The Holiday Gift

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Doing our best,” Chase replied blandly.

  She decided it would be wise to take the chance to leave while she could. “Thanks for offering, Rafe. I actually have a few things I just remembered I have to do before dinner. It would great if you two could finish up out here.”

  She rushed into the house and tried to tell herself she was grateful for the narrow escape.

  * * *

  Chase took another taste of Aunt Mary’s delicious mashed potatoes dripping with creamy, rich gravy, and listened to the conversation ebb and flow around him.

  He loved listening to the interactions of Faith and her family. With no siblings of his own, he had always envied the close relationships among them all. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, from current events to Celeste’s recent visit to New York to the progress of Hope’s pregnancy.

  The conversation was lively, at times intense and heated, and never boring. The sisters might disagree with each other or Mary about a particular topic but they always did so with respect and affection.

  It was obvious this was a family that loved each other. The girls’ itinerant childhood—and especially the tragedy that had followed—seemed to have forged deep, lasting bonds between Faith and her sisters.

  Sometimes they opened their circle to include others. Rafe and his nephew Joey. Flynn and Olivia. Chase.

  He could lose this.

  If this gamble he was taking—trying to force Faith to let things move to the next level between them—didn’t pay off, he highly doubted whether Mary would continue to welcome him to these Sunday dinners he treasured.

  Things very well might become irreparably broken between them. His jaw tightened. Some part of him wondered if he might be better off backing down and keeping the status quo, this friendship he treasured.

  But then he would see Rafe touch Hope’s hand as he made a point or watch Celeste’s features soften when she talked about Flynn and he knew he couldn’t let it ride. He wanted to have that with Faith. It was possible; he knew it was. That evening on the deck had only reinforced that she was attracted to him but was fighting it with everything she had.

  They could be as happy as Rafe and Hope, Celeste and Flynn. Couldn’t she see that?

  He had told her he would give her time but even though it had only been a few days, he could feel his patience trickling away. He had waited so long already.

  “Who’s ready for dessert?” Louisa asked eagerly, as the meal was drawing to a close.

  Barrett rolled his eyes. “I haven’t even finished my steak. You’re just in a hurry because you made it.”

  “So? I never made a whole cheesecake by myself before. Mom or Aunt Mary always helped me, but I made this one all by myself. I even made the crust.”

  “I saw it in the kitchen and it looks delicious,” Chase assured her. “I can’t wait to dig in.”

  She beamed at him and his heart gave a sharp little ache. This was another reason he didn’t want to remain on the edge of Faith’s life forever. Louisa and Barrett were amazing kids, despite everything they had been through. He wanted so much to be able to help Faith raise them into the good, kind people they were becoming.

  He had no idea what he would do next if she was so afraid to take a chance on a relationship with him that she ended up pushing him out of all of their lives.

  He would be lost without them.

  He set his fork down, the last piece of delicious steak he had been chewing suddenly losing all its flavor.

  He had to keep trying to make her see how good they could all be together, even when the risks of this all-or-nothing roll of the dice scared the hell out of him.

  “Okay, do you want chocolate sauce or raspberry?” Lou asked.

  He managed a smile. “How about a little of both?”

  “Great idea,” Mary said. “Think I’ll have both, too.”

  Louisa went around the table taking orders like a server in a fancy restaurant, then she and Olivia headed for the kitchen. When Faith rose to go with them to help, Louisa made her sit back down.

  “We can do it,” she insisted.

  The girls left just as another gust of wind rattled the windows and howled beneath the eaves of the old house. The electricity flickered but didn’t go out and he couldn’t help thinking how cozy it was in here.

  They talked about the record-breaking crowd at The Christmas Ranch that weekend until the girls came back with a tray loaded with slices of cheesecake. They were cut a little crooked and the presentation was a bit messy but nobody seemed to mind.

  “This is delicious. The best cheesecake I think I’ve ever had,” Chase said after his first bite, which earned him a huge grin from Louisa.

  “It is really excellent,” Celeste said. “And I’ve had cheesecake in New York City, where they know cheesecake.”

  Louisa couldn’t have looked happier. “Thanks. I’m going to try an apple pie next week.”

  He couldn’t resist darting a glance at Faith and wondered if he would ever be able to eat apple pie again without remembering the cinnamon-sugar taste of her mouth.

  She licked her lips, then caught his eyes and her cheeks turned an instant pink that made him suddenly certain she was thinking about the kiss, too.

  “That wind is sure blowing up a storm,” Rafe commented.

  “The last update I heard on the weather said we’re supposed to have another half foot of snow before morning,” Hope said.

  “Yay!” all of the children exclaimed together.

  “Maybe we won’t have school,” Joey said with an unmistakably hopeful note in his voice.

  “Yeah!” Barrett exclaimed. “That would be awesome!”

  “I wouldn’t plan on it,” Mary said. “I hate to be a downer but I’ve lived here most of my life and can tell you they hardly ever close school on account of snow. As long as the buses can run, you’ll have school.”

