He thought Joey wasn’t going to answer him, but as they walked toward Sparkle and the others in their enclosure, he looked up at the sky, speckled with a few stars that peeked out from the clouds, then back at Rafe. “I asked if we could stay here,” he finally said. “I like it in Idaho. I don’t want to go to San Diego.”
He didn’t know what to say. “Why not? San Diego is great. It has beautiful beaches and nice weather all year round and lots of fun things to do.”
“But it doesn’t snow there,” Joey said. “I like snow. I like throwing snowballs, I like sledding, I like making snow angels and going on sleigh rides. All those things. I like snow and I like all my friends here. I don’t want to leave Barrett or Sam or any of my other friends.”
Rafe wanted to tell him he would make new friends, but he had a feeling the promise would sound hollow.
He didn’t have a chance to continue the conversation until they were loaded onto the sleigh with several others and the driver started out on a well-worn trail through the snow.
“What did Santa say, when you asked him if you could stay here?”
“He said he couldn’t make promises about where people live. It’s up to their parents.” Joey looked disgusted, his shoulder bumping Rafe’s arm as the horses jostled them. “I told him I didn’t live with my parents right now and he said it was up to whoever I lived with. He also said sometimes what you think you want is different from what you really need.”
The words seemed to hit Rafe with the force of rocket-propelled grenade.
Sometimes what you think you want is different from what you really need.
In his case, he knew what he wanted and what he needed—and they were exactly the same thing.
Hope.
He loved her. That was the edgy feeling that had been under his skin all this time.
He was in love with Hope Nichols, the scared thirteen-year-old girl he had helped rescue from a terrorist camp in Colombia, another lifetime ago.
This wasn’t simply attraction or friendship or affection. He needed her in his life—and Joey did too, he suddenly realized.
He gazed up at the wintry night, at the dark silhouette of the mountains and the full moon that peeked just over the top of them. He loved this place, too, and didn’t want to leave it.
Like Joey, he wanted to stay in Pine Gulch.
How could they make it work? He could help her run The Christmas Ranch but it was obviously a seasonal enterprise. What could he do the rest of the year?
He gazed at the mountains, thinking of a hundred possibilities. He was heading back to San Diego to work private security for his friend Jim. Why not see if Jim wanted to open a satellite operation here in Jackson Hole? He could definitely see a need, with all the wealthy visitors and celebrities who visited there.
If that didn’t pan out, he could always start a construction company. The home-building industry in this part of the West was vibrant, spurred by all those celebrities and wealthy folks who wanted to build second homes.
He had no doubt he would come up with something. He had spent seventeen years as a navy SEAL, trained to find solutions to tough situations.
The main job ahead of him would be convincing Hope she needed him too.
* * *
Hope couldn’t seem to shake her melancholy mood.
She told herself it was only because this was the last night the lodge would be open for the season. After the frenzy of the past month, it was only natural to focus a little on endings, on goodbyes.
Her melancholy certainly had nothing to do with a gorgeous hazel-eyed SEAL or his adorable nephew.
She would miss this, as crazy as things had been since Paloma Rodriguez had changed their world. When the season was over, she would suffer a little bit of a loss. Reviving The Christmas Ranch had given her purpose and meaning and she wasn’t quite sure what would happen next.
Right now, she decided to focus on that and not the much larger heartache awaiting her in the form of that particular man she didn’t want to think about.
“One of the elves told me you were the one in charge.”
She turned at the statement and found a woman in her early thirties. She was quite pregnant but wore a fashionable maternity coat and a lovely knit scarf and matching hat. Behind her stood a handsome, well-dressed man holding a girl of about four while a boy around Barrett and Joey’s age stood nearby.
“Yes. I’m Hope Nichols,” she said warily, afraid the woman wanted to lodge some sort of complaint. “May I help you?”
The woman’s serious features suddenly dissolved into a watery smile. “This is probably going to sound strange but...can I give you a hug?”
“I... Sure.”
The woman offered her a quick embrace then stepped away, looking embarrassed. “You must think I’m crazy.”
“Not at all,” Hope assured her. “Is everything okay?”
At the woman’s sudden sniffle, the man handed her a tissue and rubbed her shoulder in a warm, familiar, loving gesture that sent an ache lodging under Hope’s breastbone.
She wanted that—the steady comfort of knowing she had someone to lean on when times were hard and someone to celebrate with when wonderful things happened.
“I just have to tell you how grateful I am to you and your family for giving us this treasure. I’m so happy you opened this year after all. It feels like a gift you gave just to me. I was devastated when I heard it was going to be closed early in the season. I... My name is Jane Ross. This is my husband Perry. We live in Pocatello and each year since I was a teenager, my family has come here during the holidays. It was the highlight of our Christmas season.”
