Love Inspired December 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Rancher for ChristmasHer Montana ChristmasAn Amish Christmas JourneyYuletide Baby

by Brenda Minton

  If he looked forward to it more than he should, well, that was between him and God and a matter for prayer.

  *

  “It’s not a date,” Robin said to Olivia for perhaps the tenth time.

  “Half the church heard him ask you out to dinner,” Livvie said pointedly. It had been the main topic of conversation for the whole livelong day, much to Robin’s exasperation.

  “What do I have to do to make you understand?” Robin demanded, shaking her hands in exasperation. “The decorations were only a small part of the plans. There is the pageant on Christmas Eve and the Christmas-morning service. We have a lot to discuss, a lot to do. Some of it, I’m not even at liberty to share because Ethan wants it to be a surprise. It’s already the eleventh of December. We don’t have much time to pull this off.”

  “And that’s why he asked you out to dinner.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Riiiight.”

  Robin threw up her hands. “I give up.”

  Olivia chuckled. “Good. No reason to fight it.”

  “Okay,” Robin retorted, “it’s a date. Can we drop it now?”

  “Sure,” Olivia returned good-naturedly. “So what are you going to wear?”

  “Aaarrggh!” Robin put her hands to her head and doubled over, moaning, “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing now?”

  “Nothing. For a cactus. In Alaska.”

  Robin looked up sharply. “Ouch.”

  “I mean, it’s cute enough. If you want to look untouchable.”

  Robin dropped her shoulders, looking down at the fuzzy green sweater. “Do you give out bandages with your compliments?”

  Livvie chuckled. “Look, you’re a doll, but you don’t do much to play up that fact.”

  “Why should I?”

  Olivia ignored that, remarking, “You could wear that royal blue dress, the one with the elbow-length sleeves and the dip in the back.”

  “But the matching shoes are open toed.”

  “So wear your boots with it, the ones with the high heels. And that pretty scarf, knotted in front. And put up your hair.”

  The very idea was silly, especially if this wasn’t an actual date, and yet what could it hurt to look her best? “I’d have to leave early.”

  “So leave early,” Olivia said with a wave of her hand.

  “It wouldn’t be fair,” Robin muttered, but Olivia sent her a droll look.

  “I’m the boss. I get to say what’s fair.”

  Robin turned away with a shrug and a nod. Mercifully, nothing more was said on the subject, but when Robin picked up her handbag a few minutes before five, Olivia smiled and remarked that she’d see her tomorrow.

  By a quarter to six, Robin stood staring at herself in the mirror. The royal blue dress hugged her slight curves from an inch or two above her knees to her shoulders, where the neckline cut straight across her throat only to dip into a rounded V in the back between her shoulder blades. She’d wound the long, narrow, colorful scarf around her throat, knotted it and allowed the twin black-fringed tails to hang down the front. Olivia had been right to recommend it; the overall effect was to make her neck look long and swanlike, an illusion aided by the simple twisted bun atop her head, while adding color to the monochrome dress. The black boots saved the dress from looking too formal, even added a bit of trendiness and at the same time looked quite feminine and weather appropriate. Still, Robin couldn’t help feeling nervous. What if she and Olivia had misread this dinner thing entirely?

  Before she could further second-guess, a knock came at her door. Taking a deep breath, she went to throw it open. Ethan stood there, smiling.

  “Hey. I hope you’re— Wow.”

  She gulped, wilting. “Too much?”

  “Only if there’s such a thing as too much spectacular.” He stepped inside, took her by the hand and turned her so he could get the full effect. “I mean, wow. Great Gulch Grub doesn’t deserve…this.”

  She laughed, feeling very appreciated and admired. “Let me get my things and we’ll go.”

  “Okay.” He held the door closed without pushing it all the way into the casing while she picked up her coat and gathered her handbag. Stepping forward, he took her coat from her and helped her shrug into it, his fingertips brushing over her back as the coat slid up into place. “You shouldn’t upstage your pastor, you know,” he said softly into her ear, his tone teasing.

