Red Dirt Christmas
Publication
Date: December 11
Publisher: Blue Heart Press
Buylinks:
Blurb
Travis had been here for just over a year. We
were technically engaged, not that we’d told anyone. He was happy just knowin’
I’d said yes, and I had some head-clearin’ stuff to work through. Knowing I was
good enough for Trav was one thing, but knowing if I was good enough to be a husband
and father was somethin’ else entirely.
Life at Sutton Station had never been better.
Business was strong, Trudy and Bacon’s little baby, Gracie, was a few weeks old
now and as cute as a button, Ma’s health was good, and my relationship with
Laura and Sam was in a pretty good place. And Travis? Well, life with him was
still all kinds of perfect.
But, to Travis’s dismay, Christmas at the
Station was just another day. Another day of getting up before the sun, feeding
animals, fixin’ what needed fixin’, and checking water troughs all while tryin’
to keep out of the blistering heat.
And this year weren’t much different. Only
that it was Travis’s first Sutton Station Christmas. The fact we didn’t go all
out with decorations and celebrations baffled him, and if I was bein’ truthful,
it disappointed him too.
Which was why I had to make it a special kind
of Christmas…
Excerpt:
Chapter One
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
I was muckin’ out the stables with Billy when
he stopped and leaned on his shovel. He was lookin’ out to the paddock and
grinned his half-a-face smile. “Ah, boss. You might wanna take a look.”
I followed his line of sight and let out a
long sufferin’ sigh. “Jesus.”
Billy laughed and I shook my head. We could
see Trav smilin’ as he rode the dirt bike into the yard. Strapped onto the seat
behind him was a six foot pine tree. He pulled the bike to a stop, and his grin
got even wider.
I stared at him. “Trav, what’s that?”
“What does it look like?” he asked, his
eyebrows knitting together. “It’s a tree.”
“I can see that.”
“Mr Travis,” Billy said, all concerned-like.
“You can’t be cuttin’ them trees down. They special to the Aboriginal people’s
culture. Mr Travis, you disrespectin’ our people.”
Travis’s face was priceless. He paled, his
eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open. He looked at me for some kind of
guidance, and I just shook my head and clicked my tongue. Travis turned back to
Billy, close to panicking. “Oh. I didn’t know. Oh my God. I just thought it
looked like a Christmas tree and there were plenty of them. Billy, I’m so
sorry. I can take it back. I mean, I can’t replant it ‘cause you know.” He
looked at the tree on the back of the bike and cringed. “Well, I hacked it off
at the ground. God, I’m so sorry. Is there something I should do?”
Billy looked at the tree. “Well, there’s a
spirit dance from the Dreamtime. The person who takes the tree needs to do it.”
Travis nodded seriously. “A spirit dance?”
Trav stared at Billy, and I stared at Billy.
A spirit dance? I had to give it to Billy. He held it together for about five
seconds of absolute silence before he lost it. He burst out laughing, which
made me laugh too. “I’m just pullin’ your leg, Travis. There’s no spirit
dance,” Billy said, holding his sides as he laughed. His smile was so contagious.
Apparently Travis was immune. He glared at
us. “Oh, you sons of bitches. You had me going.” He put his hand to his heart.
“Jesus Billy, you scared the crap outta me. I thought I’d broken some
traditional Aboriginal code or something!”
Billy just laughed some more. “The look on
your face was so funny.”
“I hate the both of you,” Trav said, but he
was smiling.
“These trees are like a weed,” Billy said.
“Introduced by the white fellas two hundred years ago. They grow fast, but
they’re not native.”
“I didn’t think they were.” Travis ran his
hand along the fronds of the tethered tree. “But it’s the closest thing to a
Christmas tree out here.”
“Christmas tree?” Billy asked. “Not too old
for that? Still think Santa Claus climbs down chimneys?”
Travis frowned. He looked at his feet and
shifted his weight. His voice was quiet. “No. It was just a tradition in my
family. My grandfather would cut down a tree and we’d decorate it as a family.
We had special ornaments and there would be a huge dinner and it was kind of a
big deal. I just thought maybe… You know what? Never mind.”
Billy knew Travis’s grandfather had died not
long ago. “Oh Mr Travis, I didn’t mean anything. I was just jokin’ with ya.