Hope smiled, heartened to hear what wasn’t an unfamiliar tale. This was the reason she wanted to open the Ranch, because of families like this that found joy and togetherness here.
“This has been the hardest holiday season for me ever,” the woman said softy. “My parents both died within the past year, my mother just a few months ago.”
“Oh. I’m so very sorry.”
“The holidays have been incredibly tough. I miss them so much and I didn’t know how I could bear it. I haven’t felt like having Christmas at all. It just seemed like too much work, you know? But I had to anyway.” She gave a helpless shrug. “The children needed Christmas. I put the tree up and decorated the house, but I’ve only been going through the motions, just trying to make it through and crying just about every night because I missed my parents so much. Then I saw an article about you in the newspaper, about how you were going to close because of a recent family tragedy but had decided to stay open after all. I told Perry we had to come and I’m so very glad we did.”
The woman squeezed her fingers. “Coming back here,” she went on, “bringing my own children and continuing the tradition, I feel such a connection to my parents again. For the first time, I’m remembering the joy and magic and meaning of Christmas again. I can’t express how much that means to me. Thank you so much for helping me find that again.”
“You are so welcome.” Hope embraced the woman again, sniffling a little along with her.
“We picked up one of your books and the Sparkle toy, as you can see.”
She pointed to the little girl, who was hugging it tightly.
“You can be sure it’s going to be enjoyed for many seasons to come. Merry Christmas and God bless you for what you’ve given us.”
She waved them on, her heart overflowing—and her tears, too.
“That was lovely.”
She whirled around and found Rafe standing nearby, looking big and warm and comforting.
“You heard?”
“Most of it. Does that sort of thing happen a lot?”
“Once in a while. That was...special.”
She wanted to sink into his arm
s. It was an almost visceral need. How had she forgotten how happy her heart was when he was near?
“Where’s Joey?” she asked, mostly to distract herself.
“Barrett took him up to the house so they could exchange Christmas presents.”
“Ah.” The crowd was starting to thin, she saw, but it was still packed inside the lodge. “Have you eaten? Aunt Mary brought down a bunch of goodies for all the workers, including a big batch of minestrone soup in the slow cooker. It’s kind of our goodbye celebration at the lodge, even though we’ll partially reopen up again the day after Christmas.”
“I’m not really hungry,” he said, a strangely solemn look on his handsome features.
She had missed him desperately. Seeing him again only made her realize just how much.
Her emotions, already raw from the interaction with Jane Ross, threatened to consume her.
She swallowed them down and forced a smile. “I told you I have something for you and Joey. It’s back in the office.”
He nodded and followed her as she led the way. Inside the office, he closed the door behind him, as if he didn’t want to be disturbed, and her heart started to pound.
“I’m...glad you stopped by tonight,” she said.
“Even though you asked me to stay away?”
She sighed. She ought to simply hand over the present, wish him Merry Christmas and safe travels back to San Diego and say goodbye.
She wasn’t particularly good at doing what she ought to. Why break her record now?
“That was kind of a stupid thing for me to ask of you, wasn’t it?”
“If by stupid, you mean insanely difficult, then yes.”
Something about the intensity of his voice sent her resident troupe of butterflies pirouetting through her insides again.
“It didn’t work very well anyway,” she muttered and felt his attention sharpen on her.
“What didn’t work?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Let me just grab your gift.”
She hurried to the corner where she had left the large flat package. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
“Go ahead. Open it.”
“Are you sure?”
She wanted to see his reaction. What was the fun in giving a gift if she couldn’t see how it was received? He ripped the paper away and held out the large framed photograph.
“Wow. That’s wonderful.”
It was of Joey. The boy had his arm around Sparkle’s neck and his smile was as big as the brilliant blue sky behind him.
“I shot it one day when you were helping out, before we opened. Isn’t it great? I sent it away to be printed on canvas and then I had Mac Palmer, one of our Santas who does some woodworking, make a frame for it out of the extra barn wood we had around the Star N. I wanted both of you to have a keepsake from The Christmas Ranch so you can remember your time here.”
He gazed down at the smiling boy and the sweet-faced reindeer, a soft light in his eyes. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He didn’t return her smile. “One question, though. Do you really think I’m going to need a photograph to remember my time here?”
Her heart started to pound again. “Won’t you?”
He set the photograph down on the desk and moved closer to her, those stunning hazel eyes intense, determined. She thought of that nocturnal predator again and a nervous thrill shot through her.
“I could never forget you, Hope.”
