AN EARLY CHRISTMAS GIFT

by Susan Crosby

  There was homecoming and welcome, and newness, too. She remembered everything about him—and nothing.

  Finally she was draped over him, both of them struggling to breathe, and the rain stopped as quickly as it started. The windows were steamed up from their breath and body heat, but the shield of rain was gone.

  She sat up and studied his face. What are you thinking? she wanted to ask, knowing she didn’t dare, not unless she wanted to know the answer. She didn’t. He’d made it clear in his years of silence that he wanted nothing from her anymore. Even before, he’d only wanted sex. Their families were rivals. Their union never was meant to be.

  But then he dragged his fingers down her bare body. “Do you ever think—”

  “Yes.” She kissed him to stop the rest of the question, then they went about getting presentable again. Her hands shook. He brushed them away and buttoned her blouse.

  Then he passed her his phone. “I don’t have any chains in the truck or I’d try to pull you out of the ditch.”

  She called her father. He would assess the situation before they decided whether they needed a tow truck.

  “You probably shouldn’t be here when they arrive,” she said to Win.

  “I imagine they would think I was just being neighborly. Anyway, if they have caller ID, they already know whose phone you used.”

  She hadn’t thought of that.

  He eyed her directly, as if waiting for more from her. “Well. That was an unexpected pleasure,” he said as he tucked her hair behind her ear then caressed her earlobe.

  “Who would’ve thought that the next time I saw you, we’d make love,” she said. She started to climb out of the truck, but turned back to him. “Wait a minute. You said you wanted to talk to me.”

  She saw hesitation in his eyes.

  “Another time. Welcome home, Jen.”

  He took off immediately. She watched his truck until she couldn’t see it anymore. She refused to give in to the tornado of emotions swirling through her. She also needed to pull herself together before her father arrived, especially if her all-seeing mother tagged along. Jenny had come home a day early, wanting to surprise them. She needed to seem happy and excited.

  Except she was mostly confused. Win Morgan wasn’t just her first lover. They’d also been married—for a month.

  That was some history they had. She had to keep that secret forever, along with the fact she’d loved him with all her heart, had told him so every day—even though she’d only been a diversion and a responsibility to him. And that part she didn’t want to think about. Even though she did. Every single day.

  A line of pickups came up the road a little while later—her father and three of her brothers, all there to help.

  She was home. It could only get better from here.

  Chapter Two

  Even though Jenny had seen most of her family a few days ago for her graduation ceremony, seeing them now, after being denied the loan and having crashed her car and made love with Win, brought tears to her eyes. No one questioned it, assuming she was just happy to be home. Which she was. And wasn’t.

  Her mother cupped her face and looked into her eyes as the men pondered her car from every angle and the best way to extricate it.

  “What’s wrong?” Dori Ryder asked, tipping back her straw cowboy hat.

  Although Jenny had the Ryder blue eyes, she looked like her mother, which was a good thing, in Jenny’s opinion. “Just feeling emotional.”

  “You were lucky to escape injury.”

  “Yes.” If her mother wanted to think that, it was fine with Jenny.

  Dori put an arm around Jenny’s shoulder and walked them closer to the men. “Your father says your call came through on Win Morgan’s phone.”

  “He happened by. He didn’t have chains, so he couldn’t help.”

  “Why didn’t he stay? What if the clouds had opened up again?”

  “He left just before you got here. I told him to go.”

  “Was he bothering you?”

  Jenny narrowly stopped herself from laughing hysterically. “Why would you ask that?”

  “You seem particularly agitated.”

  “I think having my car in a ditch would be reason enough for that.”

  “Jenny, my sweet,” her mother said, “you’ve been able to go with the flow all your life. Nothing ever shakes you.”

  “Well, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  Dori laughed and pulled Jenny in for a tighter hug. “Twenty-two is old now, is it?”

  “It’s sixty in horse years.”

  Her mother grinned. “Have you got a tail hidden in those...pants? Um, you’re not wearing Wranglers? Seriously, Jen, what’s going on?”

  “Didn’t get laundry done before I hit the road.”

  “Jenny,” her father called out. “We’re gonna call Tex. We can chain ’er up and pull ’er out, but she’s gonna need repairs before you can drive it again. Tex might as well just do the whole job.”

  “Whatever you think, Dad.”

  “Dori, why don’t you and Jen head on home? You can get the party started. I’ll ride with Mitch.”

  “I’ll give you my credit card,” Jenny said, stepping forward.

  “The hell you will. Tex’ll be glad to swap for some beef, as always.”

  And so it begins.... She would be living at the homestead again, therefore her father would “handle” things for her.

  “You’re too quiet,” her mother said as they drove toward the ranch.

  Jenny reacted to the seeming criticism. “Well, Mom, in the past two weeks I wrote three papers, took five final exams, graduated, packed and shipped my belongings, then drove home alone from Arizona in two days. I deserve to be tired.”

  “And snippy?”

