“We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”
“I guess we do.” Celeste smiled, looking soft and lovely. Her sister’s beauty was the sort most people tended to overlook. She had always been quiet and perhaps a little introverted—more so after their parents died and the sisters moved here to Pine Gulch.
Perhaps having a published book would give Celeste a little more confidence in herself and all she had to offer the world.
“We should do another Sparkle story together,” she said impulsively. “Not this year, of course—I won’t have time before Christmas, but will you let me take a look at some of your stories after the holidays? Because of the time crunch this time, I couldn’t really consult with you about the illustrations but I’d love more collaboration, if we do another one. I also want you to consider the possibility of creating a digital version to sell online, if we get enough interest with the print version.”
Celeste blinked, looking stunned and a little overwhelmed. Hope took pity on her.
“Not tonight. We can talk about it another time, when we’re both not so tired and you’re not up to your eyeballs in turkeys.”
Celeste nodded, her gaze still on the book in her hand.
“And speaking of story times,” Hope went on, “you must take a few copies to the library for the children of Pine Gulch. Three or four, at least. And don’t you think it would be perfect if Mrs. Claus—perhaps a professionally trained storytelling version of Mrs. Claus—could come and read Sparkle and the Magic Snowball to the children who visit The Christmas Ranch while the real Sparkle is there, too?”
Her sister pushed a strand of overlong hair from her face. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Not when it’s about something and someone I care about so much. I would love you to do this. I know I can find someone else to be the official Christmas Ranch storyteller—even Aunt Mary—but no one would be as good at it as you, especially since you wrote the story yourself.”
Celeste gazed down at the book in her hands then back at Hope. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I can read my own writing aloud. It’s such an intimate, personal thing.”
“All the more reason you should be the one sharing it with the world. It’s your choice. Just think about it. I won’t push you, other than to say that I don’t think anybody else can really do the story justice, CeCe.”
With a sigh, her sister folded her arms, tucking the book against her chest. “You’re impossibly stubborn, just like Dad was. I suppose that’s one of the reasons we all love you.”
“If I weren’t stubborn, I never would have taken on The Christmas Ranch. I would have let that Closed Indefinitely sign stay up, well, indefinitely, and would have spent the past week getting in everyone’s way here at the house and fretting about my next job.”
Instead of burning the candle at both ends and in the middle—not to mention nurturing a serious crush over a man she couldn’t have, but she didn’t mention that to Celeste.
After a long silence, Celeste spoke, her words hurried as if she had been thinking them for a while and only needed the chance to let them out.
“This is hard for me to admit, but...but I think what you’re doing with the Ranch is a good thing. The right thing. For all of us.”
“Oh. Oh, CeCe.” Her throat suddenly felt tight and her eyes burned, though she told herself it was only the unexpected approval from her sister.
“The children have been happier these past few days, with something to keep them occupied. Even Faith has remarked on it, though she might not admit it out loud to you. Mary is happier too and even Faith seems to have more energy. We were all completely frozen in our grief over Travis. Maybe we just needed you to come shake things up. I’m glad you’re here and I’m glad the Ranch is going to open after all.”
“Does that mean you’ll help out as Mrs. Claus?” she pressed.
Celeste rolled her eyes. “You don’t give up, do you? I’ll think about it. That’s the best I can do right now. And now I really need to catch some sleep if I’m going to be able to cope with thirty preschoolers tomorrow.”
“Good night. I’ll be right behind you. I’m going to grab a bowl of cereal and read this beautiful story written by my brilliant baby sister one more time.”
The brilliant baby sister in question only gave a rueful smile and, clutching the book, headed for her room, leaving Hope behind to wonder whether she was really doing the right thing for her family.
Chapter Ten
The next afternoon, Hope made the finishing brush strokes on the project in front of her, then sat back on her heels to admire her work.
Beautiful. Exactly the look she wanted. She had found the big piece of scrap barnwood from an old demolished outbuilding behind a shed on the Star N and that weathered red was exactly the shade she wanted.
Okay, it hadn’t been a top priority, but she didn’t mind the extra time she had spent on it, especially with her sudden conviction that the sign would provide the perfect finishing touch.
Maybe CeCe was right. Maybe she should have tried to be an illustrator. She had always loved to draw and paint and had a fair talent at it. She had a degree in art history but had always thought she didn’t have the chops to do it professionally.
The last few years while in Morocco, she had turned to photography, not only because the country was so very photogenic but because it seemed a far more portable medium—it was easier carrying a camera and lenses through a crowded, twisting medina than a huge canvas and box of paints.
Photography was definitely an art form but she did love the immediate, hands-on, almost magical connection between her brain, her eyes, a canvas and the brush in her hand.
She stood up, pressing a hand to the small of her back that ached from an hour crouched over the floor in the back storeroom of the St. Nicholas Lodge.