  “It really depends on the timing of the storm and the kind of snowdrifts it leaves behind,” Chase said, not wanting the kids to completely give up hope. “If it’s early in the morning before the plows can make it around, you might be in luck.”

  “We should probably head home before the worst of it hits,” Rafe said.

  “Same here,” Celeste said. “I’m so glad Flynn put new storm windows in that old house this summer.”

  Flynn had spent six months renovating and adding on to his late grandmother’s old house down the road, a project which had been done just days before their wedding in August.

  Chase remembered that lovely ceremony on the banks of the Cold Creek, when the two of them—so very perfect for each other—had both glowed with happiness.

  Watching them together had only reinforced his determination to forge his own happy ending with Faith, no matter what it took. He had spent the past few months touching her more in their regular interactions, teasing her, trying anything he could think of to convince her to think of him as more than just her friend and confidant.

  Right now he felt further from that goal than ever.

  Sometimes their Sunday evening dinners would stretch long into the night when they would watch a movie or play games at the kitchen table, but with the storm, everyone seemed in a hurry to leave. They stayed only long enough to clean up the kitchen and then only he, Mary, Faith and her children were left.

  “How’s the homework situation?” Faith asked from her spot at the kitchen sink drying dishes, a general question aimed at both of her children.

  “I had a math work sheet but I finished it on the bus on the way home from school Friday,” Louisa said. Chase wasn’t really surprised. She was a conscientious student who rarely left schoolwork until Sunday evening.

  “How about you, Barrett?”

  “I’m almost done. I just had a few problems in math
and they’re hard. I can ask my teacher tomorrow. We might not even have school anyway so maybe I won’t have to turn them in until Tuesday.”

  “Let’s take a look at them,” Chase said.

  Barrett groaned a little but went to his room for his backpack.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Faith said.

  “I don’t mind,” he assured her.

  They sat together at the desk in the great room while the Christmas lights glowed on the tree and a fire flickered in the fireplace. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday night.

  After only three or four problems, a lightbulb seemed to switch on in the boy’s head—as it usually did.

  “Oh! I get it now. That’s easy.”

  “I told you it was.”

  “It wasn’t easy the way my teacher explained it. Why can’t you be my teacher?”

  He tried not to shudder at the suggestion. “I’m afraid I’ve already got a job.”

  “And you’re good at it,” Mary offered from the chair where she sat knitting.

  “Thanks, Mary. I do my best,” he answered humbly. He loved being a rancher and wanted to think he was a responsible one.

  Now that the boy seemed to be in the groove with his homework, Chase lifted his head from the book and suddenly spotted Faith in the mudroom, putting on her winter gear. He had been so busy helping Barrett, he hadn’t noticed.

  “Where are you off to? Not out into that wind, I hope.”

  “I just need to make sure the tarp over the outside haystack is secure. Oh, and check on Rosie,” she said, referring to one of her border collies. “She was acting strangely this morning, which makes me think she might be close to having her puppies. I’ve been trying to keep her in the barn but she wanders off. Before the storm front moves in, I want to be sure she’s warm and safe.”

  Chase scraped his chair back. “I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t need to. You just spent a half hour working on Barrett’s homework. I’m sure you’ve got things to worry about at your place.”

  He couldn’t think of anything. He generally tried to keep things in good order, addressing problems when they came up. He always figured he couldn’t go wrong following his father’s favorite adage: an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. Better to stop trouble before it could start.

  “I’ll help,” he said. “I’ll check the hay cover while you focus on Rosie.”

  Her mouth tightened for an instant but she finally nodded and waited while he threw his coat on, then together they walked out into the storm.

  Darkness came early this time of year near the winter solstice but a few high-wattage electric lights on poles lit their way. The wind howled viciously already and puffed out random snowflakes at them, hard as sharp pebbles.

  Below the ranch house, he could see that the parking lot of The Christmas Ranch—which had been full when he pulled up—was mostly cleared out now, with a horse-drawn sleigh on what was probably its last go-round of the evening making its way back to the barn near the lodge.

  He would really like to find time before Christmas to take Addie on a ride, along with Faith and her children.

  The Saint Nicholas Lodge glowed cheerily against the cold night. Beyond it, the cluster of small structures that made up the life-size Christmas village—complete with indoor animatronic scenes of elves hammering and Santa eating from a plate of cookies—looked like something from a Christmas card.

  Her family had created a celebration of the holidays here, unlike anything else in the region. People came from miles around, eager to enhance their holiday spirit.

  “It’s nice that Hope has hired enough staff now that she doesn’t have to do everything on her own,” he said.

  “With the baby coming, Rafe insisted she cut back her hours. No more fourteen-hour days, seven days a week from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.”

  Those hours were probably not unlike what Faith did year-round on the Star N—at least during calving and haying season and roundup. In other words, most of the year.

