Free Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 by Susan Wittig Albert Page A

could almost see her squaring her shoulders
and putting on a stiff upper lip. "I'm afraid I must ring off now. I have
an important engagement this afternoon."
    We said goodbye and I put down the
phone with the feeling that Mrs. Kendall's afternoon engagement was with the
bottle at her elbow. It must be terrible to lose a sister and even worse to
live with feelings of grief and desperate longing for the rest of your life.
    •    
•     •
    I tried calling Ruby again, but there
was still no answer. So I spent Sunday afternoon doing the Christmas decorating
in my usual haphazard, uninspired way, hanging wreaths and swags, arranging
candles in trays covered with rosemary branches sprayed with fake snow, putting
up a small artificial tree on the hutch in the dining room. I stood back to
survey my handiwork, feeling that it all seemed— well, rather ordinary and
unremarkable, hardly something you'd go out of your way to look at. I could
imagine the Christmas Tourists shaking their heads and muttering critically to
one another, and Rowena Riddle, frowning in disappointment. I sighed. Where
was Ruby when I needed her? Where was Martha Stewart?
    Finally, in an act of desperation, I dragged in a
pot of prickly pear cactus from the patio and looped it with miniature white
lights. Then, on a whim, I put my cowboy boots—the ones I wear when McQuaid and
I go dancing at the Broken Spoke—beside the fireplace and filled them with
rosemary branches and some bright red chile peppers. When I stepped back to
admire the boots and the cactus, I realized I'd accidentally discovered my
theme. I took the pine-bough garland off the mantel and substituted a
red-pepper ristra and a garlic braid from the kitchen, hung with a
few ornaments. Voila! A Texas Country Christmas. A few miniature Texas flags, a
ceramic armadillo wearing a Santa hat, Brian's toy gun and lariat looped around
a grapevine wreath and hung with holly, and the picture would be complete. To
go with the theme, I'd persuade Mrs. Kendall to try her hand at some Texas
party foods—tiny tacos, red and green salsa, Fiesta pie, and tortilla snacks.
    When McQuaid and
Brian got home, we put up the tree we'd picked out the week before and
decorated it with the hodgepodge of ornaments we've independently collected over
the years, half of which are broken and none of which match. When you marry a
man, you marry his Christmas ornaments as well.
    And his dog. In the middle of the tree-trimming
festivities, Howard Cosell, McQuaid's grumpy old basset, stumped in, sniffed
happily all around the cactus pot, then lifted his leg. Of course, Howard has
probably used that pot as a fire hydrant several times a day for as long as
we've lived here, and nobody has ever said a cross word to him about it. But
the cactus was under new management and Howard would have to do his doggy
business elsewhere until the Tourists had come and gone. Explaining this to
him wasn't easy, for while Howard responds with tail-wagging and eye-rolling
enthusiasm to complicated sentences such as "Would you like to go for a
ride in the truck?" and "It must be almost time for Howard's
dinner," his vocabulary does not include the word no.
    But Howard Cosell's
affinity for the cactus pot was a minor glitch in an otherwise merry
Christmas-tree-decorating party, our first as a family. McQuaid and Brian and I
ate popcorn and drank mulled cider as we worked, and told stories of
Christmases past. When we were finished, Brian was given the honor of switching
on the tree lights in the darkened room. "Awesome," he said when the
tree was lit, and McQuaid and I, our arms around each other, had to agree.
Everything was perfect—the cowboy boots, the lariat wreath, Howard's cactus,
the Christmas tree. Even the ceramic armadillo looked right at home.
    "Good job, Mrs.
McQuaid," my husband said, and kissed me. To the rest of the world I am
still and always China Bayles, but McQuaid can call me Mrs. McQuaid whenever he
likes and I won't