  “Technically,” she said wryly, “you’re not my pastor.”

  “True,” he agreed, stepping up to offer his arm.

  She regarded him frankly, aware of the heat in his open brown gaze. “Does your congregation know what a tease you are?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, walking her out the door and pulling it closed behind them. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  She laughed and let him escort her to his vehicle. She still didn’t know if this was a date or not. At the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. She relaxed and allowed herself to enjoy the easy, chatty dinner at the small diner and the somewhat chaotic rehearsal that followed.

  As it was the first rehearsal of the pageant, parts were assigned. And then reassigned. And then they were reassigned yet again until everyone was at least nominally happy. Robin remained one of the narrators, along with Ethan himself and Chauncey Hardman, the local librarian.

  Single and in her late fifties, Chauncey had at first intimidated Robin with her firm, no-nonsense manner. Robin had been scolded roundly more than once for making noise in the library when she had been the only patron present. But she liked to think that she and the gruff librarian had found a bit of a common bond in their love of history.

  Ethan placed the three of them on stools to one side, with Chauncey in the middle.

  As they, at long last, took their places, Chauncey cast an appraising glance in Robin’s direction and noted, “Your back is awfully bare.”

  “Not hardly,” Ethan said, leaning forward to catch Robin’s eye.

  Robin frowned.

  Chauncey split a look between them, her lips quirking against a smile, and opined, “Well, I suppose you could do worse than a minister. At least he’s not a cowboy.”

  Robin’s eyes popped wide, while Ethan, meanwhile, seemed to be either choking or coughing or both behind his fist. Rusty Zidek piped up just then to say he’d changed his mind. He’d rather be a shepherd than a wise man after all. Given his age, an extremely spry ninety-six, Ethan humored him with good-natured patience, engineering a switch with Ellis Cooper, Jasper Gulch’s perennial mayoral candidate who always lost to Jackson Shaw. Though at least twenty-five years younger than Jackson, Ellis had some definite ideas about what was and was not good for the community, and many agreed with him.

  In addition to the usual players, they were to have a virtual legion of cherubic angels and a whole herd of woolly sheep capable of walking the aisle on two feet before dropping to all fours at the front. Olivia’s fatherin-law, Mick McGuire, had agreed to serve as wrangler for the real animals. His young stepchildren were going to be in the pageant anyway, he reasoned, so he might as well take part. Jack and the two unmarried Shaw brothers, Austin and Adam, had volunteered to put the set together. The major actors were teenagers, with a sprinkling of adults and numerous children, who required numerous adult overseers, mostly women.

  “And I need your input on nearly all of it,” he explained afterward, taking Robin aside. “For instance, the printed programs. What do you think of putting that old photo on the front?”

  “Oh, that’s brilliant,” she declared. “That way everyone will see at once what we’re trying to do.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I’m just not sure how to put it together.”

  “Leave that to me,” Robin suggested. “I have an idea.”

  “Bless you!” Ethan intoned, giving her a quick hug. “I knew I’d found a treasure in you.”

  A treasure? Glancing around, Robin spied several knowing smirks. That one word would be enough to keep the town gossips going for w
eeks.

  What really surprised Robin, though, was the way Rusty Zidek watched them with such obvious interest, his craggy, lined face both avid and pensive. It wasn’t the first time she’d caught Rusty staring at her these past months. She’d thought at first that she was imagining the way his gaze seemed to follow her every movement, but he really didn’t even try to hide it. Lately, his stare seemed so knowing that it unnerved her.

  Though aged, whipcord lean and jerky tough, with slightly stooped shoulders and thick silver hair, including an audacious mustache, Rusty gave the impression of permanence and strength. A widower, he refused to sit on the sidelines and decay. Instead, he rattled around town in his ancient Jeep or, weather permitting, on an ATV, took part in all the centennial celebrations and generally seemed to live life to the fullest. Robin couldn’t help admiring the old fellow; she just wondered what he found so interesting about her in particular.

