The Christmas Ranch (The Cowboys of Cold Creek)

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Well, let me just tell you, sailor, it’s a magical place near the mouth of Cold Creek Canyon. My uncle and aunt started it years ago, shortly after they were married. Christmas is kind of a big deal in my family. My family name, Nichols, used to be Nicholas. As in St. Nicholas. You know, the big guy in the red suit with the beard. It was shortened when my ancestors migrated to America several generations ago. Despite that, my uncle Claude and aunt Mary always took the whole holiday thing very seriously.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “In spring, summer and fall, the Star N is like any other working cattle ranch, with a pretty small herd but enough to get by. But from Thanksgiving to just after the New Year, an entire section of the ranch is set aside to celebrate Christmas. We have a huge holiday light display, sleigh rides, a sledding hill, even a reindeer petting zoo.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “With real reindeer?”

  “You guessed it. We have a herd of ten.”

  He looked puzzled. “Ten? I thought there were only eight who pulled the big guy’s sleigh. Oh, right. You can’t forget Rudolph. But then who’s the other one?”

  “We do have a Rudolph, only we call him Rudy and he doesn’t have a red nose except when we stick one on him, which he hates. We’ve got a bunch more. Glacier and Floe, Aurora and Borealis—we call him Boris for short—Brooks and Kenai and Moraine. Oh, and I can’t forget Twinkle and of course Sparkle. He’s kind of our favorite. He’s the smallest one in the herd and also the sweetest.”

  “Okay. And you’re telling me all this why?”

  “It’s kind of a long story. Stir the sauce while I tell you.”

  He made a small, amused sound at her deliberately bossy tone but headed for the stove anyway and picked up the spoon. She tried not to notice how gorgeous he looked doing it.

  “My oldest sister and her husband had been running the Star N for the past few years—that’s the cattle operation—along with The Christmas Ranch, but Travis was killed in a ranch accident this summer.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  She accepted his condolences with a nod, feeling a sharp ache in her chest all over again. Travis had been her friend and she had loved him from the time he came to live with Mary and Claude to help them run the ranch. She would always miss him but she grieved most that her sister had lost her husband and Barrett and Louisa their father.

  “Faith—my sister—is understandably overwhelmed. She’s hardly had time to grieve and so she and my aunt Mary and my sister Celeste all decided to take a break from operating the holiday side of things. Since I’m here now and don’t have anything going, I offered to take over and run The Christmas Ranch this year. As you can imagine, I have a gazillion things to do if we’re going to open in little more than a week. That’s where I need Joey’s help.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think he knows anything about reindeer.”

  She made a face. “He won’t need to deal with the reindeer unless he wants to. But I could really use him after school helping me get everything ready in time for our traditional opening the day after Thanksgiving.”

  Ten days. She had no idea how she would accomplish the tiniest fraction of what she had to do but she had to start somewhere.

  “If Joey can help me every day after school for a few hours that should make us square on the three hundred dollars it’s going to take to replace my truck window.”

  “It would be far easier for me to just pay you the three hundred dollars now and be done with it.”

  She made a face. “You’re absolutely right. But raising boys into men isn’t about the easy. It’s about consequences and accountability. What lesson would he learn if you stepped in to fix his problem for him?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Fine. I’ll bring him out tomorrow after school. You said it’s in Cold Creek Canyon?”

  “Yes. You know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, then. Thanks. Have him wear boots and warm clothes. And don’t worry. I’ll find something fun for him to do.”

  “Sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? Seems only fair, after you did all the work.”

  She was extraordinarily tempted. She liked the man, entirely too much, but the hard reality was, she didn’t have a minute to spare. Even the fifteen minutes she had spent here already was too much.

  “I appreciate the invitation and I really wish I could, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass.”

  “I think you’re just chicken your sauce won’t be edible after all, for all your big talk.”

  She gave a short laugh. “Wait and see, sailor. Wait and see. Bring that cute nephew of yours over after school, whenever he’s done with homework. We’re on the north side of the road, about three miles up the canyon. You can’t miss it. There’s a sign over the driveway that says The Christmas Ranch.”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  He started to walk her to the door but she shook her head. “I can find my way out. You need to stay and stir that sauce.”

  And she needed to do her best to figure out how she was going to keep from losing her head over a man with hazel eyes, a sweet smile and shoulders made for taking on a woman’s cares.

  Chapter Four

  By the time she finally made it back to the Star N, spaghetti with Rafe Santiago and his nephew sounded like the most delicious thing she could imagine, even if the man somehow ended up burning the sauce again.

  She was exhausted and starving and trying not to feel completely defeated at the magnitude of the task ahead of her.

  Nothing seemed to be going the way she planned. Of their six regular temp employees in years past, three were unavailable or had already found other positions for the season and one had moved away. Only two of their regulars were available to help this year—Mac Palmer, who had been their Santa Claus for years, and Linda Smithson, who helped out in the gift shop.