“What’s all this?”
She turned at the voice and found Rafe had come in while she was patting herself on the back over her work. He looked gorgeous, dark and tough and ruggedly handsome in another of those heavy cotton work shirts over a soft henley, this one blue.
Her palms suddenly felt itchy and her insides trembled. “New sign for the reindeer enclosure,” she managed.
“Home of the Original Sparkle,” he read aloud.
She was particularly proud of the cute reindeer on the sign and the way the word Sparkle seemed to come alive.
“Remember I was telling you about the delightful story my sister wrote and the illustrations I was doing for it?”
“Right. The reason you haven’t been getting any sleep since you came back to Pine Gulch,” he said.
“Well, the books came last evening and they’re absolutely wonderful, every bit as magical as I dreamed.”
“Sparkle is one of the reindeer you had pull the wagon that day we put the lights on the Christmas village, right?”
“Yes. We all adore him. He’s gentle and kind and definitely a favorite. I’ve got to show you something. You get to be the first one to see it.”
Overflowing with excitement, she hurried over to her big tote bag in the corner. She reached inside and pulled out the little project she had made up after mailing off the finished pages of the book to Deb and Carlo in Seattle—a stuffed fabric reindeer based on her illustration, made out of sparkly fabric, complete with a ribbon and child-safe jingle bell around his neck.
“Ta da. It’s Sparkle.”
She thrust it at him. The toy looked a little girlish and silly in his big, rough hands as he turned it this way and that for a better look. “You did this?”
“I like to sew. All of us do. It’s something our mother taught us.”
“You sew, you paint, you teach English in undeveloped areas of the world. Is there anything you don’t do?”
Besides protect her heart against big, gorg
eous navy men? She was discovering she wasn’t all that terrific at that particular skill.
“Don’t you think the kids will love it?” she asked, ignoring his question.
He gave her a look filled with amusement and something else—something warm and bright and even more glittery than the little stuffed fabric creature he held in his hand. “They will adore it. I just have one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you ever stop moving?”
She shrugged, though she had been living in a state of perpetual exhaustion for days. “I’ll stop after the opening Friday.”
“No, you won’t. You’re going to work yourself into the ground until Christmas is over. You can’t do everything you want to, Hope. If you don’t pace yourself and figure out the definition of the word enough you’re going to find yourself flat on your back in bed.”
She would like to be flat on her back in bed—as long as he was there beside her, cuddled in front of a fire, with a nice cozy quilt wrapped around them and nothing else.
The impulse came out of nowhere, probably a product of her exhaustion. Suddenly she tingled everywhere. Stupid imagination.
“I know. I don’t need a lecture from you, Dr. Santiago.”
He made a face. “You need to listen to someone. You need to slow down, Hope. You’re wearing yourself out. I’m...worried about you.”
“Oh.”
Warmth fluttered through her, sweet and seductive.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine. Great. Only two more days and then the Ranch will open and everything will be perfect.”
“And you’ll be in a hospital bed, suffering from exhaustion. What do you have to do this afternoon? Just give me your list and I’ll do what I can to check things off while you go take a nap.”
“I wish that were possible, but it’s not. I have too much to do if I’m going to make this happen.”
“Let me help you, Hope.”
“You are helping me! You’ve been amazing, Rafe. Anything I need, you’re there, from fixing the tow rope to building that little shelter where people wait in line for the sleigh rides to all the repairs you’ve done inside and out. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without you. Are you sure you don’t want to come work full-time for me on The Christmas Ranch?” she joked.
“Depends,” he said, his voice husky. “What kind of benefits can you offer?”
All at once, she knew he wasn’t talking about 401(k)s or long-term disability insurance. The air between them was suddenly charged, thick and heady, swirling with the currents of awareness they had both been ignoring all week.
Walk on, she told herself, just as if she were one of the reindeer pulling a sleigh. You’re hanging by a thread here anyway and don’t need his kind of trouble.
Apparently she wasn’t very good at listening to her own better judgment. She took a step forward, unable to help herself.
“I’m sure I could come up with something...enticing.”
His laugh sounded rough and a little strained. “I don’t doubt that.”
She wanted to kiss him again. All week, the memory had simmered beneath her skin. They had both worked so hard. Surely they deserved a little reward...
She stepped closer and he suddenly looked wary, as if he regretted ever starting this.
“Um, Hope.”
She kept moving, until she was only a foot away from him. “I’ve been telling myself all week that kissing you again wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I get that.”
“Right now, I don’t care. I’m going to do it anyway. Is that a problem for you, sailor?”
He laughed again, his pupils a little dilated. “Ask me that again in a few minutes,” he said, his voice a low rasp that shivered down her spine. He didn’t wait for her to kiss him, but reached out and tugged her against him and lowered his mouth.
Oh. Wow.
