“I told Becca,” Raylen said.

“Well, it is set in stone now,” Ace said.

“And?” Jasmine asked.

“She thinks I’m crazy,” Raylen answered honestly.

“I can only imagine how mad she is,” Gemma said. “She was saving you for the last hurrah, Raylen. When she got ready to buy that wedding dress, she was going to land in your arms.”

“Now she’ll have to land in Dewar’s or Ace’s,” Raylen said.

“Hey, what’d we do to make you mad?” Ace asked.

“Not me. Brennan can have her,” Dewar said.

Gemma blushed. “Brennan?”

“That’s who Raylen said she was with last night,” Ace said.

Gemma clamped her jaw tightly shut and kept looping gold tinsel over the cedar limbs. Liz could tell that she was about to explode.

“Okay, Gemma, what’s this about Brennan?” Liz asked.

“Nothing!” Gemma snapped.

Jasmine shook her head at Liz.

“Nope, I’m not going to ignore it,” Liz declared. “Gemma, what’s wrong?”

“This is so Becca. She’s known for years that I had a thing for Brennan and that we had started going out. She hates me and sabotages every hint of a relationship I might get into,” Gemma answered.

Liz finished her garland and went back for another length. “You ever think that maybe he asked her out and she’s showing you that he’s not the one for you? Maybe she is your friend.”

Raylen’s ears were hearing things! Surely Liz hadn’t just taken up for Becca. If Liz knew about the fit Becca threw when Raylen called her that morning before he told everyone that he and Liz were officially dating, she would be stringing the woman up by the thumbs. She wouldn’t be taking up for her by any means.

“If it wasn’t her going out with him, then it could be someone else. I didn’t see a cowboy from this area in your cards when I read them, so Brennan isn’t the one, honey,” Liz said.

Gemma nodded but her eyes were still angry. “I hope she winds up with him. It would serve him right. I’m not high maintenance like her.”

“You want to repeat that business about not being high maintenance?” Dewar asked.

She pointed up at him. “You hush or I’ll shake you off that ladder. Liz, would you tell me again what you saw in my cards while I get some more garland out of the box?”

“I saw a blond cowboy. Tall, blond, and sexy. And he adored you.” She didn’t tell Gemma that the cowboy could very well be Ace because she couldn’t see his face at all in her vision and the cards hadn’t given her an exact description.

Gemma took out some garland and began to drape it around the tree limbs. “I think card reading is a bunch of hocus-pocus, but I need something to hang on to. By next Christmas, right?”

“In my vision, I definitely saw a Christmas tree,” Liz said.

Gemma sing-songed. “Well, you are out of luck, Brennan. Noel, noel, noel!”