  She was glad to find workers where she could, at least, but she would definitely need to find extra help—in a town she hadn’t lived in with any regularity in a decade. It was an overwhelming undertaking.

  She was most concerned after her last conversation with Dale Williams. The retired schoolteacher had been their general handyman for a decade and also stepped in to play Santa Claus sometimes, trading off with Mac when needed. But he had had bypass surgery just three weeks earlier and wouldn’t be in any shape to help her this year.

  She faced the most uphill of uphill battles. A truly epic vertical slope.

  While she was tempted to throw in the towel now, before she even started, she absolutely refused.

  This might not be the most memorable holiday season The Christmas Ranch had ever enjoyed but she was going to make darn certain it was still a good one.

  She repeated the mantra that helped her through the jitters she always had when taking a new teaching job. She could handle this. Heaven knows, she had faced tougher obstacles before.

  She and her sisters had survived being kidnapped with their parents by leftist rebels in a foreign country—being held for several weeks in very tiny rooms with no running water and a bucket for a toilet, watching her mother growing increasingly sicker from the cancer ravaging her body while they were helpless to get her the medical help she needed, watching her father die in front of her just when they all thought they would be rescued, then losing her grief-stricken mother just a few months later.

  She was a survivor, just like Faith and Celeste. They had found a home here, a true haven after their wandering childhood, and The Christmas Ranch was a big part of that.

  She intended to carry on the proud tradition of the ranch and refused to admit defeat simply because she encountered a few obstacles.

&nb
sp; She pulled into the circular driveway of the Star N, with its big front porch and the river rock fireplace climbing the side.

  She loved this place. No matter where she wandered, from her tiny apartment overlooking the unearthly blue-painted medina in Chefchauan to the tent in the Sahara where she had taught English to Berber tribesmen for a few months to the raised hut on the beach where she lived in Thailand during her Peace Corps time, this was the home of her heart.

  Where would she and her sisters have been without Uncle Claude and Aunt Mary to take them in, to wipe their tears and help them back into a routine and put them to work?

  They had been extraordinarily lucky to find a place here. Maybe that’s why the idea of Rafe Santiago walking away from his naval career to rescue his nephew touched a chord deep inside her.

  The living room was dark when she walked inside and she thought for a moment maybe no one was home, until she heard the low murmur of voices coming from the kitchen. She followed the sound and as she approached, she realized it was her younger sister, Celeste. She was reading a children’s story and after only a few words, Hope was enthralled.

  “It wasn’t anywhere close to the magical Christmas Eve Sparkle had dreamed about during the long spring, summer and fall while his antlers turned velvety and soft. It was so much better. The End.”

  Silence descended for a few seconds when Celeste finished speaking in her melodious, captivating voice—as if the listeners needed time to absorb and reflect—and then both children cheered and begged to hear the story again.

  Hope wanted to cheer, too. She walked the rest of the way into the kitchen and found her younger sister at the table with a computer printout in front of her. “Oh, that was a wonderful story!”

  Louisa beamed at her. “I know! It’s the best one ever. I thought nothing could beat the story last year, when Sparkle saved the Elves’ Christmas dinner but this one was even better.”

  “Aunt Celeste wrote it,” Barrett exclaimed. “Can you believe it?”

  She looked at her younger sister, whose cheeks were pink with embarrassment. Celeste was so pretty but hid her loveliness with long bangs, a pony tail, little makeup and no jewelry.

  “I can believe it. Celeste has always been the best at telling stories.”

  “I love all the Sparkle stories. She writes a new one every year but I think this one is my very favorite,” Louisa said.

  Barrett giggled. “Yes. He’s so funny, always getting into trouble. In the stories, Sparkle is the smallest reindeer, too, but he’s always the one who saves the day.”

  She had no idea Celeste was a writer but she shouldn’t have been surprised. Her youngest sister had always loved books. During their wandering childhood, Faith had always been happiest if she could find a baby to hold or play with, Hope had always been out playing ball or going on adventures and Celeste was perfectly happy reading and rereading the small collection of books their mother had dragged from village to village.

  She suddenly had a random memory she must have suppressed, of Celeste and their father trying to keep their spirits up during those dark days of their captivity—when none of them were certain they would survive and their mother was growing increasingly ill—by taking turns spinning stories about heroes and heroines, talking dragons and playful little mice.

  They had been wonderful stories, delightful and captivating. Had Celeste been writing stories in her head all this time?

  She suddenly felt as if she barely knew her sister. She had thrown so much energy and time into trying to fill some emptiness inside herself by wandering the world and her family had gone on without her.

  “I only heard the last few moments but it’s lovely. Charming and sweet, Celeste.”

  “Thanks,” her sister murmured. “I have fun coming up with them.”

  “Do you read them to the children at the library?”

  Celeste was the children’s librarian in Pine Gulch—the perfect job for her, Hope had always thought.

  “Oh, no. Only to Barrett and Louisa.”

