Santa In Montana (Calder Saga 11)

“May I,” she countered, automatically correcting his grammar.

He gave her a puzzled look. “Don’t you know if you can?”

It took an instant for his response to register. When it did, Cat laughed. “I think they’re too hot right now.”

As he sighed his regret, Sloan came up and rumpled his hair. “You don’t need one anyway. It’ll spoil your lunch.”

“No, it won’t. My tummy’s real, real empty.” He pressed a hand against his stomach in emphasis.

“We’ll eat as soon as your grandma and Laredo get here,” Sloan promised and moved toward the oven. “Is the warming stone for the rolls still in here, Cat?”

“Upper rack,” was the answer.

“And we gotta wait for Dad, too, I s’pose,” Jake said with clear dismay as he lingered by the rolls, eyeing them with obvious longing.

“Your dad’s not going to be here for lunch.” Using an oven mitt, Sloan removed the stone and placed it in the bottom of the roll basket.

“How come?”

“He’s at South Camp, helping haul hay out to the cattle. I imagine he and your other great-grandpa will have lunch together.” Sloan laid a large, sturdy dishtowel over the warming stone and draped the ends over the basket’s edge.

“And Grandma, too,” Jake surmised.

“No, she won’t be there,” Sloan told him. “Don’t you remember? You saw her with the other ladies at the commissary boxing up the toys.” In an aside to Cat, she said, “They scored some incredible bargains shopping on black Friday.”

“Good. That means all the money that was donated will spread further.” Cat checked the large pot of beef and noodles and turned the burner to its lowest heat setting.

Boredom claimed Jake. With typical abruptness, he turned away from the tantalizing rolls and broke for the doorway to the dining room.

“Where do you think you’re going, Jake?” Sloan demanded, a mother’s natural suspicion surfacing.

Brought up short, Jake swung back in exasperation. “To see if Greypa opened the door yet?”

“Don’t you worry about that door. Just stay here with us,” Sloan ordered.

“But, Mom,” he protested with great drama. “I want to tell Greypa about the snow fort me an’ Luke an’ Danny built.”

“Luke, Danny, and I built,” Cat corrected without thinking.

“You weren’t there, Aunt Cat,” Jake declared.

Before Cat could explain about his misuse of pronouns, Sloan inserted, “There will be plenty of time for you to tell Greypa about your fort at lunch.”

He opened his mouth to argue the point, then correctly interpreted his mother’s stern-eyed look of warning that this point wasn’t open to debate. So he settled for simply asking, “How long before lunch?”

“Everything’s ready. We can start dishing up as soon as your grandma and Laredo get here.” Quick to see the next question forming in Jake’s eyes, Sloan added, “And—no, I don’t know how long that will be.”

With a great show of reluctance, he dragged himself back to the kitchen table and, more or less, flung himself onto one of the chairs. Disgruntled and out of sorts, he demanded, “How come Greypa’s got the doors shut anyway?”

“So he could visit with his friend in private.”

“But Greypa’d want to see me if he knew I was here,” Jake reasoned.

Sloan just smiled. “Nice try.”

The corners of his mouth turned down in defeat as he slumped even lower in the chair. From the entryway came the sound of the front door opening, footsteps entering, and a man’s muted voice. Jake immediately brightened.

“That’s ’Redo.”