  Jenny blew out a breath. She was being unreasonable. “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that until now I’ve always known what came next for me. At the moment, my future is one giant question mark.”

  “Really? I had the feeling you had big plans in mind. You and Vaughn always had your heads together, talking business.”

  “Pipe dreams. The truth is that four years of advanced education, given the job situation here, still means I’ll probably be asking if you want fries with that.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be that bad. This is farm country. You’ll find something.”

  “Profit margins are too small in the family farms to bring in an outsider.” Jenny was done talking about it. “So, did I mess things up by coming home a day early? We could put off my welcome-home party until tomorrow, you know.”

  “We’ll eat an hour later than planned, that’s all.”

  They turned onto the road leading to Ryder Ranch—home. Jenny had been back several times a year, most recently on Valentine’s Day for her brother Vaughn’s wedding, but this felt different. This time she wouldn’t be leaving. Her childhood bedroom awaited her, looking the same as the day she left for college. She would have to report where she was going and when she would be back—not because her parents were tyrants, but because it was the courteous thing to do. Still, it felt like an intrusion into her independence.

  Then a thought occurred to her. “Is it hard having me come home after all these years empty nesting, Mom?”

  “It’s different.”

  Which was a vague answer. In her selfishness, she hadn’t considered her parents, only herself. “I’ll find a job and an apartment as soon as I can.” Maybe her sister, Haley, would let her stay with her for a while. She lived in town, which would be more fun, anyway.

  “Of course you will,” Dori said, patting her daughter’s knee.

  That clinched it. She hadn’t even placated Jenny by saying there’s no hurry or some other motherly thing.

 
; At the ranch, Dori immediately went into party mode. Jenny was a vegetarian, so a portobello mushroom would be grilled along with the steaks. The side dishes would be diverse and plentiful.

  For at least a few hours Jenny didn’t have time to fret, especially once her two new sisters-in-law came to help and the conversation got noisy and filled with laughter that didn’t stop.

  But the moment she saw her brother Vaughn, everything changed.

  “I expected a call from you,” he said, taking her aside.

  “They denied the loan.” She held up a hand. “I know. I know. You told me they probably wouldn’t take me on.”

  “So will you ask Dad to cosign?”

  She shook her head. “Plan B.”

  “Which is?”

  “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

  Her sister-in-law Annie came up to them. “You haven’t announced a job, so I’m wondering if you have one lined up.”

  “Not yet.”

  Annie laid a hand on her pregnant belly. “I was hoping you might help me out for a while? It’s the start of the summer season for me, and being seven months along as I am, I’m finding some limitations I can’t overcome on my own. Even with all the tall bedding boxes instead of in-the-ground planting, I’m doing too much bending and kneeling, and too much lifting and toting.”

  A glimmer of hope touched Jenny’s heart as she waited to hear the rest of what Annie had to say.

  “I know that it wouldn’t be using your degree in the way you want to,” Annie said, “but you helped out at Christmas, and we worked well together, and I thought you had fun, too. I’d pay you.”

  Hope burst into happiness inside Jenny. “I’d love to!” Annie’s organic farm was ideal in Jenny’s book. Annie had taken the deserted property and turned it into a business that was growing so fast she almost couldn’t keep up with it. “When do I start?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Jenny crushed her. “Does this constitute a group hug, with the baby in the middle?” she asked Annie, laughing. “Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”

  “Don’t know and don’t care,” her brother Mitch said, coming up beside Annie and sliding his arm around her waist. “Did she say yes?”

  “Enthusiastically,” Annie said. “Austin will be happy, too. My eleven-year-old son would rather be working on the ranch than the farm during his summer vacation. Imagine that. And next Monday is the first farmers’ market of the season. If you could help with that, I’d be grateful, maybe even take over for the rest of the season?”

  “That would be fun.”

  The relief in Mitch’s eyes told Jenny everything. He’d been worried Annie was doing too much. She probably had been.

  Jenny’s mood improved after that. She felt wanted and needed. She would have someplace to be every morning and work to do.

  Later, after the dishes were done and the company gone, Jenny slipped into her twin bed with the denim bedspread she’d bought while in high school. The photos and posters on the walls were the same. Her yearbooks were stacked on a bookshelf. She’d grown up a lot the summer after graduation, but even that wasn’t reflected in the room, not to mention her years of college.

  She didn’t have to give much thought to why she’d made love with Win today. It was another thing that hadn’t changed—she was still in love with him.

  And for him it was still just sex.

  The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whoever said that couldn’t have been more right.

  * * *

  Life on Annie’s farm, The Barn Yard, was like a constant family reunion. Jenny’s brothers Adam and Brody had moved into the farmhouse when Mitch and Annie got married last October. In exchange for rent, they’d remodeled the kitchen and bathroom then painted every room.

  They weren’t much on keeping house, but their only other choice would’ve been to move back into the homestead or the old bunkhouse. At ages twenty-seven and thirty, they were too old to move home, and the bunkhouse had been commandeered by their newest sister-in-law, Vaughn’s wife, Karyn, who was overseeing a remodeling of that structure for a new tourist venture for the ranch.