  “They’re our special Christmas tradition,” Louisa said. “Every year, we have a new one. Aunt Celeste said some day she might put them all in a book so I can read them when I have children.”

  Hope suddenly had an idea. A perfectly wonderful idea that made her toes tingle and made her arms beneath her sweater sleeves break out in goose bumps.

  “Is that the story?” she asked, gesturing to the computer printout on the table.

  “Yes,” Celeste said warily. “Why?”

  “Do you mind if I borrow it?”

  “You want to borrow Sparkle and the Magic Snowball.”

  “Yes. I’d like to read it when I’m not starving to death and can appreciate it better. You’ve really got a lovely way with prose—take it from someone who has been teaching the basics of the English language for the past four years.”

  Celeste looked as if she were trying to decide whether to be flattered or suspicious. She must have decided on the former. “You can keep it. I have the digital file on my computer.”

  “Thanks.” She picked up the story, her mind already whirling with ideas. She saw pictures in her mind, probably not surprising since she was an artist at heart, despite the past few years spent teaching English.

  “Go ahead and find something to eat. There’s some chicken noodle soup in the refrigerator you can warm up and some of Mary’s buttermilk breadsticks there on the counter.”

  Her stomach growled rather loudly and embarrassingly. Barrett snickered while Louisa tried to hide her smile behind her hand.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said you were starving to death.”

  “Apparently not. Where are Faith and Mary?”

  “They had a shareholders meeting at the irrigation company. I offered to babysit and was just about to tuck these two into bed.”

  “I can do it,” she offered. She had months and years of bedtimes she had missed to make up for.

  Celeste shook her head. “You’d better eat before you fall over. I’ve got this one. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of chances to tuck them in before you leave again. Come on, kids.”

  The children gave her tight hugs then followed Celeste out of the kitchen.

  Hope quickly found the soup, thick and rich and brimming with homemade noodles, and warmed a bowl of it in the microwave. She did her best to reheat the breadsticks in the toaster oven then slid down at the table with dinner and her sister’s story.

  The second time through was even more enchanting. Possibilities danced through her mind and she sketched a few ideas on the edges of the paper. She was still there, her soup now finished, when Celeste came in sometime later.

  “You are a fantastic storyteller,” she told her sister.

  Celeste looked pleased as she started drying dishes in the rack by the sink and putting them away. “Thanks. I guess it’s part of the job description when you’re the children’s librarian.”

  “You know what we need? A children’s storytime at the St. Nicholas Lodge. You would be perfect! You could dress up as Mrs. Claus instead of Aunt Mary doing it and could tell stories to the children. We could call it Christmas Tales with Mrs. Claus! I love this.”

  Celeste fumbled a plate but caught it before it could hit the ground and shatter. “I’m glad you love it.”

  “How could you not love it? It’s a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. When you were reading to the children, I completely missed the first part of the story but it didn’t matter. The way you told it, I was still enthralled. You have a gift and should share it with the rest of the town.”

  Celeste’s mouth tightened into a line and in that moment she looked remarkably like their older sister. After a moment, she set the dish and the towel on the counter and came over to the table and slid into a chair across from Hope. “You kn
ow I love you, darling, but this just has to be said. You’re not going to be able to pull this off in time. You know that, don’t you? The ranch is supposed to open in only ten days and nothing is ready.”

  The panic threatened to flow over her like lava pouring down the mountainside but she pushed it back. “Why do you think I can’t pull it off?”

  “You have no business experience. You don’t know the first thing about what goes in to making The Christmas Ranch come together each season.”

  “Uncle Claude wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest businessman, either,” she pointed out.

  “Which is one reason the Star N and The Christmas Ranch are operating in the red.”

  “I’m going to turn things around. You’ll see.”

  “How? You’re so good at chasing dreams, Hope. I admire that about you, I do. But when the season is over, you’re just going to take off again, leaving all of us to clean up after you. That’s assuming you even last through the season.”

  Was that how her family saw her? As some flighty, irresponsible gadfly, always chasing after the next thing? Dreams, jobs, opportunities. Boyfriends. She hadn’t stuck with much of anything for very long.

  “You haven’t been here the past few months,” Celeste went on before she could respond. “You have no idea how tough things have been on all of us. Travis might have been Faith’s husband, the children’s father, but he was like a brother to me and Mary considered him like a son.”

  “I know that. I loved him, too, Celeste.”

  “Losing him hit us all so hard. Everyone is still reeling. I think Faith has probably cried herself to sleep every night since the accident and the kids try to be so brave but I can tell their little hearts are still shattered.”

  “Poor things,” she murmured.

  Coming home for the holidays had been the right decision, she thought. Her family needed her, whether any of them wanted to admit it or not.

  “None of us has an ounce of holiday spirit this year. How can we? That’s the main reason we decided not to open The Christmas Ranch this year. How are we supposed to help other people feel the magic of Christmas when we aren’t feeling it ourselves?”