Here, let me help you get it off the bike.”
Travis sighed and his frowned deepened, and
Billy quickly undid the straps and lifted the tree by himself. “Where do you
want it, Mr Travis?”
Trav was lookin’ down at the dirt, and Billy
stared at me with wide eyes. “Boss? I didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” he whispered.
I saw the corner of Travis’s lip curl up and
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for shit’s sake. He’s joking, Billy.”
Billy’s eyes shot to Travis, and Travis’s
frown became a slow spreading grin. “I’m just pullin’ your leg,” he said with a
laugh. “You’re not the only one who can spin one, Billy.”
“Your grandfather never cut down a Christmas
tree?”
Travis shook his head, still grinning. “My
grandfather would tell everyone we were going to pick a perfect tree, but he’d
take me fishing instead and we’d just buy some random tree from a lot on the
way home.”
Billy dropped the tree into the dirt and
pushed Travis’s shoulder, which of course led to them trying to put each other
in a headlock, which was only made more difficult because they were both
laughin’ so hard. I looked at Texas, Trav’s horse. Even he didn’t look
impressed. He just twitched his ears and swished his tail in a
yep-they’re-idiots kind of way. “I know,” I told him. “You have no idea what I
have to put up with.”
“Who are you talking to, Charlie?” Travis asked.
They’d apparently stopped wrestling and were lookin’ at me.
“Your horse,” I answered seriously. “He
thinks you’re both dickheads.”
Travis brushed himself down, though why, I’ll
never know. Red dust got into everything here; there weren’t no escapin’ it.
“I’ll never get used to the Australian display of affection of calling the
people you’re supposed to like horrible names.”
I snorted out a laugh. “You’d think after a
year you’d be used to it.”
Billy picked up his shovel and offered it to
Trav. “Wanna shovel shit?”
“Um, gee, thanks, but no,” Trav replied, with
an I-ain’t-stupid look on his face. “I have a Christmas tree to put up.
Considering Christmas is three days away and no one seems to give a shit.”
I lifted up the horseshit covered shovel. “Texas
does. Bags of it.”
He rolled his eyes at me and wiped the sweat
from his brow with the back of his hand. “Tell me, how damn hot is it? You
know, Christmas should be cold, not one hundred and thirty freakin’ degrees.”
Without waitin’ for an answer, he reached behind his head and pulled his
T-shirt off. It was one of my old shirts, kinda threadbare, but I didn’t mind
him wearin’ it. It clung to his body when he got all sweaty… Nah, I didn’t mind
him wearin’ it at all. I minded even less when he took it off. Wearing just his
jeans, boots and hat, he wrapped the shirt around the tree and lifted it easily
onto one shoulder. I watched as the muscles in his back and arms flexed, all
shiny with sweat, the way the red dirt smeared on his skin, and a lucky drop of
sweat as it ran from the back of his hair, right down his spine and disappeared
where his jeans slung low on his arse.
Jesus.
Billy snapped his fingers in my face. “You in
there, boss?”
Travis turned around and, realising I’d been
busted totally checkin’ him out, he grinned. And seeing that Billy wasn’t
lookin’ at him, Travis licked his lips all suggestive like, and ran his free
hand over his abs as he turned to walk out.
I flung horseshit at him.
He didn’t even turn around. He just laughed.
As he walked away, he asked, “I can put this in the living room, right?”
“Would it matter what I said?” I called out
after him.
His reply was distant as he reached the
house. “Nope.”
Billy laughed, and I grumbled as we went back
to shovelling shit. When we’d heard the screen door shut, Billy looked up to
make sure Travis was gone. “He got no idea what you plannin’, does he, boss?”
I smiled as I kept on shovelin’. “None.”
About
N.R. Walker
N.R. Walker is an Australian author, who
loves her genre of gay romance.
he loves writing and spends far too much time
doing it, but wouldn't have it any other way.
She is many things; a mother, a wife, a
sister, a writer. She has pretty, pretty boys who live in her head, who don't
let her sleep at night unless she gives them life with words.
She likes it when they do dirty, dirty
things...but likes it even more when they fall in love.
She used to think having people in her head
talking to her was weird, until one day she happened across other writers who
told her it was normal.
She's been writing ever since...
Find
N.R. Walker Here
Twitter:
@NR_Walker
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