She swallowed, unable to look away. “Um, sure. We have a...history together.”
“I wish we didn’t,” he said fervently. “I wish I had met you for the very first time that day Joey broke your window.”
That would certainly have made their tangled relationship much easier but she couldn’t agree. Their lives were inextricably entwined and had been for a long time.
She thought about fate—about how the past and the present could sometimes twist and curl together like ribbons on a Christmas tree.
He had been an integral part of her life since she was a girl—she just hadn’t known it.
“Don’t say that,” she murmured. “Our lives are bound together because of the past.”
He reached for her hand and she was stunned to feel his fingers tremble a little, her amazing, hard, tough navy SEAL. “I would rather our lives were bound together because of right now, this moment. Because of our feelings for each other.”
She hitched in a breath and met his gaze. “Rafe—”
“I love you, Hope. I knew at Thanksgiving, I just didn’t want to face it until you said you were afraid you were falling for me. These past weeks without you only showed me how very cold and empty my life is when you’re not part of it. I need you. Your laughter, your energy, your amazing creativity. All of it. I love every part of you.”
He gave her a lopsided half smile that completely shattered the last of her defenses. “That’s why I wish we’d never met. So we could leave behind all the baggage—the mistakes, the regrets—and simply be two people finding each other at last, like some kind of Christmas miracle.”
She couldn’t seem to order the tangled chaos of her thoughts into anything resembling coherency. All she wanted to do was kiss him desperately.
At her continued silence, he gave her a long, steady look.
“I know what you said the last time we were together. Hell, I’ve gone over that conversation in my head so many times I’ve got every word memorized. Has anything changed? Is there any chance you might be able to accept the past for what it was and see me for who I am right now, today? A man so in love with you, he can’t seem to think about anything else?”
She exhaled on a sob that was half laughter, half tears. “Rafe. Oh, Rafe.”
She threw her arms around his neck and he groaned a little then kissed her with all the pent-up, aching need she had been pushing back throughout this endless December.
He kissed her for a long time while Christmas music played and the crowd buzzed behind the closed door. She never wanted it to end.
Eventually they came up for air, but she couldn’t seem to get close enough to him. She rested her head on his chest—that broad, let-me-take-all-your-troubles chest—and had never felt so safe and warm and loved.
“This has been the craziest month,” she murmured. “I can’t even tell you. We have been so incredibly busy, every day I hardly had time to take a shower, but the Ranch has had its biggest year ever. Our profits are quadruple what they’ve ever been. We’re going to have enough to more than cover our operating expenses and even to help offset the operating cost deficit on the Star N side of things, too.”
“I knew you would do it. Didn’t I tell you?”
She smiled, humbled and overwhelmed at his constant faith in her. “Here’s the thing. I was so happy that all our hard work paid off and especially happy for CeCe as I watched people fall in love with her writing and want more. I should have been over the moon. But I missed you so much, I couldn’t truly enjoy the success. A hundred times a day, I wanted to share some little triumph with you. To laugh with you or be frustrated or get some of that sometimes annoying but usually spot-on advice you always seem to have.”
“I’m going to remember you said that.”
His laughter was a low rumble against her cheek and she had no choice but to kiss him again.
“I love you, Rafe,” she said, some time later. “I loved you and I missed you and Joey so much I could hardly breathe around the ache in my heart. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there while he was sick.”
“We got through it. Your care package helped. You can be there next time.”
She felt a little thrill at the idea—not that Joey would ever get sick again, she didn’t want that. But that Rafe wanted her in his lif
e to help him through, if it were to happen again.
“I realized something while we were apart,” she said softly. “Since I graduated from college, I have been traveling around the world in search of something I couldn’t even name. Oh, I genuinely wanted to make a difference in the world and enjoyed experiencing other cultures, seeing new things, helping people as much as I could in my small way. But something was always missing.”
She smiled at him, feeling as if she would burst from the joy that bubbled through her. “I finally know what it was.”
“Oh? Let me guess. Cinnamon hot cocoa.”
“Well, that and something else.” She smiled tenderly and kissed his jaw. “I’m talking about you, Rafael Santiago. Isn’t it funny that I could travel all over the world seeking something without knowing it and I only found it when I finally came back home?”
He pulled her close again and kissed her sweetly, gently, while outside she heard Christmas carols and the sound of children’s laughter and the occasional hearty Ho Ho Ho. She had done this—brought joy to other people and a little holiday spirit. It had been hard, backbreaking, intense work but worth every moment.
In return, she had received the very best gift of all, the only one that really mattered.
Love.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from A BRAVO CHRISTMAS WEDDING by Christine Rimmer.
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