  Questions about costuming eventually distracted her from thoughts of Rusty and everything else. Thankfully, Rosemary Middleton, Mamie Fidler and Allison Douglas had agreed to take on the shopping, fitting and sewing, but they wanted Robin’s okay on everything.

  When the recorded bells played their usual toll at the nine o’clock hour, things started to wind down, but the time approached 10:00 p.m. before Robin found herself alone with Ethan in the evergreen-redolent sanctuary. Looking a little shell-shocked, he turned to her and asked, “Have I lost my mind?”

  She smiled. “We’ll see.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he told her with a sheepish grin.

  “I think it’s going to turn out well—as well, hopefully, as the decorations.”

  “God willing.”

  They started walking toward the back of the sanctuary, and once there, he began turning off lights.

  “I’ll tell you one thing. This is certainly an evening I won’t forget,” he said around a grin, closing the sanctuary door and waiting for her to cross the vestibule before he joined her, “if only because of that dress.”

  She twisted to glance over her shoulder. “Is it terribly immodest, then?”

  “Not at all,” he assured her. “You just wear it so very well.”

  She blushed with pleasure. “Thank you. It’s just the way Miss Hardman remarked about it, I wasn’t sure.”

  “Miss Hardman is not the final arbiter of taste around here, not of my taste anyway.” Robin smiled, and he took her coat from the closet there to help her into it. “Rusty sure couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

  “I noticed that. What was that about do you suppose?”

  “The man obviously liked what he saw,” Ethan said, shrugging into his own coat.

  “Oh, he’s old enough to be my grandfather. My great-grandfather, actually.”

  “Doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate a beautiful woman.”

  “Ethan Johnson, you are a flirt,” she scolded lightly, smiling broadly.

  Laughing, they buttoned up, shut off the last of the lights and stepped out into the cold, still night. Ethan locked the door, took her elbow and walked her to the car, where he handed her down into the passenger seat. Back at the inn, he insisted on walking her to her room and waiting until she’d flipped on the interior light, but he didn’t come in.

  “Thanks for all your help,” he said, shuffling his feet.

  She chuckled. “You’re welcome. Thank you for dinner. You know, I wasn’t really sure if this was a date or not.”

  Bowing his head, he shrugged and suddenly admitted, “To tell you the truth, it wasn’t meant to be, but somehow…” He curled a finger beneath her chin, tilted her face up, dipped his head and brushed his lips across hers. “Good night, Robin.”

  “Good night, Ethan,” she murmured, stunned.

  He slipped off into the night, leaving her as confused as she was delighted.

  Chapter Six

  When Robin called the next day to say that she’d like Ethan to approve a design for the Christmas Eve program, he couldn’t have been more relieved. He’d greatly feared that he’d overstepped badly with that kiss the night before, and he wasn’t sure how to approach her when next they met. They weren’t due for another practice until the following Wednesday, and he hated to let the matter simmer until then, so he was all too happy to spend his Friday afternoon at the museum looking at graphic designs on the computer. Hopefully, he would find an opportunity to apologize for that kiss and set things right between them. The last thing he wanted to do was mislead Robin.

  “I like the one with the photo tilted,” he decided after viewing several options, “but maybe we could frame it with greenery to give it some color.”

  “Or,” she said, beginning to click her mouse, “we could do this.”

  She quickly layered in an arrangement of lit Advent candles grounded in holly. She overlaid that with the old tintype photo, tilted at the angle he liked and typed in the necessary titling with a red font, picking up the color of the berries in the holly.

  “Perfect,” he declared.

  “We can do the printing here if you like,” she volunteered. “I’ve already spoken to Olivia about it. But the church will have to provide the paper.”

  “I’ll pick up the paper tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll even buy the ink if you’ll tell me what to get.”

