in a day. Finally, he added pull-ups and core work to strengthen his stomach and lower back. By the time he collapsed in bed at the end of the day, he would fall asleep within seconds.