  She worked so hard and never complained about the burden that had fallen onto her shoulders after Travis died.

  When they reached the haystack, tucked beneath a huge open-sided structure with a metal roof, he heard the problem before he saw it, the thwack of a loose tarp cover flapping in the wind. Each time the wind dug underneath the tarp, it pulled it loose a little further. If they didn’t tie it down, it would eventually pull the whole thing loose and she would not only lose an expensive tarp but potentially the whole haystack to the storm.

  “That’s gotten a lot worse, just in the last few hours,” she said, pitching her voice louder to be heard over the wind. “I should have taken time to fix it earlier when I first spotted the problem, but I was doing about a hundred other things at the time. I was going to fix it in the morning, but I didn’t take into account the storm.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “We’ll have it safe and secure in no time. It might take both of us, though—one to hold the flap down and hold the flashlight while the other ties it.”

  They went to work together, as they had done a hundred times before. He wrestled the tarp down, which wasn’t easy amid the increasing wind, then held it while she tied multiple knots to keep it in place.

  “That should do it,” she said.

  “While we’re out here, let’s tighten the other corners,” he suggested.

  When he was satisfied the tarp was secure—and when the bite of the wind was close to becoming uncomfortable—he tightened the last knot.

  “Thanks, Chase,” she said.

  “No problem. Let’s go see if Rosie is smart enough to stay in from the cold.”

  She clutched at her hat to keep the wind from tugging it away and they made their way into the relative warmth and safety of her large, clean barn.

  The wind still howled outside but it was muted, more like a low, angry buzz, making the barn feel like a refuge.

  “That wind has to be thirty or forty miles an hour,” she said, shaking her head as she turned on the lights inside the barn.

  “At least this storm isn’t supposed to bring bitter cold along with it,” he said. “Where’s Rosie?”

  “I set her up in the back stall but who knows if she decided to stay put? I really hope she’s not out in that wind somewhere.”

  Apparently the dog knew this cozy spot was best for her and her pups. They found her lying on her side on an old horse blanket with five brand-new white-and-black puppies nuzzling at her.

  “Oh. Will you look at that?” Faith breathed. Her eyes looked bright and happy in the fluorescent barn lights. “Hi there, Rosie. Look at you! What a good girl. Five babies. Good job, little mama!”

  She leaned on the top railing of the stall and he joined her. “The kids will be excited,” he observed.

  “Are you kidding? Excited is an understatement. Puppies for Christmas. They’ll be thrilled. If I let her, Louisa probably would be down here in a minute and want to spend the night right there in the straw with Rosie.”

  The dog flapped her tail at the sound of her name and they watched for a moment before he noticed her water bowl was getting low. He slipped inside the stall and picked up the food and the water bowls and filled them each before returning them to the cozy little pen.

  For his trouble, he earned another tail wag from Rosie and a smile from Faith.

  “Thank you. Do you think they’ll be warm enough out here? I can take them into the house.”

  “They should be okay. She might not appreciate being moved now. They’re warm enough in here and they’re out of the wind. If you’re really worried about it, I can bring over a warming lamp.”

  “That’s a good idea, at least for the first few days. I’ve got one here. I should have thought of that.”

&nb
sp; She headed to another corner of the barn and returned a moment later with the large lamp and they spent a few moments hanging it from the top beam of the stall.

  “Perfect. That should do the trick.”

  While the wind howled outside, they stood for a while watching the dog and her pups beneath the glow of the heat lamp. He wasn’t in a big hurry to leave this quiet little scene and he sensed Faith wasn’t either.

  “Seems like just a minute ago that she was a pup herself,” she said in a soft voice. “I guess it’s been a while, though. Three years. She was in the last litter we had out of Lillybelle, so she would have been born just a few months before Travis...”

  Her voice broke off and she gazed down at the puppies with her mouth trembling a little.

  “Life rolls on,” he said quietly.

  “Like it or not, I guess,” she answered after a moment. “Thanks for your help tonight, first with Barrett’s homework and then with storm preparation. You’re too good to us.”

  “You know I’m always happy to help.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” she whispered.

  He frowned. “Shouldn’t be what?”

  She kept her attention fixed on the wriggling puppies. “Celeste gave me a lecture the other night. She told me I’m not being fair to you. She said I take you for granted.”

  “We’re friends. Friends help each other. You feed me every Sunday and usually more often than that. Addie practically lives over here when I have visitation and also ranch work I can’t avoid. And you bought my groceries the other day, right?”

  “Don’t forget to take them home when you go.” She released a heavy sigh. “We both know the ledger will never be balanced, no matter how many groceries I buy for you. The Star N wouldn’t have survived without you. I don’t know why you are so generous with your time and energy on our behalf but I hope you know how very grateful we are. How very grateful I am. Thank you. And I hope you know how...how much we all love you.”

  He looked down at her, wondering at the murky subtext he couldn’t quite read here.

  “I’m happy to help out,” he answered again.