Their kiss in the little storage shed had been raw and wild. This one was soft, sweet, tender—and completely devastating.
He explored her mouth with his, each corner, each hollow, licking and tasting and seducing with every passing second. She was fiercely grateful for his muscles and his strength. Without him holding her up, she would have collapsed right onto her cute little reindeer sign.
“You taste so good,” he murmured. “I’ve dreamed about it every single night since that morning last week. I thought I imagined it but you’re even more delicious than I remembered.”
She didn’t care about anything right now, not the Ranch, not the storybook, not her to-do list. All that mattered was this moment, this man and the amazing wonder of being in his arms again.
She wrapped her arms around him, savoring the heat and strength of him. A warm tenderness seemed to unfurl somewhere deep inside, something she had never known before that made her want to hold him close and take away all his worries. She didn’t want it to ever end.
He slid his mouth away and began to trail kisses across her cheekbone to her throat and then worked his way back to her mouth.
Yeah. She would have no problem standing right here and doing this for the rest of the day. Or week. Or year.
“Oh.”
The soft exclamation—and the realization that someone else was there—finally pierced the soft, delicious haze that seemed to have surrounded them. It took her a moment to collect her scattered thoughts enough to be able to ease her mouth away from his.
She turned and found Faith standing in the doorway, watching the two of them with her mouth open and an expression of raw shock on her features.
Rafe had suddenly gone still, like an alert, dangerous panther, she realized, though she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe the same reason why she suddenly felt mortified, though she was a grown woman who had every right to kiss an incredibly hot—and even more amazingly sweet—man if she wanted to. And she so wanted to.
“Faith. Um. Hi.”
Her sister continued to stare at them, though her gaze was fixed on Rafe.
“Um, Faith, this is Rafael Santiago. The man I told you about, who has been helping me out with the Ranch.”
“You never mentioned his name.”
Why did that matter? Hope shrugged. “Didn’t I? That’s funny. I’m sure I must have.”
“No. Believe me, I would have remembered.”
After the sweet intensity of that kiss, Hope could barely focus on remembering to breathe, forget about trying to figure out why her sister was behaving so oddly—and Rafe, as well, for that matter. Why would he be watching Faith with that strange, alert expression?
She was suddenly reminded forcefully that he had just spent twenty years in the military, facing dangerous situations.
“What are you doing here?” Faith demanded, in a weird, almost hostile tone that was totally unlike her usually gentle sister.
“Faith,” she exclaimed, mortified. “I would think that was fairly obvious.” And if you would please go away, we can do it some more.
“Not that,” Faith said. “I’m asking what he is doing here?”
“Helping out your sister,” Rafe answered for himself.
“Why?”
“Because she needed it. And because I wanted to.”
Faith stepped forward and Hope was surprised to see some of the color had leached away from her features.
“Why are you in Pine Gulch, of all places?” she pressed. “That seems an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”
“That’s exactly what it was, actually. Believe it or not.” A muscle worked in his jaw as he turned to look at Hope with an expression she couldn’t read, almost like an apology, though she had no idea what was happening here.
“It’s also a long and complicated story.”
&
nbsp; “Is it?”
“My sister is in jail in Pine Gulch. I’m here caring for her son until after her sentencing.”
“And you just happened to bump into Hope and offer to help her with The Christmas Ranch?” Faith asked, skepticism in her voice.
“That’s about the size of it, yeah.”
Okay, this was ridiculous. She knew her sister felt a great deal of responsibility for her and for Celeste but this was pushing things. She was thirty years old, for heaven’s sake, and had spent most of her adult life not only living on her own but residing in a completely different country.
“Faith, cut it out. Why are you being like this? Rafe has been an amazing help to me. I never would have been ready for the opening Friday if not for him.”
Her sister narrowed her gaze at Hope, looked at Rafe, then back at her with an intensity that suddenly made her uncomfortable. “You don’t know who he is! You don’t remember him at all, do you?”
Hope frowned. “Remember him? What are you talking about?”
“Special Warfare Operator Rafe Santiago. He was there, in Colombia. One of the navy SEALs who came to our rescue.”
Her heart gave a hard, vicious kick at the words and for a moment, she could only stare. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, when she could find her voice again.
“It’s not,” Faith insisted. “I remember every single name, every man. I wrote them all down so I wouldn’t forget afterward.”
“You sent thank-you notes, care of our lieutenant,” he said, his voice gruff.
Through her shock and disbelief, she saw Faith’s too-pale skin suddenly turn blotchy and pink as she blushed. “It seemed the right thing to do.”
She shifted back to Rafe, suddenly flashing back to that horrible Christmas day, to stunning hazel eyes in a tense, hard face.
She remembered gunfire and shouting in Spanish and the helicopter and then screaming and screaming for her father while a young soldier yanked her inside.
The Christmas Ranch (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) Page 12