  The brothers left the farm early each day to work at the ranch, twenty miles away. Mitch dropped in frequently to make sure his pregnant wife was okay and to do any heavy lifting, often bringing Annie’s son with him. And the parents came by, as well.

  Win could stop by, if he chose. Something he couldn’t do at the ranch. But would he? How could he? she reminded herself. He didn’t know she was working at the farm. Just another fantasy, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to become reality, anyway.

  “Do you mind having so much unannounced company?” Jenny asked Annie as they planted fingerling potatoes and artisan lettuce, mainstays of the farm.

  “Not at all. My family wasn’t close like yours. For me it’s a dream come true. When I first took over the farm, people used to stop by unannounced and I didn’t like it, but that’s because they wanted to buy my property.”

  “I remember you telling me that. Shep Morgan, right?” Win’s father was one of the orneriest men around. Even Jenny would have found him scary to deal with on her own. “And I think you said Win stopped by sometimes, too?” she asked hopefully.

  “And your father and Vaughn,” Annie said, shaking back her blond hair. Even though it would only be about seventy degrees at the day’s peak, it was easy to work up a sweat working outdoors, especially inside the high tunnel greenhouses, which were much warmer, as sheltered as they were. “But that was before Mitch and I got married. The Morgans know there’s no way I’d sell this land now. No reason to stop by.”

  “How long could you have held on if Mitch hadn’t come along?”

  “Mitch has made my life a whole lot easier, with much less stress and pressure, but I was starting to succeed on my own.”

  “He seems to let you run the show here just fine.”

  “Does he?” Annie smiled. “He has impact on my decisions, because he often brings a different perspective to a situation, and I find that helpful. He doesn’t have the same emotional connection to this land that I do, which keeps him clearheaded. But he also amazes me, how he can work all day at the ranch and still help me out here. Austin has learned so much from him, too.”

  Jenny nudged Annie aside and took over planting the potatoes, which required more bending. “Maybe you could pour us some iced tea and we’ll take a little break.”

  “Okay. Can we talk about Win Morgan?” Annie asked over her shoulder as she walked away.

  Jenny jolted a little in surprise, then thought it over. She would love to confide in someone, but should it be Annie?

  A few minutes later they were sitting on the porch, hands washed clean of soil, sipping iced tea and eating oatmeal-raisin cookies.

  “Why do you want to talk about Win?” Jenny asked.

  “Mitch tells me that you used Win’s phone to call your dad.”

  “Only because he stopped to see if I needed help, and I haven’t switched to a satellite phone yet.”

  “He was being a Good Samaritan?”

  “That’s right. Why?”

  “Because almost every time I’ve seen him, he’s asked about you. And at Christmas, you avoided him.”

  “I’ve always found Win to be the strong, silent type.” Which was not really an answer.

  “People tend to romanticize the strong, silent types, but actually they usually have nothing to say,” Annie commented. “Win has things to say.”

  “It sounds as if you like him.”

  “I do. I think he’s a victim of his father’s bad press. But I think you like him, too.”

  Jenny stared into space for a few seconds. “I do.”

  “But?”

  “We had a summer fling th
at our parents weren’t aware of four years ago.” She bit into her cookie before she said any more.

  “Really? And how was it?”

  Jenny smiled. “Everything a girl’s first love affair should be.”

  “Made more exciting because your families would have hit their respective roofs.”

  “Probably. Until yesterday I hadn’t seen him in all that time.”

  “How was it?”

  “Look, Annie, I don’t want to put you on the spot by telling you things I don’t want you to share with Mitch, and I don’t want my brother to know.”

  “I’d keep your confidences. I have to tell you that Karyn has been curious, too, ever since you avoided Win here at Christmas. She plied me with questions I had no answers for.”

  Jenny felt as close to her two sisters-in-law, whom she barely knew, as her sister, Haley. “I think we should keep it that way. Nothing can happen between Win and me, you know?”

  “Why not?”

  “Our families—”

  Annie interrupted. “I don’t know about Win’s family, but yours love you, and they would accept him if he’s your choice.”

  “Accept isn’t the same as love and welcome.”

  “In time it could be that. You’ve got 150 years of bad blood to get past first.”

  “Well, that’s a snap, don’t you think?”

  “If you love each other, the fact your last name is Ryder and his is Morgan wouldn’t matter.”

  “Who said anything about love? Lust, sure, but—”

  A truck pulled into the driveway, one she would’ve recognized anywhere.

  “Looks like Win has come calling,” Annie said. “Are you going to hide?”

  She couldn’t let her sister-in-law think she was a coward. Nor did she want Win to think he had that kind of power over her. Plus she wanted to see him, so why would she hide?

  “Howdy,” Win said as he ambled to the porch, looking like the rancher he was, hat to boots.

  “Hi, Win,” Annie said. “Would you join us for iced tea and cookies?”