  She wrote down the details for him, and they agreed that he would hand off the paper and ink the following evening when she stopped by the church to look at the fabric and patterns for the pageant costumes. The ladies were shopping today and taking measurements tomorrow but were reluctant to cut the fabric without her approval.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine, but they insist,” she told him.

  “Sounds like they’re becoming as dependent on you as I am,” he said, smiling at her.

  “I don’t know about that,” she muttered, looking away.

  He steeled himself and said the words he’d prayed over and rehearsed. “Robin, I want to apologize about that kiss and also—”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” she interrupted, keeping her gaze averted. “I feel foolish enough as it is.”

  Shocked, he felt his eyebrows leap upward. “What have you got to feel foolish about?”

  “I—I thought it was a date. Well, I didn’t really, but Olivia and the others…”

  “I let them think that,” he admitted apologetically. “I wanted them to think it, honestly. It’s just… All the matchmaking, it gets so tiresome, and I thought, since they’re going to assume anyway that any young, single woman I spend time with is of special interest to me, well, then, why not let them?”

  “I understand,” she told him quickly. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m so glad!” he exclaimed, terribly relieved.

  “But they’ll realize their mistake soon enough,” she went on briskly. “Before long they’ll see that I’m not the sort of woman for a man like you.”

  “Now, why would you say that?” he asked, puzzled.

  She shook her head, replying only, “You need a better woman than me.”

  Stunned, he muttered, “You have that backward.”

  He’d always thought that she was pleasingly humble for so accomplished a young woman, just the sort to make a good wife for a clergyman, any clergyman but him. This, though, was crazy. She was too good for a man who had hung out with murderers, a man with a family member behind bars and another who couldn’t bring herself even to speak to him.

  Gulping, Ethan sent up a silent prayer.

  You changed me, Lord, and set my feet on an entirely different path. I promised You that I wouldn’t ask for more, not for myself. For Robin, though, I ask Your greatest blessings.

  He couldn’t believe that there were better women than Robin Frazier in this world. Certainly none deserved love more than she did.

  The Christmas story was one of unbridled, unsurpassed love, the willingness of God to be born as a perfect baby into an imperfect world, to live a perfect life and then lay it down again for tha
t same imperfect world in order to bridge the gulf between humanity and Himself. Christmas, Ethan was reminded, was a season of wonders, as God was the God of wonders.

  As Ethan watched Robin manipulate the image on the computer screen, the fifth verse of Psalm 40 ran through Ethan’s mind.

  Many, Lord my God, are the wonders You have done, the things You planned for us. None can compare with You; were I to speak and tell of Your deeds, they would be too many to declare.

  Surely it wouldn’t be too much for such a God to bless this generous young woman who so willingly helped, so quickly forgave and so humbly discounted her own worth. Such a woman would be all too easy to love.

  *

  The sun put in its first appearance at 7:58 in the morning on Saturday the thirteenth of December. Robin knew this because the radio in her car announced the time as she pulled to a stop in front of the church, two minutes early for her appointment with the costume committee. The sun had just forced its blazing rays over the horizon, lining the mountains to the east with a streak of molten gold that bounced off the glass of her rearview mirror and dazzled her for a second, so that she had to close her eyes until they adjusted to the spreading glory. Still half-blinded, she got out of the car and started toward the boardwalk to the education wing. A hand clasped onto her wrist, arresting her progress. Thinking it one of the women, for Ethan’s hand had a stronger, less ropy, leathery feel about it, she smiled and shielded her eyes with her hand. The wrinkled, mustachioed visage of Rusty Zidek came into view, shadowed beneath the deep, curled brim of a dirty brown felt cowboy hat.

  “You’re Lucy’s gal, aren’t you?”

  The shock of hearing her late great-grandmother’s real name sent Robin mentally reeling. “What? I don’t… What are you saying?”

  “You got her look about you. Well, more her ma’s look, I s’pose. You’re a dead ringer for Elaine Shaw.”