“Your choice, darlin’. Tree and house, or nap,” Raylen said.

“Kiss me one more time and we’ll start home,” she whispered.

Chapter 15

The tree was too big for the holder they found in the tack room, so Raylen nailed a cross bar on the bottom, stuck the whole thing down in a galvanized wash tub, and filled it half full of water.

“That should keep it from drying out for a week,” he said.

Liz clapped her hands and hugged him right in front of Ace, Jasmine, Gemma, and Dewar. “It’s beautiful. I’ll wrap the bottom with an old quilt to cover the wash tub and then use a couple more quilts for the tree skirt. You are a genius.”

“Whoa! You’ll swell up his ego until the rest of us plain old cowboys won’t be able to endure his struttin’ around like a bantam rooster,” Ace said.

Jasmine slapped the air in front of his face. “Honey, there ain’t an ego in Montague County as big as yours. And you strut in your sleep, so don’t you be callin’ the pot black. Now you guys go get a couple of ladders. You can put the lights on the top and us girls will take care of the bottom half. When we get this one decorated, we’ll go in the house and do that one, then you fellers can take care of the outside lights while we wrap presents.”

Ace poked her on the arm. “I’m going to work up an appetite.”

Jasmine gave him a half smile. “I figured you’d say that, so I’m prepared. We’ll all go to the café and grill some burgers and make some fries after everything is done. I’ve got half a chocolate cake and two pecan pies left over from yesterday.”

“For pecan pie I will string lights from here to the North Pole,” Ace said.

Liz led the way to the tack room. The women each picked up one box and the guys stacked up two each. Dewar and Ace crawled up on ladders and worked together, clipping the strands of lights to the tree as Raylen fed the wires up to them. Jasmine started at the bottom of the tree, Liz began her strands a foot up from Jasmine, and Gemma started in the middle.

When they’d finished that job, Dewar said, “While we are up here, we might as well put the garland on. Raylen, you can keep it coming just like you did the lights.”

“And they accused me of being too organized,” Raylen said.

“You got a girlfriend now. That erases all the sane thoughts from your head so me and Dewar get to be kings of organization,” Ace said.

Jasmine started around the bottom of the tree with wide gold garland. “I’m damn sure glad dating doesn’t affect women like that.”

“Hey, now,” Raylen said.

“I still can’t believe you two are an item,” Gemma said. “Are you sure y’all ain’t just putting on a show to tease us?”